Riders to the Sea
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 God. It isn’t that I haven’t said prayers in the dark
night till you wouldn’t know what I’ld 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, God 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 any one 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 God 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 every one 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 God. 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._]