Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/180

166 like Sive. He never took his eyes off her until she came close to him. She was a coarse, large-boned woman, and she wore a frieze cloak, with the hood over her head; with her left hand she was holding the two sides of the hood closed over her mouth, so that her nose and one of her eyes were all that Dermot could see of her features.

She made straight for the door, and in through the door, and if he had not moved aside from her she would have knocked him down. Up she went to the fire, and she sat down in Dermot's own chair. She turned to the fire and spread herself and both her hands over it to receive the heat, and you would think she was in want of it.

Poll raised her head in the corner and looked at the stranger long and sullenly. Dermot stood still in the middle of the house staring at the back of her head. When she had warmed herself she put her left hand again to the hood of her cloak and closed it over her mouth. She looked out of her one eye at Poll. Then she looked at Dermot.

"There is a hen crowing in this house!" said she, and one could hardly tell whether it was a man's voice or a woman's. "There is a hen crowing in this house!" she said again.

"I have not heard her crowing," said Dermot.

"There is a hen crowing in this house!" said she.

"Sruv, srov! sruv, srov! sruv, srov!"

"Where did you come from to us, daughter?" said Dermot.

"Sruv, srov! sruv, srov! sruv, srov!" said she.

"Long has been my journey to ye, coming for your good. That is a great wrong, that I should be sent all the way from Ulster to protect ye against