A BARN 



with smoke-blackened face, and bringing with him 

 an odour of cotton waste and oil. He is the 

 driver of a steam ploughing-engine, whose broad 

 wheels in summer leave their impression in the 

 deep white dust of the roads, and in moist weather 

 sink into the soil at the gateways and leave their 

 mark as perfect as in wax. But though familiar 

 with valves, and tubes, and gauges, spending his 

 hours polishing brass and steel, and sometimes 

 busy with spanner and hammer, his talk, too, is 

 of the fields. 



He looks at the clouds, and hopes it will con- 

 tinue fine enough to work. Like many others of 

 the men who are employed on the farms about 

 town, he came originally from a little village a 

 hundred miles away, in the heart of the country. 

 The stamp of the land is on him, too. 



Besides the Irish, who pass in gangs and gener- 

 ally have a settled destination, many agricultural 

 folk drift along the roads and lanes searching for 

 work. They are sometimes alone, or in couples, 

 or they are a man and his wife, and carry hoes. 

 You can tell them as far as you can see them, for 

 they stop and look over every gateway to note 

 how the crop is progressing, and whether any 

 labour is required. 



On Saturday afternoons, among the crowd of 

 customers at the shops in the towns, under the 

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