In the Shadow of the Glen

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

MICHEAL 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.

MICHEAL {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-road, or selling songs to the men. {To Nora.} Walk out now, Nora Burke, and it's soon you'll be getting old with that life, I'm telling you; it's soon your teeth'll be falling and your head'll be the like of a bush where sheep do be leaping a gap.

{He pauses: she looks round at Micheal.}

MICHEAL {Timidly.} There's a fine Union below in Rathdrum.

DAN The like of her would never go there. . . . It's lonesome roads she'll be going and hiding herself away till the end will come, and they find her stretched like a dead sheep with the frost on her, or the big spiders, maybe, and they putting their webs on her, in the butt of a ditch.

NORA {Angrily.} What way will yourself be that day, Daniel Burke? What way will you be that day and you lying down a long while in your grave? For it's bad you are living, and it's bad you'll be when you're dead. {She looks at him a moment fiercely, then half turns away and speaks plaintively again.} Yet, if it is itself, Daniel Burke, who can help it at all, and let you be getting up into your bed, and not be taking your death with the wind blowing on you, and the rain with it, and you half in your skin.

DAN It's proud and happy you'ld be if I was getting my death the day I was shut of yourself. {Pointing to the door.} Let you walk out through that door, I'm telling you, and let you not be passing this way if it's hungry you are, or wanting a bed.

TRAMP {Pointing to Micheal.} Maybe himself would take her.

NORA What would he do with me now?

TRAMP Give you the half of a dry bed, and good food in your mouth.

DAN Is it a fool you think him, stranger, or is it a fool you were born yourself? Let her walk out of that door, and let you go along with her, stranger -- if it's raining itself -- for it's too much talk you have surely.

TRAMP {Going over to Nora.} We'll be going now, lady of the house -- the rain is falling, but the air is kind and maybe it'll be a grand morning by the grace of God.

NORA What good is a grand morning when I'm destroyed surely, and I going out to get my death walking the roads?

TRAMP You'll not be getting your death with myself, lady of the house, and I knowing all the ways a man can put food in his mouth. . . . We'll be going now, I'm telling you, and the time you'll be feeling the cold, and the frost, and the great rain, and the sun again, and the south wind blowing in the glens, you'll not be sitting up on a wet ditch, the way you're after sitting in the place, making yourself old with looking on each day, and it passing you by. You'll be saying one time, "It's a grand evening, by the grace of God," and another time, "It's a wild night, God help us, but it'll pass surely." You'll be saying--

DAN {Goes over to them crying out impatiently.} Go out of that door, I'm telling you, and do your blathering below in the glen.

{Nora gathers a few things into her shawl.}

TRAMP {At the door.} Come along with me now, lady of the house, and it's not my blather you'll be hearing only, but you'll be hearing the herons crying out over the black lakes, and you'll be hearing the grouse and the owls with them, and the larks and the big thrushes when the days are warm, and it's not from the like of them you'll be hearing a talk of getting old like Peggy Cavanagh, and losing the hair off you, and the light of your eyes, but it's fine songs you'll be hearing when the sun goes up, and there'll be no old fellow wheezing, the like of a sick sheep, close to your ear.

NORA I'm thinking it's myself will be wheezing that time with lying down under the Heavens when the night is cold; but you've a fine bit of talk, stranger, and it's with yourself I'll go.

{She goes towards the door, then turns to Dan.} You think it's a grand thing you're after doing with your letting on to be dead, but what is it at all? What way would a woman live in a lonesome place the like of this place, and she not making a talk with the men passing? And what way will yourself live from this day, with none to care for you? What is it you'll have now but a black life, Daniel Burke, and it's not long I'm telling you, till you'll be lying again under that sheet, and you dead surely.

{She goes out with the Tramp. Micheal is slinking after them, but Dan stops him.}

DAN Sit down now and take a little taste of the stuff, Micheal Dara. There's a great drouth on me, and the night is young.

MICHEAL {Coming back to the table.} And it's very dry I am, surely, with the fear of death you put on me, and I after driving mountain ewes since the turn of the day.

DAN {Throwing away his stick.} I was thinking to strike you, Micheal Dara, but you're a quiet man, God help you, and I don't mind you at all.

{He pours out two glasses of whisky, and gives one to Micheal.}

DAN Your good health, Micheal Dara.

MICHEAL God reward you, Daniel Burke, and may you have a long life, and a quiet life, and good health with it. {They drink.}

CURTAIN.

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