In Shadow of the Glen | Page 8

price, for I'm no fool now at making a bargain when
my lambs are good.
NORA What was it you got?
MICHEAL Twenty pound for the lot, Nora Burke. . . . We'ld do right to
wait now till himself will be quiet awhile in the Seven Churches, and
then you'll marry me in the chapel of Rathvanna, and I'll bring the
sheep up on the bit of a hill you have on the back mountain, and we
won't have anything we'ld be afeard to let our minds on when the mist
is down.
NORA [Pouring him out some whisky.] Why would I marry you, Mike
Dara? You'll be getting old and I'll be getting old, and in a little while
I'm telling you, you'll be sitting up in your bed -- the way himself was
sitting -- with a shake in your face, and your teeth falling, and the white
hair sticking out round you like an old bush where sheep do be leaping
a gap.
[Dan Burke sits up noiselessly from under the sheet, with his hand to
his face. His white hair is sticking out round his head.]
NORA [Goes on slowly without hearing him.] It's a pitiful thing to be
getting old, but it's a queer thing surely. It's a queer thing to see an old
man sitting up there in his bed with no teeth in him, and a rough word
in his mouth, and his chin the way it would take the bark from the edge
of an oak board you'ld have building a door. . . . God forgive me,
Micheal Dara, we'll all be getting old, but it's a queer thing surely.
MICHEAL It's too lonesome you are from living a long time with an
old man, Nora, and you're talking again like a herd that would be
coming down from the thick mist (he puts his arm round her), but it's a

fine life you'll have now with a young man, a fine life surely. . . . [Dan
sneezes violently. Micheal tries to get to the door, but before he can do
so, Dan jumps out of the bed in queer white clothes, with his stick in
his hand, and goes over and puts his back against it.]
MICHEAL Son of God deliver us. [Crosses himself, and goes
backward across the room.]
DAN [Holding up his hand at him.] Now you'll not marry her the time
I'm rotting below in the Seven Churches, and you'll see the thing I'll
give you will follow you on the back mountains when the wind is high.
MICHEAL [To Nora.] Get me out of it, Nora, for the love of God. He
always did what you bid him, and I'm thinking he would do it now.
NORA [Looking at the Tramp.] Is it dead he is or living?
DAN [Turning towards her.] It's little you care if it's dead or living I am,
but there'll be an end now of your fine times, and all the talk you have
of young men and old men, and of the mist coming up or going down.
(He opens the door.) You'll walk out now from that door, Nora Burke,
and it's not to-morrow, or the next day, or any day of your life, that
you'll put in your foot through it again.
TRAMP [Standing up.] It's a hard thing you're saying for an old man,
master of the house, and what would the like of her do if you put her
out on the roads?
DAN Let her walk round the like of Peggy Cavanagh below, and be
begging money at the cross-road, or selling songs to the men. (To Nora.)
Walk out now, Nora Burke, and it's soon you'll be getting old with that
life, I'm telling you; it's soon your teeth'll be falling and your head'll be
the like of a bush where sheep do be leaping a gap.
[He pauses: she looks round at Micheal.]
MICHEAL [Timidly.] There's a fine Union below in Rathdrum.
DAN The like of her would never go there. . . . It's lonesome roads
she'll be going and hiding herself away till the end will come, and they
find her stretched like a dead sheep with the frost on her, or the big
spiders, maybe, and they putting their webs on her, in the butt of a
ditch.
NORA [Angrily.] What way will yourself be that day, Daniel Burke?
What way will you be that day and you lying down a long while in
your grave? For it's bad you are living, and it's bad you'll be when
you're dead. (She looks at him a moment fiercely, then half turns away

and speaks plaintively again.) Yet, if it is itself, Daniel Burke, who can
help it at all, and let