Short Plays

and ten notes, a good sum, surely!⁠ ⁠… It’s not that way you’ll be talking when you marry a young man, Nora Burke, and they were saying in the fair my lambs were the best lambs, and I got a grand price, for I’m no fool now at making a bargain when my lambs are good. Nora What was it you got? Micheal Twenty pound for the lot, Nora Burke.⁠ ⁠… We’d do right to wait now till himself will be quiet awhile in the Seven Churches, and then you’ll marry me in the chapel of Rathvanna, and I’ll bring the sheep up on the bit of a hill you have on the back mountain, and we won’t have anything we’d be afeard to let our minds on when the mist is down. Nora Pouring him out some whisky. Why would I marry you, Mike Dara? You’ll be getting old and I’ll be getting old, and in a little while I’m telling you, you’ll be sitting up in your bed⁠—the way himself was sitting⁠—with a shake in your face, and your teeth falling, and the white hair sticking out round you like an old bush where sheep do be leaping a gap. Dan Burke sits up noiselessly from under the sheet, with his hand to his face. His white hair is sticking out round his head. Nora goes on slowly without hearing him. It’s a pitiful thing to be getting old, but it’s a queer thing surely. It’s a queer thing to see an old man sitting up there in his bed with no teeth in him, and a rough word in his mouth, and his chin the way it would take the bark from the edge of an oak board you’d have building a door.⁠ ⁠… God forgive me, Micheal Dara, we’ll all be getting old, but it’s a queer thing surely. Micheal It’s too lonesome you are from living a long time with an old man, Nora, and you’re talking again like a herd that would be coming down from the thick mist he puts his arm round her, but it’s a fine life you’ll have now with a young man⁠—a fine life, surely.⁠ ⁠… Dan sneezes violently. Micheal tries to get to the door, but before he can do so, Dan jumps out of the bed in queer white clothes, with his stick in his hand, and goes over and puts his back against it. Micheal Son of God deliver us! Crosses himself, and goes backward across the room. Dan Holding up his hand at him. Now you’ll not marry her the time I’m rotting below in the Seven Churches, and you’ll see the thing I’ll give you will follow you on the back mountains when the wind is high. Micheal To Nora. Get me out of it, Nora, for the love of God. He always did what you bid him, and I’m thinking he would do it now. Nora Looking at the Tramp. Is it dead he is or living? Dan Turning towards her. It’s little you care if it’s dead or living I am, but there’ll be an end now of your fine times, and all the talk you have of young men and old men, and of the mist coming up or going down. He opens the door. You’ll walk out now from that door, Nora Burke, and it’s not tomorrow, or the next day, or any day of your life, that you’ll put in your foot through it again. Tramp Standing up. It’s a hard thing you’re saying for an old man, master of the house, and what would the like of her do if you put her out on the roads? Dan Let her walk round the like of Peggy Cavanagh below, and be begging money at the crossroads, or selling songs to the men. To Nora. Walk out now, Nora Burke, and it’s soon you’ll be getting old with that life, I’m telling you; it’s soon your teeth’ll be falling and your head’ll be the like of a bush where sheep do be leaping a gap. He pauses: Nora looks round at Micheal. Micheal Timidly. There’s a fine Union below in Rathdrum. Dan The like of her would never go there.⁠ ⁠… It’s lonesome roads she’ll be going and hiding herself away till the end will come, and they find her stretched like a dead sheep with the frost on her, or the big spiders maybe, and they putting their webs on her, in the butt of a ditch. Nora Angrily. What way will yourself be that day, Daniel Burke? What way will you be that day and you lying down a long while in your grave? For it’s bad you are living, and it’s bad you’ll be when you’re dead. She looks at him a moment fiercely, then half turns away and speaks plaintively again. Yet, if it is itself, Daniel Burke, who can help it at all, and let you be getting up into your bed, and not be taking your death with the wind blowing on you, and the rain with it, and you half in your skin. Dan It’s proud and happy you’d be if I was getting my death the day I was shut of yourself. Pointing to the door. Let you walk out through that door, I’m telling you, and let you not be passing this way if it’s hungry you are, or wanting a bed. Tramp Pointing to Micheal. Maybe himself would take her. Nora What would he do with me now? Tramp Give you the half of a dry bed, and good food in your mouth. Dan Is it a fool you think him, stranger, or is it a fool you were born yourself? Let her walk out of that door, and let you go along with her, stranger⁠—if it’s raining itself⁠—for it’s too much talk you have surely. Tramp Going over to Nora. We’ll be going now, lady of the house;