dark
and good-looking, and has something reckless in his look. He wears
corduroy trousers, and a shirt loose at the neck. Anne comes to Brian.
Conn stands at entrance, his back turned_.

BRIAN
_(lighting his pipe with a coal)_ When do you expect Maire back?

ANNE
She'll be here soon. Shell give you a call if you're outside,

BRIAN
How is it you couldn't keep James Moynihan?

ANNE
It's because you didn't say the good word for me, I must think.
Be sure you praise me the next time you're working together.

BRIAN
Will you do as much for me?

ANNE
Indeed, I will, Brian. Myself and another are making a devotion
to Saint Anthony.

BRIAN
And what would that be for?

ANNE
That the Saint might send us good comrades.

BRIAN
I thought it was Saint Joseph did that for the girls.

ANNE
Sure we couldn't be asking the like from him. We couldn't talk
to Saint Joseph that way. We want a nice young saint to be looking at.

_Conn turns from the door_.

CONN
_(bitterly)_ It'll be a poor season, Brian MacConnell.

BRIAN
The season's not so bad, after all.

CONN
God help them that are depending on the land and the weather
for the bit they put into their heads. It's no wonder that the
people here are the sort they are, harassed, anxious people.

ANNE
The people here mind their own business, and they're a friendly
people besides.

CONN
People that would leave the best fiddler at the fair to go and
look at a bullock.

ANNE
_(to Brian)_ He's not satisfied to have this shelter, Brian.

CONN
_(to Brian)_ I'm saying, Brian, that her mother had this shelter,
and she left it to go the roads with myself.

ANNE
That God may rest my mother. It's a pity she never lived to
come back to the place. But we ought to be praising grandmother
night and day, for leaving this place to Maire.

CONN
Your grandmother did that as she did everything else.

ANNE
_(to Brian)_ Now, Brian, what would you do with a man that
would say the like?

_Anne goes outside._

CONN
_(to Brian)_ It's small blame to the girl here for thinking
something of the place; but I saw the time, Brian MacConnell, when I
could make more playing at one fair than working a whole season in
this bit of a place.

BRIAN
Girls like the shelter, Conn.

CONN
Ay, but the road for the fiddler. I'm five years settled here,
and I come to be as well known as the begging ass, and there is as
much thought about me. Fiddling, let me tell you, isn't l