NORA.
(Turning round quickly.) He was a great man surely, stranger, and isn’t it a grand thing when you hear a living man saying a good word of a dead man, and he mad dying?
TRAMP.
It’s the truth I’m saying, God spare his soul.
(He puts the needle under the collar of his coat, and settles himself to sleep in the chimney-corner. Nora sits down at the table; their backs are turned to the bed.)
MICHEAL.
(Looking at her with a queer look.) I heard tell this day, Nora Burke, that it was on the path below Patch Darcy would be passing up and passing down, and I heard them say he’ld never past it night or morning without speaking with yourself.
NORA.
(In a low voice.) It was no lie you heard, Micheal Dara.
MICHEAL.
I’m thinking it’s a power of men you’re after knowing if it’s in a lonesome place you live itself.
NORA.
(Giving him his tea.) It’s in a lonesome place you do have to be talking with some one, and looking for some one, in the evening of the day, and if it’s a power of men I’m after knowing they were fine men, for I was a hard child to please, and a hard girl to please (she looks at him a little sternly), and it’s a hard woman I am to please this day, Micheal Dara, and it’s no lie I’m telling you.
MICHEAL.
(Looking over to see that the tramp is asleep, and then pointing to the dead man.) Was it a hard woman to please you were when you took himself for your man?
NORA.
What way would I live and I an old woman if I didn’t marry a man with a bit of a farm, and cows on it, and sheep on the back hills?
MICHEAL.
(Considering.) That’s true, Nora, and maybe it’s no fool you were, for there’s good grazing on it, if it is a lonesome place, and I’m thinking it’s a good sum he’s left behind.