LAVARCHAM. — _despairingly._ — I’m late so with my warnings, for Fergus’d talk the moon over to take a new path in the sky. (_With reproach._) You’ll not stop him this day, and isn’t it a strange story you were a plague and torment, since you were that height, to those did hang their lifetimes on your voice. (_Overcome with trouble; gathering her cloak about her._) Don’t think bad of my crying. I’m not the like of many and I’d see a score of naked corpses and not heed them at all, but I’m destroyed seeing yourself in your hour of joy when the end is coming surely.
[_Owen comes in quickly, rather ragged, bows to Deirdre._
OWEN. — _to Lavarcham._ — Fergus’s men are calling you. You were seen on the path, and he and Naisi want you for their talk below.
LAVARCHAM. — _looking at him with dislike._ — Yourself’s an ill-lucky thing to meet a morning is the like of this. Yet if you are a spy itself I’ll go and give my word that’s wanting surely.
OWEN. — _to Deirdre._ — So I’ve found you alone, and I after waiting three weeks getting ague and asthma in the chill of the bogs, till I saw Naisi caught with Fergus.
DEIRDRE. I’ve heard news of Fergus; what brought you from Ulster?
OWEN. — _who has been searching, finds a loaf and sits down eating greedily, and cutting it with a large knife._ — The full moon, I’m thinking, and it squeezing the crack in my skull. Was there ever a man crossed nine waves after a fool’s wife and he not away in his head?
DEIRDRE. — _absently._ — It should be a long time since you left Emain, where there’s civility in speech with queens.
OWEN. It’s a long while, surely. It’s three weeks I am losing my manners beside the Saxon bull-frogs at the head of the bog. Three weeks is a long space, and yet you’re seven years spancelled with Naisi and the pair.
DEIRDRE. — _beginning to fold up her silks and jewels._ — Three weeks of your days might be long, surely, yet seven years are a short space for the like of Naisi and myself.
OWEN. — _derisively._ — If they’re a short space there aren’t many the like of you. Wasn’t there a queen in Tara had to walk out every morning till she’d meet a stranger and see the flame of courtship leaping up within his eye? Tell me now, (_leaning towards her_) are you well pleased that length with the same man snorting next you at the dawn of day?