MARTIN DOURAS (mournfully) May it be our own generation that will be in it.  Ay, but the young are going fast; the young are going fast.

MURTAGH COSGAR
(sternly) Some of them are no loss.

MARTIN DOURAS
Ten of your own children went, Murtagh Cosgar.

MURTAGH COSGAR
I never think of them.  When they went from my control, they went
from me altogether.  There’s the more for Matt.

MARTIN DOURAS
(moistening his mouth, and beginning very nervously) Ay, Matt. 
Matt’s a good lad.

MURTAGH COSGAR
There’s little fear of him leaving now.

MARTIN DOURAS (nervously)
Maybe, maybe.  But, mind you, Murtagh Cosgar, there are
things—­little things, mind you.  Least, ways, what we call little
things.  And, after all, who are we to judge whether a thing—­

MURTAGH COSGAR
Is there anything on your mind, Martin Douras?

MARTIN DOURAS (hurriedly) No; oh, no.  I was thinking—­I was thinking, maybe you’d give me a lift towards Arvach, if you’d be going that way this night.

MURTAGH COSGAR
Ay, why not?

MARTIN DOURAS And we could talk about the land, and about Matt, too.  Wouldn’t it be a heart-break if any of our children went—­because of a thing we might—­

MURTAGH COSGAR
(fiercely) What have you to say about Matt?

MARTIN DOURAS (stammering) Nothing except in a—­in what you might call a general way.  There’s many a young man left house and land for the sake of some woman, Murtagh Cosgar.

MURTAGH COSGAR
There’s many a fool did it.

MARTIN DOURAS
(going to door) Ay, maybe; maybe.  I’ll be going now, Murtagh.

MURTAGH COSGAR
Stop! (clutching him) You know about Matt.  What woman is he
thinking of?

MARTIN DOURAS
(frightened) We’ll talk about it again, Murtagh.  I said I’d be back.

MURTAGH COSGAR
We’ll talk about it now.  Who is she?  What name has she?

MARTIN DOURAS (breaking from him and speaking with sudden dignity) It’s a good name, Murtagh Cosgar; it’s my own name.

MURTAGH COSGAR
Your daughter!  Ellen!  You’re—­

MARTIN DOURAS
Ay, a good name, and a good girl.

MURTAGH COSGAR
And do you think a son of mine would marry a daughter of yours?

MARTIN DOURAS
What great difference is between us, after all?

MURTAGH COSGAR (fiercely) The daughter of a man who’d be sitting over his fire reading his paper, and the clouds above his potatoes, and the cows trampling his oats. (Martin is beaten down) Do you know me at all, Martin Douras?  I came out of a little house by the roadway and built my house on a hill.  I had many children.  Coming home in the long evenings, or kneeling still when the prayers would be over, I’d have my dreams.  A son in Aughnalee, a son in Ballybrian, a son in Dunmore, a son of mine with a shop, a son of mine saying Mass in Killnalee.  And I have a living name—­a name in flesh and blood.