Part 6

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.

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 any one 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 every one is left living in the world.

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 for ever, and we must be satisfied.