[
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
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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
young; but if they have itself, they'll not
keep Mary Byrne from her full pint when
the night's fine, and there's a dry moon in the
sky.
(She takes up the can, and puts the
package back in the ditch.) Jemmy Neill's a
decent lad; and he'll give me a good drop for
the can; and maybe if I keep near the peelers
to-morrow for the first bit of the fair, herself
won't strike me at all; and if she does itself,
what's a little stroke on your head beside
sitting lonesome on a fine night, hearing the
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dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you
saying over, it's a short while only till you die.
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