The mowers were winding their scythes in long heavy sweeps through the meadow in the bottomlands, and rows of mown hay lay behind them. Even where I stood, far up, I could hear the sharp swish of their scythes as they cut through the bottom grass.
The young maidens, their legs bare well above their knees, tramped linen at the brookside and laughed merrily at every joke that passed between them.
The neighbours spoke to one another across the march ditches, and their talk was of the weather and the progress of the harvest.
The farmer boy could be seen going to the moor for a load of peat, his creel swinging in a careless way across his shoulders and his hands deep in his trousers' pockets. He was barefooted, and the brown moss was all over the calves of his legs. He was thinking of something as he walked along and he looked well in his torn shirt and old hat. Many a time I wondered what were the thoughts which filled his mind.
Now and again a traveller passed along the road, looking very tired as he dragged his legs after him. His hob-nailed boots made a rasping sound on the grey gravel, and it was hard to tell where he was going.
One day a drover passed along, driving his herd of wild-eyed, panting bullocks before him. He was a little man and he carried a heavy cudgel of a stick in his hands. I went out to the road to see him passing and also to speak to him if he took any notice of a little fellow.
"God's blessing be on every beast under your care," I said, repeating the words which my mother always said to the drovers which she met. "Is it any harm to ask you where you are going?"
"I'm goin' to the fair of 'Derry," said he.
"Is 'Derry fair as big as the fair of Greenanore, good man?"