Hanrahan.
I was myself one time a poor barnacle goose;
The night was not plain to me more than the day
Till I got sight of her; she is the love of my heart
That banished from me my grief and my misery.
Oona.
I was myself on the morning of yesterday
Walking beside the wood at the break of day;
There was a bird there was singing sweetly,
How I love love, and is it not beautiful?
(A shout and a noise, and Sheamus O'Heran rushes in.)
Sheamus. Ububu! Ohone-y-o, go deo! The big coach is overthrown at the foot of the hill! The bag in which the letters of the country are is bursted; and there is neither tie, nor cord, nor rope, nor anything to bind it up. They are calling out now for a hay sugaun—whatever kind of thing that is; the letters and the coach will be lost for want of a hay sugaun to bind them.
Hanrahan. Do not be bothering us; we have our poem done, and we are going to dance. The coach does not come this way at all.
Sheamus. The coach does come this way now; but sure you're a stranger, and you don't know. Doesn't the coach come over the hill now, neighbours?
All. It does, it does, surely.
Hanrahan. I don't care whether it does come or whether it doesn't. I would sooner twenty coaches to be overthrown on the road than the pearl of the white breast to be stopped from dancing to us. Tell the coachman to twist a rope for himself.