two knees,
and I seen two women, and three women, and four women coming in, and
they crossing themselves, and not saying a word. I looked out then, and
there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half
of a red sail, and water dripping out of it--it was a dry day, Nora--and
leaving a track to the door.

[She pauses again with her hand stretched out towards the door. It
opens softly and old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the
threshold, and kneeling down in front of the stage with red petticoats
over their heads.]

MAURYA [Half in a dream, to Cathleen.]

Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is it at all?

CATHLEEN Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is
found there how could he be here in this place?

MAURYA There does be a power of young men floating round in the sea, and
what way would they know if it was Michael they had, or another man like
him, for when a man is nine days in the sea, and the wind blowing, it's
hard set his own mother would be to say what man was it.

CATHLEEN It's Michael, God spare him, for they're after sending us a bit
of his clothes from the far north.

[She reaches out and hands Maurya the clothes that belonged to Michael.
Maurya stands up slowly, and takes them into her hands. NORA looks out.]

NORA They're carrying a thing among them and there's water dripping out
of it and leaving a track by the big stones.

CATHLEEN [In a whisper to the women who have come in.]

Is it Bartley it is?

ONE OF THE WOMEN It is surely, God rest his soul.

[Two younger women come in and pull out the table. Then men carry in the
body of Bartley, laid on a plank, with a bit of a sail over it, and lay
it on the table.]

CATHLEEN [To the women, as they are doing so.]

What way was he drowned?

ONE OF THE WOMEN The gray pony knocked him into the sea, and he was
washed out where there is a great surf on the white rocks.

[Maurya has gone over and knelt down at the head of the table. The women
are keening softly and swaying themselves with a slow movement. Cathleen
and Nora kneel at the other end of the table. The men kneel near the
door.]

MAURYA [Raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people
around her.]

They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to
me.... I'll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind
breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the
surf is