Page:Plays in Prose and Verse (1922).djvu/137

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ON BAILE'S STRAND
121

won’t give them any of the fowl. Let them go back to the sea, let them go back to the sea.

blind man [feeling legs of big chair with his hands]. Ah! [Then, in a louder voice as he feels the back of it.] Ah—ah—

fool. Why do you say ‘Ah-ah’?

blind man. I know the big chair. It is to-day the High King Conchubar is coming, They have brought out his chair. He is going to be Cuchulain’s master in earnest from this day out. It is that he’s coming for.

fool. He must be a great man to be Cuchulain’s master.

blind man. So he is. He is a great man. He is over all the rest of the kings of Ireland.

fool. Cuchulain’s master! I thought Cuchulain could do anything he liked.

blind man. So he did, so he did. But he ran too wild, and Conchubar is coming to-day to put an oath upon him that will stop his rambling and make him as biddable as a house-dog and keep him always at his hand. He will sit in this chair and put the oath upon him.

fool. How will he do that?

blind man. You have no wits to understand such things. [The blind man has got into the chair.] He will sit up in this chair and he’ll say: ‘Take the oath, Cuchulain. I bid you take the oath. Do as I tell you. What are your wits compared with mine, and