nahan leaning despondently on table
beside which he is seated. Samuel James in his favourite seat
on the top of the table. Wind, storm and rain outside.

GRANDFATHER.

Aye. Aye. But its no use talkin' now. Ye might ha' been a wee bit the
less hasty.

WILLIAM JOHN GRANAHAN.

And who was goin' to thole yon conduck. It was too bad of him and
after the to-do we had over him this very day. Its a sore heartscald,
Robbie John, ye've been to me this day.

SAMUEL JAMES.

Ach, sure its over. Its full time we were in our beds.

[Viciously.]

You'd think he was dead and buried to hear the two of ye goin' on.
Sure for all know, he may be comin' back and a great name wi' him.

GRANDFATHER.

That's you to the ground, ye cunnin' rascal. Keep him out at all
costs.

[Thunder and lightning.]

D'ye hear yon? To think o' that poor sowl wi' his wee bit o' a coat
out in the coul' and wet. If any harm come till him, Samuel James,
know this, you were the cause o' it.

SAMUEL JAMES.

It was his own choosin'.

GRANDFATHER.

His own choosin'. Who flattered him and led him on? Who kep' the
fiddle hangin' there and would let no one take it down, a continuin'
temptation till him? And you, William John Granahan, wi' your lust for
money. Aye. Lust for money. You couldn't abide him heartenin' up the
house wi' a tune or two, but ye'd brak the boy's heart sendin' him out
till work again, and him workin' as much as two of Samuel James there.
Ye thought he was wastin' time and money. D'ye think there's nothin'
in this life beyond making money above the rent. I tell you it's not
the money alone that makes life worth livin'. It's the wee things you
think nothin' o', but that make your home a joy to come back till,
after a hard day's work. And you've sent out into the coul and wet,
the one that was makin' your home somethin' more than the common. D'ye
think them proud city folk will listen to his poor ould ballads wi'
the heart o' the boy singin' through them. Its only us--its only us,
I say, as knows the long wild nights, and the wet and the rain and the
mist o' nights on the boglands,--its only us I say, could listen him
in the right way,

[Sobbing.]

and ye knowed, right well ye knowed, that every string o' his fiddle
was kayed to the cryin