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was the joy of his life. Mossgrove was the big picture, but his own acre around the cottage was his private little cameo. The patch at the front facing west was his flower garden which he walked through every time he left the cottage, and when he sat inside the window having his meals he could look out into it. In this way he felt that his flowers gave him double delight. But the long acre at the southern side of the cottage was his harvesting area where he grew his own fruits. When his mother Emily was alive, she had made all kinds of preserves, and when she had died he missed the pot of home-made jam on the table. When he had found her old dog-eared Mrs Beeton and had started to make his own, it doubled once again his satisfaction in fruit growing. When he had all his vegetables and potatoes sown in the early spring, it was a great feeling to stand at the top of his acre and admire the long straight drills full of buried promise. That promise was realised later when he eased the spade under his early potato stalks and their pale perfection burst out of the dark brown earth. It was a resurrection! That evening when he put those early potatoes on to boil, he felt a deep gratitude for the plenitude of his little corner of God’s earth.
    His bedroom at the back of the cottage faced east. Every morning the early light poured in, and during the summer he could watch the sunrise. After his mother died, he had planned to take down the wall between the two bedrooms so that he would have two east-facing windows, but for years he had put it on the long finger. Then one morning last year Peter had come up from the farm with Davey Shine, and by evening hehad one big room with two windows facing east. It was a source of wonder to him to watch the light changing in the morning sky. These windows also looked out over his haggard where his hens and ducks were housed. At first light the rooster was his alarm clock. The windows of his little parlour faced over the vegetable garden. The parlour was for special occasions, and every Christmas he lit the fire in there. In the small sideboard he kept the set of china that old Mrs Phelan had given his mother when she got married, and in the tall linen press by the fire he kept the tablecloths that his mother had embroidered. At night when her darning was done, she had picked up her embroidery. He knew that of all the things she did with her hands her embroidery gave her the greatest pleasure. In the winter she did it by the fire, but when the light was good in the spring and summer she sat in her rocking chair inside the kitchen window. She loved that view and used to say, “It is good to have your evening window facing west to say goodbye to the day and the morning window facing east to welcome in the new day.” Now he knew what she was talking about. It was one of the pleasures of growing older that your sense of appreciation broadened and deepened. Now he too was glad that the front of the cottage faced west, because every evening he sat inside the kitchen window and watched the sunset, and every evening it was different. Then the cottage gathered itself around him like a soft shawl.
    Long ago old Edward Phelan had told him, “Jack lad, always be guided by nature when you plan your building because we can never improve on her. When we work in harmony with her she will repay us, but if we wrong her we will pay a terrible price.” He was right. The old man had so much wisdom and hehad passed it all on. He had been good to him in so many ways. Every spring he was given a calf and a lamb; they were reared in Mossgrove and were known as Jack’s calf or Jack’s lamb, and when they were sold he got the money. As well as that, when the big sow farrowed he got a bonham, and when it was later sold as a fattened pig he got the money too. He had discontinued this practice himself when the going was tough during Billy’s time, but Ned, remembering it since he was a child, began it again when he was in