Sometimes he raised his head and looked in my direction, but took no
notice of me. Who was he? Where had I seen him before? I called out to
him but he took no notice. I tried to change my position, succeeded
and crossed the stile. When I came close to him, he spoke.
"You were long in coming," he said, and I saw it was my brother, a
youngster of eighteen.
"I went to the well for a jug of water," I said, "But it's dry now and
the three trout are dead at the bottom."
"'Twas because we didn't put a cross of green rushes over it last
Candlemas Eve," he remarked. "You should have made one then, but you
didn't. Can you put an edge on the scythe?" he asked.
"I used to be able before--before the--" I stopped feeling that I had
forgotten some event.
"I don't know why, but I feel strange," I said, "When did you come (p. 179)
to this village?"
"Village?"
"That one up there." I looked in the direction where the village stood
a moment before, but every red-brick house with its roof of
terra-cotta tiles had vanished. I was gazing along my own glen in
Donegal with its quiet fields, its sunny braes, steep hills and white
lime-washed cottages, snug under their neat layers of straw.
The white road ran, almost parallel with the sparkling river, through
a wealth of emerald green bottom lands. How came I to be here? I
turned to my brother to ask him something, but I could not speak.
A funeral came along the road; four men carried a black coffin
shoulder high; they seemed to be in great difficulties with their
burden.
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