way I can walk up in a short while, and get
another pint for my sleep.
SARAH. It's too much you have taken.
Let you stretch yourself out and take a long
sleep; for isn't that the best thing any woman
can do, and she an old drinking heathen like
yourself.
[She and Michael go out left.
MARY -- standing up slowly. -- It's gone
they are, and I with my feet that weak under
me you'd knock me down with a rush, and
my head with a noise in it the like of what


31

you'd hear in a stream and it running between
two rocks and rain falling. (She goes over to
the ditch where the can is tied in sacking, and
takes it down.) What good am I this night,
God help me? What good are the grand
stories I have when it's few would listen to
an old woman, few but a girl maybe would
be in great fear the time her hour was come,
or a little child wouldn't be sleeping with the
hunger on a cold night? (She takes the can
from the sacking and fits in three empty bottles
and straw in its place, and ties them up.)
Maybe the two of them have a good right to
be walking out the little short while they'd be