The Poor Scholar by William Carleton is about the trials and tribulations of the Irish peasantry in the late 19th century. The tales begin with Dominick M'Evoy as he attempts to harvest from a barren hill with his starving son. Excerpt: "One day about the middle of November, in the year 18—, Dominick M'Evoy and his son Jemmy were digging potatoes on the side of a hard, barren hill, called Esker Dhu. The day was bitter and wintry, the men were thinly clad, and as the keen blast swept across the hill with considerable violence, the sleet-like rain which it bore along pelted into their garments with pitiless severity."