Old Woman (helping her). Be quick before she’ll come back.… Who’d have thought we’d run before her, and she so quiet till to-night. Will the High King get the better of her, Lavarcham? If I was Conchubor, I wouldn’t marry with her like at all.

Lavarcham. Hang that by the window. That should please her, surely. When all’s said, it’s her like will be the master till the end of time.

Old Woman (at the window). There’s a mountain of blackness in the sky, and the greatest rain falling has been these long years on the earth. The gods help Conchubor. He’ll be a sorry man this night, reaching his dun, and he with all his spirits, thinking to himself he’ll be putting his arms around her in two days or three.

Lavarcham. It’s more than Conchubor’ll be sick and sorry, I’m thinking, before this story is told to the end.

Loud knocking on door at the right.

Lavarcham (startled). Who is that?

Naisi (outside). Naisi, and his brothers.

Lavarcham. We are lonely women. What is it you’re wanting in the blackness of the night?

Naisi. We met a young girl in the woods who told us we might shelter this place if the rivers rose on the pathways and the floods gathered from the butt of the hills.

Old Woman clasps her hands in horror.

Lavarcham (with great alarm). You cannot come in.… There is no one let in here, and no young girl with us.

Naisi. Let us in from the great storm. Let us in and we will go further when the cloud will rise.

Lavarcham. Go round east to the shed and you’ll have shelter. You cannot come in.

Naisi (knocking loudly). Open the door or we will burst it. (The door is shaken.)

Old Woman (in a timid whisper). Let them in, and keep Deirdre in her room to-night.

Ainnle and Ardan (outside). Open! Open!

Lavarcham (to Old Woman). Go in and keep her.

Old Woman. I couldn’t keep her. I’ve no hold on her. Go in yourself and I will free the door.

Lavarcham. I must stay and turn them out. (She pulls her hair and cloak over her face.) Go in and keep her.

Old Woman. The gods help us.

She runs into the inner room.

Voices. Open!

Lavarcham (opening the door). Come in then and ill-luck if you’ll have it so.

Naisi and Ainnle and Ardan come in and look round with astonishment.