King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve Part 9

Lend me a pair of pennies to weight her eyes.

THE YOUNGER WOMAN.

Find your own pennies: then you can steal them safely.

THE ELDER WOMAN.

Praise you the G.o.ds of Britain, as I do praise them, That I have been sweet-natured from my birth, And that I lack your unforgiving mind.

Friend of the worms, help me to lift her clear And draw away the under sheet for you; Then go and spread the shroud by the hall fire-- I never could put damp linen on a corpse.

_She sings._

The louse made off unhappy and wet;-- Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- He's looking for us, the little pet; So haste, for her chin's to tie up yet, And let us be gone with what we can get-- Her ring for thee, her gown for Bet, Her pocket turned out for me.

CURTAIN.

THE CRIER BY NIGHT

_TO MY DEAR SCRIBE_

PERSONS:

HIALTI, a Northman.

THORGERD, His Wife.

BLANID, an Irish Bondmaid.

AN OLD STRANGE MAN.

THE CRIER BY NIGHT

_The scene is the interior of a cottage near a misty mere and among unseen mountains on a wild night of late Autumn. In the back wall area door to the left and a long low window in the middle; the latter is shuttered on the outside, and on door and window the wind-driven rain rattles. In the middle of the left-hand wall a door leads into an outhouse; near it is a loom: toward the front of the right-hand wall another door leads to a sleeping-chamber; a settle extends along this wall and in front of it a long table is set. Two rushlights burn on the table. A round hearth is in the middle of the house; its smoke rises into a luffer which hangs from the thatched roof between two beams. The floor is thickly strewn with rushes. There are several wooden stools about the hearth, on one of which HIALTI is sitting mending harness.

THORGERD is standing near the loom, spinning with a distaff._

HIALTI.

THE la.s.s is late about; where is she now?

THORGERD.

Let the la.s.s be. What is the la.s.s to you?

She is my la.s.s to handle as I will-- My father gave her to me for my own, And so I use her as I use my gear....

"She will not last" say you? Well, what of that?

I know gear must wear out, being well used; Shoes must be trodden under-foot all day, Though in the mire they go and to the mire; The hearth-fire wastes the irons used to tend it: I am the huswife--leave the house to me And buy me new gear when the old is rotten.

HIALTI.

You drive her over hard. In the cold dark, Hours ere the thin late dawn, she was afoot, And she has been afoot each moment since: The b.u.t.ter will not come now without fire, But I was wakened in the frosty night By the slow moaning of her weary churn, And when I rose she stood here without shoes-- She said you took them from her; so I sought, And gave her them again, and lit the fire.

She dare not sleep with half your tasks undone, But you slept and your sleep was all her rest; Yet in her land 'tis you would be the thrall.

You shut the hens in from the storm all day, But she must trudge with peat-mull in a swill Up from the water-side and down all day....

THORGERD Spare her and have my firing spoilt? Not I.

Had it been sodden, how could you light her fires?

HIALTI.

You drive her over hard.

THORGERD. What is it to you?

Fodder and yoke your neats, see to your swine, Put them to breed, and leave my stock to me.

If this is over hard, what will it be-- Last week she still could smile sometimes, so yet She smiles too often for my happiness.

What money did the calves fetch at the fair?

HIALTI.

Where is she now?

THORGERD. What money did the calves Fetch at the fair last week?

HIALTI. Where is she now?

THORGERD.

I spilt the water; she must needs draw more.

HIALTI.

The roof-drip at the door would fill her pails.

THORGERD.

What money did the calves fetch at the fair?

HIALTI.

You need not ask; you had it all to h.o.a.rd.

THORGERD.

You kept some back; who bought them?

HIALTI. He who paid.

_The outside door opens and, as the rain drives in, BLANID enters carrying two pails of water by a yoke. Her short-sleeved, frayed, hempen smock is dripping-wet; an old cart-strap is buckled about her middle; her ankles are bare, but her feet are covered by shapeless brogues; her matted hair is cut short, and she has an iron collar about her neck. She sets down her pails, and with difficulty shuts and bolts the door against the wind. Then she carries her pails into the outhouse; as she moves about within she is heard to sing to a tired, monotonous tune._

BLANID.

The bird in my heart's a-calling through a far-fled, tear-grey sea To the soft slow hills that cherish dim waters weary for me, Where the folk of rath and dun trail homeward silently In the mist of the early night-fall that drips from their hair like rain.

The bird in my heart's a-flutter, for the bitter wind of the sea s.h.i.+vers with thyme and woodbine as my body with memory; I feel their perfumes ooze in my ears like melody-- The scent of the mead at the harping I shall not hear again.

The bird in my heart's a-sinking to a hushed vale hid in the sea, Where the moonlit dew o'er dead fighters is stirred by the feet of the Shee, Who are lovely and old as the earth but younger than I can be Who have known the forgetting of dying to a life one lonely pain ...