feelings, they finished eating and still sat hand in hand looking away intothe distance. Everywhere the sowers were resting on little knolls, men,women and children sitting in silence. And the great calm of nature in spring filled the atmosphere around them. Everything seemed to sit still and wait until midday had passed. Only the gleaming sun chased westwards at a mighty pace, in and out through white clouds.

Then in a distant field an old man got up, took his spade and began to clean the earth from it with a piece of stone. Therasping noise carried a long way in the silence. That was the signal for a general rising all along the little valley. Young men stretched themselves and yawned. They walked slowly back to their ridges.

Martin's back and his wrists were getting sore, and Mary felt that if she stooped again over her seeds her neck would break, but neither said anything and soon they had forgotten their tiredness in the mechanical movement of their bodies. The strong smell of the upturned earth acted like a drug on their nerves.

In the afternoon, when the sun was strongest, the old men of the village came out to look attheir people sowing. Martin's grandfather, almost bent double over his thick stick stoppedin the land outside the field and groaning loudly, he leaned over the fence.

“God bless the work,\

\'Ha!\They are beginning well.\

It was fifty years since he had begun with his Mary, full of hope and pride, and the

merciless soil had hugged them to its bosom ever since, each spring without rest. Today, theold man, with his huge red nose and the spotted handkerchief tied around his skull underhis black soft felt hat, watched his grandson work and gave him advice. \cut your sods so long,\would wheeze,\are putting too much soil on your ridge.\

''Ah woman! Don't plant a seed so near the edge. The stalk will come out sideways.\And they paid no heed to him.

\the old man,\my young days, when men worked from morning tillnight without tasting food, better work was done. But of course it can't be expected to bethe same now. The breed is getting weaker. So it is.\

Then he began to cough in his chest and hobbled away to another field where his son Michael was working.

By sundown Martin had five ridges finished. He threw down his spade and stretched himself. All his bones ached and he wanted to lie down and rest. \home, Mary,\

Mary straightened herself, but she was too tired to reply. She looked at Martin wearily and it seemed to her that it was a great many years since they had set out that morning. Then she thought of the journey home and the trouble of feeding the pigs, putting the fowls into their coops and getting the supper ready, and a momentary flash of rebellion against the slavery of being a peasant's wife crossed her mind. It passed in a moment. Martin was saying,as he dressed himself:

\as a steel rod. By God Mary, it's no boasting to say that you might well be proud of being the wife of Martin Delaney. And that's not sayingthe whole of it ,my girl. You did your share better than any woman in Inverara could do it this blessed day.\They stood for a few moments in silence, looking at the work they had done. All her dissatisfaction and weariness vanished form Mary's mind with the delicious feeling of comfort that overcame her at having done this work with her husband. They had done it together. They had planted seeds in the earth. The next day and the next and all their lives, when spring came they would have to bend their backs and do it until their hands and bones got twisted with rheumatism. But night would always bring sleep and forgetfulness.

As they walked home slowly, Martin walked in front with another peasant talking about the sowing, and Mary walked behind, with her eyes on the ground, thinking. Cows were lowing at a distance.