Short Plays quotes

Half-humorously.

He was always queer, stranger, and I suppose them that’s queer and they living men will be queer bodies after.

Isn’t it a great wonder you’re letting him lie there, and he not tidied, or laid out itself?

Filling a pipe and looking about the room.

I’ve walked a great way through the world, lady of the house, and seen great wonders, but I never seen a wake till this day with fine spirits, and good tobacco, and the best of pipes, and no one to taste them but a woman only.

Didn’t you hear me say it was only after dying on me he was when the sun went down, and how would I go out into the glen and tell the neighbours, and I a lone woman with no house near me?

Slowly. I’m thinking many would be afeard, but I never knew what way I’d be afeard of beggar or bishop or any man of you at all. … She looks towards the window and lowers her voice.

It’s other things than the like of you, stranger, would make a person afeard.

Looking round with a half-shudder. It is surely, God help us all!

I would surely.

A man that’s dead can do no hurt.

Speaking with a sort of constraint.

Doubtfully. Is it not dead you are?

How would I be dead, and I as dry as a baked bone, stranger?

Pouring out the whisky. What will herself say if she smells the stuff on you, for I’m thinking it’s not for nothing you’re letting on to be dead?

After looking at the Tramp rather scornfully for a moment. That’s a poor coat you have, God help you, and I’m thinking it’s a poor tailor you are with it.

If it’s a poor tailor I am, I’m thinking it’s a poor herd does be running back and forward after a little handful of ewes the way I seen yourself running this day, young fellow, and you coming from the fair.

Nora comes back to the table.

They were that wilful they were running off into one man’s bit of oats, and another man’s bit of hay, and tumbling into the red bogs till it’s more like a pack of old goats than sheep they were. …

Mountain ewes is a queer breed, Nora Burke, and I not used to them at all.

Settling the tea things.

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’d …

Going over to Nora. We’ll be going now, lady of the house; the rain is falling, but the air is kind and maybe it’ll be a grand morning, by the grace of God.

What good is a grand morning when I’m destroyed surely, and I going out to get my death walking the roads?

You’ll not be getting your death with myself, lady of the house, and I knowing all the ways a man can put food in his mouth.

If it wasn’t found itself, that wind is raising the sea, and there was a star up against the moon, and it rising in the night.

If it was a hundred horses, or a thousand horses, you had itself, what is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?

Working at the halter, to Cathleen. Let you go down each day, and see the sheep aren’t jumping in on the rye, and if the jobber comes you can sell the pig with the black feet if there is a good price going.

Turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her head.

Isn’t it a hard and cruel man won’t hear a word from an old woman, and she holding him from the sea?

It’s the life of a young man to be going on the sea, and who would listen to an old woman with one thing and she saying it over?

Turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her head. Isn’t it a hard and cruel man won’t hear a word from an old woman, and she holding him from the sea?

It’s the life of a young man to be going on the sea, and who would listen to an old woman with one thing and she saying it over?

Taking the halter. I must go now quickly. I’ll ride down on the red mare, and the grey pony ’ill run behind me … The blessing of God on you.

Taking a stick Nora gives her.

In the big world the old people do be leaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things behind for them that do be old.

She goes out slowly. Nora goes over to the ladder.

Swinging herself half round, and throwing out her arms on the clothes.

And isn’t it a pitiful thing when there is nothing left of a man who was a great rower and fisher but a bit of an old shirt and a plain stocking?

After an instant. Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little sound on the path.

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 in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and …

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.

Musingly.

I’m thinking there isn’t anything ails me, Michael Byrne; but the springtime is a queer time, and it’s queer thoughts maybe I do think at whiles.

It’s hard set you’d be to think queerer than welcome, Sarah Casey; but what will you gain dragging me to the priest this night, I’m saying, when it’s new thoughts you’ll be thinking at the dawn of day?

Uneasily scratching his ear.

I wish this day was done, Sarah Casey; for I’m thinking it’s a risky thing getting mixed up in any matters with the like of you.

Be hasty then, and you’ll have us done with before you’d think at all.

Looks at Sarah for a moment, and then bursts out into a laugh of derision. Well, she’s a tight, hardy girl, and it’s no lie; but I never knew till this day it was a black born fool I had for a son.

You’ll breed asses, I’ve heard them say, and poaching dogs, and horses’d go licking the wind, but it’s a hard thing, God help me, to breed sense in a son.

Gloomily. If I didn’t marry her, she’d be walking off to Jaunting Jim maybe at the fall of night; and it’s well yourself knows there isn’t the like of her for getting money and selling songs to the men.