Sergeant: Well, who knows but I might? I had a great spirit in those days.
Man: It’s a queer world, sergeant, and it’s little any mother knows when she sees her child creeping on the floor what might happen to it before it has gone through its life, or who will be who in the end.
Sergeant: That’s a queer thought now, and a true thought. Wait now till I think it out.... If it wasn’t for the sense I have, and for my wife and family, and for me joining the force the time I did, it might be myself now would be after breaking gaol and hiding in the dark, and it might be him that’s hiding in the dark and that got out of gaol would be sitting up where I am on this barrel.... And it might be myself would be creeping up trying to make my escape from himself, and it might be himself would be keeping the law, and myself would be breaking it, and myself would be trying maybe to put a bullet in his head, or to take up a lump of a stone the way you said he did ... no, that myself did.... Oh! (Gasps. After a pause.) What’s that? (Grasps man’s arm.)
Man: (Jumps off barrel and listens, looking out over water.) It’s nothing, sergeant.
Sergeant: I thought it might be a boat. I had a notion there might be friends of his coming about the quays with a boat.
Man: Sergeant, I am thinking it was with the people you were, and not with the law you were, when you were a young man.
Sergeant: Well, if I was foolish then, that time’s gone.
Man: Maybe, sergeant, it comes into your head sometimes, in spite of your belt and your tunic, that it might have been as well for you to have followed Granuaile.
Sergeant: It’s no business of yours what I think.
Man: Maybe, sergeant, you’ll be on the side of the country yet.