What is it ails you this night, Nora Burke? I've heard tell it's the like of that talk you do hear from men, and they after being a great while on the back hills.

NORA putting out the money on the table. It's a bad night, and a wild night, Michael Dara, and isn't it a great while I am at the foot of the back hills, sitting up here boiling food for himself, and food for the brood sow, and baking a cake when the night falls? She puts up the money, listlessly, in little piles on the table. Isn't it a long while I am sitting here in the winter, and the summer, and the fine spring, with the young growing behind me and the old passing, saying to myself one time, to look on Mary Brien who wasn't that height holding out her hand, and I a fine girl growing up, and there she is now with two children, and another coming on her in three months or four she pauses.

MICHAEL moving over three of the piles. That's three pounds we have now, Nora Burke.

NORA continuing in the same voice. And saying to myself another time, to look on Peggy Cavanagh, who had the lightest hand at milking a cow that wouldn't be easy, or turning a cake, and there she is now walking round on the roads, or sitting in a dirty old house, with no teeth in her mouth, and no sense, and no more hair than you'd see on a bit of a hill and they after burning the furze from it. [She pauses again.]

MICHAEL. That's five pounds and ten notes, a good sum, surely! ... It's not that way you'll be talking when you marry a young man, Nora Burke, and they were saying in the fair my lambs were the best lambs, and I got a grand price, for I'm no fool now at making a bargain when my lambs are good.

NORA. What was it you got?

MICHAEL. Twenty pound for the lot, Nora Burke ... We'd do right to wait now till himself will be quiet a while in the Seven Churches, and then you'll marry me in the chapel of Rathvanna, and I'll bring the sheep up on the bit of a hill you have on the back mountain, and we won't have anything we'd be afeard to let our minds on when the mist is down.

NORA pouring him out some whiskey. Why would I marry you, Mike Dara? You'll be getting old, and I'll be getting old, and in a little while, I'm telling you, you'll be sitting up in your bed – the way himself was sitting – with a shake in your face, and your teeth falling, and the white hair sticking out round you like an old bush where sheep do be leaping a gap.

 

Dan Burke sits up noiselessly from under the sheet, with his hand to his face. His white hair is sticking out round his head.

 

NORA goes on slowly without hearing him. It's a pitiful thing to be getting old, but it's a queer thing surely ... It's a queer thing to see an old man sitting up there in his bed, with no teeth in him, and a rough word in his mouth, and his chin the way it would take the bark from the edge of an oak board you'd have building a door ... God forgive me, Michael Dara, we'll all be getting old, but it's a queer thing surely.

MICHAEL. It's too lonesome you are from living a long time with an old man, Nora, and you're talking again like a herd that would be coming down from the thick mist he puts his arm round her, but it's a fine life you'll have now with a young man, a fine life surely ...

 

Dan sneezes violently. Michael tries to get to the door, but before he can do so, Dan jumps out of the bed in queer white clothes, with the stick in his hand, and goes over and puts his back against it.

 

MICHAEL. The Son of God deliver us ... Crosses himself, and goes backward across the room.

DAN holding up his hand at him. Now you'll not marry her the time I'm rotting below in the Seven Churches, and you'll see the thing I'll give you will follow you on the back mountains when the wind is high.

MICHAEL to Nora. Get me out of it, Nora, for the love of God. He always did what you bid him, and I'm thinking he would do it now.

NORA looking at The Tramp. Is it dead he is or living?

DAN turning towards her. It's little you care if it's dead or living I am, but there'll be an end now of your fine times, and all the talk you have of young men and old men, and of the mist coming up or going down. He opens the door. You'll walk out now from that door, Nora Burke, and it's not to- morrow, or the next day, or any day of your life, that you'll put in your foot through it again.

TRAMP standing up. It's a hard thing you're saying, for an old man, master of the house, and what would the like of her do if you put her out on the roads?

DAN. Let her walk round the like of Peggy Cavanagh below, and be begging money at the cross roads, or selling songs to the men. To Nora.