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diff --git a/old/11749.txt b/old/11749.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cee27a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11749.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5236 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of New Irish Comedies, by Lady Augusta Gregory + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: New Irish Comedies + +Author: Lady Augusta Gregory + +Release Date: March 28, 2004 [EBook #11749] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW IRISH COMEDIES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland and Robert Prince + + + + + +New Comedies + +By Lady Gregory + +The Bogie Men--The Full Moon--Coats +Darmer's Gold--McDonough's Wife + +COPYRIGHT 1913 +BY LADY GREGORY + + +TO THE RT. HON. W.F. BAILEY +COUNSELLOR, PEACEMAKER, FRIEND + +ABBEY THEATRE, 1913. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + THE BOGIE MEN + THE FULL MOON + COATS + DAMER'S GOLD + MCDONOUGH'S WIFE + NOTES + + + + +THE BOGIE MEN + + +PERSONS + +_Taig O'Harragha_ | BOTH CHIMNEY +_Darby Melody_ | SWEEPS + + + + + +THE BOGIE MEN + + _Scene: A Shed near where a coach stops. Darby comes in. Has a tin + can of water in one hand, a sweep's bag and brush in the other. He + lays down bag on an empty box and puts can on the floor. Is taking a + showy suit of clothes out of bag and admiring them and is about to + put them on when he hears some one coming and hurriedly puts them + back into the bag_. + +_Taig: (At door.)_ God save all here! + +_Darby:_ God save you. A sweep is it? _(Suspiciously.)_ What +brought you following me? + +_Taig:_ Why wouldn't I be a sweep as good as yourself? + +_Darby:_ It is not one of my own trade I came looking to meet with. +It is a shelter I was searching out, where I could put on a decent +appearance, rinsing my head and my features in a tin can of water. + +_Taig:_ Is it long till the coach will be passing by the +cross-road beyond? + +_Darby:_ Within about a half an hour they were telling me. + +_Taig:_ There does be much people travelling to this place? + +_Darby:_ I suppose there might, and it being the high road from +the town of Ennis. + +_Taig:_ It should be in this town you follow your trade? + +_Darby:_ It is not in the towns I do be. + +_Taig:_ There's nothing but the towns, since the farmers in the +country clear out their own chimneys with a bush under and a bush +overhead. + +_Darby:_ I travel only gentlemen's houses. + +_Taig:_ There does be more of company in the streets than you'd +find on the bare road. + +_Darby:_ It isn't easy get company for a person has but two empty +hands. + +_Taig:_ Wealth to be in the family it is all one nearly with +having a grip of it in your own palm. + +_Darby:_ I wish to the Lord it was the one thing. + +_Taig:_ You to know what I know-- + +_Darby:_ What is it that you know? + +_Taig:_ It is dealing out cards through the night time I will be +from this out, and making bets on racehorses and fighting-cocks +through all the hours of the day. + +_Darby:_ I would sooner to be sleeping in feathers and to do no +hand's turn at all, day or night. + +_Taig:_ If I came paddling along through every place this day and +the road hard under my feet, it is likely I will have my choice way +leaving it. + +_Darby:_ How is that now? + +_Taig:_ A horse maybe and a car or two horses, or maybe to go in +the coach, and I myself sitting alongside the man came in it. + +_Darby:_ Is it that he is taking you into his service? + +_Taig:_ Not at all! And I being of his own family and his blood. + +_Darby:_ Of his blood now? + +_Taig:_ A relation I have, that is full up of money and of every +whole thing. + +_Darby:_ A relation? + +_Taig:_ A first cousin, by the side of the mother. + +_Darby:_ Well, I am not without having a first cousin of my own. + +_Taig:_ I wouldn't think he'd be much. To be listening to my +mother giving out a report of my one's ways, you would maybe believe +it is no empty skin of a man he is. + +_Darby:_ My own mother was not without giving out a report of my +man's ways. + +_Taig:_ Did she see him? + +_Darby:_ She did, I suppose, or the thing was near him. She never +was tired talking of him. + +_Taig:_ It is often my own mother would have Dermot pictured to +myself. + +_Darby:_ It is often the likeness of Timothy was laid down to me +by the teaching of my mother's mouth, since I was able to walk the +floor. She thought the whole world of him. + +_Taig:_ A bright scholar she laid Dermot down to be. A good doing +fellow for himself. A man would be well able to go up to his promise. + +_Darby:_ That is the same account used to be given out of Timothy. + +_Taig:_ To some trade of merchandise it is likely Dermot was reared. +A good living man that was never any cost on his mother. + +_Darby:_ To own an estate before he would go far in age Timothy +was on the road. + +_Taig:_ To have the handling of silks and jewelleries and to be +free of them, and of suits and the making of suits, that is the way +with the big merchants of the world. + +_Darby:_ It is letting out his land to grass farmers a man owning +acres does be making his profit. + +_Taig:_ A queer thing you to be the way you are, and he to be an +upstanding gentleman. + +_Darby:_ It is the way I went down; my mother used to be faulting +me and I not being the equal of him. Tormenting and picking at me and +shouting me on the road. "You thraneen," she'd say, "you little +trifle of a son! You stumbling over the threshold as if in slumber, +and Timothy being as swift as a bee!" + +_Taig:_ So my own mother used to be going on at myself, and be +letting out shrieks and screeches. "What now would your cousin +Dermot be saying?" every time there would come a new rent in my rags. + +_Darby:_ "Little he'd think of you," she'd say; "you without body +and puny, not fit to lift scraws from off the field, and Timothy +bringing in profit to his mother's hand, and earning prizes and +rewards." + +_Taig:_ The time it would fail me to follow my book or to say off +my A, B, ab, to draw Dermot down on me she would. "Before he was up +to your age," she would lay down, "he was fitted to say off +Catechisms and to read newses. You have no more intellect beside him," +she'd say, "than a chicken has its head yet in the shell." + +_Darby:_ "Let you hold up the same as Timothy," she'd give out, +and I to stoop my shoulders the time the sun would prey upon my head. +"He that is as straight and as clean as a green rush on the brink of +the bog." + +_Taig:_ "It is you will be fit but to blow the bellows," my mother +would say, "the time Dermot will be forging gold." I let on the book +to have gone astray on me at the last. Why would I go crush and +bruise myself under a weight of learning, and there being one in the +family well able to take my cost and my support whatever way it +might go? Dermot that would feel my keep no more than the lake would +feel the weight of the duck. + +_Darby:_ I seen no use to be going sweating after farmers, +striving to plough or to scatter seed, when I never could come anear +Timothy in any sort of a way, and he, by what she was saying, able to +thrash out a rick of oats in the day. So it fell out I was thrown on +the ways of the world, having no skill in any trade, till there came +a demand for me going aloft in chimneys, I being as thin as a needle +and shrunken with weakness and want of food. + +_Taig:_ I got my living for a while by miracle and trafficking in +rabbit skins, till a sweep from Limerick bound me to himself one +time I was skinned with the winter. Great cruelty he gave me till I +ran from him with the brush and the bag, and went foraging around +for myself. + +_Darby:_ So am I going around by myself. I never had a comrade lad. + +_Taig:_ My mother that would hit me a crack if I made free with +any of the chaps of the village, saying that would not serve me with +Dermot, that had a good top-coat and was brought up to manners and +behaviour. + +_Darby:_ My own mother that drew down Timothy on me the time she'd +catch me going with the lads that had their pleasure out of the world, +slashing tops and pebbles, throwing and going on with games. + +_Taig:_ I took my own way after, fitting myself for sports and +funning, against the time the rich man would stretch out his hand. +Going with wild lads and poachers I was, till they left me carrying +their snares in under my coat, that I was lodged for three months in +the gaol. + +_Darby:_ The neighbours had it against me after, I not being +friendly when we were small. The most time I am going the road it is +a lonesome shadow I cast before me. + +_Taig:_ _(Looking out of the door.)_ It is on this day I will be +making acquaintance with himself. My mother that sent him a request +to come meet me in this town on this day, it being the first of the +summer. + +_Darby:_ My own mother that did no less, telling me she got word +from Timothy he would come meet here with myself. It is certain he +will bring me into his house, she having wedded secondly with a +labouring man has got a job at Golden Hill in Lancashire. I would +not recognise him beyond any other one. + +_Taig:_ I would recognise the signs of a big man. I wish I was +within in his kitchen. There is a pinch of hunger within in my heart. + +_Darby:_ So there is within in myself. + +_Taig:_ Is there nothing at all in the bag? + +_Darby:_ It is a bit of a salted herring. + +_Taig:_ Why wouldn't you use it? + +_Darby:_ I would be delicate coming before him and the smell of it +to be on me, and all the grand meats will be at his table. + +_Taig: (Showing a bottle.)_ The full of a pint I have of porter, +that fell from a tinker's car. + +_Darby:_ I wonder you would not swallow it down for to keep +courage in your mind. + +_Taig:_ It is what I am thinking, I to take it fasting, it might +put confusion and wildness in my head. I would wish, and I meeting +with him, my wits to be of the one clearness with his own. It is not +long to be waiting; it is in claret I will be quenching my thirst +to-night, or in punch! + +_Darby: (Looking out.)_ I am nearly in dread meeting Timothy, +fearing I will not be pleasing to him, and I not acquainted with his +habits. + +_Taig:_ I would not be afeard, and Dermot to come sparkling in, +and seven horses in his coach. + +_Darby:_ What way can I come before him at all? I would be better +pleased you to personate me and to stand up to him in my place. + +_Taig:_ Any person to put orders on me, or to bid me change my +habits, I'd give no heed! I'd stand up to him in the spite of his +teeth! + +_Darby:_ If it wasn't for the hearthfires to be slackened with the +springtime, and my work to be lessened with the strengthening of the +sun, I'd sooner not see him till another moon is passed, or two moons. + +_Taig:_ He to bid me read out the news of the world, taking me to +be a scholar, I'd give him words that are in no books! I'd give him +newses! I'd knock rights out of him or any one I ever seen. + +_Darby:_ I could speak only of my trade. The boundaries of the +world to be between us, I'm thinking I'd never ask to go cross them +at all. + +_Taig:_ He to go into Court swearing witnesses and to bring me +along with him to face the judges and the whole troop of the police, +I'd go bail I'll be no way daunted or scared. + +_Darby:_ What way can I keep company with him? I that was partly +reared in the workhouse. And he having a star on his hat and a +golden apple in his hand. He will maybe be bidding me to scour +myself with soapy water all the Sundays and Holy days of the year! I +tell you I am getting low hearted. I pray to the Lord to forgive me +where I did not go under the schoolmaster's rod! + +_Taig:_ I that will shape crampy words the same as any scholar at +all! I'll let on to be a master of learning and of Latin! + +_Darby:_ Ah, what letting on? It is Timothy will look through me +the same as if my eyes were windows, and my thoughts standing as +plain as cattle under the risen sun! It is easier letting on to have +knowledge than to put on manners and behaviour. + +_Taig:_ Ah, what's manners but to refuse no man a share of your +bite and to keep back your hand from throwing stones? + +_Darby:_ I tell you I'm in shivers! My heart that is shaking like +an ivy leaf! My bones that are loosened and slackened in the +similitude of a rope of tow! I'd sooner meet with a lion of the +wilderness or the wickedest wind of the hills! I thought it never +would come to pass. I'd sooner go into the pettiest house, the +wildest home and the worst! Look at here now. Let me stop along with +yourself. I never let out so much of my heart to any one at all till +this day. It's a pity we should be parted! + +_Taig:_ Is it to come following after me you would, before the +face of Dermot? + +_Darby:_ I'd feel no dread and you being at my side. + +_Taig:_ Dermot to see me in company with the like of you! I +wouldn't for the whole world he should be aware I had ever any +traffic with chimneys or with soot. It would not be for his honour +you to draw anear him! + +_Darby: (Indignantly.)_ No but Timothy that would make objection +to yourself! He that would whip the world for manners and behaviour! + +_Taig:_ Dermot that is better again. He that would write and +dictate to you at the one time! + +_Darby:_ What is that beside owning tillage, and to need no +education, but to take rents into your hand? + +_Taig:_ I would never believe him to own an estate. + +_Darby:_ Why wouldn't he own it? "The biggest thing and the +grandest," my mother would say when I would ask her what was he doing. + +_Taig:_ Ah, what could be before selling out silks and satins. +There is many an estated lord couldn't reach you out a fourpenny bit. + +_Darby:_ The grandest house around the seas of Ireland he should +have, beautifully made up! You would nearly go astray in it! It +wouldn't be known what you could make of it at all! You wouldn't +have it walked in a month! + +_Taig:_ What is that beside having a range of shops as wide maybe +as the street beyond? + +_Darby:_ A house would be the capital of the county! One door for +the rich, one door for the common! Velvet carpets rolled up, the way +there would no dust from the chimney fall upon them. A hundred +wouldn't be many standing in a corner of that place! A high bed of +feathers, curled hair mattresses. A cover laid on it would be flowery +with blossoms of gold! + +_Taig:_ Muslin and gauze, cambric and linen! Canton crossbar! +Glass windows full up of ribbons as gaudy as the crooked bow in the +sky! Sovereigns and shillings in and out as plenty as to riddle rape +seed. Sure them that do be selling in shops die leaving millions. + +_Darby:_ Your man is not so good as mine in his office or in his +billet. + +_Taig:_ There is the horn of the coach. Get out now till I'll +prepare myself. He might chance to come seeking for me here. + +_Darby:_ There's a lather of sweat on myself. That's my tin can of +water! + +_Taig: (Holding can from him.)_ Get out I tell you! I wouldn't +wish him to feel the smell of you on the breeze. + +_Darby: (Almost crying.)_ You are a mean savage to go keeping from +me my tin can and my rag! + +_Taig:_ Go wash yourself at the pump can't you? + +_Darby:_ That we may never be within the same four walls again, or +come under the lintel of the one door! _(He goes out.)_ + +_Taig: (Calling after him while he takes a suit of clothes from +his bag.)_ I'm not like yourself! I have good clothes to put on me, +what you haven't got! A body-coat my mother made out--she lost up to +three shillings on it,--and a hat--and a speckled blue cravat. + _(He hastily throws off his sweep's smock and cap, and puts on + clothes. As he does he sings:)_ + + All round my hat I wore a green ribbon, + All round my hat for a year and a day; + And if any one asks me the reason I wore it + I'll say that my true love went over the sea! + + All in my hat I will stick a blue feather + The same as the birds do be up in the tree; + And if you would ask me the reason I do it + I'll tell you my true love is come back to me! + + _(He washes his face and wipes it, looking at himself in the tin + can. He catches sight of a straw hat passing window.)_ + +Who is that? A gentleman? _(He draws back.)_ + + _(Darby comes in. He has changed his clothes and wears a straw hat + and light coat and trousers. He is looking for a necktie which he + had dropped and picks up. His back is turned to Taig who is standing + at the other door.)_ + +_Taig: (Awed.)_ It cannot be that you are Dermot Melody? + +_Darby:_ My father's name was Melody sure enough, till he lost his +life in the year of the black potatoes. + +_Taig:_ It is yourself I am come here purposely to meet with. + +_Darby:_ You should be my mother's sister's son so, Timothy +O'Harragha. + +_Taig: (Sheepishly.)_ I am that. I am sorry indeed it +failed me to be out before you in the street. + +_Darby:_ Oh, I wouldn't be looking for that much from you. + + _(They are trying to keep their backs to each other, and to rub + their faces cleaner.)_ + +_Taig:_ I wouldn't wish to be anyway troublesome to you. I am +badly worthy of you. + +_Darby:_ It is in dread I am of being troublesome to yourself. + +_Taig:_ Oh, it would be hard for _you_ to be that. Nothing you +could put on me would be any hardship at all, if it was to walk +steel thistles. + +_Darby:_ You have a willing heart surely. + +_Taig:_ Any little job at all I could do for you------ + +_Darby:_ All I would ask of you is to give me my nourishment and +my bite. + +_Taig:_ I will do that. I will be your serving man. + +_Darby:_ Ah, you are going too far in that. + +_Taig:_ It's my born duty to do that much. I'll bring your dinner +before you, if I can be anyway pleasing to you; you that is used to +wealthy people. + +_Darby:_ Indeed I was often in a house having up to twenty chimneys. + +_Taig:_ You are a rare good man, nothing short of it, and you +going as you did so high in the world. + +_Darby:_ Any person would go high before he would put his hand out +through the top of a chimney. + +_Taig:_ Having full and plenty of every good thing. + +_Darby:_ I saw nothing so plentiful as soot. There is not the +equal of it nourishing a garden. It would turn every crop blue, +being so good. + +_Taig: (Weeping.)_ It is a very unkind thing to go drawing +chimneys down on me and soot, and you having all that ever was! + +_Darby:_ Little enough I have or ever had. + +_Taig:_ To be casting up my trade against me, I being poor and +hungry, and you having coins and tokens from all the goldpits of the +world. + +_Darby:_ I wish I ever handled a coin of gold in my lifetime. + +_Taig:_ To speak despisingly, not pitiful. And I thinking the +chimney sweeping would be forgot and not reproached to me, if you +have handled the fooleries and watches of the world, that you don't +know the end of your riches! + +_Darby:_ I am maybe getting your meaning wrong, your tongue being +a little hard and sharp because you are Englified, but I am without +new learnments and so I speak flat. + +_Taig:_ You to have the millions of King Solomon, you have no +right to be putting reflections on me! I would never behave that way, +and housefuls to fall into my hand. + +_Darby:_ You are striving to put ridicule on me and to make a fool +of me. That is a very unseemly thing to do! I that did not ask to go +hide the bag or the brush. + +_Taig:_ There you are going on again. Is it to the customers in +your shops you will be giving out that it was my lot to go through +the world as a sweep? + +_Darby:_ Customers and shops! Will you stop your funning? Let you +quit mocking and making a sport of me! That is very bad acting +behaviour. + +_Taig:_ Striving to blacken my face again at the time I had it +washed pure white. You surely have a heart of marble. + +_Darby:_ What way at all can you be putting such a rascally say +out of your mouth? I'll take no more talk from you, I to be +twenty-two degrees lower than the Hottentots! + +_Taig:_ If you are my full cousin Dermot Melody I'll make you quit +talking of soot! + +_Darby:_ I'll take no more talk from yourself! + +_Taig:_ Have a care now! + +_Darby:_ Have a care yourself! + + _(Each gives the other a push. They stumble and fall, sitting + facing one another. Darby's hat falls off.)_ + +_Taig:_ Is it _you_ it is? + +_Darby:_ Who else would it be? + +_Taig:_ What call had you letting on to be Dermot Melody? + +_Darby:_ What letting on? Dermot is my full name, but Darby is the +name I am called. + +_Taig:_ Are you a man owning riches and shops and merchandise? + +_Darby:_ I am not, or anything of the sort. + +_Taig:_ Have you teems of money in the bank? + +_Darby:_ If I had would I be sitting on this floor? + +_Taig:_ You thief you! + +_Darby:_ Thief yourself! Turn around now till I will measure your +features and your face. _Yourself_ is it! Is it personating my cousin +Timothy you are? + +_Taig:_ I am personating no one but myself. + +_Darby:_ You letting on to be an estated magistrate and my own +cousin and such a great generation of a man. And you not owning so +much as a rood of ridges! + +_Taig:_ Covering yourself with choice clothing for to deceive me +and to lead me astray! + +_Darby:_ Putting on your head a fine glossy hat and I thinking you +to have come with the spring-tide, the way you had luck through your +life! + +_Taig:_ Letting on to be Dermot Melody! You that are but the cull +and the weakling of a race! It is a queer game you played on me and +a crooked game. I never would have brought my legs so far to meet +with the sooty likes of you! + +_Darby:_ Letting on to be my poor Timothy O'Harragha! + +_Taig:_ I never was called but Taig. Timothy was a sort of a Holy +day name. + +_Darby:_ Where now are our two cousins? Or is it that the both of +us are cracked? + +_Taig:_ It is, or our mothers before us. + +_Darby:_ My mother was a McGarrity woman from Loughrea. It is Mary +was her Christened name. + +_Taig:_ So was my own mother of the McGarritys. It is sisters they +were sure enough. + +_Darby:_ That makes us out to be full cousins in the heel. + +_Taig:_ You no better than myself! And the prayers I used to be +saying for you, and you but a sketch and an excuse of a man! + +_Darby:_ Ah, I am thinking people put more in their prayers than +was ever put in them by God. + +_Taig:_ Our mothers picturing us to one another as if we were the +best in the world. + +_Darby:_ Lies I suppose they were drawing down, for to startle us +into good behaviour. + +_Taig:_ Wouldn't you say now mothers to be a terror? + +_Darby:_ And we nothing at all after but two chimney sweepers and +two harmless drifty lads. + +_Taig:_ Where is the great quality dinner yourself was to give me, +having seven sorts of dressed meat? Pullets and bacon I was looking for, +and to fall on an easy life. + +_Darby:_ Gone like the clouds of the winter's fog. We rose out of +it the same as we went in. + +_Taig:_ We have nothing to do but to starve with the hunger, and +you being as bare as myself. + +_Darby:_ We are in a bad shift surely. We must perish with the +want of support. It is one of the tricks of the world does be played +upon the children of Adam. + +_Taig:_ All we have to do is to crawl to the poorhouse gate. Or to +go dig a pit in the graveyard, as it is short till we'll be +stretched there with the want of food. + +_Darby:_ Food is it? There is nothing at this time against me +eating my bit of a herring. + + _(Seizes it and takes a bite.)_ + +_Taig:_ Give me a divide of it. + +_Darby:_ Give me a drop of your own porter so, is in the bottle. +There need be no dread on you now, of you being no match for your +grand man. + +_Taig:_ That is so. _(Drinks.)_ I'll strive no more to fit myself +for high quality relations. I am free from patterns of high up +cousins from this out. I'll be a pattern to myself. + +_Darby:_ I am well content being free of you, the way you were +pictured to be. I declare to my goodness, the name of you put terror +on me through the whole of my lifetime, and your image to be +clogging and checking me on every side. + +_Taig:_ To be thinking of you being in the world was a holy terror +to myself. I give you my word you came through my sleep the same as +a scarecrow or a dragon. + +_Darby:_ It is great things I will be doing from this out, we two +having nothing to cast up against one another. To be quit of Timothy +the bogie and to get Taig for a comrade, I'm as proud as the Crown +of France! + +_Taig:_ I'm in dread of neither bumble or bagman or bugaboo! I +will regulate things from myself from this out. + +_Darby:_ There to be fineness of living in the world, why wouldn't +I make it out for myself? + +_Taig:_ It is to the harbours of America we will work our way +across the wideness of the sea. It is well able we should be to go +mounting up aloft in ropes. Come on Darby out of this! + +_Darby:_ There is magic and mastery come into me! This day has put +wings to my heart! + +_Taig:_ Be easy now. We are maybe not clear of the chimneys yet. + +_Darby:_ What signifies chimneys? We'll go up in them till we'll +take a view of the Seven Stars! It is out beyond the hills of Burren +I will cast my eye, till I'll see the three gates of Heaven! + +_Taig:_ It's like enough, luck will flow to you. The way most +people fail is in not keeping up the heart. Faith, it's well you have +myself to mind you. Gather up now your brush and your bag. + + _(They go to the door holding each other's hands and singing: + "All in my hat I will cock a blue feather," etc.)_ + + +_Curtain_ + + + + +_THE FULL MOON_ + + TO ALL SANE PEOPLE IN OR OUT OF CLOON + WHO KNOW THEIR NEIGHBOURS TO BE + NATURALLY CRACKED OR SOMEWAY QUEER + OR TO HAVE GONE WRONG IN THE HEAD. + +PERSONS [Sidenote: ALL SANE] + _Shawn Early_ + _Bartley Fallon_ + _Peter Tannian_ + _Hyacinth Halvey_ + _Mrs. Broderick_ + _Miss Joyce_ + _Cracked Mary_ + _Davideen,_ + HER BROTHER, AN INNOCENT + + +THE FULL MOON + + _Scene: A shed close to Cloon Station; Bartley Fallon is sitting + gloomily on a box; Hyacinth Halvey and Shawn Early are coming in at + door_. + +_Shawn Early:_ It is likely the train will not be up to its time, +and cattle being on it for the fair. It's best wait in the shed. Is +that Bartley Fallon? What way are you, Bartley? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Faith, no way at all. On the drag, on the drag; +striving to put the bad times over me. + +_Shawn Early:_ Is it business with the nine o'clock you have? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ The wife that is gone visiting to Tubber, and +that has the door locked till such time as she will come back on the +train. And I thought this shed a place where no bad thing would be +apt to happen me, and not to be going through the streets, and the +darkness falling. + +_Shawn Early:_ It is not long till the full moon will be rising. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Everything that is bad, the falling +sickness--God save the mark--or the like, should be at its worst at +the full moon. I suppose because it is the leader of the stars. + +_Shawn Early:_ Ah, what could happen any person in the street of +Cloon? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ There might. Look at Matt Finn, the coffin-maker, +put his hand on a cage the circus brought, and the lion took and +tore it till they stuck him with a fork you'd rise dung with, and at +that he let it drop. And that was a man had never quitted Cloon. + +_Shawn Early:_ I thought you might be sending something to the fair. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ It isn't to the train I would be trusting +anything I would have to sell, where it might be thrown off the track. +And where would be the use sending the couple of little lambs I have? +It is likely there is no one would ask me where was I going. When +the weight is not in them, they won't carry the price. Sure, the +grass I have is no good, but seven times worse than the road. + +_Shawn Early:_ They are saying there'll be good demand at the fair +of Carrow to-morrow. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ To-morrow the fair day of Carrow? I was not +remembering that. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Ah, there won't be many in it, I'm thinking. +There isn't a hungrier village in Connacht, they were telling me, +and it's poor the look of it as well. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ To-morrow the fair day. There will be all sorts +in the streets to-night. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ The sort that will be in it will be a bad +sort--sievemakers and tramps and neuks. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ The tents on the fair green; there will be +music in it; there was a fiddler having no legs would set men of +threescore years and of fourscore years dancing. I can nearly hear +his tune. + + _(He whistles_ "The Heather Broom.") + +_Bartley Fallon:_ You are apt to be going there on the train, I +suppose? It is well to be you, Mr. Halvey, having a good place in +the town, and the price of your fare, and maybe six times the price +of it, in your pocket. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I didn't think of that. I wonder could I +go--for one night only--and see what the lads are doing. + +_Shawn Early:_ Are you forgetting, Mr. Halvey, that you are to +meet his Reverence on the platform that is coming home from drinking +water at the Spa? + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ So I can meet him, and get in the train after +him getting out. + + _(Mrs. Broderick and Peter Tannian come in.)_ + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Is that Mr. Halvey is in it? I was looking for +you at the chapel as I passed, and the Angelus bell after ringing. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Business I have here, ma'am. I was in dread I +might not be here before the train. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ So you might not, indeed. That nine o'clock +train you can never trust it to be late. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ To meet Father Gregan I am come, and maybe to +go on myself. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Sure, I knew well you would be in haste to be +before Father Gregan, and we knowing what we know. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I have no business only to be showing respect +to him. + +_Shawn Early:_ His good word he will give to Mr. Halvey at the +Board, where it is likely he will be made Clerk of the Union next +week. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ His good word he will give to another thing +besides that, I am thinking. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I don't know what you are talking about. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Didn't you hear the news, Peter Tannian, that +Mr. Halvey is apt to be linked and joined in marriage with Miss Joyce, +the priest's housekeeper? + +_Peter Tannian:_ I to believe all the lies I'd hear, I'd be a +racked man by this. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ What I say now is as true as if you were on the +other side of me. I suppose now the priest is come home there'll be +no delay getting the license. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It is not so settled as that. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Why wouldn't it be settled and it being told at +Mrs. Delane's and through the whole world? + +_Peter Tannian:_ She should be a steady wife for him--a fortied +girl. + +_Shawn Early:_ A very good fortune in the bank they are saying she +has, and she having crossed the ocean twice to America. + +_Hartley Fallen:_ It's as good for him to have a woman will keep +the door open before him and his victuals ready and a quiet tongue +in her head. Not like that little Tartar of my own. + +_Mrs. Broderick_. And an educated woman along with that. A man of +his sort, going to be Clerk of the Union and to be taken up with +books and papers, it's likely he'd die in a week, he to marry a dunce. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ So it's likely he would. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ A little shop they are saying she will take, for +to open a flour store, and you to be keeping the accounts, the way +you would not spend any waste time. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I have no mind to be settling myself down yet a +while. I might maybe take a ramble here or there. There's many of my +comrades in the States. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ To go away from Cloon, is it? And why would you +think to do that, and the whole town the same as a father and mother +to you? Sure, the sergeant would live and die with you, and there +are no two from this to Galway as great as yourself and the priest. +To see you coming up the street, and your Dublin top-coat around you, +there are some would give you a salute the same nearly as the Bishop. + +_Peter Tannian:_ They wouldn't do that maybe and they hearing +things as I heard them. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What things? + +_Peter Tannian:_ There was a herd passing through from Carrow. It +is what I heard him saying------ + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ You heard nothing of Mr. Halvey, but what is +worthy of him. But that's the way always. The most thing a man does, +the less he will get for it after. + +_Peter Tannian:_ A grand place in Carrow I suppose you had? + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I had plenty of places. Giving out +proclamations--attending waterworks----. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ It is well fitted for any place he is, and all +that was written around him and he coming into Cloon. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Writing is easy. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Look at him since he was here, this twelvemonth +back, that he never went into a dance-house or stood at a cross-road, +and never lost a half-an-hour with drink. Made no blunder, made no +rumours. Whatever could be said of his worth, it could not be too +well said. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Do you think now, ma'am, would it be any harm I +to go spend a day or maybe two days out of this--I to go on the +train----. + +_Miss Joyce: (At door, coming in backwards.)_ Go back now, go back! +Don't be following after me in through the door! Is Mr. Halvey there? +Don't let her come following me, Mr. Halvey! + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Who is it is in it? + + _(Sound of discordant singing outside.)_ + +_Miss Joyce:_ Cracked Mary it is, that is after coming back this +day from the asylum. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I never saw her, I think. + +_Shawn Early:_ The creature, she was light this long while and not +good in the head, and at the last lunacy came on her and she was +tied and bound. Sometimes singing and dancing she does be, and +sometimes troublesome. + +_Miss Joyce:_ They had a right to keep her spancelled in the asylum. +She would begrudge any respectable person to be walking the street. +She'd hoot you, she'd shout you, she'd clap her hands at you. She is +a blight in the town. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ There is a lad along with her. + +_Shawn Early:_ It is Davideen, her brother, that is innocent. He +was left rambling from place to place the time she was put within +walls. + + _(Cracked Mary and Davideen come in. + Miss Joyce clings to Hyacinth's arm.)_ + +_Cracked Mary:_ Give me a charity now, the way I'll be keeping a +little rag on me and a little shoe to my foot. Give me the price of +tobacco and the price of a grain of tea; for tobacco is blessed and +tea is good for the head. + +_Shawn Early:_ Give out now, Davideen, a verse of "The Heather +Broom." That's a splendid tune. + +_Davideen: (Sings.)_ + + Oh, don't you remember, + As it's often I told you, + As you passed through our kitchen, + That a new broom sweeps clean? + Come out now and buy one, + Come out now and try one-- + + _(His voice cracks, and he breaks off, laughing foolishly.)_ + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ He has a sweet note in his voice, but to know or +to understand what he is doing, he couldn't do it. + +_Cracked Mary:_ Leave him a while. His song that does be clogged +through the daytime, the same as the sight is clogged with myself. It +isn't but in the night time I can see anything worth while. Davy is +a proper boy, a proper boy; let you leave Davy alone. It was himself +came before me ere yesterday in the morning, and I walking out the +madhouse door. + +_Shawn Early:_ It is often there will fiddlers be waiting to play +for them coming out, that are maybe the finest dancers of the day. + +_Cracked Mary:_ Waiting before me he was, and no one to give him +knowledge unless it might be the Big Man. I give you my word he near +ate the face off me. As glad to see me he was as if I had dropped +from heaven. Come hither to me, Davy, and give no heed to them. It +is as dull and as lagging as themselves you would be maybe, and the +world to be different and the moon to change its courses with the sun. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I never would wish to be put within a madhouse +before I'd die. + +_Cracked Mary:_ Sorry they were losing me. There was not a better +prisoner in it than my own four bones. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Squeals you would hear from it, they were +telling me, like you'd hear at the ringing of the pigs. Savages with +whips beating them the same as hounds. You would not stand and +listen to them for a hundred sovereigns. Of all bad things that can +come upon a man, it is certain the madness is the last. + +_Miss Joyce:_ It is likely she was well content in it, and the +friends she had being of her own class. + +_Cracked Mary:_ What way could you make friends with people would +be always talking? Too much of talk and of noise there was in it, +cursing, and praying, and tormenting; some dancing, some singing, +and one writing a letter to a she devil called Lucifer. I not to +close my ears, I would have lost the sound of Davideen's song. + +_Miss Joyce:_ It was good shelter you got in it through the bad +weather, and not to be out perishing under cold, the same as the +starlings in the snow. + +_Cracked Mary:_ I was my seven months in it, my seven months and a +day. My good clothes that went astray on me and my boots. My fine +gaudy dress was all moth-eated, that was worked with the wings of +birds. To fall into dust and ashes it did, and the wings rose up +into the high air. + +_Bartley Fallen_. Take care would the madness catch on to +ourselves the same as the chin-cough or the pock. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah, that's not the way it goes travelling from +one to another, but some that are naturally cracked and inherit it. + +_Shawn Early:_ It is a family failing with her tribe. The most of +them get giddy in their latter end. + +_Miss Joyce:_ It might be it was sent as a punishment before birth, +for to show the power of God. + +_Peter Tannian:_ It is tea-drinking does it, and that is the +reason it is on the wife it is apt to fall for the most part. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah, there's some does be thinking their wives +isn't right, and there's others think they are too right. There to +be any fear of me going astray, I give you my word I'd lose my wits +on the moment. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ There are some say it is the moon. + +_Shawn Early:_ So it is too. The time the moon is going back, the +blood that is in a person does be weakening, but when the moon is +strong, the blood that moves strong in the same way. And it to be at +the full, it drags the wits along with it, the same as it drags the +tide. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Those that are light show off more and have the +talk of twenty the time it is at the full, that is sure enough. And +to hold up a silk handkerchief and to look through it, you would see +the four quarters of the moon; I was often told that. + +_Miss Joyce:_ It is not you, Mr. Halvey, will give in to an unruly +thing like the moon, that is under no authority, and cannot be put +back, the same as a fast day that would chance to fall upon a feast. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It is likely it is put in the sky the same as a +clock for our use, the way you would pick knowledge of the weather, +the time the stars would be wild about it. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ That is very nice now. The thing you'd know, +you'd like to go on, and to hear more or less about it. + +_Miss Joyce: (To H.H.)_ It is a lantern for your own use it will +be to-night, and his Reverence coming home through the street, and +yourself coming along with him to the house. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ That's right, Miss Joyce. Keep a good grip of him. +What do you say to him talking a while ago as if his mind was +running on some thought to leave Cloon? + +_Miss Joyce:_ What way could he leave it? + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ No way at all, I'm thinking, unless there would +be a miracle worked by the moon. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah, miracles is gone out of the world this long +time, with education, unless that they might happen in your own +inside. + +_Miss Joyce:_ I'll go set the table and kindle the fire, and I'll +come back to meet the train with you myself. + +_(She goes. A noise heard outside.)_ + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What is that now? + +_Shawn Early: (At door.)_ Some noise as of running. + +_Hartley Fallon: (Going to door.)_ It might chance to be some +prisoner they would be bringing to the train. + +_Peter Tannian:_ No, but some lads that are running. + + _(They go out. H.H. is going too, but Mrs. Broderick goes before him + and turns him round in doorway.)_ + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Don't be coming out now in the dust that was +formed by the heat is in the breeze. It would be a pity to spoil +your Dublin coat, or your shirt that is that white you would nearly +take it to be blue. + + _(She goes out, pushing him in and shutting door after her.)_ + +_Cracked Mary:_ Ha! ha! ha! + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What is it you are laughing at? + +_Cracked Mary:_ Ha! ha! ha! It is a very laughable thing now, the +third most laughable thing I ever met with in my lifetime. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What is that? + +_Cracked Mary:_ A fine young man to be shut up and bound in a +narrow little shed, and the full moon rising, and I knowing what I +know! + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It's little you are likely to know about me. + +_Cracked Mary:_ Tambourines and fiddles and pipes--melodeons and +the whistling of drums. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I suppose it is the Carrow fair you are talking +about. + +_Cracked Mary:_ Sitting within walls, and a top-coat wrapped +around him, and mirth and music and frolic being in the place we know, +and some dancing sets on the floor. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I wish I wasn't in this place tonight. I would +like well to be going on the train, if it wasn't for the talk the +neighbours would be making. I would like well to slip away. It is a +long time I am going without any sort of funny comrades. + + _(Goes to door. The others enter quickly, pushing him back.)_ + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Nothing at all to see. It would be best for us +to have stopped where we were. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Running like foals to see it, and nothing to be +in it worth while. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What was it was in it? + +_Shawn Early:_ Nothing at all but some lads that were running in +pursuit of a dog. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Near knocked us they did, and they coming round +the corner of the wall. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Is it that it was a mad dog? + +_Peter Tannian:_ Ah, what mad? Mad dogs are done away with now by +the head Government and muzzles and the police. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ They are more watchful over them than they used. +But all the same, you to see a strange dog afar off, you would be +uneasy, thinking it might be yourself he would be searching out as +his prey. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Sure, there did a dog go mad through Galway, and +the whole town rose against him, and flocked him into a corner, and +shot him there. He did no harm after, he being made an end of at the +first. + +_Shawn Early:_ It might be that dog they were pursuing after was +mad, on the head of being under the full moon. + +_Cracked Mary: (Jumping up excitedly.)_ That mad dog, he is a +Dublin dog; he is betune you and Belfast--he is running ahead--you +couldn't keep up with him. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ There is one, so, mad upon the road. + +_Cracked Mary:_ There is police after him, but they cannot come up +with him; he destroyed a splendid sow; nine bonavs they buried or +less. + +_Shawn Early:_ What place is he gone now? + +_Cracked Mary:_ He made off towards Craughwell, and he bit a fine +young man. + +_Bartley Fallen:_ So he would too. Sure, when a mad dog would be +going about, on horseback or wherever you are, you're ruined. + +_Cracked Mary:_ That dog is going on all the time; he wouldn't stop, +but go ahead and bring that mouthful with him. He is still on the +road; he is keeping the middle of the road; they say he is as big as +a calf. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It is the police I have a right to forewarn to +go after him. + +_Cracked Mary:_ The motor cars is going to get out to track him, +for fear he would destroy the world! + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ That is a very nice thought now, to be sending +the motor cars after him to overturn and to crush him the same as an +ass-car in their path. + +_Cracked Mary:_ You can't save yourself from a dog; he is after +his own equals, dogs. He is doing every harm. They are out night and +day. + +_Shawn Early:_ Sure, a mad dog would go from this to Kinvara in a +half a minute, like the train. + +_Cracked Mary:_ He won't stay in this country down--he goes the +straight road--he takes by the wind. He is as big as a yearling calf. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ I wouldn't ever forgive myself I to see him. + +_Cracked Mary:_ He is not very heavy yet. There is only the relics +in him. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ They have a right to bring their rifles in +their hand. + +_Cracked Mary:_ The police is afraid of their life. They wrote for +motor cars to follow him. Sure, he'd destroy the beasts of the field. +A milch cow, he to grab at her, she's settled. Terrible wicked he is; +he's as big as five dogs, and he does be very strong. I hope in the +Lord he'll be caught. It will be a blessing from the Almighty God to +kill that dog. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ He is surely the one is raging through the +street. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Why wouldn't he be him? Is it likely there would +be two of them in it at the one time? + +_Shawn Early:_ A queer cut of a dog he was; a lurcher, a bastard +hound. + +_Peter Tannian:_ I would say him to be about the size of the foal +of a horse. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Didn't he behave well not to do ourselves an +injury? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ It is likely he will do great destruction. I +wouldn't say but I felt the weight of him and his two paws around my +neck. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I will go out following him. + +_Shawn Early: (Holding him)_. Oh, let you not endanger yourself! +It is the peelers should go follow him, that are armed with their +batons and their guns. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I'll go. He might do some injury going through +the town. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah now, it is not yourself we would let go into +danger! It is Peter Tannian should go, if any person should go. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Is it Hyacinth Halvey you are taking to be so far +before myself? + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Why wouldn't he be before you? + +_Peter Tannian:_ Ask him what was he in Carrow? Ask was he a sort +of a corner-boy, ringing the bell, pumping water, gathering a few +coppers in the daytime for to scatter on a game of cards. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Stop your lies and your chat! + +_Mrs. Broderick: (to Tannian_) You are going light in the head to +talk that way. + +_Shawn Early:_ He is, and queer in the mind. Take care did he get +a bite from the dog, that left some venom working in his blood. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ So he might, and he having a sort of a little +rent in his sleeve. + +_Peter Tannian:_ I to have got a bite from the dog, is it? I did +not come anear him at all. You to strip me as bare as winter you +will not find the track of his teeth. It is Shawn Early was nearer +to him than what I was. + +_Shawn Early:_ I was not nearer, or as near as what Mrs. Broderick +was. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ I made away when I saw him. My chest is not the +better of it yet. Since I left off fretting I got gross. I am that +nervous I would run from a blessed sheep, let alone a dog. + +_Shawn Early:_ To see any of the signs of madness upon him, it is +Mr. Halvey the sergeant would look to for to make his report. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ So I would make a report. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Is it that you lay down you can see signs? Is +that the learning they were giving you in Carrow? + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Don't be speaking with him at all. It is easy +know the signs. A person to be laughing and mocking, and that would +not have the same habits with yourself, or to have no fear of things +you would be in dread of, or to be using a different class of food. + +_Peter Tannian:_ I use no food but clean food. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ To be giddy in the head is a sign, and to be +talking of things that passed years ago. + +_Peter Tannian:_ I am talking of nothing but the thing I have a +right to talk of. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ To be nervous and thinking and pausing, and +playing with knicknacks. + +_Peter Tannian:_ It never was my habit to be playing with +knicknacks. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ When the master in the school where I was went +queer, he beat me with two clean rods, and wrote my name with my own +blood. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ To take the shoe off their foot, and to hit out +right and left with it, bawling their life out, tearing their clothes, +scattering and casting them in every part; or to run naked through +the town, and all the people after them. + +_Shawn Early:_ To be jumping the height of trees they do be, and +all the people striving to slacken them. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ To steal prayer-books and rosaries, and to be +saying prayers they never could keep in mind before. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Very strong, that they could leap a +wall--jumping and pushing and kicking--or to tie people to one +another with a rope. + +_Shawn Early:_ Any fear of any person here being violent, Mr. +Halvey will get him put under restraint. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Is it myself you are thinking to put under +restraint? Would a man would be pushing and kicking and tearing his +clothes, be able to do arithmetic on a board? Look now at that. +_(Chalks figures on door.)_ Three and three makes six!--and three-- + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ I'm no hand at figuring, but I can say out a +blessed hymn, what any person with the mind gone contrary in them +could not do. Hearken now till you'll know is there confusion in my +mind. _(Sings.)_ + + Mary Broderick is my name; + Fiddane was my station; + Cloon is my dwelling-place; + And (I hope) heaven is my destination. + + Mary Broderick is my name, + Cloon was my-- + +_Cracked Mary:_ _(With a cackle of delight.)_ Give heed to them now, +Davideen! That's the way the crazed people used to be going on in the +place where I was, every one thinking the other to be cracked. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ _(To Tannian.)_ Look now at your great figuring! +Argus with his hundred eyes wouldn't know is that a nought or is it a +nine without a tail. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Leave that blame on a little ridge that is in the +nature of the chalk. Look now at Mary Broderick, that it has failed +to word out her verse. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah, what signifies? I'd never get light greatly. +It wouldn't be worth while I to go mad. + + _(Bartley Fallon gives a deep groan.)_ + +_Shawn Early:_ What is on you, Bartley? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I'm in dread it is I myself has got the venom +into my blood. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What makes you think that? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ It's a sort of a thing would be apt to happen me, +and any malice to fall within the town at all. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Give heed to him, Hyacinth Halvey; you are the +most man we have to baffle any wrong thing coming in our midst! + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Is it that you are feeling any pain as of a +wound or a sore? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Some sort of a little catch I'm thinking there +is in under my knee. I would feel no pain unless I would turn it +contrary. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What class of feeling would you say you are +feeling? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I am feeling as if the five fingers of my hand +to be lessening from me, the same as five farthing dips the heat of +the sun would be sweating the tallow from. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ That is a strange account. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ And a sort of a megrim in my head, the same as a +sheep would get a fit of staggers in a field. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ That is what I would look for. Is there some +sort of a roaring in your ear? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ There is, there is, as if I would hear voices +would be talking. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Would you feel any wish to go tearing and +destroying? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I would indeed, and there to be an enemy upon my +path. Would you say now, Widow Broderick, am I getting anyway flushy +in the face? + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Don't leave your eye off him for pity's sake. He +is reddening as red as a rose. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I could as if walk on the wind with lightness. +Something that is rising in my veins the same as froth would be +rising on a pint. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It is the doctor I'd best call for--and maybe +the sergeant and the priest. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ There are three thoughts going through my +mind--to hang myself or to drown myself, or to cut my neck with a +reaping-hook. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ It is the doctor will serve him best, where it +is the mad blood that should be bled away. To break up eggs, the +white of them, in a tin can, will put new blood in him, and whiskey, +and to taste no food through twenty-one days. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I'm thinking so long a fast wouldn't serve me. I +wouldn't wish the lads will bear my body to the grave, to lay down +there was nothing within it but a grasshopper or a wisp of dry grass. + +_Shawn Early:_ No, but to cut a piece out of his leg the doctor +will, the way the poison will get no leave to work. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Or to burn it with red-hot irons, the way it will +not scatter itself and grow. There does a doctor do that out in +foreign. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ It would be more natural to cut the leg off him +in some sort of a Christian way. + +_Shawn Early:_ If it was a pig was bit, or a sow or a bonav, it to +show the signs, it would be shot, if it was a whole fleet of them +was in it. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ I knew of a man that was butler in a big house +was bit, and they tied him first and smothered him after, and his +master shot the dog. A splendid shot he was; the thing he'd not see +he'd hit it the same as the thing he'd see. I heard that from an +outside neighbour of my own, a woman that told no lies. + +_Shawn Early:_ Sure, they did the same thing to a high-up lady +over in England, and she after being bit by her own little spaniel +and it having a ring around its neck. + +_Peter Tannian:_ That is the only best thing to do. Whether the +bite is from a dog, or a cat, or whatever it may be, to put the +quilt and the blankets on the person and smother him in the bed. To +smother them out-and-out you should, before the madness will work. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I'd be loth he to be shot or smothered. I'd +sooner to give him a chance in the asylum. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ To keep him there and to try him through three +changes of the moon. It's well for you, Bartley, Mr. Halvey being in +charge of you, that is known to be a tender man. + +_Peter Tannian:_ He to have got a bite and to go biting others, he +would put in them the same malice. It is the old people used to tell +that down, and they must have had some reason doing that. + +_Shawn Early:_ To get a bite of a dog you must chance your life. +There is no doubt at all about that. It might work till the time of +the new moon or the full moon, and then they must be shot or +smothered. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It is a pity there to be no cure found for it +in the world. + +_Shawn Early:_ There never came out from the Almighty any cure for +a mad dog. + + _(Bartley Fallon has been edging towards door.)_ + +_Shawn Early:_ Oh! stop him and keep a hold of him, Mr. Halvey! + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Stop where you are. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Isn't it enough to have madness before me, that +you will not let me go fall in my own choice place? + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ The neighbours would think it bad of me to let +a raving man out into their midst. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Is it to shoot me you are going? + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I will call to the doctor to say is the padded +room at the workhouse the most place where you will be safe, till +such time as it will be known did the poison wear away. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I will not go in it! It is likely I might be +forgot in it, or the nurses to be in dread to bring me nourishment, +and they to hear me barking within the door. I'm thinking it was +allotted by nature I never would die an easy death. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I will keep a watch over you myself. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Where's the use of that the time the breath will +be gone out of me, and you maybe playing cards on my coffin, and I +having nothing around or about me but the shroud, and the habit, and +the little board? + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Sure, I cannot leave you the way you are. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ It is what I ever and always heard, a dog to +bite you, all you have to do is to take a pinch of its hair and to +lay it into the wound. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ So I heard that myself. A dog to bite any person +he is entitled to be plucked of his hair. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I'll go out; I might chance to see him. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ You will not, without getting advice from the +priest that is coming in the train. Let his Reverence come into this +place, and say is it Bartley or is it Peter Tannian was done +destruction on by the dog. + +_Shawn Early:_ There is a surer way than that. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ What way? + +_Shawn Early:_ It takes madness to find out madness. Let you call +to the cracked woman that should know. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Come hither, Mary, and tell us is there any one +of your own sort in this shed? + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ That is a good thought. It is only themselves +that recognise one another. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Do not ask her! I will not leave it to her! + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Sure, she cannot say more than what yourself has +said against yourself. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I'm in dread she might know too much, and be +telling out what is within in my mind. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ That's foolishness. These are not the ancient +times, when Ireland was full of haunted people. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Is a man having a wife and three acres of land +to be put under the judgment of a witch? + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I would not give in to any pagan thing, but to +recognise one of her own sort, that is a thing can be understood. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ So it could be too, the same as witnesses in a +court. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ I will not give in to going to demons or druids +or freemasons! Wasn't there enough of misfortune set before my path +through every day of my lifetime without it to be linked with me +after my death? Is it that you would force me to lose the comforts +of heaven and to get the poverty of hell? I tell you I will have no +trade with witches! I would sooner go face the featherbeds. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Say out, girl, do you see any craziness here or +anything of the sort? + +_Cracked Mary:_ Every day in the year there comes some malice into +the world, and where it comes from is no good place. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ That is it, a venomous dew, as in the year of +the famine. There is no astronomer can say it is from the earth or +the sky. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It is what we are asking you, did any of that +malice get its scope in this place? + +_Cracked Mary:_ That was settled in Mayo two thousand years ago. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah, there's no head or tail to that one's story. +You 'd be left at the latter end the same as at the commencement. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ That dog you were talking of, that is raging +through the district and the town--did it leave any madness after it? + +_Cracked Mary:_ It will go in the wind, there is a certain time +for that. It might go off in the wind again. It might go shaping off +and do no harm. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Where is that dog presently, till some person +might go pluck out a few ribs of its hair? + +_Cracked Mary:_ Raging ever and always it is, raging wild. Sure, +that is a dog was in it before the foundations of the world. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Who is it now that venom fell on, whatever +beast's jaws may have scattered it? + +_Cracked Mary:_ It is the full moon knows that. The moon to +slacken it is safe, there is no harm in it. Almighty God will do +that much. He'll slacken it like you 'd slacken lime. + +_Shawn Early:_ There is reason in what she is saying. Set open the +door and let the full moon call its own! + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Don't let in the rays of it upon us or I'm a +gone man. It to shine on them that are going wrong in the head, it +would raise a great stir in the mind. Sure, it's in the asylum at +that time they do have whips to chastise them. + + _(Goes to corner.)_ + +_Cracked Mary:_ That's it. The moon is terrible. The full moon +cracks them out and out, any one that would have any spleen or any +relics in them. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ Do not let in the light of it. I would scruple +to look at it myself. + +_Cracked Mary:_ Let you throw open the door, Davideen. It is not +ourselves are in dread that the white man in the sky will be calling +names after us and ridiculing us. Ha! ha! I might be as foolish as +yourselves and as fearful, but for the Almighty that left a little +cleft in my skull, that would let in His candle through the night +time. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Hurry on now, tell us is there any one in this +place is wild and astray like yourself. + + _(He opens the door. The light falls on him.)_ + +_Cracked Mary: (Putting her hand on him.)_ There was great +shouting in the big round house, and you coming into it last night. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What are you saying? I never went frolicking in +the night time since the day I came into Cloon. + +_Cracked Mary:_ We were talking of it a while ago. I knew you by +the smile and by the laugh of you. A queen having a yellow dress, +and the hair on her smooth like marble. All the dead of the village +were in it, and of the living myself and yourself. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I thought it was of Carrow she was talking; it +is of the other world she is raving, and of the shadow-shapes of the +forth. + +_Cracked Mary:_ You have the door open--the speckled horses are +on the road!--make a leap on the horse as it goes by, the horse that +is without a rider. Can't you hear them puffing and roaring? Their +breath is like a fog upon the air. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What you hear is but the train puffing afar off. + +_Cracked Mary:_ Make a snap at the bridle as it passes by the bush +in the western gap. Run out now, run, where you have the bare ridge +of the world before you, and no one to take orders from but yourself, +maybe, and God. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Ah, what way can I run to any place! + +_Cracked Mary:_ Stop where you are, so. In my opinion it is little +difference the moon can see between the whole of ye. Come on, +Davideen, come out now, we have the wideness of the night before us. +O golden God! All bad things quieten in the night time, and the ugly +thing itself will put on some sort of a decent face! Come out now to +the night that will give you the song, and will show myself out as +beautiful as Helen of the Greek gods, that hanged herself the day +there first came a wrinkle on her face! + +_Davideen: (Coming close, and taking her hand as he sings.)_ + + Oh! don't you remember + What our comrades called to us + And they footing steps + At the call of the moon? + Come out to the rushes, + Come out to the bushes, + Where the music is called + By the lads of Queen Anne! + + _(They look beautiful. They dance and sing in perfect time + as they go out.)_ + +_Peter Tannian: + (Closing the door, and pointing at Hyacinth, who stands gazing + after them, and when the door is shut sits down thinking deeply.)_ +It is on him her judgment fell, and a clear judgment. + +_Shawn Early:_ She gave out that award fair enough. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Did you take notice, and he coming into the shed, +he had like some sort of a little twist in his walk? + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ I would be loth to think there would be any +poison lurking in his veins. Where now would it come from, and +Cracked Mary's dog being as good as no dog at all? + +_Peter Tannian:_ It might chance, and he a child in the cradle, to +get the bite of a dog. It might be only now, its full time being come, +its power would begin to work. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ So it would too, and he but to see the shadow of +the dog bit him in a body glass, or in the waves, and he himself +looking over a boat, and as if called to throw himself in the tide. +But I would not have thought it of Mr. Halvey. Well, it's as hard to +know what might be spreading abroad in any person's mind, as to put +the body of a horse out through a cambric needle. + + _(Hyacinth looks at them.)_ + +_Shawn Early:_ Be quiet now, he is going to say some word. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ There is a thought in my mind. I think it was +coming this good while. + +_Shawn Early:_ Whisht now and listen. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I made a great mistake coming into this place. + +_Peter Tannian:_ There was some mistake made anyway. + +_Hyacinth:_ It is foolishness kept me in it ever since. It is too +big a name was put upon me. + +_Peter Tannian:_ It is the power of the moon is forcing the truth +out of him. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Every person in the town giving me out for more +than I am. I got too much of that in the heel. + +_Shawn Early:_ He is talking queer now anyway. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Calling to me every little minute--expecting me +to do this thing and that thing--watching me the same as a watchdog, +their eyes as if fixed upon my face. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ To be giving out such strange thoughts, he +hasn't much brains left around him. + +_Hyacinth Halvey: I_ looking to be Clerk of the Union, and the +place I had giving me enough to do, and too much to do. Tied on this +side, tied on that side. I to be bothered with business through the +holy livelong day! + +_Peter Tannian:_ It is good pay he got with it. Eighty pounds a +year doesn't come on the wind. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ In danger to be linked and wed--I never +ambitioned it--with a woman would want me to be earning through +every day of the year. + +_Shawn Early:_ He is a gone man surely. + +_Hyacinth Hakey:_ The wide ridge of the world before me, and to +have no one to look to for orders; that would be better than roast +and boiled and all the comforts of the day. I declare to goodness, +and I 'd nearly take my oath, I 'd sooner be among a fleet of tinkers, +than attending meetings of the Board! + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ If there are fairies in it, it is in the fairies +he is. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Give me a hold of that chain. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ What is it you are about to do? + +_Peter Tannian:_ To bind him to the chair I will before he will +burst out wild mad. Come over here, Bartley Fallon, and lend a hand +if you can. + + _(Bartley Fallon appears from corner with a_ _chicken crate over + his head.)_ + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ O Bartley, that is the strangest lightness ever +I saw, to go bind a chicken crate around your skull! + +_Bartley Fallon:_ Will you tighten the knots I have tied, Peter +Tannian! I am in dread they might slacken or fail. + +_Shawn Early:_ Was there ever seen before this night such power to +be in the moon! + +_Bartley Fallon:_ It would seem to be putting very wild unruly +thoughts a-through me, stirring up whatever spleen or whatever +relics was left in me by the nature of the dog. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Is it that you think those rods, spaced wide, as +they are, will keep out the moon from entering your brain? + +_Bartley Fallon:_ There does great strength come at the time the +wits would be driven out of a person. I never was handled by a +policeman--but once--and never hit a blow on any man. I would not +wish to destroy my neighbour or to have his blood on my hands. + +_Shawn Early:_ It is best keep out of his reach. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ The way I have this fixed, there is no person +will be the worse for me. I to rush down the street and to meet with +my most enemy in some lonesome craggy place, it would fail me, and I +thrusting for it to scatter any share of poison in his body or to +sink my teeth in his skin. I wouldn't wonder I to have hung for some +of you, and that plan not to have come into my head. + + _(Whistle of train heard.)_ + +_Hyacinth Halvey: (Getting up.)_ I have my mind made up, I am +going out of this on that train. + +_Peter Tannian:_ You are not going so easy as what you think. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Let you mind your own business. + +_Peter Tannian:_ I am well able to mind it. + +_Hyacinth Halvey: (Throwing off top-coat.)_ You cannot keep me here. + +_Peter Tannian:_ Give me a hand with the chain. + _(They throw it round Hyacinth and hold him.)_ + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Is it out of your senses you are gone? + +_Peter Tannian:_ Not at all, but yourself that is gone raving mad +from the fury and the strength of some dog. + +_Miss Joyce: (At door.)_ Are you there, Hyacinth Halvey? The train +is in. Come forward now, and give a welcome to his Reverence. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Let me go out of this! + +_Miss Joyce:_ You are near late as it is. The train is about to +start. + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Let me go, or I'll tear the heart out of ye! + +_Shawn Early:_ Oh, he is stark, staring mad! + +_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Mad, am I? Bit by a dog, am I? You'll see am I +mad! I'll show madness to you! Let go your hold or I'll skin you! +I'll destroy you! I'll bite you! I'm a red enemy to the whole of you! +Leave go your grip! Yes, I'm mad! Bow wow wow, wow wow! + + _(They let go and fall back in terror, and he rushes out of the + door.)_ + +_Miss Joyce:_ What at all has happened? Where is he gone? + +_Shawn Early:_ To the train he is gone, and away in it he is gone. + +_Miss Joyce:_ He gave some sort of a bark or a howl. + +_Shawn Early:_ He is gone clean mad. Great arguing he had, and +leaping and roaring. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ _(Taking off crate.)_ He went very near to tear +us all asunder. I declare I amn't worth a match. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ He made a reel in my head, till I don't know am +I right myself. + +_Shawn Early:_ Bawling his life out, tearing his clothes, tearing +and eating them. Look at his top-coat he left after him. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ He poured all over with pure white foam. + +_Peter Tannian:_ There now is an end of your elegant man. + +_Shawn Early:_ Bit he was with the mad dog that went tearing, and +lads chasing him a while ago. + +_Miss Joyce:_ Sure that was Tannian's own dog, that had a bit of +meat snapped from Quirke's ass-car. He is without this door now. +_(All look out.)_ He has the appearance of having a full meal taken. + +_Bartley Fallon:_ And they to be saying I went mad. That is the +way always, and a thing to be tasked to me that was not in it at all. + +_Mrs. Broderick:_ _(Laying her hand on Miss Joyce's shoulder.)_ +Take comfort now; and if it was the moon done all, and has your +bachelor swept, let you not begrudge it its full share of praise for +the hand it had in banishing a strange bird, might have gone wild +and bawling like eleven, and you after being wed with him, and would +maybe have put a match to the roof. And hadn't you the luck of the +world now, that you did not give notice to the priest! + +_Curtain_ + + + + +COATS + + +_Hazel_ EDITOR OF "CHAMPION" +_Mineog_ EDITOR OF "TRIBUNE" +_John_ A WAITER + + + _Scene: Dining room of Royal Hotel Cloonmore_. + +_Hazel: (Coming in.)_ Did Mr. Mineog come yet, John? + +_John:_ He did not, Mr. Hazel. Ah, he won't be long coming. It's +seldom he does be late. + +_Hazel:_ Is the dinner ready? + +_John:_ It is, sir. Boiled beef and parsnips, the same as every +Monday for all comers, and an apple pie for yourself and Mr. Mineog. + +_Mineog: (Coming in.)_ Mr. Hazel is the first tonight. I'm glad to +see you looking so good. + + _(They take off coats and give to waiter.)_ + +_Mineog:_ Put that on its own peg. + +_Hazel:_ And mine on its own peg to the rear. + +_John:_ I will, sir. + + _(He drops coats in putting them up. Then notices broken pane + in window and picks up the coats hurriedly, putting them on wrong + pegs. Hazel and Mineog have sat down.)_ + +_Hazel:_ Have you any strange news? + +_Mineog:_ I have but the same news I always have, that it is quick +Monday comes around, and that it is hard make provision for to fill +up the four sheets of the _Tribune_, and nothing happening in these +parts worth while. There would seem to be no news on this day beyond +all days of the year. + +_Hazel:_ Sure there is the same care and the same burden on myself. +I wish I didn't put a supplement to the _Champion_. The deer knows +what way will I fill it between this and Thursday, or in what place +I can go questing after news! + +_Mineog:_ Last week passed without anything doing. It is a very +backward place to give information for two papers. If it was not for +the league is between us, and for us meeting here on every Monday to +make sure we are taking different sides on every question may turn up, +and giving every abuse to one another in print, there is no person +would pay his penny for the two of them, or it may be for the one of +them. + +_Hazel:_ That is so. And the worst is, there is no question ever +rises that we do not agree on, or that would have power to make us +fall out in earnest. It was different in my early time. The +questions used to rise up then were worth fighting for. + +_Mineog:_ There are some people so cantankerous they will heat +themselves in argument as to which side might be right or wrong in a +war, or if wars should be in it at all, or hangings. + +_Hazel:_ Ah, when they are as long on the road as we are, they'll +take things easy. _Mineog:_ Now all the kingdoms of the earth to go +struggling on one wrong side or another, or to bring themselves down +to dust and ashes, it would not break our friendship. In all the +years past there never did a cross word rise between us. + +_Hazel:_ There never will. What are the fights of politics and +parties beside living neighbourly with one another, and to go +peaceable to the grave, our selves that are the oldest residents in +the Square. + +_Mineog:_ It will be long indeed before you will be followed to +the grave. You didn't live no length yet. You are too fresh to go +out and to forsake your wife and your family. + +_Hazel:_ Ah, when the age would be getting up on you, you wouldn't +be getting younger. But it's yourself that is as full of spirit as a +four-year-old. I wish I had a sovereign for every year you will +reign after me in the Square. + +_Mineog:_ _(Sneezes.)_ There is a draught of air coming in the +window. + +_Hazel:_ _(Rising.)_ Take care might it be open--no, but a pane +that is out. There is a very chilly breeze sweeping in. + +_Mineog:_ _(Rising.)_ I will put on my coat so. There is no use +giving provocation to a cold. + +_Hazel:_ I'll do the same myself. It is hard to banish a sore +throat. + + _(They put on coats. John brings in dinner. They sit down.)_ + +_Mineog:_ See can you baffle that draught of air, John. + +_John:_ I'll go in search of something to stop it, sir. This bit +of a board I brought is too unshapely. + +_Mineog:_ Two columns of the _Tribune_ as empty yet as anything +you could see. I had them kept free for the Bishop's speech and he +didn't come after. + +_Hazel:_ That's the same cause has left myself with so wide a gap. + +_Mineog:_ In the years past there used always to be something +happening such as famines, or the invention of printing. The whole +world has got very slack. + +_Hazel:_ You are a better hand than what I am at filling odd +spaces would be left bare. It is often I think the news you put out +comes partly from your own brain, and the prophecies you lay down +about the weather and the crops. + +_Mineog:_ Ah, I might stick in a bit of invention sometimes, when +I'm put to the pin of my collar. + +_Hazel:_ I might maybe make an attack on the _Tribune_ for that. + +_Mineog:_ Ah, what is it but a white sin. Sure it tells every +person the same thing. It doesn't tell many lies, it goes somewhere +a near it. + +_Hazel:_ I spent a good while this evening searching through the +shelves of the press I have in the office. I write an article an odd +time, when there is nothing doing, that might come handy in a hurry. + +_Mineog:_ So have I a press of the sort, and shelves in it. I am +after going through them to-day. + +_Hazel:_ But it's hard find a thing would be suitable, unless you +might dress it up again someway fresh. + +_Mineog:_ I made a thought and I searching a while ago. I was +thinking it would be a very nice thing to show respect to yourself, +and friendliness, putting down a short account of you and of all you +have done for your family and for the town. + +_Hazel:_ That is a strange thing now! I had it in my mind to do +the very same service to yourself. + +_Mineog:_ Is that so? + +_Hazel:_ Your worth and your generosity and the way you have +worked the _Tribune_ for your own and for the public good. + +_Mineog:_ And another thing. I not only thought to write it but I +am after writing it. + +_Hazel: (Suspiciously.)_ You had not much time for that. + +_Mineog:_ I never was one to spare myself in anything that could +benefit a friend. + +_Hazel:_ Neither would I spare myself. I have my article wrote. + +_Mineog:_ I have a mind to read my own one to you, the way you +will know there is nothing in it but what is friendly and is kind. + +_Hazel:_ I will do the same thing. There's nothing I have said in +it but what you will like to be hearing. + +_Mineog: (Who has rummaged pockets.)_ I thought I put it in the +inside pocket--no matter--here it is. + +_Hazel: (Rummaging.)_ Here is my one. I was thinking I had it lost. + +_Mineog: (Reading, after he has turned over a couple of sheets rapidly)_ +"Born and bred in this Square, he took his chief pride in his native +town." + +_Hazel: (Turning over two sheets.)_ "It was in this parish and +district he spent the most part of his promising youth--Richly +stored with world-wide knowledge." + +_Mineog:_ "Well able to give out an opinion on any matter at all." + +_Hazel:_ "To lay down his mind on paper it would be hard to beat +him." + +_Mineog:_ "With all that, humble that he would halt and speak to +you the same as a child----" I'm maybe putting it down a bit too +simple, but the printer will give it a little shaping after. + +_Hazel:_ So will my own printer be lengthening out the words for +me according to the type and the letters of the alphabet he will +have plentiful and to spare. + +_Mineog:_ "Well looking and well thought of. A true Irishman in +supporting all forms of sport." + +_Hazel:_ What's that? I never was one for betting on races or +gaining prizes for riddles. + +_Mineog:_ It is strange now I have no recollection of putting that +down. It is I myself in the days gone by would put an odd shilling +on a horse. + +_Hazel:_ These typewriters would bother the world. Wait now--let +me throw an eye on those papers you have in your hand. + +_Mineog:_ Not at all. I would sooner be giving it out to you myself. + +_Hazel:_ Of course it is very pleasing to be listening to so nice +an account--but lend it a minute. + + _(Puts out hand.)_ + +_Mineog:_ Bring me now a bottle of wine, John--you know the +sort--till I'll drink to Mr. Hazel's good health. + +_John:_ I will, sir. + +_Hazel:_ No, but bring it at my own expense till I will drink to +Mr. Mineog. Just give me a hold of that paper for one minute only. + +_Mineog:_ Keep patience now. I will go through it with no delay. + +_Hazel:_ _(Making a snap.)_ Just for one minute. + +_Mineog:_ _(Clapping his hand on it.)_ What a hurry you are in! +Stop now till I'll find the place. "Very rarely indeed has been met +with so fair and so neighbourly a man." + +_Hazel:_ Give me a look at it. + +_Mineog:_ What is it ails you? You are uneasy about something. +What is it you are hiding from me? + +_Hazel:_ What would I have to hide but that the papers got mixed +in some way, and you have in your hand what I wrote about yourself, +and not what you wrote about myself? + +_Mineog:_ What way did they get into the wrong pocket now? + +_Hazel: (Putting MS. in his pocket.)_ Give me back my own and I +will give you back your own. + +_Mineog:_ I don't know. You are putting it in my mind there might +be something underhand. I would like to make sure what did you say +about me in the heel. _(Turns over.)_ "He was honest and widely +respected." _Was_ honest--are you saying me to be a rogue at this +time? + +_Hazel:_ That's not fair dealing to be searching through it +against my will. + +_Mineog:_ "He was trusted through the whole townland." _Was_ +trusted--is it that you are making me out to be a thief? + +_Hazel:_ Well, follow your own road and take your own way. + +_Mineog:_ "----Mr. Mineog leaves no family to lament his loss, but +along with the _Tribune_, which he fostered with the care of a father, +we offer up prayers for the repose of his soul." _(Stands up.)_ It +is a notice of my death you are after writing! + +_Hazel:_ You should understand that. + +_Mineog:_ An obituary notice! Of myself! Is it that you expect me +to quit the living world between this and Thursday? + +_Hazel:_ I had no thought of the kind. + +_Mineog:_ I'm not stretched yet! What call have you to go offer +prayers for me? + +_Hazel:_ I tell you I had it put by this long time till I would +have occasion to use it. + +_Mineog:_ Is it this long time, so, you have been waiting for my +death? + +_Hazel:_ Not at all. + +_Mineog:_ You to kill me to-day and to think to bury me to-morrow! + +_Hazel:_ Can't you listen? I was wanting something to fill space. + +_Mineog:_ Would nothing serve you to fill space but only my own +corpse? To go set my coffin making and to put nettles growing on my +hearth! Wouldn't it be enough to rob my house or to make an attack +upon my means? Wouldn't that fill up the gap? + +_Hazel:_ Let you not twist it that way! + +_Mineog:_ The time I was in the face of my little dinner to go +startle me with a thing of the sort! I'm not worth the ground I +stand on! For the _Champion_ of next Thursday! I to be dead ere +Thursday! + +_Hazel:_ I looked for no such thing. + +_Mineog:_ What is it makes you say me to be done and dying? Am I +reduced in the face? + +_Hazel:_ You are not. + +_Mineog:_ Am I yellow and pale and shrunken? + +_Hazel:_ Why would you be? + +_Mineog:_ Would you say me to be crampy in the body? Am I staggery +in the legs? + +_Hazel:_ I see no such signs. + +_Mineog:_ Is it in my hand you see them? Is it lame or is it +freezed-brittle like ice? + +_Hazel:_ It is as warm and as good as my own. + +_Mineog:_ Let me take a hold of you till you will tell me has it +the feel of a dead man's grip. + +_Hazel:_ I know that it has not. + +_Mineog:_ Is it shaking like a bunch of timber shavings? + +_Hazel:_ Not at all, not at all. + +_Mineog:_ It should be my hearing that is failing from me, or that +I am crippled and have lost my walk. + +_Hazel:_ You are roaring and bawling without sense. + +_Mineog:_ Let the _Champion_ go to flitters before I will die to +please it! I will not give in to it driving me out of the world +before my hour is spent! It would hardly ask that of a man would be +of no use and no account, or even of a beast of any consequence. + +_Hazel:_ Who is asking you to die? + +_Mineog:_ Giving no time hardly for the priest to overtake me and +to give me the rites of the Church! + +_Hazel:_ I tell you there is no danger of you giving up at all! +Every person knows there must some sickness come before death. Some +take it from a neighbour and it is put on others by God. + +_Mineog:_ Even so, it's hard say. + +_Hazel:_ You have not a ha'p'orth on you. No complaint in the +world wide. + +_Mineog:_ That's nothing! Sickness comes upon some as sudden as to +clap their hands. + +_Hazel:_ What are you talking about? You are thinking us to be in +the days of the cholera yet! + +_Mineog:_ There are yet other diseases besides that. + +_Hazel:_ You put the measles over you and we going the road to +school. + +_Mineog:_ There is more than measles has power bring a man down. + +_Hazel:_ You had the chin-cough passed and you rising. We were cut +at the one time for the pock. + +_Mineog:_ A disease to be allotted to you it would find you out, +and you maybe up twenty mile in the air! + +_Hazel:_ Ah, what disease could have you swept in the course of +the next two days? + +_Mineog:_ That is what I'm after saying--unless you might have +murder in your mind? + +_Hazel:_ Ah, what murder! + +_Mineog:_ What way are you thinking to do away with me? To shoot +me with the trigger of a gun and to give me shortening of life? + +_Hazel:_ The trigger of a gun! God bless it, I never fingered such +a thing in the length of my life! + +_Mineog:_ To take aim at me and destroy me; to shoot me in forty +halves like a crow in the time of the wheat! + +_Hazel:_ Oh, now, don't say a thing like that! + +_Mineog:_ Or to drown me maybe in the river, enticing me across +the rotten plank of the bridge. _(Seizing bottle.)_ Will you tell me +on the virtue of your oath, is death lurking in that sherry wine? + +_Hazel: (Pulling out paper.)_ Ah, God bless your jig! And how +would I know is it a notice of my own death has come into my hand in +the pocket of this coat I put on me through a mistake? + +_Mineog:_ Give it here. That's my property! + +_Hazel: (Reading.)_ "We sympathise with Mrs. Hazel and the family." +There is proof now. Is it that you would go grieving with my wife and +I to be living yet? + +_Mineog:_ I didn't follow you out beyond this world with craving +for the repose of your soul. It is nothing at all beside what you +wrote. + +_Hazel:_ Oh, I bear no grudge at all against you. I am not huffy +and crabbed like yourself to go taking offence. Sure Kings and big +people of the sort are used to see their dead-notices made ready +from the hour of their birth out. And it is not anything printed on +papers or any flight of words on the _Tribune_ could give me any +concern at all. See now will I be put out. _(Reads.)_ What now is +this? "Mr. Hazel was of good race, having in him the old stock of +the country, the Mahons, the O'Hagans, the Casserlys----." Where now +did you get that? I never heard before, a Casserly to be in my +fathers. + +_Mineog:_ It might be on the side of the mother. + +_Hazel:_ It was not. My mother was a girl of the Hessians that was +born in the year of the French. My grandmother was Winefred Kane. + +_Mineog:_ What is being out in one name towards drawing down the +forecast of all classes of deaths upon myself? + +_Hazel:_ There are twenty thousand things you might lay down and I +would give them no leave to annoy me. But I have no mind any strange +family to be mixed through me, but to go my own road and to carry my +own character. + +_Mineog:_ I would say you to be very crabbed to be making much of +a small little mistake of the sort. + +_Hazel:_ I will not have blood put in my veins that never rose up +in them by birth. You to have put a slur maybe on the whole of my +posterity for ever. That now is a thing out of measure. + +_Mineog:_ It might be the Casserlys are as fair as the Hessians, +and as well looking and as well reared. + +_Hazel:_ There's no one can know that. What place owns them? My +tribe didn't come inside the province. Every generation was born and +bred in this or in some neighbouring townland. + +_Mineog:_ Sure you will be but yourself whatever family may be +laying claim to you. + +_Hazel:_ Any person of the Casserlys to have done a wrong deed at +any time, the neighbours would be watching and probing my own brood +till they would see might the track of it break out in any way. It +ran through our race to be hard tempered, from the Kanes that are +very hot. + +_Mineog:_ Why would the family of the Casserlys go doing wrong +deeds more than another? + +_Hazel:_ I would never forgive it, if it was the highest man in +Connacht said it. + +_Mineog:_ I tell you there to be any flaw in them, it would have +worked itself out in yourself ere this. + +_Hazel:_ Putting on me the weight of a family I never knew or +never heard the name of at all. It is that is killing me entirely. + +_Mineog:_ Neither did I ever hear their name or if they ever lived +in the world, or did any deed good or bad in it at all. + +_Hazel:_ What made you drag them hither for to write them in my +genealogies so? + +_Mineog:_ I did not drag them hither----Give me that paper. +_(Takes MS. and looks at it.)_ What would it be but a misprint? +Hessian, Casserly. There does be great resemblance in the sound of a +double S. + +_Hazel:_ Whether or no, you have a great wrong done me! The person +I had most dependence on to be the most person to annoy me! If it +was a man from the County Mayo I wouldn't see him treated that way! + +_Mineog:_ Have sense now! What would signify anything might be +wrote about you, and the green scraws being over your head? + +_Hazel:_ That's the worst! I give you my oath I would not go +miching from death or be in terror of the sharpness of his bones, +and he coming as at the Flood to sweep the living world along with me, +and leave no man on earth having penmanship to handle my deeds, or +to put his own skin on my story! + +_Mineog:_ Ah it's likely the both of us will be forgotten and our +names along with us, and we out in the meadow of the dead. + +_Hazel:_ I will not be forgotten! I have posterity will put a good +slab over me. Not like some would be left without a monument, unless +it might be the rags of a cast waistcoat would be put on sticks in a +barley garden, to go flapping at the thieves of the air. + +_Mineog:_ Let the birds or the neighbours go screech after me and +welcome, and I not in it to hear or to be annoyed. + +_Hazel:_ Why wouldn't we hear? I'm in dread it's too much I'll hear, +and you yourself sending such news to travel abroad, that there is +blood in me I concealed through my lifetime! + +_Mineog:_ What you are saying now has not the sense of reason. + +_Hazel:_ Tom Mineog to say that of me, that was my trusty comrade +and my friend, what at all will strangers be putting out about me? + +_Mineog:_ Ah, what call have you to go lamenting as if you had +lost all on this side of the sea! + +_Hazel:_ You to have brought that annoyance on me, what would +enemies be saying of me? That it was in my breed to be cracked or to +have a thorn in the tongue. There's a generation of families would +be great with you, and behind you they would be backbiting you. + +_Mineog:_ They will not. You are of a family doesn't know how to +say a wrong word. + +_Hazel:_ A rabbit mushroom they might say me to be, with no memory +behind or around me! + +_Mineog:_ Not at all. The world knows you to be civil and brought +up to mannerly ways. + +_Hazel:_ They might say me to have been a foreigner or a Jew man! + +_Mineog:_ I can bear witness you have no such yellow look. And +Hazel is a natural name. + +_Hazel:_ It's likely they'll say I was a sheep-stealer or a tinker +that went foraging around after food! + +_Mineog:_ You that never put your hand on a rabbit burrow or stood +before a magistrate or a judge! + +_Hazel:_ They'll put me down as a grabber that was ready to quench +a widow's fire! + +_Mineog:_ Oh, where are you running to at all my dear man! + +_Hazel:_ And I not to be able at that time to rise up and to get +satisfaction! I to be wandering as a shadow and to see some schemer +spilling out his lies! That would be the most grief in death! I to +hit him a blow of my fist and he maybe not to feel it or to think it +to be but a breeze of wind! + +_Mineog:_ You are going too far entirely! + +_Hazel:_ I to give out a strong curse on him and on his posterity +and his land. It would kill my heart if he would take it to be no +human voice, but some vanity like the hissing of geese! + +_Mineog:_ I myself would recognise your voice, and you to be +living or dead. + +_Hazel:_ You say that now. But my ghost to come calling to you in +the night time to rise up and to clear my character, you would run +shivering to the priest as from some unnatural thing. You would call +to him to come banish me with a Mass! + +_Mineog:_ The Lord be between us and harm. + +_Hazel:_ To have no power of revenge after death! My strength to +go nourish weeds and grass! A lie to be told and I living I could go +lay my case before the courts. So I will too! I'll silence you! I'll +learn you to have done with misspellings and with death notices! +I'll hinder you bringing in Casserlys! I go take advice from the +lawyer! _(Goes towards door.)_ + +_Mineog:_ I'll go lay down my own case and the way that you have +my life threatened! + +_Hazel:_ I'll get justice and a hearing. The Judge will give in to +my say! + +_Mineog:_ I that will put you under bail! I'll bind you over to +quit prophesying! + +_Hazel:_ I'll break the bail of the sun and moon before I'll give +you leave to go brand me with strange names the same as you would +tarbrand a sheep! I'll put yourself and your _Tribune_ under the law +of libel! + +_Mineog:_ I'll make a world's wonder of you! I'll give plenty and +enough to the _Champion_ to fill out its windy pages that time! + +_Hazel: (At door.)_ I will lay my information before you will +overtake me! + +_Mineog: (Seizing him.)_ I will lay my information against you for +theft and you bringing away my coat! + +_Hazel:_ I have no intention of bringing it away! + +_Mineog:_ Is it that you will deny it? Don't I know that spot of +grease on the sleeve? + +_Hazel:_ Did I never carve a goose? Why wouldn't there be a spot +of grease on my own sleeve? + +_Mineog:_ Strip it off of you this minute! + +_Hazel:_ Give me back my own coat, so! + +_Mineog:_ What are you talking about! That's a great wonder now. +So it is not my own coat. + +_Hazel:_ Strip it off before you will quit the room! + +_Mineog:_ I'll be well pleased casting it off! + +_Hazel:_ You will not cast it on the dust and the dirt of the floor! +_(Helps him.)_ Go easy now.----That's it---- + + _(Takes it off gently and places it on chair.)_ + +_Mineog:_ Give me now my own coat! + +_Hazel: (Struggling with it.)_ It fails me to get it off. + +_Mineog:_ What way did you get it on? + +_Hazel:_ It is that it is made too narrow. + +_Mineog:_ No, but yourself that has too much bulk. + +_Hazel: (Struggling.)_ There now is a tear! + +_Mineog: (Taking his arm.)_ Mind now, you'll have it destroyed. + +_Hazel:_ Give me a hand, so. + +_Mineog: (Helping him gently.)_ Have a care--it's a bit tender in +the seams----give me here your hand--it is caught in the rip of the +lining. + +_John: (Coming in, puts pie on table.)_ Wait now, sir, till I'll +aid you to handle Mr. Hazel's coat. + + _(Whips off coat, takes up other coat, hangs both on pegs.)_ + +The apple pie, Sir. + + _(Hazel sits down, gasping and wiping his face. + Mineog turns his back.)_ + +_John:_ Is there anything after happening, Mr. Hazel? + +_Hazel:_ There is not--unless some sort of a battle. + +_John:_ Ah, what signifies? There to be more of battles in the +world there would be less of wars. + + _(He pushes Mineog's chair to table.)_ + +_Hazel: (After a pause.)_ Apple pie? + +_Mineog: (Sitting down.)_ Indeed, I am not any way inclined for +eating. + + _(Takes plate. John stuffs a cushion into window pane and picks up + MSS.)_ + +_John:_ Are these belonging to you, Mr. Mineog? + +_Mineog:_ Let you throw them on the coals of the fire, where we +have no use for them presently. + +_Hazel: (Stopping John and taking them.)_ Thursday is very near at +hand. Two empty columns is a large space to go fill. + +_Mineog:_ Indeed I am feeling no way fit to go writing columns. + +_Hazel: (Putting his MS. in his pocket.)_ There is nothing ails +them only to begin a good way after the start, and to stop before +the finish. + +_Mineog: (Putting his MS. in his pocket.)_ We'll do that. We can +put such part of them as we do not need at this time back in the +shelf of the press. + +_Hazel: (Filling glasses and lifting his.)_ That it may be long +before they will be needed! + +_Mineog: (Lifting glass.)_ That they may _never_ be needed! + +_Curtain_ + + + + + + +DAMER'S GOLD + + A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS + +PERSONS + +_Patrick Kirwan_ CALLED DAMER +_Staffy Kirwan_ HIS BROTHER +_Delia Hessian_ HIS SISTER +_Ralph Hessian_ HER HUSBAND +_Simon Niland_ THEIR NEPHEW + + + + + +DAMER'S GOLD + + +ACT I + + + _Scene: The kitchen in Damer's house. Outer door at back. Door + leading to an inner room to right. A dresser, a table, and a couple + of chairs. An old coat and hat hanging on the wall. A knocking is + heard at door at back. It is unlatched from outside. Delia comes in_. + +_Delia: (Looking round cautiously and going back to door.)_ You +may come in, Staffy and Ralph. There would seem to be no person here. + +_Staffy:_ Take care would Damer ask us to cross the threshold at +all. I would not ask to go pushing on him, but to wait till he would +call to us himself. He is not an easy led man. + +_Delia: (Crossing and knocking at inner door.)_ He is not in it. +He is likely slipped out unknownst. + +_Ralph:_ Herself that thought to find him at the brink of death +and nearing his last leap, after what happened him with the jennet. +We heard tell of it as far as we were. + +_Delia:_ What ailed him to go own a jennet, he that has means to +stable a bay horse would set the windows rattling on the public road, +and it sparkling over the flintstones after dark? + +_Staffy:_ Sure he owns no fourfooted beast only the dog abroad in +its box. To make its way into the haggard the jennet did, the time +it staggered him with a kick. To forage out some grazing it thought +to do, beyond dirt and scutchgrass among the stones. Very cross +jennets do be, as it is a cross man it met with. + +_Delia:_ A queer sort of a brother he is. To go searching Ireland +you wouldn't find queerer. But as soon as I got word what happened I +bade Ralph to put the tacklings on the ass. We must have nature +about us some way. There was silence between us long enough. + +_Ralph:_ She was thinking it might be the cause of him getting his +death sooner than God has it promised to him, and that it might turn +his mind more friendly like towards us, he knowing us to be at hand +for to settle out his burying. + +_Delia:_ Why wouldn't it, and we being all the brothers and +sisters ever he had, since Jane Niland, God rest her soul, went out +last Little Christmas from the troubles and torments of the world. + +_Staffy:_ There is nothing left of that marriage now, only one +young lad is said to be mostly a fool. + +_Delia:_ It is ourselves can bear witness to that, where he came +into the house ere yesterday, having no way of living, since death +and misfortune scattered him, but as if he was left down out of the +skies. + +_Ralph:_ He has not, unless the pound piece the mother put into +his hand at the last. It is much she had that itself. The time Tom +Niland died from her, he didn't leave her hardly the cat. + +_Staffy:_ The lad to have any wit around him he would have come +travelling hither along with yourselves, to see would he knock any +kindness out of Damer. + +_Ralph:_ It is what herself was saying, it would be no advantage +to him to be coming here at all, he being as he is half light, where +there is nothing only will or wit could pick any profit out of Damer. +She did not let on to him what side were we facing, and we +travelling out from Loughtyshassy. + +_Staffy:_ It is likely he will get tidings as good as yourself. It +is said, and said largely, Damer has a full gallon jar of gold. + +_Ralph:_ There is no one could lift it--God bless it--they were +telling me. Filled up it is and brimmed to the very brink. + +_Staffy:_ His heart and his soul gone into it. He is death on that +gallon of gold. + +_Delia:_ He would give leave to the poorhouse to bury him, if he +could but put in his will they should leave it down with his bones. + +_Staffy:_ A man could live an easy life surely and that much being +in the house. + +_Delia:_ There is no more grasping man within the four walls of +the world. A strange thing he turning to be so ugly and prone to +misery, where he was reared along with myself. I have the first +covetous person yet to meet I would like! I never would go thrusting +after gold, I to get all Lord Clanricarde's estate. + +_Ralph:_ She never would, only at a time she might have her own +means spent and consumed. + +_Staffy:_ The house is very racked beside what it was. The +hungriest cabin in the whole ring of Connemara would not show out so +empty and so bare. + +_Delia: (Taking up a jug.)_ No sign in this vessel of anything +that would leave a sign. I'll go bail he takes his tea in a black +state, and the milk to be rotting in the churn. + +_Ralph: (Handling a coat and hat hanging on a nail.)_ That's a +queer cut of a hat. That now should have been a good top-coat in its +time. + +_Delia:_ For pity's sake! That is the top-coat and the hat he used +to be wearing and he riding his long-tailed pony to every racecourse +from this to the Curragh of Kildare. A good class of cloth it should +be to last out through seventeen years. + +_Staffy:_ The time he was young and fundless he had not a bad +reaching hand. He never was thrifty but lavish till he came into the +ownership of the land. It is as if his luck left him, he growing +timid at the time he had means to lose. + +_Delia:_ Every horse he would back at that time it would surely +win all before it. I saw the people thronging him one time, taking +him in their arms for joy, and the winnings coming into his hand. It +is likely they ran out through the fingers as swift nearly as they +flowed in. + +_Staffy:_ He grew to be very dark and crabbed from the time of the +father's death. His mind was on his halfpenny ever since. + +_Delia: (Looking at dresser.)_ Spiders' webs heaped in ridges the +same as windrows in a bleach of hay. What now is that there above on +the upper shelf? + +_Ralph: (Taking it from top shelf.)_ It is but a pack of cards. + +_Staffy:_ They should maybe be the very same that brought him +profit in his wild days. He always had a lucky hand. + +_Delia: (Dusting them.)_ You would give your seven oaths the dust +to have been gathering on them since the time of the Hebrews' Flood. +I'll tell you now a thing to do. We being here before him in the +house, why wouldn't we ready it and put some sort of face upon it, +the way he would be in humour with us coming in. + +_Ralph:_ And the way he might incline to put into our hand some +good promise or some gift. + +_Delia: (Dusting.)_ I would wish no gift from any person at all, +but that my mind is set at this time on a fleet of white goats and a +guinea-hen are to be canted out from the Spanish woman at Lisatuwna +cross by reason of the hanging gale. + +_Staffy:_ That was the way with you, Delia, from the time you +could look out from the half-door, to be coveting pictures and +fooleries, that would shape themselves in your mind. + +_Delia:_ There is no sin coveting things are of no great use or +profit, but would show out good and have some grandeur around them. +Those goats now! Browsing on the blossoms of the bushes they would be, +or the herbs that give out a sweet smell. Stir yourself, Staffy, and +throw your eye on that turf beyond in the corner. It is that wet you +could wring from it splashes and streams. Let you rise the ashes +from the sods are on the hearth and redden them with a goosewing, if +there is a goosewing to be found. There is no greater beauty to be +met with than the leaping of a little yellow flame. + +_Staffy:_ In my opinion there will no pay-day come for this work, +but only a thank-you job; a County Clare payment, 'God spare you the +health!' + +_Delia:_ Let you do it, Ralph so. _(Takes potatoes from a sieve.)_ +A roasted potato would be a nice thing to put before him, in the +place of this old crust of a loaf. Put them in now around the sods, +the way they will be crispy before him. + +_Ralph: (Taking them.)_ And the way he will see you are a good +housekeeper and will mind well anything he might think fit to give. + +_Delia: (At clock.)_ I'll set to the right time of day the two +hands of the clock are pointing a full hour before the sun. Take, +Staffy, that pair of shoes and lessen from them the clay of the land. +That much of doing will not break your heart. He will be as proud as +the fallen angels seeing the way we have all set out before him. + + _(A harsh laugh is heard at inner door. They turn and see Damer + watching them.)_ + +_Ralph:_ Glory be to God! + +_Delia:_ It is Damer was within all the time! + +_Staffy:_ What are you talking about, Delia? It is Patrick you +were meaning to say. + +_Damer:_ Let her go on prattling out Damer to my face, as it is +often she called it behind my shoulders. Damer the chandler, the +miser got the spoil of the Danes, that was mocked at since the time +of the Danes. I know well herself and the world have me christened +with that nickname. + +_Ralph:_ Ah, it is not to dispraise you they put it on you, but to +show you out so wealthy and so rich. + +_Damer:_ I am thinking it is not love of my four bones brings you +on this day under my thatch? + +_Staffy:_ We heard tell you were after being destroyed with a +jennet. + +_Damer:_ Picking up newses and tidings of me ye do be. It is short +the delay was on you coming. + +_Delia:_ And I after travelling through the most of the day on the +head of you being wounded and hurt, thinking you to be grieving to +see one of your own! And I in dread of my life stealing past your +wicked dog. + +_Damer:_ My joy he is, scaring you with his bark! If it wasn't for +him you would have me clogged and tormented, coming in and bothering +me every whole minute. + +_Delia:_ There is no person in Ireland only yourself but would +have as much welcome for me to-day as on the first day ever they saw +me! + +_Damer:_ What's that you are doing with my broom? + +_Delia:_ To do away with the spider's webs I did, where the +shelves were looped with them and smothered. Look at all that came +off of that pack of cards. + +_Damer:_ What call had you to do away with them, and they +belonging to myself? Is it to bleed to death I should and I to get a +tip of a billhook or a slasher? You and your vagaries to have left +me bare, that I would be without means to quench the blood, and it +to rise up from my veins and to scatter on every side! + +_Delia:_ Is it that you are without e'er a rag, and that ancient +coat to be hanging on the wall? + +_Damer:_ The place swept to flitters! What is that man of yours +doing and he handling my turf? + +_Ralph:_ It was herself thought to be serviceable to you, setting +out the fuel that was full of dampness where it would get an air of +the fire. + +_Damer:_ To dry it is it? _(Seizes sods and takes them from the +hearth.)_ And what length would it be without being burned and +consumed and it not to be wet putting it on? _(Pours water over it.)_ +And I after stacking it purposely in the corner where there does be +a drip from the thatch. + +_Ralph:_ She but thought it would be more answerable to you being +dry. + +_Damer:_ What way could I bear the expense of a fire on the hearth +and it to leave smouldering and to break out into a blaze? A month's +cutting maybe to go to ashes within three minutes, and into wisps of +smoke. And the price of turf in this year gone wild out of measure, +and it packed so roguish you could read the printed speeches on the +paper through the sods you do be buying in the creel. + +_Staffy:_ I was saying myself not to meddle with it. It is hurry +is a worse friend than delay. + +_Damer:_ Where did you get those spuds are roasting there upon +the hearth? + +_Ralph:_ Herself that brought them out from the sieve, thinking to +make ready your meal. + +_Damer:_ My seed potatoes! Samples I got from the guardians and +asked in the shops and in stores till I'd gather enough to set a few +ridges in the gardens would serve me through the length of the year! + +_Delia:_ Let you be satisfied so with your mouldy bit of loaf. + _(Breaks a bit from it and hands it to him.)_ + +_Damer:_ Do not be breaking it so wasteful! The mice to have news +there was as much as that of crumbs in the house, they would be +running the same as chickens around the floor! + +_Ralph:_ Thinking to be comfortable to you she was, the way you +would make us welcome from this out. + +_Damer:_ Which of ye is after meddling with my clock? + +_Delia:_ It was a full hour before its time. + +_Darner:_ It to be beyond its time, wouldn't that save fire and +candles sending me to my bed early in the night? Leave down those +boots! _(Takes them from Staffy.)_ Is it that you are wearing out +the uppers with scraping at them and scratching! Is it to rob me ye +are come into this place? + +_Delia:_ I tell you we only came in getting word that you were +done and dying. + +_Damer:_ Ha! Is it to think I was dying ye did? Well, I am not. I +am not so easy quenched. Strength and courage I have, to keep a fast +grip of what I own. + +_Delia:_ Let you not be talking that way! We are no grabbers and +no thieves! + +_Damer:_ I have it in my mind that ye are. Very ravenous to run +through my money ye are. + +_Delia:_ The world knows I am not ravenous! I never gave my heart +to silver or to gold but only to the thing it would bring in. But to +hold from me the thing my heart is craving after, you might as well +blacken the hearth. + +_Damer:_ Striving to scare me out of my courage and my wits, the +way I'll give in to go making my will. + +_Ralph:_ She would not be wishful you to do that the time your +mind would be vexed. + +_Damer:_ I'll make it, sick or sound, if I have a mind to make it. + +_Delia:_ Little thanks you'll get from me if you make it or do not +make it. That is the naked truth. + +_Damer:_ The whole of ye think yourselves to be very managing and +very wise! + +_Delia:_ Let you go will it so to an asylum for fools. + +_Damer:_ Why wouldn't I? It is in the asylums all the sense is +these times. There is only the fools left outside. + +_Delia:_ You to bestow it outside of your own kindred for to +benefit and comfort your soul, all the world will say it is that you +had it gathered together by fraud. + +_Staffy:_ Do not be annoying him now. + +_Delia:_ I will not. But the time he will be lying under the +flagstone, it is holly rods and brambles will spring up from out of +his thorny heart. + +_Damer:_ A hasty, cranky woman in the house is worse than you to +lay your hand upon red coals! I know well your tongue that is as +sharp as the sickle of the moon! + +_Delia:_ The character you will leave after you will be worse out +and out than Herod's! + +_Damer:_ The devil upon the winds she is! That one was born into +the world having the use of the bow and arrows! + +_Delia:_ You not to give fair play to your own, it is a pitiful +ghost will appear in your image, questing and craving our prayers! + +_Damer:_ I know well what is your aim and your drift! + +_Delia:_ I say any man has a right to give thanks to the heavens, +and he having decent people to will his means to, in place of people +having no call to it. + +_Damer:_ Whoever I'll will it to will have call to it! + +_Delia:_ Or to part with it to low people and to mean people, and +you having it to give. + +_Damer:_ Having it to give is it? Do you see that lock on the door? + +_Delia:_ I do see it and have eyes to see it. + +_Damer:_ Can you make any guess what is inside of it? + +_Delia:_ It is likely it is what there is so much talk about, your +own full gallon of gold. + + _(Ralph takes off his hat.)_ + +_Damer:_ Lay now your eye to that lock hole. + +_Ralph: (Looking through keyhole.)_ It is all dusky within. It +fails me to see any shining thing. + + _(Staffy and Delia put their eyes to keyhole but draw back + disappointed.)_ + +_Darner:_ If you cannot see it, try can you get the smell of it. +Take a good draw of it now; lay your head along the hinges of the +door. So now ye may quit and scamper out of this, the whole throng +of ye, robbers and hangmen and bankbreakers, bargers and bad +characters, and you may believe me telling you that is the nearest +ye ever will come to my gold! + + _(He bangs back into room locking door after him.)_ + +_Delia:_ He has no more nature than the brutes of the field, +hunting and howling after us. + +_Staffy:_ Yourself that rose him out of his wits and his senses. +We will sup sorrow for this day's work where he will put curses +after us. It is best for us go back to my place. It may be to-morrow +that his anger will be cured up. + +_Ralph:_ I thought it was to lay him out with candles we were +brought here. I declare I came nearer furnishing out a corpse myself +with the start I got. + +_Delia:_ There is no dread on me. When he gets in humour I will +tackle up again to him. It is too far I came to be facing back to +Loughtyshassy and I fasting from the price of my goats! Little +collars I was thinking to buckle around their neck the same as a +lady's lapdog, and maybe so far as a small clear-sounding bell. + + _(They go out, Damer comes back. He puts on clock, rakes out fire, + picks up potatoes and puts them back in sieve, takes bread into his + room. There is a knock at the door. Then it is cautiously opened and + Simon Niland comes in, and stands near the hearth. Damer comes back + and sees him.)_ + +_Damer:_ What are you looking for? + +_Simon:_ For what I won't get seemingly, that is a welcome. + +_Damer:_ Maybe it's for fists you are looking? + +_Simon:_ It is not, before I will get my rest. I couldn't box +to-night if I was the Queen of England. + +_Damer:_ Have you any traffic with that congregation is after +going out? + +_Simon:_ I seen no person good or bad, but a dog and it on the +chain. + +_Damer:_ You to have in you any of the breed of the Kirwans that +is my own, I'd rise the tongs and pitch you out from the door! + +_Simon:_ I suppose you would not begrudge me to rest myself for a +while, _(Sits down.)_ + +_Damer:_ I'll give leave to no strolling vagabond to sit in any +place at all. + +_Simon:_ All right so. + _(Tosses a coin he takes from his pocket, tied in a spotted + handkerchief.)_ + +_Damer:_ What's that you're doing? + +_Simon:_ Pitching a coin I was to see would it bid me go west or +east. + +_Damer:_ Go toss outside so. + +_Simon: (Stooping and groping.)_ I will after I will find it. + +_Damer:_ Hurry on now. + +_Simon:_ Wait till I'll kindle a match. + _(Lights one and picks up coin.)_ + +_Damer:_ What is that in your hand? + +_Simon:_ You should know. + +_Damer:_ Is it gold it is? + +_Simon:_ It is all I have of means in the world. I never handled a +coin before it, but my bite to be given me and my bed. + +_Damer:_ You'll mind it well if you have sense. + +_Simon:_ It is towards the east it bade me go. I'll travel as far +as the races of Knockbarron to-morrow. + +_Damer:_ You'll be apt to lose it going to races. + +_Simon:_ I'll go bet with it, and see what way will it turn out. + +_Damer:_ You to set all you own upon a horse that might fail at +the leaps! It is a very foolish thing doing that. + +_Simon:_ It might not. Some have luck and are born lucky and more +have run through their luck. If I lose it, it is lost. It would not +keep me long anyway. I to win, I will have more and plenty. + +_Damer:_ You will surely lose it. + +_Simon:_ If I do I have nothing to get or to fall back on. It is +some other one must take my charges. + +_Damer:_ A great pity to go lose a gold sovereign to some schemer +you never saw before. + +_Simon:_ Sure you must take some risk. You cannot put your hands +around the world. + +_Damer:_ It to be swept by a trick of the loop man! + +_Simon:_ It is not with that class I will make free. + +_Damer:_ To go lose the whole of it in one second of time! + +_Simon:_ I will make four divides of it. + +_Damer:_ To go change it into silver and into copper! That would +be the most pity in the world. + +_Simon:_ I'll chance it all upon the one jock so. + +_Damer:_ Gold! Believe me it is a good thing to hold and a very +heartbreak the time it is lost. _(Takes it in his hand.)_ Pure gold! +There is not a thing to be got with it as worthy as what it is itself! +There is no comfort in any place and it not in it. The Queen's image +on it and her crown. Solid between the fingers; weighty in the palm +of the hand; as beautiful as ever I saw. + +_Simon:_ It is likely it is the same nearly as any other one. + +_Damer:_ Gold! My darling it is! From the hollows of the world to +the heights of the world there is no grander thing to be found. My +bone and my marrow! Let me have the full of my arms of it and I'll +not ask the flowers of field or fallow or the dancing of the Easter +sun! + +_Simon:_ I am thinking you should be Damer. I heard said Damer has +a full crock of gold. + +_Damer:_ He has not! He has not! + +_Simon:_ That is what the world says anyway. I heard it as far as +the seaside. + +_Damer:_ I wish to my God it was true! + +_Simon:_ Full and brimming to the brink. That is the way it was +told. + +_Damer:_ It is not full! It is not! Whisper now. It is many a time +I thought it to be full, full at last, full at last! + +_Simon:_ And it wasn't after? + +_Damer:_ To take it and to shake it I do. It is often I gave +myself a promise the time there will be no sound from it, I will +give in to nourish myself, I will rise out of misery. But every time +I will try it, I will hear a little clatter that tells me there is +some space left; some small little hole or gap. + +_Simon:_ What signifies that when you have so much in it? + +_Damer:_ Weightier it gets and weightier, but there will always be +that little sound. I thought to stop it one time, putting in a +fistful of hayseed; but I felt in my heart that was not dealing fair +and honest with myself, and I rose up and shook it out again, rising +up from my bed in the night time. I near got my death with the cold +and the draught fell on me doing that. + +_Simon:_ It is best for me be going on where I might find my bed, + +_Damer:_ Hearken now. I am old and the long road behind me. You +are young and in your strength. It is you is rich, it is I myself +that is poor. You know well, you to get the offer, you would not +change your lot with my own. + +_Simon:_ I suppose I might not. I'd as lief keep my countenance +and my run. + +_Darner:_ Isn't it a great pity there to be that hollow within in +my gallon, and the little coin that would likely just fill it up, to +be going out of the house? + +_Simon:_ Is it that you are asking it of me? + +_Damer:_ You might never find so good a way to open Heaven to +yourself with a charity. To be bringing peace to an old man that has +not long to live in the world! You wouldn't think now how quiet I +would sleep, and the good dreams would be going through me, and that +gallon jar to be full and to make no sound the time I would roll it +on the floor. That would be a great deed for one little pound piece +to do! + +_Simon:_ I'll toss you for it. + +_Damer:_ I would not dare put anything at all upon a chance. + +_Simon:_ Leave it alone so. _(Turns away.)_ + +_Damer: (Seizing him.)_ It would make such a good appearance in +the little gap! + +_Simon:_ Head or harp? + +_Damer:_ No, I'm in dread I might lose. + +_Simon:_ Take your chance or leave it. + +_Damer:_ I to lose, you may kill me on the moment! My heart is +driven down in the sole of my shoe! + +_Simon:_ That is poor courage. + +_Damer:_ There is some shiver forewarning me I will lose! I made a +strong oath I never would give in again to try any sort of chance. + +_Simon:_ You didn't make it but with yourself. + +_Damer:_ It was through my luck leaving me I swore against betting +and gaming. + +_Simon:_ It might turn back fresh and hearty where you gave it so +long a rest. + +_Damer:_ Well--maybe---- + +_Simon:_ Here now. + +_Damer:_ I dare not. + +_Simon: (Going to door.)_ I'll make my bet so according to a dream +I had. It is on a red horse I will put it to-morrow. + +_Damer:_ No--stop--wait a minute. + +_Simon:_ I'll win surely following my dream. + +_Damer:_ I might not lose. + +_Simon:_ I'm in dread of that. All turns to the man is rich. + +_Damer:_ I'll chance it! + +_Simon:_ You said no and I'll take no. + +_Damer:_ You cannot go back of your word. + +_Simon:_ Let me go out from you tempting me. + +_Damer: (Seizing him.)_ Heads! I say heads! + +_Simon:_ Harps it is. I win. + +_Damer:_ My bitter grief! Ochone! + +_Simon:_ I'll toss you for another. + +_Damer:_ You will not. What's tosses? Look at here what is put in +my way! _(Holds up pack of cards.)_ + +_Simon:_ Where's the stakes? + +_Damer:_ Wait a second. _(Goes into room.)_ + +_Simon:_ Hurry on or I won't stop. + +_Damer:_ Let you not stir out of that! + _(Comes back and throws money on table.)_ + +_Simon:_ Come on so. + _(Shuffles cards.)_ + +_Darner:_ Give me the pack. _(Cuts.)_ I didn't feel a card between +my fingers this seven and a half-score years! + +_Simon:_ Spades are trumps. + +_Darner: (Lighting candle.)_ I'll win it back! I won't begrudge +spending a penny candle, no, or two penny candles! I'll play you to +the brink of day! + +_Curtain_ + + + + +ACT II + + + _The next morning. The same kitchen. Simon Niland is lying asleep + on the hearth. Ralph and Staffy are looking at him_. + +_Staffy:_ Who is it at all is in it? + +_Ralph:_ Who would it be but Simon Niland, that is come following +after us. + +_Staffy:_ Stretched and sleeping all the same as if there was a +pin of slumber in his hair, as in the early times of the world. The +day passing without anything doing. That one will never win to a +fortune. + +_Ralph:_ It would be as well for ourselves maybe he not to be too +great with Damer. + +_Staffy:_ Will Delia make any headway I wonder. She had good +courage to go face him, and he abroad on the land, sitting stooped +on the bent body of a bush. + +_Ralph:_ I wonder what way did that lad make his way into this +place. Wait now till I'll waken and question him. + + _(Shakes Simon.)_ + +_Simon: (Drowsily.)_ Who is that stirring me? + +_Ralph:_ Rouse yourself up now. + +_Simon:_ Do not be rousing me, where I am striving to catch a hold +of the tail of my last dream. + +_Staffy:_ Is it seeking for a share of Damer's wealth you are come? + +_Simon:_ I never asked and never looked for it. + +_Staffy:_ You are going the wrong road to reach to it. + +_Simon:_ A bald cat there was in the dream, was keeping watch over +jewelleries in a cave. + +_Staffy:_ No person at all would stretch out his hand to a lad +would be rambling and walking the world, and it in its darkness and +sleep, and be drowsing and miching from labour through the hours the +sun has command of. + +_Delia: (At the door)_. Is it that ye are within, Staffy and Ralph? + +_Ralph:_ We are, and another along with us. + +_Delia:_ Put him out the door! + +_Ralph:_ Ah, there's no danger of him coming around Damer. He is +simple and has queer talk too. + +_Delia:_ Put him out I say! _(Pushes Simon to door.)_ Let him +drowse out the day in the car shed! I tell you Damer is at hand! + +_Ralph:_ Has he the frown on him yet? + +_Staffy:_ Did his anger anyway cool down? + +_Delia:_ He is coming I say. I am partly in dread of him. I am +afeard and affrighted! + +_Ralph:_ He should be in terrible rages so. There was no dread on +you yesterday, and he cursing and roaring the way he was. + +_Delia:_ He is mad this time out and out. Wait now till you'll see! + + _(She goes behind dresser. Damer comes to the door. Staffy goes + behind a chair. Ralph seizes a broom.)_ + +_Damer: (At door.)_ Are you acquainted with any person, Ralph +Hessian, is in need of a savage dog? + +_Staffy:_ Is it that you are about to part Jubair your dog? + +_Damer:_ I have no use for him presently. + +_Staffy:_ Is it that you are without dread of robbers coming for +to knock in your skull with a stone? Or maybe out in the night it is +to burn you out of the house they would. + +_Damer:_ What signifies, what signifies? All must die, all must die. +The longest person that will live in the world, he is bound to go in +the heel. Life is a long road to travel and a hard rough track under +the feet. + +_Staffy:_ Mike Merrick the huckster has an apple garden bought +against the harvest. He should likely be seeking for a dog. There do +be little lads passing to the school. + +_Damer:_ He might want him, he might want him. + _(He leans upon half-door.)_ + +_Staffy:_ Is it that you are tired and wore out carrying the load +of your wealth? + +_Damer:_ It is a bad load surely. It was the love of money +destroyed Buonaparte where he went robbing a church, without the men +of learning are telling lies. + +_Staffy:_ I would never go so far as robbery, but to bid it +welcome I would, and it coming fair and easy into my hand. + +_Damer:_ There was a king out in Foreign went astray through the +same sin. His people that made a mockery of him after his death, +filling up his jaws with rendered gold. Believe me, any person goes +coveting after riches puts himself under a bad master. + +_Staffy:_ That is a master I'd be willing to engage with, he to +give me my victuals and my ease. + +_Damer:_ In my opinion it was to keep temptation from our path the +gold of the world was covered under rocks and in the depths of the +streams. Believe me it is best leave it where it is, and not to +meddle with the Almighty. + +_Staffy:_ You'd be best without it. It is the weight of it is +bowing you to your grave. When things are vexing your mind and you +are trouble minded they'll be going through your head in the night +time. There is a big shift and a great change in you since yesterday. +There is not the half of you in it. You have the cut of the +misfortune. + +_Damer:_ I am under misfortune indeed. + +_Staffy:_ Give over now your load to myself before the coming of +the dusk. The way you are there'll be nothing left of you within +three days. There is no way with you but death. + +_Delia:_ _(To Ralph.)_ Let you raise your voice now, and come +around him on my own behalf. + +_Ralph:_ It is what herself is saying, you to be quitting the +world as it seems, it is as good for you make over to her your crock +of gold. + +_Damer:_ I would not wish, for all the glories of Ireland, to +leave temptation in the path of my own sister or my kin, or to twist +a gad for their neck. + +_Delia:_ _(To Ralph.)_ Tell him I'll chance it. + +_Damer:_ At the time of the judgment of the mountain, when the sun +and moon will be all one with two blackberries, it is not being +pampered with plenty will serve you, beside being great with the +angels! + +_Delia:_ _(Shrinking back.)_ I would as soon nearly not get it at +all, where it might bring me to the wretched state of Damer! + (_Dog heard barking.)_ + +_Damer:_ I'll go bring my poor Jubair out of this. A great sin and +a great pity to be losing provision with a dog, and the image of the +saints maybe to be going hungry and bare. How do I know what troop +might be bearing witness against me before the gate of heaven? To be +cherishing a ravenous beast might be setting his teeth in their limbs! +To give charity to the poor is the best religion in Ireland. Didn't +our Lord Himself go beg through three and thirty years? _(He goes.)_ + +_Delia: (Coming forward.)_ Will you believe me now telling you he +is gone unsteady in the head? + +_Staffy:_ I see no other sign. He is a gone man surely. His +understanding warped and turned backward. To see him blighted the +way he is would stir the heart of a stone. + +_Ralph:_ He surely got some vision or some warning, or there lit +on him a fit or a stroke. + +_Staffy:_ Twice a child and only once a man. He is turned to be +innocent with age. + +_Ralph:_ It would be a bad thing he to meet with his death unknown +to us. + +_Delia:_ It would be worse again he that is gone out of his +latitude to be brought away to the asylum. + +_Ralph:_ I don't know. + +_Delia:_ But I know. He to die, and to make no will, it is +ourselves, by rule and by right, that would lay claim to his wealth. + +_Staffy:_ So we could do that, and he to come to his end in the +bad place, God save the mark! + +_Delia:_ Would you say there would be no fear the Government might +stretch out and take charge of it, saying him to be outside of his +reason? + +_Ralph:_ That would be the worst of all. We to be forced to hire +an attorney against them, till we would break one another at law. + +_Delia:_ He to be stopping here, and being light in the brain, it +is likely some thief travelling the road might break his way in and +sweep all. + +_Ralph:_ It would be right for us keep some sort of a watch on it. + +_Staffy:_ What way would we be sitting here watching it, the same +as a hen on a pebble of flint, through a quarter or it might be +three quarters of a year? He might drag for a good while yet, and +live and linger into old days. + +_Delia:_ To take some cross turn he might, and to come at us +violent and maybe tear the flesh from our bones. + +_Staffy:_ It is best for us do nothing so, but to leave it to the +foreknowledge of God. + +_Delia:_ There is but the one thing to do. To bring it away out of +this and to lodge it within in my own house. We can settle out a +place under the hearth. + +_Staffy:_ We can make a right division of it at such time as the +end will come. + +_Ralph:_ What way now will we bring away the crock? + +_Delia:_ Let you go outside and be watching the road while Staffy +will be bringing out the gold. + +_Staffy:_ Ah, I'm not so limber as what Ralph is. There does be +giddiness and delay in my feet. It might fail me to heave it to a +hiding place and to bring it away unknownst. + +_Delia:_ Let you go out so and be keeping a watch, and Ralph will +put it on the ass-car under sacks. + +_Ralph:_ Do it you. I am not of his own kindred and his family. +Any person to get a sketch of me bringing it away they might nearly +take myself to be a thief. + +_Delia:_ We are doing but what is fair and is right. + +_Ralph:_ Maybe so. But any neighbour to be questioning me, it +might be hard put a skin on the story. + +_Delia:_ There is no person to do it but the one. _(Calls from the +door.)_ Come in here from the shed, Simon Niland, if the +sluggishness is banished from your eyesight and from your limbs. + +_Simon: (At door_) I was thinking to go travel my road. + +_Delia:_ Have you any desire to reach out your hand for to save a +mortal life? + +_Simon: (Coming in.)_ Whose life is that? + +_Staffy:_ The man of this house that is your uncle and is owner of +wealth closed up in a jar. We now being wittier than himself, that +has lost his wits, have our mind made up to bring it away. + +_Simon:_ Outside of his knowledge is it? + +_Staffy:_ It will be safe and well minded and lodged in loyal +keeping, it being no profit to him that is at this time shook and +blighted, but only a danger to his days. + +_Delia:_ The seven senses to be going astray on him, what would +ail any tramp or neuk that would be passing the road, not to rob him +and to lay him stone dead? + +_Staffy:_ Go in now and bring out from the room and to such place +as we will command, that gallon jar of gold. + +_Ralph:_ It being certain it will be brought away from him, it is +best it to be kept in the family, and not to go nourishing lawyers +or thieves. + +_Simon:_ Is it to steal it I should? + +_Staffy:_ What way will it be stealing, and the whole of us to be +looking on at your deed? + +_Simon:_ Ah, what call have I to do that much and maybe put myself +in danger of the judge, for the sake of a man is without sense. + +_Delia:_ Let you do it for my own sake so. You heard me giving out +news on yesterday of the white goats are on the bounds of being sold. +The neighbours will give me no more credit, where they loaned me the +price of a crested side car was auctioned out at a quality sale. + +_Ralph:_ Picking the eyes out of my own head they are, to pay the +little bills they have against her. + +_Delia:_ I am no way greedy, I would ask neither food or bite, I +would not begrudge turning Sunday into Friday if I could but get my +heart's desire. Such a thing now as a guinea-hen would be bringing +fashion to the door, throwing it a handful of yellow meal, and it in +its speckled plumage giving out its foreign call! + +_Simon:_ I have no mind to be brought within the power of the law. + +_Delia:_ You that are near in blood to refuse me so small an asking, +what chance would I have sending requests to Heaven that is beyond +the height of the clouds! + + _(Weeps.)_ + +_Staffy:_ That's the way with them that are reared poor, they are +the hardest after to humour, striving to bring everything to their +own way. But there's a class of people in the world wouldn't do a +hand's turn, no more than the bird upon the tree. + +_Ralph:_ I wonder you not to give in to us, when all the world +knows God formed young people for to be giving aid to elder people, +and beyond all to them that are near to them in blood. + +_Staffy:_ Look now, Simon, let you be said and led by me. You +having no great share of wisdom we are wishful to make a snug man of +you and to put you on a right road. Go in now and you will not be +kept out of your own profit and your share, and a harbour of plenty +beyond all. + +_Simon:_ It might be guarded by a serpent in a tree, or by +unnatural things would be in the similitude of cats. + +_Staffy:_ Ah, that class is done away with this good while. + +_Ralph:_ There is no person having sense, but would take means, by +hook or by crook, to make his pocket stiff and he to be given his +fair chance. It is to save you from starvation we are wishful to do, +as much as to bring profit to ourselves. + +_Staffy:_ You not to follow our say you will be brought to burn +green ferns to boil your victuals, or to devour the berries of the +bush. + +_Simon:_ I would not wish a head to follow me and leap up on the +table and wrestle me, or to drink against me with its gory mouth. + +_Staffy:_ You that have not the substance of a crane's marrow, to +go shrink from so small a bidding, let you go on the shaughraun or +to the workhouse, where you would not take our advice. + +_Simon:_ I'll go do your bidding so. I will go bring out the crock. + +_Staffy:_ There is my whiteheaded boy! I'll keep a watch, the way +Damer will not steal in on us without warning. + +_Ralph:_ He should have the key in some secret place. It is best +for you give the lock a blow of your foot. + +_Simon:_ I'll do that. + _(He gives door a kick. It opens easily.)_ + +_Delia:_ Was I right now saying Damer is turned innocent? Sure the +door was not locked at all. + +_Simon: (Dragging out jar.)_ Here it is now. + +_Ralph:_ So it is and no mistake. + +_Staffy:_ There should be great weight in it. + +_Ralph:_ I am in dread it might work a hole down through the +timber of the car. + +_Delia:_ Why wouldn't we open it here? It would be handier +bringing it away in small divides. + +_Ralph:_ The way we would make sure of getting our own share at +the last. + +_Delia:_ Let you draw out the cork from it. + +_Ralph:_ I don't know can I lift it. _(Stoops and lifts it easily.)_ +The Lord protect and save us! There is no weight in it at all! + +_Staffy: (Seizing and shaking it.)_ Not a one penny in it but +clean empty. That beats all. + +_Delia:_ It is with banknotes it is stuffed that are deaf and do +be giving out no sound. _(She pokes in a knitting pin.)_ Nothing in +it at all, but as bare as the canopy of heaven! + +_Ralph:_ There being nothing within in it, where now is the gold? + +_Staffy:_ Some person should have made away with it. + +_Delia:_ Some robber or some great rogue. A terrible thing such +ruffians to be around in the world! To turn and rob a poor man of +all he had spared and had earned. + +_Staffy:_ They have done him a great wrong surely, taking from him +all he had of comfort in his life. + +_Ralph:_ My grief it is there being no more hangings for thieves, +that are worse again than murderers that might do their deed out of +heat. It is thieving is the last crime. + +_Staffy:_ We to lay our hand on that vagabond we'll give him +cruelty will force him to Christian habits. + +_Ralph:_ Take care might he be nearer than what you think! + (_He points at Simon. All look at him.)_ + +_Staffy:_ Sure enough it is with himself only we found him on the +hearth this morning. + +_Delia:_ He hasn't hardly the intellect to be the thief. + +_Simon:_ I tell you I never since the day I was born could be +charged with the weight of a brass pin! + +_Staffy:_ It is to Damer, my fine boy, you will have to make out +your case. + +_Simon:_ So I will make it out. Where now is Damer? + +_Staffy:_ He is gone down the road, where he brought away Jubair +the dog. + +_Simon:_ What are you saying? The dog gone is it? _(Goes to door.)_ + +_Ralph: (Taking hold of him.)_ What makes you go out in such a +hurry? + +_Simon:_ What is that to you? + +_Delia:_ What cause has he to be making a run? + +_Simon:_ Let me mind my own business. + +_Staffy:_ It is maybe our own business. + +_Simon:_ To make a search I must in that dog's kennel of straw. + +_Delia:_ Go out, Ralph, till you will bring it in. + + _(Ralph goes out.)_ + +_Staffy: (Seizing him_) A man to go rush out headlong and money +after being stolen, I have no mind to let him make his escape. + +_Delia:_ If you are honest let you stop within and not to put a +bad appearance upon yourself making off. + +_Simon:_ Let me out! I tell you I have a thing concealed in the box. + +_Staffy:_ A strange place to go hiding things and a queer story +altogether. + +_Delia:_ Do not let go your hold. He to go out into the street, he +has the wide world before him. + +_Ralph: (Dragging kennel in.)_ Here now is the box. + +_Simon: (Breaking away and searching it)_ Where at all is it +vanished? + +_Staffy:_ It is lies he was telling. There is nothing at all +within in it only a wisp of barley straw. + +_Simon:_ Where at all is it? + +_Staffy:_ What is it is gone from you? + +_Simon:_ Not a one pound left! + +_Delia:_ Why would you look to find coins of money down in +Jubair's bed? + +_Simon:_ It is there I hid it. + +_Staffy:_ What is it you hid? + +_Simon:_ All that was in the crock and that I took from it. Where +now is my bag of gold? + +_Staffy:_ Do you hear what he is after saying? + +_Ralph:_ A lad of that sort will not be safe but in the gaol. Let +us give him into the grip of the law. + +_Delia:_ No, but let the man owned it do that. + +_Staffy:_ So he can task him with it, and he drawing to the door. + +_Delia: (Going to it.)_ It is time for you, Patrick, come in. + + _(Damer comes in dragging a sack.)_ + +_Ralph:_ You are after being robbed and left bare. + +_Delia:_ Not a one penny left of all you have cast into its mouth. + +_Ralph:_ Herself made a prophecy you would be robbed with the +weakening of your wits, and sure enough it has come about. + +_Delia:_ Not a tint of it left. What now do you say, hearing that? + +_Damer: (Sitting down by the hearth and laying down sack.)_ If it +should go it must go. That was allotted to me in the skies. + +_Delia:_ Is it that you had knowledge ere this of it being swept +and lost? + +_Damer:_ If I had not, why would I have been setting my mind upon +eternity and striving to bring to mind a few prayers? And to have +parted with my wicked dog? + +_Delia:_ Let you turn around till you will see before you the man +that is the robber and the thief! + +_Simon:_ Thief yourself! You that had a plan made up to bring it +away. + +_Damer:_ Delia, Delia, what was I laying down a while ago? It is +the love of riches has twisted your heart and your mind. + +_Delia:_ Is it that you are contented to be made this one's prey? + +_Damer:_ It was foretold for me, I to go stint the body till I +near put myself to death without the Lord calling on me, and to lose +every whole pound after in one night's card playing. + +_Delia:_ Is it at cards you lost it? + +_Damer:_ With that same pack of cards you laid out under my hand, +I lost all I had gathered to that one. + +_Staffy:_ Well, there is nothing so certain in the world as the +running of a fool to a fool. + +_Delia:_ Is it taking that lad you are to be a fool? I thinking +him to be as simple as you'd see in the world, and he putting bread +upon his own butter as we slept! + +_Ralph:_ We to have known all then we know now, we need not have +wasted on him our advice. + +_Damer:_ Give me, boy, one answer. What in the world wide put +venture into you that made you go face the dog? + +_Simon:_ Ah, what venture? And he being as he is without teeth? + +_Damer:_ You know that, what no one in the parish or out of it +ever found out till now! You should have put your hand in his jaw to +know that much! A right lad you are and a lucky lad. I would nearly +wish you of my own blood and of my race. + +_Delia:_ Of your own blood is it? + +_Damer:_ That is what I would wish. + +_Delia:_ Is it that you are taking Simon Niland to be a stranger? + +_Damer:_ What Simon Niland? + +_Delia:_ Your own nephew and only son to your sister Sarah. + +_Damer:_ Do you tell me so! What way did it fail me to recognise +that, and he having daring and spirit the same as used to be rising +up in myself in my early time? + +_Delia:_ He was born the very year of you coming into possession +of this place. + +_Damer:_ The same year my luck turned against me, and every horse +I would back would get the staggers on the course, or would fail to +rise at the leaps. All the strength of fortune went from me at that +time, it is into himself it flowed and ran. The dead spit and image +of myself he is. Stop with me here through the winter season and +through the summer season! You to be in the house it is not an +unlucky house will be in it. The Royalty of England and of Spain +cannot touch upon yourself. I am prouder of you than if you wrote +the wars of Homer or put down Turgesius of the Danes! You are a lad +that can't be beat. It is you are the Lamb of Luck! + +_Staffy:_ What call has he or any of us to be stopping under +Damer's roof and he owning but the four walls presently and a poor +little valley of land? + +_Ralph:_ There is nothing worth while in his keeping, and all he +had gathered after being robbed. + +_Damer:_ Is that what you are saying? Well, I am not so easy +robbed as you think! _(Takes bag from the sack and shakes it.)_ Is +that what you call being robbed? + +_Simon:_ That is my treasure and my bag! + +_Staffy:_ I thought it was after being brought away from the two +of you. + +_Damer:_ You are out of it! It is Jubair did that much for me. +Jubair, my darling, it is tonight I'll bring him back to the house! +It is not in the box he will be any more but alongside the warmth of +the hearth. The time I went unloosing his chain, didn't he scrape +with his paw till he showed me all I had lost hid in under the straw, +and it in a spotted bag! _(Opens and pours out money.)_ + +_Simon:_ It is as well for you have it back where it stopped so +short with myself. + +_Damer:_ Is it that I would keep it from you where it was won fair? +It is a rogue of a man would do that. Where would be the use, and I +knowing you could win it back from me at your will, and the five +trumps coming into your hand? It is to share it we will and share +alike, so long as it will not give out! + +_Delia:_ A little handsel to myself would do the both of you no +harm at all. + +_Damer:_ Delia, my darling, I'll go as far as that on this day of +wonders. I'll handsel you and welcome. I'll bestow on you the empty +jar. _(Gives it to her.)_ + +_Delia:_ I'll take it. I'll let on it to be weighty and I facing +back into Loughtyshassy. + +_Ralph:_ The neighbours seeing it and taking you to be his heir +you might come to your goats yet. + +_Delia:_ Ah, what's goats and what is guinea-hens? Did ever you +see yoked horses in a coach, their skin shining out like shells, +rising their steps in tune the same as a patrol of police? There are +peacocks on the lawns of Lough Cutra they were telling me, having +each of them a hundred eyes. _(Goes to door.)_ + +_Simon: (Putting his hand on the jar.)_ I don't know. _(To Damer_) +It might be a nice thing for the two of us to start gathering the +full of it again. + +_Damer:_ Not a fear of me. Where heaping and hoarding that much +has my years withered and blighted up to this, it is not to storing +treasure in any vessel at all I will give the latter end of my days, +or to working the skin off my bones. Give me here that coat. +(_Puts it on.)_ If I was tossed and racked a while ago I'll show +out good from this out. Come on now, out of this, till we'll face to +the races of Loughrea and of Knockbarron. I was miserable and +starved long enough. _(Puts on hat.)_ I'm thinking as long as I'll be +living I'll take my view of the world, for it's long I'll be lying +when my eyes are closed and seeing nothing at all! + + _(He seizes a handful of gold and puts it in Simon's pocket and + another in his own. They turn towards the door.)_ + +_Curtain_ + + + + +McDONOUGH'S WIFE + +PERSONS + +_McDonough, a piper._ +_First Hag._ +_Second Hag._ + + + +McDONOUGH'S WIFE + + _Scene: A very poor room in Galway with outer and inner door. + Noises of a fair outside. A Hag sitting by the fire. Another + standing by outer door_. + +_First Hag:_ Is there e'er a sign of McDonough to be coming? + +_Second Hag:_ There is not. There were two or three asking for him, +wanting him to bring the pipes to some spree-house at the time the +fair will be at an end. + +_First Hag:_ A great wonder he not to have come, and this the fair +day of Galway. + +_Second Hag:_ He not to come ere evening, the woman that is dead +must go to her burying without one to follow her, or any friend at +all to flatten the green scraws above her head. + +_First Hag:_ Is there no neighbour at all will do that much, and +she being gone out of the world? + +_Second Hag:_ There is not. You said to ask Pat Marlborough, and I +asked him, and he said there were plenty of decent women and of +well-reared women in Galway he would follow and welcome the day they +would die, without paying that respect to one not belonging to the +district, or that the town got no good account of the time she came. + +_First Hag:_ Did you do as I bade you, asking Cross Ford to send +in a couple of the boys she has? + +_Second Hag:_ What a fool I'd be asking her! I laid down to her +the way it was. McDonough's wife to be dead, and he far out in the +country, and no one belonging to her to so much as lift the coffin +over the threshold of the door. + +_First Hag:_ What did she say hearing that? + +_Second Hag:_ She put a big laugh out of her, and it is what she +said: "May the devil die with her, and it is well pleased the street +will be getting quit of her, and it is hard say on what mountain she +might be grazing now." + +_First Hag:_ There will no help come burying her so. + +_Second Hag:_ It is too lofty McDonough was, and too high-minded, +bringing in a woman was maybe no lawful wife, or no honest child +itself, but it might be a bychild or a tinker's brat, and he giving +out no account of her generations or of her name. + +_First Hag:_ Whether or no, she was a little giddy. But that is +the way with McDonough. He is sometimes an unruly lad, but he would +near knock you with his pride. + +_Second Hag:_ Indeed he is no way humble, but looking for +attendance on her, as if she was the youngest and the greatest in +the world. + +_First Hag:_ It is not to humour her the Union men will, and they +carrying her to where they will sink her into the ground, unless it +might be McDonough would come back, and he having money in his hand, +to bring in some keeners and some hired men. + +_Second Hag:_ He to come back at this time it is certain he will +bring a fist-full of money. + +_First Hag:_ What makes you say that to be certain? + +_Second Hag:_ A troop of sheep-shearers that are on the west side +of the fair, looking for hire from the grass farmers. I heard them +laying down they met with McDonough at the big shearing at +Cregroostha. + +_First Hag:_ What day was that? + +_Second Hag:_ This day week for the world. + +_First Hag:_ He has time and plenty to be back in Galway ere this. + +_Second Hag:_ Great dancing they had and a great supper at the +time the shearing was at an end and the fleeces lodged in the big +sacks. It is McDonough played his music through the night-time. It +is what I heard them saying, "He went out of that place weightier +than he went in." + +_First Hag:_ He is a great one to squeeze the pipes surely. There +is no place ever he went into but he brought the whip out of it. + +_Second Hag:_ His father was better again, they do be saying. It +was from the other side he got the gift. + +_First Hag:_ He did, and from beyond the world, where he +befriended some in the forths of the Danes. It was they taught him +their trade. I heard tell, he to throw the pipes up on top of the +rafters, they would go sounding out tunes of themselves. + +_Second Hag:_ He could do no more with them than what McDonough +himself can do--may ill luck attend him! It is inhuman tunes he does +be making; unnatural they are. + +_First Hag:_ He is a great musician surely. + +_Second Hag:_ There is no person can be safe from him the time he +will put his "come hither" upon them. I give you my word he set +myself dancing reels one time in the street, and I making an attack +on him for keeping the little lads miching from school. That was a +great scandal to put upon a decent woman. + +_First Hag:_ He to be in the fair to-day and to take the fancy, +you would hear the nailed boots of the frieze-coated man footing +steps on the sidewalk. + +_Second Hag:_ You would, and it's likely he'd play a notion into +the skulls of the pampootied boys from Aran, they to be kings of +France or of Germany, till they'd go lift their head to the clouds +and go knocking all before them. And the police it is likely +laughing with themselves, as if listening to the talk of the +blackbird would be perched upon a blessed bush. + +_First Hag:_ I wonder he did not come. Could it be he might be +made away with for the riches he brought from Cregroostha? It would +be a strange thing now, he to be lying and his head broke, at the +butt of a wall, and the woman he thought the whole world of to be +getting her burial from the workhouse. + + _(A sound of pipes.)_ + +_Second Hag:_ Whist, I tell you! It's the sound of the pipes. It +is McDonough, it is no other one. + +_First Hag:_ _(Getting up.)_ I'm in dread of him coming in the +house. He is a hasty man and wicked, and he vexed. What at all will +he say and she being dead before him? Whether or no, it will be a +sharp grief to him, she to scatter and to go. He might give me a +backstroke and drive me out from the door. + +_Second Hag:_ Let you make an attack upon himself before he will +have time to make his own attack. + +_McDonough:_ _(Coming in.)_ Catherine! Where is she? Where is +Catherine? + +_First Hag:_ Is it readying the dinner before you, or wringing out +a shirt for the Sunday like any good slave of a wife, you are used +to find your woman, McDonough? + +_McDonough:_ What call would she have stopping in the house with +the withered like of yourself? It is not to the crabbed talk of a +peevish hag a handsome young woman would wish to be listening and +sport and funning being in the fair outside. + +_First Hag:_ Go look for her in the fair so, if it is gadding up +and down is her habit, and you being gone out from her sight. + +_McDonough: (Shaking her.)_ Tell me out, where is she? + +_First Hag:_ Tell out what harbour were you yourself in from the +day you left Cregroostha? + +_McDonough:_ Is it that she got word?--or that she was tired +waiting for me? + +_First Hag:_ She is gone away from you, McDonough. + +_McDonough:_ That is a lie, a black lie. + +_First Hag:_ Throwing a lie in a decent woman's face will not +bring you to the truth. + +_McDonough:_ Is it what you are laying down that she went away +with some other man? Say that out if you have courage, and I'll +wring your yellow windpipe. + +_First Hag:_ Leave your hand off me and open the room door, and +you will see am I telling you any lie. + +_McDonough: (Goes to door, then stops.)_ She is not in it. She +would have come out before me, and she hearing the sound of the pipes. + +_First Hag:_ It is not the sound of the pipes will rouse her, or +any sound made in this world at all. + +_McDonough: (Trembling.)_ What is it? + +_First Hag:_ She is gone and she is not living. + +_McDonough:_ Is it to die she did? _(Clutches her.)_ + +_First Hag:_ Yesterday, and the bells ringing, she turned her face +to the south and died away. It was at the hour of noon I knew and +was aware she was gone. A great loss it to be at the time of the fair, +and all the lodgers that would have come into the house. + +_McDonough:_ It is not truth. What would ail her to die? + +_First Hag:_ The makings of a child that came before its time, God +save the mark! She made a bad battle at the last. + +_McDonough:_ What way did it fail you to send me out messengers +seeking me when you knew her to be done and dying? + +_First Hag:_ I thought she would drag another while. There was no +time for the priest itself to overtake her, or to put the little +dress of the Virgin in her hand at the last gasp of death. + + _McDonough goes into the room. He comes out as if affrighted, leans + his head against the wall, and breaks into a prayer in Irish:_ + +_"An Athair tha in Naomh, dean trocaire orainn! A Dia Righ an Domhain, + dean trocaire orainn! A Mhuire Mathair Dia, dean trocaire orainn!"_ + +_Second Hag:_ _(Venturing near.)_ Do not go fret after her, +McDonough. She could not go through the world forever, and +travelling the world. It might be that trouble went with her. + +_McDonough:_ Get out of that, you hags, you witches you! You +croaking birds of ill luck! It is much if I will leave you in the +living world, and you not to have held back death from her! + +_Second Hag:_ That you may never be cross till you will meet with +your own death! What way could any person do that? + +_McDonough:_ Get out the door and it will be best for you! + +_Second Hag:_ You are talking fool's talk and giving out words +that are foolishness! There is no one at all can put away from his +road the bones and the thinness of death. + +_McDonough:_ I to have been in it he would not have come under the +lintel! Ugly as he is and strong, I would be able for him and would +wrestle with him and drag him asunder and put him down! Before I +would let him lay his sharp touch on her I would break and would +crush his naked ribs, and would burn them to lime and scatter them! + +_First Hag:_ Where is the use raving? It is best for you to turn +your hand to the thing has to be done. + +_McDonough:_ You to have stood in his path he might have brought +you away in her place! That much would be no great thing to ask, and +your life being dead and in ashes. + +_First Hag:_ Quieten yourself now where it was the will of God. +She herself made no outcry and no ravings. I did my best for her, +laying her out and putting a middling white sheet around her. I went +so far as to smoothen her hair on the two sides of her face. + +_McDonough: (Turning to inner door.)_ Is it that you are gone from +me, Catherine, you that were the blossom of the branch! + + _(Old woman moans.)_ + +It is a bad case you to have gone and to have left me as lonesome +after you as that no one ever saw the like! + + _(The old woman moans after each sentence.)_ + +I to bring you travelling you were the best traveller, and the best +stepper, and the best that ever faced the western blast, and the +waves of it blowing from you the shawl! I to be sore in the heart +with walking you would make a smile of a laugh. I would not feel the +road having your company; I would walk every whole step of Ireland. + +I to bring you to the dance-house you would dance till you had them +all tired, the same in the late of the day as in the commencement! +Your steps following quick on one another the same as hard rain on a +flagstone! They could not find your equal in all Ireland or in the +whole ring of Connemara! + +What way did it fail me to see the withering of the branches on +every bush, as it is certain they withered the time laughter died +with your laugh? The cold of winter has settled on the hearth. My +heart is closed up with trouble! + +_First Hag:_ It is best for us shut the door and to keep out the +noises of the fair. + +_McDonough:_ Ah, what sort at all are the people of the fair, to +be doing their bargaining and clutching after their luckpenny, and +she being stark and quiet! + +_First Hag:_ She has to be buried ere evening. There was a +messenger of a clerk came laying that down. + +_McDonough:_ May ill luck attend him! Is it that he thinks she +that is gone has no person belonging to her to wake her through the +night-time? + +_First Hag:_ He sent his men to coffin her. She will be brought +away in the heel of the day. + +_McDonough:_ It is a great wake I will give her. It would not be +for honour she to go without that much. Cakes and candles and drink +and tobacco! The table of this house is too narrow. It is from the +neighbours we should borrow tables. + +_First Hag:_ That cannot be. It is what the man said, "This is a +common lodging-house. It is right to banish the dead from the living." +He has the law with him, and custom. There is no use you thinking to +go outside of that. + +_McDonough:_ My lasting grief it will be I not to get leave to +show her that respect! + +_First Hag:_ "There will a car be sent," he said, "and two boys +from the Union for to bear her out from the house." + +_McDonough:_ Men from the Union, are you saying? I would not give +leave to one of them to put a hand anigh or anear her! It is not +their car will bring her to the grave. That would be the most pity +in the world! + +_First Hag:_ You have no other way to bring her on her road. It is +best for you give in to their say. + +_McDonough:_ Where are the friends and the neighbours that they +would not put a hand tinder her? + +_First Hag:_ They are after making their refusal. She was not well +liked in Galway. There is no one will come to her help. + +_McDonough:_ Is that truth, or is it lies you have made up for my +tormenting? + +_First Hag:_ It is no lie at all. It is as sure as the winter's +frost. You have no one to draw to but yourself. + +_McDonough:_ It is mad jealous the women of Galway were and wild +with anger, and she coming among them, that was seventeen times +better than their best! My bitter grief I ever to have come next or +near them, or to have made music for the lugs or for the feet of +wide crooked hags! That they may dance to their death to the devil's +pipes and be the disgrace of the world! It is a great slur on +Ireland and a great scandal they to have made that refusing! That +the Corrib River may leave its merings and rise up out of its banks +till the waves will rise like mountains over the town and smother it, +with all that is left of its tribes! + +_First Hag:_ Be whist now, or they will be angered and they +hearing you outside in the fair. + +_McDonough:_ Let their day not thrive with the buyers and the +sellers in the fair! The curse of mildew on the tillage men, that +every grain of seed they have sowed may be rotten in the ridges, and +the grass corn blasted from the east before the latter end of harvest! +The curse of the dead on the herds driving cattle and following after +markets and fairs! My own curse on the big farmers slapping and +spitting in their deal! That a blood murrain may fall upon their +bullocks! That rot may fall upon their flocks and maggots make them +their pasture and their prey between this and the great feast of +Christmas! It is my grief every hand in the fair not to be set +shaking and be crookened, where they were not stretched out in +friendship to the fair-haired woman that is left her lone within +boards! + +_Second Hag: (At door.)_ Is it a niggard you are grown to be, +McDonough, and you with riches in your hand? Is it against a new +wedding you are keeping your pocket stiff, or to buy a house and an +estate, that it fails you to call in hired women to make a right +keening, and a few decent boys to lift her through the streets? + +_McDonough:_ I to have money or means in my hand, I would ask no +help or be beholden to any one at all. + +_Second Hag:_ If you had means, is it? I heard by true telling +that you have money and means. "At the sheep-shearers' dance a high +lady held the plate for the piper; a sovereign she put in it out of +her hand, and there was no one of the big gentry but followed her. +There never was seen so much riches in any hall or home." Where now +is the fifty gold sovereigns you brought away from Cregroostha? + +_McDonough:_ Where is it? + +_Second Hag:_ Is it that you would begrudge it to the woman is +inside? + +_McDonough:_ You know well I would not begrudge it. + +_First Hag:_ A queer thing you to speak so stiff and to be running +down all around you, and your own pocket being bulky the while. + +_McDonough:_ _(Turning out pocket.)_ It is as slack and as empty +as when I went out from this. + +_Second Hag:_ You could not have run through that much. + +_McDonough:_ Not a red halfpenny left, or so much as the image of +a farthing. + +_First Hag:_ Is it robbed and plundered you were, and you walking +the road? + +_McDonough:_ _(Sitting down and rocking himself.)_ I wish to my +God it was some robber stripped and left me bare! Robbed and +plundered! I was that, and by the worst man and the unkindest that +ever was joined to a woman or lost a woman, and that is myself. + +_First Hag:_ Is it to lose it unknownst you did? + +_McDonough:_ What way did I lose it, is it? I lost it knowingly +and of my own will. Thrown on counters, thrown on the drink-house +floor, given for spirits, given for porter, thrown for drink for +friends and acquaintances, for strangers and strollers and vagabonds. +Scattered in the parish of Ardrahan and at Labane cross. Tramps and +schemers lying drunk and dead drunk at the butt of every wall. + _(Buries head in his hands.)_ + +_First Hag:_ That is what happened the gold yourself and the pipes +had won? You made no delay doing that much. You have a great wrong +done to the woman inside, where you left her burying bare. + +_Second Hag:_ She to be without a farthing dip for her corpse, and +you after lavishing gold. + +_First Hag:_ You have a right to bruise your knees making +repentance, you that lay on the one pillow with her. You to be +putting curses upon others and making attacks on them! I would make +no complaint, you to be naked at your own burying and at the very +hour of death, and the rain falling down on your head. + +_McDonough:_ Little I mind what happens me. There is no word you +can put out of your mouth can do me any injury at all. Oh, Catherine, +it is best for me go hang myself out of a tree, and my carcass to be +torn by savage dogs that went famished through a great length of time, +and my bones left without a token or a flag or a headstone, and my +name that was up at one time to be forgotten out of mind! + _(He bursts out sobbing.)_ + +_First Hag:_ The shadows should be lengthening in the street. Look +out would you see the car to be coming. + +_Second Hag:_ It was a while ago at the far corner of the fair. +They were but waiting for the throng to lessen. + +_First Hag:_ They are making too much delay. + +_Second Hag:_ I see a hint of the livery of the poorhouse coming +through the crowd. + +_First Hag:_ The men of the Union are coming to bring her away, +McDonough. There is nothing more to be done. She will get her burial +from the rates. + +_McDonough:_ Oh, Catherine, Catherine! Is it I myself have brought +you to that shame and that disgrace! + +_Second Hag:_ You are making too much of it. Little it will signify, +and we to be making clay, who was it dug a hole through the nettles +or lifted down the sods over our head. + +_First Hag:_ That is so. What signifies she to be followed or to +be going her lone, and her eyes being shut to the world? + +_McDonough:_ Is that the thought ye have within ye, ye Galway hags? +It is easy known it is in a trader's town you were bred, and in a +street among dealers. + +_First Hag:_ I was but saying it does not signify. + +_McDonough:_ But I say it does signify! I will tell that out to +you and the world! That might be the thought of a townsman or a +trader, or a rich merchant itself that had his estate gained by +trafficking, for that is a sort does be thinking more of what they +can make out of the living than of keeping a good memory of the dead! + +_First Hag:_ There are worthier men than yourself, maybe, in +storehouses and in shops. + +_McDonough:_ But I am of the generations of Orpheus, and have in +me the breed of his master! And of Raftery and Carolan and O'Daly +and all that made sounds of music from this back to the foundations +of the earth! And as to the rich of the world, I would not humble my +head to them. Let them have their serving men and their labourers +and messengers will do their bidding. But the servant I myself +command is the pipes that draws its breath from the four winds, and +from a wind is beyond them again, and at the back of the winds of +the air. She was a wedded woman and a woman having my own gold ring +on her hand, and my own name put down with hers in the book. But she +to have been a shameless woman as ye make her out to be, and sold +from tinker to tinker on the road it is all one! I will show Galway +and the world that it does signify; that it is not fitting +McDonough's wife to travel without company and good hands under her +and good following on the road. Play now, pipes, if you never played +before! Call to the keeners to follow her with screams and beating +of the hands and calling out! Set them crying now with your sound +and with your notes, as it is often you brought them to the +dance-house! + + _(Goes out and plays a lament outside.)_ + +_First Hag: (Looking out.)_ It is queer and wild he is, cutting +his teeth and the hair standing on him. + +_Second Hag:_ Some high notion he has, calling them to show honour +to her as if she was the Queen of the Angels. + +_First Hag:_ To draw to silence the whole fair did. Every person +is moving towards this house. + + _(A murmur as of people. McDonough comes in, stands at door, looking + out.)_ + +_McDonough:_ I squeeze the pipes as a challenge to the whole of +the fair, gentle noble and simple, the poor and the high up. Come +hither and cry Catherine McDonough, give a hand to carry her to the +grave! Come to her aid, tribes of Galway, Lynches and Blakes and +Frenches! McDonough's pipes give you that command, that have learned +the lamentation of the Danes. + +Come follow her on the road, trades of Galway, the fishermen, and +the carpenters, and the weavers! It is by no short road we will +carry her that never will walk any road from this out! By +Williams-gate, beside Lynch's gallows, beside the gaol of the +hangings, the salmon will make their leap as we pass! + +_Men at Door:_ We will. We will follow her, McDonough. + +_Others:_ Give us the first place. + +_Others:_ We ourselves will carry her! + +_McDonough:_ Faith, Catherine, you have your share and your choice +this day of fine men, asking to carry you and to lend you their +strength. + +I will give no leave to traffickers to put their shoulder under you, +or to any that made a refusal, or any seaside man at all. + +I will give leave to no one but the sheep-shearers from Eserkelly, +from Moneen and Cahirlinny and the whole stretch of Cregroostha. It +is they have friendship for music, it is they have a wish for my +four bones. + + _(Sheep-shearers come in. They are dressed in white flannel. Each + has a pair of shears at his side. The first carries a crook.)_ + +_First Sheep-shearer:_ Is it within there she is, McDonough? + +_First Hag:_ Go in through the door. The boards are around her and +a clean quilt over them. Have a care not to leave down your hands on +it, and they maybe being soiled with the fair. + + _(They take off their hats and go in.)_ + +_McDonough: (Turning to her door.)_ If you got no great honour +from your birth up, and went barefoot through the first of your youth, +you will get great respect now and will be remembered in the times +to come. + +There is many a lady dragging silk skirts through the lawns and the +flower knots of Connacht, will get no such grand gathering of people +at the last as you are getting on this day. + +It is the story of the burying of McDonough's wife will be written +in the book of the people! + + _(Sheep-shearers appear at inner door. McDonough goes out, + squeezing the pipes. Triumphant music is heard from outside.)_ + + +_Curtain_ + + + + + +NOTES + + +THE BOGIE MEN + +A message sent to America from Dublin that our Theatre had been +"driven out with hisses"; an answering message from New York that +the _Playboy_, the cause of battle, was now "as dead as a doornail," +set me musing with renewed delight on our incorrigible genius for +myth-making, the faculty that makes our traditional history a +perpetual joy, because it is, like the Sidhe, an eternal +Shape-changer. + +At Philadelphia, the city of trees, where in spite of a day in the +police court and before a judge, and the arrest of our players at +the suit not of a Puritan but a publican, and the throwing of +currant cake with intent to injure, I received very great personal +kindness, a story of his childhood told by my host gave me a fable +on which to hang my musings; and the Dublin enthusiast and the +American enthusiast who interchanged so many compliments and made so +brave a show to one another, became Dermot and Timothy, "two +harmless drifty lads," the _Bogie Men_ of my little play. They were +to have been vagrants, tatterdemalions, but I needed some dress the +change of which would change their whole appearance in a moment, and +there came to mind the chimney sweepers of my childhood. + +They used to come trotting the five miles from Loughrea, little +fellows with blue eyes shining out from soot-black faces, wearing +little soot-coloured smocks. Our old doctor told us he had gone to +see one of them who was sick, and had found him lying in a box, with +soot up to his chin as bedding and blanket. + +Not many years ago a decent looking man came to my door, with I +forget what request. He told me he had heard of ghosts and fairies, +but had never met with anything worse than himself, but that he had +had one great fright in his lifetime. Its cause had been the +squealing and outcry made by two rats caught in one trap, that had +come clattering down a flight of steps one time when he was a little +lad, and had come sweeping chimneys to Roxborough. + +[Music: AIR OF "ALL AROUND MY HAT I WILL WEAR A GREEN RIBBON!"] + + + +THE FULL MOON + +It had sometimes preyed on my mind that _Hyacinth Halvey_ had been +left by me in Cloon for his lifetime, bearing the weight of a +character that had been put on him by force. But it failed me to +release him by reason, that "binds men to the wheel"; it took the +call of some of those unruly ones who give in to no limitations, and +dance to the sound of music that is outside this world, to bring him +out from "roast and boiled and all the comforts of the day." Where he +is now I do not know, but anyway he is free. + +Tannian's dog has now become a protagonist; and Bartley Fallon and +Shawn Early strayed in from the fair green of _Spreading the News_, +and Mrs. Broderick from the little shop where _The Jackdaw_ hops on +the counter, as witnesses to the miracle that happened in Hyacinth's +own inside; and it is likely they may be talking of it yet; for the +talks of Cloon are long talks, and the histories told there do not +lessen or fail. + +As to Davideen's song, I give the air of it below. The Queen Anne in +it was no English queen, but, as I think, that Aine of the old gods +at whose hill mad dogs were used to gather, and who turned to grey +the yellow hair of Finn of the Fianna of Ireland. It is with some +thought of her in their mind that the history-tellers say "Anne was +not fair like the Georges but very bad and a tyrant. She tyrannised +over the Irish. She was very wicked; oh! very wicked indeed!" + +[Music: AIR OF "THE HEATHER BROOM!"] + + +COATS + +I find some bald little notes I made before writing _Coats_. +"Hazel is astonished Mineog can take such a thing to heart, but it +is quite different when he himself is off ended." "The quarrel is so +violent you think it can never be healed, but the ordinary +circumstances of life force reconciliation. They are the most +powerful force of all." And then a quotation from Nietzsche, +"A good war justifies every cause." + + +DAMER'S GOLD + +In a lecture I gave last year on playwriting I said I had been +forced to write comedy because it was wanted for our theatre, to put +on at the end of the verse plays, but that I think tragedy is easier. +For, I said, tragedy shows humanity in the grip of circumstance, of +fate, of what our people call "the thing will happen," "the Woman in +the Stars that does all." There is a woman in the stars they say, +who is always hurting herself in one way or other, and according to +what she is doing at the hour of your birth, so will it happen to +you in your lifetime, whether she is hanging herself or drowning +herself or burning herself in the fire. "And," said an old man who +was telling me this, "I am thinking she was doing a great deal of +acting at the time I myself made my start in the world." Well, you +put your actor in the grip of this woman, in the claws of the cat. +Once in that grip you know what the end must be. You may let your +hero kick or struggle, but he is in the claws all the time, it is a +mere question as to how nearly you will let him escape, and when you +will allow the pounce. Fate itself is the protagonist, your actor +cannot carry much character, it is out of place. You do not want to +know the character of a wrestler you see trying his strength at a +show. + +In writing a little tragedy, _The Gaol Gate_, I made the scenario in +three lines, "He is an informer; he is dead; he is hanged." I wrote +that play very quickly. My two poor women were in the clutch of the +Woman in the Stars.... I knew what I was going to do and I was able +to keep within those three lines. But in comedy it is different. +Character comes in, and why it is so I cannot explain, but as soon +as one creates a character, he begins to put out little feet of his +own and take his own way. + +I had been meditating for a long time past on the mass of advice +that is given one by friends and well-wishers and relations, advice +that would be excellent if the giver were not ignorant so often of +the one essential in the case, the one thing that matters. But there +is usually something out of sight, of which the adviser is unaware, +it may be something half mischievously hidden from him, it may be +that "secret of the heart with God" that is called religion. In the +whole course of our work at the theatre we have been I may say +drenched with advice by friendly people who for years gave us the +reasons why we did not succeed.... All their advice, or at least +some of it, might have been good if we had wanted to make money, to +make a common place of amusement. Our advisers did not see that what +we wanted was to create for Ireland a theatre with a base of realism, +with an apex of beauty. Well, last summer I made a fable for this +meditation, this emotion, at the back of my mind to drive. + +I pictured to myself, for I usually first see a play as a picture, a +young man, a mere lad, very sleepy in the daytime. He was surrounded +by people kind and wise, who lamented over his rags and idleness and +assured him that if he didn't get up early and do his work in the +daytime he would never know the feel of money in his hand. He +listens to all their advice, but he does not take it, because he +knows what they do not know, that it is in the night time precisely +he is filling his pocket, in the night when, as I think, we receive +gifts from the unseen. I placed him in the house of a miser, an old +man who had saved a store of gold. I called the old man Damer, from +a folk-story of a chandler who had bought for a song the kegs of +gold the Danes had covered with tallow as a disguise when they were +driven out of Ireland, and who had been rich and a miser ever after. +I did not mean this old man, Damer, to appear at all. He was to be +as invisible as that Heaven of which we are told the violent take it +by force. My intention at first was that he should be robbed, but +then I saw robbery would take too much sympathy from my young lad, +and I decided the money should be won by the lesser sin of +cardplaying, but still behind the scenes. Then I thought it would +have a good stage effect if old Damer could just walk once across +the stage in the background. His relations might have come into the +house to try and make themselves agreeable to him, and he would +appear and they would vanish. ... Damer comes in, and contrary to +my intention, he begins to find a tongue of his own. He has made his +start in the world, and has more than a word to say. How that play +will work out I cannot be sure, or if it will ever be finished at all. +But if ever it is I am quite sure it will go as Damer wants, not as I +want. + +That is what I said last winter, and now in harvest time the play is +all but out of my hands. But as I foretold, Damer has taken +possession of it, turning it to be as simple as a folk-tale, where +the innocent of the world confound the wisdom of the wise. The idea +with which I set out has not indeed quite vanished, but is as if +"extinct and pale; not darkness, but light that has become dead." + +As to Damer's changes of mood, it happened a little time ago, when +the play was roughly written, but on its present lines, that I took +up a volume of Montaigne, and found in it his justification by high +examples: + +"Verilie it is not want but rather plentie that causeth avarice. I +will speake of mine owne experience concerning this subject. I have +lived in three kinds of condition since I came out of my infancie. +The first time, which continued well nigh twentie yeares, I have +past it over as one who had no other means but casual without any +certaine maintenance or regular prescription. My expenses were so +much the more carelessly laid out and lavishly employed, by how much +more they wholly depended on fortunes rashnesse and exhibition. I +never lived so well at ease.... My second manner of life hath been to +have monie: which when I had once fingred, according to my condition +I sought to hoorde up some against a rainy day.... My minde was ever +on my halfe-penny; my thoughts ever that way. Of commoditie I had +little or nothing.... And after you are once accustomed, and have +fixed your thoughts upon a heape of monie, it is no longer at your +service; you dare not diminish it; it is a building which if you +touch or take any part from it, you will think it will all fall. And +I should sooner pawne my clothes or sell a horse, with lesse care +and compulsion than make a breach into that beloved purse which I +kept in store.... I was some yeares of the same humour: I wot not +what good Demon did most profitably remove me from it, like to the +Siracusan, and made me to neglect my sparing.... I live from hand to +mouth, from day to day, and have I but to supplie my present and +ordinarie needs I am satisfied.... And I singularly gratifie myself +this correction came upon me in an age naturally inclined to +covetousnesse, and that I am free from that folly so common and +peculiar to old men, and the most ridiculous of all humane follies. +Feraulez who had passed through both fortunes and found that +encrease of goods was no encrease of appetite to eat, to sleepe or +to embrace his wife; and who on the other side felt heavily on his +shoulders the importunitie of ordering and directing his +Oeconomicall affairs as it doth on mine, determined with himselfe to +content a poore young man, his faithfull friend, greedily gaping +after riches, and frankly made him a present donation of all his +great and excessive riches, always provided hee should undertake to +entertaine and find him, honestly and in good sort, as his guest and +friend. In which estate they lived afterwards most happily and +mutually content with the change of their condition." + +And so I hope it may come to pass with the remaining years of Simon +and of Damer. + + + +McDONOUGH'S WIFE + +In my childhood there was every year at my old home, Roxborough, or, +as it is called in Irish, Cregroostha, a great sheep-shearing that +lasted many days. On the last evening there was always a dance for +the shearers and their helpers, and two pipers used to sit on chairs +placed on a corn-bin to make music for the dance. One of them was +always McDonough. He was the best of all the wandering pipers who +went about from house to house. When, at my marriage, I moved from +the barony of Dunkellin to the neighbouring barony of Kiltartan, he +came and played at the dance given to the tenants in my honour, and +he came and played also at my son's coming of age. Not long after +that he died. The last time I saw him he came to ask for a loan of +money to take the train to Ennis, where there was some fair or +gathering of people going on, and I would not lend to so old a friend, +but gave him a half-sovereign, and we parted with kindly words. He +was so great a piper that in the few years since his death myths +have already begun to gather around him. I have been told that his +father was taken into a hill of the Danes, the Tuatha de Danaan, the +ancient invisible race, and they had taught him all their tunes and +so bewitched his pipes that they would play of themselves if he +threw them up on the rafters. McDonough's pipes, they say, had not +that gift, but he himself could play those inspired tunes. Lately I +was told the story I have used in this play about his taking away +fifty sovereigns from the shearing at Cregroostha and spending them +at a village near. "I said to him," said the old man who told me this, +"that it would be better for him to have bought a good kitchen of +bacon; but he said, 'Ah, when I want more, I have but to squeeze the +pipes.'" The story of his wife's death and burial as I give it has +been told to me here and there. That is my fable, and the emotion +disclosed by the story is, I think, the lasting pride of the artist +of all ages: + + "We are the music makers + And we are the dreamers of dreams.... + We in the ages lying + In the buried past of the earth + Built Nineveh with our sighing, + And Babel itself with our mirth." + +I wrote the little play while crossing the Atlantic in the _Cymric_ +last September. Since it was written I have been told at Kinvara +that "McDonough was a proud man; he never would go to a wedding +unasked, and he never would play through a town," So he had laid +down pride for pride's sake, at that time of the burying of his wife. + +In Galway this summer one who was with him at the end told me he had +a happy death, "But he died poor; for what he would make in the long +nights he would spend through the summer days." And then she said, +"Himself and Reilly and three other fine pipers died within that year. +There was surely a feast of music going on in some other place." + + +_Dates of production of plays_. + +THE BOGIE MEN was first produced at the Court Theatre, London, July 8, +1912, with the following cast: + +_Taig O'Harragha_ J. M. KERRIGAN +_Darby Melody_ J. A. O'ROURKE + +THE FULL MOON was first produced at the Abbey +Theatre, Dublin, on November 10, 1910, with the +following cast: + +_Shawn Early_ J. O'ROURKE +_Bartley Fallon_ ARTHUR SINCLAIR +_Peter Tannian_ SIDNEY MORGAN +_Hyacinth Halvey_ FRED. O'DONOVAN +_Mrs. Broderick_ SARA ALLGOOD +_Miss Joyce_ EILEEN O'DOHERTY +_Cracked Mary_ MAIRE O'NEILL +_Davideen_ J. M. KERRIGAN + +COATS was first produced at the Abbey Theatre, +Dublin, December, 1910, with the following cast: + +_Mineog_ ARTHUR SINCLAIR +_Hazel_ J. M. KERRIGAN +_John_ J. A. O'ROURKE + +DAMER'S GOLD was first produced at the Abbey +Theatre November 21, 1912, with the following cast: + +_Delia Hessian_ SARA ALLGOOD +_Staffy Kirwan_ SIDNEY MORGAN +_Ralph Hessian_ J. M. KERRIGAN +_Damer_ ARTHUR SINCLAIR +_Simon Niland_ A. WRIGHT + + +McDONOUGH'S WIFE has not yet been produced by the Abbey Company. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's New Irish Comedies, by Lady Augusta Gregory + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW IRISH COMEDIES *** + +***** This file should be named 11749.txt or 11749.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/7/4/11749/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland and Robert Prince + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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