NIGHTPIECE WITH FIGURES Preluded by one short squeak of its hinges, a door opens slowly and quietly into a dark and empty barn. Framed in the doorway is the glow of an autumn night, figured with a faint tracery of starlight. It is evident that the barn is pitched high above some valley because nothing obscures the lower portion of the doorway but the shadow of heaped straw. At last, and only after a whispered conversation outside, the upper portion too is filled, this time by a man’s figure seen in dim silhouette. He stumbles headlong into the barn, his feet catching in and rustling the dry straw; and now the bright oblong becomes the setting for a shadow show in which a second, third, and fourth figure take part. Somewhere very near a cow moos, and hooves clatter with a light thud. The first man tripping in the darkness utters an oath, and flings himself wearily on to a heap of straw in one corner. The whispered conversation outside continues, but more animatedly; then a light flares up and the face of a young man, dark, sardonic, and reckless is seen, bent for a moment above the rosy vessel of his cupped hands. He smokes, shading the glow of the cigarette as he does so. ‘What is it, Peter?’ the first man whispers from his corner. ‘Nothing, nothing. Do you want to smoke?’ ‘Not now—why?’ ‘We mustn’t smoke inside because of the straw.’ ‘Oh, is that all!’ A second man comes and sits beside the first, and they converse under their breath with subdued chuckles. Still another voice is heard outside, also in a whisper, but gradually rising as the speaker gives rein to his excitement. ‘Believe you me, comrade, that man have us all taped. Twiced I seen him outside the gate here after dark and never was there rhyme nor raison for his presence. I said nothing but I thought the more. Then I got the first threatening letter I was telling you about signed “Black Hand Gang” in red ink—pretending it was blood!—and three days later comes another signed “I.R.A.” Mind you, I had no proof it was himself that wrote them, but I followed my natural reasonings and seduced the fact. “So-ho! my esteemed friend,” says I, “this is how _you_ carry on. But I have no cause to be afraid of the Irish Republican Army. . . .” So I sent him a threatening letter signed “O.C.” letting him know pretty plain that he was being watched too, and since that day he never darkened this gate of ours . . . never! Now that’s strange, isn’t it, comrade?’ ‘Yes,’ yawns the man who is smoking, ‘ye—e—e—s, that’s strange. Good God, how tired I am!’ ‘Naturally, naturally. So what I say is: You. send him a letter on printed paper, paper with I.R.A. printed on the top and see what effect that, will have. Say “You are being closely observed,” or words to that effect; “a trusty friend of ours has constantly noted your movements and reported them to the proper quarter.” You see, I’ve thought it out, and if you leave me wan sheet of official paper I’ll guarantee to give him many a sleepless night.’ ' They are interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps. The young men sit up and listen tensely, but the one who has been speaking reassures them with a backward wave of his hand. Meanwhile, the slow footsteps come nearer; they are the noisy clatter of loose footwear. The young man Peter, who has been smoking, tops the cigarette between his fingers and stands inside the door. A faint yellow light begins to stream around the doorway, and as it is swung backward and forward it projects a gradually widening circle of visibility ‘over the loose cobbles among which the rain is still lodged from yesterday; while, with each jolt given to the lantern, the young men hear a loud, rhythmical sigh, a sigh that expresses habit rather than necessity. Then a figure stands framed in the doorway, carrying in one hand a lighted lantern and in the other a basket. The young man who is standing there, takes off his hat and says politely, ‘Good night, Sister,’ and the two men in the corner bend forward until their faces are revealed by the lantern, smiling and respectful, and do likewise. The nun—for it is a nun—is dressed all in white. She is an old woman with bright, crust-like, apple-red cheeks, and her skirts are now drawn up about her knees. Everything she does is done slowly, with the pronounced emphasis of old age, as at this moment when she stands looking in, the lantern held a foot or less before her, her little blue eyes screwed up, each inside a score of wrinkles, and her breath coming in dry, wheezy, asthmatic pants. ‘_Dia bhur mbeathla, a dhaoine maithe_,’ she says after a moment and the Gaelic salutation that means ‘God be your life’ is followed by a quaint gust of antique mirth. Still chuckling she lays down her basket inside the door, raises herself slowly with yet another sigh, and turns to the man who has been speaking. ‘Two of the loveliest calves you ever seen, Dan,’ she says. ‘Two little jewels, praise be to you, God! So now that old caubogue, Jer Callaghan, won’t be putting the milk of the cow we bought from him on the Department sheet.’ ‘I was telling our young frinds what a grand farm we had here, Sister,’ he says. ‘Tch! Tch! Tch!... Nothing for fifty miles around to equal it. Nothing....’ She looks at the young men, and in the half-light which the lantern casts up on her round, red, toothless, laughing face there is an extravagance of pride and joy. Her voice as she continues startles them by its masculine resonance. ‘I don’t know what they’ll do without me at all at all when the Lord God calls me home! I don’t indeed know what they’ll do without me. I say to Reverend Mother when she comes round to Galilee—that’s what we calls our end of the building, Galilee—I say to her, “Ach, wait till I’m growing purty daisies in the ploteen beyond, and you’ll see how fond of me ye were—then you’ll see!”’ She is chuckling again, but continues in- a lower tone and more tenderly. ‘Ach, sure, I do be only taking a rise out of her, boys. They’re all fond of me though I speaks saucy enough to them at times, the creatures— that’s when things go agin me. But then we must be saying something, hey?’ ‘We’re all fond of you, Sister,’ Dan the farm labourer says unctuously, and then dodges out of the way of her hand which she raises at him in mock indignation. ‘Ach, go ’way, y’ould hypocrite and you’re nothing else!’ She turns on the young men once more, pointing a bony forefinger at the basket. ‘There’ bread and mate for ye there, boys, and if ye want anything else ye’ve only to ask for it. And ye’ve my prayers as well, so that’s mate for body and soul.... Ye night-walking blackguards!’ She is off again into her deep, merry, asthmatic chuckle. As it subsides into a prolonged fit of coughing she raises the lantern to the handsome reckless face of the young man standing beside the door. He is clearly the leader of the trio. ‘What’s your name?’ “Peter Mulcahy, Sister.’ ‘There’s none of ye there I know?’ ‘No, Sister.’ ‘None of ye was here before?’ ‘No, Sister.’ ‘I hope ye’ll come again, God bless ye! I’m Sister Alophonsus, and though I likes me little joke I’m a good-natured old woman, so I am. And I’ve a great _gradh_ for anyone that lifts his hand for Holy Ireland. My father was a friend of Bryan Dillon. Did you ever hear tell of Bryan Dillon, young man?’ ‘I did, Sister. He was the Fenian.’ ‘So he was, the Fenian. Brienie Dill we called him. My father—the Heavens be his bed—was a great friend of his. Many’s the night they talked powder and shot until the break of day. Brienie Dill was a little hunchback, but. the neatest little hunchback you ever seen. I remember well the day he was left out of gaol, though I was only a slip of a girl then. There was stones flying that day In the Barrack Sthream I can tell you.... And my father was one of the men that buried the pikes in the Quakers’ graveyard. Did you know there was pikes buried there, young man?’ ‘No, Sister.’ ‘There was then. Pikes buried in the Quakers’ graveyard. And “God send,” says Brienie Dill, “God in Heaven send they rise before the Quakers do!”’ They all laugh at this. She laughs with them, and shaken by her gusty mirth the lantern rocks to right and left in her hand. Suddenly the men start at the sound of light, quick footsteps, followed immediately by the rustling of a dress against the wall of the barn. In a moment a second woman’s figure is upon them. The light just catches the dainty forehead and the rim of starched cloth beneath her veil. The old nun, who has heard nothing, has just raised her apron to her eyes to wipe away the slow tears of laughter that fill them when her arm is caught from behind by the newcomer. ‘Don’t be afraid, Sister!’ a young voice whispers good—humouredly. ‘It’s only me.’ There is something grotesque about the way in which Sister Alphonsus proceeds to assure herself of the young nun’s identity. She lifts the lantern until it is shining full into the other’s face, and before the young nun in laughing protest has forced it aside, the men have received a picture of her that impresses itself forever on their memories. Unlike the farm sister she is dressed in black, and is obviously a choir nun. Her face is unusually broad at the jaw, but this instead of making her features appear harsh makes them appear curiously tender. Her face is almost colourless, her nose short; her eyes are jet black under long black lashes that give them a dreamy look; but over all her features is a strange expression which is not at all dreamy or tender, but anxious, abrupt and painfully, sensitively, ’wide awake. Yet she is very girlish, slim and sprightly; and her appearance as she stands in the doorway suggests to the three hunted men a visionary, enchanted youth, that wakes a sort of pang within them, a pang of desire and loss. She is carrying some rugs on her arm and hands them to the other nun; then with one hand on the jamb of the door in an attitude that more than suggests flight, she looks In. ‘I must rush back, Sister,’ she whispers hastily. ‘Good night, boys, and God bless you!’ ‘Good night, Sister,’ they reply, and Dan, standing in the background hat in hand, chimes in with a respectful ‘Good night.’ ‘Nobody there that I know?’ she asks, delaying, her dark eyes puckered up in an attempt to pierce the shadows. ‘You are all from the city?’ ‘Yes, Sister.’ ‘How have the city fellows gone? What about Dan Lahy? Jo Godwin?’ ‘Free State Army.’ ‘And Denny, Michael Denny? ‘The same.’ ‘God forgive them! Anyone else of that crowd gone over?’ ‘All but two.’ ‘They used to stay out here in the old days— you knew that?’ ‘Have you heard about Sean Clery?’ A sudden bitterness has crept into the voice that speaks from the corner of the barn, a bitterness that communicates itself immediately to the other men, and dramatises the instant in their minds as well as in the mind of the young nun, so that her reply when it comes brims the cup of emotion for all. ‘My sister told me. Poor Sean—God have mercy on him!’ ‘God save us from our own!’ the bitter voice corrects her quietly. ‘Taken out the road and shot to pieces like a mad dog! Did you know him, Sister?’ ‘A little—oh, yes I did; of course I knew him when he was a boy. . . . They gave him a dreadful end. . . .’ ‘It’s a cruel, cruel thing, this fighting!’ the old nun puts in loudly and vehemently. ‘A cruel, silly thing! They must be wicked men to do a deed like that. Ah, if they were here now Sister Alophonsus would give them a bit of her mind, so she "would!’ ‘Be quiet, Sister!’ the other says fearfully. ‘You talk too loud you know.’ Sister Alphonsus sighs. ‘Ach, sure they don’t mind how loud I talk. They hears me talking always to the cows.’ ‘And do you talk to the cows, Sister?’ the young man called Peter asks, as though to change the conversation. ‘Of course I do, talk to them. Cows are foolish beasts—they’re foolisher than pigs, cows are, and you’d get no good of them at all if you didn’t talk? sensibly to them and tell them what you want.’ There is a heavy silence broken only by the stirring of beasts in a nearby byre, and something in the silence suggests that the young nun is suffering deeply. After a little she breaks the stillness that has already grown too oppressive for all but the old woman immersed in her angry maternal dreams. ‘And the people?’ ‘Indifferent,’ says Peter hardily. ‘Against us,’ says the bitter Voice from the darkness. ‘Just as it is with us here. In the old days we were all united—we knew that the boys were sleeping in the outhouses; we sent them out food and medals and scapulars; before we went to bed each night we said a prayer for them. Now there’s no one left to pray for you but old Sister Alphonsus and myself.’ ‘No one, no one!’ chimes in Sister Alphonsus. ‘’Tis true for you, alanna, they all reneged. But Sister Alophonsus, the ould Fenian, didn’t renege. She’s as true to her counthry now as ever she was.’ ‘If you were out with us for a day or two you’d see it all,’ the voice from the darkness continues. ‘Where is the sovereign Irish people we used to hear so much about a year or two ago? Sorry, Sister, we haven’t any heroes left, but we can always find you a few informers.’ A revolver clacks open in the darkness and the voice continues half-humorously, ‘Holy Ireland! Holy Ireland, how are you?’ ‘Oh, chuck it! Chuck it for Heaven’s sake!’ the young man called Peter says irritably. ‘_Och, a Dhe! Och, a Dhe!_’ Sister Alphonsus sighs, turning away. ‘Oh, informers, hadn’t we always our share of them?’ the young nun asks quickly. ‘But never mind what happens to us, never mind the people, never mind the informers! Ireland will outlive them all.’ There is a sudden throb of male passion in the voice, a sudden bursting out of emotions that have been too long suppressed. ‘Ireland?’ the young man in the corner asks cynically. ‘Yes. Ireland. We haven’t been the first and we won’t be the last.’ Dan, the old farmhand, weary of the conversation that goes on so far above his head, moves away on tiptoe over the cobbles, downhill, and watching his retreating figure sink down against the autumnal sky she shivers slightly. ‘What are your names?’ she asks suddenly, and her voice has lost its overtone of passion. The three men tell her their names shyly, one after another. ‘Michael ... Peter ... Liam,’ she repeats, letting each name sink into her memory. I'll remember your names, and pray that you’ll come safely out of it all—and be happy,’ she adds as an afterthought. ‘And you’ll pray for me, won’t you? Sister Josephine is my name.’ ‘And Sister Alophonsus! Don’t forget old Sister Alophonsus!’ the old woman says warningly. ‘Good night, boys.’ ‘Good night, Sister.’ ‘Good night, Peter,’ she says with a quick, dainty movement of her head to the young man standing by the door; a gesture that seems unerringly to separate him from the others and predict for him some experience richer than theirs—then, as silently and swiftly as she had come, the young nun goes. Sister Alphonsus, sighing with the same antique vehemence, hangs the lantern on a hook from the low roof of the barn. ‘The light of Heaven to our souls on the last day!’ She mumbles earnestly.... There’s your rugs.... The child is supposed to be nursing old Mother Agatha. She must have slipped out when she was asleep and got the rugs on the sly.... Hot blood! Hot blood!... She’s not happy.... She’s too hasty. I tell her not to take things to heart so, but she do, she do! Hot blood!... Why should she mind what they say to her? I’ve put up with them now these forty year. Forty years on the fifteenth of February, boys, if the good God lets me live to see the day.’ Sighing still she bids them good night in her soft West Munster Gaelic and goes, latching the door noisily behind her. The lantern barely illumines the little barn and the three figures stretched upon the straw. They eat, exchanging an occasional word that does not express at all what is in their minds. Then Peter quenches the lamp and everything is dark and silent but for the stirring of beasts in a nearby byre. But neither the silence, nor the fragrance of the straw on which they lie, nor the food they have taken brings sleep to them—not for a long time. They are all happy as though some wonderful thing had happened to them, but what the wonderful thing is they could not say, and with their happiness is mixed a melancholy as strange and perturbing, as though life itself and all the modes of life were inadequate. It is not a bitter melancholy like the melancholy of defeat, and in the morning, when they take to the country roads again, it will have passed. But the memory of the young nun will not pass so lightly from their minds.