KATE (_uneasily_). Is he? (_She starts hurriedly to clear up the table._)
BROWN (_watching her slyly to see what effect his words have_). And he's been grumbling all morning about the way things is going on in this house. Bread and things wasted and destroyed altogether.
KATE. Well, it's all Miss Mary's fault. I told her about this bread yesterday forenoon, and she never took any heed to me.
BROWN. Miss Mary? (_With a deprecatory shake of his head._) What does a slip of a girl like that know about housekeeping and her not home a half-year yet from the boarding-school in the big town, and with no mother nor nobody to train her. (_He stares in a puzzled way at the dresser._) I don't see that spanner at all. Did you see it, Kate?
KATE. No. I've more to do than look for spanners.
BROWN (_gazing reproachfully at her and then shaking his head_). It's a nice house, right enough. (_Lowering his voice._) And I suppose old Mr. Dan is never up yet. I was told by Johnny McAndless, he was terribly full last night at McArn's publichouse and talking--ach--the greatest blethers about this new invention of his.
BROWN. Aye. No wonder he's taking a lie this morning. (_He peeps into the door of the workshop._) He's not in his wee workshop?
KATE. No. Miss Mary is just after taking up his breakfast to him.
BROWN. Some people get living easy in this world. (_He gives a last look at the dresser._) Well divil a spanner can I see. I'll tell the master that. (_He goes out again through the yard door, and as he does so,_ MARY MURRAY _comes through the door from the inner rooms, carrying a tray with teacups, &c., on it. She is a pretty, vivacious girl about eighteen years of age._)
KATE. It's the servant man looking for a spanner for your father, Miss Mary. There's something gone wrong with the threshing machine.
MARY (_taking the tray to the table and starting to get ready to wash up the cups_). I do believe sometimes that Uncle Dan's a lazy man.
KATE (_assisting her at the washing and stopping as if astonished at the statement_). And is it only now you're after finding that out! Sure the whole countryside knowed it this years and years.
MARY (_sharply_). The whole countryside has no business to talk about what doesn't concern it.