Whisht,whisht.Be quiet I'm telling you,they're coming now at the door.
{Nora comes in with Micheal Dara,a tall,innocent young man behind her.}
NORA
I wasn't long at all,stranger,for I met himself on the path.
TRAMP
You were middling long,lady of the house.
NORA
There was no sign from himself?
TRAMP
No sign at all,lady of the house.
NORA
{To Micheal.}
Go over now and pull down the sheet,and look on himself,Micheal Dara,and you'll see it's the truth I'm telling you.
MICHEAL
I will not,Nora,I do be afeard of the dead.
{He sits down on a stool next the table facing the tramp.Nora puts the kettle on a lower hook of the pot hooks,and piles turf under it.}
NORA
{Turning to Tramp.}
Will you drink a sup of tea with myself and the young man,stranger,or {speaking more persuasively}will you go into the little room and stretch yourself a short while on the bed,I'm thinking it's destroyed you are walking the length of that way in the great rain.
TRAMP
Is it to go away and leave you,and you having a wake,lady of the house?I will not surely.{He takes a drink from his glass which he has beside him.}And it's none of your tea I'm asking either.
{He goes on stitching.Nora makes the tea.}
MICHEAL
{After looking at the tramp rather scornfully for a moment.}
That's a poor coat you have,God help you,and I'm thinking it's a poor tailor you are with it.
TRAMP
If it's a poor tailor I am,I'm thinking it's a poor herd does be running back and forward after a little handful of ewes the way Iseen yourself running this day,young fellow,and you coming from the fair.
{Nora comes back to the table.}
NORA
{To Micheal in a low voice.}
Let you not mind him at all,Micheal Dara,he has a drop taken and it's soon he'll be falling asleep.
MICHEAL
It's no lie he's telling,I was destroyed surely.They were that wilful they were running off into one man's bit of oats,and another man's bit of hay,and tumbling into the red bogs till it's more like a pack of old goats than sheep they were.
Mountain ewes is a queer breed,Nora Burke,and I'm not used to them at all.
NORA
{Settling the tea things.}
There's no one can drive a mountain ewe but the men do be reared in the Glen Malure,I've heard them say,and above by Rathvanna,and the Glen Imaal,men the like of Patch Darcy,God spare his soul,who would walk through five hundred sheep and miss one of them,and he not reckoning them at all.
MICHEAL
{Uneasily.}
Is it the man went queer in his head the year that's gone?
NORA
It is surely.
TRAMP
{Plaintively.}
That was a great man,young fellow,a great man I'm telling you.
There was never a lamb from his own ewes he wouldn't know before it was marked,and he'ld run from this to the city of Dublin and never catch for his breath.
NORA
{Turning round quickly.}
He was a great man surely,stranger,and isn't it a grand thing when you hear a living man saying a good word of a dead man,and he mad dying?
TRAMP
It's the truth I'm saying,God spare his soul.
{He puts the needle under the collar of his coat,and settles himself to sleep in the chimney-corner.Nora sits down at the table;their backs are turned to the bed.}
MICHEAL
{Looking at her with a queer look.}
I heard tell this day,Nora Burke,that it was on the path below Patch Darcy would be passing up and passing down,and I heard them say he'ld never past it night or morning without speaking with yourself.
NORA
{In a low voice.}
It was no lie you heard,Micheal Dara.
MICHEAL
I'm thinking it's a power of men you're after knowing if it's in a lonesome place you live itself.
NORA
{Giving him his tea.}
It's in a lonesome place you do have to be talking with some one,and looking for some one,in the evening of the day,and if it's a power of men I'm after knowing they were fine men,for I was a hard child to please,and a hard girl to please {she looks at him a little sternly},and it's a hard woman I am to please this day,Micheal Dara,and it's no lie I'm telling you.
MICHEAL
{Looking over to see that the tramp is asleep,and then pointing to the dead man.}
Was it a hard woman to please you were when you took himself for your man?
NORA
What way would I live and I an old woman if I didn't marry a man with a bit of a farm,and cows on it,and sheep on the back hills?
MICHEAL
{Considering.}
That's true,Nora,and maybe it's no fool you were,for there's good grazing on it,if it is a lonesome place,and I'm thinking it's a good sum he's left behind.
28
NORA
{Taking the stocking with money from her pocket,and putting it on the table.}
I do be thinking in the long nights it was a big fool I was that time,Micheal Dara,for what good is a bit of a farm with cows on it,and sheep on the back hills,when you do be sitting looking out from a door the like of that door,and seeing nothing but the mists rolling down the bog,and the mists again,and they rolling up the bog,and hearing nothing but the wind crying out in the bits of broken trees were left from the great storm,and the streams roaring with the rain.
MICHEAL
{Looking at her uneasily.}
What is it ails you,this night,Nora Burke?I've heard tell it's the like of that talk you do hear from men,and they after being a great while on the back hills.
NORA
{Putting out the money on the table.}
It's a bad night,and a wild night,Micheal Dara,and isn't it a great while I am at the foot of the back hills,sitting up here boiling food for himself,and food for the brood sow,and baking a cake when the night falls?{She puts up the money,listlessly,in little piles on the table.}Isn't it a long while I am sitting here in the winter and the summer,and the fine spring,with the young growing behind me and the old passing,saying to myself one time,to look on Mary Brien who wasn't that height {holding out her hand},and I a fine girl growing up,and there she is now with two children,and another coming on her in three months or four.{She pauses.}
MICHEAL
{Moving over three of the piles.}
That's three pounds we have now,Nora Burke.
NORA
{Continuing in the same voice.}
