Tramp. It was no lie, lady of the house. … I was passing below on a dark night the like of this night, and the sheep were lying under the ditch and every one of them coughing and choking like an old man, with the great rain and the fog. Then I heard a thing talking—queer talk, you wouldn’t believe it at all, and you out of your dreams—and “Merciful God,” says I, “if I begin hearing the like of that voice out of the thick mist, I’m destroyed surely.” Then I run and I run till I was below in Rathvanna. I got drunk that night, I got drunk in the morning, and drunk the day after—I was coming from the races beyond—and the third day they found Darcy … Then I knew it was himself I was after hearing, and I wasn’t afeard any more.

Nora (speaking sorrowfully and slowly). God spare Darcy; he’d always look in here and he passing up or passing down, and it’s very lonesome I was after him a long while (she looks over at the bed and lowers her voice, speaking very slowly), and then I got happy again—if it’s ever happy we are, stranger— for I got used to being lonesome.

A short pause; then she stands up.

Nora. Was there anyone on the last bit of the road, stranger, and you coming from Aughrim?

Tramp. There was a young man with a drift of mountain ewes, and he running after them this way and that.

Nora (with a half-smile). Far down, stranger?

Tramp. A piece only.

Nora fills the kettle and puts it on the fire.

Nora. Maybe, if you’re not easy afeard, you’d stay here a short while alone with himself.

Tramp. I would surely. A man that’s dead can do no hurt.

Nora (speaking with a sort of constraint). I’m going a little back to the west, stranger, for himself would go there one night and another and whistle at that place, and then the young man you’re after seeing—a kind of a farmer has come up from the sea to live in a cottage beyond—would walk round to see if there was a thing we’d have to be done, and I’m wanting him this night, the way he can go down into the glen when the sun goes up and tell the people that himself is dead.

Tramp (looking at the body in the sheet). It’s myself will go for him, lady of the house, and let you not be destroying yourself with the great rain.

Nora. You wouldn’t find your way, stranger, for there’s a small path only, and it running up between two sluigs where an ass and cart would be drowned. (She puts a shawl over her head.) Let you be making yourself easy, and saying a prayer for his soul, and it’s not long I’ll be coming again.

Tramp (moving uneasily). Maybe if you’d a piece of a grey thread and a sharp needle— there’s great safety in a needle, lady of the house—I’d be putting a little stitch here and there in my old coat, the time I’ll be praying for his soul, and it going up naked to the saints of God.

Nora (takes a needle and thread from the front of her dress and gives it to him). There’s the needle, stranger, and I’m thinking you won’t be lonesome, and you used to the back hills, for isn’t a dead man itself more company than to be sitting alone, and hearing the winds crying, and you not knowing on what thing your mind would stay?

Tramp (slowly). It’s true, surely, and the Lord have mercy on us all!