'That's a poor way to lie on the bare board,' said the woman of the
house, when she saw me looking at him; 'but when I filled a sack
with straw for him last night he wouldn't have it at all.'

While she was boiling some eggs for my breakfast, Darby roused up
from his sleep, pulled on his trousers and coat, slipped his feet
into his boots and started off, when he had eaten a few mouthfuls,
for another house where he is known, some five miles away.

Afterwards I went out on the cnuceen, a little hill between this
cottage and the sea, to watch the people gathering carragheen moss,
a trade which is much followed in this district during the spring
tides of summer. I lay down on the edge of the cliff, where the
heathery hill comes to an end and the steep rocks begin. About a
mile to the west there was a long headland, 'Feakle Callaigh' ('The
Witch's Tooth '), covered with mists, that blew over me from time to
time with a swish of rain, followed by sunshine again. The mountains
on the other side of the bay were covered, so I could see nothing
but the strip ot brilliant sea below me, thronged with girls and men
up to their waists in the water, with a hamper in one hand and a
stick in the other, gathering the moss, and talking and laughing
loudly as they worked. The long frill of dark golden rocks covered
with seaweed, with the asses and children slipping about on it, and
the bars of silvery light breaking through on the further inlets of
the bay, had the singularly brilliant loveliness one meets
everywhere in Kerry.

When the tide began to come in I went down one of the passes to the
sea, and met many parties of girls and old men and women coming up