Nurse:  Cloaks and suits and fringes.  You have a great deal of talk of them....  Have you e’er a needle around you, or a shears?

Taig:  (His hand goes to breast of coat, but he withdraws it quickly.) Here ...no ...What are you talking about?  I know nothing at all of such things.

Nurse:  In my opinion you do.  Hearken now.  I know where is the real King of Sorcha!

Taig:  Bring him before me now till I’ll down him!

Nurse:  Say that the time you will come face to face with him!  Well, I’m under bonds to tell out nothing about him, but I have liberty to make known all I will find out about yourself.

Taig:  Hurry on so.  Little I care when once I’m wed with the King’s daughter!

Nurse:  That will never be!

Taig:  The Queen is befriending me and in dread of losing me.  I will threaten her if there is any delay I’ll go look for another girl of a wife.

Nurse:  I will make no delay.  I’ll have my story and my testimony before the white dawn of the morrow.

Taig:  Do so and welcome!  Before the yellow light of this evening I’ll be the King’s son-in-law!  Bring your news, then, and little thanks you’ll get for it!  The King and Queen must keep up my name then for their own credit’s sake. (Makes a face at her as King comes in with Dall Glic, and servants with cushions.  Nurse goes out, shaking her fist.) (Rises.) I was just asking to see you, King, to say there is a hurry on me....

King:  (Sitting down on window seat while Servant arranges cushions about him.) Keep your business a while.  It’s a poor thing to be going through business the very minute the dinner is ended.

Taig:  I wouldn’t but that it is pressing.

King:  Go now to the Queen, in her parlour, and be chatting and whistling to the birds.  I give you my word since I rose up from the table I am going here and there, up and down, craving and striving to find a place where I’ll get leave to lay my head on the cushions for one little minute.

(Taig goes reluctantly.)

Dall Glic:  (Taking cushions from servants.) Let you go now and leave the King to his rest.

(They go out.)

King:  I don’t know in the world why anyone would consent to be a king, and never to be left to himself, but to be worried and wearied and interfered with from dark to daybreak and from morning to the fall of night.

Dall Glic:  I will be going out now.  I have but one word only to say....

King:  Let it be a short word!  I would be better pleased to hear the sound of breezes in the sycamores, and the humming of bees in the hive and the crooning and sleepy sounds of the sea!

Dall Glic:  There is one thing only could cause me to annoy you.

King:  It should be a queer big thing that wouldn’t wait till I have my rest taken.