There is a page of MS missing here, which evidently covered the exit to the room of MacDara and the entrance of Diarmaid.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

What news have you with you?

DIARMAID.

The Gall have marched from Clifden.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Is it into the hills?

DIARMAID.

By Letterfrack they have come, and the Pass of Kylemore, and through Glen Inagh.

COLM.

And no word from Galway yet?

DIARMAID.

No word, nor sign of a word.

COLM.

They told us to wait for the word. We've waited too long.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

The messenger may have been caught. Perhaps the Gall are marching from Galway too.

COLM.

We'd best strike ourselves, so.

CUIMIN.

Is it to strike before the word is given?

COLM.

Is it to die like rats you'd have us because the word is not given?

CUIMIN.

Our plans are not finished; our orders are not here.

COLM.

Our plans will never be finished. Our orders may never be here.

CUIMIN.

We've no one to lead us.

COLM.

Didn't you elect me your captain?

CUIMIN.

We did: but not to bid us rise out when the whole country is quiet. We were to get the word from the men that are over the people. They'll speak when the time comes.

COLM.

They should have spoken before the Gall marched.

CUIMIN.

What call have you to say what they should or what they should not have done? Am I speaking lie or truth, men? Are we to rise out before the word comes? I say we must wait for the word. What do you say, Diarmaid, you that was our messenger to Galway?

DIARMAID.

I like the way Colm has spoken, and we may live to say that he spoke wisely as well as bravely; but I'm slow to give my voice to send out the boys of this mountain--- our poor little handful---

to stand with their poor pikes against the big guns of the Gall. If we had news that they were rising in the other countrysides; but we've got no news.

CUIMIN.

What do you say, master? You're wiser than any of us.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

I say to Colm that a greater one than he or I may give us the word before the day is old. Let you have patience, Colm---

COLM.

My mother told me to have patience this morning, when MacDara's step was on the street. Patience, and I after waiting seven years before I spoke, and then to speak too late!

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

What are you saying at all?

COLM.

I am saying this, master, that I'm going out the road to meet the Gall, if only five men of the mountain follow me.

Sighle has appeared in the doorway and stands terror-stricken.

CUIMIN.

You will not, Colm.

COLM.

I will.

DIARMAID.

This is throwing away men's lives.

COLM.

Men's lives get very precious to them when they have bought out their land.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Listen to me, Colm---

Colm goes out angrily, and the others follow him, trying to restrain him. Sighle comes to the fire, where she kneels.

SIGHLE

(as in a reverie)

`They will go out laughing,' I said, but Colm has gone out with anger in his heart. And he was so kind . . . Love is a terrible thing. There is no pain so great as the pain of love --- I wish MacDara and I were children in the green mám and that we did not know that we loved each other . . . Colm will lie dead on the road to Glen Inagh, and MacDara will go out to die . . . There is nothing in the world but love and death.

MacDara comes out of the room.

MACDARA

(in a low voice)

She has dropped asleep, Sighle.

SIGHLE.

She watched long, MacDara. We all watched long.

MACDARA.

Every long watch ends. Every traveller comes home.

SIGHLE.

Sometimes when people watch it is death that comes.

MACDARA.

Could there be a royaller coming, Sighle?. . .Once I wanted life. You and I to be together in one place always: that is what I wanted. But now I see that we shall be together for a little time only; that I have to do a hard, sweet thing, and that I must do it alone. And because I love you I would not have it different. I wanted to have your kiss on my lips, Sighle, as well as my mother's and Colm's. But I will deny myself that.[(Sighle is crying.)] Don't cry, child. Stay near my mother while she lives--- it may be for a little while of years. You poor women suffer so much pain, so much sorrow, and yet you do not die until long after your strong, young sons and lovers have died.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 542