Read "Penelope's Irish Experiences" by Kate Douglas Wiggin online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
'Where spreads the beautiful water to gay or cloudy skies, And the purple peaks of Killarney from ancient woods arise. ' William Allingham.
Mrs. Mullarkey cannot spoil this paradise for us. When I wake in the morning, the fuchsia-tree outside my window is such a glorious mass of colour that it distracts my eyes from the unwashed glass. The air is still; the mountains in the far distance are clear purple; everything is fresh washed and purified for the new day. Francesca and I leave the house sleeping, and make our way to the bogs. We love to sit under a blossoming sloe-bush and see the silver pools glistening here and there in the turf cuttings, and watch the transparent vapour rising from the red-brown of the purple-shadowed bog fields. Dinnis Rooney, half awake, leisurely, silent, is moving among the stacks with his creel. How the missel thrushes sing in the woods, and the plaintive note of the curlew gives the last touch of mysterious tenderness to the scene. There is a moist, rich fragrance of meadowsweet and bog myrtle in the air; and how fresh and wild and verdant it is!