SALLY Oh, you may go on grunting, yourself and your litter, it won't put me a bit past my own time. You oul' black baste of a sow, sure I'm slaving to you all the spring. We'll be getting rid of yourself and your litter soon enough, and may the devil get you when we lose you.
Cornelius comes to the door. He is a tall young man with a slight stoop. His manners are solemn, and his expression somewhat vacant.
CORNELIUS Good morrow, Sally. May you have the good of the day. (He comes in)
SALLY (impetuously) Ah, God reward you, Cornelius Douras, for coming in. I'm that busy keeping food to a sow and a litter of pigs that I couldn't get beyond the gate to see any one.
CORNELIUS (solemnly) You're a good girl, Sally. You're not like some I know. There are girls in this parish who never put hands to a thing till evening, when the boys do be coming in. Then they begin to stir themselves the way they'll be thought busy and good about a house.
SALLY (pleased and beginning to chop again with renewed energy) Oh, it's true indeed for you, Cornelius. There are girls that be decking themselves, and sporting are themselves all day.
CORNELIUS
I may say that I come over to your father's, Murtagh
Cosgar's house, this morning, thinking to meet the men.
SALLY
What men, Cornelius Douras?
CORNELIUS Them that are going to meet the landlord's people with an offer for the land. We're not buying ourselves, unfortunately, but this is a great day—the day of the redemption, my father calls it—and I'd like to have some hand in the work if it was only to say a few words to the men.
SALLY It's a wonder Martin, your father isn't on the one errand with you.