CATHLEEN. Let those among you—not too old to ride— Get horses and search all the country round, I'll give a farm to him who finds the thieves.
(A man with keys at his girdle has come in while she speaks. There is a general murmur of The Porter! the porter!")
PORTER. Demons were here. I sat beside the door In my stone niche, and two owls passed me by, Whispering with human voices.
OLD PEASANT. God forsakes us.
CATHLEEN. Old man, old man, He never closed a door Unless one opened. I am desolate, For a most sad resolve wakes in my heart But I have still my faith; therefore be silent For surely He does not forsake the world, But stands before it modelling in the clay And moulding there His image. Age by age The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard For its old, heavy, dull and shapeless ease; But sometimes—though His hand is on it still— It moves awry and demon hordes are born.
(PEASANTS cross themselves.)
Yet leave me now, for I am desolate, I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.
(She comes from the oratory door.)
Yet stay an instant. When we meet again I may have grown forgetful. Oona, take These two—the larder and the dairy keys.
(To the PORTER.)