[MICHAEL watches her curiously from the door. PETER comes over to the table.]
PETER. Have you travelled far to-day?
OLD WOMAN. I have travelled far, very far; there are few have travelled so far as myself, and there's many a one that doesn't make me welcome. There was one that had strong sons I thought were friends of mine, but they were shearing their sheep, and they wouldn't listen to me.
PETER. It's a pity indeed for any person to have no place of their own.
OLD WOMAN. That's true for you indeed, and it's long I'm on the roads since I first went wandering.
BRIDGET. It is a wonder you are not worn out with so much wandering.
OLD WOMAN. Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart. When the people see me quiet, they think old age has come on me and that all the stir has gone out of me. But when the trouble is on me I must be talking to my friends.
BRIDGET. What was it put you wandering?
OLD WOMAN. Too many strangers in the house.
BRIDGET. Indeed you look as if you'd had your share of trouble.
OLD WOMAN. I have had trouble indeed.
BRIDGET. What was it put the trouble on you?
OLD WOMAN. My land that was taken from me.
PETER. Was it much land they took from you?
OLD WOMAN. My four beautiful green fields.
PETER [aside to BRIDGET]. Do you think could she be the widow Casey that was put out of her holding at Kilglass awhile ago?
BRIDGET. She is not. I saw the widow Casey one time at the market in Ballina, a stout fresh woman.
PETER [to OLD WOMAN]. Did you hear a noise of cheering, and you coming up the hill?
OLD WOMAN. I thought I heard the noise I used to hear when my friends came to visit me. [She begins singing half to herself.]
I will go cry with the woman,
For yellow-haired Donough is dead,
With a hempen rope for a neckcloth,
And a white cloth on his head,-
MICHAEL [coming from the door]. What is that you are singing, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. Singing I am about a man I knew one time, yellow-haired Donough, that was hanged in Galway. [She goes on singing, much louder.]
I am come to cry with you, woman,
My hair is unwound and unbound;
I remember him ploughing his field,
Turning up the red side of the ground,
And building his barn on the hill With the good mortared stone; O! we'd have pulled down the gallows Had it happened in Enniscrone!
MICHAEL. What was it brought him to his death?
OLD WOMAN. He died for love of me: many a man has died for love of me.
PETER [aside to BRIDGET]. Her trouble has put her wits astray.
MICHAEL. Is it long since that song was made? Is it long since he got his death?
OLD WOMAN. Not long, not long. But there were others that died for love of me a long time ago.
MICHAEL. Were they neighbours of your own, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. Come here beside me and I'll tell you about them. [MICHAEL sits down beside her at the hearth.] There was a red man of the O'Donnells from the north, and a man of the O'Sullivans from the south, and there was one Brian that lost his life at Clontarf by the sea, and there were a great many in the west, some that died hundreds of years ago, and there are some that will die to-morrow.
MICHAEL. Is it in the west that men will die to-morrow?
OLD WOMAN. Come nearer, nearer to me.
BRIDGET. Is she right, do you think? Or is she a woman from beyond the world?
PETER. She doesn't know well what she's talking about, with the want and the trouble she has gone through.
BRIDGET. The poor thing, we should treat her well.
PETER. Give her a drink of milk and a bit of the oaten cake.
BRIDGET. Maybe we should give her something along with that, to bring her on her way. A few pence, or a shilling itself, and we with so much money in the house.
PETER. Indeed I'd not begrudge it to her if we had it to spare, but if we go running through what we have, we'll soon have to break the hundred pounds, and that would be a pity.
BRIDGET. Shame on you, Peter. Give her the shilling, and your blessing with it, or our own luck will go from us.
[PETER goes to the box and takes out a shilling.]
BRIDGET [to the OLD WOMAN]. Will you have a drink of milk?
OLD WOMAN. It is not food or drink that I want.
PETER [offering the shilling]. Here is something for you.
OLD WOMAN. That is not what I want. It is not silver I want.
PETER. What is it you would be asking for?
OLD WOMAN. If anyone would give me help he must give me himself, he must give me all.
[PETER goes over to the table, staring at the shilling in his hand in a bewildered way, and stands whispering to BRIDGET.]
MICHAEL. Have you no one to care you in your age, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. I have not. With all the lovers that brought me their love, I never set out the bed for any.
MICHAEL. Are you lonely going the roads, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. I have my thoughts and I have my hopes.
MICHAEL. What hopes have you to hold to?
OLD WOMAN. The hope of getting my beautiful fields back again; the hope of putting the strangers out of my house.
MICHAEL. What way will you do that, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. I have good friends that will help me. They are gathering to help me now. I am not afraid. If they are put down to-day, they will get the upper hand to-morrow. [She gets up.] I must be going to meet my friends. They are coming to help me, and I must be there to welcome them. I must call the neighbours together to welcome them.
MICHAEL. I will go with you.
BRIDGET. It is not her friends you have to go and welcome, Michael; it is the girl coming into the house you have to welcome. You have plenty to do, it is food and drink you have to bring to the house. The woman that is coming home is not coming with empty hands; you would not have an empty house before her. [To the OLD WOMAN.] Maybe you don't know, ma'am, that my son is going to be married to-morrow.
OLD WOMAN. It is not a man going to his marriage that I look to for help.
PETER [to BRIDGET]. Who is she, do you think, at all?
BRIDGET. You did not tell us your name yet, ma'am.
OLD WOMAN. Some call me the Poor Old Woman, and there are some that call me Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
PETER. I think I knew someone of that name once. Who was it, I wonder? It must have been someone I knew when I was a boy. No, no, I remember, I heard it in a song.
OLD WOMAN [who is standing in the doorway]. They are wondering that there were songs made for me; there have been many songs made for me. I heard one on the wind this morning. [She sings.]
Do not make a great keening When the graves have been dug to-morrow. Do not call the white-scarfed riders To the burying that shall be to-morrow.
Do not spread food to call strangers To the wakes that shall be to-morrow; Do not give money for prayers For the dead that shall die to-morrow …
they will have no need of prayers, they will have no need of prayers.
MICHAEL. I do not know what that song means, but tell me something I can do for you.
PETER. Come over to me, Michael.
MICHAEL. Hush, father, listen to her.
OLD WOMAN. It is a hard service they take that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries; many a good plan will be broken; many that have gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born, and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They that had red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake; and for all that, they will think they are well paid.
[She goes out; her voice is heard outside singing.]
They shall be remembered for ever, They shall be alive for ever, They shall be speaking for ever, The people shall hear them for ever.
BRIDGET [to PETER]. Look at him, Peter; he has the look of a man that has got the touch. [Raising her voice.] Look here, Michael, at the wedding-clothes. Such grand clothes as these are. You have a right to fit them on now; it would be a pity to-morrow if they did not fit. The boys would be laughing at you. Take them, Michael, and go into the room and fit them on. [She puts them on his arm.]
MICHAEL. What wedding are you talking of? What clothes will I be wearing to-morrow?
BRIDGET. These are the clothes you are going to wear when you marry Delia Cahel to-morrow.
MICHAEL. I had forgotten that.
[He looks at the clothes and turns towards the inner room, but stops at the sound of cheering outside.]
PETER. There is the shouting come to our own door. What is it has happened?
[PATRICK and DELIA come in.]
PATRICK. There are ships in the Bay; the French are landing at Killala!
[PETER takes his pipe from his mouth and his hat off, and stands up. The clothes slip from MICHAEL's arm.]
DELIA. Michael! [He takes no notice.] Michael! [He turns towards her.] Why do you look at me like a stranger?
[She drops his arm. BRIDGET goes over towards her.]
PATRICK. The boys are all hurrying down the hillsides to join the French.
DELIA. Michael won't be going to join the French.
BRIDGET [to PETER]. Tell him not to go, Peter.
PETER. It's no use. He doesn't hear a word we're saying.
BRIDGET. Try and coax him over to the fire.
DELIA. Michael! Michael! You won't leave me! You won't join the French, and we going to be married!
[She puts her arms about him; he turns towards her as if about to yield. OLD WOMAN's voice outside.]
They shall be speaking for ever, The people shall hear them for ever.
[MICHAEL breaks away from DELIA and goes out.]
PETER [to PATRICK, laying a hand on his arm]. Did you see an old woman going down the path?
PATRICK. I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen..