in your foot through it again.
TRAMP (standing up). Itâs a hard thing youâre saying for an old man, master of the house, and what would the like of her do if you put her out on the roads?
DAN. Let her walk round the like of Peggy Cavanagh below, and be begging money at the cross-road, or selling songs to the men. (To NORA.) Walk out now, Nora Burke, and itâs soon youâll be getting old with that life, Iâm telling you; itâs soon your teethâll be falling and your headâll be the like of a bush where sheep do be leaping a gap.
(He pauses: she looks round at MICHEAL.)
MICHEAL (timidly). Thereâs a fine Union below in Rathdrum.
DAN. The like of her would never go there.... Itâs lonesome roads sheâll be going and hiding herself away till the end will come, and they find her stretched like a dead sheep with the frost on her, or the big spiders, maybe, and they putting their webs on her, in the butt of a ditch.
NORA (angrily). What way will yourself be that day, Daniel Burke? What way will you be that day and you lying down a long while in your grave? For itâs bad you are living, and itâs bad youâll be when youâre dead. (She looks at him a moment fiercely, then half turns away and speaks plaintively again.) Yet, if it is itself, Daniel Burke, who can help it at all, and let you be getting up into your bed, and not be taking your death with the wind blowing on you, and the rain with it, and you half in your skin.
DAN. Itâs proud and happy youâld be if I was getting my death the day I was shut of yourself. (Pointing to the door.) Let you walk out through that door, Iâm telling you, and let you not be passing this way if itâs hungry you are, or wanting a bed.
TRAMP (pointing to MICHEAL). Maybe himself would take her.
NORA. What would he do with me now?
TRAMP. Give you the half of a dry bed, and good food in your mouth.
DAN. Is it a fool you think him, stranger, or is it a fool you were born yourself? Let her walk out of that door, and let you go along with her, strangerâif itâs raining itselfâfor itâs too much talk you have surely.
TRAMP (going over to NORA). Weâll be going now, lady of the houseâthe rain is falling, but the air is kind and maybe itâll be a grand morning by the grace of God.
NORA. What good is a grand morning when Iâm destroyed surely, and I going out to get my death walking the roads?
TRAMP. Youâll not be getting your death with myself, lady of the house, and I knowing all the ways a man can put food in his mouth.... Weâll be going now, Iâm telling you, and the time youâll be feeling the cold, and the frost, and the great rain, and the sun again, and the south wind blowing in the glens, youâll not be sitting up on a wet ditch, the way youâre after sitting in the place, making yourself old with looking on each day, and it passing you by. Youâll be saying one time, âItâs a grand evening, by the grace of God,â and another time, âItâs a wild night, God help us, but itâll pass surely.â Youâll be sayingâ
DAN (goes over to them crying out impatiently). Go out of that door, Iâm telling you, and do your blathering below in the glen.
(NORA gathers a few things into her shawl.)
TRAMP (at the door). Come along with me now, lady of the house, and itâs not my blather youâll be hearing only, but youâll be hearing the herons crying out over the black lakes, and youâll be hearing the grouse and the owls with them, and the larks and the big thrushes when the days are warm, and itâs not from the like of them youâll be hearing a talk of getting old like Peggy Cavanagh, and losing the hair off you, and the light of your eyes, but itâs fine songs youâll be hearing when the sun goes up, and thereâll be no old fellow wheezing, the like of a sick sheep, close to your