Three Plays: The Fiddler's House, The Land, Thomas Muskerry

by Padraic Colum

MAIRE
Was it Brian MacConnell that brought you to Flynn's?

CONN
It was.

MAIRE (passionately) You must never go to Flynn's.

CONN
I'm ashamed of myself. Didn't I say that, Maire?

MAIRE (with hardness) You must never go again.

CONN
And is a man to have no life to himself?

MAIRE That's talk just. It's time you thought of your own place and your own children. It's time you gave up caring for the praise of foolish people,

CONN
Foolish people, did you say?

MAIRE Ay, foolish people. You had all your life to yourself, and you went here and there, straying from place to place, and caring only for the praise of foolish people.

CONN God help you, if that's your way of thinking! Sure the world knows that a man is born with the gift, and isn't the gift then the sign of the grace of God? Foolish people, indeed! Them that know the gift have some of the grace of God, no matter how poor they may be.