d on one side by a slip of rich, level
meadow, and on the other by a kind of common for the village geese,
whose white feathers, during the summer season, lay scattered over its
green surface. It was also the play-ground for the boys of the village
school; for there ran that part of the river which, with very correct
judgment, the urchins had selected as their bathing-place. A little
slope, or watering-ground in the bank, brought them to the edge of
the stream, where the bottom fell away into the fearful depths of the
whirlpool, under the hanging oak on the other bank. Well do I remember
the first time I ventured to swim across it, and even yet do I see,
in imagination, the two bunches of water flaggons on which the
inexperienced swimmers trusted themselves in the water.

About two hundred yards from this, the boreen (* A little road) which
led from the village to the main road, crossed the river, by one of
those old narrow bridges whose arches rise like round ditches across
the road--an almost impassable barrier to horse and car. On passing the
bridge in a northern direction, you found a range of low thatched houses
on each side of the road: and if one o'clock, the hour of dinner, drew
near, you might observe columns of blue smoke curling up from a row of
chimneys, some made of wicker creels plastered over with a rich coat of
mud; some, of old, narrow, bottomless tubs; and others, with a greater
appearance of taste, ornamented with thick, circular ropes of straw,
sewed together like bees' skeps, with a peel of a briar; and many having
nothing but the open vent above. But the smoke by no means escaped
by its legitimate aperture, for you might observe little clouds of it
bursting out of the doors and windows; the panes of the latter being
mostly stopped at other times with old hats and rags, were now left
entirely open for the purpose of giving it a free escape.

Before the doors, on right and left, was a series of dunghills, each
with its concomitant sink of green, rotten water; and if it happened
that a stout-looking woman, with watery eyes, and a yellow cap hung
loosely upon her matted locks, came, with a chubby urchin on one arm,
and a pot of dirty water in her hand, its unceremonious ejection in the
aforesaid sink would be apt to send you up the village with your finger
and thumb (for what purpose you would yourself perfectly understand)
closely, but not knowingly, applied to your nostrils. But, independently
of th