hold of it.

_Conan_: Leave go! (_Lifts out bellows_.)

_Rock_: Ha! Ha! Ha! after all your chat, nothing
but a little old bellows!...

_Conan_: There is seven rings on it.... They
should signify the seven blasts....

_Rock_: If there was seventy times seven what
use would it be but to redden the coals?

_Conan_: Every one of these blasts has power to
make some change.

_Rock_: Make one so, and I'll plough the world
for you.

_Conan_: Is it that I would spend one of my
seven blasts convincing the like of ye?

_Rock_: It is likely the case there is no power in
it at all.

_Conan_: I'm very sure there is surely. The world
will be a new world before to-morrow's Angelus bell.

_Flannery_: I never could believe in a bellows.

_Rock_: Here now is a fair offer. I'll loan you
this bag of notes to pay your charges to Dublin if
you will change that little pigeon in the crib into a
crow.

_Conan_: I will do no such folly.

_Rock_: You wouldn't because you'd be afeared
to try.

_Conan_: Hold it up to me. I'll show you am
I afeared!

_Rock_: There it is now. (_Holds up cage_.)

_Conan_: Have a care! (_Blows_.)

_Rock_: (_Dropping it with a shriek_.) It has me
bit with its hard beak, it is turned to be an old
black crow.

_Flannery_: As black as the bottom of the pot.

_Crow_: Caw! Caw! Caw!

(_Cats reappear and look over back of settle_.)

(_Music from behind_.) ("_O'Donnall Abu_.")

CURTAIN

ACT II

ACT II

_Conan alone holding up bellows, singing_:

_Conan:_

"And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I've been wandering away
Deceived for a moment it's now in my hands--
breathe the fresh air of life's morning again!"

_Celia_: (_Comes in having listened amused at
door; claps hands_.) Very good! It is you yourself
should be going to the dance house to-night in
place of myself. It is long since I heard you rise
so happy a tune!

_Conan_: (_Putting bellows behind him_.) What
brings you here? Is there no work for you out in
the garden--the cabbages to be cutting for the
cow....

_Celia_: I wouldn't wish to roughen my hands
before evening. Music there will be for the dancing!

(_She lilts Miss McLeod's Reel_.)

_Conan_: Let you go ready yourself for it so.

_Celia_: Is it at this time of the day? You
should be forgetting the hours of the clock the
same as the poor mother.

_Conan_: It is a strange thing since I came to
this house I nev