The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 4 of 8. The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement

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

Well, if I didn’t bring much I didn’t get much. What had you the day I married you but a flock of hens and you feeding them, and a few lambs and you driving them to the market at Ballina. [She is vexed and bangs a jug on the dresser.] If I brought no fortune I worked it out in my bones, laying down the baby, Michael that is standing there now, on a stook of straw, while I dug the potatoes, and never asking big dresses or anything but to be working.

PETER

That is true, indeed.

    [He pats her arm.

BRIDGET

Leave me alone now till I ready the house for the woman that is to come into it.

PETER

You are the best woman in Ireland, but money is good, too. [He begins handling the money again and sits down.] I never thought to see so much money within my four walls. We can do great things now we have it. We can take the ten acres of land we have a chance of since Jamsie Dempsey died, and stock it. We will go to the fair of Ballina to buy the stock. Did Delia ask any of the money for her own use, Michael?

MICHAEL

She did not, indeed. She did not seem to take much notice of it, or to look at it at all.

BRIDGET

That’s no wonder. Why would she look at it when she had yourself to look at, a fine, strong young man? it is proud she must be to get you; a good steady boy that will make use of the money, and not be running through it or spending it on drink like another.

PETER

It’s likely Michael himself was not thinking much of the fortune either, but of what sort the girl was to look at.

MICHAEL [coming over towards the table]

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.

PATRICK [turning round from the window]

They are cheering again down in the town. Maybe they are landing horses from Enniscrone. They do be cheering when the horses take the water well.

MICHAEL

There are no horses in it. Where would they be going and no fair at hand? Go down to the town, Patrick, and see what is going on.

PATRICK

[Opens the door to go out, but stops for a moment on the threshold.]

Will Delia remember, do you think, to bring the greyhound pup she promised me when she would be coming to the house?

MICHAEL

She will surely.

    [PATRICK goes out, leaving the door open.

PETER

It will be Patrick’s turn next to be looking for a fortune, but he won’t find it so easy to get it and he with no place of his own.

BRIDGET