“It’s good stone turf,” Denis Donohoe protested, a little nettled.

The woman was joined by some people who were hanging about, anxious to take part in bargaining which involved no personal liability.  They argued, made jokes, shouted, and finally began to bully Denis Donohoe, the woman leading, her voice half a scream, her stomach heaving, her eyes dancing with excitement, a yellow froth gathering at the corners of her angry mouth, her hand gripping a sod of the turf, for the only dissipation life now offered her was this haggling with and shouting down of turf sellers.  Denis Donohoe stood immovable beside his cart, patient as his donkey, his swarthy face stolid under the shadow of his broad-brimmed black hat, his intelligent eyes quietly measuring his noisy antagonists.  When the woman’s anger had quite spent itself the turf was purchased for five shillings.

Denis Donohoe carried the sods in his arms to the kitchen of the purchaser’s house.  It entailed a great many journeys in and out, the sods being piled up on his hooked left arm with a certain skill.  His route lay through a small shop, down a semi-dark hallway, across a kitchen, the sods being stowed under a stairway where cockroaches scampered from the thudding of the falling sods.

Women were moving about the kitchen, talking incessantly, fumbling about tables, always appearing to search for something that had been lost, one crooning over a cradle that she rocked before the fire.  The smell of cooking, the sound of something fatty hissing on a pan, brought a sense of faintness to Denis Donohoe, for he was ravenously hungry again.

He stumbled awkwardly in and out of the place with his armfuls of brown sods The women moved with reluctance out of his way.  Once a servant girl raised the most melancholy pair of wide brown eyes he had ever seen, saying to him, “It always goes through me to hear the turf falling in the stair-hole.  It reminds me of the day I heard the clay falling on me father’s coffin, God be with him and forgive him, for he died in the horrors.”

By the time Denis Donohoe had delivered the cartload of turf the little donkey had eaten all the hay in the sack.  In the small shop Denis purchased some bacon, flour and tea, so that he had only some coppers to bring home with him.  After some hesitation he handed back one penny for some biscuits, and these he ate as soon as he set out on the return journey.

The little donkey went over the road through the hills on the way back with spirit, for donkeys are good homers.  Denis Donohoe sat up on the front of the cart, his legs dangling down beside the shaft.  The donkey trotted down the slopes gayly, the harness rattling, the cart swaying, jolting, making an amazing noise.

The donkey cocked his ears, flecked his tail, even indulged in one or two buck-jumps, as he rattled down the hilly roads.  Denis Donohoe once or twice leaned out over the shaft, and brought his open hand down on the haunch of the donkey, but it was more a caress than a whack.