MAURTEEN
No one's child at all.
She often dreams that some one has gone by,
When there was nothing but a puff of wind.
MARY
They have taken away the blessed quicken wood,
They will not bring good luck into the house;
Yet I am glad that I was courteous to them,
For are not they, likewise, children of God?
FATHER HART
Colleen, they are the children of the fiend,
And they have power until the end of Time,
When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle
And hack them into pieces.
MARY
He will smile,
Father, perhaps, and open His great door.
FATHER HART
Did but the lawless angels see that door
They would fall, slain by everlasting peace;
And when such angels knock upon our doors,
Who goes with them must drive through the same storm.
(A thin old arm comes round the door-post and knocks and beckons. It is clearly seen in the silvery light. MARY BRUIN goes to door and stands in it for a moment. MAURTEEN BRUIN is busy filling FATHER HART'S plate. BRIDGET BRUIN stirs the fire.)
MARY (coming to table)
There's somebody out there that beckoned me
And raised her hand as though it held a cup,
And she was drinking from it, so it may be
That she is thirsty.
(She takes milk from the table and carries it to the door.)
FATHER HART
That will be the child
That you would have it was no child at all.
BRIDGET
And maybe, Father, what he said was true;
For there is not another night in the year
So wicked as to-night.
MAURTEEN
Nothing can harm us
While the good Father's underneath our roof.
MARY
A little queer old woman dressed in green.
BRIDGET
The good people beg for milk and fire
Upon May Eve—woe to the house that gives,
For they have power upon it for a year.
MAURTEEN
Hush, woman, hush!
BRIDGET
She's given milk away.
I knew she would bring evil on the house.
MAURTEEN
Who was it?
MARY
Both the tongue and face were strange.
MAURTEEN
Some strangers came last week to Clover Hill;
She must be one of them.
BRIDGET
I am afraid.
FATHER HART
The Cross will keep all evil from the house
While it hangs there.
MAURTEEN
Come, sit beside me, colleen,
And put away your dreams of discontent,
For I would have you light up my last days,
Like the good glow of the turf; and when I die
You'll be the wealthiest hereabout, for, colleen,
I have a stocking full of yellow guineas
Hidden away where nobody can find it.
BRIDGET
You are the fool of every pretty face,
And I must spare and pinch that my son's wife
May have all kinds of ribbons for her head.
MAURTEEN
Do not be cross; she is a right good girl!
The butter is by your elbow, Father Hart.
My colleen, have not Fate and Time and Change
Done well for me and for old Bridget there?
We have a hundred acres of good land,
And sit beside each other at the fire.
I have this reverend Father for my friend,
I look upon your face and my son's face—
We've put his plate by yours—and here he comes,
And brings with him the only thing we have lacked,
Abundance of good wine. (SHAWN comes in.) Stir up the fire,
And put new turf upon it till it blaze;
To watch the turf-smoke coiling from the fire,
And feel content and wisdom in your heart,
This is the best of life; when we are young
We long to tread a way none trod before,
But find the excellent old way through love,
And through the care of children, to the hour
For bidding Fate and Time and Change goodbye.
(MARY takes a sod of turf from the fire and goes out through the door. SHAWN follows her and meets her coming in.)
SHAWN
What is it draws you to the chill o' the wood?
There is a light among the stems of the trees
That makes one shiver.
MARY
A little queer old man
Made me a sign to show he wanted fire
To light his pipe.
BRIDGET
You've given milk and fire
Upon the unluckiest night of the year and brought,
For all you know, evil upon the house.
Before you married you were idle and fine
And went about with ribbons on your head;
And now—no, Father, I will speak my mind—
She is not a fitting wife for any man——
SHAWN
Be quiet, Mother!
MAURTEEN
You are much too cross.
MARY
What do I care if I have given this house,
Where I must hear all day a bitter tongue,
Into the power of faeries!
BRIDGET
You know well
How calling the good people by that name,
Or talking of them over much at all,
May bring all kinds of evil on the house.
MARY
Come, faeries, take me out of this dull house!
Let me have all the freedom I have lost;
Work when I will and idle when I will!
Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind.
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
FATHER HART
You cannot know the meaning of your words.
MARY
Father, I am right weary of four tongues:
A tongue that is too crafty and too wise,
A tongue that is too godly and too grave,
A tongue that is more bitter than the tide,
And a kind tongue too full of drowsy love,
Of drowsy love and my captivity.
(SHAWN BRUIN leads her to a seat at the left of the door.)
SHAWN
Do not blame me; I often lie awake
Thinking that all things trouble your bright head.
How beautiful it is—your broad pale forehead
Under a cloudy blossoming of hair!
Sit down beside me here—these are too old,
And have forgotten they were ever young.
MARY
O, you are the great door-post of this house,
And I the branch of blessed quicken wood,
And if I could I'd hang upon the post,
Till I had brought good luck into the house.
(She would put her arms about him, but looks shyly at the priest and lets her arms fall.)
FATHER HART
My daughter, take his hand—by love alone
God binds us to Himself and to the hearth,
That shuts us from the waste beyond His peace,
From maddening freedom and bewildering light.
SHAWN
Would that the world were mine to give it you,
And not its quiet hearths alone, but even