FullReads

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.