MARY.  You are.  But that is to the honour of God; and we would never have told you that, but Martin let slip the word from his mouth.

BLIND MAN.  Oh, and I eat your little feast on you, and without knowing it.

MARY.  It is not without a welcome you eat it.

MARTIN.  I am well pleased you came in; you were more in want of it than ourselves.  If we have a bare house now, we might have a full house yet; and a good dinner on the table to share with those in need of it.  I’d be better off now; but all the little money I had I laid it out on the house, and the little patch of land.  I thought I was wise at the time; but now we have the house, and we haven’t what will keep us alive in it.  I have the potatoes set in the garden; but I haven’t so much as a potato to eat.  We are left bare, and I am guilty of it.

MARY.  If there is any fault, it is on me it is; coming maybe to be a drag on Martin, where I have no fortune at all.  The little money I gained in service, I lost it all on my poor father, when he took sick.  And I went back into service; and the mistress I had was a cross woman; and when Martin saw the way she was treating me, he wouldn’t let me stop with her any more, but he made me his wife.  And now I will have great courage, when I have to go out to service again.

BLIND MAN.  Will you have to be parted again?

MARTIN.  We will, indeed; I must go as a spailpin fanac, to reap and to dig the harvest in some other place.  But Mary and myself have it settled we’ll meet again at this house on a certain day, with the blessing of God.  I’ll have the key in my pocket; and we’ll come in, with a better chance of stopping in it.  You’ll have your own cows yet, Mary; and your calves and your firkins of butter, with the help of God.

MARY.  I think I hear carts on the road. (She gets up, and goes to the door.)

MARTIN.  It’s the people coming back from the fair.  Shut the door, Mary; I wouldn’t like them to see how bare the house is; and I’ll put a smear of ashes on the window, the way they won’t see we’re here at all.

BLIND MAN (raising his head suddenly).  Do not do that; but open the door wide, and let the blessing of God come in on you.  (MARY opens the door again.  He takes up his fiddle, and begins to play on it.  A little boy puts in his head at the door; and then another head is seen, and another with that again.)

BLIND MAN.  Who is that at the door?

MARY.  Little boys that came to listen to you.

BLIND MAN.  Come in, boys. (Three or four come inside.)

BLIND MAN.  Boys, I am listening to the carts coming home from the fair.  Let you go out, and stop the people; tell them they must come in:  there is a wedding-dance here this evening.

BOY.  The people are going home.  They wouldn’t stop for us.

BLIND MAN.  Tell them to come in; and there will be as fine a dance as ever they saw.  But they must all give a present to the man and woman that are newly married.