CATHLEEN [_to an old man_]. Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the sun rises. We have fine white boards herself bought, God help her, thinking Michael would be found, and I have a new cake you can eat while you'll be working.
THE OLD MAN [_looking at the boards_]. Are there nails with them?
CATHLEEN. There are not, Colum; we didn't think of the nails.
ANOTHER MAN. It's a great wonder she wouldn't think of the nails, and all the coffins she's seen made already.
CATHLEEN. It's getting old she is, and broken. [_MAURYA stands up again very slowly and spreads out the pieces of MICHAEL's clothes beside the body, sprinkling them with the last of the Holy Water._]
NORA [_in a whisper to CATHLEEN_]. She's quiet now and easy; but the day Michael was drowned you could hear her crying out from this to the spring well. It's fonder she was of Michael, and would anyone have thought that?
CATHLEEN [_slowly and clearly_]. An old woman will be soon tired with anything she will do, and isn't it nine days herself is after crying and keening, and making great sorrow in the house?
MAURYA [_puts the empty cup mouth downwards on the table, and lays her hands together on BARTLEY's feet_]. They're all together this time, and the end is come. May the Almighty God have mercy on Bartley's soul, and on Michael's soul, and on the souls of Sheamus and Patch, and Stephen and Shawn [_bending her head_]; and may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and on the soul of everyone is left living in the world. [_She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women, then sinks away._]
MAURYA [_continuing_]. Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied. [_She kneels down again and the curtain falls slowly._]
[Footnote 45: Copyright, 1916, by The Sunwise Turn, Inc. All rights reserved. The professional and amateur stage rights on this play are strictly reserved by the author. Applications for permission to produce the Play should be made to The Neighborhood Playhouse, 466 Grand Street, New York.