Costello fumbled at the bag in which he carried his money, and it was some time before it would open, for the hand that had overcome many men shook with fear and hope.  ‘Here is all the money in my bag,’ he said, dropping a stream of French and Spanish money into the hand of the piper, who bit the coins before he would answer.

’That is right, that is a fair price, but I will not speak till I have good protection, for if the Dermotts lay their hands upon me in any boreen after sundown, or in Cool-a-vin by day, I will be left to rot among the nettles of a ditch, or hung on the great sycamore, where they hung the horse-thieves last Beltaine four years.’  And while he spoke he tied the reins of his garron to a bar of rusty iron that was mortared into the wall.

‘I will make you my piper and my bodyservant,’ said Costello, ’and no man dare lay hands upon the man, or the goat, or the horse, or the dog that is Tumaus Costello’s.’

‘And I will only tell my message,’ said the other, flinging the saddle on the ground, ’in the corner of the chimney with a noggin in my hand, and a jug of the Brew of the Little Pot beside me, for though I am ragged and empty, my forbears were well clothed and full until their house was burnt and their cattle harried seven centuries ago by the Dillons, whom I shall yet see on the hob of hell, and they screeching’; and while he spoke the little eyes gleamed and the thin hands clenched.

Costello led him into the great rush-strewn hall, where were none of the comforts which had begun to grow common among the gentry, but a feudal gauntness and bareness, and pointed to the bench in the great chimney; and when he had sat down, filled up a horn noggin and set it on the bench beside him, and set a great black jack of leather beside the noggin, and lit a torch that slanted out from a ring in the wall, his hands trembling the while; and then turned towards him and said:  ‘Will Dermott’s daughter come to me, Duallach, son of Daly?’

’Dermott’s daughter will not come to you, for her father has set women to watch her, but she bid me tell you that this day sennight will be the eve of St. John and the night of her betrothal to Namara of the Lake, and she would have you there that, when they bid her drink to him she loves best, as the way is, she may drink to you, Tumaus Costello, and let all know where her heart is, and how little of gladness is in her marriage; and I myself bid you go with good men about you, for I saw the horse-thieves with my own eyes, and they dancing the “Blue Pigeon” in the air.’  And then he held the now empty noggin towards Costello, his hand closing round it like the claw of a bird, and cried:  ’Fill my noggin again, for I would the day had come when all the water in the world is to shrink into a periwinkle-shell, that I might drink nothing but Poteen.’

Finding that Costello made no reply, but sat in a dream, he burst out:  ’Fill my noggin, I tell you, for no Costello is so great in the world that he should not wait upon a Daly, even though the Daly travel the road with his pipes and the Costello have a bare hill, an empty house, a horse, a herd of goats, and a handful of cows.’  ‘Praise the Dalys if you will,’ said Costello as he filled the noggin, ‘for you have brought me a kind word from my love.’