mounting higher rocks to fetch yourself and
Naisi back to Emain.
DEIRDRE -- with keenness. -- They've
answered? They would go?
FERGUS -- benignly. -- They have not,
but when I was a young man we'd have given
a lifetime to be in Ireland a score of weeks;
and to this day the old men have nothing so
heavy as knowing it's in a short while they'll
lose the high skies are over Ireland, and the
lonesome mornings with birds crying on the
bogs. Let you come this day, for there's no
place but Ireland where the Gael can have
peace always.


54

NAISI -- gruffly. -- It's true, surely. Yet
we're better this place while Conchubor's in
Emain Macha.
FERGUS -- giving him parchments. --
There are your sureties and Conchubor's seal.
(To Deirdre.) I am your surety with Con-
chubor. You'll not be young always, and it's
time you were making yourselves ready for
the years will come, building up a homely dun
beside the seas of Ireland, and getting in your
children from the princes' wives. It's little
joy wandering till age is on you and your