Riders to the Sea - J. M. Synge (suggested reading .TXT) 📗

to the pier?

 

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