It seemed to him certain it was the face of his mother, but
from thirty years ago, out of old memories and one picture. He felt
sure it was his mother as she had been when he was very small. And yet
after thirty years how could he know? He puzzled to try and be quite
sure. But how she came to be there, looking like that, out of those
oldest memories, he did not think of at all.
He seemed to be hugely tired by many things and did not want to think.
Yet he was very happy, more happy even than tired men just come home
all new to comfort.
He gazed and gazed at the face in the dark. And then he felt quite
sure.
He was about to speak. Was she looking at him? Was she watching him,
he wondered. He glanced for the first time to his own reflection in
that clear row of faces.
His own reflection was not there, but blank dark showed between his
two neighbours. And then he knew he was dead.
Old England
Towards winter's end on a high, big, bare down, in the south of
England, John Plowman was plowing. He was plowing the brown field at
the top of the hill, good soil of the clay; a few yards lower down was
nothing but chalk, with shallow flinty soil and steep to plow; so they
let briars grow there.
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