Mary. Indeed and surely I will not put him from this door. This is the first time I ever had a house of my own; and I will not send anyone at all from my own door this day.
Martin. Do as you think well yourself. (Mary goes to the door and opens it.) Come in, honest man, and sit down, and a hundred welcomes before you. (The old man comes in, feeling about him as if blind.)
Mary. O Martin, he is blind. May God preserve him!
Old Man. That is so, acushla; I am in my blindness; and it is a tired, vexed, blind man I am. I am going and ever going since morning, and I never found a bit to eat since I rose.
Mary. You did not find a bit to eat since morning! Are you starving?
Old Man. Oh, indeed, there was food to be got if I would take it; but the bit that does not come from a willing heart, there would be no taste on it; and that is what I did not get since morning; but people putting a potato or a bit of bread out of the door to me, as if I was a dog, with the hope I would not stop, but would go away.
Mary. Oh, sit down with us now, and eat with us. Bring him to the table, Martin. (Martin gives his hand to the old man, and gives him a chair, and puts him sitting at the table with themselves. He makes two halves of the cake, and gives a half to the blind man, and one of the eggs. The old man eats eagerly.)
Old Man. I leave my seven hundred thousand blessings on the people of this house. The blessing of God and Mary on them.
Mary. That it may be well with you. O Martin, that is the first blessing I got in my own house. That blessing is better to me than gold.
Old Man. Aurah, is it not beautiful for people to have a house of their own, and to have eyes to look about with?