BRIDGET. We will be well able to give him learning, and not to send him trampling the country like a poor scholar that lives on charity.
[Cheers.]
MICHAEL. They're not done cheering yet.
[He goes over to the door and stands there for a moment, putting up his hand to shade his eyes.]
BRIDGET. Do you see anything?
MICHAEL. I see an old woman coming up the path.
BRIDGET. Who is it, I wonder. It must be the strange woman Patrick saw awhile ago.
MICHAEL. I don't think it's one of the neighbours anyway, but she has her cloak over her face.
BRIDGET. It might be some poor woman heard we were making ready for the wedding and came to look for her share.
PETER. I may as well put the money out of sight. There is no use leaving it out for every stranger to look at.
[He goes over to a large box in the corner, opens it, and puts the bag in and fumbles at the lock.]
MICHAEL. There she is, father! [An Old Woman passes the window slowly; she looks at MICHAEL as she passes.] I'd sooner a stranger not to come to the house the night before my wedding.
BRIDGET. Open the door, Michael; don't keep the poor woman waiting.
[The OLD WOMAN comes in. MICHAEL stands aside to make way for her.]
OLD WOMAN. God save all here!
PETER. God save you kindly!
OLD WOMAN. You have good shelter here.
PETER. You are welcome to whatever shelter we have.
BRIDGET. Sit down there by the fire and welcome.
OLD WOMAN [warming her hands]. There is a hard wind outside.
[MICHAEL watches her curiously from the door. PETER comes over to the table.]
PETER. Have you travelled far to-day?
OLD WOMAN. I have travelled far, very far; there are few have travelled so far as myself, and there's many a one that doesn't make me welcome. There was one that had strong sons I thought were friends of mine, but they were shearing their sheep, and they wouldn't listen to me.
PETER. It's a pity indeed for any person to have no place of their own.
OLD WOMAN. That's true for you indeed, and it's long I'm on the roads since I first went wandering.
BRIDGET. It is a wonder you are not worn out with so much wandering.
OLD WOMAN. Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart. When the people see me quiet, they think old age has come on me and that all the stir has gone out of me. But when the trouble is on me I must be talking to my friends.
BRIDGET. What was it put you wandering?
OLD WOMAN. Too many strangers in the house.
BRIDGET. Indeed you look as if you'd had your share of trouble.
OLD WOMAN. I have had trouble indeed.
BRIDGET. What was it put the trouble on you?
OLD WOMAN. My land that was taken from me.
PETER. Was it much land they took from you?
OLD WOMAN. My four beautiful green fields.
PETER [aside to BRIDGET]. Do you think could she be the widow Casey that was put out of her holding at Kilglass awhile ago?
BRIDGET. She is not. I saw the widow Casey one time at the market in Ballina, a stout fresh woman.
PETER [to OLD WOMAN]. Did you hear a noise of cheering, and you coming up the hill?
OLD WOMAN. I thought I heard the noise I used to hear when my friends came to visit me. [She begins singing half to herself.]
I will go cry with the woman,
For yellow-haired Donough is dead,
With a hempen rope for a neckcloth,
And a white cloth on his head,-
MICHAEL [coming from the door]. What is that you are singing, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. Singing I am about a man I knew one time, yellow-haired Donough, that was hanged in Galway. [She goes on singing, much louder.]
I am come to cry with you, woman,
My hair is unwound and unbound;
I remember him ploughing his field,
Turning up the red side of the ground,
And building his barn on the hill With the good mortared stone; O! we'd have pulled down the gallows Had it happened in Enniscrone!
MICHAEL. What was it brought him to his death?
OLD WOMAN. He died for love of me: many a man has died for love of me.
PETER [aside to BRIDGET]. Her trouble has put her wits astray.
MICHAEL. Is it long since that song was made? Is it long since he got his death?
OLD WOMAN. Not long, not long. But there were others that died for love of me a long time ago.
MICHAEL. Were they neighbours of your own, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. Come here beside me and I'll tell you about them. [MICHAEL sits down beside her at the hearth.] There was a red man of the O'Donnells from the north, and a man of the O'Sullivans from the south, and there was one Brian that lost his life at Clontarf by the sea, and there were a great many in the west, some that died hundreds of years ago, and there are some that will die to-morrow.
MICHAEL. Is it in the west that men will die to-morrow?
OLD WOMAN. Come nearer, nearer to me.
BRIDGET. Is she right, do you think? Or is she a woman from beyond the world?
PETER. She doesn't know well what she's talking about, with the want and the trouble she has gone through.
BRIDGET. The poor thing, we should treat her well.
PETER. Give her a drink of milk and a bit of the oaten cake.
BRIDGET. Maybe we should give her something along with that, to bring her on her way. A few pence, or a shilling itself, and we with so much money in the house.
PETER. Indeed I'd not begrudge it to her if we had it to spare, but if we go running through what we have, we'll soon have to break the hundred pounds, and that would be a pity.
BRIDGET. Shame on you, Peter. Give her the shilling, and your blessing with it, or our own luck will go from us.
[PETER goes to the box and takes out a shilling.]
BRIDGET [to the OLD WOMAN]. Will you have a drink of milk?
OLD WOMAN. It is not food or drink that I want.
PETER [offering the shilling]. Here is something for you.
OLD WOMAN. That is not what I want. It is not silver I want.
PETER. What is it you would be asking for?
OLD WOMAN. If anyone would give me help he must give me himself, he must give me all.
[PETER goes over to the table, staring at the shilling in his hand in a bewildered way, and stands whispering to BRIDGET.]
MICHAEL. Have you no one to care you in your age, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. I have not. With all the lovers that brought me their love, I never set out the bed for any.
MICHAEL. Are you lonely going the roads, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. I have my thoughts and I have my hopes.
MICHAEL. What hopes have you to hold to?
