rlor had a way of coming out unexpectedly eighteen years
ago. Was that it, Tom?

BROADBENT [hastily]. Oh, it doesn't matter: I was not hurt--at
least--er--

AUNT JUDY. Oh now what a shame! An I told Patsy Farrll to put a
nail in it.

BROADBENT. He did, Miss Doyle. There was a nail, certainly.

AUNT JUDY. Dear oh dear!

An oldish peasant farmer, small, leathery, peat faced, with a
deep voice and a surliness that is meant to be aggressive, and is
in effect pathetic--the voice of a man of hard life and many
sorrows--comes in at the gate. He is old enough to have perhaps
worn a long tailed frieze coat and knee breeches in his time; but
now he is dressed respectably in a black frock coat, tall hat,
and pollard colored trousers; and his face is as clean as washing
can make it, though that is not saying much, as the habit is
recently acquired and not yet congenial.

THE NEW-COMER [at the gate]. God save all here! [He comes a
little way into the garden].

LARRY [patronizingly, speaking across the garden to him]. Is that
yourself, Mat Haffigan? Do you remember me?

MATTHEW [intentionally rude and blunt]. No. Who are you?

NORA. Oh, I'm sure you remember him, Mr Haffigan.

MATTHEW [grudgingly admitting it]. I suppose he'll be young Larry
Doyle that was.

LARRY. Yes.

MATTHEW [to Larry]. I hear you done well in America.

LARRY. Fairly well.

MATTHEW. I suppose you saw me brother Andy out dhere.

LARRY. No. It's such a big place that looking for a man there is
like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. They tell me he's a
great man out there.

MATTHEW. So he is, God be praised. Where's your father?

AUNT JUDY. He's inside, in the office, Mr Haffigan, with Barney
Doarn n Father Dempsey.

Matthew, without wasting further words on the company, goes
curtly into the house.

LARRY [staring after him]. Is anything wrong with old Mat?

NORA. No. He's the same as ever. Why?

LARRY. He's not the same to me. He used to be very civil to
Master Larry: a deal too civil, I used to think. Now he's as
surly and stand-off as a bear.

AUNT JUDY. Oh sure he's bought his farm in the Land Purchase.
He's independent now.

NORA. It's made a great change, Larry. You'd harly know the old
tenants now. You'd think it was a liberty to speak t'dhem--some o
dhem. [She goes to the table, and helps to take off the cloth,
which she and Aunt Judy fold up between them].

AUNT JUDY. I wonder what he wants to see Corny for. He hasn