By an effort I diverted my thoughts from the tragedy, and my eyes fell on a spider's web hung between two bare twigs just behind the dead man. It glistened in the sunshine, and a large spider, a little distance out from the rim, had its gaze fixed on some winged insect which had got entangled in the meshes of the web. When the old man who had seen fifteen deaths passed behind the corpse, the spider darted back to the shelter of the twig, and the winged insect struggled fiercely, trying to free itself from the meshes of death.
On a near bough a bird was singing, and its song was probably the first love-song of the spring. In the field on the other side of the line, and some distance away, a group of children were playing, children bare-legged, and dressed in garments of many colours. Behind them a row of lime-washed cottages stood, looking cheerful in the sunshine of the early spring. Two women stood at one door, gossiping, no doubt. A young man in passing raised his hat to the women, then stopped and talked with them for a while. From far down the line, which ran straight for miles, an extra gang of workers was approaching, their legs moving under their apparently motionless bodies, and breaking the lines of light which ran along the polished upper bedes of the rails. The men near me were talking, but in my ears their voices sounded like the droning of bees that flit amid the high branches of leafy trees. The coming gang drew nearer, stepping slowly from sleeper to sleeper, thus saving the soles of their boots from the contact of the wearing slag. The man in front, a strong, lusty fellow, was bellowing out in a very unmusical voice an Irish love song. Suddenly I noticed that all the men near me were gazing tensely at the approaching squad, the members of which were yet unaware of the tragedy, for the rake of ballast waggons hid the bloodstained slag and scene of the accident from their eyes. The singer came round behind the rear waggon, still bellowing out his song.
"I'll leave me home again and I'll bid good-bye to-morrow,
I'll pass the little graveyard and the tomb anear the wall,
I have lived so long for love that I cannot live for sorrow
By the grave that holds me cooleen in a glen of Donegal."
Every eye was turned on him, but no man spoke. Apparently taking no heed of the splotches of blood, now darkly red, and almost the colour of the slag on which they lay, he approached the bag which covered the body.
"What the devil is this?" he cried out, and gave the bag a kick, throwing it clear of the thing which it covered. The bird on the bough atop of the slope trilled louder; the song of the man died out, and he turned to the ganger who stood near him, with a questioning look.
"It's Mick, is it?" he asked, removing his cap.
"It's Micky," said the ganger.