Second Hag: You are talking fool's talk and giving out words that are foolishness! There is no one at all can put away from his road the bones and the thinness of death.
McDonough: I to have been in it he would not have come under the lintel! Ugly as he is and strong, I would be able for him and would wrestle with him and drag him asunder and put him down! Before I would let him lay his sharp touch on her I would break and would crush his naked ribs, and would burn them to lime and scatter them!
First Hag: Where is the use raving? It is best for you to turn your hand to the thing has to be done.
McDonough: You to have stood in his path he might have brought you away in her place! That much would be no great thing to ask, and your life being dead and in ashes.
First Hag: Quieten yourself now where it was the will of God. She herself made no outcry and no ravings. I did my best for her, laying her out and putting a middling white sheet around her. I went so far as to smoothen her hair on the two sides of her face.
McDonough: (Turning to inner door.) Is it that you are gone from me, Catherine, you that were the blossom of the branch!
(Old woman moans.)
It is a bad case you to have gone and to have left me as lonesome after you as that no one ever saw the like!
(The old woman moans after each sentence.)
I to bring you travelling you were the best traveller, and the best stepper, and the best that ever faced the western blast, and the waves of it blowing from you the shawl! I to be sore in the heart with walking you would make a smile of a laugh. I would not feel the road having your company; I would walk every whole step of Ireland.