New Comedies Part 26

_McDonough:_ That is a lie, a black lie.

_First Hag:_ Throwing a lie in a decent woman's face will not bring you to the truth.

_McDonough:_ Is it what you are laying down that she went away with some other man? Say that out if you have courage, and I'll wring your yellow windpipe.

_First Hag:_ Leave your hand off me and open the room door, and you will see am I telling you any lie.

_McDonough: (Goes to door, then stops.)_ She is not in it. She would have come out before me, and she hearing the sound of the pipes.

_First Hag:_ It is not the sound of the pipes will rouse her, or any sound made in this world at all.

_McDonough: (Trembling.)_ What is it?

_First Hag:_ She is gone and she is not living.

_McDonough:_ Is it to die she did? _(Clutches her.)_

_First Hag:_ Yesterday, and the bells ringing, she turned her face to the south and died away. It was at the hour of noon I knew and was aware she was gone. A great loss it to be at the time of the fair, and all the lodgers that would have come into the house.

_McDonough:_ It is not truth. What would ail her to die?

_First Hag:_ The makings of a child that came before its time, G.o.d save the mark! She made a bad battle at the last.

_McDonough:_ What way did it fail you to send me out messengers seeking me when you knew her to be done and dying?

_First Hag:_ I thought she would drag another while. There was no time for the priest itself to overtake her, or to put the little dress of the Virgin in her hand at the last gasp of death.

_McDonough goes into the room. He comes out as if affrighted, leans his head against the wall, and breaks into a prayer in Irish:_

_"An Athair tha in Naomh, dean trocaire orainn! A Dia Righ an Domhain, dean trocaire orainn! A Mhuire Mathair Dia, dean trocaire orainn!"_

_Second Hag:_ _(Venturing near.)_ Do not go fret after her, McDonough. She could not go through the world forever, and travelling the world. It might be that trouble went with her.

_McDonough:_ Get out of that, you hags, you witches you! You croaking birds of ill luck! It is much if I will leave you in the living world, and you not to have held back death from her!

_Second Hag:_ That you may never be cross till you will meet with your own death! What way could any person do that?

_McDonough:_ Get out the door and it will be best for you!

_Second Hag:_ You are talking fool's talk and giving out words that are foolishness! There is no one at all can put away from his road the bones and the thinness of death.

_McDonough:_ I to have been in it he would not have come under the lintel! Ugly as he is and strong, I would be able for him and would wrestle with him and drag him asunder and put him down! Before I would let him lay his sharp touch on her I would break and would crush his naked ribs, and would burn them to lime and scatter them!

_First Hag:_ Where is the use raving? It is best for you to turn your hand to the thing has to be done.

_McDonough:_ You to have stood in his path he might have brought you away in her place! That much would be no great thing to ask, and your life being dead and in ashes.

_First Hag:_ Quieten yourself now where it was the will of G.o.d.

She herself made no outcry and no ravings. I did my best for her, laying her out and putting a middling white sheet around her. I went so far as to smoothen her hair on the two sides of her face.

_McDonough: (Turning to inner door.)_ Is it that you are gone from me, Catherine, you that were the blossom of the branch!

_(Old woman moans.)_

It is a bad case you to have gone and to have left me as lonesome after you as that no one ever saw the like!

_(The old woman moans after each sentence.)_

I to bring you travelling you were the best traveller, and the best stepper, and the best that ever faced the western blast, and the waves of it blowing from you the shawl! I to be sore in the heart with walking you would make a smile of a laugh. I would not feel the road having your company; I would walk every whole step of Ireland.

I to bring you to the dance-house you would dance till you had them all tired, the same in the late of the day as in the commencement!

Your steps following quick on one another the same as hard rain on a flagstone! They could not find your equal in all Ireland or in the whole ring of Connemara!

What way did it fail me to see the withering of the branches on every bush, as it is certain they withered the time laughter died with your laugh? The cold of winter has settled on the hearth. My heart is closed up with trouble!

_First Hag:_ It is best for us shut the door and to keep out the noises of the fair.

_McDonough:_ Ah, what sort at all are the people of the fair, to be doing their bargaining and clutching after their luckpenny, and she being stark and quiet!

_First Hag:_ She has to be buried ere evening. There was a messenger of a clerk came laying that down.

_McDonough:_ May ill luck attend him! Is it that he thinks she that is gone has no person belonging to her to wake her through the night-time?

_First Hag:_ He sent his men to coffin her. She will be brought away in the heel of the day.

_McDonough:_ It is a great wake I will give her. It would not be for honour she to go without that much. Cakes and candles and drink and tobacco! The table of this house is too narrow. It is from the neighbours we should borrow tables.

_First Hag:_ That cannot be. It is what the man said, "This is a common lodging-house. It is right to banish the dead from the living."

He has the law with him, and custom. There is no use you thinking to go outside of that.

_McDonough:_ My lasting grief it will be I not to get leave to show her that respect!

_First Hag:_ "There will a car be sent," he said, "and two boys from the Union for to bear her out from the house."

_McDonough:_ Men from the Union, are you saying? I would not give leave to one of them to put a hand anigh or anear her! It is not their car will bring her to the grave. That would be the most pity in the world!

_First Hag:_ You have no other way to bring her on her road. It is best for you give in to their say.

_McDonough:_ Where are the friends and the neighbours that they would not put a hand tinder her?

_First Hag:_ They are after making their refusal. She was not well liked in Galway. There is no one will come to her help.

_McDonough:_ Is that truth, or is it lies you have made up for my tormenting?

_First Hag:_ It is no lie at all. It is as sure as the winter's frost. You have no one to draw to but yourself.

_McDonough:_ It is mad jealous the women of Galway were and wild with anger, and she coming among them, that was seventeen times better than their best! My bitter grief I ever to have come next or near them, or to have made music for the lugs or for the feet of wide crooked hags! That they may dance to their death to the devil's pipes and be the disgrace of the world! It is a great slur on Ireland and a great scandal they to have made that refusing! That the Corrib River may leave its merings and rise up out of its banks till the waves will rise like mountains over the town and smother it, with all that is left of its tribes!

_First Hag:_ Be whist now, or they will be angered and they hearing you outside in the fair.