Short Plays

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 forever. 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 tomorrow, 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 in 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 shirt and 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? 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 half 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