_Nurse: (Starting back.)_ Do you say that?

And how's every bit of you? Sure I'd know you in any place. Stand back till I'll get the full of my eyes of you! Like the father you are, and you need never be sorry to be that! Well, I said to myself and you looking in at the window, I would not believe but there's some drop of king's blood in that lad!

_Ma.n.u.s_: That was not what you said to me!

_Nurse_: And wasn't the journey long on you from Sorcha, that is at the rising of the sun? Is it your foot-soldiers and your bullies you brought with you, or did you come with your hound and your deer-hound and with your horn?

_Ma.n.u.s_: There was no one knew of my journey.

I came bare alone. I threw a sh.e.l.l in the sea and made a boat of it, and took the track of the wild duck across the mountains of the waves.

_Nurse_: And where in the world wide did you get that dress of a cook?

_Ma.n.u.s_: It was at a tailor's place near Oughtmana.

There was no one in the house but the mother. I left my own clothes in her charge and my purse of gold; I brought nothing but my own blue sword. _(Throws open blouse and shows it.)_ She gave me this suit, where a cook from this house had thrown it down in payment for a drink of milk.

I have no mind any person should know I am a king.

I am letting on to be a cook.

_Nurse_: I would sooner you to come as a champion seeking battle, or a horseman that had gone astray, or so far as a poet making praises or curses according to his treatment on the road. It would be a bad day I would see your father's son taken for a kitchen boy.

_Ma.n.u.s_: I was through the world last night in a dream. It was dreamed to me that the King's daughter in this house is in a great danger.

_Nurse_: So she is, at the end of a twelvemonth.

_Ma.n.u.s_: My warning was for this day. Seeing her under trouble in my dream, my heart was hot to come to her help. I am here to save her, to meet every troublesome thing that will come at her.

_Nurse_: Oh, my heavy blessing on you doing that!

_Ma.n.u.s_: I was not willing to come as a king, that she would feel tied and bound to live for if I live, or to die with if I should die. I am come as a poor unknown man, that may slip away after the fight, to my own kingdom or across the borders of the world, and no thanks given him and no more about him, but a memory of the shadow of a cook!

_Nurse_: I would not think that to be right, and you the last of your race. It is best for you to tell the King.

_Ma.n.u.s_: I lay my orders on you to tell no one at all.

_Nurse_: Give me leave but to _whisper_ it to the Princess Nu. It's ye would be the finest two the world ever saw. You will not find her equal in all Ireland!

_Ma.n.u.s_: I lay it as crosses and as spells on you to say no word to her or to any other that will make known my race or my name. Give me now your oath.

_Nurse: (Kneeling.)_ I do, I do. But they will know you by your high looks.

_Ma.n.u.s_: Did you yourself know me a while ago?

_Nurse: (Getting up.)_ Oh, they're coming! Oh, my poor child, what way will you that never handled a spit be able to make out a dinner for the King?

_Ma.n.u.s_: This silver whistle, that was her pipe of music, was given to me by a queen among the Sidhe that is my G.o.dmother. At the sound of it that will come through the air any earthly thing I wish for, at my command.

_Nurse_: Let it be a dinner so.

_Ma.n.u.s_: So it will come, on a green tablecloth carried by four swans as white as snow. The freshest of every meat, the oldest of every drink, nuts from the trees in Adam's Paradise!

_(King, Queen, Princess, Dall Glic come in.

Princess sits on window sill.)_

_Queen: (To King.)_ Here now, my dear. Wasn't I telling you I would take all trouble from your mind, and that I would not be without finding a cook for you?

_King_: He came in a good hour. The want of a right dinner has downed kingdoms before this.

_Queen_: Travelling he is in search of service from the kings of the earth. His wages are in no way out of measure.

_King_: Is he a good hand at his trade?

_Queen_: Honest he is, I believe, and ready to give a hand here and there.

_King_: What way does he handle flesh, I'd wish to know? And all that comes up from the tide?

Bream, now; that is a fish is very pleasant to me--stewed or fried with b.u.t.ter till the bones of it melt in your mouth. There is nothing in sea or strand but is the better of a quality cook--only oysters, that are best left alone, being as they are all gravy and fat.

_Queen_: I didn't question him yet about cookery.

_King_: It's seldom I met a woman with right respect for food, but for show and silly dishes and trash that would leave you in the finish as dwindled as a badger on St. Bridget's day.

_Queen_: If this youth of a young man was able to give satisfaction at the King of Sorcha's Court, I am sure that he will make a dinner to please yourself.

_Ma.n.u.s_: I will do more than that. I will dress a dinner that will please _my_self.

_Princess: (Clapping hands.)_ Very well said!

_King_: Sound out now some good dishes such as you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the Queen will put them down in a line of writing, that I can be thinking about them till such time as you will have them readied.

_Queen_: There are sheeps' trotters below; you might know some tasty way to dress them.

_Ma.n.u.s_: I do surely. I'll put the trotters within a fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and the goose in a suckling pig, and the suckling pig in a fat lamb, and the lamb in a calf, and the calf in a Maderalla ...

_King_: What now is a Maderalla?

_Ma.n.u.s_: He is a beast that saves the cook trouble, swallowing all those meats one after another--in Sorcha.

_King_: That should be a very pretty dish. Let you go make a start with it the way we will not be famished before nightfall. Bring him, Dall Glic, to the larder.

_Dall Glic_: I'm in dread it's as good for him to stop where he is.

_King_: What are you saying?

_Dall Glic_: Those lads of apprentices that left nothing in it only bare hooks.

_Nurse_: It is the Queen would give no leave for more provision to come in, saying there was no one to prepare it.

_Ma.n.u.s_: If that is so, I will be forced to lay my orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and the Brown Otter of the Stream to bring in meat at my bidding.

_King_: Hurry on so.