The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 4 (of 8): The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement — John Shaqi
The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 4 (of 8): The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic MovementYeats, W. B. (William Butler)
General
The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 4 (of 8): The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
English literature -- Irish authors
Those are grand clothes, indeed.
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.
PETER.
That is true, indeed. We never thought a son of our own would be
wearing a suit of that sort for his wedding, or have so good a place to
bring a wife to.
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?
BRIDGET.
It will be a neighbour coming to hear about Michael’s wedding. Can you
see who it is?
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 Murteen and his sons are
shearing sheep. [_He turns towards 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?
BRIDGET.
Don’t be bothering us about Winny’s talk, but go and open the door for
your brother. I hear him coming up the path.
PETER.
I hope he has brought Delia’s fortune with him safe, for fear her
people might go back on the bargain and I after making it. Trouble
enough I had making it.
[_PATRICK opens the door and MICHAEL comes in._
BRIDGET.
What kept you, Michael? We were looking out for you this long time.
MICHAEL.
I went round by the priest’s house to bid him be ready to marry us
to-morrow.
BRIDGET.
Did he say anything?
MICHAEL.
He said it was a very nice match, and that he was never better pleased
to marry any two in his parish than myself and Delia Cahel.
PETER.
Have you got the fortune, Michael?
MICHAEL.
Here it is.
[_MICHAEL puts bag on table and goes over and leans
against chimney-jamb. BRIDGET, who has been all this
time examining the clothes, pulling the seams and
trying the lining of the pockets, etc., puts the
clothes on the dresser._
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.
BRIDGET.
You seem well pleased to be handling the money, Peter.
PETER.
Indeed, I wish I had had the luck to get a hundred pounds, or twenty
pounds itself, with the wife I married.
BRIDGET.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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