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.