In the afternoon, when the sun was strongest, the old men of the village came out to look at their people sowing. Martin's grandfather almost bent double over his thick stick stopped in the land outside the field and groaning loudly, he leaned over the fence. God bless the work, he called wheezily. And you, grandfather, replied the couple together, but they did not stop working. Ha! muttered the old man to himself. He sows well and that woman is good too. 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, the old man, with his huge red nose and the spotted handkerchief tied around his skull under his black soft felt hat, watched his grandson work and gave him advice.

Don't cut your sods so long, he would wheeze, you are putting too much soil on your ridge."The stalk will come out sideways." And they paid no heed to him. Ah, grumbled the old man, in my young days, when men worked from morning till night without tasting food, better work was done. But of course it can't be expected to be the 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.