ame 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'ld see on a bit of a
hill and they after burning the furze from it.

MICHEAL 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?

MICHEAL Twenty pound for the lot, Nora Burke.... We'ld 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'ld 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'ld have building a door.... God forgive me,
Micheal Dara, we'll all be getting old, but it's a queer thing surely.

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

MICHEA