One-Act Plays Part 59

CATHLEEN. If you go now quickly.

MAURYA [_standing up unsteadily_]. It's hard set I am to walk.

CATHLEEN [_looking at her anxiously_]. Give her the stick, Nora, or maybe she'll slip on the big stones.

NORA. What stick?

CATHLEEN. The stick Michael brought from Connemara.

MAURYA [_taking a stick NORA gives her_]. In the big world the old people do be leaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things behind for them that do be old. [_She goes out slowly. NORA goes over to the ladder._]

CATHLEEN. Wait, Nora, maybe she'd turn back quickly. She's that sorry, G.o.d help her, you wouldn't know the thing she'd do.

NORA. Is she gone round by the bush?

CATHLEEN [_looking out_]. She's gone now. Throw it down quickly, for the Lord knows when she'll be out of it again.

NORA [_getting the bundle from the loft_]. The young priest said he'd be pa.s.sing to-morrow, and we might go down and speak to him below if it's Michael's they are surely.

CATHLEEN [_taking the bundle_]. Did he say what way they were found?

NORA [_coming down_]. "There were two men," says he, "and they rowing round with poteen before the c.o.c.ks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they pa.s.sing the black cliffs of the north."

CATHLEEN [_trying to open the bundle_]. Give me a knife, Nora, the string's perished with the salt water, and there's a black knot on it you wouldn't loosen in a week.

NORA [_giving her a knife_]. I've heard tell it was a long way to Donegal.

CATHLEEN [_cutting the string_]. It is surely. There was a man in here a while ago--the man sold us that knife--and he said if you set off walking from the rocks beyond, it would be seven days you'd be in Donegal.

NORA. And what time would a man take, and he floating? [_CATHLEEN opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They look at them eagerly._]

CATHLEEN [_in a low voice_]. The Lord spare us, Nora! isn't it a queer hard thing to say if it's his they are surely?

NORA. I'll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel on the other. [_She looks through some clothes hanging in the corner._] It's not with them, Cathleen, and where will it be?

CATHLEEN. I'm thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt was heavy with the salt in it. [_Pointing to the corner._]

There's a bit of a sleeve was of the same stuff. Give me that and it will do. [_NORA brings it to her and they compare the flannel._]

CATHLEEN. It's the same stuff, Nora; but if it is itself aren't there great rolls of it in the shops of Galway, and isn't it many another man may have a shirt of it as well as Michael himself?

NORA [_who has taken up the stocking and counted the st.i.tches, crying out_]. It's Michael, Cathleen, it's Michael; G.o.d spare his soul, and what will herself say when she hears this story, and Bartley on the sea?

CATHLEEN [_taking the stocking_]. It's a plain stocking.

NORA. It's the second one of the third pair I knitted, and I put up three score st.i.tches, and I dropped four of them.

CATHLEEN [_counts the st.i.tches_]. It's that number is in it. [_Crying out._] Ah, Nora, isn't it a bitter thing to think of him floating that way to the far north, and no one to keen him but the black hags that do be flying on the sea?

NORA [_swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on the clothes_]. And isn't it a pitiful thing when there is nothing left of a man who was a great rower and fisher, but a bit of an old shirt and a plain stocking?

CATHLEEN [_after an instant_]. Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little sound on the path.

NORA [_looking out_]. She is, Cathleen. She's coming up to the door.

CATHLEEN. Put these things away before she'll come in. Maybe it's easier she'll be after giving her blessing to Bartley, and we won't let on we've heard anything the time he's on the sea.

NORA [_helping CATHLEEN to close the bundle_]. We'll put them here in the corner. [_They put them into a hole in the chimney corner.

CATHLEEN goes back to the spinning-wheel._]

NORA. Will she see it was crying I was?

CATHLEEN. Keep your back to the door the way the light'll not be on you. [_NORA sits down at the chimney corner, with her back to the door. MAURYA comes in very slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes over to her stool at the other side of the fire. The cloth with the bread is still in her hand. The girls look at each other, and NORA points to the bundle of bread._]

CATHLEEN [_after spinning for a moment_]. You didn't give him his bit of bread? [_MAURYA begins to keen softly, without turning round._]

CATHLEEN. Did you see him riding down? [_MAURYA goes on keening._]

CATHLEEN [_a little impatiently_]. G.o.d forgive you; isn't it a better thing to raise your voice and tell what you seen, than to be making lamentation for a thing that's done? Did you see Bartley, I'm saying to you.

MAURYA [_with a weak voice_]. My heart's broken from this day.

CATHLEEN [_as before_]. Did you see Bartley?

MAURYA. I seen the fearfulest thing.

CATHLEEN [_leaves her wheel and looks out_]. G.o.d forgive you; he's riding the mare now over the green head, and the gray pony behind him.

MAURYA [_starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows her white tossed hair. With a frightened voice_]. The gray pony behind him.

CATHLEEN [_coming to the fire_]. What is it ails you, at all?

MAURYA [_speaking very slowly_]. I've seen the fearfulest thing any person has seen, since the day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child in his arms.

CATHLEEN AND NORA. Uah. [_They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire._]

NORA. Tell us what it is you seen.

MAURYA. I went down to the spring well, and I stood there saying a prayer to myself. Then Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the gray pony behind him. [_She puts up her hands, as if to hide something from her eyes._] The Son of G.o.d spare us, Nora!

CATHLEEN. What is it you seen?

MAURYA. I seen Michael himself.

CATHLEEN [_speaking softly_]. You did not, mother; it wasn't Michael you seen, for his body is after being found in the far north, and he's got a clean burial by the grace of G.o.d.

MAURYA [_a little defiantly_]. I'm after seeing him this day, and he riding and galloping. Bartley came first on the red mare; and I tried to say "G.o.d speed you," but something choked the words in my throat.

He went by quickly; and "The blessing of G.o.d on you," says he, and I could say nothing. I looked up then, and I crying, at the gray pony, and there was Michael upon it--with fine clothes on him, and new shoes on his feet.