for the hour of dinner.

As you advance, you will also perceive several faces thrust out of the
doors, and rather than miss a sight of you, a grotesque visage peeping
by a short cut through the paneless windows--or a tattered female flying
to snatch up her urchin that has been tumbling itself, heels up, in the
dust of the road, lest "the gentleman's horse might ride over it;" and
if you happen to look behind, you may observe a shaggy-headed youth in
tattered frieze, with one hand thrust indolently in his breast, standing
at the door in conversation with the inmates, a broad grin of sarcastic
ridicule on his face, in the act of breaking a joke or two upon
yourself, or your horse; or perhaps, your jaw may be saluted with a
lump of clay, just hard enough not to fall asunder as it flies, cast by
some ragged gorsoon from behind a hedge, who squats himself in a ridge
of corn to avoid detection.

Seated upon a hob at the door, you may observe a toil-worn man, without
coat or waistcoat; his red, muscular, sunburnt shoulder peering through
the remnant of a skirt, mending his shoes with a piece of twisted
flax, called a _lingel_, or, perhaps, sewing two footless stockings (or
_martyeens_) to his coat, as a substitute for sleeves.

In the gardens, which are usually fringed with nettles, you will see
a solitary laborer, working with that carelessness and apathy that
characterizes an Irishman when he labors for himself--leaning upon his
spade to look after you, glad of any excuse to be idle. The houses,
however, are not all such as I have described--far from it. You see here
and there, between the more humble cabins, a stout, comfortable-looking
farm-house, with ornamental thatching and well-glazed windows;
adjoining to which is a hay-yard, with five or six large stacks of corn,