delicacy and clearness.  In a little while I heard a step on a path beneath me, and a tramp came wandering round the bottom of the hill.  There was a spring below where I was lying, and when he reached it he looked round to see if anyone was watching him.  I was hidden by the ferns, so he knelt down beside the water, where there was a pool among the stones, pulled his shirt over his head, and began washing it in the spring.  After a little he seemed satisfied, and began wringing the water out of it; then he put it on, dripping as it was, buttoned his old coat over it, and wandered on towards the village, picking blackberries from the hedge.

In West Kerry

At Tralee station—­I was on my way to a village many miles beyond Dingle—­I found a boy who carried my bag some way along the road to an open yard, where the light railway starts for the west.  There was a confused mass of peasants struggling on the platform, with all sort of baggage, which the people lifted into the train for themselves as well as they were able.  The seats ran up either side of the cars, and the space between them was soon filled with sacks of flour, cases of porter, chairs rolled in straw, and other household goods.  A drunken young man got in just before we started, and sang songs for a few coppers, telling us that he had spent all his money, and had nothing left to pay for his ticket.  Then, when the carriage was closely packed, we moved slowly out of the station.  At my side there was an old man who explained the Irish names of the places that we came to, and pointed out the Seven Pigs, a group of islands in the bay; Kerry Head, further off; and many distant mountains.  Beyond him a dozen big women in shawls were crowded together; and just opposite me there was a young woman wearing a wedding ring, who was one of the peculiarly refined women of Kerry, with supreme charm in every movement and expression.  The big woman talked to her about some elderly man who had been sick—­her husband, it was likely—­and some young man who had gone away to England, and was breaking his heart with loneliness.

‘Ah, poor fellow !’ she said; ’I suppose he will get used to it like another; and wouldn’t he be worse off if he was beyond the seas in Saint Louis, or the towns of America?’

This woman seemed to unite the healthiness of the country people with the greatest sensitiveness, and whenever there was any little stir or joke in the carriage, her face and neck flushed with pleasure and amusement.  As we went on there were superb sights—­ first on the north, towards Loop Head, and then when we reached the top of the ridge, to the south also, to Drung Hill, Macgillicuddy’s Reeks, and other mountains of South Kerry.  A little further on, nearly all the people got out at a small station; and the young woman I had admired gathered up most of the household goods and got down also, lifting heavy boxes with the power of a man.  Then