20

you're doing so little to school her to meet
what is to come?
LAVARCHAM. I'm after serving you
two score of years, and I'll tell you this night,
Conchubor, she's little call to mind an old
woman when she has the birds to school her,
and the pools in the rivers where she goes
bathing in the sun. I'll tell you if you seen
her that time, with her white skin, and her red
lips, and the blue water and the ferns about
her, you'd know, maybe, and you greedy itself,
it wasn't for your like she was born at all.
CONCHUBOR. It's little I heed for what
she was born; she'll be my comrade, surely.
[He examines her workbox.
LAVARCHAM -- sinking into sadness
again. -- I'm in dread so they were right say-
ing she'd bring destruction on the world, for
it's a poor thing when you see a settled man
putting the love he has for a young child, and
the love he has for a full woman, on a girl the
like of her; and it's a poor thing, Conchubor,
to see a High King, the way you are this day,
prying after her needles and numbering her
lines of thread.
CONCHUBOR -- getting up. -- Let you