Taig:  It is so, where I was after being told she would be given as a wife to the first man that would come into the house.

Queen:  And who in the world wide gave that out?

Taig:  It was the Gateman said it to a hawker bringing lobsters from the strand, and that got no leave to cross the threshold by reason of the oath given out by the King.  The half of the kingdom she will get, they were telling me, and the king living, and the whole of it after he will be dead.

Nurse:  There did another come in before you.  Let me tell you that much!

Taig:  There did not.  The lobster man that set a watch upon the door.

Queen:  A great honour you did us coming asking for her, and you being King of Sorcha!

Taig:  Look at my ring and my crown.  They will bear witness that I am.  And my kind coat of cotton and my golden shirt!  And under that again there’s a stiff pocket. (Slaps it.) Is there e’er a looking-glass in any place? (Gets up.)

Dall Glic:  There is the shining silver basin of the swans in the garden without.

Taig:  That will do.  I would wish to look tasty when I come looking for a lady of a wife. (He and Dall Glic go outside window but in sight.)

(Princess comes in very proud and sad.)

Queen:  You should be proud this day, Nuala, and so grand a man coming asking you in marriage as the King of Sorcha.

Nurse:  Grand, indeed!  As grand as hands and pins can make him.

Princess:  Are you not satisfied to have urged me to one man and promised me to another since sunrise?

Queen:  What way could I know there was this match on the way, and a better match beyond measure?  This is no black stranger going the road, but a man having a copper crown over his gateway and a silver crown over his palace door!  I tell you he has means to hang a pearl of gold upon every rib of your hair!  There is no one ahead of him in all Ireland, with his chain and his ring and his suit of the dearest silk!

Princess:  If it was a suit I was to wed with he might do well enough.

Queen:  Equal in blood to ourselves!  Brought up to good behaviour and courage and mannerly ways.

Princess:  In my opinion he is not.

Queen:  You are talking foolishness.  A King of Sorcha must be mannerly, seeing it is he himself sets the tune for manners.

Princess:  He gave out a laugh when old Michelin slipped on the threshold.  He kicked at the dog under the table that came looking for bones.

Queen:  I tell you what might be ugly behaviour in a common man is suitable and right in a king.  But you are so hard to please and so pettish, I am seven times tired of yourself and your ways.

Princess:  If no one could force me to give in to the man that made a claim to me to-day, according to my father’s bond, that bond is there yet to protect me from any other one.