ou seen.

MAURYA I went down to the spring well, and I stood there saying a prayer
to myself. Then Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with
the gray pony behind him [she puts up her hands, as if to hide something
from her eyes.] The Son of God spare us, Nora!

CATHLEEN What is it you seen.

MAURYA I seen Michael himself.

CATHLEEN [Speaking softly.]

You did not, mother; it wasn't Michael you seen, for his body is after
being found in the far north, and he's got a clean burial by the grace
of God.

MAURYA [A little defiantly.]

I'm after seeing him this day, and he riding and galloping. Bartley came
first on the red mare; and I tried to say "God speed you," but something
choked the words in my throat. He went by quickly; and "the blessing of
God on you," says he, and I could say nothing. I looked up then, and
I crying, at the gray pony, and there was Michael upon it--with fine
clothes on him, and new shoes on his feet.

CATHLEEN [Begins to keen.]

It's destroyed we are from this day. It's destroyed, surely.

NORA Didn't the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn't leave her
destitute with no son living?

MAURYA [In a low voice, but clearly.]

It's little the like of him knows of the sea. . . . Bartley will be
lost now, and let you call in Eamon and make me a good coffin out of
the white boards, for I won't live after them. I've had a husband, and
a husband's father, and six sons in this house--six fine men, though
it was a hard birth I had with every one of them and they coming to the
world--and some of them were found and some of them were not found, but
they're gone now the lot of them. . . There were Stephen, and Shawn,
were lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay of Gregory of
the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and
in by that door.

[She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something
through the door that is half open behind them.]

NORA [In a whisper.]

Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in the north-east?

CATHLEEN [In a whisper.]

There's some one after crying out by the seashore.

MAURYA [Continues without hearing anything.]

There was Sheamus and his father, and his own father again, were lost in
a dark night, and not a stick or sign was seen of them when the sun went
up. There was Patch after was drowned out of a curagh that turned over.
I was sitting here with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my