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

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

• blessing [´blesiŋ] n.祝福 (初中英语单词)
• bundle [´bʌndl] n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词)
• softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
• forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
• throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
• priest [pri:st] n.教士；牧师；神父 (初中英语单词)
• whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
• pitiful [´pitifəl] a.可怜的；慈悲的 (高中英语单词)
• spinning [´spiniŋ] n.纺织 a.纺织品的 (高中英语单词)
• saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
• crouch [krautʃ] vi.卷缩；蹲伏 (高中英语单词)
• seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
• hearing [´hiəriŋ] n.听力；听证会；审讯 (高中英语单词)
• threshold [´θreʃhəuld] n.门槛；入门；开端 (高中英语单词)
• fisher [´fiʃə] n.捕鱼人(船)；鱼貂 (英语四级单词)
• lamentation [,læmen´teiʃən] n.悲痛，哀悼，痛哭 (英语四级单词)
• almighty [ɔ:l´maiti] a.万能的；全能的 (英语四级单词)
• holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
• speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)