SHIANA
91
Sheila.—Why did he need to do that, Peg?
Peg.—I don't know in the world, Sheila, unless it was that he was thinking of something else while he was driving in the awl.
Sheila.—I know what he was thinking of.
Peg.—What was it, Sheila?
Sheila.—He was thinking that he would like to know what Short Mary said when she saw the wax on Shiana's fingers, and the apron he was wearing, and that he was bare-headed; and whether the match was broken off on account of those things.
Peg.—Well, Sheila, if he had all that on his mind it is no wonder that he put the awl through his thumb.
Sheila.—His mother said he was good at matchmaking, and I think he was no good at all.
Peg.—Why would you say he was no good, Sheila?
Sheila.—Oh, the blunderer! It would be far better to give him a match to break than a match to make.
Abbie.—Wait a moment, Sheila dear. Surely nobody living could have made that match. Diarmaun himself could not have made it. Wasn't Shiana's mind made up against it from the beginning? Didn't he say that it would be better for her to be burnt alive than that he should marry her?
Sheila.—I wonder, Peg, why he said that?
Peg.—What do you think yourself, Sheila?
Sheila.—I was thinking it was that he didn't like to leave her behind him a widow when the thirteen years should be up. But then that wouldn't be the same as burning her alive.
Peg.—I think there was more than that in it, Sheila.
