In the Shadow of the Glen

by J. M. Synge

(Nora comes in with Micheal Dara, a tall, innocent young man behind her.)

NORA.
I wasn’t long at all, stranger, for I met himself on the path.

TRAMP.
You were middling long, lady of the house.

NORA.
There was no sign from himself?

TRAMP.
No sign at all, lady of the house.

NORA.
(To Micheal.) Go over now and pull down the sheet, and look on himself, Micheal Dara, and you’ll see it’s the truth I’m telling you.

MICHEAL.
I will not, Nora, I do be afeard of the dead.

(He sits down on a stool next the table facing the tramp. Nora puts the kettle on a lower hook of the pot hooks, and piles turf under it.)

NORA.
(Turning to Tramp.) Will you drink a sup of tea with myself and the young man, stranger, or (speaking more persuasively) will you go into the little room and stretch yourself a short while on the bed, I’m thinking it’s destroyed you are walking the length of that way in the great rain.

TRAMP.
Is it to go away and leave you, and you having a wake, lady of the house? I will not surely. (He takes a drink from his glass which he has beside him.) And it’s none of your tea I’m asking either.