Riders to 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 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, God 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 into 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, God 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.