give him a hoarseness in
the throat.

ANDREW. Give it out so, a good song; a song will put courage and spirit
into any man at all.

JOHNNY B. [_singing_].

Come, all ye airy bachelors,
A warning take by me:
A sergeant caught me fowling,
And fired his gun so free.

His comrades came to his relief,
And I was soon trepanned;
And, bound up like a woodcock,
Had fallen into their hands.

The judge said transportation;
The ship was on the strand;
They have yoked me to the traces
For to plough Van Dieman's land!

ANDREW. That's no good of a song, but a melancholy sort of a song. I'd
as lief be listening to a saw going through timber. Wait, now, till you
will hear myself giving out a tune on the flute. [_Goes out for it._]

JOHNNY B. It is what I am thinking there must be a great dearth and a
great scarcity of good comrades in this place, a man like that
youngster having means in his hand to be bringing ourselves and our
rags into the house.

PAUDEEN. You think yourself very wise, Johnny Bacach. Can you tell me
now who that man is?

JOHNNY B. Some decent lad, I suppose, with a good way of living and a
mind to send up his name upon the roads.

PAUDEEN. You that have been gaoled this eight months know little of
this countryside.... It isn't a limping stroller like yourself the boys
would let come among them. But I know. I went to the drill a few
nights, and I skinning kids for the mountainy men. In a quarry beyond
the drill is ... they have their plans made.... It's the square house
of the Browns is to be made an attack on and plundered. Do you know now
who is the leader they are waiting for?

JOHNNY B. How would I know that?

PAUDEEN [_singing_].

Oh, Johnny Gibbons, my five hundred healths to you.
It is long you are away from us over the sea!

JOHNNY B. [_standing up excitedly_]. Sure that man could not be John
Gibbons that is outlawed.

PAUDEEN. I asked news of him from the old lad [_points after_ ANDREW],
and I bringing in the drink along with him. "Don't be asking
questions," says he; "take the treat he gives you," says he. "If a lad
that had a high heart has a mind to rouse the neighbours," says he,
"and to stretch out his hand to all that pass the road, it is in France
he learned it," says he, "the place he is but lately come from, and
where the wine does be standing open in tubs. Take your treat when you
get it," says he, "and make no delay,