Nora (continuing in the same voice). And saying to myself another time, to look on Peggy Cavanagh, who had the lightest hand at milking a cow that wouldn’t be easy, or turning a cake, and there she is now walking round on the roads, or sitting in a dirty old house, with no teeth in her mouth, and no sense, and no more hair than you’d see on a bit of hill and they after burning the furze from it.

Michael. That’s five pounds and ten notes, a good sum, surely! … It’s not that way you’ll be talking when you marry a young man, Nora Burke, and they were saying in the fair my lambs were the best lambs, and I got a grand price, for I’m no fool now at making a bargain when my lambs are good.

Nora. What was it you got?

Michael. Twenty pounds for the lot, Nora Burke. … We’d do right to wait now till himself will be quiet awhile in the Seven Churches, and then you’ll marry me in the chapel of Rathvanna, and I’ll bring the sheep up on the bit of a hill you have on the back mountain, and we won’t have anything we’d be afeard to let our minds on when the mist is down.

Nora (pouring him out some whisky). Why would I marry you, Mike Dara? You’ll be getting old and I’ll be getting old, and in a little while, I’m telling you, you’ll be sitting up in your bed—the way himself was sitting —with a shake in your face, and your teeth falling, and the white hair sticking out round you like an old bush where sheep do be leaping a gap.

Dan Burke sits up noiselessly from under the sheet, with his hand to his face. His white hair is sticking out round his head. Nora goes on slowly without hearing him.

It’s a pitiful thing to be getting old, but it’s a queer thing surely. It’s a queer thing to see an old man sitting up there in his bed with no teeth in him, and a rough word in his mouth, and his chin the way it would take the bark from the edge of an oak board you’d have building a door. … God forgive me, Michael Dara, we’ll all be getting old, but it’s a queer thing surely.

Michael. It’s too lonesome you are from living a long time with an old man, Nora, and you’re talking again like a herd that would be coming down from the thick mist (he puts his arm round her), but it’s a fine life you’ll have now with a young man—a fine life, surely.…

Dan sneezes violently. Michael tries to get to the door, but before he can do so Dan jumps out of the bed in queer white clothes, with the stick in his hand, and goes over and puts his back against it.

Michael. Son of God deliver us!

Crosses himself, and goes backward across the room.

Dan (holding up his hand at him). Now you’ll not marry her the time I’m rotting below in the Seven Churches, and you’ll see the thing I’ll give you will follow you on the back mountains when the wind is high.

Michael (to Nora). Get me out of it, Nora, for the love of God. He always did what you bid him, and I’m thinking he would do it now.

Nora (looking at the tramp). Is it dead he is or living?

Dan (turning towards her). It’s little you care if it’s dead or living I am; but there’ll be an end now of your fine times, and all the talk you have of young men and old men, and of the mist coming up or going down. (He opens the door.) You’ll walk out now from that door, Nora Burke; and it’s not to-morrow, or the next day, or any day of your life, that you’ll put in your foot through it again.

Tramp (standing up). It’s a hard thing you’re saying for an old man, master of the house; and what would the like of her do if you put her out on the roads?