yl
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Seven Short Plays
By
Lady Gregory
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
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.
Made 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.
CONTENTS
PAGE
SPREADING THE NEWS i
HYACINTH HALVEY ..... 29
THE RISING OF THE MOON .... 75
THE JACKDAW ...... 93
THE WORKHOUSE WARD .... 137
THE TRAVELLING MAN . . . .155
THE GAOL GATE 173
MUSIC FOR THE SONGS IN THE PLAYS . .189
NOTES, &c. 196
SPREADING THE NEWS
PERSONS
Bartley Fallon.
Mrs. Fallon.
Jack Smith.
Shawn Early.
Tim Casey.
James Ryan.
Mrs. Tarpey.
Mrs. Tully.
A Policeman (Jo MULDOON).
A Removable Magistrate.
SPREADING THE NEWS
Scene: The outskirts of a Fair. An Apple Statt.
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.
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.} J 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 conies 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. Fallon: 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. Fallon.
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 conies 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. Fallon: 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 wice heard, "Go on, now, go on out o 1
that. Go on I say. 11 )
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. Fallen, 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 Bartley'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.
Fallon'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
Fallon 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: 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. Tutty, Shawn Early, and James
Ryan.}
Spreading the News 13
Mrs. Tully: 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 Hartley 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 Fallen 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. Tutty: 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 Fallen! 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 Fallon, 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 Fallon, 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 wa laid dead with
stab of a hayfork?
Spreading the News 19
Bartley: The stab of a hayfork!
Shawn Early: You don't know, I suppose,
tnat 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
Bartley: (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!
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? Bartley Fallen in charge of
the police! Handcuffs on him! 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. Fallen.
Hartley: What are you saying, Mary? I tell
you
Mrs. Fallen: 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 Fallon 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 j 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 Halvey.
James Quirke, a butcher.
Fardy Farrell, a telegraph boy.
Sergeant Garden.
Mrs. Delane, Postmistress at Cloon.
Miss Joyce, the Priest's House-keepef*
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.
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-
^*C*T*
iCCI
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.
4O 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: (Sharply} 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 Cairo w?
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'll 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: (Catting 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 smite.) 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 i3
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 oat 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.
Gome with me, Fardy, till he will question you
about it.
Fardy: It was not altogether in the street J[
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.)
6fc 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!0!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 J
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
7o 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: 1 11 say it! I '11 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 Party.) 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.")
THE RISING OF THE MOON
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.)
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?
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 tike
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
tip 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 (he 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
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
MICHAEL COONEY
MRS. BRODERICK
TOMMY NALLY
SIBBY FAHY
TIMOTHY WARD
An Army Pensioner.
A Farmer.
A Small Shopkeeper*
A Pauper.
An Orange Seller.
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 of
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 Nolly: 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
Ttmmy Nolly: 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 Natty: 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 Nolly: 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.
Natty: 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.}
Nolly: 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?
IO2 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
104 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.
106 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
no 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
putts 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 calling,
Nero! Nero! Natty comes in and
watches him curiously}
Natty: Is it catching blackbeetles you are,
Mr. Nestor? Where are they and I will give
you a hand ....
H2 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 Nolly: (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.
Nolly: 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 Natty 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 tnose rakes
in the corner? It's no matter, I'll take one on
The Jackdaw 113
credit, or maybe it is only 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.}
H4 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 Nolly: (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.
Nally: 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.
Nally: (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.
n8 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 js 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: (Lifting 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.
I2O 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: ( Turning over 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 /lings 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!
130 The Jackdaw
Nestor: It is some curse in the air, or some
scourge?
Natty: 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.
Natty: 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! (Conies 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
Michael Miskett
Mrs. Donohoe, A COUNTRYWOMAN
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
139
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
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: O 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!
146 The Workhouse Ward
Mike Mclnerney: (Shaking his fist at him.)
Wait a while!
Michael Miskett: (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'H 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 would 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 vagabond
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.
THE 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,
157
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 f 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
162 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 watt 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
(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.
166 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
ITS
PERSONS
Mary Cahel
Mary Cushin
The Gatekeeper
. AN OLD WOMAN
HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
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
176 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.
178 The Gaol Gate
Mary Cahel: 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!
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?
184 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 tha
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
Spreading the News.
I thought, my first love, there'd be but one house
3 3
be-tween you and me, And 1 thought
I would find your self coax ing
J
my child on your knee. O ver the tide
<t/"~ *
X would leap with the leap of swan,
J=JU
^J-^J^L
Till t came to the side
of the wife of the red* haired man-
189
190 Music for the Songs
GRANUAILE
The Rising of the Moo*.
^^^Jf-^f^^^
^p
As through the bills I walked to view the
bills and sham-rock plain, I stood a while where
na ture smiles to view the rocks and
Streams, On a tna-tron fair I fixed my eyes be-
neatb a fer-tile vale, As she sang her song it \vas
J J J i j
00 the wrong of poor old Gran u aile.
Music for the Songs 191
a
Her head was bare, her hands 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
gF^f
am old Gran -u aile, Her lips so sweet that
mon-archs kissed-
192 Music for the Songs
JOHNNY HART
The Xtsing of the Moon.
There was ' a rich Far mer's daugb ter lived
near the town of Ross; She court-ed a High-land
SOl dier, His name wasjohn-ny Hart; Says the
motb-er to her daug-h-ter, "I'll go dis - tract ed
1
j
mad If you mar ry that High land
I
I* K K
F
SoT'* dier <iressed up in bis High-land plaid.'
Music for the Songs 193
THE RISING OF THE MOON
O, then, teO me, Shawn O' far reli, where the
gath'ring is to be. In the Old spot by the
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
K
should -er At the ris ing of the moon.
194 Music for the Songs
GAOL. GATE
Caiont.
Tempo, ad lib.
j
What way will I be the Sun clay
And I go -Ing up the hill to the
H . , '"*- -=_.
Mass, E v' - ry wo mail with her own com - rade
And Ma-ry Cush-in to be walk ing her lone.
Spoken. Sin%s.
5:
What way drive th furrow?
The
sheaf to be scat-tered be - fore spring-time that
Music for the Songs 195
was brought to getb . er at the bar - vest !
Spoken. SingS,
I would not an estate. But my
grief your name to be black ened hi
the time of the black -'ning of the rush - es
Your
jS ny3-jrt-^^M^E
nev - er to rise op ft gain Jn the
grow -ing- 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 misfortune.
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^W imfeAr HA
UAigneAf "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.
FIRST PRODUCTIONS OF
THE PLAYS
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 Hahey . . . . . 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 23rd February, 1907, with the
following cast :
Joseph Nestor . . . . F. J. FAY
Michael Cooney .... W. G. FAY
Mrs. Broderick .... SARA ALLGOOD
Tommy Natty . . . 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 Miskett . . . FRED O' DONOVAN
Mrs. Donahue MARIE O'NEILL
