MARTIN DOURAS
Ellen, I’ll have news for you when I see you again. 
I’ve made up my mind to that.

ELLEN
Are you going to the fair, father?

MARTIN DOURAS
Ay, with Murtagh.

ELLEN
God be with you, father. (She goes out)

MARTIN DOURAS
What purchase are you thinking of offering, Murtagh?

MURTAGH COSGAR
Twenty years.

MARTIN DOURAS
It’s fair enough.  Oh, it’s a great day for the country,
no matter what our own troubles may be.

  Matt has taken down the harness.  He takes some of it up and goes
  out to yard.

MURTAGH COSGAR (with some contempt) It’s a pity you haven’t a share in the day after all.

MARTIN DOURAS
Ay, it’s a pity indeed.

  Murtagh goes to the door.

MURTAGH COSGAR (with suppressed enthusiasm) From this day out we’re planted in the soil.

MARTIN DOURAS
Ay, we’re planted in the soil.

MURTAGH COSGAR
God, it’s a great day.

  Cornelius comes back.

CORNELIUS This is a memorial occasion, Murtagh Cosgar, and I wish you the felicitations of it.  I met the delegates and I coming in, and I put myself at the head of them.  It’s the day of the redemption, Murtagh Cosgar.

  Murtagh, without speaking, goes up to the room.

CORNELIUS He’s gone up to get the papers.  Father, we must give the men understanding for this business.  They must demand the mineral rights.  Here they are.  Men of Ballykillduff, I greet your entrance.

  Six men enter discussing.

FIRST MAN We’ll leave it to Murtagh Cosgar.  Murtagh Cosgar isn’t a grazier or a shopkeeper.

SECOND MAN
It’s the graziers and shopkeepers that are putting a
business head on this.

THIRD MAN
If we’re all on the one offer, we can settle it at the
lawyer’s.

FOURTH MAN
Sure it’s settled for twenty years on the first-term rents.

FIFTH MAN
There are some here that would let it go as high as
twenty-three.

SIXTH MAN
What does Murtagh Cosgar say?

SOME OF THE MEN
Well take the word from him.

MARTIN DOURAS
He mentioned twenty years.

SECOND MAN
Not as a limit, surely?

OTHER MEN
We’re not for any higher offer.

SECOND MAN Well, men, this is all I have to say.  If you can get it for twenty, take it, and my blessing with it.  But I want to be dealing with the Government, and not with landlords and agents.  To have a straight bargain between myself and the Government, I’d put it up to twenty-three, ay, up to twenty-five years’ purchase.

THIRD MAN
More power to you, Councillor.  There’s some sense in that.

SIXTH MAN
I’m with the Councillor.

FIRST MAN
It’s all very well for graziers and shopkeepers to talk, but what
about the small farmer?