The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays Part 57

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 G.o.d wouldn't leave her dest.i.tute with no son living?

MAUKYA (_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 northeast?

CATHLEEN (_in a whisper_). There's someone after crying out by the seash.o.r.e.

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 curagh 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, G.o.d 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, G.o.d 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._)

MAURYA (_drops_ MICHAEL'S _clothes across_ BARTLEY'S _feet, and sprinkles the Holy Water over him_). It isn't that I haven't prayed for you, BARTLEY, to the Almighty G.o.d. It isn't that I haven't said prayers in the dark night till you wouldn't know what I'd be saying; but it's a great rest I'll have now, and it's time surely. It's a great rest I'll have now, and great sleeping in the long nights after Samhain, if it's only a bit of wet flour we do have to eat, and maybe a fish that would be stinking.

(_She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under her breath._)

CATHLEEN (_to an old man_). Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the sun rises. We have fine white boards herself bought, G.o.d 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 anyone 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?

MAURYA (_puts the empty cup mouth downwards on the table, and lays her hands together on_ BARTLEY'S _feet_). They're all together this time, and the end is come. May the Almighty G.o.d have mercy on Bartley's soul, and on Michael's soul, and on the souls of Sheamus and Patch, and Stephen and Shawn (_bending her head_); and may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and on the soul of everyone is left living in the world.

(_She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women, then sinks away._)

MAURYA (_continuing_). Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty G.o.d. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.

(_She kneels down again, and the curtain falls slowly_).

THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE[1]

William Butler Yeats

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by arrangement with Mr. Yeats and the Macmillan Company, New York, publishers of Mr. Yeats's Collected Works (1912).]

CHARACTERS

MAURTEEN BRUIN BRIDGET BRUIN, his wife SHAWN BRUIN, their son MAIRE BRUIN, wife of Shawn FATHER HART A FAERY CHILD

SCENE: _In the Barony of Kilmacowan, in the county of Sligo, at a remote time._

SETTING: _a room with a hearth on the floor in the middle of a deep alcove on the right. There are benches in the alcove, and a table; a crucifix on the wall. The alcove is full of a glow of light from the fire. There is an open door facing the audience, to the left, and to the left of this a bench. Through the door one can see the forest. It is night, but the moon or a late sunset glimmers through the trees, and carries the eye far off into a vague, mysterious world. MAURTEEN BRUIN, SHAWN BRUIN, and BRIDGET BRUIN sit in the alcove at the table, or about the fire.

They are dressed in the costume of some remote time, and near them sits an old priest, FATHER HART, in the garb of a friar.

There is food and drink upon the table. MAIRE BRUIN stands by the door, reading a yellow ma.n.u.script. If she looks up, she can see through the door into the wood._

BRIDGET BRUIN Because I bade her go and feed the calves, She took that old book down out of the thatch And has been doubled over it all day.

We should be deafened by her groans and moans Had she to work as some do, Father Hart, Get up at dawn like me, and mend and scour; Or ride abroad in the boisterous night like you, The pyx and blessed bread under your arm.