e slow looming up of a range of hills, the sweep of brown
patches of bog, then grey and green fields, broken by the glimmer of
blue fakes, slopes of brown furze making for them a dull frame.

"Now that we have the blessed light we won't feel the journey at all,"
Denis Donohoe said to the donkey.

The ass drew the creel of turf more briskly, shook his winkers and
swished his tail. When they struck very sharp hills Denis Donohoe got to
the back of the cart, put his hands to the shafts, and, lowering his
head, helped to push up the load, the muscles springing taut at the back
of his thick limbs as he pressed hard against the bright frosty ground.

As they came down from the hills he already felt very hungry, his
fingers tenderly fondling the slices of oaten bread he had put away in
the pocket of his grey homespun coat. But he checked the impulse to eat,
the long jaw of his swarthy face set, his strong teeth tight together
awaiting the right hour to play their eager part. If he ate all the
oaten bread now--splendid, dry, hard stuff, made of oat meal and water,
baked on a gridiron--it would leave too long a fast afterwards. Denis
Donohoe had been brought up to practise caution in these matters, to
subject his stomach to a rigorous discipline, for life on the verge of a
bog is an exacting business. Instead of obeying the impulse to eat Denis
Donohoe blew warm breaths into his purple hands, beat his arms about his
body to deaden the bitter cold, whistled, took some steps of an odd
dance along the road, and went on talking to the donkey as if he were
making pleasant conversation to a companion. The only sign of life to be
seen on earth or air was a thin line of wild duck high up in the sky,
one group making wide circles over a vivid mountain lake.

Half way on his journey to the country town Denis Donohoe pulled up his
little establishment. It was outside a lonely cottage exactly like his
own home. There was the same brown thatch on the roof, a garland of
verdant wild creepers drooping from a spot at the gable, the same two
small windows without any sashes in the front wall, the same narrow
rutty pathway from the road, the same sort of yellow hen cackling
heatedly, her legs quivering as she clutched the drab half door, the
same scent of decayed cabbage leaves in the air. Denis Donohoe took a
sack of hay from the top of the creel of turf, and spread some of it on
the side of the road for the donkey. While he did so a woman who