disappear, struggling. There is a shot._ MARTIN _falls dead.
Beggars come back with a shout._]

JOHNNY B. We have done for them; they will not meddle with you again.

PAUDEEN. Oh, he is down!

FATHER JOHN. He is shot through the breast. Oh, who has dared meddle
with a soul that was in the tumults on the threshold of sanctity?

JOHNNY B. It was that gun went off and I striking it from the
constable's hand.

MARTIN [_looking at his hand, on which there is blood_]. Ah, that is
blood! I fell among the rocks. It is a hard climb. It is a long climb
to the vineyards of Eden. Help me up. I must go on. The Mountain of
Abiegnos is very high ... but the vineyards ... the vineyards!

[_He falls back, dead. The men uncover their heads._]

PAUDEEN [_to_ BIDDY]. It was you misled him with your foretelling that
he was coming within the best day of his life.

JOHNNY B. Madness on him or no madness, I will not leave that body to
the law to be buried with a dog's burial or brought away and maybe
hanged upon a tree. Lift him on the sacks; bring him away to the
quarry; it is there on the hillside the boys will give him a great
burying, coming on horses and bearing white rods in their hands.

[_They lift him and carry the body away, singing._]

Our hope and our darling, our heart dies with you.
You to have failed us, we are foals astray!

FATHER JOHN. He is gone, and we can never know where that vision came
from. I cannot know; the wise Bishops would have known.

THOMAS [_taking up banner_]. To be shaping a lad through his lifetime,
and he to go his own way at the last, and a queer way. It is very queer
the world itself is, whatever shape was put upon it at the first!

ANDREW. To be too headstrong and too open, that is the beginning of
trouble. To keep to yourself the thing that you know, and to do in
quiet the thing you want to do, there would be no disturbance at all in
the world, all people to bear that in mind!

CURTAIN

CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN

CHARACTERS

PETER GILLANE.

MICHAEL GILLANE _his son, going to be married_.

PATRICK GILLANE _a lad of twelve, Michael's brother_.

BRIDGET GILLANE _Peter's wife_.

DELIA CAHEL _engaged to_ MICHAEL.

THE POOR OLD WOMAN.

NEIGHBOURS.

SCENE: _Interior of a cottage close to Killala, in 1798._ BRIDGET _is
standing at a table undoing a parcel._ PET