The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 4 of 8. The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement. Yeats William Butler
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СКАЧАТЬ woman Patrick saw a while ago.

MICHAEL

      I don’t think it’s one of the neighbours anyway, but she has her cloak over her face.

BRIDGET

      It might be some poor woman heard we were making ready for the wedding and came to look for her share.

PETER

      I may as well put the money out of sight. There is no use leaving it out for every stranger to look at.

      [He goes over to a large box in the corner, opens it and puts the bag in and fumbles at the lock.

MICHAEL

      There she is, father! [An Old Woman passes the window slowly, she looks at MICHAEL as she passes.] I’d sooner a stranger not to come to the house the night before my wedding.

BRIDGET

      Open the door, Michael; don’t keep the poor woman waiting.

      [The OLD WOMAN comes in. MICHAEL stands aside to make way for her.

OLD WOMAN

      God save all here!

PETER

      God save you kindly!

OLD WOMAN

      You have good shelter here.

PETER

      You are welcome to whatever shelter we have.

BRIDGET

      Sit down there by the fire and welcome.

OLD WOMAN [warming her hands]

      There is a hard wind outside.

      [MICHAEL watches her curiously from the door. PETER comes over to the table.

PETER

      Have you travelled far to-day?

OLD WOMAN

      I have travelled far, very far; there are few have travelled so far as myself, and there’s many a one that doesn’t make me welcome. There was one that had strong sons I thought were friends of mine, but they were shearing their sheep, and they wouldn’t listen to me.

PETER

      It’s a pity indeed for any person to have no place of their own.

OLD WOMAN

      That’s true for you indeed, and it’s long I’m on the roads since I first went wandering.

BRIDGET

      It is a wonder you are not worn out with so much wandering.

OLD WOMAN

      Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart. When the people see me quiet, they think old age has come on me and that all the stir has gone out of me. But when the trouble is on me I must be talking to my friends.

BRIDGET

      What was it put you wandering?

OLD WOMAN

      Too many strangers in the house.

BRIDGET

      Indeed you look as if you’d had your share of trouble.

OLD WOMAN

      I have had trouble indeed.

BRIDGET

      What was it put the trouble on you?

OLD WOMAN

      My land that was taken from me.

PETER

      Was it much land they took from you?

OLD WOMAN

      My four beautiful green fields.

PETER [aside to BRIDGET]

      Do you think could she be the widow Casey that was put out of her holding at Kilglass a while ago?

BRIDGET

      She is not. I saw the widow Casey one time at the market in Ballina, a stout fresh woman.

PETER [to OLD WOMAN]

      Did you hear a noise of cheering, and you coming up the hill?

OLD WOMAN

      I thought I heard the noise I used to hear when my friends came to visit me.

[She begins singing half to herself.

      I will go cry with the woman,

      For yellow-haired Donough is dead,

      With a hempen rope for a neckcloth,

      And a white cloth on his head, —

MICHAEL [coming from the door]

      What is that you are singing, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN

      Singing I am about a man I knew one time, yellow-haired Donough that was hanged in Galway.

[She goes on singing, much louder.

      I am come to cry with you, woman,

      My hair is unwound and unbound;

      I remember him ploughing his field,

      Turning up the red side of the ground,

      And building his barn on the hill

      With the good mortared stone;

      O! we’d have pulled down the gallows

      Had it happened in Enniscrone!

MICHAEL

      What was it brought him to his death?

OLD WOMAN

      He died for love of me: many a man has died for love of me.

PETER [aside to BRIDGET]

      Her trouble has put her wits astray.

MICHAEL

      Is it long since that song was made? Is it long since he got his death?

OLD WOMAN

      Not long, not long. But there were others that died for love of me a long time ago.

MICHAEL

      Were they neighbours of your own, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN

      Come here beside me and I’ll tell you about them. [MICHAEL sits down beside her at the hearth.] There was a red man of the O’Donnells from the north, and a man of the O’Sullivans from the south, and there was one Brian that lost his life at Clontarf by the sea, and there were a great many in the west, some that died hundreds of years ago, and there are some that will die to-morrow.

MICHAEL

      Is it in the west that men will die to-morrow?

OLD WOMAN

      Come nearer, nearer to me.

BRIDGET

      Is she right, do you think? Or is she a woman from beyond the world?

PETER

      She doesn’t know well what she’s talking about, with the want and the trouble she has gone through.

BRIDGET

      The poor thing, we should treat her well.

PETER

      Give her a drink of milk and a bit of the oaten cake.

BRIDGET

      Maybe we should give her something along with that, to bring her on her way. A few pence or a shilling itself, and we with so much money in the house.

PETER

      Indeed I’d not begrudge it to her if we had it to spare, but if we go running through what we have, we’ll soon have to break the hundred pounds, and that would be a pity.

BRIDGET

      Shame СКАЧАТЬ