to this, it is not to storing
treasure in any vessel at all I will give the latter end of my days,
or to working the skin off my bones. Give me here that coat.
(_Puts it on.)_ If I was tossed and racked a while ago I'll show
out good from this out. Come on now, out of this, till we'll face to
the races of Loughrea and of Knockbarron. I was miserable and
starved long enough. _(Puts on hat.)_ I'm thinking as long as I'll be
living I'll take my view of the world, for it's long I'll be lying
when my eyes are closed and seeing nothing at all!

_(He seizes a handful of gold and puts it in Simon's pocket and
another in his own. They turn towards the door.)_

_Curtain_

McDONOUGH'S WIFE

PERSONS

_McDonough, a piper._
_First Hag._
_Second Hag._

McDONOUGH'S WIFE

_Scene: A very poor room in Galway with outer and inner door.
Noises of a fair outside. A Hag sitting by the fire. Another
standing by outer door_.

_First Hag:_ Is there e'er a sign of McDonough to be coming?

_Second Hag:_ There is not. There were two or three asking for him,
wanting him to bring the pipes to some spree-house at the time the
fair will be at an end.

_First Hag:_ A great wonder he not to have come, and this the fair
day of Galway.

_Second Hag:_ He not to come ere evening, the woman that is dead
must go to her burying without one to follow her, or any friend at
all to flatten the green scraws above her head.

_First Hag:_ Is there no neighbour at all will do that much, and
she being gone out of the world?

_Second Hag:_ There is not. You said to ask Pat Marlborough, and I
asked him, and he said there were plenty of decent women and of
well-reared women in Galway he would follow and welcome the day they
would die, without paying that respect to one not belonging to the
district, or that the town got no good account of the time she came.

_First Hag:_ Did you do as I bade you, asking Cross Ford to send
in a couple of the boys she has?

_Second Hag:_ What a fool I'd be asking her! I laid down to her
the way it was. McDonough's wife to be dead, and he far out in the
country, and no one belonging to her to so much as lift the coffin
over the threshold of the door.

_First Hag:_ What did she say hearing that?

_Second Hag:_ She put a big laugh out of her, and it is what she
said: "May the devil die with her, and it is well pleased the street
will be getting quit of her, and it is hard say on what mountain s