think of America?
The streets, the shops, the throngs?

MATT
The land is better than that when you come to know it, Ellen.

ELLEN
May be it is.

MATT
I've set my heart on a new house. Ay and he'll build one for us
when he knows my mind.

ELLEN
Do you think he'd build a new house for us, Matt? I could
settle down if we were by ourselves. Maybe it's true that there are
things stirring and we could begin a new life, even here.

MATT
We can, Ellen, we can. Hush! father's without.

_Martin Douras and Murtagh Cosgar are heard exchanging greetings.
Then Murtagh comes in, Martin behind him. Murtagh Cosgar is about
sixty. He is a hard, strong man, seldom-spoken, but with a flow of
words and some satirical power. He is still powerful, mentally and
physically. He is clean shaven, and wears a sleeved waistcoat, heavy
boots, fell hat. He goes towards Ellen._

MURTAGH
Good morrow to you. _(Turning to Matt)_ When I get speaking
to that Sally again, she'll remember what I say. Giving cabbage to
the pigs, and all the bad potatoes in the house. And I had to get up
in the clouds of the night to turn the cows out of the young meadow.
No thought, no care about me. Let you take the harness outside and
put a thong where there's a strain in it.

_Murtagh goes to the fire. Matt goes to the harness-rack. Martin
Douras and Ellen are at the door._

MARTIN DOURAS
Ellen, I'll have news for you when I see you again.
I've made up my mind to that.

ELLEN
Are you going to the fair, father?

MARTIN DOURAS
Ay, with Murtagh.

ELLEN
God be with you, father. _(She goes out)_

MARTIN DOURAS
What purchase are you thinking of offering, Murtagh?

MURTAGH COSGAR
Twenty years.

MARTIN DOURAS
It's fair enough. Oh, it's a great day for the country,
no matter what our own troubles may be.

_Matt has taken down the harness. He takes some of it up and goes
out to yard._

MURTAGH COSGAR
_(with some contempt)_ It's a pity you haven't a share
in the day after all.

MARTIN DOURAS
Ay, it's a pity indeed.

_Murtagh goes to the door._

MURTAGH COSGAR
_(with suppressed enthusiasm)_ From this day out
we're planted in the soil.

MARTIN DOURAS
Ay, we're planted in the soil.

MURTAGH COSGAR
God, it's a great day.

_Cornelius comes back._

CORNELIUS
This is a memorial occasion, Murtagh Cosgar, and I wish
you the felicitations of it. I met the delegates and I coming in,
and I put myself at the head of them.