‘I’ve a letter from the boss,’ said the clerk, ‘orders to cut down the wage-bill on this job. We’ve got to sack all supernumerary hands—those that aren’t regular, that is—so we shan’t need you two after Saturday week. That gives you ten clear days’ warning to look about you.’ ‘Right you are, gaffer!’ said Abner. The clerk went blundering on to another trench, having ticked off two names on his list. ‘Well, Joe,’ said Abner. ‘What about it, my son?’ ‘I dunno, Ab,’ said Munn dolefully. ‘Back to bleedin’ old Brum, I reckon. That’s about the ticket. I wouldn’t have had this happen not for a bit! I shall never find another lodge like old Mrs Taylor’s. She’s been a mother to me, that woman! What are you going to do?’ ‘Stay on here, Joe,’ said Abner. ‘Pick up another job somewhere.’ ‘That’s right enough for you,’ said Munn. ‘I can’t go farmerin’ an’ all.’ ‘Right enough is it?’ Abner laughed. ‘You wait and see!’ The siren sounded, and Connor came along the trench whistling jauntily as he always did when he was up against it. ‘Got the boot, Mick?’ Abner asked. Mick nodded. ‘It breaks the heart in me to think I’m afther leavin’ all them pheasants,’ he said. ‘Off on the touch again: that’s what it’s come to. Ireland’s the only place to live in, and I’ll knock down enough for a double at Punchestown if it’s only hawking of dead Roses of Jericho round the basements of Merrion Square. Shure, an’ you’ll come along wud me!’ Abner shook his head. ‘God help you, you couldn’t be worse if you was married’ said Mick, with a leer. Abner laughed. He knew Mick Connor too well to take his tongue seriously. That night when he went home he did not tell Mary what had happened, for it seemed to him his news would only disturb her needlessly. At the same time he knew that something must be done, and after tea he went down to the bridge to wait for old Drew’s return. The labourer looked at him and scratched his head. ‘That’s the worst of they casual jobs,’ he said. ‘Money? Yes . . . but you never get knowed, and there’s nothing permanent to them.’ Abner asked how he should set about finding a job in the district, and the old man looked solemn. ‘I rackon you’ll find it easy enough for a month or maybe six week with the harvest coming. They be glad of any help they can get in they times. After that you can whistle for it.’ ‘Anything ‘ll do for me,’ said Abner. ‘Now mark ’ee, ’tis like this,’ the old man explained, ‘this country, when fust I know’d ’en, were a tarrable place for barley and wheat, but now, like the vules they be, they’ve a’ given it up and gone in for this dairyin’. Proper women’s work, I call it; and women be cheap in these parts, as they ought to be. I don’t say as there ban’t the apples as well.’