Mac Cann regarded the corpse.
"We had better bury the man," said he gloomily.
He took a short spade from the cart, and with it he made a hole in the roadside.
They laid Brien O'Brien in that hole.
"Wait for a minute," said Mac Cann. "It's not decent to send him off that way."
He pushed a hand into his pocket and pulled it out again with money in it.
"He should have something with himself and he taking the long journey."
He lifted O'Brien's clenched fist, forced it open, and put a silver threepenny-piece into it; then he tightened the pale hand again and folded it with the other on his breast.
They wrapped a newspaper about his face, and they threw the clay over Brien of the O'Brien Nation and stamped it down well with their feet, and as they left him the twilight stole over the land, and a broad star looked peacefully down through the grey distances.