'What is your village, woman?' he asked.
'I come from Beddagama.'
'Beddagama, I know it. I knew it long ago. I, too, come from over there, from Mahawelagama, beyond Beddagama. You should go back to your village, woman.'
'But my man, father, what about my man?'
The old man turned his head very slowly and looked up at the prison. The sun beat down upon his face, which seemed to have been battered and pinched and folded and lined by age and misery. His eyes wandered from the prison to one of the cows. She stood still, stretching out her head in front of her, her great eyes bulging; she coughed in great spasms which strained her flanks. He waited until the coughing had stopped, and she began again to search the earth for something to eat. Then he said, speaking as if to himself:
'They never come out from there—not if they are from the jungle. How can they live in there, always shut in between walls? These town people—they do not mind, but we——Surely I should know—I am from Mahawelagama, a village in the jungle over there. I would go back now, but I am too old. When one is old, it is useless; but you——Go back to your village, woman. It is folly to leave the village. There is hunger there, I know, I remember that; but there is the hut and the compound all by themselves, and the jungle beyond. Here there is nothing but noise and trouble, and one house upon the other.'
'But I must ask at the prison first for my man. Why are they keeping him there?'
'They never come out. Surely I should know. My son was sent there. He never came out. The case was in this town, and I came here and spent all I had for him. Then I thought I will wait here until they let him out; but he never came. It will be the same with your man. Go back to the village.'
Punchi Menika wept quietly from weariness and hunger and misery at the old man's words:
'It is no good crying,' he said; 'I am old, and who should know better than I? They never come out. It is better to go back to the village.'