Riders to the Sea, J. M. Synge [lightweight ebook reader .txt] 📗
- Author: J. M. Synge
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NORA
[Looking out.]
She’s passing the green head and letting fall her sails.
BARTLEY
[Getting his purse and tobacco.]
I’ll have half an hour to go down, and you’ll see me coming
again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in four days if
the wind is bad.
MAURYA
[Turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her
head.]
Isn’t it a hard and cruel man won’t hear a word from an old
woman, and she holding him from the sea?
CATHLEEN
It’s the life of a young man to be going on the sea, and who
would listen to an old woman with one thing and she saying it
over?
BARTLEY
[Taking the halter.]
I must go now quickly. I’ll ride down on the red mare, and the
gray pony’ll run behind me… The blessing of God on you.
[He goes out.]
MAURYA
[Crying out as he is in the door.]
He’s gone now, God spare us, and we’ll not see him again. He’s
gone now, and when the black night is falling I’ll have no son
left me in the world.
CATHLEEN
Why wouldn’t you give him your blessing and he looking round in
the door? Isn’t it sorrow enough is on every one in this house
without your sending him out with an unlucky word behind him,
and a hard word in his ear?
[Maurya 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 for ever.
[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 to-morrow, 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 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 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 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 still in her hand. The
girls look at each other, and Nora points to the bundle of
bread.]
CATHLEEN
[After spinning for a moment.]
You didn’t give him his bit of bread?
[Maurya begins to keen softly, without turning round.]
CATHLEEN
Did you see him riding down?
[Maurya goes on keening.]
CATHLEEN
[A little impatiently.]
God forgive you; isn’t it a better thing to raise your voice
and tell what you seen, than to be making lamentation for a
thing that’s done? Did you see Bartley, I’m saying to you?
MAURYA
[With a weak voice.]
My heart’s broken from this day.
CATHLEEN
[As before.]
Did you see Bartley?
MAURYA
I seen the fearfulest thing.
CATHLEEN
[Leaves her wheel and looks out.]
God forgive you; he’s riding the mare now over the green head,
and the gray pony behind him.
MAURYA
[Starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows
her white tossed hair. With a frightened voice.]
The gray pony behind him.
CATHLEEN
[Coming to the fire.]
What is it ails you, at all?
MAURYA
[Speaking very slowly.]
I’ve seen the fearfulest thing any person has seen, since the
day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child in his arms.
CATHLEEN AND NORA
Uah.
[They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire.]
NORA
Tell us what it is you seen.
MAURYA
I went down to the spring well, and I stood there saying a
prayer to myself. Then Bartley came along, and he riding on
the red mare with the gray pony behind him [she puts up her
hands, as if to hide something from her eyes.] The Son of God
spare us, Nora!
CATHLEEN
What is it you seen.
MAURYA
I seen Michael himself.
CATHLEEN
[Speaking softly.]
You did not, mother; it wasn’t Michael you seen, for his body
is after being found in the far north, and he’s got a clean
burial by the grace of God.
MAURYA
[A little defiantly.]
I’m after seeing him this day, and he riding and galloping.
Bartley came first on the red mare; and I tried to say “God
speed you,” but something choked the words in my throat. He
went by quickly; and “the blessing of God on you,” says he, and
I could say nothing. I looked up then, and I crying, at the
gray pony, and there was Michael upon it — with fine clothes
on him, and new shoes on his feet.
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 God wouldn’t leave her
destitute with no son living?
MAURYA
[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
north-east?
CATHLEEN
[In a whisper.]
There’s some one after crying out by the seashore.
MAURYA
[Continues without
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