tramp. Don't look at it for your life, ma'am. It might bring bad luck on any one that would look at it, and it boiling. I must put a cover on the pot, or I must colour the water some way. Give me a handful of that meal.
[sibby holds out a plate of meal and he puts in a handful or two.
john. Well, he is a gifted man!
sibby. It would be a great comfort to have a stone like that. [She has finished plucking the chicken which lies in her lap.]
tramp. And there's another thing it does, ma'am, since it came into Catholic hands. If you put it into a pot of a Friday with a bit of the whitest meat in Ireland in it, it would turn it as black as black.
sibby. That is no less than a miracle. I must tell Father John about that.
tramp. But to put a bit of meat with it any other day of the week, it would do it no harm at all, but good. Look here now, ma’am, I’ll put that nice little hen you have in your lap in the pot for a minute till you'll see. [Takes it and puts it in.]
john [sarcastically]. It's a good job this is not a Friday!
sibby. Keep yourself quiet, John, and don't be interrupting the talk or you'll get a knock on the head like the King of Lochlann's grandmother.
