It is the afternoon of a May day.  Sally Cosgar is kneeling, near the entrance chopping up cabbage-leaves with a kitchen-knife.  She is a girl of twenty-five, dark, heavily built, with the expression of a half-awakened creature.  She is coarsely dressed, and has a sacking apron.  She is quick at work, and rapid and impetuous in speech.  She is talking to herself.

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.

CORNELIUS We came out together, but the priest stopped father and us on the road.  Father Bartley wanted his advice, I suppose.  Ah, it’s a pity the men won’t have some one like my father with them!  He was in gaol for the Cause.  Besides, he’s a well-discoursed man, and a reading man, and, moreover, a man with a classical knowledge of English, Latin, and the Hibernian vernacular.

  Martin Douras comes in.  He is a man of about sixty, with a refined,
  scholarly look.  His manner is subdued and nervous.  He has a stoop,
  and is clean-shaven.

CORNELIUS
I was just telling Sally here what a great day it is,
father.

MARTIN DOURAS
Ay, it’s a great day, no matter what our own troubles
may be.  I should be going home again. (He takes a newspaper out of
his pocket, and leaves it on the table)