MARTIN DOURAS
Only ourselves. Did you get any news to bring you over, Ellen?
ELLEN
No news. It was the shine of the day that brought me out; and
I was thinking, too, of the girls that are going to America in the
morning, and that made me restless.
Martin and Cornelius look significantly at each other.
MARTIN DOURAS
And did you see Matt, Ellen?
ELLEN He was in the field and I coming up; but I did not wait for him, as I don't want people to see us together. (Restlessly) I don't know how I can come into this house, for it's always like Murtagh Cosgar. There's nothing of Matt in it at all. If Matt would come away. There are little labourers' houses by the side of the road. Many's the farmer's son became a labourer for the sake of a woman he cared for!
CORNELIUS
And are you not thinking about the school at all, Ellen?
ELLEN
I'll hear about it some time, I suppose.
MARTIN DOURAS You're right to take it that way, Ellen. School doesn't mean scholarship now. Many's the time I'm telling Cornelius that a man farming the land, with a few books on his shelf and a few books in his head, has more of the scholar's life about him than the young fellows who do be teaching in schools and teaching in colleges.
CORNELIUS That's all very well, father. School and scholarship isn't the one. But think of the word "Constantinople!" I could leave off herding and digging every time I think on that word!
MARTIN DOURAS Ah, it's a great word. A word like that would make you think for days. And there are many words like that.