john. Go on, go on, I'll say no more.
tramp. If I’m passing this way some time of a Friday, I'll bring a nice bit of mutton, or the breast of a turkey, and you'll see how it will be no better in two minutes than a fistful of bog mould.
sibby [getting up]. Let me take the chicken out now.
tramp. Stop till I’ll help you, ma’am, you might scald your hand. I'll show it to you in a minute as white as your own skin, where the lily and the rose are fighting for mastery. Did you ever hear what the boys in your own parish were singing after you being married from them—such of them that had any voice at all and not choked with crying, or senseless with the drop of drink they took to comfort them and to keep their wits from going, with the loss of you.
[sibby sits down again complacently.
sibby. Did they do that indeed?
tramp. They did, ma’am, this is what they used to be singing:
Philomel, I’ve listened oft
To thy lay, near weeping willow—
No, that’s not it—it’s a queer thing the memory is—
"T'was at the dance at Dermody’s, that first I caught a sight of her.
No, that’s not it either—ah, now I have it.
