MARTIN DOURAS
Ay.

MURTAGH COSGAR
Them was the stirring times.  I can’t help but think
of you in gaol, and by yourself.  What brings you back now?

MARTIN DOURAS
Ellen told me to go back.  I should say something to
Matt, I think.

MURTAGH COSGAR
He went out as you came in.

MARTIN DOURAS
I’ll go in when the house is quiet.  I’ll have a few
prayers to be saying this night.

MURTAGH COSGAR
I’m going to the fair.

MARTIN DOURAS
I won’t be going to the fair.

MURTAGH COSGAR
Why won’t you be going to the fair?  Didn’t you ask me
for a lift?  You’ll be going with me.

MARTIN DOURAS
I won’t be going, and don’t be overbearing me now,
Murtagh Cosgar.

MURTAGH COSGAR
You will be going to the fair, if it was only to be
showing that, seemly face of yours. (Going to the door, he calls)
“Sally!” (He turns to Martin Douras) I’ve a daughter still, Martin
Douras.

MARTIN DOURAS
You have, and I have a son.

MURTAGH COSGAR
What would you say to a match between them, Martin
Douras?

MARTIN DOURAS
I have nothing to say again it.

MURTAGH COSGAR
Then a match it will be.

  Sally comes in from yard.

SALLY If you fed that baste on honey, she’d turn on you.  Cabbage I gave her and got into trouble for it, and now she’s gone and trampled the bad potatoes till they’re hardly worth the boiling.  I’ll put the bush in the gap when I’m going out again, father.

MURTAGH COSGAR
Ay.  Is that Cornelius Douras that’s coming up the path?

SALLY
O faith it is.  I’ll get him to give me a hand with the trough.

  Cornelius comes in.

CORNELIUS
Well, Murtagh Cosgar, a great and memorial day is ended. 
May you live long to enjoy the fruits of it.  Twenty years on the
first term, and the land is ours and our children’s.  I met the men.

MURTAGH COSGAR
Ours and our children’s, ay.  We’ve been making a
match between yourself and Sally.

CORNELIUS
Between me and Sally?

SALLY
Between Cornelius and myself?

MURTAGH COSGAR
Ay, shake hands on it now.

CORNELIUS
And tell me one thing, Murtagh Cosgar.  Is it true that
Matt’s going to America, and that Ellen will wait for him for a year
at the school?  I met them together, and they told me that.

MURTAGH COSGAR
What they say is true, I’m sure.  The land is yours
and your children’s.

SALLY
(wiping her hands in her apron) O Cornelius.

CORNELIUS Aren’t they foolish to be going away like that, father, and we at the mouth of the good times?  The men will be coming in soon, and you might say a few words. (Martin shakes his head) Indeed you might, father; they’ll expect it of you. (Martin shakes his head.  Murtagh and Sally try to restrain him) “Men of Ballykillduff,” you might say, “stay on the land, and you’ll be saved body and soul; you’ll be saved in the man and in the nation.  The nation, men of Ballykillduff, do you ever think of it at all?  Do you ever think of the Irish nation that is waiting all this time to be born?”