Act 3 — Scene II.

—A hovel by the sea at Ballyruff. The roar of breakers almost drowns the voices of the speakers. Enter Seamus Smitha and Peadar hurriedly.

Seamus: Where’s himself?

Sean: Asleep, God help him, and dreaming of Caitilin ni Houlihan, the creature, and her wedded to him in these coming days.

Peadar (roughly): It’s her he can put from his mind then, for she’s up there on the hillside with Cosgrave and Mulcahy, and James Craig, and they going on together with dancing and merriment, the way would surprise the stags for leppin’; and her that let on to be a decent woman would marry a holy man.

Bridgeen Dick (sharply): Let yourself be holding your tongue now, Peadar Roabensôn, with your great noises to waken the seven sleepers, and he not stretched in his bed a dozen hours to be resting after his great labours.

Boûgus (rushing in, followed by Naisi and Narsti): It’s destroyed we are, entirely.

Eamon (sitting up suddenly): I beg your pardon? Did you say destroyed?

Boûgus: Aye, destroyed.... She’s turned against us, and joined the hands of Cosgrave and James in friendship—as Deirdre, in the days of old, did try with Conchubor and the sons of Usna.

Eamon (in an undertone, to one of his personal retinue): My God, what are we to do now?

The Other (whispering): You must make a speech in Gaelic.

Eamon (also whispering): I can’t. I’ve left the book at the Mansion House.

The Other: Well, you must think of something appropriate in English, then.

Boûgus (keening): Oh, whirra, whirra, Ochone, Ochone. (They all burst into tears.)

Eamon (as one pronouncing a curse): If the sun could have darkened to hide her shame, and the waters of the great ocean given themselves to wash away her faithlessness, it’s a strange, black, arid world we’d be living in this day. O’Connell, Parnell, Redmond, she’s broken the heart in all of them; and now it’s mine she’s broken, too; and it’s not Cosgrave and James that she’ll spare in the days to come.—I will go out with the Men of Gunn....