Part 20

CATHERINE [_plunging on with her confession_]. Aye, lad, I did, I'd been so unhappy with the quarrelin' an' hard words. I could think of nothin' but gettin' rid of them.

VAVASOUR [_in a tone of condemnation and standing over her_]. That was bad, very bad indeed!

CATHERINE. An' then, lad, when I reached the church corner an' saw your spirit was really there, _really_ called, an' I knew ye'd not live the year out, I was frightened, but uch! lad, I was glad, I was indeed.

VAVASOUR [_looking grave_]. Catherine, 'twas a terrible thing to do!

CATHERINE [_meekly_]. Yiss, I know it now, but I didn't then. I was hard-hearted, an' I was weak with longin' to escape from it all. An' when I ran home I was frightened, but uch! lad, I was glad, too, an' now it hurts me so to think of it. Can you no comfort me?

VAVASOUR [_grudgingly, but not touching CATHERINE's outstretched hand_]. Aye, well, I could, but, Kats, 'twas such a terrible thing to do!

CATHERINE. Yiss, yiss, ye'll never be able to forgive me, I'm thinkin'. An' then when ye came in from the lodge, ye spoke so pleasantly to me that I was troubled. An' now the year through it has grown better an' better, an' I could think of nothin' but lovin' ye, an' wishing' ye to live, an' knowin' I was the cause of your bein' called. Uch, lad, _can_ ye forgive me?

VAVASOUR [_slowly_]. Aye, I can, none of us is without sin; but, Catherine, it was wrong, aye, aye, 'twas a wicked thing for a woman to do.

CATHERINE [_still more meekly_]. An' then to-night, lad, I was expectin' ye to go, knowin' ye couldn't live after twelve, an' ye sittin' there so innocent an' mournful. An' when the time came, I wanted to die myself. Uch!

VAVASOUR [_sitting down beside her and putting an arm about her as he speaks in a superior tone of voice_]. No matter, dearie, now. It _was_ wrong in ye, but we're still here, an' it's been a sweet year, yiss, better nor a honeymoon, an' all the years after we'll make better nor this. There, there, Kats, let's have a bit of a wassail to celebrate our Allhallows' honeymoon, shall we?

CATHERINE [_starting to fetch a bowl_]. Yiss, lad, 'twould be fine, but, Vavasour, can ye forgive me, think, lad, for hopin', aye, an' prayin' to see your spirit called, just wishin' that ye'd not live the year out?

VAVASOUR [_with condescension_]. Kats, I can, an' I'm not layin' it up against ye, though 'twas a wicked thing for ye to do--for anyone to do. Now, darlin', fetch the bowl.

CATHERINE [_starting for the bowl again but turning on him_]. Vavasour, how does it happen that the callin' is set aside, an' that ye're really here? Such a thing has not been in Beddgelert in the memory of man.

VAVASOUR [_with dignity_]. I'm not sayin' how it's happened, Kats, but I'm thinkin' 'tis modern times whatever, an' things have changed--aye, indeed, 'tis modern times.

CATHERINE [_sighing contentedly_]. Good! 'Tis lucky 'tis modern times whatever!

[THE CURTAIN.]

RIDERS TO THE SEA[41]

By JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE

[Footnote 41: Copyright, 1916, by L. E. Bassett. Reprinted by special arrangement with John W. Luce & Company, Boston. Acting rights in the hands of Samuel French, 28 West 38 Street, New York.]

"He was of a dark type of Irishman, though not black-haired. Something in his air gave one the fancy that his face was dark from gravity. Gravity filled the face and haunted it, as though the man behind were forever listening to life's case before passing judgment.... When someone spoke to him he answered with grave Irish courtesy. When the talk became general he was silent.... His manner was that of a man too much interested in the life about him to wish to be more than a spectator. His interest was in life, not in ideas." In these words, John Masefield gives his first impressions of John Millington Synge, whom he met at a friend's house, in London, in January, 1903.

Synge, born April 16, 1871, at Newton Little, near Dublin, and dying in Dublin, March 24, 1909, belongs to that group of "inheritors of unfulfilled renown" who died before the prime of life was reached. He left six plays, notable the _Riders to the Sea_ and _Deirdre of the Sorrows_, that are among the greatest in our language. He was delicate from the beginning, and after some education in private schools in Dublin and Bray, left school when about fourteen and studied with a tutor. In 1892 he took his B.A. degree from Trinity College, Dublin, whose rolls contain a number of names famous in English literature. While at college, he studied music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he won a scholarship. His first impulse was to make music his career, and he spent portions of the next four years in Germany, France, and Italy studying music and traveling. In May, 1898, he first went to the Aran Islands, later to be the scene of _Riders to the Sea_. Thereafter in Paris in 1899 he met Yeats, who advised him to go back to the Aran Islands to renew his contact with the simple folk there. For the next three years he divided his time between Paris and Ireland. It was in 1904 that his play, _Riders to the Sea_,[42] was first produced. He was at Dublin that same year for the opening of the Abbey Theatre, of which he was one of the advisers. Whenever the Irish Players visited England, he traveled with them. In 1909 came the operation that ended his life.

[Footnote 42: For a list of Synge's other plays, see E. A. Boyd, _The Contemporary Drama of Ireland_, Boston, 1917.]

Synge's book, _The Aran Islands_, which is a record of his various visits to these three islands lying about thirty miles off the coast of County Galway, is full of material that throws light on the setting and characterization of _Riders to the Sea_. The central incident in this play was suggested to Synge while he was sojourning on Inishmaan, the middle island of the Aran group, by a tale that he heard of a man whose body had been washed up on a distant coast, and who had been identified as belonging to the Islands, because of his characteristic garments. When on Inishmaan, Synge himself lived in just such a cottage as that which is the background for the tragedy of Maurya's sons. He wrote of this cottage, "The kitchen itself, where I will spend most of my time, is full of beauty and distinction. The red dresses of the women who cluster round the fire on their stools give a glow of almost Eastern richness, and the walls have been toned by the surf-smoke to a soft brown that blends with the gray earth-color of the floor. Many sorts of fishing-tackle, and the nets and oilskins of the men, are hung up on the walls or among the open rafters." And the following passage from his _Aran Islands_ is an eloquent description of the atmosphere there: "A week of smoking fog has passed over and given me a strange sense of exile and desolation. I walk round the island nearly every day, yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of wet rock, a strip of surf, and then a tumult of waves.

"The slaty limestone has grown black with the water that is dripping on it, and wherever I turn there is the same gray obsession twining and wreathing itself among the narrow fields, and the same wail from the wind that shrieks and whistles in the loose rubble of the walls."

Mr. Masefield, in his recollections of Synge, reports also the following conversation between himself and the Irish playwright: Synge saying, "They [the islanders] asked me to fiddle to them so that they might dance," and Mr. Masefield asking, "Do you play, then?" and Synge answering, "I fiddle a little. I try to learn something different for them every time. The last time I learned to do conjuring tricks. They'd get tired of me if I didn't bring something new. I'm thinking of learning the penny whistle before I go again."

A later visitor[43] to the Aran Islands, Miss B. N. Hedderman, a district nurse, gives further evidences of the simplicity of those people from whom the characters of _Riders to the Sea_ were drawn. She tells of a man who owned a house with two comfortable rooms in it, one of which he leveled ruthlessly because he had dreamed that it hindered the passage of the "good people." The illustrations in her little book showing cottage interiors and peasant costumes will be found useful by groups who are planning to produce _Riders to the Sea_. But the best guide to the costumes and social life of the West of Ireland is J. B. Yeats.[44]

[Footnote 43: B. N. Hedderman, _Glimpses of My Life in Aran_, Bristol, 1917.]

[Footnote 44: J. B. Yeats, _Life in the West of Ireland_, Dublin and London, 1912. The color prints and line drawings in this book are very beautiful. Cf. also J. M. Synge, _The Aran Islands_. With drawings by Jack B. Yeats, Dublin and London, 1907.]

The _Drama Calendar_ of December 13, 1920, offers the following suggestion for a musical setting for the play: "The attention of Little Theatre directors is called to a musical prelude to Synge's _Riders to the Sea_, arranged by Henry F. Gilbert from the Symphonic Prologue, which was played at the Worcester Musical Festival this fall. This original arrangement of the material is intended to build the mood which the play sustains, and is simply orchestrated for seven instruments. Every Little Theatre should be able to gather such an orchestra. Here is an opportunity to give continuity to a program of one-acts; music answers a question which is one of the hardest the director has to solve: how a mood which is to be created and sustained in the brief space of twenty minutes shall not be too fleeting."

RIDERS TO THE SEA

_A PLAY IN ONE ACT_

_First performed at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, February 25, 1904._

CHARACTERS

MAURYA, _an old woman._ BARTLEY, _her son._ CATHLEEN, _her daughter._ NORA, _a younger daughter._ MEN AND WOMEN.

_SCENE._--_An Island off the West of Ireland._

_Cottage kitchen, with nets, oil-skins, spinning wheel, some new boards standing by the wall, etc. CATHLEEN, a girl of about twenty, finishes kneading cake, and puts it down in the pot-oven by the fire; then wipes her hands, and begins to spin at the wheel. NORA, a young girl, puts her head in at the door._

NORA [_in a low voice_]. Where is she?

CATHLEEN. She's lying down, God help her, and may be sleeping, if she's able. [_NORA comes in softly, and takes a bundle from under her shawl._]

CATHLEEN [_spinning the wheel rapidly_]. What is it you have?

NORA. The young priest is after bringing them. It's a shirt and a plain stocking were got off a drowned man in Donegal. [_CATHLEEN stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out to listen._]

NORA. We're to find out if it's Michael's they are, some time herself will be down looking by the sea.

CATHLEEN. How would they be Michael's, Nora? How would he go the length of that way to the far north?

NORA. The young priest says he's known the like of it. "If it's Michael's they are," says he, "you can tell herself he's got a clean burial by the grace of God, and if they're not his, let no one say a word about them, for she'll be getting her death," says he, "with crying and lamenting." [_The door which NORA half closed is blown open by a gust of wind._]

CATHLEEN [_looking out anxiously_]. Did you ask him would he stop Bartley going this day with the horses to the Galway fair?

NORA. "I won't stop him," says he, "but let you not be afraid. Herself does be saying prayers half through the night, and the Almighty God won't leave her destitute," says he, "with no son living."

CATHLEEN. Is the sea bad by the white rocks, Nora?

NORA. Middling bad, God help us. There's a great roaring in the west, and it's worse it'll be getting when the tide's turned to the wind. [_She goes over to the table with the bundle._] Shall I open it now?

CATHLEEN. Maybe she'd wake up on us, and come in before we'd done. [_Coming to the table._] It's a long time we'll be, and the two of us crying.

NORA [_goes to the inner door and listens_]. She's moving about on the bed. She'll be coming in a minute.

CATHLEEN. Give me the ladder, and I'll put them up in the turf-loft, the way she won't know of them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she'll be going down to see would he be floating from the east. [_They put the ladder against the gable of the chimney; CATHLEEN goes up a few steps and hides the bundle in the turf-loft. MAURYA comes from the inner room._]

MAURYA [_looking up at CATHLEEN and speaking querulously._] Isn't it turf enough you have for this day and evening?

CATHLEEN. There's a cake baking at the fire for a short space [_throwing down the turf_] and Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes to Connemara. [_NORA picks up the turf and puts it round the pot-oven._]

MAURYA [_sitting down on a stool at the fire_]. He won't go this day with the wind rising from the south and west. He won't go this day, for the young priest will stop him surely.

NORA. He'll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety and Colum Shawn saying he would go.

MAURYA. Where is he itself?

NORA. He went down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week, and I'm thinking it won't be long till he's here now, for the tide's turning at the green head, and the hooker's tacking from the east.

CATHLEEN. I hear someone passing the big stones.

NORA [_looking out_]. He's coming now, and he in a hurry.

BARTLEY [_comes in and looks round the room. Speaking sadly and quietly_]. Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara?

CATHLEEN [_coming down_]. Give it to him, Nora; it's on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.

NORA [_giving him a rope_]. Is that it, Bartley?

MAURYA. You'd do right to leave that rope, Bartley, hanging by the boards. [_BARTLEY takes the rope._] It will be wanting in this place, I'm telling you, if Michael is washed up to-morrow morning, or the next morning, or any morning in the week, for it's a deep grave we'll make him by the grace of God.

BARTLEY [_beginning to work with the rope_]. I've no halter the way I can ride down on the mare, and I must go now quickly. This is the one boat going for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will be a good fair for horses I heard them saying below.

MAURYA. It's a hard thing they'll be saying below if the body is washed up and there's no man in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price for the finest white boards you'd find in Connemara. [_She looks round at the boards._]

BARTLEY. How would it be washed up, and we after looking each day for nine days, and a strong wind blowing a while back from the west and south?

MAURYA. 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?

BARTLEY [_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.

MAURYA. How would the like of her get a good price for a pig?

BARTLEY [_to CATHLEEN_]. If the west wind holds with the last bit of the moon let you and Nora get up weed enough for another cock for the kelp. It's hard set we'll be from this day with no one in it but one man to work.

MAURYA. It's hard set we'll be surely the day you're drownd'd with the rest. What way will I live and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking for the grave? [_BARTLEY lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a newer one of the same flannel._]

BARTLEY [_to NORA_]. Is she coming to the pier?

NORA [_looking out_]. She's passing the green head and letting fall her sails.

BARTLEY [_getting his purse and tobacco_]. I'll have half an hour to go down, and you'll see me coming again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in four days if the wind is bad.

MAURYA [_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?

CATHLEEN. 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?

BARTLEY [_taking the halter_]. I must go now quickly. I'll ride down on the red mare, and the gray pony'll run behind me.... The blessing of God on you. [_He goes out._]

MAURYA [_crying out as he is in the door_]. He's gone now, God spare us, and we'll not see him again. He's gone now, and when the black night is falling I'll have no son left me in the world.

CATHLEEN. Why wouldn't you give him your blessing and he looking round in the door? Isn't it sorrow enough is on everyone in this house without your sending him out with an unlucky word behind him, and a hard word in his ear? [_MAURYA takes up the tongs and begins raking the fire aimlessly without looking round._]

NORA [_turning towards her_]. You're taking away the turf from the cake.

CATHLEEN [_crying out_]. The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we're after forgetting his bit of bread. [_She comes over to the fire._]

NORA. And it's destroyed he'll be going till dark night, and he after eating nothing since the sun went up.

CATHLEEN [_turning the cake out of the oven_]. It's destroyed he'll be, surely. There's no sense left on any person in a house where an old woman will be talking forever. [_MAURYA sways herself on her stool._]

CATHLEEN [_cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth; to MAURYA_]. Let you go down now to the spring well and give him this and he passing. You'll see him then and the dark word will be broken, and you can say "God speed you," the way he'll be easy in his mind.

MAURYA [_taking the bread_]. Will I be in it as soon as himself?

CATHLEEN. If you go now quickly.

MAURYA [_standing up unsteadily_]. It's hard set I am to walk.

CATHLEEN [_looking at her anxiously_]. Give her the stick, Nora, or maybe she'll slip on the big stones.

NORA. What stick?

CATHLEEN. The stick Michael brought from Connemara.

MAURYA [_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._]

CATHLEEN. Wait, Nora, maybe she'd turn back quickly. She's that sorry, God help her, you wouldn't know the thing she'd do.

NORA. Is she gone round by the bush?

CATHLEEN [_looking out_]. She's gone now. Throw it down quickly, for the Lord knows when she'll be out of it again.

NORA [_getting the bundle from the loft_]. The young priest said he'd be passing to-morrow, and we might go down and speak to him below if it's Michael's they are surely.

CATHLEEN [_taking the bundle_]. Did he say what way they were found?

NORA [_coming down_]. "There were two men," says he, "and they rowing round with poteen before the cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they passing the black cliffs of the north."

CATHLEEN [_trying to open the bundle_]. Give me a knife, Nora, the string's perished with the salt water, and there's a black knot on it you wouldn't loosen in a week.

NORA [_giving her a knife_]. I've heard tell it was a long way to Donegal.

CATHLEEN [_cutting the string_]. It is surely. There was a man in here a while ago--the man sold us that knife--and he said if you set off walking from the rocks beyond, it would be seven days you'd be in Donegal.

NORA. And what time would a man take, and he floating? [_CATHLEEN opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They look at them eagerly._]

CATHLEEN [_in a low voice_]. The Lord spare us, Nora! isn't it a queer hard thing to say if it's his they are surely?

NORA. I'll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel on the other. [_She looks through some clothes hanging in the corner._] It's not with them, Cathleen, and where will it be?

CATHLEEN. I'm thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt was heavy with the salt in it. [_Pointing to the corner._] There's a bit of a sleeve was of the same stuff. Give me that and it will do. [_NORA brings it to her and they compare the flannel._]

CATHLEEN. It's the same stuff, Nora; but if it is itself aren't there great rolls of it in the shops of Galway, and isn't it many another man may have a shirt of it as well as Michael himself?

NORA [_who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, crying out_]. It's Michael, Cathleen, it's Michael; God spare his soul, and what will herself say when she hears this story, and Bartley on the sea?

CATHLEEN [_taking the stocking_]. It's a plain stocking.

NORA. It's the second one of the third pair I knitted, and I put up three score stitches, and I dropped four of them.

CATHLEEN [_counts the stitches_]. It's that number is in it. [_Crying out._] Ah, Nora, isn't it a bitter thing to think of him floating that way to the far north, and no one to keen him but the black hags that do be flying on the sea?

NORA [_swinging herself 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?

CATHLEEN [_after an instant_]. Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little sound on the path.

NORA [_looking out_]. She is, Cathleen. She's coming up to the door.