"The same to you," I answered.
She walked on, but after she had gone a little way, she called back to me.
"Will ye be goin' to the dance in McKirdy's barn on Monday come a week?"
"I will, surely," I replied across my shoulder. I did not look around, but I could hear the soles of her shoes rustling across the dry clabber as she continued on her journey.
The moment I entered the field I flung the hoe into the ditch, and crossed to the other side of the turnip drills. I put my hand into the decayed trunk of a fallen tree, and took out a little bundle of clothes which was concealed there. I had hidden the clothes when I received Jim Scanlon's letter. I hung the bundle over my arm, and made for the high-road leading to Strabane. It was nearly three hours' walk to the town, and the morning was grand. I cut a hazel rod to keep me company, and swung it round in my hand after the manner of cattle-drovers. I went on my way with long swinging strides, thinking all the time, not of Micky's Jim and the Land Beyond the Water, but of Norah Ryan whom I would see on 'Derry Pier with the rest of the potato squad.
I could have shouted with pure joy to the people who passed me on the road. Most of them bade me the time of day with the good-natured courtesy of the Irish people. The red-faced farmer's boy, who sat on the jolting cart, stopped his sleepy horse for a minute to ask me where I was bound for.
"Just to Strabane to buy a new rake," I told him, for grown-up men never tell their private affairs to other people.
"Troth, it's for an early harvest that same rake will be," he said, and flicked his horse on the withers with his whip. Then, having satisfied his curiosity, he passed beyond the call of my voice for ever.
A girl who stood with her back to the roses of a roadside cottage gave me a bowl of milk when I asked for a drink of water. She was a taking slip of a girl, with soft dreamy eyes and red cherry lips.
"Where would ye be goin' now?" she asked.