Maurteen.  That’s true—­but she’s too young to know it’s true.

Bridget.  She’s old enough to know that it is wrong
To mope and idle.

Maurteen.  I’ve little blame for her;
She’s dull when my big son is in the fields,
And that and maybe this good woman’s tongue
Have driven her to hide among her dreams
Like children from the dark under the bed-clothes.

Bridget.  She’d never do a turn if I were silent.

Maurteen.  And maybe it is natural upon May Eve
To dream of the good people.  But tell me, girl,
If you’ve the branch of blessed quicken wood
That women hang upon the post of the door
That they may send good luck into the house? 
Remember they may steal new-married brides
After the fall of twilight on May Eve,
Or what old women mutter at the fire
Is but a pack of lies.

Father hart.  It may be truth
We do not know the limit of those powers
God has permitted to the evil spirits
For some mysterious end.  You have done right.

(to Mary);

It’s well to keep old innocent customs up.

(Mary Bruin has taken a bough of quicken wood from a seat and hung it on a nail in the doorpost.  A girl child strangely dressed, perhaps in faery green, comes out of the wood and takes it away.)

Mary.  I had no sooner hung it on the nail
Before a child ran up out of the wind;
She has caught it in her hand and fondled it;
Her face is pale as water before dawn.

Father hart.  Whose child can this be?

Maurteen.  No one’s child at all. 
She often dreams that some one has gone by,
When there was nothing but a puff of wind.

Mary. 
They have taken away the blessed quicken wood,
They will not bring good luck into the house;
Yet I am glad that I was courteous to them,
For are not they, likewise, children of God?

Father hart.  Colleen, they are the children of the fiend,
And they have power until the end of Time,
When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle
And hack them into pieces.

Mary.  He will smile,
Father, perhaps, and open His great door.

Father hart.  Did but the lawless angels see that door
They would fall, slain by everlasting peace;
And when such angels knock upon our doors,
Who goes with them must drive through the same storm.

(A thin old arm comes round the door-post and knocks and beckons.  It is clearly seen in the silvery light.  Mary Bruin goes to door and stands in it for a moment.  Maurteen Bruin is busy filling father HART’s plate.  Bridget Bruin stirs the fire.)

Mary (coming to table)
There’s somebody out there that beckoned me
And raised her hand as though it held a cup,
And she was drinking from it, so it may be
That she is thirsty.