HANRAHAN.  O, Oona ni Regaun, you have not knowledge of the life of a poor bard, without house or home or havings, but he going and ever going a drifting through the wide world, without a person with him but himself.  There is not a morning in the week when I rise up that I do not say to myself that it would be better to be in the grave than to be wandering.  There is nothing standing to me but the gift I got from God, my share of songs; when I begin upon them, my grief and my trouble go from me; I forget my persecution and my ill luck; and now since I saw you, Oona, I see there is something that is better even than the songs.

OONA.  Poetry is a wonderful gift from God; and as long as you have that, you are richer than the people of stock and store, the people of cows and cattle.

HANRAHAN.  Ah, Oona, it is a great blessing, but it is a great curse as well for a man, he to be a poet.  Look at me:  have I a friend in this world?  Is there a man alive that has a wish for me? is there the love of anyone at all on me?  I am going like a poor lonely barnacle goose throughout the world; like Oisin after the Fenians; every person hates me:  you do not hate me, Oona?

OONA.  Do not say a thing like that; it is impossible that anyone would hate you.

HANRAHAN.  Come and we will sit in the corner of the room together; and I will tell you the little song I made for you; it is for you I made it. (They go to a corner and sit down together. SHEELA comes in at the door.)

SHEELA.  I came to you as quick as I could.

MAURYA.  And a hundred welcomes to you.

SHEELA.  What have you going on now?

MAURYA.  Beginning we are; we had one jig, and now the piper is drinking a glass.  They’ll begin dancing again in a minute when the piper is ready.

SHEELA.  There are a good many people gathering in to you
to-night.  We will have a fine dance.

MAURYA.  Maybe so, Sheela; but there’s a man of them there, and
I’d sooner him out than in.

SHEELA.  It’s about the long red man you are talking, isn’t it—­the man that is in close talk with Oona in the corner?  Where is he from, and who is he himself?

MAURYA.  That’s the greatest vagabond ever came into Ireland; Tumaus Hanrahan they call him; but it’s Hanrahan the rogue he ought to have been christened by right.  Aurah, wasn’t there the misfortune on me, him to come in to us at all to-night?

SHEELA.  What sort of a person is he?  Isn’t he a man that makes songs, out of Connacht?  I heard talk of him before; and they say there is not another dancer in Ireland so good as him.  I would like to see him dance.