CATHLEEN. Keep your back to the door the way the light’ll not be on you.
[_Nora sits down at the chimney corner, with her back to the door. Maurya comes in very slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes over to her stool at the other side of the fire. The cloth with the bread is still in her hand. The girls look at each other, and Nora points to the bundle of bread._]
CATHLEEN. _After spinning for a moment._—You didn’t give him his bit of bread?
[_Maurya begins to keen softly, without turning round._]
CATHLEEN. _A little impatiently._—God forgive you; isn’t it a better thing to raise your voice and tell what you seen, than to be making lamentation for a thing that’s done? Did you see Bartley, I’m saying to you?
MAURYA. _With a weak voice._—My heart’s broken from this day.
CATHLEEN. _As before._—Did you see Bartley?
CATHLEEN. _Leaves her wheel and looks out._—God forgive you; he’s riding the mare now over the green head, and the gray pony behind him.
MAURYA. _Starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows her white tossed hair. With a frightened voice._—The gray pony behind him.
CATHLEEN. _Coming to the fire._—What is it ails you, at all?
MAURYA. _Speaking very slowly._—I’ve seen the fearfulest thing any person has seen, since the day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child in his arms.
[_They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire._]
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. _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.