by J. M. Synge
NORA. He’ll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety and Colum Shawn saying he would go.
MAURYA. Where is he itself?
NORA. He went down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week, and I’m thinking it won’t be long till he’s here now, for the tide’s turning at the green head, and the hooker’s tacking from the east.
CATHLEEN. I hear some one passing the big stones.
NORA (looking out). He’s coming now, and he in a hurry.
BARTLEY (comes in and looks round the room. Speaking sadly and quietly). Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara?
CATHLEEN (coming down). Give it to him, Nora; it’s on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.
NORA. (giving him a rope). Is that it, Bartley?
MAURYA. You’d do right to leave that rope, Bartley, hanging by the boards. (BARTLEY takes the rope) It will be wanting in this place, I’m telling you, if Michael is washed up to-morrow morning, or the next morning, or any morning in the week, for it’s a deep grave we’ll make him by the grace of God.
BARTLEY (beginning to work with the rope). I’ve no halter the way I can ride down on the mare, and I must go now quickly. This is the one boat going for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will be a good fair for horses I heard them saying below.
MAURYA. It’s a hard thing they’ll be saying below if the body is washed up and there’s no man in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price for the finest white boards you’d find in Connemara. (She looks round at the boards.)
BARTLEY. How would it be washed up and we after looking each day for nine days, and a strong wind blowing a while back from the west and south?
MAURYA. If it wasn’t found itself, that wind is raising the sea, and there was a star up against the moon, and it rising in the night. If it was a hundred horses, or a thousand horses you had itself, what is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?
BARTLEY (working at the halter, to CATHLEEN). Let you go down each day, and see the sheep aren’t jumping in on the rye, and if the jobber comes you can sell the pig with the black feet if there is a good price going.
MAURYA. How would the like of her get a good price for a pig?
BARTLEY (to CATHLEEN). If the west wind holds with the last bit of the moon let you and Nora get up weed enough for another cock for the kelp. It’s hard set we’ll be from this day with no one in it but one man to work.
MAURYA. It’s hard set we’ll be surely the day you’re drown’d with the rest. What way will I live and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking for the grave?
(BARTLEY lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a newer one of the same flannel.)
BARTLEY (to NORA). Is she coming to the pier?
NORA (looking out). She’s passing the green head and letting fall her sails.
BARTLEY (getting his purse and tobacco). I’ll have half an hour to go down, and you’ll see me coming again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in four days if the wind is bad.
MAURYA (turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her head). Isn’t it a hard and cruel man won’t hear a word from an old woman, and she holding him from the sea?
CATHLEEN. It’s the life of a young man to be going on the sea, and who would listen to an old woman with one thing and she saying it over?
BARTLEY (taking the halter). I must go now quickly. I’ll ride down on the red mare, and the gray pony’ll run behind me.... The blessing of God on you. (He goes out.)
MAURYA (crying out as he is in the door). He’s gone now, God spare us, and we’ll not see him again. He’s gone now, and when the black night is falling I’ll have no son left me in the world.
CATHLEEN. Why wouldn’t you give him your blessing and he looking round in the door? Isn’t it sorrow enough is on every one in this house without your sending him out with an unlucky word behind him, and a hard word in his ear?
(MAURYA takes up the tongs and begins raking the fire aimlessly without looking round.)
NORA (turning towards her). You’re taking away the turf from the cake.
CATHLEEN (crying out). The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we’re after forgetting his bit of bread. (She comes over to the fire.)
NORA. And it’s destroyed he’ll be going till dark night, and he after eating nothing since the sun went up.
CATHLEEN (turning the cake out of the oven). It’s destroyed he’ll be, surely. There’s no sense left on any person in a house where an old woman will be talking for ever.
(MAURYA sways herself on her stool.)
CATHLEEN (cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth; to MAURYA). Let you go down now to the spring well and give him this and he passing. You’ll see him then and the dark word will be broken, and you can say “God speed you,” the way he’ll be easy in his mind.
MAURYA (taking the bread). Will I be in it as soon as himself?
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, God 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 passing 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 cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they passing 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 stitches, crying out). It’s Michael, Cathleen, it’s Michael; God spare his soul, and what will herself say when she hears this story, and Bartley on the sea?
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br /> 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 stitches, and I dropped four of them.
CATHLEEN (counts the stitches). 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 comer.
(They put them into a hole in the chimney corner. CATHLEEN gets 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). God 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). God 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 God 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 God.
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 “God speed you,” but something choked the words in my throat. He went by quickly; and “the blessing of God 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.
CATHLEEN (begins to keen). It’s destroyed we are from this day. It’s destroyed, surely.
NORA. Didn’t the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn’t leave her destitute with no son living?
MAURYA (in a low voice, but clearly). It’s little the like of him knows of the sea.... Bartley will be lost now, and let you call in Eamon and make me a good coffin out of the white boards, for I won’t live after them. I’ve had a husband, and a husband’s father, and six sons in this house—six fine men, though it was a hard birth I had with every one of them and they coming to the world—and some of them were found and some of them were not found, but they’re gone now the lot of them.... There were Stephen, and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and in by that door. (She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something through the door that is half open behind them.)
NORA (in a whisper). Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in the north-east?
CATHLEEN (in a whisper). There’s some one after crying out by the seashore.
MAURYA (continues without hearing anything). There was Sheamus and his father, and his own father again, were lost in a dark night, and not a stick or sign was seen of them when the sun went up. There was Patch after was drowned out of a curragh that turned over. I was sitting here with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women, and three women, and four women coming in, and they crossing themselves, and not saying a word. I looked out then, and there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it—it was a dry day, Nora—and leaving a track to the door.
(She pauses again with her hand stretched out towards the door. It opens softly and old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the threshold, and kneeling down in front of the stage with red petticoats over their heads.)
MAURYA (half in a dream, to CATHLEEN). Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is it at all?
CATHLEEN. Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is found there how could he be here in this place?
MAURYA. There does be a power of young men floating round in the sea, and what way would they know if it was Michael they had, or another man like him, for when a man is nine days in the sea, and the wind blowing, it’s hard set his own mother would be to say what man was it.
CATHLEEN. It’s Michael, God spare him, for they’re after sending us a bit of his clothes from the far north. (She reaches out and hands MAURYA the clothes that belonged to Michael. MAURYA stands up slowly and takes them in her hands. NORA looks out.)
NORA. They’re carrying a thing among them and there’s water dripping out of it and leaving a track by the big stones.
CATHLEEN (in a whisper to the women who have come in). Is it Bartley it is?
ONE OF THE WOMEN. It is surely, God rest his soul.
(Two younger women come in and pull out the table. Then men carry in the body of BARTLEY, laid on a plank, with a bit of a sail over it, and lay it on the table.)
CATHLEEN (to the women, as they are doing so). What way was he drowned?
ONE OF THE WOMEN. The gray pony knocked him into the sea, and he was washed out where there is a great surf on the white rocks.
(MAURYA has gone over and knelt down at the head of the table. The women are keening softly and swaying themselves with a slow movement. CATHLEEN and NORA kneel at the other end of the table. The men kneel near the door.)
MAURYA (raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people around her). They’re all gone now, and there isn’t anything more the sea can do to me.... I’ll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the other. I’ll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won’t care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening. (To NORA) Give me the Holy Water, Nora, there’s a small sup still on the dresser.
(NORA gives it to her.)
CATHLEEN (to an old man). Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the run rises. We have fine white boards herself bought, God help her, thinking Michael would be found, and I have a new cake you can eat while you’ll be working.
THE OLD MAN (looking at the boards). Are there nails with them?
CATHLEEN. There are not, Colum; we didn’t think of the nails.
ANOTHER MAN. It’s a great wonder she wouldn’t think of the nails, and all the coffins she’s seen made already.
CATHLEEN. It’s getting old she is, and broken.
(MAURYA stands up again very slowly and spreads out the pieces of Michael’s clothes beside the body, sprinkling them with the last of the Holy Water.)
NORA (in a whisper to CATHLEEN). She’s quiet now and easy; but the day Michael was drowned you could hear her crying out from this to the spring well. It’s fonder she was of Michael, and would any one have thought that?
CATHLEEN (slowly and clearly). An old woman will be soon tired with anything she will do, and isn’t it nine days herself is after crying and keening, and making great sorrow in the house?