Mary Cushin: What way could he go to America and he having no means in his hand? There’s himself and myself to make the voyage and the little one-een at home.
Mary Cahel: I would sooner to sell the holding than to ask for the price paid for blood. There’ll be money enough for the two of you to settle your debts and to go.
Mary Cushin: And what would yourself be doing and we to go over the sea? It is not among the neighbours you would wish to be ending your days.
Mary Cahel: I am thinking there is no one would know me in the workhouse at Oughterard. I wonder could I go in there, and I not to give them my name?
Mary Cushin: Ah, don’t be talking foolishness. What way could I bring the child? Sure he’s hardly out of the cradle; he’d be lost out there in the States.
Mary Cahel: I could bring him into the workhouse, I to give him some other name. You could send for him when you’d be settled or have some place of your own.
Mary Cushin: It is very cold at the dawn. It is time for them open the door. I wish I had brought a potato or a bit of a cake or of bread.
Mary Cahel: I’m in dread of it being opened and not knowing what will we hear. The night that Denis was taken he had a great cold and a cough.
Mary Cushin: I think I hear some person coming. There’s a sound like the rattling of keys. God and His Mother protect us! I’m in dread of being found here at all!
(The gate is opened, and the Gatekeeper is seen with a lantern in his hand.)