and a long stretch of the Atlantic. We drove on
towards the west, sometimes very quickly, where the slope was
gradual, and then slowly again when the road seemed to fall away
under us, like the wall of a house. As the night fell the sea became
like a piece of white silver on our right; and the mountains got
black on our left, and heavy night smells began to come up out of
the bogs. Once or twice I noticed a blue cloud over the edge of the
road, and then I saw that we were nearly against the gables of a
little village, where the houses were so closely packed together
there was no light from any of them. It was now quite dark, and the
boy got cautious in his driving, pulling the car almost into the
ditch once or twice to avoid an enormous cavity where the middle of
the road had settled down into the bogs. At last we came to another
river and a public-house, and went up a hill, from which we could
see the outline of a chapel; then the boy turned to me: 'Is it ten
o'clock yet?' he said; 'for we're mostly now in the village.'

This morning, a Sunday, rain was threatening; but I went out west
after my breakfast under Croagh Martin, in the direction of the
Atlantic. At one of the first villages I came to I had a long talk
with a man who was sitting on the ditch waiting till it was time for
Mass. Before long we began talking about the Irish language.

'A few years ago,' he said, 'they were all for stopping it off; and
when I was a boy they tied a gobban into my mouth for the whole
afternoon because I was heard speaking Irish. Wasn't that great
cruelty? And now when I hear the same busybodies coming around and
telling us for the love of God to speak nothing but Irish, I've a
good mind to tell them to go to hell. There was a priest out here a
while since who was telling us to stay always where we are, and to
speak nothing but Irish; but, I suppose, although the priests are
learned men, and great scholars, they don't understand the life of
the people the same as another man would. In this place the land is
poor--you can see that for yourself--and the people have little
else to live on; so that when there is a long family, one son will
stay at home and keep on the farm, and the others will go away
because they must go. Then when they once pass out of the Dingle
station in Tralee they won't hear a word of Irish, or meet anyone
who'd understand it; so what good, I ask you, is a man who hasn't
got the English, and plenty of it?'