in a hurry._)
Father, there's a letter for you. (_She hands it to him._) A
registered one too.

JOHN. Aye. So Brown was telling me. Maybe its from thon McAlenan
fellow that owes me two pound for the heifer. (_He tears it open._
MARY _and_ KATE _watch him with interest. His face changes as he
reads, and an expression of dismay comes over it._)

MARY (_coming closer to him_). What's the matter, father?

JOHN (_fidgeting uneasily_). Nothing, child. Nothing. (_He looks at
the letter again._) Well I'm--(_He stops short on remembering_ MARY
_is there._) She's a caution.

MARY. Father. Tell me. Is it from the McMinns?

JOHN. Aye. (_Pacing up and down._) I knowed she'd do it. I knowed
she'd do it.

MARY. What?

JOHN. Sarah's taking an action against me.

MARY. An action?

JOHN. Aye. (_Consulting the letter._) For a thousand pounds.

MARY (_awestruck_). A thousand pounds!

JOHN. Aye. Now the fat's in the fire. She says I promised to marry her
and broke it off. At least, it's Andy that writes the letter, but it's
her that put him up to it. I know that too well. (_Reading._) "To Mr.
John Murray. Dear Sir,--You have acted to my sister in a most
ungentlemanly way, and done her much wrong, and I have put the case
intil the hands of Mr. McAllen, the solicitor, who will bring it
forward at the coming Assizes. If you wish, however, to avoid a
scandal, we are oped to settle the matter by private arrangement for
one thousand pounds. Yours truly, Andrew McMinn."

MARY. That's awful, father, isn't it?

JOHN (_going over to fireplace and standing there irresolutely_). Aye.
It's a terrible mess, right enough.

MARY (_brightening up_). Sure she wouldn't get a thousand off you,
father?

KATE. There's John McArdle up by Slaney Cross got a hundred pounds
took off him by wee Miss Black, the school teacher.

JOHN (_uncomfortably_). Aye. Heth now, I just call that to mind. And
he never got courting her at all, I believe.

KATE. It just served him right. He was always a great man for having
five or six girls running after him.

JOHN. And she hadn't much of a case against him.

KATE. The school children were standing by when he asked her in a
joking sort of way would she marry him, and the court took their
evidence.

JOHN (_hopelessly_). Aye. Men are always terrible hard on other men
where women are concerned.

KATE. And a good job it is, or half the girls would be at the church
waiting, and the groom lying at home ruein