_Queen_: I was sure he was nothing but a liar when he said he would tell the truth! Now, King, will you turn him out the door?

_King_: And what about the great dinner he has me promised?

_Ma.n.u.s_: Be easy King. Whether or no you keep your word to me I'll hold to mine! _(Blows whistle.)_ In with the dishes! Take your places!

Let the music play out!

_(Music plays, the strange men wheel in tables and dishes.)_

CURTAIN

ACT III

ACT III

_Scene: Same. Table cleared of all but vessels of fruit, cocoa-nuts, etc. Queen and Taig sitting in front, Nurse and Dall Glic standing in background_.

_Queen_: Now, King, the dinner being at an end, and the music, we have time and quiet to be talking.

_Taig_: It is with the King's daughter I am come to talk.

_Queen_: Go, Dall Glic, call the Princess. She will be here on the minute, but it is best for you to tell me out if it is to ask her in marriage you are come.

_Taig_: It is so, where I was after being told she would be given as a wife to the first man that would come into the house.

_Queen_: And who in the world wide gave that out?

_Taig_: It was the Gateman said it to a hawker bringing lobsters from the strand, and that got no leave to cross the threshold by reason of the oath given out by the King. The half of the kingdom she will get, they were telling me, and the king living, and the whole of it after he will be dead.

_Nurse_: There did another come in before you.

Let me tell you that much!

_Taig_: There did not. The lobster man that set a watch upon the door.

_Queen_: A great honour you did us coming asking for her, and you being King of Sorcha!

_Taig_: Look at my ring and my crown. They will bear witness that I am. And my kind coat of cotton and my golden shirt! And under that again there's a stiff pocket. _(Slaps it.)_ Is there e'er a looking-gla.s.s in any place? _(Gets up.)_

_Dall Glic_: There is the shining silver basin of the swans in the garden without.

_Taig_: That will do. I would wish to look tasty when I come looking for a lady of a wife.

_(He and Dall Glic go outside window but in sight.)_

_(Princess comes in very proud and sad.)_

_Queen_: You should be proud this day, Nuala, and so grand a man coming asking you in marriage as the King of Sorcha.

_Nurse_: Grand, indeed! As grand as hands and pins can make him.

_Princess_: Are you not satisfied to have urged me to one man and promised me to another since sunrise?

_Queen_: What way could I know there was this match on the way, and a better match beyond measure? This is no black stranger going the road, but a man having a copper crown over his gateway and a silver crown over his palace door!

I tell you he has means to hang a pearl of gold upon every rib of your hair! There is no one ahead of him in all Ireland, with his chain and his ring and his suit of the dearest silk!

_Princess_: If it was a suit I was to wed with he might do well enough.

_Queen_: Equal in blood to ourselves! Brought up to good behaviour and courage and mannerly ways.

_Princess_: In my opinion he is not.

_Queen_: You are talking foolishness. A King of Sorcha must be mannerly, seeing it is he himself sets the tune for manners.

_Princess_: He gave out a laugh when old Michelin slipped on the threshold. He kicked at the dog under the table that came looking for bones.

_Queen_: I tell you what might be ugly behaviour in a common man is suitable and right in a king.

But you are so hard to please and so pettish, I am seven times tired of yourself and your ways.

_Princess_: If no one could force me to give in to the man that made a claim to me to-day, according to my father's bond, that bond is there yet to protect me from any other one.

_Queen_: Leave me alone! Myself and the Dall Glic will take means to rid you of that lad from the oven. I'll send in now to you the King of Sorcha. Let you show civility to him, and the wedding day will be to-morrow.

_Princess_: I will not see him, I will have nothing to do with him; I tell you if he had the rents of the whole world I would not go with him by day or by night, on foot or on horseback, in light or in darkness, in company or alone!

_(Queen has gone while she cries this out.)_

_Nurse_: The luck of the seven Sat.u.r.days on himself and on the Queen!

_Princess_: Oh, Muime, do not let him come near me! Have you no way to help me?

_Nurse_: It's myself that could help you if I was not under bonds not to speak!

_Princess_: What is it you know? Why won't you say one word?

_Nurse_: He put me under spells.... There now, my tongue turned with the word to be dumb.

_Taig: (At the window.)_ Not a fear of me, Queen. It won't be long till I bring the Princess around.

_Princess_: I will not stay! Keep him here till I will hide myself out of sight! _(Goes.)_

_Taig: (Coming in.)_ They told me the Princess was in it.

_Nurse_: She has good sense, she is in some other place.