as a bone.

[_He sits on chair and drinks_]

CONALL

Go into Scotland again, or where you will, but begone
From this unlucky country that was made when the devil spat.

CUCHULAIN

If I lived here a hundred years, could a worse thing come than that
Laegaire and Conall should know me and bid me begone to my face?

CONALL

We bid you begone from a house that has fallen on shame and disgrace.

CUCHULAIN

I am losing patience, Conall--I find you stuffed with pride,
The flagon full to the brim, the front door standing wide;
You'd put me off with words, but the whole thing's plain enough,
You are waiting for some message to bring you to war or love
In that old secret country beyond the wool-white waves,
Or it may be down beneath them in foam-bewildered caves
Where nine forsaken sea queens fling shuttles to and fro;
But beyond them, or beneath them, whether you will or no,
I am going too.

LAEGAIRE

Better tell it all out to the end;
He was born to luck in the cradle, his good luck may amend
The bad luck we were born to.

CONALL

I'll lay the whole thing bare.
You saw the luck that he had when he pushed in past me there.
Does anything stir on the sea?

LAEGAIRE

Not even a fish or a gull.

CONALL

You were gone but a little while. We were there and the ale-cup full.
We were half drunk and merry, and midnight on the stroke
When a wide, high man came in with a red foxy cloak,
With half-shut foxy eyes and a great laughing mouth,
And he said when we bid him drink, that he had so great a drouth
He could drink the sea.

CUCHULAIN

I thought he had come from one of you
Out of some Connaught rath, and would lap up milk and mew;
But if he so loved water I have the tale awry.

CONALL

You would not be so merry if he were standing by,
For when we had sung or danced as he were our next of kin
He promised to show us a game, the best that ever had been;
And when we had asked what game, he answered, "Why, whip off my head!
Then one of you two stoop down, and I'll whip off his," he said.
"A head for a head," he said, "that is the game that I play."

CUCHULAIN

How could he whip off a head when his own had been whipped away?

CONALL

We told him it over and over, and that ale had fuddled his wit,
But he stood and laughed at us there, as though his sides would split,
Till I could stand it no long