k to the vagabond! It is well I know what sort
he is; because there was a kind of friendship between himself and the
first husband I had; and it is often I heard from poor Diarmuid--the
Lord have mercy on him!--what sort of person he was. He was a
schoolmaster down in Connacht; but he used to have every trick worse
than another; ever making songs he used to be, and drinking whiskey and
setting quarrels afoot among the neighbours with his share of talk. They
say there isn't a woman in the five provinces that he wouldn't deceive.
He is worse than Donal na Greina long ago. But the end of the story is
that the priest routed him out of the parish altogether; he got another
place then, and followed on at the same tricks until he was routed out
again, and another again with it. Now he has neither place nor house nor
anything, but he to be going the country, making songs and getting a
night's lodging from the people; nobody will refuse him, because they
are afraid of him. He's a great poet, and maybe he'd make a rann on you
that would stick to you for ever, if you were to anger him.

SHEELA. God preserve us; but what brought him in to-night?

MAURYA. He was travelling the country and he heard there was to
be a dance here, and he came in because he knew us; he was rather great
with my first husband. It is wonderful how he is making out his way of
life at all, and he with nothing but his share of songs. They say there
is no place that he'll go to, that the women don't love him, and that
the men don't hate him.

SHEELA (_catching_ MAURYA _by the shoulder_). Turn
your head, Maurya; look at him now, himself and your daughter, and their
heads together; he's whispering in her ear; he's after making a poem for
her and he's whispering it in her ear. Oh, the villain, he'll be putting
his spells on her now.

MAURYA. Ohone, go deo! isn't it a misfortune that he came? He's
talking every moment with Oona since he came in three hours ago. I did
my best to separate them from one another, but it failed me. Poor Oona
is given up to every sort of old songs and old made-up stories; and she
thinks it sweet to be listening to him. The marriage is settled between
herself and Sheamus O'Herin there, a quarter from to-day. Look at poor
Sheamus at the door, and he watching them. There is grief and hanging
of the head on him; it's easy to see that he'd like to choke the
vagabond this minute. I am greatly afraid that the head will be turned
on Oona wit