SHEMUS. Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,
And call up a whey face and a whining voice,
And let your head be bowed upon your knees,

MARY. Had I but time to put the place to rights.

(CATHLEEN, OONA, and ALEEL enter.)

CATHLEEN. God save all here. There is a certain house,
An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,
A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,
Somewhere among these woods.

MARY. We know it, lady.
A place that's set among impassable walls
As though world's trouble could not find it out.

CATHLEEN. It may be that we are that trouble, for we--
Although we've wandered in the wood this hour--
Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,
For I lived all my childhood in that house.

MARY. Then you are Countess Cathleen?

CATHLEEN. And this woman,
Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,
For we were happy for a long time there.

OONA. The paths are overgrown with thickets now,
Or else some change has come upon my sight.