(The mother comes in. She stares for a second, then throws down her basket and snatches up the child.)
Mother: Did ever anyone see the like of that! A common beggar, a travelling man off the roads, to be holding the child! To be leaving his ragged arms about him as if he was of his own sort! Get out of that, whoever you are, and quit this house or I’ll call to some that will make you quit it.
Child: Do not send him out! He is not a bad man; he is a good man; he was playing horses with me. He has grand songs.
Mother: Let him get away out of this now, himself and his share of songs. Look at the way he has your bib destroyed that I was after washing in the morning!
Child: He was holding me on the horse. We were riding, I might have fallen. He held me.
Mother: I give you my word you are done now with riding horses. Let him go on his road. I have no time to be cleaning the place after the like of him.
Child: He is tired. Let him stop here till evening.
Travelling Man: Let me rest here for a while, I have been travelling a long way.
Mother: Where did you come from to-day?
Travelling Man: I came over Slieve Echtge from Slieve na n-Or. I had no house to stop in. I walked the long bog road, the wind was going through me, there was no shelter to be got, the red mud of the road was heavy on my feet. I got no welcome in the villages, and so I came on to this place, to the rising of the river at Ballylee.