A VOICE [_without_]. You may not see the Countess. ANOTHER VOICE. I must see her. [_Sound of a short struggle. A SERVANT enters from door to R._ SERVANT. The gardener is resolved to speak with you. I cannot stay him. CATHLEEN. You may come, Maurteen. [_The GARDENER, an old man, comes in from the R., and the SERVANT goes out._ GARDENER. Forgive my working clothes and the dirt on me. I bring ill words, your ladyship,—too bad To send with any other. CATHLEEN. These bad times, Can any news be bad or any good? GARDENER. A crowd of ugly lean-faced rogues last night— And may God curse them!—climbed the garden wall. There is scarce an apple now on twenty trees, And my asparagus and strawberry beds Are trampled into clauber, and the boughs Of peach and plum-trees broken and torn down For some last fruit that hung there. My dog, too, My old blind Simon, him who had no tail, They murdered—God’s red anger seize them! CATHLEEN. I know how pears and all the tribe of apples Are daily in your love—how this ill chance Is sudden doomsday fallen on your year; So do not say no matter. I but say I blame the famished season, and not you. Then be not troubled. GARDENER. I thank your ladyship. CATHLEEN. What rumours and what portents of the famine? GARDENER. The yellow vapour, in whose folds it came, That creeps along the hedges at nightfall, Rots all the heart out of my cabbages. I pray against it. [_He goes towards the door, then pauses._ If her ladyship Would give me an old crossbow, I would watch Behind a bush and guard the pears of nights And make a hole in somebody I know of. CATHLEEN. They will give you a long draught of ale below. [_The GARDENER goes out._ OONA. What did he say?—he stood on my deaf side. CATHLEEN. His apples are all stolen. Pruning time, And the slow ripening of his pears and apples, For him is a long, heart-moving history. OONA. Now lay your head once more upon my knees. I will sing how Fergus drove his brazen cars. [_She chaunts with the thin voice of age._ _Who will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep woods’ woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, And lift your tender eyelids, maid, And brood on hopes and fears no more._ You have dropped down again into your trouble. You do not hear me. CATHLEEN. Ah, sing on, old Oona, I hear the horn of Fergus in my heart. OONA. I do not know the meaning of the song. I am too old. CATHLEEN. The horn is calling, calling. OONA.