me to
be driving you off again to be walking the roads? There you are now, and
I giving you your food, and a corner to sleep, and money with it;
and, to hear the talk of you, you'd think I was after beating you, or
stealing your gold.

MARTIN DOUL. You'd do it handy, maybe, if I'd gold to steal.

TIMMY -- [throws down hammer; picks up some of the sticks already cut,
and throws them into door.] There's no fear of your having gold -- a
lazy, basking fool the like of you.

MARTIN DOUL. No fear, maybe, and I here with yourself, for it's more I
got a while since and I sitting blinded in Grianan, than I get in this
place working hard, and destroying myself, the length of the day.

TIMMY -- [stopping with amazement.] -- Working hard? (He goes over to
him.) I'll teach you to work hard, Martin Doul. Strip off your coat now,
and put a tuck in your sleeves, and cut the lot of them, while I'd
rake the ashes from the forge, or I'll not put up with you another hour
itself.

MARTIN DOUL -- [horrified.] -- Would you have me getting my death
sitting out in the black wintry air with no coat on me at all?

TIMMY -- [with authority.] -- Strip it off now, or walk down upon the
road.

MARTIN DOUL -- [bitterly.] -- Oh, God help me! (He begins taking off
his coat.) I've heard tell you stripped the sheet from your wife and you
putting her down into the grave, and that there isn't the like of you
for plucking your living ducks, the short days, and leaving them running
round in their skins, in the great rains and the cold. (He tucks up his
sleeves.) Ah, I've heard a power of queer things of yourself, and there
isn't one of them I'll not believe from this day, and be telling to the
boys.

TIMMY -- [pulling over a big stick.] -- Let you cut that now, and give
me rest from your talk, for I'm not heeding you at all.

MARTIN DOUL -- [taking stick.] -- That's a hard, terrible stick, Timmy;
and isn't it a poor thing to be cutting strong timber the like of that,
when it's cold the bark is, and slippy with the frost of the air?

TIMMY -- [gathering up another armful of sticks.] -- What way wouldn't
it be cold, and it freezing since the moon was changed? [He goes into
forge.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [querulously, as he cuts slowly.] -- What way, indeed,
Timmy? For it's a raw, beastly day we do have each day, till I do
be thinking it's well for the blind don't be seeing them gray clouds
driving on the hill, and don't be looking on people with their no