NORA. Tell us what it is you seen.
MAURYA. I went down to the spring-well, and I stood there saying a prayer to myself. Then Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the gray pony behind him. (She puts up her hands, as if to hide something from her eyes.) The Son of God spare us, Nora!
CATHLEEN. What is it you seen?
MAURYA. I seen Michael himself.
CATHLEEN (speaking softly). You did not, mother; it wasn't Michael you seen, for his body is after being found in the far north, and he's got a clean burial by the grace of God.
MAURYA (a little defiantly). I'm after seeing him this day, and he riding and galloping. Bartley came first on the red mare; and I tried to say "God speed you," but something choked the words in my throat. He went by quickly; and, "The blessing of God on you," says he, and I could say nothing. I looked up then, and I crying, at the gray pony, and there was Michael upon it—with fine clothes on him, and new shoes on his feet.
CATHLEEN (begins to keen). It's destroyed we are from this day.
It's destroyed, surely.
NORA. Didn't the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn't leave her destitute with no son living?
MAUKYA (in a low voice, but clearly). It's little the like of him knows of the sea…. Bartley will be lost now, and let you call in Eamon and make me a good coffin out of the white boards, for I won't live after them. I've had a husband, and a husband's father, and six sons in this house—six fine men, though it was a hard birth I had with every one of them and they coming to the world—and some of them were found and some of them were not found, but they're gone now, the lot of them…. There were Stephen, and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and in by that door.
(She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something through the door that is half-open behind them.)