Hyacinth Halvey: The tents on the fair green; there will be music in it; there was a fiddler having no legs would set men of threescore years and of fourscore years dancing.  I can nearly hear his tune.

   (He whistles “The Heather Broom.”)

Bartley Fallon: You are apt to be going there on the train, I suppose?  It is well to be you, Mr. Halvey, having a good place in the town, and the price of your fare, and maybe six times the price of it, in your pocket.

Hyacinth Halvey: I didn’t think of that.  I wonder could I go—­for one night only—­and see what the lads are doing.

Shawn Early: Are you forgetting, Mr. Halvey, that you are to meet his Reverence on the platform that is coming home from drinking water at the Spa?

Hyacinth Halvey: So I can meet him, and get in the train after him getting out.

   (Mrs. Broderick and Peter Tannian come in.)

Mrs. Broderick: Is that Mr. Halvey is in it?  I was looking for you at the chapel as I passed, and the Angelus bell after ringing.

Hyacinth Halvey: Business I have here, ma’am.  I was in dread I might not be here before the train.

Mrs. Broderick: So you might not, indeed.  That nine o’clock train you can never trust it to be late.

Hyacinth Halvey: To meet Father Gregan I am come, and maybe to go on myself.

Mrs. Broderick: Sure, I knew well you would be in haste to be before Father Gregan, and we knowing what we know.

Hyacinth Halvey: I have no business only to be showing respect to him.

Shawn Early: His good word he will give to Mr. Halvey at the Board, where it is likely he will be made Clerk of the Union next week.

Mrs. Broderick: His good word he will give to another thing besides that, I am thinking.

Hyacinth Halvey: I don’t know what you are talking about.

Mrs. Broderick: Didn’t you hear the news, Peter Tannian, that Mr. Halvey is apt to be linked and joined in marriage with Miss Joyce, the priest’s housekeeper?

Peter Tannian: I to believe all the lies I’d hear, I’d be a racked man by this.

Mrs. Broderick: What I say now is as true as if you were on the other side of me.  I suppose now the priest is come home there’ll be no delay getting the license.

Hyacinth Halvey: It is not so settled as that.

Mrs. Broderick: Why wouldn’t it be settled and it being told at Mrs. Delane’s and through the whole world?

Peter Tannian: She should be a steady wife for him—­a fortied girl.

Shawn Early: A very good fortune in the bank they are saying she has, and she having crossed the ocean twice to America.

Hartley Fallen: It’s as good for him to have a woman will keep the door open before him and his victuals ready and a quiet tongue in her head.  Not like that little Tartar of my own.