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 * \
 
 Seven Short Plays 
 
 By 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 New York and London 
 
 3be fcnfcfccrbocfccr press
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1903. BY LADY AUGUSTA GREGORY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1904. BY LADY GREGORY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY LADY GREGORY 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1906, BY LADY GREGORY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY LADY GREGORY 
 
 These plays have been copyrighted and published simul- 
 taneously in the United States and Great Britain. 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign 
 languages. 
 
 All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved 
 in the United States, Great Britain, and all countries of the 
 Copyright Union, by the author. Performances forbidden and 
 right of presentation reserved. 
 
 Application for the right of performing these plays or reading 
 them in public should be made to Samuel French, 28 West 
 38th St., New York City, or 26 South Hampton St., Strand, 
 London. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 To you, W. B. YEATS, good praiser, wholesome 
 dispraiser, heavy-handed judge, open-handed helper 
 of us all, I offer a play of my plays for every night 
 of the week, because you like them, and because you 
 have taught me my trade. 
 
 AUGUSTA GREGORY 
 
 Abbey Theatre, 
 
 May I, 1909. 
 
 2060926
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 SPREADING THE NEWS 
 
 HYACINTH HALVEY 
 
 THE RISING OF THE MOON . 
 
 THE JACKDAW .... 
 
 THE WORKHOUSE WARD 
 
 THE TRAVELLING MAN 
 
 THE GAOL GATE 
 
 MUSIC FOR THE SONGS IN THE PLAYS 
 
 NOTES, &c. ....
 
 SPREADING THE NEWS
 
 PERSONS 
 Hartley Fallon. 
 Mrs. Fallon. 
 Jack Smith. 
 Shawn Early. 
 Tim Casey. 
 James Ryan. 
 Mrs. Tarpey. 
 Mrs. Tully. 
 
 A Policeman (Jo MULDOON). 
 A Removabk Magistrate.
 
 SPREADING THE NEWS 
 
 Scene: The outskirts of a Fair. An Apple Stall. 
 Mrs. Tarpey sitting at it. Magistrate and 
 Policeman enter. 
 
 Magistrate: So that is the Fair Green. Cattle 
 and sheep and mud. No system. What a re- 
 pulsive sight ! 
 
 Policeman: That is so, indeed. 
 
 Magistrate: I suppose there is a good deal of 
 disorder in this place? 
 
 Policeman: There is. 
 
 Magistrate: Common assault? 
 
 Policeman: It's common enough. 
 
 Magistrate: Agrarian crime, no doubt? 
 
 Policeman: That is so. 
 
 Magistrate: Boycotting? Maiming of cattle? 
 Firing into houses? 
 
 Policeman: There was one time, and there 
 might be again. 
 
 Magistrate: That is bad. Does it go any far- 
 ther than that? 
 
 Policeman: Far enough, indeed. 
 3
 
 4 Spreading the News 
 
 Magistrate: Homicide, then ! This district has 
 been shamefully neglected ! I will change all that. 
 When I was in the Andaman Islands, my system 
 never failed. Yes, yes, I will change all that. 
 What has that woman on her stall? 
 
 Policeman: Apples mostly and sweets. 
 
 Magistrate: Just see if there are any unlicensed 
 goods underneath spirits or the like. We had 
 evasions of the salt tax in the Andaman Islands. 
 
 Policeman: (Sniffing cautiously and upsetting 
 a heap of apples.} I see no spirits here or 
 salt. 
 
 Magistrate: (To Mrs. Tarpey.} Do you know 
 this town well, my good woman? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: (Holding out some apples.) A 
 penny the half-dozen, your honour. 
 
 Policeman: (Shouting.) The gentleman is ask- 
 ing do you know the town! He's the new magis- 
 trate! 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: (Rising and ducking.) Do I know 
 the town? I do, to be sure. 
 
 Magistrate: (Shouting.) What is its chief busi- 
 ness? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Business, is it? What business 
 would the people here have but to be minding 
 one another's business? 
 
 Magistrate: I mean what trade have they? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Not a trade. No trade at all 
 but to be talking.
 
 Spreading the News 5 
 
 Magistrate: I shall learn nothing here. 
 
 (James Ryan comes in, pipe in mouth. See- 
 ing Magistrate he retreats quickly, taking 
 pipe from mouth.} 
 
 Magistrate: The smoke from that man's pipe 
 had a greenish look ; he may be growing unlicensed 
 tobacco at home. I wish I had brought my tele- 
 scope to this district. Come to the post-office, I 
 will telegraph for it. I found it very useful in the 
 Andaman Islands. 
 
 (Magistrate and Policeman go out left.} 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Bad luck to Jo Muldoon, knock- 
 ing my apples this way and that way. (Begins 
 arranging them.} Showing off he was to the new 
 magistrate. 
 
 (Enter Bartley Fallon and Mrs. Fallon.} 
 Bartley: Indeed it's a poor country and a 
 scarce country to be living in. But I'm thinking 
 if I went to America it's long ago the day I'd be 
 dead! 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: So you might, indeed. 
 
 (She puts her basket on a barrel and begins 
 putting parcels in it, taking them from 
 under her cloak.} 
 
 Bartley: And it's a great expense for a poor 
 man to be buried in America. 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Never fear, Bartley Fallon, but 
 I'll give you a good burying the day you'll die. 
 Bartley: Maybe it's yourself will be buried in
 
 6 Spreading the News 
 
 the graveyard of Cloonmara before me, Mary 
 Fallen, and I myself that will be dying unbe- 
 knownst some night, and no one a-near me. 
 And the cat itself may be gone straying through 
 the country, and the mice squealing over the quilt. 
 
 Mrs. Fatton: Leave off talking of dying. It 
 might be twenty years you'll be living yet. 
 
 Bartley: (With a deep sigh.} I'm thinking if I'll 
 be living at the end of twenty years, it's a very 
 old man I'll be then! 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: (Turns and sees them.} Good mor- 
 row, Bartley Fallon; good morrow, Mrs. Fallen. 
 Well, Bartley, you'll find no cause for complaining 
 to-day ; they are all saying it was a good fair. 
 
 Bartley: (Raising his voice.} It was not a good 
 fair, Mrs. Tarpey. It was a scattered sort of a 
 fair. If we didn't expect more, we got less. 
 That's the way with me always ; whatever I have 
 to sell goes down and whatever I have to buy goes 
 up. If there's ever any misfortune coming to this 
 world, it's on myself it pitches, like a flock of 
 crows on seed potatoes. 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Leave off talking of misfortunes, 
 and listen to Jack Smith that is coming the way, 
 and he singing. 
 
 (Voice of Jack Smith heard singing:} 
 I thought, my first love, 
 
 There'd be but one house between you and me, 
 And I thought I would find
 
 Spreading the News 7 
 
 Yourself coaxing my child on your knee. 
 Over the tide 
 
 I would leap with the leap of a swan, 
 Till I came to the side 
 
 Of the wife of the Red-haired man! 
 
 (Jack Smith comes in; he is a red-haired man, 
 and is carrying a hayfork.} 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: That should be a good song if 
 I had my hearing. 
 
 Mrs. Fatton: (Shouting.} It's "The Red-haired 
 Man's Wife." 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: I know it well. That's the song 
 that has a skin on it! 
 
 (She turns her back to them and goes on ar- 
 ranging her apples.} 
 
 Mrs. Fatton: Where's herself, Jack Smith? 
 
 Jack Smith: She was delayed with her wash- 
 ing; bleaching the clothes on the hedge she is, 
 and she daren't leave them, with all the tinkers 
 that do be passing to the fair. It isn't to the fair I 
 came myself, but up to the Five Acre Meadow I'm 
 going, where I have a contract for the hay. We'll 
 get a share of it into tramps to-day. (He lays 
 down hayfork and lights his pipe.} 
 
 Bartley: You will not get it into tramps to-day. 
 The rain will be down on it by evening, and on 
 myself too. It's seldom I ever started on a journey 
 but the rain would come down on me before I'd 
 find any place of shelter.
 
 8 Spreading the News 
 
 Jack Smith: If it didn't itself, Bartley, it is 
 my belief you would carry a leaky pail on your 
 head in place of a hat, the way you'd not be 
 without some cause of complaining. 
 
 (A toice heard, "Go on, now, go on out o' 
 that. Go on I say") 
 
 Jack Smith: Look at that young mare of Pat 
 Ryan's that is backing into Shaughnessy's bul- 
 locks with the dint of the crowd! Don't be 
 daunted, Pat, I'll give you a hand with her. 
 (He goes out, leaving his hayfork.) 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: It's time for ourselves to be 
 going home. I have all I bought put in the basket. 
 Look at there, Jack Smith's hayfork he left after 
 him! He'll be wanting it. (Calls.) Jack Smith! 
 Jack Smith ! He's gone through the crowd hurry 
 after him, Bartley, he'll be wanting it. 
 
 Bartley: I'll do that. This is no safe place to 
 be leaving it. (He takes up fork awkwardly and 
 upsets the basket.) Look at that now! If there 
 is any basket in the fair upset, it must be our own 
 basket! (He goes out to right.) 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Get out of that ! It is your own 
 fault, it is. Talk of misfortunes and misfortunes 
 will come. Glory be! Look at my new egg-cups 
 rolling in every part and my two pound of 
 sugar with the paper broke 
 
 Mrs.Tarpey: (Turning from stall.) God help us, 
 Mrs. Fallon, what happened your basket?
 
 Spreading the News 9 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: It's himself that knocked it down, 
 bad manners to him. (Putting things up.) My 
 grand sugar that's destroyed, and he 11 not drink 
 his tea without it. I had best go back to the shop 
 for more, much good may it do him! 
 (Enter Tim Casey.) 
 
 Tim Casey: Where is Bartley Fallon, Mrs. 
 Fallon? I want a word with him before he'll 
 leave the fair. I was afraid he might have gone 
 home by this, for he's a temperate man. 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: I wish he did go home! It'd be 
 best for me if he went home straight from the 
 fair green, or if he never came with me at all! 
 Where is he, is it? He's gone up the road (jerks 
 elbow) following Jack Smith with a hayfork. 
 (She goes out to left.) 
 
 Tim Casey: Following Jack Smith with a hay- 
 fork! Did ever any one hear the like of that. 
 (Shouts.) Did you hear that news, Mrs. Tarpey? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: I heard no news at all. 
 
 Tim Casey: Some dispute I suppose it was that 
 rose between Jack Smith and Bartley Fallon, and 
 it seems Jack made off, and Bartley is following 
 him with a hayfork ! 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Is he now? Well, that was quick 
 work! It's not ten minutes since the two of them 
 were here, Bartley going home and Jack going to 
 the Five Acre Meadow; and I had my apples to 
 settle up, that Jo Muldoon of the police had
 
 io Spreading the News 
 
 scattered, and when I looked round again Jack 
 Smith was gone, and Bartley Fallon was gone, and 
 Mrs. Fallen's basket upset, and all in it strewed 
 upon the ground the tea here the two pound 
 of sugar there the egg-cups there Look, now, 
 what a great hardship the deafness puts upon me, 
 that I didn't hear the commincement of the fight ! 
 Wait till I tell James Ryan that I see below ; he is 
 a neighbour of Hartley's, it would be a pity if he 
 wouldn't hear the news ! 
 
 (She goes out. Enter Shawn Early and 
 Mrs. Tully.} 
 
 Tim Casey: Listen, Shawn Early! Listen, 
 Mrs. Tully, to the news ! Jack Smith and Bartley 
 Fallon had a falling out, and Jack knocked Mrs. 
 Fallen's basket into the road, and Bartley made an 
 attack on him with a hayfork, and away with Jack, 
 and Bartley after him. Look at the sugar here 
 yet on the road! 
 
 Shawn Early: Do you tell me so? Well, that's 
 a queer thing, and Bartley Fallon so quiet a 
 man! 
 
 Mrs. Tully: I wouldn't wonder at all. I would 
 never think well of a man that would have that 
 sort of a mouldering look. It's likely he has over- 
 taken Jack by this. 
 
 (Enter James Ryan and Mrs. Tarpey.) 
 
 James Ryan: That is great news Mrs. Tarpey 
 was_telling me! I suppose that's what brought
 
 Spreading the News n 
 
 the police and the magistrate up this way. I was 
 wondering to see them in it a while ago. 
 
 Shawn Early: The police after them? Bartley 
 Fallen must have injured Jack so. They wouldn't 
 meddle in a fight that was only for show! 
 
 Mrs. Tully: Why wouldn't he injure him? 
 There was many a man killed with no more of a 
 weapon than a hayfork. 
 
 James Ryan: Wait till I run north as far as 
 Kelly's bar to spread the news! (He goes out.} 
 
 Tim Casey: I'll go tell Jack Smith's first 
 cousin that is standing there south of the church 
 after selling his lambs. (Goes out.) 
 
 Mrs. Tully: I'll go telling a few of the neigh- 
 bours I see beyond to the west. (Goes out.) 
 
 Shawn Early: I'll give word of it beyond at 
 the east of the green. 
 
 (Is going out when Mrs. Tarpey seizes hold 
 of him.) 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Stop a minute, Shawn Early, 
 and tell me did you see red Jack Smith's wife, 
 Kitty Keary, in any place? 
 
 Shawn Early: I did. At her own house she 
 was, drying clothes on the hedge as I passed. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: What did you say she was 
 doing? 
 
 Shawn Early: (Breaking away.) Laying out a 
 sheet on the hedge. (He goes) 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Laying out a sheet for the dead!
 
 12 Spreading the News 
 
 The Lord have mercy on us! Jack Smith dead, 
 and his wife laying out a sheet for his burying! 
 (Calls out.) Why didn't you tell me that before, 
 Shawn Early? Isn't the deafness the great hard- 
 ship? Half the world might be dead without me 
 knowing of it or getting word of it at all! (She 
 sits down and rocks herself.) O my poor Jack 
 Smith! To be going to his work so nice and so 
 hearty, and to be left stretched on the ground in 
 the full light of the day! 
 (Enter Tim Casey.) 
 
 Tim Casey: What is it, Mrs. Tarpey? What 
 happened since? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: O my poor Jack Smith! 
 
 Tim Casey: Did Bartley overtake him? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: O the poor man ! 
 
 Tim Casey: Is it killed he is? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Stretched in the Five Acre 
 Meadow! 
 
 Tim Casey: The Lord have mercy on us! Is 
 that a fact? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Without the rites of the Church 
 or a ha'porth! 
 
 Tim Casey: Who was telling you? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: And the wife laying out a sheet 
 for his corpse. (Sits up and wipes her eyes.} I 
 suppose they'll wake him the same as another? 
 
 (Enter Mrs. Tully, Shawn Early, and James 
 Ryan.)
 
 Spreading the News 13 
 
 Mrs. Tutty: There is great talk about this 
 work in every quarter of the fair. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Ochone! cold and dead. And 
 myself maybe the last he was speaking to! 
 
 James Ryan: The Lord save us \ Is it dead he is? 
 
 Tim Casey: Dead surely, and the wife getting 
 provision for the wake. 
 
 Shawn Early: Well, now, hadn't Bartley Fal- 
 lon great venom in him? 
 
 Mrs. Tully: You may be sure he had some 
 cause. Why would he have made an end of him 
 if he had not? (To Mrs. Tarpey, raising her voice.} 
 What was it rose the dispute at all, Mrs. Tarpey? 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Not a one of me knows. The 
 last I saw of them, Jack Smith was standing there, 
 and Bartley Fallen was standing there, quiet and 
 easy, and he listening to "The Red-haired Man's 
 Wife." 
 
 Mrs. Tully: Do you hear that, Tim Casey? 
 Do you hear that, Shawn Early and James Ryan? 
 Bartley Fallon was here this morning listening 
 to red Jack Smith's wife, Kitty Keary that was! 
 Listening to her and whispering with her! It was 
 she started the fight so! 
 
 Shawn Early: She must have followed him 
 from her own house. It is likely some person 
 roused him. 
 
 Tim Casey: I never knew, before, Bartley 
 Fallon was great with Jack Smith's wife.
 
 14 Spreading the News 
 
 Mrs. Tully: How would you know it? Sure 
 it's not in the streets they would be calling it. 
 If Mrs. Fallen didn't know of it, and if I that 
 have the next house to them didn't know of it, 
 and if Jack Smith himself didn't know of it, it is 
 not likely you would know of it, Tim Casey. 
 
 Shawn Early: Let Bartley Fallon take charge 
 of her from this out so, and let him provide for 
 her. It is little pity she will get from any person 
 in this parish. 
 
 Tim Casey: How can he take charge of her? 
 Sure he has a wife of his own. Sure you don't 
 think he'd turn souper and marry her in a Pro- 
 testant church? 
 
 James Ryan: It would be easy for him to 
 marry her if he brought her to America. 
 
 Shawn Early: With or without Kitty Keary, 
 believe me it is for America he's making at this 
 minute. I saw the new magistrate and Jo Mul- 
 doon of the police going into the post-office as I 
 came up there was hurry on them you may 
 be sure it was to telegraph they went, the way he'll 
 be stopped in the docks at Queenstown ! 
 
 Mrs. Tully: It's likely Kitty Keary is gone with 
 him, and not minding a sheet or a wake at all. The 
 poor man, to be deserted by his own wife, and the 
 breath hardly gone out yet from his body that is 
 lying bloody in the field ! 
 
 (Enter Mrs. Fallon)
 
 Spreading the News 15 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: What is it the whole of the town 
 is talking about? And what is it you yourselves 
 are talking about? Is it about my man Bartley 
 Fallon you are talking? Is it lies about him you 
 are telling, saying that he went killing Jack Smith? 
 My grief that ever he came into this place at all! 
 
 James Ryan: Be easy now, Mrs. Fallon. Sure 
 there is no one at all in the whole fair but is sorry 
 for you! 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Sorry for me, is it? Why would 
 any one be sorry for me? Let you be sorry for 
 yourselves, and that there may be shame on you 
 for ever and at the day of judgment, for the words 
 you are saying and the lies you are telling to take 
 away the character of my poor man, and to take 
 the good name off of him, and to drive him to 
 destruction ! That is what you are doing ! 
 
 Shawn Early: Take comfort now, Mrs. Fallon. 
 The police are not so smart as they think. Sure 
 he might give them the slip yet, the same as 
 Lynchehaun. 
 
 Mrs. Tully: If they do get him, and if they do 
 put a rope around his neck, there is no one can 
 say he does not deserve it! 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Is that what you are saying, 
 Bridget Tully, and is that what you think? I 
 tell you it's too much talk you have, making 
 yourself out to be such a great one, and to be run- 
 ning down every respectable person ! A rope, is it?
 
 1 6 Spreading the News 
 
 It isn't much of a rope was needed to tie up your 
 own furniture the day you came into Martin 
 Tully's house, and you never bringing as much as a 
 blanket, or a penny, or a suit of clothes with you 
 and I myself bringing seventy pounds and two 
 feather beds. And now you are stiffer than a 
 woman would have a hundred pounds! It is too 
 much talk the whole of you have. A rope is it? 
 I tell you the whole of this town is full of liars and 
 schemers that would hang you up for half a glass 
 of whiskey. (Turning to go.} People they are 
 you wouldn't believe as much as daylight from 
 without you'd get up to have a look at it yourself. 
 Killing Jack Smith indeed ! Where are you at all, 
 Bartley, till I bring you out of this? My nice 
 quiet little man! My decent comrade! He that 
 is as kind and as harmless as an innocent beast of 
 the field! He'll be doing no harm at all if he'll 
 shed the blood of some of you after this day's 
 work! That much would be no harm at all. 
 (Calls out.} Bartley! Bartley Fallon! Where 
 are you? (Going out.} Did any one see Bartley 
 Fallon? 
 
 (All turn to look after her.} 
 James Ryan: It is hard for her to believe 
 any such a thing, God help her! 
 
 (Enter Bartley Fallon from right, carrying 
 
 hayfork.} 
 Bartley: It is what I often said to myself, if
 
 Spreading the News 17 
 
 there is ever any misfortune coming to this world 
 it is on myself it is sure to come ! 
 
 (All turn round and face him.} 
 
 Bartley: To be going about with this fork 
 and to find no one to take it, and no place to 
 leave it down, and I wanting to be gone out of this 
 Is that you, Shawn Early? (Holds out fork.) 
 It's well I met you. You have no call to be 
 leaving the fair for a while the way I have, and 
 how can I go till I'm rid of this fork? Will 
 you take it and keep it until such time as Jack 
 Smith 
 
 Shawn Early: (Backing.) I will not take 
 it, Bartley Fallen, I'm very thankful to you! 
 
 Bartley: (Turning to apple stall.) Look at it now, 
 Mrs. Tarpey, it was here I got it; let me thrust 
 it in under the stall. It will lie there safe enough, 
 and no one will take notice of it until such time 
 as Jack Smith 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: Take your fork out of that ! Is 
 it to put trouble on me and to destroy me you 
 want? putting it there for the police to be rooting 
 it out maybe. (Thrusts him back.) 
 
 Bartley: That is a very unneighbourly thing 
 for you to do, Mrs. Tarpey. Hadn't I enough 
 care on me with that fork before this, running 
 up and down with it like the swinging of a clock, 
 and afeard to lay it down in any place! I wish 
 I never touched it or meddled with it at all!
 
 1 8 Spreading the News 
 
 James Ryan: It is a pity, indeed, you ever did. 
 
 Bartley: Will you yourself take it, James 
 Ryan? You were always a neighbourly man. 
 
 James Ryan: (Backing.} There is many a thing 
 I would do for you, Bartley Fallen, but I won't 
 do that! 
 
 Shawn Early: I tell you there is no man will 
 give you any help or any encouragement for this 
 day's work. If it was something agrarian now 
 
 Bartley: If no one at all will take it, maybe 
 it's best to give it up to the police. 
 
 Tim Casey: There'd be a welcome for it with 
 them surely! (Laughter.} 
 
 Mrs. Tully: And it is to the police Kitty 
 Keary herself will be brought. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: (Rocking to and fro.} I wonder 
 now who will take the expense of the wake for 
 poor Jack Smith? 
 
 Bartley: The wake for Jack Smith! 
 
 Tim Casey: Why wouldn't he get a wake as well 
 as another? Would you begrudge him that much? 
 
 Bartley: Red Jack Smith dead! Who was 
 telling you? 
 
 Shawn Early: The whole town knows of it by this. 
 
 Bartley: Do they say what way did he die? 
 
 James Ryan: You don't know that yourself, 
 I suppose, Bartley Fallon? You don't know he 
 was followed and that he was laid dead with the 
 stab of a hayfork?
 
 Spreading the News 19 
 
 i 
 
 Bartley: The stab of a hayfork! 
 
 Shawn Early: You don't know, I suppose, 
 that the body was found in the Five Acre Meadow? 
 
 Bartley: The Five Acre Meadow! 
 
 Tim Casey: It is likely you don't know that the 
 police are after the man that did it? 
 
 Bartley: The man that did it! 
 
 Mrs. Tully: You don't know, maybe, that he 
 was made away with for the sake of Kitty Keary, 
 his wife? 
 
 Bartley: Kitty Keary, his wife! 
 (Sits down bewildered.} 
 
 Mrs. Tully: And what have you to say now, 
 Bartley Fallen? 
 
 Bartley: (Crossing himself.} I to bring that fork 
 here, and to find that news before me! It is 
 much if I can ever stir from this place at all, or 
 reach as far as the road ! 
 
 Tim Casey: Look, boys, at the new magistrate, 
 and Jo Muldoon along with him! It's best for 
 us to quit this. 
 
 Shawn Early: That is so. It is best not to be 
 mixed in this business at all. 
 
 James Ryan: Bad as he is, I wouldn't like to 
 be an informer against any man. 
 
 (All hurry away except Mrs. Tarpey, who 
 remains behind her stall. Enter magis- 
 trate and policeman.} 
 
 Magistrate: I knew the district was in a bad
 
 2O Spreading the News 
 
 state, but I did not expect to be confronted with 
 a murder at the first fair I came to. 
 
 Policeman: I am sure you did not, indeed. 
 
 Magistrate: It was well I had not gone home. 
 I caught a few words here and there that roused 
 my suspicions. 
 
 Policeman: So they would, too. 
 
 Magistrate: You heard the same story from 
 everyone you asked? 
 
 Policeman: The same story or if it was not 
 altogether the same, anyway it was no less than 
 the first story. 
 
 Magistrate: What is that man doing? He is 
 sitting alone with a hayfork. He has a guilty 
 look. The murder was done with a hayfork! 
 
 Policeman: (In a whisper.) That's the very 
 man they say did the act; Bartley Fallon himself! 
 
 Magistrate: He must have found escape diffi- 
 cult he is trying to brazen it out. A convict 
 in the Andaman Islands tried the same game, but 
 he could not escape my system! Stand aside 
 Don't go far have the handcuffs ready. (He 
 walks up to Bartley, folds his arms, and stands before 
 him.} Here, my man, do you know anything of 
 John Smith? 
 
 Bartley: Of John Smith! Who is he, now? 
 
 Policeman: Jack Smith, sir Red Jack Smith ! 
 
 Magistrate: (Coming a step nearer and tapping 
 him on the shoulder.} Where is Jack Smith?
 
 Spreading the News 21 
 
 Bariley: (With a deep sigh, and shaking his head 
 slowly.') Where is he, indeed? 
 
 Magistrate: What have you to tell? 
 
 Bartley: It is where he was this morning, 
 standing in this spot, singing his share of songs 
 no, but lighting his pipe scraping a match on the 
 sole of his shoe 
 
 Magistrate: I ask you, for the third time, where 
 is he? 
 
 Bartley: I wouldn't like to say that. It is a 
 great mystery, and it is hard to say of any man, 
 did he earn hatred or love. 
 
 Magistrate: Tell me all you know. 
 
 Bartley: All that I know Well, there are 
 the three estates; there is Limbo, and there is 
 Purgatory, and there is 
 
 Magistrate: Nonsense! This is trifling! Get 
 to the point. 
 
 Bartley: Maybe you don't hold with the 
 clergy so? That is the teaching of the clergy. 
 Maybe you hold with the old people. It is what 
 they do be saying, that the shadow goes wandering, 
 and the soul is tired, and the body is taking a rest 
 The shadow! (Starts up.) I was nearly sure I 
 saw Jack Smith not ten minutes ago at the corner 
 of the forge, and I lost him again Was it 
 his ghost I saw, do you think? 
 
 Magistrate: (To policeman.) Conscience-struck! 
 He will confess all now !
 
 22 Spreading the News 
 
 Bartley: His ghost to come before me! It is 
 likely it was on account of the fork! I to have 
 it and he to have no way to defend himself the 
 time he met with his death! 
 
 Magistrate: (To policeman.} I must note down 
 his words. (Takes out notebook.) (To Bartley:) 
 I warn you that your words are being noted. 
 
 Bartley: If I had ha' run faster in the beginning, 
 this terror would not be on me at the latter end! 
 Maybe he will cast it up against me at the day of 
 judgment I wouldn't wonder at all at that. 
 
 Magistrate: (Writing.) At the day of judg- 
 ment 
 
 Bartley: It was soon for his ghost to appear to 
 me is it coming after me always by day it 
 will be, and stripping the clothes off in the night 
 time? I wouldn't wonder at all at that, being 
 as I am an unfortunate man ! 
 
 Magistrate: (Sternly.) Tell me this truly. What 
 was the motive of this crime? 
 
 Bartley: The motive, is it? 
 
 Magistrate: Yes; the motive; the cause. 
 
 Bartley: I'd sooner not say that. 
 
 Magistrate: You had better tell me truly. 
 Was it money? 
 
 Bartley: Not at all! What did poor Jack 
 Smith ever have in his pockets unless it might 
 be his hands that would be in them? 
 
 Magistrate: Any dispute about land?
 
 Spreading the News 23 
 
 Bartley: (Indignantly.} Not at all! He never 
 was a grabber or grabbed from any one! 
 
 Magistrate: You will find it better for you if 
 you tell me at once. 
 
 Bartley: I tell you I wouldn't for the whole 
 world wish to say what it was it is a thing I 
 would not like to be talking about. 
 
 Magistrate: There is no use in hiding it. It 
 will be discovered in the end. 
 
 Bartley: Well, I suppose it will, seeing that 
 mostly everybody knows it before. Whisper here 
 now. I will tell no lie; where would be the use? 
 (Puts his hand to his mouth, and Magistrate stoops.) 
 Don't be putting the blame on the parish, for such 
 a thing was never done in the parish before it was 
 done for the sake of Kitty Keary, Jack Smith's wife. 
 
 Magistrate: (To policeman.) Put on the hand- 
 cuffs. We have been saved some trouble. I knew 
 he would confess if taken in the right way. 
 (Policeman puts on handcuffs. 
 
 Bartley: Handcuffs now ! Glory be ! I always 
 
 said, if there was ever any misfortune coming to 
 
 this place it was on myself it would fall. I to 
 
 be in handcuffs! There's no wonder at all in that. 
 
 (Enter Mrs. Fallon, followed by the rest. 
 
 She is looking back at them as she speaks.) 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Telling lies the whole of the people 
 of this town are; telling lies, telling lies as fast as 
 a dog will trot ! Speaking against my poor respect-
 
 24 Spreading the News 
 
 able man! Saying he made an end of Jack Smith i 
 My decent comrade! There is no better man and 
 no kinder man in the whole of the five parishes ! 
 It's little annoyance he ever gave to any one! 
 (Turns and sees him.) What in the earthly world 
 do I see before me? Hartley Fallon in charge of 
 the police! Handcuffs on him! O Bartley, what 
 did you do at all at all? 
 
 Bartley: O Mary, there has a great misfortune 
 come upon me! It is what I always said, that 
 if there is ever any misfortune 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: What did he do at all, or is it 
 bewitched I am? 
 
 Magistrate: This man has been arrested on a 
 charge of murder. 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Whose charge is that? Don't 
 believe them! They are all liars in this place! 
 Give me back my man ! 
 
 Magistrate. It is natural you should take his 
 part, but you have no cause of complaint against 
 your neighbours. He has been arrested for the 
 murder of John Smith, on his own confession. 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: The saints of heaven protect us! 
 And what did he want killing Jack Smith? 
 
 Magistrate: It is best you should know all. He 
 did it on account of a love affair with the murdered 
 man's wife. 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: (Sitting down.) With Jack Smith's 
 wife ! With Kitty Keary ! Ochone, the traitor !
 
 Spreading the News 25 
 
 The Crowd: A great shame, indeed. He is a 
 traitor, indeed. 
 
 Mrs. Tully: To America he was bringing her, 
 Mrs. Fallon. 
 
 Bartley: What are you saying, Mary? I tell 
 you 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Don't say a word! I won't listen 
 to any word you'll say ! (Stops her ears.} O, isn't 
 he the treacherous villain? Ohone go deo! 
 
 Bartley: Be quiet till I speak! Listen to 
 what I say! 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Sitting beside me on the ass car 
 coming to the town, so quiet and so respectable, 
 and treachery like that in his heart! 
 
 Bartley: Is it your wits you have lost or is it 
 I myself that have lost my wits? 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: And it's hard I earned you, slav- 
 ing, slaving and you grumbling, and sighing, 
 and coughing, and discontented, and the priest 
 wore out anointing you, with all the times you 
 threatened to die! 
 
 Bartley: Let you be quiet till I tell you! 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: You to bring such a disgrace into 
 the parish. A thing that was never heard of 
 before ! 
 
 Bartley: Will you shut your mouth and hear 
 me speaking? 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: And if it was for any sort of a 
 fine handsome woman, but for a little fistful of a
 
 26 Spreading the News 
 
 woman like Kitty Keary, that's not four feet high 
 hardly, and not three teeth in her head unless she 
 got new ones! May God reward you, Bartley 
 Fallon, for the black treachery in your heart and 
 the wickedness in your mind, and the red blood of 
 poor Jack Smith that is wet upon your hand ! 
 (Voice of Jack Smith heard singing.} 
 
 The sea shall be dry, 
 
 The earth under mourning and ban! 
 Then loud shall he cry 
 
 For the wife of the red-haired man! 
 
 Bartley: It's Jack Smith's voice I never 
 knew a ghost to sing before . It is after myself 
 and the fork he is coming! (Goes back. Enter 
 Jack Smith.) Let one of you give him the fork 
 and I will be clear of him now and for eternity! 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey: The Lord have mercy on us! 
 Red Jack Smith ! The man that was going to be 
 waked ! 
 
 James Ryan: Is it back from the grave you are 
 come? 
 
 Shawn Early: Is it alive you are, or is it dead 
 you are? 
 
 Tim Casey: Is it yourself at all that's in it? 
 
 Mrs. Tully. Is it letting on you were to be 
 dead? 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: Dead or alive, let you stop Kitty
 
 Spreading the News 27 
 
 Keary, your wife, from bringing my man away 
 with her to America! 
 
 Jack Smith: It is what I think, the wits are 
 gone astray on the whole of you. What would my 
 wife want bringing Bartley Fallen to America? 
 
 Mrs. Fallon: To leave yourself, and to get quit 
 of you she wants, Jack Smith, and to bring him 
 away from myself. That's what the two of them 
 had settled together. 
 
 Jack Smith: I'll break the head of any man 
 that says that! Who is it says it? (To Tim 
 Casey:) Was it you said it? (To Shawn Early:) 
 Was it you? 
 
 All together: (Backing and shaking their heads.) 
 It wasn't I said it! 
 
 Jack Smith: Tell me the name of any man that 
 said it! 
 
 All together: (Pointing to Bartley.) It was him 
 that said it ! 
 
 Jack Smith: Let me at him till I break his 
 head! 
 
 (Bartley backs in terror. Neighbours hold 
 Jack Smith back.) 
 
 Jack Smith: (Trying to free himself.) Let me at 
 him! Isn't he the pleasant sort of a scarecrow 
 for any woman to be crossing the ocean with! 
 It's back from the docks of New York he'd be 
 turned (trying to rush at him again), with a lie in 
 his mouth and treachery in his heart, and another
 
 28 Spreading the News 
 
 man's wife by his side, and he passing her off as 
 his own! Let me at him can't you. 
 
 (Makes another rush, but is held back.} 
 
 Magistrate: (Pointing to Jack Smith} Policeman, 
 put the handcuffs on this man. I see it all now. 
 A case of false impersonation, a conspiracy to 
 defeat the ends of justice. There was a case in 
 the Andaman Islands, a murderer of the Mopsa 
 tribe, a religious enthusiast 
 
 Policeman: So he might be, too. 
 
 Magistrate: We must take both these men to 
 the scene of the murder. We must confront them 
 with the body of the real Jack Smith. 
 
 Jack Smith: I'll break the head of any man 
 that will find my dead body! 
 
 Magistrate: I'll call more help from the bar- 
 racks. (Blows Policeman 1 s whistle.} 
 
 Bartley: It is what I am thinking, if myself 
 and Jack Smith are put together in the one cell 
 for the night, the handcuffs will be taken off him, 
 and his hands will be free, and murder will be done 
 that time surely ! 
 
 Magistrate: Come on ! (They turn to the right.)
 
 HYACINTH HALVEY
 
 PERSONS 
 Hyacinth Hahey. 
 James Quirke, a butcher. 
 Fardy Farrell, a telegraph boy. 
 Sergeant Garden. 
 
 Mrs. Delane, Postmistress at Cloon. 
 Miss Joyce, the Priest's House-keeper.
 
 HYACINTH HALVEY 
 
 Scene: Outside the Post Office at the little town of 
 Cloon. Mrs. Delane at Post Office door. Mr. 
 Quirke sitting on a chair at butcher's door. A 
 dead sheep hanging beside it, and a thrush in a 
 cage above. Fardy Farrell playing on a mouth 
 organ. Train whistle heard. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: There is the four o'clock train, 
 Mr. Quirke. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Is it now, Mrs. Delane, and I 
 not long after rising? It makes a man drowsy 
 to be doing the half of his work in the night time. 
 Going about the country, looking for little stags of 
 sheep, striving to knock a few shillings together. 
 That contract for the soldiers gives me a great deal 
 to attend to. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I suppose so. It's hard enough 
 on myself to be down ready for the mail car in the 
 morning, sorting letters in the half dark. It's 
 often I haven't time to look who are the letters 
 from or the cards. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: It would be a pity you not to 
 know any little news might be knocking about. 
 If you did not have information of what is going 
 
 31
 
 32 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 on who should have it? Was it you, ma'am, was 
 telling me that the new Sub-Sanitary Inspector 
 would be arriving to-day? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: To-day it is he is coming, and 
 it's likely he was in that train. There was a card 
 about him to Sergeant Garden this morning. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: A young chap from Carrow they 
 were saying he was. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: So he is, one Hyacinth Halvey; 
 and indeed if all that is said of him is true, or if a 
 quarter of it is true, he will be a credit to this town. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Is that so? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Testimonials he has by the score. 
 To Father Gregan they were sent. Registered 
 they were coming and going. Would you believe 
 me telling you that they weighed up to three 
 pounds? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: There must be great bulk in 
 them indeed. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is no wonder he to get the 
 job. He must have a great character so many 
 persons to write for him as what there did. 
 
 Fardy: It would be a great thing to have a 
 character like that. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Indeed I am thinking it will be 
 long before you will get the like of it, Fardy Farrell. 
 
 Fardy: If I had the like of that of a character 
 it is not here carrying messages I would be. It's 
 in Noonan's Hotel I would be, driving cars.
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 33 
 
 Mr, Quirke: Here is the priest's housekeeper 
 coming. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: So she is; and there is the Ser- 
 geant a little while after her. 
 (Enter Miss Joyce.} 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Good-evening to you, Miss 
 Joyce. What way is his Reverence to-day? Did 
 he get any ease from the cough? 
 
 Miss Joyce: He did not indeed, Mrs. Delane. 
 He has it sticking to him yet. Smothering he 
 is in the night time. The most thing he comes 
 short in is the voice. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I am sorry, now, to hear that. 
 He should mind himself well. 
 
 Miss Joyce: It's easy to say let him mind 
 himself. What do you say to him going to the 
 meeting to-night? (Sergeant comes in.} It's for 
 his Reverence's Freeman I am come, Mrs. Delane. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Here it is ready. I was just 
 throwing an eye on it to see was there any news. 
 Good-evening, Sergeant. 
 
 Sergeant: (Holding up a placard.) I brought this 
 notice, Mrs. Delane, the announcement of the 
 meeting to be held to-night in the Courthouse. 
 You might put it up here convenient to the window. 
 I hope you are coming to it yourself? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I will come, and welcome. I 
 would do more than that for you, Sergeant. 
 
 Sergeant: And you, Mr. Quirke. 
 - a
 
 34 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I'll come, to be sure. I forget 
 what's this the meeting is about. 
 
 Sergeant: The Department of Agriculture is 
 sending round a lecturer in furtherance of the 
 moral development of the rural classes. (Reads.) 
 "A lecture will be given this evening in Cloon 
 Courthouse, illustrated by magic lantern slides 
 Those will not be in it; I am informed they were 
 all broken in the first journey, the railway company 
 taking them to be eggs. The subject of the lecture 
 is "The Building of Character." 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Very nice, indeed. I knew a 
 girl lost her character, and she washed her feet 
 in a blessed well after, and it dried up on the 
 minute. 
 
 Sergeant: The arrangements have all been 
 left to me, the Archdeacon being away. He 
 knows I have a good intellect for things of the 
 sort. But the loss of those slides puts a man out. 
 The thing people will not see it is not likely it 
 is the thing they will believe. I saw what they 
 call tableaux standing pictures, you know one 
 time in Dundrum 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Miss Joyce was saying Father 
 Gregan is supporting you. 
 
 Sergeant: I am accepting his assistance. No 
 bigotry about me when there is a question of 
 the welfare of any fellow-creatures. Orange and 
 green will stand together to-night. I myself
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 35 
 
 and the station-master on the one side; your 
 parish priest in the chair. 
 
 Miss Joyce: If his Reverence would mind me 
 he would not quit the house to-night. He is 
 no more fit to go speak at a meeting than (pointing 
 to the one hanging outside Quirke's door) that sheep. 
 
 Sergeant: I am willing to take the responsi- 
 bility. He will have no speaking to do at all, 
 unless it might be to bid them give the lecturer 
 a hearing. The loss of those slides now is a great 
 annoyance to me and no time for anything. 
 The lecturer will be coming by the next train. 
 
 Miss Joyce: Who is this coming up the street, 
 Mrs. Delane? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I wouldn't doubt it to be the 
 new Sub-Sanitary Inspector. Was I telling you 
 of the weight of the testimonials he got, Miss 
 Joyce? 
 
 Miss Joyce: Sure I heard the curate reading 
 them to his Reverence. He must be a wonder 
 for principles. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Indeed it is what I was saying to 
 myself, he must be a very saintly young man. 
 
 (Enter Hyacinth Halvey. He carries a small 
 bag and a large brown paper parcel. He 
 stops and nods bashfully.} 
 
 Hyacinth: Good-evening to you. I was bid 
 to come to the post office 
 
 Sergeant: I suppose you are Hyacinth Halvey?
 
 36 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 I had a letter about you from the Resident Magis- 
 trate. 
 
 Hyacinth: I heard he was writing. It was my 
 mother got a friend he deals with to ask him. 
 
 Sergeant: He gives you a very high character. 
 
 Hyacinth: It is very kind of him indeed, and 
 he not knowing me at all. But indeed all the 
 neighbours were very friendly. Anything any 
 one could do to help me they did it. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I'll engage it is the testimonals 
 you have in your parcel? I know the wrapping 
 paper, but they grew in bulk since I handled 
 them. 
 
 Hyacinth: Indeed I was getting them to the 
 last. There was not one refused me. It is what 
 my mother was saying, a good character is no 
 burden. 
 
 Fardy: I would believe that indeed. 
 
 Sergeant: Let us have a look at the testimonials. 
 (Hyacinth Halvey opens parcel, and a large number 
 of envelopes fall out.) 
 
 Sergeant: (Opening and reading one by one). 
 "He possesses the fire of the Gael, the strength 
 of the Norman, the vigour of the Dane, the stolid- 
 ity of the Saxon" 
 
 Hyacinth: It was the Chairman of the Poor 
 Law Guardians wrote that. 
 
 Sergeant: "A magnificent example to old and 
 young"
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 37 
 
 Hyacinth: That was the Secretary of the De 
 Wet Hurling Club 
 
 Sergeant: "A shining example of the value 
 conferred by an eminently careful and high class 
 education" 
 
 Hyacinth: That was the National School- 
 master. 
 
 Sergeant: "Devoted to the highest ideals of 
 his Mother-land to such an extent as is com- 
 patible with a hitherto non-parliamentary ca- 
 reer" 
 
 Hyacinth: That was the Member for Carrow. 
 
 Sergeant: "A splendid exponent of the purity 
 of the race" 
 
 Hyacinth: The Editor of the Carrow Champion. 
 
 Sergeant: ' ' Admirably adapted for the efficient 
 discharge of all possible duties that may in future 
 be laid upon him"- 
 
 Hyacinth: The new Station-master. 
 
 Sergeant: "A champion of every cause that 
 
 can legitimately benefit his fellow-creatures" 
 
 Why, look here, my man, you are the very one 
 to come to our assistance to-night. 
 
 Hyacinth: I would be glad to do that. What 
 way can I do it ? 
 
 Sergeant: You are a newcomer your example 
 would carry weight you must stand up as a liv- 
 ing proof of the beneficial effect of a high char- 
 acter, moral fibre, temperance there is something
 
 38 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 about it here I am sure (Looks.) I am sure I 
 saw "unparalleled temperance" in some place 
 
 Hyacinth: It was my mother's cousin wrote 
 that I am no drinker, but I haven't the pledge 
 taken 
 
 Sergeant: You might take it for the purpose. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Eagerly.) Here is an anti-treating 
 button. I was made a present of it by one of my 
 customers I'll give it to you (sticks it in Hya- 
 cinth's coat) and welcome. 
 
 Sergeant: That is it. You can wear the button 
 on the platform or a bit of blue ribbon hundreds 
 will follow your example I know the boys from the 
 Workhouse will 
 
 Hyacinth: I am in no way wishful to be an 
 example 
 
 Sergeant: I will read extracts from the testi- 
 monials. "There he is," I will say, "an example 
 of one in early life who by his own unaided efforts 
 and his high character has obtained a profitable 
 situation" (Slaps his side.) I know what I'll 
 do. I'll engage a few corner-boys from Noonan's 
 bar, just as they are, greasy and sodden, to stand 
 in a group there will be the contrast The 
 sight will deter others from a similar fate 
 That's the way to do a tableau I knew I could 
 turn out a success. 
 
 Hyacinth: I wouldn't like to be a contrast 
 
 Sergeant: (Puts testimonials in his pocket.} I
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 39 
 
 will go now and engage those lads sixpence 
 each, and well worth it Nothing like an ex- 
 ample for the rural classes. 
 
 (Goes off, Hyacinth feebly trying to detain 
 him.} 
 
 Mrs. Delane: A very nice man indeed. A little 
 high up in himself, may be. I'm not one that 
 blames the police. Sure they have their own 
 bread to earn like every other one. And indeed it 
 is often they will let a thing pass. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Gloomily.} Sometimes they will, 
 and more times they will not. 
 
 Miss Joyce: And where will you be finding a 
 lodging, Mr. Halvey? 
 
 Hyacinth: I was going to ask that myself, 
 ma'am. I don't know the town. 
 
 Miss Joyce: I know of a good lodging, but it 
 is only a very good man would be taken into it. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Sure there could be no objec- 
 tion there to Mr. Halvey. There is no appear- 
 ance on him but what is good, and the Sergeant 
 after taking him up the way he is doing. 
 
 Miss Joyce: You will be near to the Sergeant 
 in the lodging I speak of. The house is convenient 
 to the barracks. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Doubtfully.} To the barracks? 
 
 Miss Joyce: Alongside of it and the barrack 
 yard behind. And that's not all. It is opposite 
 to the priest's house.
 
 40 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Hyacinth: Opposite, is it ? 
 
 Miss Joyce: A very respectable place, indeed, 
 and a very clean room you will get. I know it 
 well. The curate can see into it from his window. 
 
 Hyacinth: Can he now? 
 
 Fardy: There was a good many, I am thinking, 
 went into that lodging and left it after. 
 
 Miss Joyce: (SJiarply ) It is a lodging you will 
 never be let into or let stop in, Fardy. If they 
 did go they were a good riddance. 
 
 Fardy: John Hart, the plumber, left it 
 
 Miss Joyce: If he did it was because he dared 
 not pass the police coming in, as he used, with a 
 rabbit he was after snaring in his hand. 
 
 Fardy: The schoolmaster himself left it. 
 
 Miss Joyce: He needn't have left it if he hadn't 
 taken to card-playing. What way could you say 
 your prayers, and shadows shuffling and dealing 
 before you on the blind? 
 
 Hyacinth: I think maybe I'd best look around 
 a bit before I'll settle in a lodging 
 
 Miss Joyce: Not at all. You won't be want- 
 ing to pull down the blind. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is not likely you will be snaring 
 rabbits. 
 
 Miss Joyce: Or bringing in a bottle and taking 
 an odd glass the way James Kelly did. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Or writing threatening notices, 
 and the police taking a view of you from the rear.
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 41 
 
 Miss Joyce: Or going to roadside dances, or 
 running after good-for-nothing young girls 
 
 Hyacinth: I give you my word I'm not so 
 harmless as you think. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Would you be putting a lie on 
 these, Mr. Halvey? (Touching testimonials.} I 
 know well the way you will be spending the even- 
 ings, writing letters to your relations 
 
 Miss Joyce: Learning O'Growney's exercises 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Sticking post cards in an album 
 for the convent bazaar. 
 
 Miss Joyce: Reading the Catholic Young 
 Man 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Playing the melodies on a 
 melodeon 
 
 Miss Joyce: Looking at the pictures in the 
 Lives of the Saints. I'll hurry on and engage 
 the room for you. 
 
 Hyacinth: Wait. Wait a minute 
 
 Miss Joyce: No trouble at all. I told you it 
 was just opposite. (Goes.) 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I suppose I must go upstairs 
 and ready myself for the meeting. If it wasn't 
 for the contract I have for the soldiers' barracks 
 and the Sergeant's good word, I wouldn't go 
 anear it. (Goes into shop.) 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I should be making myself ready 
 too. I must be in good time to see you being 
 made an example of, Mr. Halvey. It is I myself
 
 42 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 was the first to say it; you will be a credit to the 
 town. (Goes.) 
 
 Hyacinth: (In a tone of agony.) I wish I had 
 never seen Cloon. 
 
 Fardy: What is on you? 
 
 Hyacinth: I wish I had never left Carrow. 
 I wish I had been drowned the first day I thought 
 of it, and I'd be better off. 
 
 Fardy: What is it ails you? 
 
 Hyacinth: I wouldn't for the best pound ever 
 I. had be in this place to-day. 
 
 Fardy: I don't know what you are talking about. 
 
 Hyacinth: To have left Carrow, if it was a 
 poor place, where I had my comrades, and an 
 odd spree, and a game of cards and a coursing 
 match coming on, and I promised a new grey- 
 hound from the city of Cork. I'll die in this place, 
 the way I am. I'll be too much closed in. 
 
 Fardy: Sure it mightn't be as bad as what you 
 think. 
 
 Hyacinth: Will you tell me, I ask you, what 
 way can I undo it? 
 
 Fardy: What is it you are wanting to undo? 
 
 Hyacinth: Will you tell me what way can I 
 get rid of my character? 
 
 Fardy: To get rid of it, is it? 
 
 Hyacinth: That is what I said. Aren't you 
 after hearing the great character they are after 
 putting on me?
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 43 
 
 Fardy: That is a good thing to have. 
 
 Hyacinth: It is not. It's the worst in the 
 world. If I hadn't it, I wouldn't be like a prize 
 mangold at a show with every person praising 
 me. 
 
 Fardy: If I had it, I wouldn't be like a head 
 in a barrel, with every person making hits at me. 
 
 Hyacinth: If I hadn't it, I wouldn't be shoved 
 into a room with all the clergy watching me and 
 the police in the back yard. 
 
 Fardy: If I had it, I wouldn't be but a message- 
 carrier now, and a clapper scaring birds in the 
 summer time. 
 
 Hyacinth: If I hadn't it, I wouldn't be wearing 
 this button and brought up for an example at 
 the meeting. 
 
 Fardy: (Whistles.} Maybe you're not, so, what 
 those papers make you out to be? 
 
 Hyacinth: How would I be what they make 
 me out to be? Was there ever any person of that 
 sort since the world was a world, unless it might 
 be Saint Antony of Padua looking down from the 
 chapel wall? If it is like that I was, isn't it in 
 Mount Melleray I would be, or with the Friars 
 at Esker? Why would I be living in the world at 
 all, or doing the world's work? 
 
 Fardy: (Taking up parcel.} Who would think, 
 now, there would be so much lies in a small place 
 like Carrow?
 
 44 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Hyacinth: It was my mother's cousin did it. 
 He said I was not reared for labouring he gave 
 me a new suit and bid me never to come back 
 again. I daren't go back to face him the neigh- 
 bours knew my mother had a long family bad 
 luck to them the day they gave me these. (Tears 
 letters and scatters them.} I'm done with testimo- 
 nials. They won't be here to bear witness against 
 me. 
 
 Fardy: The Sergeant thought them to be 
 great. Sure he has the samples of them in his 
 pocket. There's not one in the town but will 
 know before morning that you are the next thing 
 to an earthly saint. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Stamping.} I'll stop their mouths. 
 I'll show them I can be a terror for badness. I'll 
 do some injury. I'll commit some crime. The 
 first thing I'll do I'll go and get drunk. If I never 
 did it before I'll do it now. I'll get drunk then 
 I'll make an assault I tell you I'd think as little 
 of taking a life as of blowing out a candle. 
 
 Fardy: If you get drunk you are done for. 
 Sure that will be held up after as an excuse for 
 any breaking of the law. 
 
 Hyacinth: I will break the law. Drunk or 
 sober I'll break it. I'll do something that will 
 have no excuse. What would you say is the worst 
 crime that any man can do ? 
 
 Fardy: I don't know. I heard the Sergeant
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 45 
 
 saying one time it was to obstruct the police in 
 the discharge of their duty 
 
 Hyacinth: That won't do. It's a patriot I 
 would be then, worse than before, with my picture 
 in the weeklies. It's a red crime I must commit 
 that will make all respectable people quit minding 
 me. What can I do? Search your mind now. 
 
 Fardy: It's what I heard the old people saying 
 there could be no worse crime than to steal a 
 sheep 
 
 Hyacinth: I'll steal a sheep or a cow or a 
 horse if that will leave me the way I was before. 
 
 Fardy: It's maybe in gaol it will leave you. 
 
 Hyacinth: I don't care I'll confess I'll tell why 
 I did it I give you my word I would as soon be 
 picking oakum or breaking stones as to be perched 
 in the daylight the same as that bird, and all the 
 town chirruping to me or bidding me chirrup 
 
 Fardy: There is reason in that, now. 
 
 Hyacinth: Help me, will you? 
 
 Fardy: Well, if it is to steal a sheep you want, 
 you haven't far to go. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Looking round wildly.} Where is it ? 
 I see no sheep. 
 
 Fardy: Look around you. 
 
 Hyacinth: I see no living thing but that 
 thrush 
 
 Fardy: Did I say it was living? What is that 
 hanging on Quirke's rack?
 
 46 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Hyacinth: It's (fingers if) a sheep, sure 
 enough 
 
 Fardy: Well, what ails you that you can't 
 bring it away? 
 
 Hyacinth: It's a dead one 
 
 Fardy: What matter if it is? 
 
 Hyacinth: If it was living I could drive it 
 before me 
 
 Fardy: You could. Is it to your own lodging 
 you would drive it? Sure everyone would take 
 it to be a pet you brought from Carrow. 
 
 Hyacinth: I suppose they might. 
 
 Fardy: Miss Joyce sending in for news of it 
 and it bleating behind the bed. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Distracted). Stop! stop! 
 
 Mrs. Delane: (From upper window.} Fardy! 
 Are you there, Fardy Farrell? 
 
 Fardy: I am, ma'am. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: (From window.} Look and tell me 
 is that the telegraph I hear ticking ? 
 
 Fardy: (Looking in at door.} It is, ma'am. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Then botheration to it, and I 
 not dressed or undressed. Wouldn't you say, 
 now, it's to annoy me it is calling me down. I'm 
 coming! I'm coming! (Disappears.} 
 
 Fardy: Hurry on, now! hurry! She'll be 
 coming out on you. If you are going to do it, 
 do it, and if you are not, let it alone. 
 
 Hyacinth:~I']l do it! I'll do it!
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 47 
 
 Fardy: (Lifting the sheep on his back.) I'll give 
 you a hand with it. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Goes a step or two and turns round.) 
 You told me no place where I could hide it. 
 
 Fardy: You needn't go far. There is the 
 church beyond at the side of the Square. Go 
 round to the ditch behind the wall there's 
 nettles in it. 
 
 Hyacinth: That'll do. 
 
 Fardy: She's coming out run! run! 
 
 Hyacinth: (Runs a step or two.) It's slipping! 
 
 Fardy: Hoist it up! I'll give it a hoist! (Hal- 
 vey runs out.) 
 
 Mrs. Delane: (Calling out.) What are you doing 
 Fardy Farrell ? Is it idling you are ? 
 
 Fardy: Waiting I am, ma'am, for the mes- 
 sage 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Never mind the message yet. 
 Who said it was ready ? (Going to door.) Go ask 
 for the loan of no, but ask news of Here, now 
 go bring that bag of Mr. Halvey's to the lodging 
 Miss Joyce has taken 
 
 Fardy: I will, ma'am. (Takes bag and goes out.) 
 
 Mrs. Delane: (Coming out with a telegram in her 
 hand.) Nobody here? (Looks round and calls 
 cautiously.) Mr. Quirke! Mr. Quirke! James 
 Quirke! 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Looking out of his upper window 
 with soap-suddy face). What is it, Mrs. Delane?
 
 48 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Mrs. Delane: (Beckoning.) Come down here 
 till I tell you. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I cannot do that. I'm not fully 
 shaved. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: You'd come if you knew the 
 news I have: 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Tell it to me now. I'm not so 
 supple as I was. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Whisper now, have you an 
 enemy in any place? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: It's likely I may have. A man 
 in business 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I was thinking you had one. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Why would you think that at this 
 time more than any other time? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: If you could know what is in 
 this envelope you would know that, James Quirke. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Is that so? And what, now, is 
 there in it? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Who do you think now is it 
 addressed to? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: How would I know that, and I 
 not seeing it? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: That is true. Well, it is a mes- 
 sage from Dublin Castle to the Sergeant of Police! 
 
 Mr. Quirke: To Sergeant Garden, is it? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is. And it concerns yourself. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Myself, is it? What accusation can 
 they be bringing against me ? I'm a peaceable man.
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 49 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Wait till you hear. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Maybe they think I was in that 
 moonlighting case 
 
 Mrs. Delane: That is not it 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I was not in it I was but in the 
 neighbouring field cutting up a dead cow, that 
 those never had a hand in 
 
 Mrs. Delane: You're out of it 
 
 Mr. Quirke: They had their faces blackened. 
 There is no man can say I recognized them. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: That's not what they're say- 
 ing 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I'll swear I did not hear their 
 voices or know them if I did hear them. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I tell you it has nothing to do 
 with that. It might be better for you if it had. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: What is it, so? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is an order to the Sergeant 
 bidding him immediately to seize all suspicious 
 meat in your house. There is an officer coming 
 down. There are complaints from the Shannon 
 Fort Barracks. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I'll engage it was that pork. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: What ailed it for them to find 
 fault? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: People are so hard to please 
 nowadays, and I recommended them to salt it. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: They had a right to have minded 
 your advice.
 
 50 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Mr. Quirke: There was nothing on that pig 
 at all but that it went mad on poor O'Grady 
 that owned it. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: So I heard, and went killing all 
 before it. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Sure it's only in the brain madness 
 can be. I heard the doctor saying that. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: He should know. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I give you my word I cut the 
 head off it. I went to the loss of it, throwing 
 it to the eels in the river. If they had salted the 
 meat, as I advised them, what harm would it 
 have done to any person on earth? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I hope no harm will come on 
 poor Mrs. Quirke and the family. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Maybe it wasn't that but some 
 other thing 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Here is Fardy. I must send the 
 message to the Sergeant. Well, Mr. Quirke, 
 I'm glad I had the time to give you a warning. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I'm obliged to you, indeed. You 
 were always very neighbourly, Mrs. Delane. Don't 
 be too quick now sending the message. There is 
 just one article I would like to put away out of the 
 house before the Sergeant will come. (Enter Fardy.) 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Here now, Fardy that's not 
 the way you're going to the barracks. Anyone 
 would think you were scaring birds yet. Put on 
 your uniform. (Fardy goes into office.} You
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 51 
 
 have this message to bring to the Sergeant of 
 Police. Get your cap now, it's under the counter. 
 (Fardy reappears, and she gives him tele- 
 gram.} 
 
 Fardy: I'll bring it to the station. It's there 
 he was going. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: You will not, but to the barracks. 
 It can wait for him there. 
 
 (Fardy goes off. Mr. Quirke has appeared 
 at door.) 
 
 Mr. Quirke: It was indeed a very neighbourly 
 act, Mrs. Delane, and I'm obliged to you. There 
 is just one article to put out of the way. The 
 Sergeant may look about him then and welcome. 
 It's well I cleared the premises on yesterday. A 
 consignment to Birmingham I sent. The Lord 
 be praised isn't England a terrible country with all 
 it consumes? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Indeed you always treat the 
 neighbours very decent, Mr. Quirke, not asking 
 them to buy from you. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Just one article. (Turns to rack.) 
 That sheep I brought in last night. It was for 
 a charity indeed I bought it from the widow 
 woman at Kiltartan Cross. Where would the 
 poor make a profit out of their dead meat without 
 me? Where now is it? Well, now, I could have 
 swore that that sheep was hanging there on the 
 Tack when I went in
 
 52 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Mrs. Delane: You must have put it in some 
 other place. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Going in and searching and coming 
 out.} I did not; there is no other place for me to 
 put it. Is it gone blind I am, or is it not in it, 
 it is? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It's not there now anyway. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Didn't you take notice of it 
 there yourself this morning? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I have it in my mind that I did; 
 but it's not there now. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: There was no one here could 
 bring it away? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Is it me myself you suspect of 
 taking it, James Quirke? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Where is it at all? It is certain 
 it was not of itself it walked away. It was dead, 
 and very dead, the time I bought it. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I have a pleasant neighbour 
 indeed that accuses me that I took his sheep. 
 I wonder, indeed, you to say a thing like that! 
 I to steal your sheep or your rack or anything 
 that belongs to you or to your trade! Thank 
 you, James Quirke. I am much obliged to you 
 indeed. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Ah, be quiet, woman; be quiet 
 
 Mrs. Delane: And let me tell you, James 
 Quirke, that I would sooner starve and see every- 
 one belonging to me starve than to eat the size
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 53 
 
 of a thimble of any joint that ever was on your 
 rack or that ever will be on it, whatever the soldiers 
 may eat that have no other thing to get, or the 
 English that devour all sorts, or the poor ravenous 
 people that's down by the sea! (She turns to go 
 into shop.} 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Stopping her.} Don't be talking 
 foolishness, woman. Who said you took my meat? 
 Give heed to me now. There must some other 
 message have come. The Sergeant must have got 
 some other message. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: (Sulkily.} If there is any way for a 
 message to come that is quicker than to come by 
 the wires, tell me what it is and I'll be obliged to 
 you. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: The Sergeant was up here making 
 an excuse he was sticking up that notice. What 
 was he doing here, I ask you? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: How would I know what brought 
 him? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: It is what he did; he made as if 
 to go away he turned back again and I shaving 
 he brought away the sheep he will have it for 
 evidence against me 
 
 Mrs. Delane: (Interested.} That might be so. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I would sooner it to have been 
 any other beast nearly ever I had upon the rack. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Is that so? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I bade the Widow Early to kill
 
 54 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 it a fortnight ago but she would not, she was 
 that covetous! 
 
 Mrs. Delane: What was on it? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: How would I know what was on 
 it? Whatever was on it, it was the will of God 
 put it upon it wasted it was, and shivering and 
 refusing its share. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: The poor thing. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Gone all to nothing wore away 
 like a flock of thread. It did not weigh as much 
 as a lamb of two months. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is likely the Inspector will 
 bring it to Dublin ? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: The ribs of it streaky with the 
 dint of patent medicines 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I wonder is it to the Petty 
 Sessions you'll be brought or is it to the Assizes? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I'll speak up to them. I'll make 
 my defence. What can the Army expect at 
 fippence a pound ? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is likely there will be no bail 
 allowed ? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Would they be wanting me to 
 give them good quality meat out of my own 
 pocket? Is it to encourage them to fight the 
 poor Indians and Africans they would have me? 
 It's the Anti-Enlisting Societies should pay the 
 fine for me. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It's not a fine will be put on you,
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 55 
 
 I'm afraid. It's five years in gaol you will be 
 apt to be getting. Well, I'll try and be a good 
 neighbour to poor Mrs. Quirke. 
 
 (Mr. Quirke, who has been stamping up and 
 down, sits down and weeps. Halvey 
 comes in and stands on one side.) 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Hadn't I heart-scalding enough 
 before, striving to rear five weak children? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I suppose they will be sent to 
 the Industrial Schools? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: My poor wife 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I'm afraid the workhouse 
 
 Mr. Quirke: And she out in an ass-car at this 
 minute helping me to follow my trade. 
 
 Mrs. De ane: I hope they will not arrest her 
 along with you. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I'll give myself up to justice. I'll 
 plead guilty! I'll be recommended to mercy! 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It might be best for you. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Who would think so great a 
 misfortune could come upon a family through the 
 bringing away of one sheep! 
 
 Hyacinth: (Coming forward.) Let you make 
 yourself easy. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Easy! It's easy to say let you 
 make yourself easy, 
 
 Hyacinth: I can tell you where it is. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Where what is? 
 
 Hyacinth: The sheep you are fretting after.
 
 56' Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Mr. Quirke: What do you know about it? 
 
 Hyacinth: I know everything about it. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I suppose the Sergeant told you? 
 
 Hyacinth: He told me nothing. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I suppose the whole town knows 
 it, so? 
 
 Hyacinth: No one knows it, as yet. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: And the Sergeant didn't see it? 
 
 Hyacinth: No one saw it or brought it away 
 but myself. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Where did you put it at all ? 
 
 Hyacinth: In the ditch behind the church wall. 
 In among the nettles it is. Look at the way they 
 have me stung. (Holds out hands.} 
 
 Mr. Quirke: In the ditch! The best hiding 
 place in the town. 
 
 Hyacinth: I never thought it would bring 
 such great trouble upon you. You can't say 
 anyway I did not tell you. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: You yourself that brought it 
 away and that hid it! I suppose it was coming 
 in the train you got information about the message 
 to the police. 
 
 Hyacinth: What now do you say to me? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Say ! I say I am as glad to hear 
 what you said as if it was the Lord telling me I'd 
 be in heaven this minute. 
 
 Hyacinth: What are you going to do to me? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Do, is it? (Grasps his hand.)
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 57 
 
 Any earthly thing you would wish me to do, I 
 will do it. 
 
 Hyacinth: I suppose you will tell 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Tell! It's I that will tell when 
 all is quiet. It is I will give you the good name 
 through the town! 
 
 Hyacinth: I don't well understand. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Embracing him.) The man that 
 preserved me! 
 
 Hyacinth: That preserved you? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: That kept me from ruin ! 
 
 Hyacinth: From ruin? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: That saved me from disgrace! 
 
 Hyacinth: (To Mrs. Delane.} What is he saying 
 at all? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: From the Inspector! 
 
 Hyacinth: What is he talking about? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: From the magistrates! 
 
 Hyacinth: He is making some mistake. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: From the Winter Assizes! 
 
 Hyacinth: Is he out of his wits? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Five years in gaol! 
 
 Hyacinth: Hasn't he the queer talk? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: The loss of the contract ! 
 
 Hyacinth: Are my own wits gone astray? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: What way can I repay you? 
 
 Hyacinth: (Shouting.} I tell you I took the 
 sheep 
 
 Mr. Quirke: You did, God reward you!
 
 58 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Hyacinth: I stole away with it 
 
 Mr. Quirke: The blessing of the poor on you! 
 
 Hyacinth: I put it out of sight 
 
 Mr. Quirke: The blessing of my five chil- 
 dren 
 
 Hyacinth: I may as well say nothing 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Let you be quiet now, Quirke. 
 Here's the Sergeant coming to search the shop 
 
 (Sergeant comes in: Quirke leaves go of 
 Halvey, who arranges his hat, etc.) 
 
 Sergeant: The Department to blazes! 
 
 Mrs. Delane: What is it is putting you out? 
 
 Sergeant: To go to the train to meet the lec- 
 turer, and there to get a message through the 
 guard that he was unavoidably detained in the 
 South, holding an inquest on the remains of a 
 drake. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: The lecturer, is it? 
 
 Sergeant: To be sure. What else would I be 
 talking of? The lecturer has failed me, and where 
 am I to go looking for a person that I would think 
 fitting to take his place? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: And that's all? And you didn't 
 get any message but the one? 
 
 Sergeant: Is that all? I am surprised at you, 
 Mrs. Delane. Isn't it enough to upset a man, 
 within three quarters of an hour of the time of 
 the meeting? Where, I would ask you, am I to 
 find a man that has education enough and wit
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 59 
 
 enough and character enough to put up speaking 
 on the platform on the minute? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Jumps up.} It is I myself will 
 tell you that. 
 
 Sergeant: You ! 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Slapping Halvey on the back.) 
 Look at here, Sergeant. There is not one word 
 was said in all those papers about this young man 
 before you but it is true. And there could be no 
 good thing said of him that would be too good for 
 him. 
 
 Sergeant: It might not be a bad idea. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Whatever the paper said about 
 him, Sergeant, I can say more again. It has come 
 to my knowledge by chance that since he came 
 to this town that young man has saved a whole 
 family from destruction. 
 
 Sergeant: That is much to his credit helping 
 the rural classes 
 
 Mr. Quirke: A family and a long family, big 
 and little, like sods of turf and they depending 
 on a on one that might be on his way to dark 
 trouble at this minute if it was not for his assist- 
 ance. Believe me, he is the most sensible man, and 
 the wittiest, and the kindest, and the best helper of 
 the poor that ever stood before you in this square. 
 Is not that so, Mrs. Delane? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is true indeed. Where he gets 
 his wisdom and his wit and his information from
 
 60 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 I don't know, unless it might be that he is gifted 
 from above. 
 
 Sergeant: Well, Mrs. Delane, I think we have 
 settled that question. Mr. Halvey, you will be 
 the speaker at the meeting. The lecturer sent 
 these notes you can lengthen them into a 
 speech. You can call to the people of Cloon to 
 stand out, to begin the building of their character. 
 I saw a lecturer do it one time at Dundrum. 
 "Come up here, " he said, "Dare to be a Daniel, " 
 he said 
 
 Hyacinth: I can't I won't 
 
 Sergeant: (Looking at papers and thrusting 
 them into his hand.} You will find it quite easy. 
 I will conduct you to the platform these papers 
 before you and a glass of water That's settled. 
 (Turns to go.} Follow me on to the Courthouse 
 in half an hour I must go to the barracks first 
 I heard there was a telegram (Calls back as 
 he goes.} Don't be late, Mrs. Delane. Mind, 
 Quirke, you promised to come. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Well, it's time for me to make 
 an end of settling myself and indeed, Mr. 
 Quirke, you'd best do the same. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Rubbing his cheek.} I suppose 
 so. I had best keep on good terms with him for 
 the present. (Turns.} Well, now, I had a great 
 escape this day. 
 
 (Both go in as Fardy reappears whistling.}
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 61 
 
 Hyacinth: (Sitting down.} I don't know in the 
 world what has come upon the world that the half 
 of the people of it should be cracked ! 
 
 Fardy: Weren't you found out yet? 
 
 Hyacinth: Found out, is it? I don't know 
 what you mean by being found out. 
 
 Fardy: Didn't he miss the sheep? 
 
 Hyacinth: He did, and I told him it was I 
 took it and what happened I declare to good- 
 ness I don't know Will you look at these? 
 (Holds out notes.} 
 
 Fardy: Papers! Are they more testimonials? 
 
 Hyacinth: They are what is worse. (Gives a 
 hoarse laugh.} Will you come and see me on the 
 platform these in my hand and I speaking 
 giving out advice. (Fardy whistles.} Why didn't 
 you tell me, the time you advised me to steal a 
 sheep, that in this town it would qualify a man 
 to go preaching, and the priest in the chair looking 
 on. 
 
 Fardy: The time I took a few apples that had 
 fallen off a stall, they did not ask me to hold a 
 meeting. They welted me well. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Looking round.} I would take apples 
 if I could see them. I wish I had broke my neck 
 before I left Carrow and I'd be better off! I 
 wish I had got six months the time I was caught 
 setting snares I wish I had robbed a church. 
 
 Fardy: Would a Protestant church do?
 
 62 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Hyacinth: I suppose it wouldn't be so great a 
 sin. 
 
 Fardy: It's likely the Sergeant would think 
 worse of it Anyway, if you want to rob one, it's 
 the Protestant church is the handiest. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Getting up.} Show me what way to 
 doit? 
 
 Fardy: (Pointing.) I was going around it a few 
 minutes ago, to see might there be e'er a dog 
 scenting the sheep, and I noticed the window being 
 out. 
 
 Hyacinth: Out, out and out? 
 
 Fardy: It was, where they are putting coloured 
 glass in it for the distiller 
 
 Hyacinth: What good does that do me? 
 
 Fardy: Every good. You could go in by that 
 window if you had some person to give you a 
 hoist. Whatever riches there is to get in it then, 
 you'll get them. 
 
 Hyacinth: I don't want riches. I'll give you 
 all I will find if you will come and hoist me. 
 
 Fardy: Here is Miss Joyce coming to bring 
 you to your lodging. Sure I brought your bag 
 to it, the time you were away with the sheep 
 
 Hyacinth: Run! Run! 
 
 (They go off. Enter Miss Joyce.) 
 
 Miss Joyce: Are you here, Mrs. Delane? 
 Where, can you tell me, is Mr. Halvey? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: (Coming out dressed.) It's likely he
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 63 
 
 is gone on to the Courthouse. Did you hear he 
 is to be in the chair and to make an address to 
 the meeting? 
 
 Miss Joyce: He is getting on fast. His Rever- 
 ence says he will be a good help in the parish. 
 Who would think, now, there would be such a godly 
 young man in a little place like Carrow! 
 
 (Enter Sergeant in a hurry, with telegram) 
 
 Sergeant: What time did this telegram arrive, 
 Mrs. Delane? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I couldn't be rightly sure, Ser- 
 geant. But sure it's marked on it, unless the clock 
 I have is gone wrong. 
 
 Sergeant: It is marked on it. And I have the 
 time I got it marked on my own watch. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Well, now, I wonder none 
 of the police would have followed you with it 
 from the barracks and they with so little to 
 
 Sergeant: (Looking in at Quirke's shop.) Well, 
 I am sorry to do what I have to do, but duty is 
 duty. 
 
 (He ransacks shop. Mrs. Delane looks on. 
 Mr. Quirke puts his head out of window.} 
 
 Mr. Quirke: What is that going on inside? 
 (No answer.} Is there any one inside, I ask? (No 
 answer.} It must be that dog of Tannian's 
 wait till I get at him. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is Sergeant Garden, Mr.
 
 64 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Quirke. He would seem to be looking' for some- 
 thing 
 
 (Mr. Quirke appears in shop. Sergeant 
 comes out, makes another dive, taking 
 up sacks, etc.} 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I'm greatly afraid I am just out 
 of meat, Sergeant and I'm sorry now to dis- 
 oblige you, and you not being in the habit of 
 dealing with me 
 
 Sergeant: I should think not, indeed. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Looking for a tender little bit of 
 lamb, I suppose you are, for Mrs. Garden and 
 the youngsters? 
 
 Sergeant: I am not. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: If I had it now, I'd be proud to 
 offer it to you, and make no charge. I'll be kill- 
 ing a good kid to-morrow. Mrs. Garden might 
 fancy a bit of it 
 
 Sergeant: I have had orders to search your 
 establishment for unwholesome meat, and I am 
 come here to do it. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Sitting down with a smile.} Is 
 that so? Well, isn't it a wonder the schemers does 
 be in the world. 
 
 Sergeant: It is not the first time there have 
 been complaints. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I suppose not. Well, it is on 
 their own head it will fall at the last! 
 
 Sergeant: I have found nothing so far.
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 65 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I suppose not, indeed. What is 
 there you could find, and it not in it? 
 
 Sergeant: Have you no meat at all upon the 
 premises ? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I have, indeed, a nice barrel of 
 bacon. 
 
 Sergeant: What way did it die? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: It would be hard for me to say 
 that. American it is. How would I know what 
 way they do be killing the pigs out there? 
 Machinery, I suppose, they have steam ham- 
 mers 
 
 Sergeant: Is there nothing else here at all? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: I give you my word, there is 
 no meat living or dead in this place, but yourself 
 and myself and that bird above in the cage. 
 
 Sergeant: Well, I must tell the Inspector I 
 could find nothing. But mind yourself for the 
 future. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Thank you, Sergeant. I will do 
 that. (Enter Fardy. He stops short.) 
 
 Sergeant: It was you delayed that message to 
 me, I suppose? You'd best mend your ways or 
 I'll have something to say to you. (Seizes and 
 shakes him.) 
 
 Fardy: That's the way everyone does be 
 faulting me. (Whimpers.) 
 
 (The Sergeant gives him another shake. A 
 half-crown falls out of his pocket.)
 
 66 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Miss Joyce: (Picking it up.) A half-a-crown! 
 Where, now, did you get that much, Fardy ? 
 
 Fardy: Where did I get it, is it ! 
 
 Miss Joyce: I'll engage it was in no honest 
 way you got it. 
 
 Fardy: I picked it up in the street 
 
 Miss Joyce: If you did, why didn't you bring 
 it to the Sergeant or to his Reverence ? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: And some poor person, may be, 
 being at the loss of it. 
 
 Miss Joyce: I'd best bring it to his Reverence. 
 Come with me, Fardy, till he will question you 
 about it. 
 
 Fardy: It was not altogether in the street I 
 found it 
 
 Miss Joyce: There, now! I knew you got it 
 in no good way ! Tell me, now. 
 
 Fardy: It was playing pitch and toss I won it 
 
 Miss Joyce: And who would play for half- 
 crowns with the like of you, Fardy Farrell? Who 
 was it, now? 
 
 Fardy: It was a stranger 
 
 Miss Joyce: Do you hear that? A stranger! 
 Did you see e'er a stranger in this town, Mrs. 
 Delane, or Sergeant Garden, or Mr. Quirke? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Not a one. 
 
 Sergeant: There was no stranger here. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: There could not be one here 
 without me knowing it.
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 67 
 
 Fardy: I tell you there was. 
 
 Miss Joyce: Come on, then, and tell who was 
 he to his Reverence. 
 
 Sergeant: (Taking other arm.} Or to the bench. 
 
 Fardy: I did get it, I tell you, from a stranger. 
 
 Sergeant: Where is he, so? 
 
 Fardy: He's in some place not far away. 
 
 Sergeant: Bring me to him. 
 
 Fardy: He'll be coming here. 
 
 Sergeant: Tell me the truth and it will be better 
 for you. 
 
 Fardy: (Weeping.} Let me go and I will. 
 
 Sergeant: (Letting go.} Now who did you 
 get it from? 
 
 Fardy: From that young chap came to-day, 
 Mr. Halvey. 
 
 All: Mr. Halvey! 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Indignantly.) What are you say- 
 ing, you young ruffian you? Hyacinth Halvey 
 to be playing pitch and toss with the like of you ! 
 
 Fardy: I didn't say that. 
 
 Miss Joyce: You did say it. You said it now. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Hyacinth Halvey! The best man 
 that ever came into this town! 
 
 Miss Joyce: Well, what lies he has! 
 
 Mr. Quirke: It's my belief the half-crown is 
 a bad one. May be it's to pass it off it was given 
 to him. There were tinkers in the town at the 
 time of the fair. Give it here to me. (Bites it.)
 
 68 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 No, indeed, it's sound enough. Here, Sergeant, 
 it's best for you take it. 
 
 (Gives it to Sergeant, who examines it.) 
 
 Sergeant: Can it be? Can it be what I think 
 it to be? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: What is it? What do you take 
 it to be? 
 
 Sergeant: It is, it is. I know it. I know this 
 half-crown 
 
 Mr. Quirke: That is a queer thing, now. 
 
 Sergeant: I know it well. I have been hand- 
 ling it in the church for the last twelvemonth 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Is that so? 
 
 Sergeant: It is the nest-egg half-crown we 
 hand round in the collection plate every Sunday 
 morning. I know it by the dint on the Queen's 
 temples and the crooked scratch under her nose. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Examining it.) So there is, too. 
 
 Sergeant: This is a bad business. It has been 
 stolen from the church. 
 
 All: O!O!O! 
 
 Sergeant: (Seizing Fardy.) You have robbed 
 the church! 
 
 Fardy: (Terrified.) I tell you I never did! 
 
 Sergeant: I have the proof of it. 
 
 Fardy: Say what you like! I never put a foot 
 in it! 
 
 Sergeant: How did you get this, so? 
 
 Miss Joyce: I suppose from the stranger?
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 69 
 
 Mrs. Delane: I suppose it was Hyacinth Halvey 
 gave it to you, now? 
 
 Fardy: It was so. 
 
 Sergeant: I suppose it was he robbed the 
 church? 
 
 Fardy: (Sobs.) You will not believe me if I 
 say it. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: O! the young vagabond! Let me 
 get at him! 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Here he is himself now! 
 
 (Hyacinth comes in. Fardy releases himself 
 and creeps behind him.) 
 
 Mrs. Delane: It is time you to come, Mr. Hal- 
 vey, and shut the mouth of this young schemer. 
 
 Miss Joyce: I would like you to hear what he 
 says of you, Mr. Halvey. Pitch and toss, he 
 says. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Robbery, he says. 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Robbery of a church. 
 
 Sergeant: He has had a bad name long enough. 
 Let him go to a reformatory now. 
 
 Fardy: (Clinging to Hyacinth.) Save me, save 
 me! I'm a poor boy trying to knock out a way 
 of living; I'll be destroyed if I go to a reforma- 
 tory. (Kneels and clings to Hyacinth's knees.) 
 
 Hyacinth: I'll save you easy enough. 
 
 Fardy: Don't let me be gaoled! 
 
 Hyacinth: I am going to tell them. 
 
 Fardy: I'm a poor orphan
 
 70 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Hyacinth: Will you let me speak? 
 
 Fardy: I'll get no more chance in the world 
 
 Hyacinth: Sure I'm trying to free you 
 
 Fardy: It will be tasked to me always. 
 
 Hyacinth: Be quiet, can't you. 
 
 Fardy: Don't you desert me! 
 
 Hyacinth: Will you be silent? 
 
 Fardy: Take it on yourself. 
 
 Hyacinth: I will if you'll let me. 
 
 Fardy: Tell them you did it. 
 
 Hyacinth: I am going to do that. 
 
 Fardy: Tell them it was you got in at the 
 window. 
 
 Hyacinth: I will! I will! 
 
 Fardy: Say it was you robbed the box. 
 
 Hyacinth: I'll say it! I'll say it! 
 
 Fardy: It being open ! 
 
 Hyacinth: Let me tell, let me tell. 
 
 Fardy: Of all that was in it. 
 
 Hyacinth: I'll tell them that. 
 
 Fardy: And gave it to me. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Putting hand on his mouth and drag- 
 ging him up.} Will you stop and let me speak ? 
 
 Sergeant: We can't be wasting time. Give 
 him here to me. 
 
 Hyacinth: I can't do that. He must be let 
 alone. 
 
 Sergeant: (Seizing him.) He'll be let alone in 
 the lock-up.
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 71 
 
 Hyacinth: He must not be brought there. 
 
 Sergeant: I'll let no man get him off. 
 
 Hyacinth: I will get him off. 
 
 Sergeant: You will not ! 
 
 Hyacinth: I will. 
 
 Sergeant: Do you think to buy him off? 
 
 Hyacinth: I will buy him off with my own 
 confession. 
 
 Sergeant: And what will that be ? 
 
 Hyacinth: It was I robbed the church. 
 
 Sergeant: That is likely indeed ! 
 
 Hyacinth: Let him go, and take me. I tell 
 you I did it. 
 
 Sergeant: It would take witnesses to prove 
 that. 
 
 Hyacinth: (Pointing to Fardy.} He will be 
 witness. 
 
 Fardy: O! Mr. Halvey, I would not wish to 
 do that. Get me off and I will say nothing. 
 
 Hyacinth: Sure you must. You will be put 
 on oath in the court. 
 
 Fardy: I will not ! I will not ! All the world 
 knows I don't understand the nature of an oath! 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Coming forward.} Is it blind ye 
 all are? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: What are you talking about? 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Is it fools ye all are? 
 
 Miss Joyce: Speak for yourself. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Is it idiots ye all are?
 
 72 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 Sergeant: Mind who you're talking to. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: (Seizing Hyacinth's hands.) Can't 
 you see? Can't you hear? Where are your wits? 
 Was ever such a thing seen in this town ? 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Say out what you have to say. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: A walking saint he is! 
 
 Mrs. Delane: Maybe so. 
 
 Mr. Quirke: The preserver of the poor ! Talk 
 of the holy martyrs! They are nothing at all to 
 what he is ! Will you look at him ! To save that 
 poor boy he is going! To take the blame on 
 himself he is going! To say he himself did the 
 robbery he is going! Before the magistrate he is 
 going! To gaol he is going! Taking the blame 
 on his own head! Putting the sin on his own 
 shoulders! Letting on to have done a robbery! 
 Telling a lie that it may be forgiven him to 
 his own injury ! Doing all that I tell you to save 
 the character of a miserable slack lad, that rose 
 in poverty. 
 
 (Murmur of admiration from all.) 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Now, what do you say? 
 
 Sergeant: (Pressing his hand.) Mr. Halvey, you 
 have given us all a lesson. To please you, I will 
 make no information against the boy. (Shakes 
 him and helps him up.) I will put back the half- 
 crown in the poor-box next Sunday. (To Fardy.) 
 What have you to say to your benefactor? 
 
 Fardy: I'm obliged to you, Mr. Halvey. You
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 73 \ 
 
 behaved very decent to me, very decent indeed. 
 I'll never let a word be said against you if I live 
 to be a hundred years. 
 
 Sergeant: (Wiping eyes with a blue handkerchief.} 
 I will tell it at the meeting. It will be a great 
 encouragement to them to build up their char- 
 acter. I'll tell it to the priest and he taking the 
 chair 
 
 Hyacinth: stop, will you 
 
 Mr. Quirke: The chair. It's in the chair he 
 himself should be. It's in a chair we will put him 
 now. It's to chair him through the streets we will. 
 Sure he'll be an example and a blessing to the whole 
 of the town. (Seizes Halvey and seats him in chair.} 
 Now, Sergeant, give a hand. Here, Fardy. 
 
 (They all lift the chair with Hakey in it, 
 wildly protesting.} 
 
 Mr. Quirke: Come along now to the Court- 
 house. Three cheers for Hyacinth Halvey ! Hip ! 
 hip! hoora! 
 
 (Cheers heard in the distance as the curtain 
 drops.}
 
 D 
 
 rama 
 
 Los angeles Cime0 2 * FRi.,juiY26,i957-partii [ 
 
 HEDDA HOPPER 
 
 Columnist Escorted 
 to Ireland 
 
 Moon," whi 
 world premie?: 
 last week. Ho' 
 expect to do i 
 Ireland. 
 DREAM WOL 
 
 A 4 - n: 
 brought us : 
 _ House, Cou 
 where we we 
 Sheila Killa: 
 beauty and t 
 four children : 
 
 LONDON, July 25 
 When John Ford, Lord 
 Michael Killanin, his asso- 
 ciate on '-Gideon's Day/' 
 and I reached the London 
 airport for our trip to 
 Shannon, I'd forgotten my 
 passport. Ford exclaimed: 
 "Isn t that just like a wom- 
 an, especially Hopper!" 
 "Don't mind," I told him, 
 "I'll get through," and sure 
 enough I did. You don't 
 need a passport for such a 
 short visit to Shannon. We 
 traveled tourist as every- 
 one does nowadays and the 
 first-class passengers who'd 
 flown in from Chicago 
 looked mighty lonely sit- 
 ting back of us in their 
 ivory tower. A woman 
 across the aisle from me 
 
 by Ford 
 
 said: "I know you you're 
 Bea Lillie." and I thought 
 Ford would die laughing, 
 although I'm not sure he 
 hadn't put her up to it. 
 
 It was pouring rain on 
 our arrival but Ford said: 
 "Don't worry, the sun will 
 be out all the rest of our 
 stay here." Sure enough it 
 was- The Irish call it 
 "Ford's weather." They" 
 adore the man and no won- 
 der; he goes from door to 
 door asking about their 
 families. They feel he's 
 put their country on the 
 map with "The Quiet Man" 
 and "The Rising of the 
 
 John 1 
 
 the huge cour: 
 such ease il 
 London flat. 
 River flows 
 acres and do 
 Such water, ; 
 kiss! When 
 I jumped twi 
 hit a hot
 
 had its 
 
 in Dublin 
 
 id Killanin 
 
 ^o more in 
 
 .D 
 
 e dr i v^e 
 o Spiddal 
 Galway, 
 greeted by 
 , She's a 
 mother of 
 id manages 
 
 ord 
 
 place with 
 night be a 
 he Spiddal 
 ough their 
 
 to the sea. 
 
 as a baby's 
 ot into bed 
 jet; my feet 
 iter bottle, 
 
 which I thought was a cat. 
 I slept under three blan- 
 kets and in the morning 
 sure enough the sun was 
 shining through windows 
 framed in pale yellow tea 
 roses. 
 
 After breakfast my tour 
 started to Connemara, Clif- 
 den and.Kylemore Abbey, 
 where this sign used to 
 hang: "All donations thank- 
 fully received, even to the 
 petty sum of half a crown." 
 We had tea at Ashford Cas- 
 tle Hotel, where some of 
 "The Quiet Man" was shot 
 and when John wanted ba- 
 con and eggs, not on the 
 menu, he said to the sister 
 who served us, "Ah, you're 
 a Sister of Charity but with- 
 out mercy." We then had 
 another tea and a visit with 
 Canon and Mrs. Dunlap, 
 who told us Barbara Bel 
 Geddes had bought a cot- 
 tage on Lake Corrib, which 
 has 365 islands. Also that 
 Barbara Hutton bought one 
 of the islands complete 
 with cottages for her fish- 
 ing and hunting friends. 
 All the time we were driv- 
 ing Ford was talking Irish 
 with the driver and I 
 couldn't understand a word 
 they said. 
 Met Cyril Cusack and his 
 
 wife at dinner that night. 
 He is a fine actor and had 
 just returned from New 
 York, where he's been play- 
 ing Eugene O'Neill's "Moon 
 for the Misbegotten" with 
 Wendy Miller. 
 HOMESPUN 
 
 In Galway, where we 
 bought hand-knit sweaters, 
 we learned that many of 
 their weavers had been laid 
 off -until January. This 
 works great hardship on 
 the women who weave the 
 material in their own 
 homes. They told us the 
 layoff was because during 
 Ike's pre-election cam- 
 paign in order to get the 
 XCTV England vote they in- 
 creased the import duty on 
 woolens 25% after a guar- 
 antee had already been 
 reached. And more than 
 half their cloth L sold in 
 the United States. I'm sure 
 Ike knows nothing of this 
 but he will if he reads this 
 
 r 
 
 column. We visited an 
 abandoned castle owned 
 by Viscount John Standish 
 Gort, kntfwn as Gen. "Ti- 
 ger" Gort, the hero of Dun- 
 kirk. It's situated on a lake 
 five miles long and we 
 passed miles and miles of 
 stone walls, wild fuchsia 
 hedges 20 feet high, fields 
 where I counted 20 differ- 
 ent shades of green and 
 thatched cottages all so 
 beautiful. 
 
 The main industry is 
 turf cutting and the work- 
 ers get a pound a day, $2.80 
 in our money The turf has 
 to be handled 40 times be- 
 fore it is ready to burn as 
 fuel, and all of Ireland is 
 
 Vagrant wit 
 "ft'e walked 
 if the groui 
 ^lanor, an e 
 j|cres belongi 
 4f Dunraven, 
 |er Caroline 
 day after w 
 
 Beleased by Chicas 
 Syndicate
 
 WEREWOLF' 
 
 OVIE FARE 
 
 so- 
 
 >gy, 
 
 dis- 
 >en- 
 
 one 
 cof- 
 ;ees 
 \vn, 
 
 my, 
 
 ins. 
 
 ilm 
 
 day 
 
 In- 
 
 ave 
 
 al- 
 
 the 
 
 rade, referred to it as "the 
 most amazing picture of our 
 
 Philips) to seeK aia irom 
 clinical psychologist working 
 with the police. 
 
 Prompted by his girl frien 
 (Yvonne Lime), the bo 
 agrees grudgingly to see th 
 Ph.D. (Whit Bissell), who is 
 of course, a standard garde 
 variety Mad Scientist. Recog 
 nizing lupine vestiges in th 
 strong, lanky youth, he pro 
 ceeds to "regress" him bac 
 into temporary tours of dut; 
 as a werewolf snarling 
 
 ilftll ^. VM -.^ .. drooling, jogging through th 
 
 portrayed by Michael Lan- woods in search of jugula 
 
 While obviously no com- 
 ment on that prose is needed 
 t should be recorded that 
 someone at AI has exchanged 
 a right idea for a mess of 
 botage. The "werewolf" is a 
 ligh school boy (quite wel' 
 
 don) whose surly, suspicious 
 nature and general emotional 
 jroblems border on the para- 
 loid. After one brawl too 
 many, he is advised by a well- 
 
 ime. 
 
 veins and in general upset 
 ting Rockdale no end. 
 
 Which is to say that, de 
 spite rather good acting 
 Ralph Thornton's dece 
 
 lldil j xi\- JO -iv* w AJ^*%-* " j i _ y 
 
 meaning policeman (Barneyscript and Gene Fowler Jr 
 
 
 
 TONIGHT! MAJOR STUDIO PREVIEW 
 EGYPTIAN 
 
 ALL WE CAN DO 
 IS REPEAT WHAT 
 THOUSANDS 
 US! A 
 
 of us in their 
 ivory tower. A woman 
 across the aisle from me
 
 THE RISING OF THE MOON 
 
 75
 
 PERSONS 
 Sergeant. 
 Policeman X. 
 Policeman B. 
 A Ragged Man.
 
 THE RISING OF THE MOON 
 
 Scene: Side of a quay in a seaport town. Some 
 posts and chains. A large barrel. Enter three 
 policemen. Moonlight. 
 
 (Sergeant, who is older than the others, crosses 
 the stage to right and looks down steps. 
 The others put down a pastepot and un- 
 roll a bundle of placards.} 
 
 Policeman B: I think this would be a good 
 place to put up a notice. (He points to barrel.) 
 Policeman X: Better ask him. (Calls to Sergt.} 
 Will this be a good place for a placard? 
 
 (No answer.} 
 
 Policeman B: Will we put up a notice here on 
 the barrel? (No answer.} 
 
 Sergeant: There's a flight of steps here that 
 leads to the water. This is a place that should be 
 minded well. If he got down here, his friends 
 might have a boat to meet him; they might send 
 it in here from outside. 
 
 Policeman B: Would the barrel be a good place 
 to put a notice up? 
 
 Sergeant: It might; you can put it there. 
 (They paste the notice up.} 
 77
 
 78 The Rising of the Moon 
 
 Sergeant: (Reading it.} Dark hair dark eyes, 
 smooth face, height five feet five there's not much 
 to take hold of in that It's a pity I had no chance 
 of seeing him before he broke out of gaol. They 
 say he's a wonder, that it's he makes all the plans 
 for the whole organization. There isn't another 
 man in Ireland would have broken gaol the way 
 he did. He must have some friends among the 
 gaolers. 
 
 Policeman B: A hundred pounds is little enough 
 for the Government to offer for him. You may 
 be sure any man in the force that takes him will get 
 promotion. 
 
 Sergeant: I'll mind this place myself. I 
 wouldn't wonder at all if he came this way. He 
 might come slipping along there (points to side of 
 quay), and his friends might be waiting for him 
 there (points down steps'), and once he got away 
 it's little chance we'd have of finding him; it's 
 maybe under a load of kelp he'd be in a fishing 
 boat, and not one to help a married man that wants 
 it to the reward. 
 
 Policeman X: And if we get him itself, nothing 
 but abuse on our heads for it from the people, and 
 maybe from our own relations. 
 
 Sergeant: Well, we have to do our duty in the 
 force. Haven't we the whole country depending 
 on us to keep law and order? It's those that are 
 down would be up and those that are up would be
 
 The Rising of the Moon 79 
 
 down, if it wasn't for us. Well, hurry on, you have 
 plenty of other places to placard yet, and come 
 back here then to me. You can take the lantern. 
 Don't be too long now. It's very lonesome here 
 with nothing but the moon. 
 
 Policeman B: It's a pity we can't stop with 
 
 you. The Government should have brought 
 
 more police into the town, with him in gaol, and at 
 
 assize time too. Well, good luck to your watch. 
 
 (They go out.} 
 
 Sergeant: (Walks up and down once or twice and 
 looks at placard.} A hundred pounds and pro- 
 motion sure. There must be a great deal of 
 spending in a hundred pounds. It's a pity some 
 honest man not to be the better of that. 
 
 (A ragged man appears at left and tries to 
 slip past. Sergeant suddenly turns.} 
 
 Sergeant: Where are you going ? 
 
 Man: I'm a poor ballad-singer, your honour. 
 I thought to sell some of these (holds out bundle 
 of ballads} to the sailors. (He goes on} 
 
 Sergeant: Stop! Didn't I tell you to stop? 
 You can't go on there. 
 
 Man: Oh, very well. It's a hard thing to be 
 poor. All the world's against the poor! 
 
 Sergeant: Who are you? 
 
 Man: You'd be as wise as myself if I told you, 
 but I don't mind. I'm one Jimmy Walsh, a 
 ballad-singer.
 
 8o The Rising of the Moon 
 
 Sergeant: Jimmy Walsh? I don't know that 
 name. 
 
 Man: Ah, sure, they know it well enough in 
 Ennis. Were you ever in Ennis, sergeant? 
 
 Sergeant: What brought you here? 
 
 Man: Sure, it's to the assizes I came, thinking 
 I might make a few shillings here or there. It's 
 in the one train with the judges I came. 
 
 Sergeant: Well, if you came so far, you may as 
 well go farther, for you'll walk out of this. 
 
 Man: I will, I will; I'll just go on where I was 
 going. (Goes towards steps.) 
 
 Sergeant: Come back from those steps; no 
 one has leave to pass down them to-night. 
 
 Man: I'll just sit on the top of the steps till 
 I see will some sailor buy a ballad off me that 
 would give me my supper. They do be late going 
 back to the ship. It's often I saw them in Cork 
 carried down the quay in a hand-cart. 
 
 Sergeant: Move on, I tell you. I won't have 
 any one lingering about the quay to-night. 
 
 Man: Well, I'll go. It's the poor have the 
 hard life! Maybe yourself might like one, ser- 
 geant. Here's a good sheet now. (Turns one 
 over.) "Content and a pipe" that's not much. 
 "The Peeler and the goat" you wouldn't like 
 that. "Johnny Hart" that's a lovely song. 
 
 Sergeant: Move on. 
 
 Man: Ah, wait till you hear it. (Sings:)
 
 The Rising of the Moon 81 
 
 There was a rich farmer's daughter lived near 
 
 the town of Ross; 
 She courted a Highland soldier, his name was 
 
 Johnny Hart ; 
 
 Says the mother to her daughter, "I'll go dis- 
 tracted mad 
 If you marry that Highland soldier dressed 
 
 up in Highland plaid." 
 Sergeant: Stop that noise. 
 
 (Man wraps up his ballads and shuffles to- 
 wards the steps.) 
 
 Sergeant: Where are you going ? 
 Man: Sure you told me to be going, and I 
 am going. 
 
 Sergeant: Don't be a fool. I didn't tell you 
 to go that way ; I told you to go back to the town. 
 Man: Back to the town, is it? 
 Sergeant: (Taking him by the shoulder and shov- 
 ing him before him.} Here, I'll show you the way. 
 Be off with you. What are you stopping for? 
 
 Man: (Who has been keeping his eye on the notice, 
 points to it.) I think I know what you're waiting 
 for, sergeant. 
 
 Sergeant: What's that to you? 
 Man: And I know well the man you're waiting 
 for I know him well I'll be going. 
 
 (He shuffles on.) 
 
 Sergeant: You know him? Come back here. 
 What sort is he? 
 
 6
 
 82 The Rising of the Moon 
 
 Man: Come back is it, sergeant? Do you 
 want to have me killed? 
 
 Sergeant: Why do you say that? 
 
 Man: Never mind. I'm going. I wouldn't 
 be in your shoes if the reward was ten times as 
 much. (Goes on off stage to left}. Not if it was 
 ten times as much. 
 
 Sergeant: (Rushing after him.} Come back 
 here, come back. (Drags him back.} What sort 
 is he ? Where did you see him ? 
 
 Man: I saw him in my own place, in the 
 County Clare. I tell you you wouldn't like to 
 be looking at him. You'd be afraid to be in the 
 one place with him. There isn't a weapon he 
 doesn't know the use of, and as to strength, his 
 muscles are as hard as that board (slaps barrel}. 
 
 Sergeant: Is he as bad as that? 
 
 Man: He is then. 
 
 Sergeant: Do you tell me so? 
 
 Man: There was a poor man in our place, a 
 sergeant from Ballyvaughan. It was with a 
 lump of stone he did it. 
 
 Sergeant: I never heard of that. 
 
 Man: And you wouldn't, sergeant. It's not 
 everything that happens gets into the papers. 
 And there was a policeman in plain clothes, too 
 ... It is in Limerick he was. ... It was 
 after the time of the attack on the police barrack 
 at Kilmallock. . . . Moonlight . . . just like
 
 The Rising of the Moon 83 
 
 this . . . waterside. . . . Nothing was known 
 for certain. 
 
 Sergeant: Do you say so? It's a terrible 
 county to belong to. 
 
 Man: That's so, indeed ! You might be stand- 
 ing there, looking out that way, thinking you saw 
 him coming up this side of the quay (points), and 
 he might be coming up this other side (points} , and 
 he'd be on you before you knew where you were. 
 
 Sergeant: It's a whole troop of police they 
 ought to put here to stop a man like that. 
 
 Man: But if you'd like me to stop with you, I 
 could be looking down this side. I could be sitting 
 up here on this barrel. 
 
 Sergeant: And you know him well, too? 
 
 Man: I'd know him a mile off, sergeant. 
 
 Sergeant: But you wouldn't want to share the 
 reward? 
 
 Man: Is it a poor man like me, that has to be 
 going the roads and singing in fairs, to have the 
 name on him that he took a reward? But you 
 don't want me. I'll be safer in the town. 
 
 Sergeant: Well, you can stop. 
 
 Man: (Getting up on barrel.} All right, sergeant. 
 I wonder, now, you're not tired out, sergeant, 
 walking up and down the way you are. 
 
 Sergeant: If I'm tired I'm used to it. 
 
 Man: You might have hard work before you 
 to-night yet. Take it easy while you can. There's
 
 84 The Rising of the Moon 
 
 plenty of room up here on the barrel, and you see 
 farther when you're higher up. 
 
 Sergeant: Maybe so. (Gets up beside him on 
 barrel, facing right. They sit back to back, looking 
 different ways.) You made me feel a bit queer 
 with the way you talked. 
 
 Man: Give me a match, sergeant (lie gives it 
 and man lights pipe) ; take a draw yourself? It'll 
 quiet you. Wait now till I give you a light, but 
 you needn't turn round. Don't take your eye 
 off the quay for the life of you. 
 
 Sergeant: Never fear, I won't. (Lights pipe. 
 They both smoke.) Indeed it's a hard thing to be 
 in the force, out at night and no thanks for it, for 
 all the danger we're in. And it's little we get but 
 abuse from the people, and no choice but to obey 
 our orders, and never asked when a man is sent 
 into danger, if you are a married man with a family. 
 Man: (Sings) 
 
 As through the hills I walked to view the hills 
 
 and shamrock plain, 
 I stood awhile where nature smiles to view the 
 
 rocks and streams, 
 On a matron fair I fixed my eyes beneath a 
 
 fertile vale, 
 As she sang her song it was on the wrong of 
 
 poor old Granuaile. 
 
 Sergeant: Stop that; that's no song to be 
 singing in these times.
 
 The Rising of the Moon 85 
 
 Man: Ah, sergeant, I was only singing to keep 
 my heart up. It sinks when I think of him. To 
 think of us two sitting here, and he creeping up the 
 quay, maybe, to get to us. 
 
 Sergeant: Are you keeping a good lookout? 
 Man: I am; and for no reward too. Amn't 
 I the foolish man? But when I saw a man in 
 trouble, I never could help trying to get him 
 out of it. What's that? Did something hit 
 me? 
 
 (Rubs his heart.} 
 
 Sergeant: (Patting him on the shoulder.} You 
 will get your reward in heaven. 
 
 Man: I know that, I know that, sergeant, but 
 life is precious. 
 
 Sergeant: Well, you can sing if it gives you 
 more courage. 
 Man: (Sings) 
 
 Her head was bare, her hands and feet with 
 
 iron bands were bound, 
 Her pensive strain and plaintive wail mingles 
 
 with the evening gale, 
 And the song she sang with mournful air, I am 
 
 old Granuaile. 
 
 Her lips so sweet that monarchs kissed . . . 
 Sergeant: That's not it. ... "Her gown 
 she wore was stained with gore. "... That's 
 it you missed that. 
 
 Man: You're right, sergeant, so it is; I missed
 
 86 The Rising of the Moon 
 
 it. (Repeats line.) But to think of a man like 
 you knowing a song like that. 
 
 Sergeant: There's many a thing a man might 
 know and might not have any wish for. 
 
 Man: Now, I daresay, sergeant, in your youth, 
 you used to be sitting up on a wall, the way you are 
 sitting up on this barrel now, and the other lads be- 
 side you, and you singing "Granuaile"? . . . 
 
 Sergeant: I did then. 
 
 Man: And the "Shan Bhean Bhocht"? . . . 
 
 Sergeant: I did then. 
 
 Man: And the " Green on the Cape ?" 
 
 Sergeant: That was one of them. 
 
 Man: And maybe the man you are watching 
 for to-night used to be sitting on the wall, when 
 he was young, and singing those same songs. . . . 
 It's a queer world .... 
 
 Sergeant: Whisht ! . . . I think I see some- 
 thing coming. . . . It's only a dog. 
 
 Man: And isn't it a queer world? . . . 
 Maybe it's one of the boys you used to be singing 
 with that time you will be arresting to-day or to- 
 morrow, and sending into the dock. . . . 
 
 Sergeant: That's true indeed. 
 
 Man: And maybe one night, after you had 
 been singing, if the other boys had told you some 
 plan they had, some plan to free the country, you 
 might have joined with them . . . and maybe 
 it is you might be in trouble now.
 
 The Rising of the Moon 87 
 
 Sergeant: Well, who knows but I might? I 
 had a great spirit in those days. 
 
 Man: It's a queer world, sergeant, and it's 
 little any mother knows when she sees her child 
 creeping on the floor what might happen to it 
 before it has gone through its life, or who will be 
 who in the end. 
 
 Sergeant: That's a queer thought now, and a 
 true thought. Wait now till I think it out .... 
 If it wasn't for the sense I have, and for my wife 
 and family, and for me joining the force the time 
 I did, it might be myself now would be after 
 breaking gaol and hiding in the dark, and it might 
 be him that's hiding in the dark and that got out of 
 gaol would be sitting up where I am on this barrel. 
 . . . And it might be myself would be creeping 
 up trying to make my escape from himself, and 
 it might be himself would be keeping the law, and 
 myself would be breaking it, and myself would be 
 trying maybe to put a bullet in his head, or to take 
 up a lump of a stone the way you said he did . . . 
 no, that myself did. . . . Oh! (Gasps. After a 
 pause.} What's that? (Grasps man's arm.) 
 
 Man: (Jumps off barrel and listens, looking out 
 over water.} It's nothing, sergeant. 
 
 Sergeant: I thought it might be a boat. I had 
 a notion there might be friends of his coming 
 about the quays with a boat. 
 
 Man: Sergeant, I am thinking it was with the
 
 88 The Rising of the Moon 
 
 people you were, and not with the law you were, 
 when you were a young man. 
 
 Sergeant: Well, if I was foolish then, that 
 time's gone. 
 
 Man: Maybe, sergeant, it comes into your 
 head sometimes, in spite of your belt and your 
 tunic, that it might have been as well for you to 
 have followed Granuaile. 
 
 Sergeant: It's no business of yours what I think. 
 Man: Maybe, sergeant, you'll be on the side of 
 the country yet. 
 
 Sergeant: (Gets off barrel.) Don't talk to me 
 like that. I have my duties and I know them. 
 (Looks round.) That was a boat ; I hear the oars. 
 
 (Goes to the steps and looks down.) 
 Man: (Sings) 
 
 O, then, tell me, Shawn O'Farrell, 
 
 Where the gathering is to be. 
 In the old spot by the river 
 
 Right well known to you and me! 
 Sergeant: Stop that! Stop that, I tell you! 
 Man: (Sings louder) 
 
 One word more, for signal token, 
 Whistle up the marching tune, 
 With your pike upon your shoulder, 
 
 At the Rising of the Moon. 
 Sergeant: If you don't stop that, I'll arrest you. 
 (A whistle from below answers, repeating the 
 air.)
 
 The Rising of the Moon 89 
 
 Sergeant: That's a signal. (Stands between him 
 and steps.) You must not pass this way. . . . 
 Step farther back. . . . Who are you? You 
 are no ballad-singer. 
 
 Man: You needn't ask who I am; that placard 
 will tell you. (Points to placard.) 
 
 Sergeant: You are the man I am looking 
 for. 
 
 Man: (Takes off hat and wig. Sergeant seizes 
 them.) I am. There's a hundred pounds on my 
 head. There is a friend of mine below in a boat. 
 He knows a safe place to bring me to. 
 
 Sergeant: (Looking still at hat and wig.) It's a 
 pity! It's a pity. You deceived me. You de- 
 ceived me well. 
 
 Man: I am a friend of Granuaile. There is 
 a hundred pounds on my head. 
 
 Sergeant It's a pity, it's a pity! 
 
 Man: Will you let me pass, or must I make you 
 let me? 
 
 Sergeant: I am in the force. I will not let you 
 pass. 
 
 Man: I thought to do it with my tongue. (Puts 
 hand in breast.) What is that? 
 
 (Voice of Policeman X outside:) Here, this is 
 where we left him. 
 
 Sergeant: It's my comrades coming. 
 
 Man: You won't betray me . . . the friend 
 of Granuaile. (Slips behind barrel.)
 
 90 The Rising of the Moon 
 
 ( Voice of Policeman B :) That was the last of the 
 placards. 
 
 Policeman X: (As they come in.) If he makes 
 his escape it won't be unknown he'll make it. 
 
 (Sergeant puts hat and wig behind his back.) 
 
 Policeman B: Did any one come this way? 
 
 Sergeant: (After a pause.) No one. 
 
 Policeman B: No one at all ? 
 
 Sergeant: No one at all. 
 
 Policeman B: We had no orders to go back to 
 the station ; we can stop along with you. 
 
 Sergeant: I don't want you. There is nothing 
 for you to do here. 
 
 Policeman B: You bade us to come back here 
 and keep watch with you. 
 
 Sergeant: I'd sooner be alone. Would any 
 man come this way and you making all that 
 talk? It is better the place to be quiet. 
 
 Policeman B: Well, we'll leave you the lantern 
 anyhow. (Hands it to him.) 
 
 Sergeant: I don't want it. Bring it with you. 
 
 Policeman B: You might want it. There are 
 clouds coming up and you have the darkness of 
 the night before you yet. I'll leave it over here 
 on the barrel. (Goes to barrel.) 
 
 Sergeant: Bring it with you I tell you. No 
 more talk. 
 
 Policeman B: Well, I thought it might be a 
 comfort to you. I often think when I have it in
 
 The Rising of the Moon 91 
 
 my hand and can be flashing it about into every 
 dark corner (doing so) that it's the same as being 
 beside the fire at home, and the bits of bogwood 
 blazing up now and again. 
 
 (Flashes it about, now on the barrel, now on 
 
 Sergeant.} 
 
 Sergeant: (Furious.} Be off the two of you, 
 yourselves and your lantern ! 
 
 (They go out. Man comes from behind bar- 
 rel. He and Sergeant stand looking at 
 one another.} 
 
 Sergeant: What are you waiting for? 
 Man: For my hat, of course, and my wig. 
 You wouldn't wish me to get my death of cold? 
 
 (Sergeant gives them.} 
 
 Man: (Going towards steps.} Well, good-night, 
 comrade, and thank you. You did me a good 
 turn to-night, and I'm obliged to you. Maybe 
 I'll be able to do as much for you when the small 
 rise up and the big fall down . . . when we all 
 change places at the Rising (waves his hand and 
 disappears} of the Moon. 
 
 Sergeant: (Turning his back to audience and 
 reading placard.} A hundred pounds reward! 
 A hundred pounds! (Turns towards audience.} 
 I wonder, now, am I as great a fool as I think 
 I am? 
 
 Curtain,
 
 THE JACKDAW
 
 PERSONS 
 
 JOSEPH NESTOR An Army Pensioner. 
 
 MICHAEL COONEY A Farmer. 
 
 MRS. BRODERICK A Small Shopkeeper, 
 
 TOMMY NALLY A Pauper. 
 
 SIBBY FAHY An Orange Seller. 
 
 TIMOTHY WARD A Process Server.
 
 THE JACKDAW 
 
 Scene: Interior of a small general shop at Cloon. 
 Mrs. Broderick sitting down. Tommy Natty 
 sitting eating an orange Sibby has given him. 
 Sibby, with basket on her arm, is looking out oj 
 door. 
 
 Sibby: The people are gathering to the door 
 of the Court. The Magistrates will be coming 
 there before long. Here is Timothy Ward coming 
 up the street. 
 
 Timothy Ward: (Coming to door.} Did you get 
 that summons I left here for you ere yesterday, 
 Mrs. Broderick? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I believe it's there in under the 
 canister. (Takes it out.} It had my mind tossed 
 looking at it there before me. I know well what 
 is in it if I made no fist of reading it itself. It's 
 no wonder with all I had to go through if the read- 
 ing and writing got scattered on me. 
 
 Ward: You know it is on this day you have 
 to appear in the Court ? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: It isn't easy forget that, 
 though indeed it is hard for me to be keeping 
 anything in my head these times, but maybe 
 
 95
 
 96 The Jackdaw 
 
 remembering to-morrow the thing I was saying 
 to-day. 
 
 Ward: Up to one o'clock the magistrates will 
 be able to attend to you, ma'am, before they will 
 go out eating their meal. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Haven't I the mean, begrudging 
 creditors now that would put me into the Court? 
 Sure it's a terrible thing to go in it and to be 
 bound to speak nothing but the truth. When 
 people would meet with you after, they would re- 
 member your face in the Court. What way would 
 they be certain was it in or outside of the dock ? 
 
 Ward: It is not in the dock you will be put 
 this time. And there will be no bodily harm done 
 to you, but to seize your furniture and your goods. 
 It's best for me to be going there myself and not 
 to be wasting my time. (Goes out.) 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Many a one taking my goods 
 on credit and I seeing their face no more. But 
 nothing would satisfy the people of this district. 
 Sure the great God Himself when He came down 
 couldn't please everybody. 
 
 Sibby: I am thinking you were talking of 
 some friend, ma'am, might be apt to be coming 
 to your aid. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Well able he is to do it if the 
 Lord would but put it in his mind. Isn't it a 
 strange thing the goods of this world to shut up 
 the heart of a brother from his own, the same as
 
 The Jackdaw 97 
 
 Esau and Jacob, and he having a good farm of land 
 in the County Limerick. It is what I heard that 
 in that place the grass does be as thick as grease. 
 
 Sibby: I suppose, ma'am, you wrote giving him 
 an account of your case? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Sure, Mr. Nestor, the dear 
 man, has his fingers wore away writing for me, and 
 I telling him all he had or had not to say. At 
 Christmas I wrote, and at Little Christmas, and 
 at St. Brigit's Day, and on the Feast of St. Patrick, 
 and after that again such time as I had news of the 
 summons being about to be served. And you may 
 ask Mrs. Delane at the Post Office am I telling any 
 lie saying I got no word or answer at all. . . . 
 It's long since I saw him, but it is the way he used 
 to be, his eyes on kippeens and some way suspi- 
 cious in his heart ; a dark weighty tempered man. 
 
 Sibby: A person to be crabbed and he young, 
 it is not likely he will grow kind at the latter end. 
 
 Tommy Natty: That is no less than true now. 
 There are crabbed people and suspicious people 
 to be met with in every place. It is much that 
 I got a pass from the Workhouse this day, the 
 Master making sure when I asked it that I had in 
 my pocket the means of getting drink. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: It would maybe be best to 
 go join you in the Workhouse, Tommy Nally, 
 when I am out of this, than to go walking the 
 world from end to end.
 
 98 The Jackdaw 
 
 Tcfnmy Natty: Ah, don't be saying that, 
 ma'am; sure you couldn't be happy within those 
 walls if you had the whole world. Clean outside, 
 but very hard within. No rank but all mixed to- 
 gether, the good, the middling and the bad, the 
 well reared and the rough. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Sure I'm not asking to go in 
 it. You could never be as stiff in any place as in 
 any sort of little cabin of your own. 
 
 Tommy Nally: The tea boiled in a boiler, you 
 should close your eyes drinking it, and ne'er a 
 bit of sugar hardly in it at all. And our curses 
 on them that boil the eggs too hard! What use 
 is an egg that is hard to any person on earth? 
 And as to the dinner, what way would a tasty 
 person eat it not having a knife or a fork ? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: That I may live to be in no 
 one's way, but to have some little corner of my 
 own! 
 
 Tommy Nally: And to come to your end in it, 
 ma'am! If you were the Lady Mayor herself 
 you'd be brought out to the deadhouse if it was 
 ten o'clock at night, and not a wash unless it was 
 just a Scotch lick, and nobody to wake you at all ! 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I will not go in it! I would 
 sooner make any shift and die by the side of the 
 wall. Sure heaven is the best place, heaven and 
 this world we're in now! 
 
 Sibby: Don't be giving up now, ma'am. Here
 
 The Jackdaw 99 
 
 is Mr. Nestor coming, and if any one will give 
 you an advice he is the one will do it. Why 
 wouldn't he, he being, as he is, an educated man, 
 and such a great one to be reading books. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: So he is too, and keeps it in 
 his mind after. It's a wonder to me a man that 
 does be reading to keep any memory at all. 
 
 Nolly: It's easy for him to carry things light, 
 and his pension paid regular at springtime and 
 harvest. 
 
 (Nestor comes in reading "Tit-Bits. ") 
 
 Nestor: There was a servant girl in Austria 
 cut off her finger slicing cabbage. . . . 
 
 A II: The poor thing ! 
 
 Nestor: And her master stuck it on again with 
 glue. That now was a very foolish thing to do. 
 What use would a finger be stuck with glue that 
 might melt off at any time, and she to be stirring 
 the pot? 
 
 Sibby: That is true indeed. 
 
 Nestor: Now, if I myself had been there, it is 
 what I would have advised . . . 
 
 Sibby: That's what I was saying, Mr. Nestor- 
 It is you are the grand adviser. What now will 
 you say to poor Mrs. Broderick that has a sum- 
 mons out against her this day for up to ten pounds? 
 
 Nestor: It is what I am often saying, it is a 
 very foolish thing to be getting into debt. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Sure what way could I help
 
 ioo The Jackdaw 
 
 it? It's a very done-up town to be striving to 
 make a living in. 
 
 Nestor: It would be a right thing to be 
 showing a good example. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: They would want that indeed. 
 There are more die with debts on them in this 
 place than die free from debt. 
 
 Nestor: Many a poor soul has had to suffer 
 from the weight of the debts on him, finding no 
 rest or peace after death. 
 
 Sibby: The Magistrates are gone into the 
 Courthouse, Mrs. Broderick. Why now wouldn't 
 you go up to the bank and ask would the manager 
 advance you a loan? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: It is likely he would not do it. 
 But maybe it's as good for me go as to be sitting 
 here waiting for the end. 
 
 (Puts on hat and shawl.} 
 
 Nestor: I now will take charge of the shop for 
 you, Mrs. Broderick. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: It's little call there'll be to 
 it. The time a person is sunk that's the time 
 the custom will go from her. (She goes out.) 
 
 Natty: I'll be taking a ramble into the Court 
 to see what are the lads doing. (Goes out.) 
 
 Sibby: (Following them.) I might chance some 
 customers there myself. 
 
 (Goes out calling oranges, good oranges.) 
 
 Nestor: (Taking a paper from his pocket, sitting
 
 The Jackdaw 101 
 
 down, and beginning to read.} "Romantic elope- 
 ment in high life. A young lady at Aberdeen, 
 Missouri, U.S.A., having been left by her father 
 an immense fortune . . . " 
 
 (Stops to wipe his spectacles, puts them on 
 again and looks for place, which he has 
 lost. Cooney puts his head in at door 
 and draws it out again.) 
 
 Nestor: Come in, come in! 
 
 Cooney: (Coming in cautiously and looking round.) 
 Whose house now might this be? 
 
 Nestor: To the Widow Broderick it belongs. 
 She is out in the town presently. 
 
 Cooney: I saw her name up over the door. 
 
 Nestor: On business of her own she is gone. 
 It is I am minding the place for her. 
 
 Cooney: So I see. I suppose now you have 
 good cause to be minding it ? 
 
 Nestor: It would be a pity any of her goods 
 to go to loss. 
 
 Cooney: I suppose so. Is it to auction them 
 you will or to sell them in bulk ? 
 
 Nestor: Not at all. I can sell you any article 
 you will require. 
 
 Cooney: It would be no profit to herself now, 
 I suppose, if you did? 
 
 Nestor: What do you mean saying that ? Do 
 you think I would defraud her from her due in 
 anything I would sell for her at all ?
 
 102 The Jackdaw 
 
 Cooney: You are not the bailiff so? 
 
 Nestor: Not at all. I wonder any person to 
 take me for a bailiff ! 
 
 Cooney: You are maybe one of the creditors ? 
 
 Nestor: I am not. I am not a man to have a 
 debt upon me to any person on earth. 
 
 Cooney: I wonder what it is you are at so, 
 if you have no claim on the goods. Is it any 
 harm now to ask what's this your name is? 
 
 Nestor: One Joseph Nestor I am, there are 
 few in the district but know me. Indeed they 
 all have a great opinion of me. Travelled I did 
 in the army, and attended school and I young, 
 and slept in the one bed with two boys that were 
 learning Greek. 
 
 Cooney: What way now can I be rightly sure 
 that you are Joseph Nestor? 
 
 Nestor: (Pulling out envelope.} There is my 
 pension docket. You will maybe believe that. 
 
 Cooney: (Examining it.} I suppose you may be 
 him so. I saw your name often before this. 
 
 Nestor: Did you now? I suppose it may have 
 travelled a good distance. 
 
 Cooney: It travelled as far as myself anyway 
 at the bottom of letters that were written asking 
 relief for the owner of this house. 
 
 Nestor: I suppose you are her brother so, 
 Michael Cooney ? 
 
 Cooney: If I am, there are some questions that
 
 The Jackdaw 103 
 
 I want to put and to get answers to before my 
 mind will be satisfied. Tell me this now. Is it a 
 fact Mary Broderick to be living at all? 
 
 Nestor: What would make you think her not 
 to be living and she sending letters to you through 
 the post ? 
 
 Cooney: I was saying to myself with myself, 
 there was maybe some other one personating her 
 and asking me to send relief for their own ends. 
 
 Nestor: I am in no want of any relief. That is 
 a queer thing to say and a very queer thing. 
 There are many worse off than myself, the Lord 
 be praised ! 
 
 Cooney: Don't be so quick now starting up to 
 take offence. It is hard to believe the half the 
 things you hear or that will be told to you. 
 
 Nestor: That may be so indeed; unless it is 
 things that would be printed on the papers. But 
 I would think you might trust one of your own 
 blood. 
 
 Cooney: I might or I might not. I had it in 
 my mind this long time to come hither and to 
 look around for myself. There are seven genera- 
 tions of the Cooneys trusted nobody living or 
 dead. 
 
 Nestor: Indeed I was reading in some history 
 of one Ulysses that came back from a journey 
 and sent no word before him but slipped in un- 
 known to all but the house dog to see was his wife
 
 IO4 The Jackdaw 
 
 minding the place, or was she, as she was, scatter- 
 ing his means. 
 
 Cooney: So she would be too. If Mary Brod- 
 erick is in need of relief I will relieve her, but if she 
 is not, I will bring away what I brought with me 
 to its own place again. 
 
 Nestor: Sure here is the summons. You can 
 read that, and if you will look out the door you 
 can see by the stir the Magistrates are sitting in 
 the Court. It is a great welcome she will have 
 before you, and the relief coming at the very 
 nick of time. 
 
 Cooney: It is too good a welcome she will give 
 me I am thinking. It is what I am in dread of 
 now, if she thinks I brought her the money so 
 soft and so easy, she will never be leaving me 
 alone, but dragging all I have out of me by little 
 and little. 
 
 Nestor: Maybe you might let her have but the 
 lend of it. 
 
 Cooney: Where's the use of calling it a lend 
 when I may be sure I never will see it again? It 
 might be as well for me to earn the value of a 
 charity. 
 
 Nestor: You might do that and not repent of it. 
 
 Cooney: It is likely I'll be annoyed with her to 
 the end of my lifetime if she knows I have as 
 much as that to part with. It might be she would 
 be following me to Limerick.
 
 The Jackdaw 105 
 
 Nestor: Wait now a minute till I will give you 
 an advice. 
 
 Cooney: It is likely my own advice is the best. 
 Look over your own shoulder and do the thing you 
 think right. How can any other person know the 
 reasons I have in my mind ? 
 
 Nestor: I will know what is in your mind if 
 you will tell it to me. 
 
 Cooney: It would suit me best, she to get the 
 money and not to know at the present time where 
 did it come from. The next time she will write 
 wanting help from me, I will task her with it and 
 ask her to give me an account. 
 
 Nestor: That now would take a great deal of 
 strategy .... Wait now till I think .... I 
 have it in my mind I was reading in a penny 
 novel ... no but on the "Gael" . . . about 
 a boy of Kilbecanty that saved his old sweetheart 
 from being evicted. 
 
 Cooney: I never heard my sister had any old 
 sweetheart. 
 
 Nestor: It was playing Twenty-five he did it. 
 Played with the husband he did, letting him win 
 up to fifty pounds. 
 
 Cooney: Mary Broderick was no cardplayer. 
 And if she was itself she would know me. And 
 it's not fifty pounds I am going to leave with her, 
 or twenty pounds, or a penny more than is needful 
 to free her from the summons to-day.
 
 io6 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: (Excited.} I will make up a plan! I 
 am sure I will think of a good one. It is given 
 in to me there is no person so good at making up 
 a plan as myself on this side of the world, not on 
 this side of the world ! I will manage all. Leave 
 here what you have for her before she will come 
 in. I will give it to her in some secret way. 
 
 Cooney: I don't know. I will not give it to 
 you before I will get a receipt for it ... and 
 I'll not leave the town till I'll see did she get it 
 straight and fair. Into the Court I'll go to see her 
 paying it. 
 
 (Sits down and writes out receipt.} 
 
 Nestor: I was reading on ' ' Home Chat " about 
 a woman put a note for five pounds into her son's 
 prayer book and he going a voyage. And when 
 he came back and was in the church with her it 
 fell out, he never having turned a leaf of the book 
 at all. 
 
 Cooney: Let you sign this and you may put it 
 
 in the prayer book so long as she will get it safe. 
 
 (Nestor signs. Cooney looks suspiciously at 
 
 signature and compares it with a letter 
 
 and then gives notes} 
 
 Nestor: (Signing.} Joseph Nestor. 
 
 Cooney: Let me see now is it the same hand- 
 writing I used to be getting on the letters. It is. 
 I have the notes here. 
 
 Nestor: Wait now till I see is there a prayer
 
 The Jackdaw 107 
 
 book. . . . (Looks on shelf}. Treacle, castor 
 oil, marmalade. ... I see no books at all. 
 
 Cooney: Hurry on now, she will be coming in 
 and finding me. 
 
 Nestor: Here is what will do as well .... 
 "Old Moore's Almanac." I will put it here 
 between the leaves. I will ask her the prophecy 
 for the month. You can come back here after 
 she finding it. 
 
 Cooney: Amn't I after telling you I wouldn't 
 wish her to have sight of me here at all? What 
 are you at now, I wonder, saying that. I will 
 take my own way to know does she pay the money. 
 It is not my intention to be made a fool of. 
 (Goes out} 
 
 Nestor: You will be satisfied and well satisfied. 
 Let me see now where are the predictions for the 
 month. (Reads.} "The angry appearance of 
 Scorpio and the position of the pale Venus and 
 Jupiter presage much danger for England. The 
 heretofore obsequious Orangemen will refuse 
 to respond to the tocsin of landlordism. The 
 scales are beginning to fall from their eyes. " 
 
 (Mrs. Broderick comes in without his no- 
 ticing her. She gives a groan. He 
 drops book and stuffs notes into his 
 pocket.} 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Here I am back again and no 
 addition to me since I went.
 
 io8 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: You gave me a start coming in so 
 noiseless. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: It is time for me go to the 
 Court, and I give you my word I'd be better 
 pleased going to my burying at the Seven Churches. 
 A nice slab I have there waiting for me, though the 
 man that put it over me I never saw him at all, and 
 he a far off cousin of my own. 
 
 Nestor: Who knows now, Mrs. Broderick, but 
 things might turn out better than you think. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: What way could they turn 
 out better between this and one o'clock? 
 
 Nestor: (Scratching his head.) I suppose now 
 you wouldn't care to play a game of Twenty-five? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I am surprised at you, Mr. 
 Nestor, asking me to go cardplaying on such a day 
 and at such an hour as this. 
 
 Nestor: I wonder might some person come in 
 and give an order for ten pounds' worth of the 
 stock ? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Much good it would do me. 
 Sure I have the most of it on credit. 
 
 Nestor: Well, there is no knowing. Some well- 
 to-do person now passing the street might have 
 seen you and taken a liking to you and be willing 
 to make an advance or a loan. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Ah, who would be taking a 
 liking to me as they might to a young girl in 
 her bloom.
 
 The Jackdaw 109 
 
 Nestor. Oh, it's a sort of thing might happen. 
 Sure age didn't catch on to you yet; you are clean 
 and fresh and sound. What's this I was reading 
 in "Answers. " (Looks at it.) "Romantic elope- 
 ment ..." 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I know of no one would be 
 thinking of me for a wife . . . unless it might 
 be yourself, Mr. Nestor .... 
 
 Nestor: (Jumping up and speaking fast and run- 
 ning finger up and down paper.) ' ' Performance of 
 Dick Whittington. " . . . There now, there is 
 a story that I read in my reading, it was called 
 Whittington and the Cat. It was the cat led to 
 his fortune. There might some person take a 
 fancy to your cat .... 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Ah, let you have done now. 
 I have no cat this good while. I banished it on 
 the head of it threatening the jackdaw. 
 
 Nestor: The jackdaw? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Fetches cage from inner room.) 
 Sure I reared it since the time it fell down the 
 chimney and I going into my bed. It is often 
 you should have seen it, in or out of its cage. 
 Hero his name is. Come out now, Hero. 
 (Opens cage.) 
 
 Nestor: (Slapping his side.} That is it . . . 
 that's the very thing. Listen to me now, Mrs. 
 Broderick, there are some might give a good price 
 for that bird. (Sitting down to the work.) It
 
 1 10 The Jackdaw 
 
 chances now there is a friend of mine in South 
 Africa. A mine owner he is . . . very rich . . . 
 but it is down in the mine he has to live by reason 
 of the Kaffirs . . . it is hard to keep a watch 
 upon them in the half dark, they being black. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I suppose. . . . 
 
 Nestor: He does be lonesome now and again, 
 and he is longing for a bird to put him in mind of 
 old Ireland . . . but he is in dread it would die 
 in the darkness . . . and it came to his mind that 
 it is a custom with jackdaws to be living in chim- 
 neys, and that if any birds would bear the confine- 
 ment it is they that should do it. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: And is it to buy jackdaws he 
 is going? 
 
 Nestor: Isn't that what I am coming to. (He 
 pulls out notes.} Here now is ten pounds I have 
 to lay out for him. Take them now and good 
 luck go with them, and give me the bird. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Notes is it? Is it waking or 
 dreaming I am and I standing up on the floor? 
 
 Nestor: Good notes and ten of them. Look 
 at them! National Bank they are. . . . Count 
 them now, according to your fingers, and see did 
 I tell any lie. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Counting.} They are in it sure 
 enough ... so long as they are good ones and 
 I not made a hare of before the magistrates. 
 
 Nestor: Go out now to the Court and show
 
 The Jackdaw in 
 
 them to Timothy Ward, and see does he say are 
 they good. Pay them over then, and its likely 
 you will be let off the costs. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Taking shawl.} I will go, I will 
 go. Well, you are a great man and a kind man, 
 Joseph Nestor, and that you may live a thousand 
 years for this good deed. 
 
 Nestor: Look here now, ma'am, I wouldn't 
 wish you to be mentioning my name in this busi- 
 ness or saying I had any hand in it at all. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I will not so long as it's not 
 pleasing to you. Well, it is yourself took a great 
 load off me this day! (She goes out.} 
 
 Nestor: (Calling after her.} I might as well be 
 putting the jackdaw back into the cage to be 
 ready for the journey. (Comes into shop.} I hope 
 now he will be well treated by the sailors and he 
 travelling over the sea. . . . Where is he 
 now. . . . (Chirrups.} Here now, come here 
 to me, what's this your name is. ... Nero! 
 Nero! (Makes pounces behind counter.} Ah, 
 bad manners to you, is it under the counter you 
 are gone! 
 
 (Lies flat on the floor chirruping and catting, 
 Nero! Nero! Nolly comes in and 
 watches him curiously.} 
 
 Nally: Is it catching blackbeetles you are, 
 Mr. Nestor? Where are they and I will give 
 you a hand ....
 
 ii2 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: (Getting up annoyed.} It's that bird I 
 was striving to catch a hold of for to put him back 
 in the cage. 
 
 Tommy Natty: (Making a pounce.} There he 
 is now. (Puts bird in cage.} Wait now till I'll 
 fasten the gate. 
 
 Nestor: Just putting everything straight and 
 handy for the widow woman I am before she will 
 come back from the settlement she is making in 
 the Court. 
 
 Nally: What way will she be able to do that ? 
 
 Nestor: I gave her advice. A thought I had, 
 something that came from my reading. (Taps 
 paper.} Education and reading and going in the 
 army through the kingdoms of the world; that 
 is what fits a man now to be giving out advice. 
 
 Tommy: Indeed, it's good for them to have 
 you, all the poor ignorant people of this town. 
 
 Cooney: (Coming in hurriedly and knocking 
 against Nally as he goes out.} What, now, would 
 you say to be the best nesting place in this town. 
 Nests of jackdaws I should say. 
 
 Nestor: There is the old mill should be a good 
 place. To the west of the station it is. Chimneys 
 there are in it. Middling high they are. Wait 
 now till I'll tell you of the great plan I made 
 up. ... 
 
 Cooney: What are you asking for those rakes 
 in the corner? It's no matter, I'll take one on
 
 The Jackdaw 113 
 
 credit, or maybe it is on'y the lend of it I'll take, 
 ... I'll be coming back immediately. 
 (He goes out with rake.) 
 
 Sibby: (Coming in excitedly.} If you went bird- 
 catching, Mr. Nestor, tell me what way would you 
 go doing it ? 
 
 Nestor: It is not long since I was reading some 
 account of that . . . lads that made a trade of 
 it ... nets they had and they used to be 
 spreading them in the swamps where the plover 
 do be feeding. . . . 
 
 Sibby: Ah, sure where's the use of a plover! 
 
 Nestor: And snares they had for putting along 
 the drains where the snipe do be picking up 
 worms. . . . But if I myself saw any person 
 going after things of the sort, it is what I would 
 advise them to stick to the net. 
 
 Sibby: What now is the price of that net in the 
 corner ? 
 
 Nestor: (Taking it down.} It is but a little bag 
 that is, suitable for carrying small articles; it 
 would become your oranges well. Twopence I 
 believe, Sibby, is what I should charge you for 
 that. 
 
 Sibby: (Taking money out of handkerchief.} Give 
 it to me so! Here I'll get the start of you, 
 Timothy Ward, anyway. 
 
 (She takes it and goes out, almost overturning 
 Timothy Ward, who is rushing in.}
 
 1 14 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: Well, Timothy, did you see the Widow 
 Broderick in the Court ? 
 
 Ward: I did see her. It is in it she is, now, 
 looking as content as in the coffin, and she paying 
 her debt. 
 
 Nestor: Did she give you any account of 
 herself? 
 
 Ward: She did to be sure, and to the whole 
 Court; but look here now, I have no time to be 
 talking. I have to be back there when the 
 magistrates will have their lunch taken. Now you 
 being so clever a man, Mr. Nestor, what would 
 you say is the surest way to go catching birds ? 
 
 Nestor: It is a strange thing now, I was asked 
 the same question not three minutes ago. I was 
 just searching my mind. It seems to me I have 
 read in some place it is a very good way to go 
 calling to them with calls; made for the purpose 
 they are. You have but to sit under a tree or 
 whatever place they may perch and to whistle 
 . . . suppose now it might be for a curlew. . . . 
 (Whistles.} 
 
 Timothy Ward: Are there any of those calls 
 in the shop? 
 
 Nestor: I would not say there are any made for 
 
 the purpose, but there might be something might 
 
 answer you all the same. Let me see now .... 
 
 (Gets down a box of musical toys and turns 
 
 them over.}
 
 The Jackdaw 115 
 
 Ward: Is there anything now has a sound like 
 the croaky screech of a jackdaw ? 
 
 Nestor: Here now is what we used to be calling 
 a corncrake. . . . (Turns it.} Corncrake, 
 corncrake . . . but it seems to me now that to 
 give it but the one creak, this way . . . it is 
 much like what you would hear in the chimney at 
 the time of the making of the nests. 
 
 Ward: Give it here to me! 
 
 (Puts a penny on counter and runs out.} 
 
 Tommy Natty: (Coming in shaking with excite- 
 ment.} For the love of God, Mr. Nestor, will 
 you give me that live-trap on credit ! 
 
 Nestor: A trap? Sure there is no temptation 
 for rats to be settling themselves in the Workhouse. 
 
 Nolly: Or a snare itself ... or any sort of a 
 thing that would make the makings of a crib. 
 
 Nestor: What would you want, I wonder, going 
 out fowling with a crib ? 
 
 Nally: Why wouldn't I want it ? Why wouldn't 
 I have leave to catch a bird the same as every other 
 one? 
 
 Nestor: And what would the likes of you be 
 wanting with a bird ? 
 
 Nally: What would I want with it, is it? 
 Why wouldn't I be getting my own ten pounds? 
 
 Nestor: Heaven help your poor head this day ! 
 
 Nally: Why wouldn't I get it the same as 
 Mrs. Broderick got it ?
 
 n6 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: Well, listen to me now. You will not 
 get it. 
 
 Natty: Sure that man is buying them will have 
 no objection they to come from one more than 
 another. 
 
 Nestor: Don't be arguing now. It is a queer 
 thing for you, Tommy Nally, to be arguing with a 
 man like myself. 
 
 Nally: Think now all the good it would do me 
 ten pound to be put in my hand! It is not you 
 should be begrudging it to me, Mr. Nestor. Sure 
 it would be a relief upon the rates. 
 
 Nestor: I tell you you will not get ten pound 
 or any pound at all. Can't you give attention to 
 what I say? 
 
 Nally: If I had but the price of the trap you 
 wouldn't refuse it to me. Well, isn't there great 
 hardship upon a man to be bet up and to have 
 no credit in the town at all. 
 
 Nestor: (Exasperated, and giving him the cage.) 
 Look here now, I have a right to turn you out into 
 the street. But, as you are silly like and with no 
 great share of wits, I will make you a present of 
 this bird till you try what will you get for it, and 
 till you see will you get as much as will cover its 
 diet for one day only. Go out now looking for 
 customers and maybe you will believe what I 
 say. 
 
 Natty: (Seizing it.) That you may be doing the
 
 The Jackdaw 117 
 
 same thing this day fifty years! My fortune's 
 made now ! (Goes out with cage.} 
 
 Nestor: (Sitting down.} My joy go with you, but 
 I'm bothered with the whole of you. Everyone 
 expecting me to do their business and to manage 
 their affairs. That is the drawback of being an 
 educated man! 
 
 (Takes up paper to read.} 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Coming in.} I declare I'm as 
 comforted as Job coming free into the house from 
 the Court! 
 
 Nestor: Well, indeed, ma'am, I am well satis- 
 fied to be able to do what I did for you, and for my 
 friend from Africa as well, giving him so fine and 
 so handsome a bird. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Sure Finn himself that chewed 
 his thumb had not your wisdom, or King Solomon 
 that kept order over his kingdom and his own 
 seven hundred wives. There is neither of them 
 could be put beside you for settling the business 
 of any person at a 1. 
 
 (S bby comes in holding up her netted bag.} 
 
 Nestor: What is it you have there, Sibby? 
 
 Sibby: Look at them here, look at them here. 
 ... I wasn't long getting them. Warm they 
 are yet; they will take no injury. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: What are they at all? 
 
 Sibby: It is eggs they are . . . look at them. 
 Jackdaws' eggs.
 
 ii8 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: (Suspiciously. ,) And what call have 
 you now to be bringing in jackdaws' eggs? 
 
 Sibby: Is it ten pound apiece I will get for 
 them do you think, or is it but ten pound I will 
 get for the whole of them? 
 
 Nestor: Is it drink, or is it tea, or is it some 
 change that is come upon the world that is fit- 
 ting the people of this place for the asylum in 
 Ballinasloe? 
 
 Sibby: I know of a good clocking hen. I will 
 put the eggs under her .... I will rear them 
 when they'll be hatched out. 
 
 Nestor: I suppose now, Mrs. Broderick, you 
 went belling the case through the town? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I did not, but to the Magis- 
 trates upon the bench that I told it out of respect 
 to, and I never mentioned your name in it at all. 
 
 Sibby: Tell me now, Mrs. Broderick, who have 
 I to apply to? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: What is it you are wanting 
 to app'y about? 
 
 Sibby: Will you tell me where is the man that 
 is after buying your jackdaw? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Looking at Nestor) What's 
 that ? Where is he, is it ? 
 
 Nestor: (Making signs of silence.) How would 
 you know where he is? It is not in a broken 
 little town of this sort such a man would be stop- 
 ping, and he having his business finished.
 
 The Jackdaw 119 
 
 Sibby: Sure he will have to be coming back 
 here for the bird. I will stop till I'll see him 
 drawing near. 
 
 Nestor: It is more likely he will get it consigned 
 to the shipping agent. Mind what I say now, it is 
 best not be speaking of him at all. 
 
 (Timothy Ward comes in triumphantly, 
 croaking his toy. He has a bird in his 
 hand.} 
 
 Ward: I chanced on a starling. It was not 
 with this I tempted him, but a little chap that had 
 him in a crib. Would you say now, Mr. Nestor, 
 would that do as well as a jackdaw? Look now, 
 it's as handsome every bit as the other. And 
 anyway it is likely they will both die before they 
 will reach to their journey's end. 
 
 Nestor: (Lifling up his hands.} Of all the foolish- 
 ness that ever came upon the world ! 
 
 Ward: Hurry on now, Mrs. Broderick, tell 
 me where will I bring it to the buyer you were 
 speaking of. He is fluttering that hard it is much 
 if I can keep him in my hand. Is it at Noonan's 
 Royal Hotel he is or is it at Mack's ? 
 
 Nestor: (Shaking his head threateningly.} How 
 can you tell that and you not knowing it yourself ? 
 
 Ward: Sure you have a right to know what 
 way did he go, and he after going out of this. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Her eyes apprehensively on 
 Nestor.) Ah, sure, my mind was tattered on me.
 
 120 The Jackdaw 
 
 I couldn't know did he go east or west. Standing 
 here in this place I was, like a ghost that got a 
 knock upon its head. 
 
 Ward: If he is coming back for the bird it is 
 here he will be coming, and if it is to be sent after 
 him it is likely you will have his address. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: So I should, too, I suppose. 
 Where now did I put it ? (She looks to Nestor for 
 orders, but cannot understand his signs, and turns 
 out pocket.} That's my specs . . . that's the 
 key of the box . . . that's a bit of root liquorice. 
 . . . Where now at all could I have left down 
 that address? 
 
 Ward: There has no train left since he was 
 here. Sure what does it matter so long as he did 
 not go out of this. I'll bring this bird to the rail- 
 way. Tell me what sort was he till I'll know him. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Still looking at Nestor.} Well, 
 he was middling tall . . . not very gross . . . 
 about the figure now of Mr. Nestor. 
 
 Ward: What aged man was he? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I suppose up to sixty years. 
 About the one age, you'd say, with Mr. Nestor. 
 
 Ward: Give me some better account now; it 
 is hardly I would make him out by that. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: A grey beard he has hanging 
 down . . . and a bald poll, and grey hair like a 
 fringe around it ... just for all the world like 
 Mr. Nestor!
 
 The Jackdaw 121 
 
 Nestor: (Jumping up.} There is nothing so dis- 
 agreeable in the whole world as a woman that has 
 too much talk. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Well, let me alone. Where's 
 the use of them all picking at me to say where did 
 I get the money when I am under orders not to 
 tell it? 
 
 Ward: Under orders? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I am, and strong orders. 
 
 Ward: Whose orders are those ? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: What's that to you, I ask you ? 
 
 Ward: Isn't it a pity now a woman to be so 
 unneighbourly and she after getting profit for 
 herself ? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Look now, Mr. Nestor, the 
 way they are going on at me, and you saying no 
 word for me at all. 
 
 Ward: How would he say any word when he 
 hasn't it to say? The only word could be said by 
 any one is that you are a mean grasping person, 
 gathering what you can for your own profit and 
 keeping yourself so close and so compact. It is 
 back to the Court I am going, and it's no good 
 friend I'll be to you from this out, Mrs. Broderick! 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Amn't I telling you I was 
 bidden not to tell? 
 
 Sibby: You were. And is it likely it was you 
 yourself bid yourself and gave you that advice, 
 Mrs. Broderick? It is what I think the bird was
 
 122 The Jackdaw 
 
 never bought at all. It is in some other way she 
 got the money. Maybe in a way she does not like 
 to be talking of. Light weights, light fingers! 
 Let us go away so and leave her, herself and her 
 money and her orders! (Timothy Ward goes out, 
 but Sibby stops at door.} And much good may 
 they do her. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Listen to that, Mr. Nestor! 
 Will you be listening to that, when one word 
 from yourself would clear my character ! I leave 
 it now between you and the hearers. Why would 
 I be questioned this way and that way, the same 
 as if I was on the green table before the judges? 
 You have my heart broke between you. It's 
 best for me to heat the kettle and wet a drop of 
 tea. 
 
 (Goes to inner room.} 
 
 Sibby: Tell us the truth now, Mr. Nestor, if 
 you know anything at all about it. 
 
 Nestor: I know everything about it. It was 
 to myself the notes were handed in the first place. 
 I am willing to take my oath to you on that. It 
 was a stranger, I said, came in. 
 
 Sibby: I wish I could see him and know him if 
 I did see him. 
 
 Nestor: It is likely you would know a man of 
 that sort if you did see him, Sibby Fahy. It is 
 likely you never saw a man yet that owns riches 
 would buy up the half of this town.
 
 The Jackdaw 123 
 
 Sibby: It is not always them that has the 
 most that makes the most show. But it is likely 
 he will have a good dark suit anyway, and shining 
 boots, and a gold chain hanging over his chest. 
 
 Nestor: (Sarcastically.} He will, and gold rings 
 and pins the same as the King of France or of 
 Spain. 
 
 (Enter Cooney, hatless, streaked with soot 
 and lime, speechless but triumphant. 
 He holds up a nest with nestlings?) 
 
 Nestor: What has happened you, Mr. Cooney, 
 at all? 
 
 Cooney: Look now, what I have got ! 
 
 Nestor: A nest, is it ? 
 
 Cooney: Three young ones in it! 
 
 Nestor: (Faintly.') Is it what you are going to 
 say they are jackdaws! 
 
 Cooney: I followed your directions. . . . 
 
 Nestor: How do you make that out? 
 
 Cooney: You said the mill chimneys were full 
 of them .... 
 
 Nes or: What has that to do with it? 
 
 Cooney: I left my rake after me broken in the 
 loft . . . my hat went away in the millrace 
 ... I tore my coat on the stones . . . there 
 has mortar got into my eye. . . . 
 
 Nestor: The Lord bless and save us ! 
 
 Cooney: But there is no man can say I did 
 not bring back the birds, sound and living and
 
 124 The Jackdaw 
 
 in good health. Look now, the open mouths of 
 them! (All gather round.) Three of them safe 
 and living. ... I lost one climbing the wall. 
 . . . Where now is the man is going to buy 
 them? 
 
 Sibby: (Pointing at Nestor.) It is he that can 
 tell you that. 
 
 Cooney: Make no delay bringing me to him. 
 I'm in dread they might die on me first. 
 
 Nestor: You should know well that no one 
 is buying them. 
 
 Sibby: No one ! Sure it was you yourself told 
 us that there was ! 
 
 Nestor: If I did itself there is no such a 
 man. 
 
 Sibby: It's not above two minutes he was tell- 
 ing of the rings and the pins he wore. 
 
 Nestor: He never was in it at all. 
 
 Cooney: What plan is he making up now to 
 defraud me and to rob me? 
 
 Sibby: Question him yourself, and you will 
 see what will he say. 
 
 Cooney: How can I ask questions of a man 
 that is telling lies? 
 
 Nestor: I am telling no lies. I am well able 
 to answer you and to tell you the truth. 
 
 Cooney: Tell me where is the man that will 
 give me cash for these birds, the same as he gave 
 it to the woman of this house?
 
 The Jackdaw 125 
 
 Sibby: That's it, that is it. Let him tell it 
 out now. 
 
 Cooney: Will you have me ask it as often as 
 the hairs of my head? If I get vexed I will make 
 you answer me. 
 
 Nestor: It seems to me to have set fire to a 
 rick, but I am well able to quench it after. 
 There is no man in South Africa, or that came from 
 South Africa, or that ever owned a mine there at 
 all. Where is the man bought the bird, are you 
 asking? There he is standing among us on this 
 floor. (Points to Cooney.} That is himself, the 
 very man ! 
 
 Cooney: (Advancing a step.} What is that you 
 are saying? 
 
 Nestor: I say that no one came in here but 
 yourself. 
 
 Cooney: Did he say or not say there was a rich 
 man came in? 
 
 Sibby: He did, surely. 
 
 Nestor: To make up a plan .... 
 
 Cooney: I know well you have made up a plan. 
 
 Nestor: To give it unknownst .... 
 
 Cooney: It is to keep it unknownst you are 
 wanting ! 
 
 Nestor: The way she would not suspect .... 
 
 Cooney: It is I myself suspect and have cause 
 to suspect! Give me back my own ten pounds 
 and I'll be satisfied.
 
 126 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: What way can I give it back? 
 
 Cooney. The same way as you took it, in the 
 palm of your hand. 
 
 Nestor: Sure it is paid away and spent .... 
 
 Cooney: If it is you'll repay it! I know as 
 well as if I was inside you you are striving to make 
 me your prey! But I'll sober you! It is into the 
 Court I will drag you, and as far as the gaol! 
 
 Nestor: I tell you I gave it to the widow 
 woman. . . . 
 
 (Mrs. Broderick comes in.) 
 
 Cooney: Let her say now did you. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: What is it at all? What is 
 happening? Joseph Nestor threatened by a 
 tinker or a tramp ! 
 
 Nestor: I would think better of his behaviour 
 if he was a tinker or a tramp. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: He has drink taken so. Isn't 
 drink the terrible tempter, a man to see flames 
 and punishment upon the one side and drink 
 upon the other, and to turn his face towards 
 the drink! 
 
 Cooney: Will you stop your chat, Mary 
 Broderick, till I will drag the truth out of this 
 traitor? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Who is that calling me by 
 my name? Och! Is it Michael Cooney is in it? 
 Michael Cooney, my brother! O Michael, what 
 will they think of you coming into the town and
 
 The Jackdaw 127 
 
 much like a rag on a stick would be scaring in the 
 wheatfield through the day? 
 
 Cooney: (Pointing at Nestor.} It was going up 
 in the mill I destroyed myself, following the direc- 
 tions of that ruffian ! 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: And what call has a man that 
 has drink taken to go climbing up a loft in a mill? 
 A crooked mind you had always, and that's a 
 sort of person drink doesn't suit. 
 
 Cooney: I tell you I didn't take a glass over 
 a counter this ten year. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: You would do well to go 
 learn behaviour from Mr. Nestor. 
 
 Cooney: The man that has me plundered and 
 robbed! Tell me this now, if you can tell it. 
 Did you find any pound notes in "Old Moore's 
 Almanac"? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I did not to be sure, or in 
 any other place. 
 
 Nestor: She came in at the door and I striving 
 to put them into the book. 
 
 Cooney: Look are they in it now, and I will 
 say he is not tricky, but honest. 
 
 Nestor: You needn't be looking. ... 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Turningover the leaves.) Ne'er 
 a thing at all in it but the things that will or will 
 not happen, and the days of the changes of the 
 moon. 
 
 Cooney: (Seizing and shaking it.) Look at
 
 128 The Jackdaw 
 
 that now! (To Nestor.} Will you believe me now 
 telling you that you are a rogue? 
 
 Nestor: Will you listen to me, ma'am. . . . 
 
 Cooney: No, but listen to myself. I brought 
 the money to you. 
 
 Nestor: If he did he wouldn't trust you with 
 it, ma'am. 
 
 Cooney: I intended it for your relief. 
 
 Nestor: In dread he was you would go follow 
 him to Limerick. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: It is not likely I would be 
 following the like of him to Limerick, a man 
 that left me to the charity of strangers from 
 Africa! 
 
 Cooney: I gave the money to him. . . . 
 
 Nestor: And I gave it to yourself paying for 
 the jackdaw. Are you satisfied now, Mary 
 Broderick? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Satisfied, is it? It would be 
 a queer thing indeed I to be satisfied. My 
 brother to be spending money on birds, and his 
 sister with a summons on her head. Michael 
 Cooney to be passing himself off as a mine-owner, 
 and I myself being the way I am! 
 
 Cooney: What would I want doing that? I 
 tell you I ask no birds, black, blue or white! 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: I wonder at you now saying 
 that, and you with that clutch on your arm! 
 (Cooney indignantly flings away nest.} Searching
 
 The Jackdaw 129 
 
 out jackdaws and his sister without the price of 
 a needle in the house ! I tell you, Michael Cooney, 
 it is yourself will be wandering after your burying, 
 naked and perishing, through winds and through 
 frosts, in satisfaction for the way you went 
 wasting your money and your means on such 
 vanities, and she that was reared on the one 
 floor with you going knocking at the Work- 
 house door! What good will jackdaws be to you 
 that time? 
 
 Cooney: It is what I would wish to know, 
 what scheme are the whole of you at? It is 
 long till I will trust any one but my own eyes 
 again in the whole of the living world. 
 
 (She wipes her eyes indignantly. Tommy 
 Nally rushes in the bird and cage still in 
 his hands.} 
 
 Nally: Where is the bird buyer? It is here 
 he is said to be. It is well for me get here the 
 first. It is the whole of the town will be here 
 within half an hour ; they have put a great scatter 
 on themselves hunting and searching in every place, 
 but I am the first! 
 
 Nestor: What is it you are talking about? 
 
 Nally: Not a house in the whole street but 
 is deserted. It is much if the Magistrates them- 
 selves didn't quit the bench for the pursuit, the 
 way Tim Ward quitted the place he had a right to 
 
 be! 
 o
 
 130 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: It is some curse in the air, or some 
 scourge? 
 
 Nally: Birds they are getting by the score! 
 Old and young! Where is the bird-buyer? Who 
 is it now will give me my price? 
 
 (He holds up the cage.) 
 
 Cooney: There is surely some root for all this. 
 There must be some buyer after all. It's to 
 keep him to themselves they are wanting. (Goes 
 to door.) But I'll get my own profit in spite of 
 them. 
 
 (He goes outside door, looking up and down 
 the street.) 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Look at what Tommy Nally 
 has. That's my bird. 
 
 Nally: It is not, it's my own ! 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: That is my cage! 
 
 Nally: It is not, it is mine! 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Wouldn't I know my own 
 cage and my own bird? Don't be telling lies 
 that way! 
 
 Nally: It is no lie I am telling. The bird and 
 the cage were made a present to me. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Who would make a present 
 to you of the things that belong to myself? 
 
 Nally: It was Mr. Nestor gave them to me. 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Do you hear what he says, 
 Joseph Nestor? What call have you to be giving 
 a present of my bird?
 
 The Jackdaw 131 
 
 Nestor: And wasn't I after buying it from 
 you? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: If you were it was not for 
 yourself you bought it, but for the poor man in 
 South Africa you bought it, and you defrauding 
 him now, giving it away to a man has no claim to 
 it at all. Well, now, isn't it hard for any man to 
 find a person he can trust? 
 
 Nestor: Didn't you hear me saying I bought 
 it for no person at all? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Give it up now, Tommy Nally, 
 or I'll have you in gaol on the head of it. 
 
 Nally: Oh, you wouldn't do such a thing, 
 ma'am, I am sure! 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Indeed and I will, and have 
 you on the treadmill for a thief. 
 
 Nally: Oh, oh, oh, look now, Mr. Nestor, the 
 way you have made me a thief and to be lodged 
 in the gaol ! 
 
 Nestor: I wish to God you were lodged in it, 
 and we would have less annoyance in this place! 
 
 Nally: Oh, that is a terrible thing for you to 
 be saying! Sure the poorhouse itself is better 
 than the gaol! The nuns preparing you for 
 heaven and the Mass every morning of your 
 life. . . . 
 
 Nestor: If you go on with your talk and your 
 arguments it's to gaol you will surely go. 
 
 Natty: Milk of a Wednesday and a Friday,
 
 132 The Jackdaw 
 
 the potatoes steamed very good. . . . It's the 
 skins of the potatoes they were telling me you do 
 have to be eating in the gaol. It is what I am 
 thinking, Mr. Nestor, that bird will lie heavy 
 on you at the last ! 
 
 Nestor: (Seizing cage and letting the bird out of 
 the door.} Bad cess and a bad end to it, and that 
 I may never see it or hear of it again ! ? 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: Look what he is after doing! 
 Get it back for me! Give it here into my hands 
 I say! Why wouldn't I sell it secondly to the 
 buyer and he to be coming to the door? It is 
 in my own pocket I will keep the price of it that 
 time! 
 
 Natty: It would have been as good you to have 
 left it with me as to be sending itself and the 
 worth of it up into the skies ! 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: (Taking Nestor's arm.} Get 
 it back for me I tell you ! There it is above in the 
 ash tree, and it flapping its wings on a bough ! 
 
 Nestor: Give me the cage, if that will content 
 you, and I will strive to entice it to come in. 
 
 Cooney: (Coming in.} Everyone running this 
 way and that way. It is for birds they are look- 
 ing sure enough. Why now would they go through 
 such hardship if there was not a demand in some 
 place? 
 
 Nestor: (Pushing him away.} Let me go now 
 before that bird will quit the branch where it is.
 
 The Jackdaw 133 
 
 Cooney: (Seizing hold of him.} Is it striving 
 to catch a bird for yourself you are now? 
 
 Nestor: Let me pass if you please. I have 
 nothing to say to you at all. 
 
 Cooney: Laying down to me they were worth 
 nothing! I knew well you had made up some 
 plan! The grand adviser is it! It is to yourself 
 you gave good advice that time! 
 
 Nestor: Let me out I tell you before that up- 
 roar you are making will drive it from its perch 
 on the tree. 
 
 Cooney: Is it to rob me of my own money you 
 did and to be keeping me out of the money I 
 earned along with it! 
 
 (Threatens Nestor with " Moore's Almanac, " 
 which he has picked up.} 
 
 Sibby: Take care would there be murder done 
 in this place ! 
 
 (She seizes Nestor, Mrs. Broderick seizes 
 Cooney. Tommy Nally wrings his 
 hands.} 
 
 Nestor: Tommy Nally, will you kindly go and 
 call for the police. 
 
 Cooney: Is it into a den of wild beasts I am 
 come that must go calling out for the police? 
 
 Nestor: A very unmannerly person indeed ! 
 
 Cooney: Everyone thinking to take advan- 
 tage of me and to make their own trap for my 
 ruin.
 
 134 The Jackdaw 
 
 Nestor: I don't know what cause has he at all to 
 have taken any umbrage against me. 
 
 Cooney: You that had your eye on my notes 
 from the first like a goat in a cabbage garden! 
 
 Nestor: Coming with a gift in the one hand 
 and holding a dagger in the other! 
 
 Cooney: If you say that again I will break 
 your collar bone ! 
 
 Nestor: O, but you are the terrible wicked 
 man! 
 
 Cooney: I'll squeeze satisfaction out of you 
 if I had to hang for it! I will be well satisfied 
 if I'll kill you! 
 
 (Flings "Moore's Almanac" at him.} 
 
 Nestor: (Throwing his bundle of newspapers.) 
 Oh, good jewel! 
 
 Ward: (Coming in hastily.) Whist the whole 
 of you, I tell you! The Magistrates are coming 
 to the door! (Comes in and shuts it after him.) 
 
 Mrs. Broderick: The Lord be between us 
 and harm! What made them go quit the Court? 
 
 Ward: The whole of the witnesses and of 
 the prosecution made off bird-catching. The 
 Magistrates sent to invite the great mine-owner 
 to go lunch at Noonan's with themselves. 
 
 Cooney: Horses of their own to stick him with 
 they have. I wouldn't doubt them at all. 
 
 Ward: He could not be found in any place. 
 They are informed he was never seen leaving
 
 The Jackdaw 135 
 
 this house. They are coming to make an investi- 
 gation. 
 
 Nestor: Don't be anyway uneasy. I will 
 explain the whole case. 
 
 Ward: The police along with them. . . . 
 Cooney: Is the whole of this district turned 
 into a trap? 
 
 Ward: It is what they are thinking, that the 
 stranger was made away with for his gold! 
 
 Cooney: And if he was, as sure as you are 
 living, it was done by that blackguard there! 
 
 (Points at Nestor.) 
 
 Ward: If he is not found they will arrest all 
 they see upon the premises. . . . 
 Cooney: It is best for me to quit this. 
 
 (Goes to door.) 
 
 Ward: Here they are at the door. Sergeant 
 Garden along with them. Hide yourself, Mr. 
 Nestor, if you've anyway to do it at all. 
 
 (Sounds of feet and talking and knock at the 
 door. Cooney hides under counter. 
 Nestor lies down on top of bench, spreads 
 his newspaper over him. Mrs. Broder- 
 ick goes behind counter.) 
 
 Nestor: (Raising paper from his face and looking 
 out.) Tommy Nally, I will give you five shillings 
 if you will draw "Tit-Bits" over my feet. 
 
 Curtain
 
 THE WORKHOUSE WARD
 
 PERSONS 
 
 Mike Mclnerney^ PAUPERS 
 
 Michael Miskell \ 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe, A COUNTRYWOMAN 
 
 138
 
 THE WORKHOUSE WARD 
 
 Scene: A ward in Cloon Workhouse. The two 
 old men in their beds. 
 
 Michael Miskell: Isn't it a hard case, Mike 
 Mclnerney, myself and yourself to be left here 
 in the bed, and it the feast day of Saint Colman, 
 and the rest of the ward attending on the Mass. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Is it sitting up by the hearth 
 you are wishful to be, Michael Miskell, with cold 
 in the shoulders and with speckled shins? Let you 
 rise up so, and you well able to do it, not like myself 
 that has pains the same as tin-tacks within in my 
 inside. 
 
 Michael Miskell: If you have pains within in 
 your inside there is no one can see it or know of 
 it the way they can see my own knees that are 
 swelled up with the rheumatism, and my hands 
 that are twisted in ridges the same as an old 
 cabbage stalk. It is easy to be talking about 
 soreness and about pains, and they maybe not 
 to be in it at all. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: To open me and to analyse 
 me you would know what sort of a pain and a 
 
 i39
 
 140 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 soreness I have in my heart and in my chest. 
 But I'm not one like yourself to be cursing and 
 praying and tormenting the time the nuns are at 
 hand, thinking to get a bigger share than myself 
 of the nourishment and of the milk. 
 
 Michael Miskell: That's the way you do be 
 picking at me and faulting me. I had a share 
 and a good share in my early time, and it's well 
 you know that, and the both of us reared in 
 Skehanagh. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: You may say that, ind ed, 
 we are both of us reared in Skehanagh. Little 
 wonder you to have good nourishment the time 
 we were both rising, and you bringing away my 
 rabbits out of the snare. 
 
 Michael Miskell: And you didn't bring away 
 my own eels, I suppose, I was after spearing in 
 the Turlough? Selling them to the nuns in the 
 convent you did, and letting on they to be your 
 own. For you were always a cheater and a 
 schemer, grabbing every earthly thing for your 
 own profit. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: And you were no grabber 
 yourself, I suppose, till your land and all you 
 had grabbed wore away from you! 
 
 Michael Miskell: If I lost it itself, it was 
 through the crosses I met with and I going through 
 the world. I never was a rambler and a card- 
 player like yourself, Mike Mclnerney, that ran
 
 The Workhouse Ward 141 
 
 through all and lavished it unknown to your 
 mother! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Lavished it, is it? And if 
 I did was it you yourself led me to lavish it or 
 some other one? It is on my own floor I would 
 be to-day and in the face of my family, but for the 
 misfortune I had to be put with a bad next door 
 neighbour that was yourself. What way did my 
 means go from me is it? Spending on fencing, 
 spending on walls, making up gates, putting up 
 doors, that would keep your hens and your ducks 
 from coming in through starvation on my floor, 
 and every four footed beast you had from preying 
 and trespassing on my oats and my mangolds and 
 my little lock of hay! 
 
 Michael Miskell: to listen to you! And I 
 striving to please you and to be kind to you and 
 to close my ears to the abuse you would be calling 
 and letting out of your mouth. To trespass on 
 your crops is it? It's little temptation there was 
 for my poor beasts to ask to cross the mering. 
 My God Almighty! What had you but a little 
 corner of a field ! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: And what do you say to my 
 garden that your two pigs had destroyed on me 
 the year of the big tree being knocked, and they 
 making gaps in the wall. 
 
 Michael Miskell: Ah, there does be a great 
 deal of gaps knocked in a twelvemonth. Why
 
 142 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 wouldn't they be knocked by the thunder, the 
 same as the tree, or some storm that came up 
 from the west? 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: It was the west wind, I 
 suppose, that devoured my green cabbage? And 
 that rooted up my Champion potatoes? And 
 that ate the gooseberries themselves from off the 
 bush? 
 
 Michael Miskell: What are you saying? The 
 two quietest pigs ever I had, no way wicked and 
 well ringed. They were not ten minutes in it. 
 It would be hard for them eat strawberries in that 
 time, let alone gooseberries that's full of thorns. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: They were not quiet, but 
 very ravenous pigs you had that time, as active 
 as a fox they were, killing my young ducks. 
 Once they had blood tasted you couldn't stop 
 them. 
 
 Michael Miskell: And what happened myself 
 the fair day of Esserkelly, the time I was passing 
 your door? Two brazened dogs that rushed out 
 and took a piece of me. I never was the better 
 of it or of the start I got, but wasting from then 
 till now! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Thinking you were a wild 
 beast they did, that had made his escape out of 
 the travelling show, with the red eyes of you and 
 the ugly face of you, and the two crooked legs of 
 you that wouldn't hardly stop a pig in a gap.
 
 The Workhouse Ward 143 
 
 Sure any dog that had any life in it at all would 
 be roused and stirred seeing the like of you going 
 the road ! 
 
 Michael Miskell: I did well taking out a sum- 
 mons against you that time. It is a great wonder 
 you not to have been bound over through your 
 lifetime, but the laws of England is queer. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: What ailed me that I did 
 not summons yourself after you stealing away 
 the clutch of eggs I had in the barrel, and I away in 
 Ardrahan searching out a clocking hen. 
 
 Michael Miskell: To steal your eggs is it? Is 
 that what you are saying now? (Holds up his 
 hands.} The Lord is in heaven, and Peter and the 
 saints, and yourself that was in Ardrahan that day 
 put a hand on them as soon as myself! Isn't it 
 a bad story for me to be wearing out my days 
 beside you the same as a spancelled goat. Chained 
 I am and tethered I am to a man that is ramsacking 
 his mind for lies ! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: If it is a bad story for you, 
 Michael Miskell, it is a worse story again for 
 myself. A Miskell to be next and near me through 
 the whole of the four quarters of the year. I never 
 heard there to be any great name on the Miskells 
 as there was on my own race and name. 
 
 Michael Miskell: You didn't, is it? Well, you 
 could hear it if you had but ears to hear it. Go 
 across to Lisheen Crannagh and down to the
 
 144 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 sea and to Newtown Lynch and the mills of 
 Duras and you'll find a Miskell, and as far as 
 Dublin! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: What signifies Crannagh 
 and the mills of Duras? Look at all my own 
 generations that are buried at the Seven Churches. 
 And how many generations of the Miskells are 
 buried in it? Answer me that! 
 
 Michael Miskell: I tell you but for the wheat 
 that was to be sowed there would be more side 
 cars and more common cars at my father's funeral 
 (God rest his soul!) than at any funeral ever left 
 your own door. And as to my mother, she was a 
 Cuffe from Claregalway, and it's she had the purer 
 blood! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: And what do you say to the 
 banshee? Isn't she apt to have knowledge of the 
 ancient race? Was ever she heard to screech or to 
 cry for the Miskells? Or for the Cuffes from 
 Claregalway? She was not, but for the six 
 families, the Hyneses, the Foxes, the Faheys, the 
 Dooleys, the Mclnerneys. It is of the nature of 
 the Mclnerneys she is I am thinking, crying them 
 the same as a king's children. 
 
 Michael Miskell: It is a pity the banshee not 
 to be crying for yourself at this minute, and 
 giving you a warning to quit your lies and your 
 chat and your arguing and your contrary ways; 
 for there is no one under the rising sun could stand
 
 The Workhouse Ward 145 
 
 you. I tell you you are not behaving as in the 
 presence of the Lord ! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Is it wishful for my death 
 you are? Let it come and meet me now and wel- 
 come so long as it will part me from yourself! 
 And I say, and I would kiss the book on it, I to 
 have one request only to be granted, and I leaving 
 it in my will, it is what I would request, nine 
 furrows of the field, nine ridges of the hills, nine 
 waves of the ocean to be put between your grave 
 and my own grave the time we will be laid in the 
 ground ! 
 
 Michael Miskell: Amen to that! Nine ridges, 
 is it? No, but let the whole ridge of the world 
 separate us till the Day of Judgment ! I would not 
 be laid anear you at the Seven Churches, I to get 
 Ireland without a divide! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: And after that again! I'd 
 sooner than ten pound in my hand, I to know 
 that my shadow and my ghost will not be knocking 
 about with your shadow and your ghost, and the 
 both of us waiting our time. I'd sooner be de- 
 layed in Purgatory ! Now, have you anything to 
 say? 
 
 Michael Miskell: I have everything to say, if 
 I had but the time to say it ! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: (Sitting up.} Let me up out 
 of this till I'll choke you! 
 
 Michael Miskell: You scolding pauper you! 
 
 10
 
 146 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: (Shaking his fist at him.) 
 Wait a while! 
 
 Michael Miskell: (Shaking his fist.) Wait a 
 while yourself! 
 
 (Mrs. Donohoe comes in with a parcel. She 
 is a countrywoman with a frilled cap and 
 a shawl. She stands still a minute. 
 The two old men lie down and compose 
 themselves.) 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: They bade me come up here 
 by the stair. I never was in this place at all. 
 I don't know am I right. Which now of the two 
 of ye is Mike Mclnerney? 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Who is it is calling me by my 
 name? 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: Sure amn't I your sister, Honor 
 Mclnerney that was, that is now Honor Donohoe. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: So you are, I believe. I 
 didn't know you till you pushed anear me. It 
 is time indeed for you to come see me, and I in 
 this place five year or more. Thinking me to be 
 no credit to you, I suppose, among that tribe of 
 the Donohoes. I wonder they to give you leave 
 to come ask am I living yet or dead? 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: Ah, sure, I buried the whole 
 string of them. Himself was the last to go. 
 (Wipes her eyes.) The Lord be praised he got a 
 fine natural death. Sure we must go through our 
 crosses. And he got a lovely funeral; it would
 
 The Workhouse Ward 147 
 
 delight you to hear the priest reading the Mass. 
 My poor John Donohoe ! A nice clean man, you 
 couldn't but be fond of him. Very severe on 
 the tobacco he was, but he wouldn't touch the 
 drink. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: And is it in Curranroe you 
 are living yet? 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: It is so. He left all to myself. 
 But it is a lonesome thing the head of a house to 
 have died! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: I hope that he has left you 
 a nice way of living? 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: Fair enough, fair enough. A 
 wide lovely house I have; a few acres of grass 
 land . . . the grass does be very sweet that 
 grows among the stones. And as to the sea, 
 there is something from it every day of the year, 
 a handful of periwinkles to make kitchen, or cockles 
 maybe. There is many a thing in the sea is not 
 decent, but cockles is fit to put before the Lord! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: You have all that! And 
 you without ere a man in the house? 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: It is what I am thinking, your- 
 self might come and keep me company. It is 
 no credit to me a brother of my own to be in this 
 place at all. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: I'll go with you! Let me 
 out of this! It is the name of the Mclnerneys 
 will be rising on every side!
 
 148 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: I don't know. I was ignorant 
 of you being kept to the bed. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: I am not kept to it, but may- 
 be an odd time when there is a colic rises up within 
 me. My stomach always gets better the time 
 there is a change in the moon. I'd like well to 
 draw anear you. My heavy blessing on you, 
 Honor Donohoe, for the hand you have held out 
 to me this day. 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: Sure you could be keeping the 
 fire in, and stirring the pot with the bit of Indian 
 meal for the hens, and milking the goat and taking 
 the tacklings off the donkey at the door; and 
 maybe putting out the cabbage plants in their 
 time. For when the old man died the garden 
 died. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: I could to be sure, and be 
 cutting the potatoes for seed. What luck could 
 there be in a place and a man not to be in it? 
 Is that now a suit of clothes you have brought with 
 you? 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: It is so, the way you will be 
 tasty coming in among the neighbours at Cur- 
 ranroe. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: My joy you are ! It is well 
 you earned me ! Let me up out of this ! (He sits 
 up and spreads out the clothes and tries on coat.} 
 That now is a good frieze coat . . . and a hat 
 in the fashion . . . (He puts on hat.}
 
 The Workhouse Ward 149 
 
 Michael Miskell: (Alarmed.} And is it going 
 out of this you are, Mike Mclnerney? 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Don't you hear I am going? 
 To Curranroe I am going. Going I am to a place 
 where I will get every good thing! 
 
 Michael Miskell: And is it to leave me here 
 after you you will? 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: (In a rising chant.} Every 
 good thing! The goat and the kid are there, the 
 sheep and the lamb are there, the cow does be 
 running and she coming to be milked ! Ploughing 
 and seed sowing, blossom at Christmas time, the 
 cuckoo speaking through the dark days of the year ! 
 Ah, what are you talking about? Wheat high in 
 hedges, no talk about the rent! Salmon in the 
 rivers as plenty as turf! Spending and getting 
 and nothing scarce! Sport and pleasure, and 
 music on the strings! Age will go from me and 
 I will be young again. Geese and turkeys for the 
 hundreds and drink for the whole world ! 
 
 Michael Miskell: Ah, Mike, is it truth you are 
 saying, you to go from me and to leave me with 
 rude people and with townspeople, and with 
 people of every parish in the union, and they 
 having no respect for me or no wish for me at all! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Whist now and I'll leave 
 you . . . my pipe (hands it over}; and I'll 
 engage it is Honor Donohoe won't refuse to be 
 sending you a few ounces of tobacco an odd time,
 
 150 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 and neighbours coming to the fair in November 
 or in the month of May. 
 
 Michael Miskell: Ah, what signifies tobacco? 
 All that I am craving is the talk. There to be 
 no one at all to say out to whatever thought might 
 be rising in my innate mind! To be lying here 
 and no conversible person in it would be the 
 abomination of misery! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Look now, Honor. . . . 
 It is what I often heard said, two to be better than 
 one .... Sure if you had an old trouser was 
 full of holes . . . or a skirt . . . wouldn't you 
 put another in under it that might be as tattered 
 as itself, and the two of them together would make 
 some sort of a decent show? 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: Ah, what are you saying? 
 There is no holes in that suit I brought you 
 now, but as sound it is as the day I spun it for 
 himself. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: It is what I am thinking, 
 Honor ... I do be weak an odd time . . . any 
 load I would carry, it preys upon my side . . . 
 and this man does be weak an odd time with the 
 swelling in his knees . . . but the two of us 
 together it's not likely it is at the one time we 
 would fail. Bring the both of us with you, Honor, 
 and the height of the castle of luck on you, and 
 the both of us together will make one good hardy 
 man!
 
 The Workhouse Ward 151 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: I'd like my job! Is it queer in 
 the head you are grown asking me to bring in a 
 stranger off the road? 
 
 Midiael Miskell: I am not, ma'am, but an old 
 neighbour I am. If I had forecasted this asking 
 I would have asked it myself. Michael Miskell 
 I am, that was in the next house to you in Ske- 
 hanagh ! 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: For pity's sake ! Michael Mis- 
 kell is it? That's worse again. Yourself and 
 Mike that never left fighting and scolding and 
 attacking one another! Sparring at one another 
 like two young pups you were, and threatening one 
 another after like two grown dogs! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: All the quarrelling was ever 
 in the place it was myself did it. Sure his anger 
 rises fast and goes away like the wind. Bring 
 him out with myself now, Honor Donohoe, and 
 God bless you. 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: Well, then, I will not bring him 
 out, and I will not bring yourself out, and you not 
 to learn better sense. Are you making yourself 
 ready to come? 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: I am thinking, maybe . . . 
 it is a mean thing for a man that is shivering into 
 seventy years to go changing from place to place. 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: Well, take your luck or leave it. 
 All I asked was to save you from the hurt and the 
 harm of the year.
 
 152 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Bring the both of us with you 
 or I will not stir out of this. 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: Give me back my fine suit so 
 (begins gathering up the clothes), till I'll go look 
 for a man of my own ! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Let you go so, as you are 
 so unnatural and so disobliging, and look for some 
 man of your own, God help him! For I will not 
 go with you at all ! 
 
 Mrs. Donohoe: It is too much time I lost with 
 you, and dark night waiting to overtake me on the 
 road. Let the two of you stop together, and the 
 back of my hand to you. It is I will leave you 
 there the same as God left the Jews ! 
 
 (She goes out. The old men lie down and are 
 silent for a moment.) 
 
 Michael Miskell: Maybe the house is not so 
 wide as what she says. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Why wouldn't it be wide? 
 
 Michael Miskell: Ah, there does be a good deal 
 of middling poor houses down by the sea. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: What w r ould you know about 
 wide houses? Whatever sort of a house you had 
 yourself it was too wide for the provision you had 
 into it. 
 
 Michael Miskell: Whatever provision I had 
 in my house it was wholesome provision and 
 natural provision. Herself and her periwinkles! 
 Periwinkles is a hungry sort of food.
 
 The Workhouse Ward 153 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Stop your impudence and 
 your chat or it will be the worse for you. I'd 
 bear with my own father and mother as long as 
 any man would, but if they'd vex me I would give 
 them the length of a rope as soon as another! 
 
 Michael Miskell: I would never ask at all to go 
 eating periwinkles. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: (Sitting up.} Have you 
 anyone to fight me? 
 
 Michael Miskell: (Whimpering.} I have not, 
 only the Lord! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Let you leave putting insults 
 on me so, and death picking at you! 
 
 Michael Miskell: Sure I am saying nothing at 
 all to displease you. It is why I wouldn't go 
 eating periwinkles, I'm in dread I might swallow 
 the pin. 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: Who in the world wide is 
 asking you to eat them? You're as tricky as a 
 fish in the full tide ! 
 
 Michael Miskell: Tricky is it! Oh, my curse 
 and the curse of the four and twenty men upon 
 you! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: That the worm may chew 
 you from skin to marrow bone ! (Seizes his pillow.} 
 
 Michael Miskell: (Seizing his own pillow.} I'll 
 leave my death on you, you scheming vagabone! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: By cripes! I'll pull out 
 your pin feathers! (Throwing pillow.}
 
 154 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 Michael Miskell: (Throwing pillow.} You ty- 
 rant ! You big bully you ! 
 
 Mike Mclnerney: (Throwing pillow and seizing 
 mug.} Take this so, you stobbing ruffian you! 
 
 (They throw all within their reach at one 
 another, mugs, prayer books, pipes, etc.} 
 
 Curtain
 
 THE TRAVELLING MAN
 
 PERSONS 
 A Mother. 
 A Child. 
 A Travelling Man.
 
 A MIRACLE PLAY 
 
 Scene: A cottage kitchen. A woman setting out 
 a bowl and jug and board on the table for 
 breadmaking. 
 
 Child: What is it you are going to make, 
 mother? 
 
 Mother: I am going to make a grand cake 
 with white flour. Seeds I will put in it. Maybe 
 I'll make a little cake for yourself too. You can 
 be baking it in the little pot while the big one will 
 be baking in the big pot. 
 
 Child: It is a pity daddy to be away at the 
 fair on a Samhain night. 
 
 Mother: I must make my feast all the same, 
 for Samhain night is more to me than to any 
 other one. It was on this night seven years I 
 first came into this house. 
 
 Child: You will be taking down those plates 
 from the dresser so, those plates with flowers 
 on them, and be putting them on the table. 
 
 Mother: I will. I will set out the house to-day,
 
 158 The Travelling Man 
 
 and bring down the best delf, and put whatever 
 thing is best on the table, because of the great 
 thing that happened me seven years ago. 
 
 Child: What great thing was that? 
 
 Mother: I was after being driven out of the 
 house where I was a serving girl. . . . 
 
 Child: Where was that house? Tell me about 
 it. 
 
 Mother: (Sitting down and pointing southward.) 
 It is over there I was living, in a farmer's house 
 up on Slieve Echtge, near to Slieve na n-Or, the 
 Golden Mountain. 
 
 Child: The Golden Mountain! That must 
 be a grand place. 
 
 Mother: Not very grand indeed, but bare 
 and cold enough at that time of the year. Anyway, 
 I was driven out a Samhain day like this, because 
 of some things that were said against me. 
 
 Child: What did you do then? 
 
 Mother: What had I to do but to go walking 
 the bare bog road through the rough hills where 
 there was no shelter to find, and the sharp wind 
 going through me, and the red mud heavy on my 
 shoes. I came to Kilbecanty. . . . 
 
 Child: I know Kilbecanty. That is where 
 the woman in the shop gave me sweets out of a 
 bottle. 
 
 Mother: So she might now, but that night her 
 door was shut and all the doors were shut; and I
 
 The Travelling Man 159 
 
 saw through the windows the boys and the girls 
 sitting round the hearth and playing their games, 
 and I had no courage to ask for shelter. In dread 
 I was they might think some shameful thing of me, 
 and I going the road alone in the night-time. 
 
 Child: Did you come here after that? 
 
 Mother: I went on down the hill in the darkness, 
 and with the dint of my trouble and the length of 
 the road my strength failed me, and I had like to 
 fall. So I did fall at the last, meeting with a heap 
 of broken stones by the roadside. 
 
 Child: I hurt my knee one time I fell on the 
 stones. 
 
 Mother: It was then the great thing happened. 
 I saw a stranger coming towards me, a very tall 
 man, the best I ever saw, bright and shining that 
 you could see him through the darkness; and I 
 knew him to be no common man. 
 
 Child: Who was he? 
 
 Mother: It is what I thought, that he was the 
 King of the World. 
 
 Child: Had he a crown like a King? 
 
 Mother: If he had, it was made of the twigs 
 of a bare blackthorn; but in his hand he had a 
 green branch, that never grew on a tree of this 
 world. He took me by the hand, and he led me 
 over the stepping-stones outside to this door, and 
 he bade me to go in and I would find good shelter. 
 I was kneeling down to thank him, but he raised
 
 160 The Travelling Man 
 
 me up and he said, "I will come to see you some 
 other time. And do not shut up your heart in the 
 things I give you," he said, "but have a welcome 
 before me." 
 
 Child: Did he go away then? 
 
 Mother: I saw him no more after that, but I 
 did as he bade me. (She stands up and goes to 
 the door.} I came in like this, and your father was 
 sitting there by the hearth, a lonely man that was 
 after losing his wife. He was alone and I was 
 alone, and we married one another; and I never 
 wanted since for shelter or safety. And a good 
 wife I made him, and a good housekeeper. 
 
 Child: Will the King come again to the house? 
 
 Mother: I have his word for it he will come, 
 but he did not come yet; it is often your father 
 and myself looked out the door of a Samhain 
 night, thinking to see him. 
 
 Child: I hope he won't come in the night time, 
 and I asleep. 
 
 Mother: It is of him I do be thinking every 
 year, and I setting out the house, and making a 
 cake for the supper. 
 
 Child: What will he do when he comes in? 
 
 Mother: He will sit over there in the chair, 
 and maybe he will taste a bit of the cake. I will 
 call in all the neighbours; I will tell them he is 
 here. They will not be keeping it in their mind 
 against me then that I brought nothing, coming to
 
 The Travelling Man 161 
 
 the house. They will know I am before any of 
 them, the time they know who it is has come to 
 visit me. They will all kneel down and ask for 
 his blessing. But the best blessing will be on the 
 house he came to of himself. 
 
 Child: And are you going to make the cake 
 now? 
 
 Mother: I must make it now indeed, or I will 
 be late with it. I am late as it is; I was expect- 
 ing one of the neighbours to bring me white flour 
 from the town. I'll wait no longer, I'll go borrow 
 it in some place. There will be a wedding in the 
 stonecutter's house Thursday, it's likely there will 
 be flour in the house. 
 
 Child: Let me go along with you 
 
 Mother: It is best for you to stop here. Be 
 a good child now, and don't be meddling with the 
 things on the table. Sit down there by the hearth 
 and break up those little sticks I am after bringing 
 in. Make a little heap of them now before me, and 
 we will make a good fire to bake the cake. See 
 now how many will you break. Don't go out the 
 door while I'm away, I would be in dread of you 
 going near the river and it in flood. Behave your- 
 self well now. Be counting the sticks as you break 
 them. 
 
 (She goes out.) 
 
 Child: (Sitting down and breaking sticks across 
 his knee.) One and two I can break this
 
 1 62 The Travelling Man 
 
 one into a great many, one, two, three, four. This 
 one is wet I don't like a wet one five, six that 
 is a great heap. Let me try that great big one. 
 That is too hard. I don't think mother could 
 break that one. Daddy could break it. 
 
 (Half-door is opened and a travelling man 
 
 comes in. He wears a ragged white 
 
 flannel shirt, and mud-stained trousers. 
 
 He is bareheaded and barefooted, and 
 
 carries a little branch in his hand.} 
 
 Travelling Man: (Stooping over the child and 
 
 taking the stick.} Give it here to me and hold this. 
 
 (He puts the branch in the child's hand while 
 
 he takes the stick and breaks it.) 
 Child: That is a good branch, apples on it and 
 flowers. The tree at the mill has apples yet, 
 but all the flowers are gone. Where did you get 
 this branch? 
 
 Travelling Man: I got it in a garden a long 
 way off. 
 
 Child: Where is the garden? Where do you 
 come from? 
 
 Travelling Man: (Pointing southward.) I have 
 come from beyond those hills. 
 
 Child: Is it from the Golden Mountain you are 
 come? From Slieve na n-Or? 
 
 Travelling Man: That is where I come from 
 surely, from the Golden Mountain. I would 
 like to sit down and rest for a while.
 
 The Travelling Man 163 
 
 Child: Sit down here beside me. We must 
 not go near the table or touch anything, or mother 
 will be angry. Mother is going to make a beauti- 
 ful cake, a cake that will be fit for a King that 
 might be coming in to our supper. 
 
 Travelling Man: I will sit here with you on the 
 floor. 
 
 (Sits down.) 
 
 Child: Tell me now about the Golden Mountain. 
 
 Travelling Man: There is a garden in it, and 
 there is a tree in the garden that has fruit and 
 flowers at the one time. 
 
 Child: Like this branch? 
 
 Travelling Man: Just like that little branch. 
 
 Child: What other things are in the garden? 
 
 Travelling Man: There are birds of all colours 
 that sing at every hour, the way the people will 
 come to their prayers. And there is a high wall 
 about the garden. 
 
 Child: What way can the people get through 
 the wall? 
 
 Travelling Man: There are four gates in the 
 wall: a gate of gold, and a gate of silver, and a 
 gate of crystal, and a gate of white brass. 
 
 Child: (Taking up the sticks.} I will make a 
 garden. I will make a wall with these sticks. 
 
 Travelling Man: This big stick will make the 
 first wall. 
 
 (They build a square wall with sticks.)
 
 164 The Travelling Man 
 
 Child: (Taking up branch.) I will put this in 
 the middle. This is the tree. I will get something 
 to make it stand up. (Gets up and looks at dresser.) 
 I can't reach it, get up and give me that shining 
 jug. 
 
 (Travelling Man gets up and gives him the 
 
 Travelling Man: Here it is for you. 
 
 Child: (Puts it within the walls and sets the 
 branch in it.) Tell me something else that is in 
 the garden? 
 
 Travelling Man: There are four wells of water 
 in it, that are as clear as glass. 
 
 Child: Get me down those cups, those flowery 
 cups, we will put them for wells. (He hands 
 them down.) Now I will make the gates, give me 
 those plates for gates, not those ugly ones, those 
 nice ones at the top. 
 
 (He takes them down and they put them on 
 the four sides for gates. The Child gets 
 up and looks at it.) 
 
 Travelling Man: There now, it is finished. 
 
 Child: Is it as good as the other garden? 
 How can we go to the Golden Mountain to see the 
 other garden? 
 
 Travelling Man: We can ride to it. 
 
 Child: But we have no horse. 
 
 Travelling Man: This form will be our horse. 
 (He draws a form out of the corner, and sits down
 
 The Travelling Man 165 
 
 astride on it, putting the child before him.} Now, 
 off we go ! (Sings, the child repeating the refrain) 
 
 Come ride and ride to the garden, 
 Come ride and ride with a will: 
 
 For the flower comes with the fruit there 
 Beyond a hill and a hill. 
 
 Refrain 
 
 Come ride and ride to the garden, 
 Come ride like the March wind ; 
 
 There's barley there, and water there, 
 And stabling to your mind. 
 
 Travelling Man: How did you like that ride, 
 little horseman? 
 
 Child: Go on again! I want another ride! 
 Travelling Man (sings) 
 
 The Archangels stand in a row there 
 
 And all the garden bless, 
 The Archangel Axel, Victor the angel 
 
 Work at the cider press. 
 
 Refrain 
 Come ride and ride to the garden, &c. 
 
 Child: We will soon be at the Golden Moun- 
 tain now. Ride again. Sing another song.
 
 i66 The Travelling Man 
 
 Travelling Man (sings) 
 
 O scent of the broken apples ! 
 
 O shuffling of holy shoes! 
 Beyond a hill and a hill there 
 
 In the land that no one knows. 
 
 Refrain 
 Come ride and ride to the garden, &c. 
 
 Child: Now another ride. 
 
 Travelling Man: This will be the last. It 
 will be a good ride. 
 
 (The mother comes in. She stares for a 
 second, then throws down her basket 
 and snatches up the child.) 
 
 Mother: Did ever anyone see the like of that! 
 A common beggar, a travelling man off the roads, 
 to be holding the child ! To be leaving his ragged 
 arms about him as if he was of his own sort ! Get 
 out of that, whoever you are, and quit this house 
 or I'll call to some that will make you quit it. 
 
 Child: Do not send him out ! He is not a bad 
 man; he is a good man ; he was playing horses with 
 me. He has grand songs. 
 
 Mother: Let him get away out of this now, 
 himself and his share of songs. Look at the way 
 he has your bib destroyed that I was after washing 
 in the morning! 
 
 Child: He was holding me on the horse. We
 
 The Travelling Man 167 
 
 were riding, I might have fallen. He held me. 
 
 Mother: I give you my word you are done 
 now with riding horses. Let him go on his road. 
 I have no time to be cleaning the place after the 
 like of him. 
 
 Child: He is tired. Let him stop here till 
 evening. 
 
 Travelling Man: Let me rest here for a while, 
 I have been travelling a long way. 
 
 Mother: Where did you come from to-day? 
 
 Travelling Man: I came over Slieve Echtge 
 from Slieve na n-Or. I had no house to stop in. 
 I walked the long bog road, the wind was going 
 through me, there was no shelter to be got, the 
 red mud of the road was heavy on my feet. I 
 got no welcome in the villages, and so I came on 
 to this place, to the rising of the river at Ballylee. 
 
 Mother: It is best for you to go on to the town. 
 It is not far for you to go. We will maybe have 
 company coming in here. 
 
 (She pours out flour into a bowl and begins 
 mixing.} 
 
 Travelling Man: Will you give me a bit of 
 that dough to bring with me? I have gone a 
 long time fasting. 
 
 Mother: It is not often in the year I make 
 bread like this. There are a few cold potatoes on 
 the dresser, are they not good enough for you? 
 There is many a one would be glad to get them.
 
 168 The Travelling Man 
 
 Travelling Man: Whatever you will give me, 
 I will take it. 
 
 Mother: (Going to the dresser for the potatoes 
 and looking at the shelves.} What in the earthly 
 world has happened all the delf? Where are the 
 jugs gone and the plates? They were all in it 
 when I went out a while ago. 
 
 Child: (Hanging his head.} We were making a 
 garden with them. We were making that garden 
 there in the corner. 
 
 Mother: Is that what you were doing after I 
 bidding you to sit still and to keep yourself quiet? 
 It is to tie you in the chair I will another time! 
 My grand jugs! (She picks them up and wipes 
 them.} My plates that I bought the first time I 
 ever went marketing into Gort. The best in the 
 shop they were. (One slips from her hand and 
 breaks.} Look at that now, look what you are 
 after doing. 
 
 (She gives a slap at the child.} 
 
 Travelling Man: Do not blame the child. It 
 was I myself took them down from the dresser. 
 
 Mother: (Turning on him.} It was you took 
 them! What business had you doing that? It's 
 the last time a tramp or a tinker or a rogue of the 
 roads will have a chance of laying his hand on 
 anything in this house. It is jailed you should be! 
 What did you want touching the dresser at all? Is 
 it looking you were for what you could bring away?
 
 The Travelling Man 169 
 
 Travelling Man: (Taking the child's hands.} 
 I would not refuse these hands that were held out 
 for them. If it was for the four winds of the world 
 he had asked, I would have put their bridles into 
 these innocent hands. 
 
 Mother: (Taking up the jug and throwing the 
 branch on the floor.} Get out of this! Get out 
 of this I tell you! There is no shelter here for 
 the like of you! Look at that mud on the floor! 
 You are not fit to come into the house of any 
 decent respectable person! 
 
 (The room begins to darken.} 
 
 Travelling Man: Indeed, I am more used to the 
 roads than to the shelter of houses. It is often I 
 have spent the night on the bare hills. 
 
 Mother: No wonder in that! (She begins to 
 sweep floor.} Go out of this now to whatever 
 company you are best used to, whatever they are. 
 The worst of people it is likely they are, thieves and 
 drunkards and shameless women. 
 
 Travelling Man: Maybe so. Drunkards and 
 thieves and shameless women, stones that have 
 fallen, that are trodden under foot, bodies that are 
 spoiled with sores, bodies that are worn with 
 fasting, minds that are broken with much sinning, 
 the poor, the mad, the bad. . . . 
 
 Mother: Get out with you! Go back to your 
 friends, I say! 
 
 Travelling Man: I will go. I will go back to
 
 170 The Travelling Man 
 
 the high road that is walked by the bare feet of 
 the poor, by the innocent bare feet of children. I 
 will go back to the rocks and the wind, to the cries 
 of the trees in the storm ! (He goes out.} 
 
 Child: He has forgotten his branch! 
 
 (Takes it and follows him.) 
 
 Mother: (Still sweeping.') My good plates from 
 the dresser, and dirty red mud on the floor, and 
 the sticks all scattered in every place. (Stoops 
 to pick them up.) Where is the child gone? 
 (Goes to door.) I don't see him he couldn't have 
 gone to the river it is getting dark the bank is 
 slippy. Come back! Come back! Where are 
 you? (Child runs in.) 
 
 Mother: O where were you? I was in dread 
 it was to the river you were gone, or into the 
 river. 
 
 Child: I went after him. He is gone over the 
 river. 
 
 Mother: He couldn't do that. He couldn't 
 go through the flood. 
 
 Child: He did go over it. He was as if walking 
 on the water. There was a light before his feet. 
 
 Mother: That could not be so. What put that 
 thought in your mind? 
 
 Child: I called to him to come back for the 
 branch, and he turned where he was in the river, 
 and he bade me to bring it back, and to show it 
 to yourself.
 
 The Travelling Man 171 
 
 Mother: (Taking the branch.) There are fruit 
 and flowers on it. It is a branch that is not of 
 any earthly tree. (Falls on her knees.) He is 
 gone, he is gone, and I never knew him! He was 
 that stranger that gave me all! He is the King 
 of the World!
 
 THE GAOL GATE 
 
 173
 
 PERSONS 
 
 Mary Cahel . . AN OLD WOMAN 
 
 Mary Cushin . HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 
 The Gatekeeper 
 
 174
 
 THE GAOL GATE 
 
 Scene: Outside the gate of Galway Gaol. Two 
 countrywomen, one in a long dark cloak, the 
 other with a shawl over her head, have just come 
 in. It is just before dawn. 
 
 Mary Cahel: I am thinking we are come to 
 our journey's end, and that this should be the gate 
 of the gaol. 
 
 Mary Cushin: It is certain it could be no other 
 place. There was surely never in the world such 
 a terrible great height of a wall. 
 
 Mary Cahel: He that was used to the mountain 
 to be closed up inside of that ! What call had he 
 to go moonlighting or to bring himself into danger 
 at all? 
 
 Mary Cushin: It is no wonder a man to grow 
 faint-hearted and he shut away from the light. 
 I never would wonder at all at anything he might 
 be driven to say. 
 
 Mary Cahel: There were good men were gaoled 
 before him never gave in to anyone at all. It is 
 what I am thinking, Mary, he might not have 
 done what they say. 
 
 175
 
 The Gaol Gate 
 
 Mary Cushin: Sure you heard what the neigh- 
 bours were calling the time their own boys were 
 brought away. "It is Denis Cahel," they were 
 saying, "that informed against them in the gaol." 
 
 Mary Cahel: There is nothing that is bad or 
 is wicked but a woman will put it out of her 
 mouth, and she seeing them that belong to her 
 brought away from her sight and her home. 
 
 Mary Cushin: Terry Fury's mother was saying 
 it, and Pat Ruane's mother and his wife. They 
 came out calling it after me, "It was Denis swore 
 against them in the gaol!" The sergeant was 
 boasting, they were telling me, the day he came 
 searching Daire-caol, it was he himself got his 
 confession with drink he had brought him in the 
 gaol. 
 
 Mary Cahel: They might have done that, the 
 ruffians, and the boy have no blame on him at all. 
 Why should it be cast up against him, and his 
 wits being out of him with drink? 
 
 Mary Cushin: If he did give their names up 
 itself, there was maybe no wrong in it at all. 
 Sure it's known to all the village it was Terry that 
 fired the shot. 
 
 Mary Cahel: Stop your mouth now and don't 
 be talking. You haven't any sense worth while. 
 Let the sergeant do his own business with no 
 help from the neighbours at all. 
 
 Mary Cushin: It was Pat Ruane that tempted
 
 The Gaol Gate 177 
 
 them on account of some vengeance of his own. 
 Every creature knows my poor Denis never 
 handled a gun in his life. 
 
 Mary Cahel: (Taking from under her cloak a 
 long blue envelope.} I wish we could know what 
 is in the letter they are after sending us through 
 the post. Isn't it a great pity for the two of us 
 to be without learning at all? 
 
 Mary Cushin: There are some of the neigh- 
 bours have learning, and you bade me not bring 
 it anear them. It would maybe have told us 
 what way he is or what time he will be quitting the 
 gaol. 
 
 Mary Cahel: There is wonder on me, Mary 
 Cushin, that you would not be content with 
 what I say. It might be they put down in the 
 letter that Denis informed on the rest. 
 
 Mary Cushin: I suppose it is all we have to 
 do so, to stop here for the opening of the door. 
 It's a terrible long road from Slieve Echtge we 
 were travelling the whole of the night. 
 
 Mary Cahel: There was no other thing for 
 us to do but to come and to give him a warning. 
 What way would he be facing the neighbours, 
 and he to come back to Daire-caol? 
 
 Mary Cushin: It is likely they will let him 
 go free, Mary, before many days will be out. 
 What call have they to be keeping him? It is 
 certain they promised him his life. 
 
 12
 
 178 The Gaol Gate 
 
 Mary Cdhel: If they promised him his life, 
 Mary Cushin, he must live it in some other place. 
 Let him never see Daire-caol again, or Daroda or 
 Druimdarod. 
 
 Mary Cushin: O, Mary, what place will we 
 bring him to, and we driven from the place that 
 we know? What person that is sent among 
 strangers can have one day's comfort on earth? 
 
 Mary Cahel: It is only among strangers, I 
 am thinking, he could be hiding his story at all. 
 It is best for him to go to America, where the 
 people are as thick as grass. 
 
 Mary Cushin: What way could he go to Amer- 
 ica and he having no means in his hand? There's 
 himself and myself to make the voyage and the 
 little one-een at home. 
 
 Mary Cahel: I would sooner to sell the holding 
 than to ask for the price paid for blood. There'll 
 be money enough for the two of you to settle your 
 debts and to go. 
 
 Mary Cushin: And what would yourself be 
 doing and we to go over the sea? It is not among 
 the neighbours you would wish to be ending your 
 days. 
 
 Mary Cahel: I am thinking there is no one 
 would know me in the workhouse at Oughterard. 
 I wonder could I go in there, and I not to give 
 them my name? 
 
 Mary Cushin: Ah, don't be talking foolishness.
 
 The Gaol Gate 179 
 
 What way could I bring the child? Sure he's 
 hardly out of the cradle ; he'd be lost out there in 
 the States. 
 
 Mary Cahel: I could bring him into the work- 
 house, I to give him some other name. You could 
 send for him when you'd be settled or have some 
 place of your own. 
 
 Mary Cushin: It is very cold at the dawn. It 
 is time for them open the door. I wish I had 
 brought a potato or a bit of a cake or of bread. 
 
 Mary Cahel: I'm in dread of it being opened 
 and not knowing what will we hear. The night 
 that Denis was taken he had a great cold and a 
 cough. 
 
 Mary Cushin: I think I hear some person com- 
 ing. There's a sound like the rattling of keys. 
 God and His Mother protect us! I'm in dread of 
 being found here at all! 
 
 (The gate is opened, and the Gatekeeper is seen 
 with a lantern in his hand.} 
 
 Gatekeeper: What are you doing here, women? 
 It's no place to be spending the night time. 
 
 Mary Cahel: It is to speak with my son I am 
 asking, that is gaoled these eight weeks and a 
 day. 
 
 Gatekeeper: If you have no order to visit him 
 it's as good for you go away home. 
 
 Mary Cahel: I got this letter ere yesterday. It 
 might be it is giving me leave.
 
 i8o The Gaol Gate 
 
 Gatekeeper: If that's so he should be under the 
 doctor, or in the hospital ward. 
 
 Mary Cahel: It's no wonder if he's down with 
 the hardship, for he had a great cough and a cold. 
 
 Gatekeeper: Give me here the letter to read it. 
 Sure it never was opened at all. 
 
 Mary Cahel: Myself and this woman have no 
 learning. We were loth to trust any other one. 
 
 Gatekeeper: It was posted in Galway the 
 twentieth, and this is the last of the month. 
 
 Mary Cahel: We never thought to call at the 
 post office. It was chance brought it to us in the 
 end. 
 
 Gatekeeper: (Having read letter.} You poor 
 unfortunate women, don't you know Denis Cahel 
 is dead? You'd a right to come this time yester- 
 day if you wished any last word at all. 
 
 Mary Cahel: (Kneeling down.} God and His 
 Mother protect us and have mercy on Denis's 
 soul! 
 
 Mary Cushin: What is the man after saying? 
 Sure it cannot be Denis is dead? 
 
 Gatekeeper: Dead since the dawn of yesterday, 
 and another man now in his cell. I'll go see who 
 has charge of his clothing if you're wanting to 
 bring it away. 
 
 (He goes in. The dawn has begun to break) 
 
 Mary Cahel: There is lasting kindness in 
 Heaven when no kindness is found upon earth.
 
 The Gaol Gate 181 
 
 There will surely be mercy found for him, and 
 not the hard judgment of men! But my boy 
 that was best in the world, that never rose a hair 
 of my head, to have died with his name under 
 blemish, and left a great shame on his child! 
 Better for him have killed the whole world than to 
 give any witness at all ! Have you no word to say, 
 Mary Cushin? Am I left here to keen him alone? 
 
 Mary Cushin: (Who has sunk on to the step 
 before the door, rocking herself and keening.} Oh, 
 Denis, my heart is broken you to have died with 
 the hard word upon you! My grief you to be 
 alone now that spent so many nights in company! 
 
 What way will I be going back through Gort 
 and through Kilbecanty? The people will not be 
 coming out keening you, they will say no prayer 
 for the rest of your soul! 
 
 What way will I be the Sunday and I going up 
 the hill to the Mass? Every woman with her own 
 comrade, and Mary Cushin to be walking her lone ! 
 
 What way will I be the Monday and the neigh- 
 bours turning their heads from the house? The 
 turf Denis cut lying on the bog, and no well-wisher 
 to bring it to the hearth ! 
 
 What way will I be in the night time, and none 
 but the dog calling after you? Two women to 
 be mixing a cake, and not a man in the house to 
 break it! 
 
 What way will I sow the field, and no man to
 
 182 The Gaol Gate 
 
 drive the furrow? The sheaf to be scattered 
 before springtime that was brought together at 
 the harvest ! 
 
 I would not begrudge you, Denis, and you 
 leaving praises after you. The neighbours keening 
 along with me would be better to me than an 
 estate. 
 
 But my grief your name to be blackened in 
 the time of the blackening of the rushes! Your 
 name never to rise up again in the growing time 
 of the year! (She ceases keening and turns towards 
 the old woman.) But tell me, Mary, do you think 
 would they give us the body of Denis? I would 
 lay him out with myself only; I would hire some 
 man to dig the grave. 
 
 (The Gatekeeper opens the gate and hands 
 out some clothes.) 
 
 Gatekeeper: There now is all he brought in with 
 him; the flannels and the shirt and the shoes. It 
 is little they are worth altogether; those moun- 
 tainy boys do be poor. 
 
 Mary Cushin: They had a right to give him 
 time to ready himself the day they brought him 
 to the magistrates. He to be wearing his Sunday 
 coat, they would see he was a decent boy. Tell 
 me where will they bury him, the way I can follow 
 after him through the street? There is no other 
 one to show respect to him but Mary Cahel, his 
 mother, and myself.
 
 The Gaol Gate 183 
 
 Gatekeeper: That is not to be done. He is 
 buried since yesterday in the field that is belonging 
 to the gaol. 
 
 Mary Cushin: It is a great hardship that to 
 have been done, and not one of his own there to 
 follow after him at all. 
 
 Gatekeeper: Those that break the law must be 
 made an example of. Why would they be laid 
 out like a well behaved man? A long rope and a 
 short burying, that is the order for a man that is 
 hanged. 
 
 Mary Cushin: A man that was hanged! O 
 Denis, was it they that made an end of you and not 
 the great God at all? His curse and my own 
 curse upon them that did not let you die on the 
 pillow! The curse of God be fulfilled that was 
 on them before they were born ! My curse upon 
 them that brought harm on you, and on Terry 
 Fury that fired the shot! 
 
 Mary Cahel: (Standing up.) And the other 
 boys, did they hang them along with him, Terry 
 Fury and Pat Ruane that were brought from 
 Daire-caol? 
 
 Gatekeeper: They did not, but set them free 
 twelve hours ago. It is likely you may have 
 passed them in the night time. 
 
 Mary Cushin: Set free is it, and Denis made 
 an end of? What justice is there in the world 
 at all?
 
 1 84 The Gaol Gate 
 
 Gatekeeper: He was taken near the house. They 
 knew his footmark. There was no witness given 
 against the rest worth while. 
 
 Mary Cahel: Then the sergeant was lying 
 and the people were lying when they said Denis 
 Cahel had informed in the gaol? 
 
 Gatekeeper: I have no time to be stopping here 
 talking. The judge got no evidence and the law 
 set them free. 
 
 (He goes in and shuts gate after him.} 
 
 Mary Cahel: (Holding out her hands.} Are 
 there any people in the streets at all till I call on 
 them to come hither? Did they ever hear in Gal- 
 way such a thing to be done, a man to die for his 
 neighbour? 
 
 Tell it out in the streets for the people to hear, 
 Denis Cahel from Slieve Echtge is dead. It was 
 Denis Cahel from Daire-caol that died in the 
 place of his neighbour! 
 
 It is he was young and comely and strong, the 
 best reaper and the best hurler. It was not a 
 little thing for him to die, and he protecting his 
 neighbour! 
 
 Gather up, Mary Cushin, the clothes for your 
 child; they'll be wanted by this one and that one. 
 The boys crossing the sea in the springtime will be 
 craving a thread for a memory. 
 
 One word to the judge and Denis was free, they 
 offered him all sorts of riches. They brought him
 
 The Gaol Gate 185 
 
 drink in the gaol, and gold, to swear away the 
 life of his neighbour! 
 
 Pat Ruane was no good friend to him at all, 
 but a foolish, wild companion ; it was Terry Fury 
 knocked a gap in the wall and sent in the calves to 
 our meadow. 
 
 Denis would not speak, he shut his mouth, he 
 would never be an informer. It is no lie he would 
 have said at all giving witness against Terry Fury. 
 
 I will go through Gort and Kilbecanty and 
 Druimdarod and Daroda ; I will call to the people 
 and the singers at the fairs to make a great praise 
 for Denis! 
 
 The child he left in the house that is shook, 
 it is great will be his boast in his father! All 
 Ireland will have a welcome before him, and all the 
 people in Boston. 
 
 I to stoop on a stick through half a hundred 
 
 years, I will never be tired with praising! Come 
 
 hither, Mary Cushin, till we'll shout it through 
 
 the roads, Denis Cahel died for his neighbour! 
 
 (She goes off to the left, Mary Cushin following 
 
 her.} 
 
 Curtain
 
 MUSIC FOR THE 
 SONGS IN THE PLAYS 
 
 NOTES AND CASTS
 
 MUSIC FOR THE SONGS IN 
 THE PLAYS 
 
 THE RED-HAIRED MAN'S WIFE 
 
 f the Nevs. 
 I thought, my first love, there'd be but one house 
 
 
 be-tween you and me, And 
 
 would find your self coax ing 
 
 3 
 
 __^_ 
 ray child on your knee. O ver the tide 
 
 t would leap with the leap of a swan, 
 
 Till t came 
 
 to 
 
 the 
 
 side 
 
 the wife 
 
 of the red* haired man. 
 
 189
 
 190 Music for the Songs 
 
 GRANUAILE 
 
 TTif Kiting of the Moo*. 
 
 fcrfc 
 
 1 
 
 As through the hills I walked to view the 
 
 
 m 
 
 ^ 
 
 bills and sham-rock plain, I stood a while where 
 
 fe 
 
 na ture smiles to view the rocks and 
 
 # 
 
 streams. On a ma-tron fair I fixed my eyes be- 
 
 S 
 
 ^t~# 
 ncath a fer-tile vale, As she sang her song it was 
 
 00 the wrong Of poor old Gran u aile.
 
 Music for the Songs 191 
 
 fe^feE 
 
 ps 
 
 Her bead was bare, her bands and feet with 
 
 
 i - ron bands were bound, Her pen sive strain and 
 
 
 plain live wail mihg-les with the eve ning 
 
 
 
 gale, And the song she sang with mourn-ful air, I 
 
 ^^ 
 
 am old Gran u aile, Her lips so sweet that 
 
 
 Et 
 
 mon-archs kissed'
 
 192 Music for the Songs 
 
 JOHNNY ~ HART 
 
 TTie Rising of the Moon. 
 
 There was ' a rici) far men's daugb ter lived 
 
 
 near the town of Ross; She court-ed a High-land 
 
 
 Sol dier, His name was John* ny Hart; Says the 
 
 moth-er to her daugh-ter, " 1*11 go dls tract ed 
 
 
 tnad If 700 mar ry that High land 
 
 ^i r 
 
 sol^- dier dressed op in his High-land plaid.".
 
 Music for the Songs 193 
 
 THE RISING OP THE MOON 
 
 O, then, tell me, Sbawo O* Far reO, where the 
 
 
 
 gath'ring is to be. Id the old spot by the 
 
 # 
 
 -K K- 
 
 ri ver, Right well known to you and me. 
 
 
 One word more, for sig nal to ken whis tie 
 
 up 'the march -ing tune, With your pike up on your 
 
 should -er at the ris iag of the mooo.
 
 J94 Music for the Songs 
 
 GAOL. GATE 
 
 ^j -n 
 
 i i i 
 
 
 1 1 [ 
 
 fc=fe d 
 
 ^ j-J- 
 
 =^ . 
 
 J-...J3 
 
 What way will I be the Sun . day 
 
 
 And I go - ing op the hill to the 
 
 Mass, Ev' . ry wo man with her own com rade 
 
 And Ma-ry Cuah - in to be walk ing her lone. 
 
 Spoken. 
 
 What way drive the furrow? 
 
 The 
 
 tp be scat-tered be fore spring-time that
 
 Music for the Songs 195 
 
 f*=i 
 
 j- 
 
 J 
 
 
 i 
 
 r~f 
 
 W J 
 
 <s) 
 
 S 
 
 1-3 j 3 J-l 
 
 =3= 
 
 53E3 
 
 was brought to getb er at the bar vest ! 
 Spoken. Singf. 
 
 I would not an estate. 
 
 But my 
 
 grief your name to be black ened in 
 
 the time of the black -'rung of the rush es 
 
 
 Your 
 
 name 
 
 nev er to rise up a . gain In the 
 
 . U IT 1 i . ,* "^ >-< - ^ i 
 
 time 
 
 Of the /ear.
 
 NOTES 
 
 SPREADING THE NEWS 
 
 THE idea of this play first came to me as a tragedy. 
 I kept seeing as in a picture people sitting by the 
 roadside, and a girl passing to the market, gay and 
 fearless. And then I saw her passing by the same 
 place at evening, her head hanging, the heads of 
 others turned from her, because of some sudden 
 story that had risen out of a chance word, and had 
 snatched away her good name. 
 
 But comedy and not tragedy was wanted at our 
 theatre to put beside the high poetic work, The 
 King's Threshold, The Shadowy Waters, On Bailees 
 Strand, The Well of the Saints; and I let laughter 
 have its way with the little play. I was delayed in 
 beginning it for a while, because I could only think 
 of Bartley Fallen as dull-witted or silly or ignorant, 
 and the handcuffs seened too harsh a punishment. 
 But one day by the sea at Duras a melancholy man 
 who was telling me of the crosses he had gone through 
 at home said "But I'm thinking if I went to 
 America, its long ago to-day I'd be dead. And its 
 a great expense for a poor man to be buried in 
 America." Bartley was born at that moment, and, 
 
 196
 
 Notes 197 
 
 far from harshness, I felt I was providing him with 
 a happy old age in giving him the lasting glory of 
 that great and crowning day of nrsfortune. 
 
 It has been acted very often by other companies 
 as well as our own, and the Boers have done me the 
 honour of translating and pirating it. 
 
 HYACINTH HALVEY 
 
 I WAS pointed out one evening a well-brushed, 
 well-dressed man in the stalls, and was told gossip 
 about him, perhaps not all true, which made me 
 wonder if that appearance and behaviour as of 
 extreme respectability might not now and again be 
 felt a burden. 
 
 After a while he translated himself in my mind 
 into Hyacinth; and as one must set one's original 
 a little way off to get a translation rather than a 
 tracing, he found himself in Cloon, where, as in other 
 parts of our country, "character" is built up or de- 
 stroyed by a password or an emotion, rather than by 
 experience and deliberation. 
 
 The idea was more of a universal one than I knew 
 at the first, and I have had but uneasy appreciation 
 from some apparently blameless friends. 
 
 THE RISING OF THE MOON 
 
 When I was a child and came with my elders to 
 Galway for their salmon fishing in the river that
 
 198 Notes 
 
 rushes past the gaol, I used to look with awe at the 
 window where men were hung, and the dark, closed 
 gate. I used to wonder if ever a prisoner might by 
 some means climb the high, buttressed wall and 
 slip away in the darkness by the canal to the quays 
 and find friends to hide him under a load of kelp in a 
 fishing boat, as happens to my ballad-singing man. 
 The play was considered offensive to some extreme 
 Nationalists before it was acted, because it showed 
 the police in too favourable a light, and a Unionist 
 paper attacked it after it was acted because the police- 
 man was represented "as a coward and a traitor"; 
 but after the Belfast police strike that same paper 
 praised its "insight into Irish character." After all 
 these ups and downs it passes unchallenged on both 
 sides of the Irish Sea. 
 
 THE JACKDAW 
 
 The first play I wrote was called "Twenty-five." 
 It was played by our company in Dublin and London, 
 and was adapted and translated into Irish and played 
 in America. It was about "A boy of Kilbecanty 
 that saved his old sweetheart from being evicted. 
 It was playing Twenty-five he did it; played with 
 the husband he did, letting him win up to 50. " 
 
 It was rather sentimental and weak in construction, 
 and for a long time it was an overflowing storehouse 
 of examples of "the faults of my dramatic method." 
 I have at last laid its ghost in "The Jackdaw, " and I 
 have not been accused of sentimentality since the 
 appearance of this.
 
 Notes 199 
 
 THE WORKHOUSE WARD 
 
 I heard of an old man in the workhouse who had 
 been disabled many years before by, I think, a knife 
 thrown at him by his wife in some passionate quarrel. 
 
 One day I heard the wife had been brought in there, 
 poor and sick. I wondered how they would meet, and 
 if the old quarrel was still alive, or if they who knew 
 the worst of each other would be better pleased with 
 one another's company than with that of strangers. 
 
 I wrote a scenario of the play, Dr. Douglas Hyde, 
 getting in plot what he gave back in dialogue, for at 
 that time we thought a dramatic movement in Irish 
 would be helpful to our own as well as to the Gaelic 
 League. Later I tried to rearrange it for our own 
 theatre, and for three players only, but in doing this 
 I found it necessary to write entirely new dialogue, 
 the two old men in the original play obviously talking 
 at an audience in the wards, which is no longer there. 
 
 I sometimes think the two scolding paupers are a 
 symbol of ourselves in Ireland 1p F^Apf impeaf na 
 udigneaf "it is better to be quarrelling than to be 
 lonesome." The Rajputs, that great fighting race, 
 when they were told they had been brought under 
 the Pax Britannica and must give up war, gave 
 themselves to opium in its place, but Connacht has 
 not yet planted its poppy gardens. 
 
 THE TRAVELLING MAN 
 An old woman living in a cabin by a bog road on
 
 200 Notes 
 
 Slieve Echtge told me the legend on which this play 
 is founded, and which I have already published in 
 "Poets and Dreamers." 
 
 "There was a poor girl walking the road one night 
 with no place to stop, and the Saviour met her on the 
 road, and He said 'Go up to the house you see a 
 light in; there's a woman dead there, and they'll 
 let you in.' So she went, and she found the woman 
 laid out, and the husband and other people; but she 
 worked harder than they all, and she stopped in the 
 house after; and after two quarters the man married 
 her. And one day she was sitting outside the door, 
 picking over a bag of wheat, and the Saviour came 
 again, with the appearance of a poor man, and He 
 asked her for a few grains of the wheat. And she 
 said 'Wouldn't potatoes be good enough for you?' 
 And she called to the girl within to bring out a few 
 potatoes. But He took nine grains of the wheat in 
 His hand and went away; and there wasn't a grain 
 of wheat left in the bag, but all gone. So she ran 
 after Him then to ask Him to forgive her; and she 
 overtook Him on the road, and she asked forgiveness. 
 And He said ' Don't you remember the time you had 
 no house to go to, and I met you on the road, and sent 
 you to a house where you'd live in plenty? And 
 now you wouldn't give Me a few grains of wheat.' 
 And she said ' But why didn't you give me a heart 
 that would like to divide it?' That is how she came 
 round on Him. And He said 'From this out, when- 
 ever you have plenty in your hands, divide it freely 
 for My sake.'"
 
 Notes 201 
 
 And an old woman who sold sweets in a little shop 
 in Galway, and whose son became a great Dominican 
 preacher, used to say "Refuse not any, for one may 
 be the Christ." 
 
 I owe the Rider's Song, and some of the rest, to 
 W. B. Yeats. 
 
 THE GAOL GATE 
 
 I was told a story some one had heard, of a man 
 who had gone to welcome his brother coming out 
 of gaol, and heard he had died there before the gates 
 had been opened for him. 
 
 I was going to Galway, and at the Gort station I 
 met two cloaked and shawled countrywomen from 
 the slopes of Slieve Echtge, who were obliged to go 
 and see some law official in Galway because of some 
 money left them by a kinsman in Australia. They 
 had never been in a train or to any place farther than 
 a few miles from their own village, and they felt astray 
 and terrified "like blind beasts in a bog" they said, 
 and I took care of them through the day. 
 
 An agent was fired at on the road from Athenry, and 
 some men were taken up on suspicion. One of them 
 was a young carpenter from my old home, and in a 
 little time a rumour was put about that he had in- 
 formed against the others in Galway gaol. When the 
 prisoners were taken across the bridge to the court- 
 house he was hooted by the crowd. But at the trial 
 it was found that he had not informed, that no evi-
 
 202 Notes 
 
 dence had been given at all ; and bonfires were lighted 
 for him as he went home. 
 
 These three incidents coming within a few months 
 wove themselves into this little play, and within 
 three days it had written itself, or been written. I 
 like it better than any in the volume, and I have 
 never changed a word of it.
 
 SPREADING THE NEWS was produced for the first time 
 at the opening of the Abbey Theatre, on Tuesday, 
 27th December, 1904, with the following cast: 
 
 Bartley Fallon W. G. FAY 
 
 Mrs. Fallon ..... SARA ALGOOD 
 
 Mrs. Tully EMMA VERNON 
 
 Mrs. Tarpey . . MAIRE Ni GHARBHAIGH 
 
 Shawn Early . . . J. H. DUNNE 
 
 Tim Casey .... GEORGE ROBERTS 
 James Ryan .... ARTHUR SINCLAIR 
 Jack Smith . . . . P. MACSUIBHLAIGH 
 
 A Policeman R. S. NASH 
 
 A Removable Magistrate . . . . F. J. FAY 
 
 HYACINTH HALVEY was first produced at the Abbey 
 Theatre on iQth February, 1906, with the following cast : 
 
 Hyacinth Halvey F. J. FAY 
 
 James Quirke, a butcher .... W. G. FAY 
 Fardy Farrell, a telegraph boy . ARTHUR SINCLAIR 
 Sergeant Garden . . . WALTER MAGEE 
 Mrs. Delane, Postmistress at Cloon . SARA ALLGOOD 
 Miss Joyce, the Priest's House-keeper 
 
 BRIGIT O'DEMPSEY 
 203
 
 2O4 First Productions 
 
 THE GAOL GATE was first produced at the Abbey 
 Theatre, Dublin, on 2Oth October, 1906, with the 
 following cast: 
 
 Mary Cahel SARA ALLGOOD 
 
 Mary Cushin .... MAIRE O'NEILL 
 The Gate Keeper .... F. J. FAY 
 
 THE JACKDAW was first produced at the Abbey 
 Theatre, Dublin, on 2$rd February, 1907, with the 
 following cast : 
 
 Joseph Nestor .... F. J. FAY 
 
 Michael Cooney . . . . W. G. FAY 
 
 Mrs. Broderick .... SARA ALLGOOD 
 
 Tommy Nally . . . ARTHUR SINCLAIR 
 
 Sibby Fahy . . . . BRIGIT O'DEMPSEY 
 
 Timothy Ward . . . J. M. KERRIGAN 
 
 THE RISING OF THE MOON was first produced at the 
 Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 9th March, 1907, with 
 the following cast : 
 
 Sergeant .... ARTHUR SINCLAIR 
 Policeman X. . . J. A. O'RouRKE 
 Policeman B. . . . J. M. KERRIGAN 
 Ballad Singer W. G. FAY 
 
 WORKHOUSE WARD was first produced at the Abbey 
 Theatre, Dublin, on 2Oth April, 1908, with the fol- 
 lowing cast: 
 
 Mike M'Inerney . . . ARTHUR SINCLAIR 
 Michael Miskell . . . FRED O' DONOVAN 
 Mrs. Donahue MARIE O'NEILL
 
 ^ Selection from, the 
 Catalogue of 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Complete Catalogue 
 on application
 
 The Supernatural in 
 Modern English Fiction 
 
 By 
 
 Dorothy Scarborough 
 
 In a style brilliant and incisive, the author 
 has written a book that, in these days 
 when the occult is receiving so much serious 
 attention, should appeal not only to those 
 interested in literary history, but, to all 
 who have faith that there are forces about 
 us, as yet imperfectly explored, it is true, 
 that partake of the supernatural. While 
 paying tribute to the convincing achieve- 
 ments in this division of fiction the author 
 has been quick to detect the literary char- 
 latan and to expose his lack of sincerity 
 with her keen comments. 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York London
 
 The Golden Apple 
 
 A Kiliartan Play for Children 
 
 r 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 Author of " Seven Short Plays " 
 
 "Our Irish Theatre" 
 " Irish Folk-History Plays, " etc. 
 
 8 Eight fall-page Illustrations in color 
 
 This play deals with the adventures 
 of the King of Ireland's son, who goes 
 in search of the Golden Apple of Heal- 
 ing. The scenes are laid in the Witch's 
 Garden, the Giant's House, the Wood 
 of Wonders, and the King of Ireland's 
 Room. It is both humorous and lyrical, 
 and should please children and their 
 elders, alike. The colored illustrations 
 have the same old faery-tale air as the 
 play itself. 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York London
 
 Visions and Beliefs in 
 the West of Ireland 
 
 By 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 With Two Essays and Notes by W. B. Yeats 
 
 Ttvo Volumes. 12 
 
 To those who have felt the haunting charm 
 that inheres in the Celtic consciousness of an 
 imminent superaaturalisrn, this collection of 
 Irish fancy, belief, and folk-lore, gathered from 
 the lips of the people with patient and reverent 
 care, will have particular value. It has interest 
 as an exceptionally thorough and representa- 
 tive study of psychic sensitiveness in Ireland, 
 and the slightness of the barrier between worlds 
 seen and unseen. 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York London
 
 Seven Short Plays 
 
 By 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 Author of "New Comedies," "Our Irish Theatre," etc. 
 12. 
 
 The plays in this volume are the following: 
 Spreading the News, Hyacinth Halvey, The 
 Rising of the Moon, The Jackdaw, The Work' 
 house Ward, The Travelling Man, The Gaol Gate, 
 The volume also contains music for the songs in 
 the plays and notes explaining the conception of 
 the plays. 
 
 Among the three great exponents of the 
 modern Celtic movement in Ireland, Lady 
 Gregory holds an unusual place. It is she from 
 whom came the chief historical impulse which 
 resulted hi the re-creation for the present 
 generation of the elemental poetry of early 
 Ireland, its wild disorders, its loves and hates 
 all the passionate light and shadow of that fierce 
 and splendid race. 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York London
 
 Our Irish Theatre 
 
 By Lady Gregory 
 
 Author of " Irish Folk-History Play," " New Comedies," etc. 
 
 72. Illustrated 
 
 The volume presents an account not only 
 of the great contemporary dramatic move- 
 ment of Ireland, including such names as 
 those of Synge, Yeats, and Lady Gregory 
 herself, but of the stage history of the Dublin 
 Theatre from its erection. A section of the 
 book that possesses a very pertinent interest 
 for American readers is that which has to do 
 with the bitter antagonism which the Irish 
 actors encountered on their first visit to our 
 shores, an antagonism which happily expended 
 itself and was converted upon the second 
 visit of these players into approval and en- 
 thusiastic endorsement. The book contains 
 a full record of the growth and development 
 of an important dramatic undertaking, in 
 which the writer has been a directing force. 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York London
 
 Irish Plays 
 
 By 
 LADY GREGORY 
 
 Lady Gregory's name has become a house- 
 hold word in America and her works should 
 occupy an exclusive niche in every library. Mr. 
 George Bernard Shaw, in a recently published 
 interview, said Lady Gregory "is the greatest 
 living Irishwoman. . . . Even in the plays of 
 Lady Gregory, penetrated as they are by that 
 intense love of Ireland which is unintelligible 
 to the many drunken blackguards with Irish 
 names who make their nationality an excuse 
 for their vices and their worthlessness, there 
 is no flattery of the Irish; she writes about 
 the Irish as Molire wrote about the French, 
 having a talent curiously like Moliere." 
 
 " The witchery of Yeats, the vivid imagination 
 of Synge, the amusing literalism mixed with the 
 pronounced romance of their imitators, have 
 their place and have been given their praise 
 without stint. But none of these can compete 
 with Lady Gregory for the quality of uni- 
 versality. The best beauty in Lady Gregory's 
 art is its spontaneity. It is never forced. . . . 
 She has read and dreamed and studied, and 
 slept and wakened and worked, and the great 
 ideas that have come to her have been nourished 
 and trained till they have grown to be of great 
 stature." Chicago Tribune. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON
 
 New Comedies 
 
 By 
 LADY GREGORY 
 
 The Bogie Men The Full Moon Coats 
 Darner's Gold McDonough's Wife 
 
 8. With Portrait in Photogravure 
 
 The plays have been acted with great success 
 by the Abbey Company, and have been highly 
 extolled by appreciative audiences and an en- 
 thusiastic press. They are distinguished by a 
 humor of unchallenged originality. 
 
 One of the plays in the collection, "Coats," 
 depends for its plot upon the rivalry of two 
 editors, each of whom has written an obituary 
 notice of the other. The dialogue is full of 
 crisp humor. "McDonough's Wife," another 
 drama that appears in the volume, is based on a 
 legend, and explains how a whole town rendered 
 honor against its will. " The Bogie Men " has as 
 its underlying situation an amusing misunder- 
 standing of two chimney-sweeps. The wit and 
 absurdity of the dialogue are in Lady Gregory's 
 best vein. " Darner's Gold " contains the story 
 of a miser beset by his gold-hungry relations. 
 Their hopes and plans are upset by one they had 
 believed to be of the simple of the world, but 
 who confounds the Wisdom of the Wise. " The 
 Full Moon " presents a little comedy enacted on 
 an Irish railway station. It is characterized by 
 humor of an original and delightful character 
 and repartee that is distinctly clever. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON
 
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