SKETCHES FROM S^ETERSDAL. 219 



him in his home, see him roaming about amongst pigs, 

 goats, fowls, cats, and ducks, on a floor beyond all 

 description, the coating of which would be amply suffi- 

 cient to manure a moderate-sized field, and in an in- 

 credible atmosphere, composed of the thickest impurities, 

 arising from the human and animal world which this 

 novel Noah has collected in his ark. No Irish cabin 

 ever came up to it ! In the next place, you should see 

 him in his hideous leather breeches, in his nameless 

 shirt sleeves, that have no more of their original colour 

 than had the milk above mentioned, with his wife and 

 daughters, in their summer dress and home costume, the 

 short white woollen blouse which they wear underneath 

 their dark, short-skirted, corded over-dress, and whose 

 whiteness is replaced by a yellow-brown gray, which 

 forms the ground colour, in which are a multitude of 

 marks and spots of all shades and colours like a rain- 

 bow ; though the greasy and dark spots are the most 

 numerous. One can hardly believe that they are the 

 same beings which so short a time ago might have been 

 seen in the churchyard so clean and picturesque-looking 

 in their best Sunday attire ; but that, reader, was the 

 poetical and bright side, this the prosaic and real for 

 the fundamental element is dirt! The white shining 

 shirt sleeves, and silver studs, and cleanly appearance 

 are laid aside as soon as service is over. It does not 

 last even to the close of the day, but is put by after 



