.

TRAMP {Taking a stick from the cupboard} Is it that?

DAN It is, stranger; it's a long time I'm keeping that stick for I've a
bad wife in the house.

TRAMP {With a queer look.} Is it herself, master of the house, and she a
grand woman to talk?

DAN It's herself, surely, it's a bad wife she is--a bad wife for an old
man, and I'm getting old, God help me, though I've an arm to me still.
{He takes the stick in his hand.} Let you wait now a short while, and
it's a great sight you'll see in this room in two hours or three. {He
stops to listen.} Is that somebody above?

TRAMP {Listening.} There's a voice speaking on the path.

DAN Put that stick here in the bed and smooth the sheet the way it was
lying. {He covers himself up hastily.} Be falling to sleep now and don't
let on you know anything, or I'll be having your life. I wouldn't have
told you at all but it's destroyed with the drouth I was.

TRAMP {Covering his head.} Have no fear, master of the house. What is it
I know of the like of you that I'ld be saying a word or putting out my
hand to stay you at all?

{He goes back to the fire, sits down on a stool with his back to the bed
and goes on stitching his coat.}

DAN {Under the sheet, querulously.} Stranger.

TRAMP {Quickly.} Whisht, whisht. Be quiet I'm telling you, they're
coming now at the door.

{Nora comes in with Micheal Dara, a tall, innocent young man behind
her.}

NORA I wasn't long at all, stranger, for I met himself on the path.

TRAMP You were middling long, lady of the house.

NORA There was no sign from himself?

TRAMP No sign at all, lady of the house.

NORA {To Micheal.} Go over now and pull down the sheet, and look on
himself, Micheal Dara, and you'll see it's the truth I'm telling you.

MICHEAL I will not, Nora, I do be afeard of the dead.

{He sits down on a stool next the table facing the tramp. Nora puts the
kettle on a lower hook of the pot hooks, and piles turf under it.}

NORA {Turning to Tramp.} Will you drink a sup of tea with myself and the
young man, stranger, or {speaking more persuasively} will you go into
the little room and stretch yourself a short while on the bed, I'm
thinking it's destroyed you are walking the length of that way in the
great rain.

TRAMP Is it to go away and leave you, and you having a wake, lady of the
house? I will not surely. {He takes a drink from his glass which he has
beside him.} And it's none of your tea I'm asking either.

{He goes