Cathleen ni Houlihan, Yates & Gregory

• PATRICK. I don't hear anything. [He listens.] I hear it now. It's like cheering. [He goes to the window and looks out.] I wonder what they are cheering about. I don't see anybody.
• BRIDGET. You hadn't clothes like that when you married me, and no coat to put on of a Sunday more than any other day.
• PATRICK [who is still at the window]. There's an old woman coming down the road. I don't know is it here she is coming.
• PATRICK. I think it is a stranger, but she's not coming to the house. She's turned into the gap that goes down where Maurteen and his sons are shearing sheep. [He turns toward BRIDGET.] Do you remember what Winny of the Cross-Roads was saying the other night about the strange woman that goes through the country whatever time there's war or trouble coming?
• PETER. I hope he has brought Delia's fortune with him safe, for fear the people might go back on the bargain and I after making it. Trouble enough I had making it.
• PETER [getting up and taking the bag in his hand and turning out the money]. Yes, I made the bargain well for you, Michael. Old John Cahel would sooner have kept a share of this a while longer. 'Let me keep the half of it until the first boy is born,' says he. 'You will not,' says I. 'Whether there is or is not a boy, the whole hundred pounds must be in Michael's hands before he brings your daughter to the house.' The wife spoke to him then, and he gave in at the end.
• PETER. You are the best woman in Ireland, but money is good, too.
• MICHAEL [turning round from the window]. Well, you would like a nice comely girl to be beside you, and to go walking with you. The fortune only lasts for a while, but the woman will be there always.
• PETER. I may as well put the money out of sight. There is no use leaving it out for every stranger to look at.
• OLD WOMAN. God save all here!
• BRIDGET. Sit down there by the fire and welcome.
• OLD WOMAN. I have travelled far, very far; there are few have travelled so far as myself, and there's many a one that doesn't make me welcome. There was one that had strong sons I thought were friends of mine, but they were shearing their sheep, and they wouldn't listen to me.
• BRIDGET. What was it put you wandering?
  OLD WOMAN. Too many strangers in the house.
• OLD WOMAN. My land was taken from me.
• OLD WOMAN. My four beautiful green fields. (footnote: Ireland has four traditional provinces, Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connacht)
• OLD WOMAN. Singing I am about a man I knew one time, yellow-haired Donough that was hanged in Galway.
• OLD WOMAN. He died for love of me: many a man has died for love of me.
• OLD WOMAN. Come here beside me and I'll tell you about them.
  [MICHAEL sits down beside her on the hearth.]
  There was a red man of the O'Donnells from the north, and a man of the O'Sullivans from the south, and there was one Brian that lost his life at Clontarf by the sea, and there were a great many in the west, some that died hundreds of years ago, and there are some that will die to-morrow. (footnote: Red Hugh O'Donnell, Donal O'Sullivan Beare, Brian Boru)
• BRIDGET. Maybe we should give her something along with that, to bring her on her way. A few pence or a shilling itself, and we with so much money in the house.
• OLD WOMAN. If anyone would give me help he must give me himself, he must give me all.
• OLD WOMAN. The hope of getting my beautiful fields back again; the hope of putting the strangers out of my house.
• OLD WOMAN. I have good friends that will help me. They are gathering to help me now. I am not afraid. If they are put down to-day they will get the upper hand to-morrow.
• BRIDGET. It is not her friends you have to go and welcome, Michael; it is the girl coming into the house you have to welcome.
• OLD WOMAN. Some call me the Poor Old Woman, and there are some that call me Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
• MICHAEL. What wedding are you talking of? What clothes will I be wearing to-morrow.
• PATRICK. There are ships in the Bay; the French are landing at Killala!
• PATRICK. The boys are all hurrying down the hillside to join the French.
• PETER. It's no use. He doesn't hear a word we're saying.
• OLD WOMAN's voice outside. They shall be speaking for ever, // The people shall hear them for ever.
• [MICAHEL breaks away from DELIA, stands for a second at the door, then rushes out, following the OLD WOMAN's voice. BRIDGET takes DELIA, who is crying silently, into her arms.]
• PATRICK. I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen.