night the like of this night, and the sheep were lying under the ditch
and every one of them coughing, and choking, like an old man, with the
great rain and the fog. Then I heard a thing talking--queer talk, you
wouldn't believe at all, and you out of your dreams,--and "Merciful
God," says I, "if I begin hearing the like of that voice out of the
thick mist, I'm destroyed surely." Then I run, and I run, and I run,
till I was below in Rathvanna. I got drunk that night, I got drunk
in the morning, and drunk the day after,--I was coming from the races
beyond--and the third day they found Darcy.... Then I knew it was
himself I was after hearing, and I wasn't afeard any more.

NORA {Speaking sorrowfully and slowly.} God spare Darcy, he'ld always
look in here and he passing up or passing down, and it's very lonesome
I was after him a long while {she looks over at the bed and lowers her
voice, speaking very clearly,} and then I got happy again--if it's ever
happy we are, stranger,--for I got used to being lonesome. {A short
pause; then she stands up.}

NORA Was there any one on the last bit of the road, stranger, and you
coming from Aughrim?

TRAMP There was a young man with a drift of mountain ewes, and he
running after them this way and that.

NORA {With a half-smile.} Far down, stranger?

TRAMP A piece only.

{She fills the kettle and puts it on the fire.}

NORA Maybe, if you're not easy afeard, you'ld stay here a short while
alone with himself.

TRAMP I would surely. A man that's dead can do no hurt.

NORA {Speaking with a sort of constraint.} I'm going a little back to
the west, stranger, for himself would go there one night and another
and whistle at that place, and then the young man you're after
seeing--a kind of a farmer has come up from the sea to live in a cottage
beyond--would walk round to see if there was a thing we'ld have to be
done, and I'm wanting him this night, the way he can go down into the
glen when the sun goes up and tell the people that himself is dead.

TRAMP {Looking at the body in the sheet.} It's myself will go for him,
lady of the house, and let you not be destroying yourself with the great
rain.

NORA You wouldn't find your way, stranger, for there's a small path
only, and it running up between two sluigs where an ass and cart would
be drowned. {She puts a shawl over her head.} Let you be making yourself
easy, and saying a prayer for his soul, and it's not long I'll be coming
agai