The dis-pair and loneliness that Iona feels are sorrow. “May it do you good . . . But my son is dead, mate . . . Do you hear?” (33). Iona desperately wants to tell about his sons’ death, and how it is affecting him. “He wants to tell how his son was taken ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died”(34). Ionas’ son has died, and he feels as though it should have been he to the grave instead of his youthful son. “My son ought to be driving not I”(34).