MATT
Ay, a day like this often makes you feel that way.  It’s a great
day for the purchase though.  How many years ought we to offer, Ellen?

  Martin goes out.

ELLEN
Twenty years, I suppose—–­(suddenly) Matt!

MATT
What is it, Ellen?

ELLEN
I have got an offer of a school in the County Leitrim.

MATT
I wish they’d wait, Ellen.  I wish they’d wait till I had
something to offer you.

ELLEN
I’m a long time waiting here, Matt.

MATT
Sure we’re both young.

ELLEN
This is summer now.  There will be autumn in a month or two. 
The year will have gone by without bringing me anything.

MATT
He’ll be letting me have my own way soon, my father will.

ELLEN
Murtagh Cosgar never let a child of his have their own way.

MATT
When the land’s bought out, he’ll be easier to deal with.

ELLEN
When he owns the land, he’ll never let a son of his marry a
girl without land or fortune.

MATT Ellen, Ellen, I’d lose house and land for you.  Sure you know that, Ellen.  My brothers and sisters took their freedom.  They went from this house and away to the ends of the world.  Maybe I don’t differ from them so much.  But I’ve put my work into the land, and I’m beginning to know the land.  I won’t lose it, Ellen.  Neither will I lose you.

ELLEN
O Matt, what’s the land after all?  Do you ever think of America? 
The streets, the shops, the throngs?

MATT
The land is better than that when you come to know it, Ellen.

ELLEN
May be it is.

MATT
I’ve set my heart on a new house.  Ay and he’ll build one for us
when he knows my mind.

ELLEN Do you think he’d build a new house for us, Matt?  I could settle down if we were by ourselves.  Maybe it’s true that there are things stirring and we could begin a new life, even here.

MATT
We can, Ellen, we can.  Hush! father’s without.

Martin Douras and Murtagh Cosgar are heard exchanging greetings.  Then Murtagh comes in, Martin behind him.  Murtagh Cosgar is about sixty.  He is a hard, strong man, seldom-spoken, but with a flow of words and some satirical power.  He is still powerful, mentally and physically.  He is clean shaven, and wears a sleeved waistcoat, heavy boots, fell hat.  He goes towards Ellen.

MURTAGH Good morrow to you. (Turning to Matt) When I get speaking to that Sally again, she’ll remember what I say.  Giving cabbage to the pigs, and all the bad potatoes in the house.  And I had to get up in the clouds of the night to turn the cows out of the young meadow.  No thought, no care about me.  Let you take the harness outside and put a thong where there’s a strain in it.

  Murtagh goes to the fire.  Matt goes to the harness-rack.  Martin
  Douras and Ellen are at the door.