On my return I found the owner of the house, a man of giant frame and noble features. His dress bespoke a taste or pursuit incompatible with the wild mountain destiny stamped upon the external aspect of his home and family. His wife spoke a few words in Irish, explaining my presence, to which he answered that I was welcome. Supper was at length prepared, when he drew from a basket a few of the finest trout I ever saw. He cleaned and fried them with his own hands, as if the operation were above the capacity of his wife, who performed the other culinary duties with silent assiduity. It might be owing to hunger, it might be owing to the actual superiority of the fish, or it might be owing to the mode of cooking, but it seemed to me as if I never tasted anything of equal flavour to those trout. The entertainment was ended with some boiled new milk, slightly curdled, a delicacy little known in the circle of fashion, but never surpassed either in that or any other. Some fresh hay was procured and strewn on an article of furniture common in the houses of the Kerry peasantry, called a "settle." It is a sort of a rude sofa, made of common deal timber. On this "settle" my host prepared my bed of new-mown hay, barricaded with old chairs and a table against the assaults of the hungry animals. I had not long lain down when a man entered (the door consisted of a pair of tongs, so placed as to prevent the egress of the cattle), lay at full length on the table, and fell fast asleep. In an hour or so afterwards, there came another, who groped his way over the cattle, and, sweeping the fire from the hearth, lay down to sleep in peace. This man slept uneasily, and groaned heavily, as if some terrible sense of guilt or fear pressed against his heart.