‘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 with what they had gathered, most of them still wearing the clothes that had been in the sea, and were heavy and black with salt water.  A little further on I met Danny-boy and we sat down to talk.

‘Do you see that sandy head?’ he said, pointing out to the east, ’that is called the Stooks of the Dead Women; for one time a boat came ashore there with twelve dead women on board her, big ladies with green dresses and gold rings, and fine jewelleries, and a dead harper or fiddler along with them.  Then there are graves again in the little hollow by the cnuceen, and what we call them is the Graves of the Sailors; for some sailors, Greeks or great strangers, were washed in there a hundred years ago, and it is there that they were buried.’

Then we began talking of the carragheen he had gathered and the spring tides that would come again during the summer.  I took out my diary to tell him the times of the moon, but he would hardly listen to me.  When I stopped, he gave his ass a cut with his stick, ’Go on now,’ he said; ’I wouldn’t believe those almanacs at all; they do not tell the truth about the moon.’