Three wonder plays: The dragon - Aristotle's bellows - The jester

THE LIBRARY

OF
THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES

r

By LADY GREGORY

Drama

SEVEN SHORT PLAYS.
FOLK-HISTORY PLAYS. 2 VOLS.
NEW COMEDIES.
THE GOLDEN APPLE.
THE DRAGON.
OUR IRISH THEATRE. A CHAPTER

OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
THE KILTARTAN MOLIERE.
THE IMAGE AND OTHER PLAYS.
THREE WONDER PLAYS.

Irish Folk-Lore and Legend

VISIONS AND BELIEFS. 2 VOLS.
CUCHULAIN OF MURITHEMNE.
GODS AND FIGHTING MEN.
SAINTS AND WONDERS.
POETS AND DREAMERS.
THE KILTARTAN POETRY BOOK.
THE KILTARTAN HISTORY BOOK.

HUGH LANE'S LIFE AND ACHIEVE-
MENT, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF
THE DUBLIN GALLERIES.

Three Wonder Plays

The Dragon — Aristotle's Bellows
The Jester

By

Lady Gregory

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London
fmfcherbochet press
1922

Copyright, 1922

by
Augusta, Lady Gregory

Made in the United States of America

These plays have been copyrighted 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 are forbidden and right of presentation is
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.

College
Library

PR

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE DRAGON ...... i

ARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS . . . . . 135

THE JESTER 217

The Dragon

THE DRAGON

PERSONS

The King.

The Queen.

The Princess Nuala.

The Dall Glic (THE BLIND WISE MAN).

The Nurse.

The Prince of the Marshes.

Manus, King of Sorcha.

Fintan, The Astrologer.

Taig.

Sibby (TAIG'S MOTHER.)

Gatekeeper.

Two Aunts of the Prince of the Marshes.

Foreign Men Bringing in Food.

The Dragon.

ACT I

ACT I

Scene: A room in the King's house at Barren.
Large window at back with deep window
seat. Doors right and left. A small table
and some chairs.

Dall Glic: (Coming in with tray, which he
puts on table- Goes back to door.) You can
come in, King. There is no one here.

King: (Coming in.) That's very good. I
was in dread the Queen might be in it.

Dall Glic: It is a good thought I had bring-
ing it in here, and she gone to give learning to
the Princess. She is not likely to come this
side. It would be a great pity to annoy her.

King: (Hastily swallowing a mouthful.)
Look out now the door and keep a good watch.
The time she will draw upon me is when I am
eating my little bite.

Dall Glic: I'll do that. What I wouldn't

9

io The Dragon

see with my one eye, there's no other would
see with three.

King: A month to-day since I wed with her,
and well pleased I am to be back in my own
place. I give you word my teeth are rusting
with the want of meat. On the journey I got
no fair play. She wouldn't be willing to see me
nourish myself, unless maybe with the marrow
bone of a wren.

Dall Glic: Sure she lays down she is but
thinking of the good of your health.

King: Maybe so. She is apt to be paying too
much attention to what will be for mine and
for the world's good. I kept my health fair
enough, and the first wife not begrudging me
my enough. I don't know what in the world
led me not to stop as I was.

Dall Glic: It is what you were saying, it was
for the good of the Princess Nuala, and of
yourself.

King: That is what herself laid down. It
would be a great ease to my mind, she was say-
ing, to have in the house with the young girl,

The Dragon n

a far-off cousin of the King of Alban, and that
had been conversation woman in his Court.

Dall Glic: So it might be too. She is a great
manager of people.

King: She is that ... I think I hear her
coming. . . . Throw a cloth over the plates.

Queen: (Coming in.) I was in search of
you.

King: I thought you were in Nuala's sunny
parlour, learning her to play music and to go
through books.

Queen: That is what I thought to do. But I
hadn't hardly started to teach her the principles
of conversation and the branches of relation-
ships and kindred of the big people of the
earth, when she plucked off the coverings I had
put over the cages, and set open their doors, till
the fiery birds of Sabes and the canaries of the
eastern world were screeching around my
head, giving out every class of cry and call.

King: So they would too.

Queen: The royal eagles stirred up till I
must quit the place with their squawking, and

12 The Dragon

the enchanted swans raising up their heads and
pecking at the beadwork on my gown.

King: Ah, she has a wish for the birds of the
air, that are by nature light and airy the same
as herself.

Queen: It is time for her to turn her mind
to good sense. What's that? (Whipping
cloth from tray.) Is it that you are eating
again, and it is but one half -hour since your
breakfast?

King: Ah, that wasn't a breakfast you'd call
a breakfast.

Queen: Very healthy food, oaten meal flum-
mery with whey, and a griddle cake ; dandelion
tea and sorrel from the field.

King: My old fathers ate their enough of
wild herbs and the like in the early time of the
world. I'm thinking that it is in my nature to
require a good share of nourishment as if to
make up for the hardships they went through.

Queen: What now have you within that
pastry wall?

King: It is but a little leveret pie.

Queen: (Poking with fork.) Leveret!

The Dragon 13

What's this in it ? The thickness of a blanket
of beef; calves' sweetbreads; cocks' combs;
balls mixed with livers and with spice. You
to so much as taste of it, you'll be crippled and
crappled with the gout, and roaring out in your
pain.

King: I tell you my generations have enough
done of fasting and for making little of the
juicy meats of the world.

Queen: And the waste of it! Goose eggs
and jellies. . . . That much would furnish out
a dinner for the whole of the King of Alban's
Court.

King: Ah, I wouldn't wish to be using any-
thing at all, only for to gather strength for to
steer the business of the whole of the kingdom !

Queen: Have you enough ate now, my dear?
Are you satisfied?

King: I am not. I would wish for a little
taste of that saffron cake having in it raisins of
the sun.

Queen: Saffron! Are you raving? You to
have within you any of the four-and-twenty

14 The Dragon

sicknesses of the race, it would throw it out in
red blisters on your skin.

King: Let me just taste one little slab of
that venison ham.

Queen: (Poking with a fork.) It would take
seven chewings! Sudden death it would be!
Leave it alone now and rise up. To keep in
health every man should quit the table before
he is satisfied — there are some would walk to
the door and back with every bite.

King: Is it that I am to eat my meal stand-
ing, the same as a crane in a shallow, or moving
from tuft to thistle like you'd see a jennet on
the high road ?

Queen: Well, at the least, let you drink down
a share of this tansy juice. I was telling you
it would be answerable to your health.

King: You are doing entirely too much for
me.

Queen: Sure I am here to be comfortable to
you. This house before I came into it was but
a ship without a rudder! Here now, take the
spoon in your hand.

The Dragon 15

Dall Glic: Leave it there, Queen, and I'll
engage he'll swallow it down bye-and-bye.

Queen: Is it that you are meddling, Dall
Glic ? It is time some person took you in hand.
I wonder now could that dark eye of yours be
cured ?

Dall Glic: It is given in that it can not, by
doctors and by druids.

Queen: That is a pity now, it gives you a
sort of a one-sided look. It might not be so
hard a thing to put out the sight of the other.

Dall Glic: I'd sooner leave them the way
they are.

Queen: I'll put a knot on my handkerchief
till such time as I can give my mind to it. ...
Now, my dear (to King), make no more delay.
It is right to drink it down after your meal.
The stomach to be bare empty, the medicine
might prey upon the body till it would be wore
away and consumed.

King: Time enough. Let it settle now for
a minute.

Queen: Here, now, I'll hold your nose the
way you will not get the taste of it.

16 The Dragon

(She holds spoon to his mouth. A ball
flies in at window; he starts and
medicine is spilled.)

Princess: (Coming in with Nurse.) Is it
true what they are telling me?

Queen: Do you see that you near hit the
King with your ball, and, what is worse again,
you have his medicine spilled from the spoon.

Princess: (Patting him.) Poor old King.

Queen: Have you your lessons learned?

Princess: (Throwing books in the air.)
Neither line nor letter of them! Poem book!
Brehon Laws ! I have done with books ! I am
seventeen years old to-day !

Queen: There is no one would think it and
you so flighty as you are.

Princess: (To King.) Is it true that the
cook is gone away?

King: (Aghast.) What's that you're say-
ing?

Queen: Don't be annoying the King's mind
with such things. He should be hidden from
every trouble and care.

Princess: Was it you sent him away?

The Dragon 17

Queen: Not at all. If he went it was
through foolishness and pride.

Princess: It is said in the house that you
annoyed him.

Queen: I never annoyed any person in my
life, unless it might be for their own good.
But it fails some to recognise their best friend.
Just teaching him I was to pickle onion thin-
nings as it was done at the King of Alban's
Court.

Princess: Didn't he know that before ?

Queen: Whether or no, he gave me very
little thanks, but turned around and asked his
wages. Hurrying him and harrying him he
said I was, and away with him, himself and
his four-and-twenty apprentices.

King: That is bad news, and pitiful news.

Queen: Do not be troubling yourself at all.
It will be easy find another.

King: It might not be easy to find so good
a one. A great pity! A dinner or a supper
not to be rightly dressed is apt to give no
pleasure in the eating or in the bye-and-bye.

Queen: I have taken it in hand. I have

1 8 The Dragon

a good headpiece! I put out a call with run-
ning lads, and with the army captains through
the whole of the five provinces ; and along with
that, I have it put up on tablets at the post
office.

Princess: I am sorry the old one to be gone.
To remember him is nearly the farthest spot in
my memory.

Queen: (Sharply.) If you want the house
to be under your hand only, it is best for you
to settle into one of your own.

Princess: Give me the little rush cabin by
the stream and I'll be content.

Queen: If you mind yourself and profit by
my instruction it is maybe not a cabin you will
be moving to but a palace.

Princess: I'm tired of palaces. There are
too many people in them.

Queen: That is talking folly. When you
settle yourself it must be in the station where
you were born.

Princess: I have no mind to settle myself
yet awhile.

Nurse: Ah, you will not be saying that the

The Dragon 19

time Mr. Right will come down the chimney,
and will give you the marks and tokens of a
king.

Queen: There might have some come look-
ing for her before this, if it was not for you
petting and pampering her the way you do, and
encouraging her flightiness and follies. It is
likely she will get no offers till such time as I
will have taught her the manners and the right
customs of courts.

Nurse: Sure I am acquainted with courts
myself. Wasn't it I fostered comely Manus
that is presently King of Sorcha, since his
father went out of the world ? And as to lovers
coming to look for her! They do be coming
up to this as plenty as the eye could hold them,
and she refusing them, and they laying the
blame upon the King!

King: That is so, they laying the blame up-
on myself. There was the uncle of the King
of Leinster ; he never sent me another car-load
of asparagus from the time you banished him
away.

Princess: He was a widower man.

2O The Dragon

King: As to the heir of Orkney, since the
time you sent him to the right about, I never
got so much as a conger eel from his hand.

Princess: As dull as a fish he was. He had
a fish's eyes.

King: That wasn't so with the champion of
the merings of Ulster.

Princess: A freckled man. He had hair
the colour of a fox.

King: I wish he didn't stpp sending me his
tribute of heather beer.

Queen: It is a poor daughter that will not
wish to be helpful to her father.

Princess: If I am to wed for the furnish-
ing of my father's table, it's as good for you
to wrap me in a speckled fawnskin and roast
me!

(Runs out, tossing her ball.)

Queen: She is no way fit for marriage unless
with a herd to the birds of the air, till she has
a couple of years schooling.

King: It would be hard to put her back to
that.

The Dragon 21

Queen: I must take it in hand. She is get-
ting entirely too much of her own way.

Nurse: Leave her alone, and in the end it
will be a good way.

Queen: To keep rules and hours she must
learn, and to give in to order and good sense.
(To King.) There is a pigeon messenger I
brought from Alban I am about to let loose on
this day with news of myself and of yourself.
I will send with it a message to a friend I have,
bidding her to make ready for Nuala a place
in her garden of learning and her school.

King: That is going too fast. There is no
hurry.

Queen: She is seventeen years. There is no
day to be lost. I will go write the letter.

Nurse: Oh, you wouldn't send away the
poor child !

Dall Glic: It would be a great hardship to
send her so far. Our poor little Princess Nu !

Queen: (Sharply.) What are saying?
(Dall Glic is silent.)

King: I would not wish her to be sent out
of this.

22 The Dragon

Queen: There is no other way to set her
mind to sense and learning. It will be for her
own good.

Nurse: Where's the use troubling her with
lessons and with books that maybe she will
never be in need of at all. Speak up for her,
King.

King: Let her stop for this year as she is.

Queen: You are all too soft and too easy.
She will turn on you and will blame you for it,
and another year or two years slipped by.

Nurse: That she may!

Dall Glic: Who knows what might take
place within the twelvemonth that is coming?

King: Ah, don't be talking about it. Maybe
it never might come to pass.

Dall Glic: It will come to pass, if there is
truth in the clouds of sky.

King: It will not be for a year, anyway.
There'll be many an ebbing and flowing of the
tide within a year.

Queen: What at all are you talking about?

King: Ah, where's the use of talking too
much.

The Dragon 23

Queen: Making riddles you are, and striv-
ing to keep the meaning from your comrade,
that is myself.

King: It's best not be thinking about the
thing you would not wish, and maybe it might
never come around at all. To strive to forget
a threat yourself, it might maybe be forgotten
by the universe.

Queen: Is it true something was threatened?

King: How would I know is anything true,
and the world so full of lies as it is?

Nurse: That is so. He might have been
wrong in his foretelling. What is he in the
finish but an old prophecy?

Dall Glic: Is it of Fintan you are saying
that?

Queen: And who, will you tell me, is Fintan ?

Dall Glic: Anyone that never heard tell of
Fintan never heard anything at all.

Queen: His name was not up on the tablets
of big men at the King of Alban's Court, or of
Britain.

Nurse: Ah, sure in those countries they are
without religion or belief.

24 The Dragon

Queen: Is it that there was a prophecy?

King: Don't mind it. What are prophecies ?
Don't we hear them every day of the week?
And if one comes true there may be seven blind
and come to nothing.

Queen: (To Dall Glic.) I must get to the
root of this, and the handle. Who, now, is
Fintan ?

Dall Glic: He is an astrologer, and under-
standing the nature of the stars.

Nurse: He wore out in his lifetime three
eagles and three palm trees and three earthen
dykes. It is down in a cleft of the rocks be-
yond he has his dwelling presently, the way
he can be watching the stars through the day-
time.

Dall Glic: He prophesied in a prophecy, and
it is written in clean letters in the King's yew-
tree box.

King: It is best to keep it out of sight. It
being to be, it will be; and, if not, where's the
use troubling our mind?

Queen: Sound it out to me.

Dall Glic: (Looking from window and

The Dragon 2$

drawing curtain.) There is no story in the
world is worse to me or more pitiful ; I wouldn't
wish any person to hear.

Nurse: Oh, take care it would come to the
ears of my darling Nu!

Dall Glic: It is said by himself and the
heavens that in a year from this day the King's
daughter will be brought away and devoured
by a scaly Green Dragon that will come from
the North of the World.

Queen: A Dragon! I thought you were
talking of some danger. I wouldn't give in to
dragons. I never saw one. I'm not in dread
of beasts unless it might be a mouse in the
night-time !

King: Put it out of mind. It is likely any-
way that the world will soon be ended the way'
it is.

Queen: I will send and search out this as-
trologer and will question him.

Dall Glic: You have not far to search. He
is outside at the kitchen door at this minute,
and as if questioning after something, and it

26 The Dragon

a half -score and seven years since I knew him
to come out of his cave.

King: Do not! He might waken up the
Dragon and put him in mind of the girl, for to
make his own foretelling come true.

Nurse: Ah, such a thing cannot be! The
poor innocent child! (Weeps.)

Queen: Where's the use of crying and roar-
ing? The thing must be stopped and put an
end to. I don't say I give in to your story, but
that would be an unnatural death. I would be
scandalized being stepmother to a girl that
would be swallowed by a sea-serpent!

Nurse: Ochone! Don't be talking of it at
all!

Queen: At the King of Alban's Court, one
of the /royal family to die over, it will be
naturally on a pillow, and the dead-bells ring-
ing, and a burying with white candles, and
crape on the knocker of the door, and a flag-
stone put over the grave. What way could we
put a stone or so much as a rose-bush over
Nuala and she in the inside of a water-worm

The Dragon 27

might be ploughing its way down to the north
of the world?

Nurse: Och! that is what is killing me en-
tirely! O save her, save her.

King: I tell you, it being to be, it will be.

Queen: You may be right, so, when you
would not go to the expense of paying her
charges at the Royal school. But wait, now,
there is a plan coming into my mind.

Nurse: There must surely be some way!

Queen: It is likely a king's daughter the
beast — if there is a beast— will come questing
after, and not after a king's wife.

Dall Glic: That is according to custom.

Queen: That's what I am saying. What we
have to do is to join Nuala with a man of a hus-
band, and she will be safe from the danger
ahead of her. In all the inventions made by
poets, for to put terror on children or to knock
laughter out of fools, did any of you ever hear
of a Dragon swallowing the wedding-ring?

All: We never did.

Queen: It's easy enough so. There must be
no delay till Nuala will be married and wed

28 The Dragon

with someone that will bring her away out of
this, and let the Dragon go hungry home !

Nurse: That she may! Isn't it a pity now
she being so hard to please !

Queen: Young people are apt to be selfish
and to have no thought but for themselves.
She must not be hard to please when it will be
to save and to serve her family and to keep up
respect for their name. Here she is coming.

Nurse: Ah, you would not tell her! You
would not put the dear child under the shadow
of such a terror and such a threat!

King: She must not be told. I never could
bear up against it.

(Nuala comes in.)

Queen: Look now at your father the way
he is.

Princess: (Touching his hand.) What is
fretting you?

Queen: His heart as weighty as that the
chair near broke under him.

Princess: I never saw you this way before.

Queen: And all on the head of yourself !

The Dragon 29

Princess: I am sorry, and very sorry, for
that.

Queen: He is loth to say it to you, but he is
tired and wore out waiting for you to settle
with some match. See what a troubled look
he has on his face.

Princess: (To King.) Is it that you want
me to leave you ? (He gives a sob. ) (To Dall
Glic. ) Is it the Queen urged him to this ?

Dall Glic: If she did, it was surely for your
good.

Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling, let
you strive to take a liking to some good man
that will come!

Princess: Are you going against me with
the rest?

Nurse: You know well I would never do
that!

Princess: Do you, father, urge me to go ?

King: They are in too big a hurry. Why
wouldn't they wait a while, for a quarter, or
three-quarters of a year.

Princess: Is that all the delay I am given,

30 The Dragon

and the term is set for me, like a servant that
would be banished from the house?

King: That's not it. That's not right. I
would never give in to let you go ... if it
wasn't . . .

Princess: I know. (Stands up.) For my
own good!

(Trumpet outside.)

Gatekeeper: (Coming in.) There is com-
pany at the door.

Queen: Who is it?

Gatekeeper: Servants, 'and a company of
women, and one that would seem to be a Prince,
and young.

Princess: Then he is come asking me in
marriage.

Dall Glic: Who is he at all?

Gatekeeper: They were saying he is the son
of the King of the Marshes.

King: Go bring him in.
(Gatekeeper goes.)

Dall Glic: That's right! He has great
riches and treasure. There are some say he is
the first match in Ireland.

The Dragon 31

Nurse: He is not. If his father has a cop-
per crown, and our own King a silver one, it
is the King of Sorcha has a crown of gold!
The young King of Sorcha that is the first
match.

Dall Glic: If he is, this one is apt to be the
second first.

Queen: Do you hear, Nuala, what luck is
flowing to you ?

Dall Glic: Do not now be turning your back
on him as you did to so many.

Princess: No; whoever he is, it is likely I
will not turn away from this one.

Queen: Go now and ready yourself to meet
him.

Princess: Am I not nice enough the way
I am?

Queen: You are not. The King of Alban's
daughter has hair as smooth as if a cow had
licked it.

{Princess goes.)

Gatekeeper: Here is the Prince of the
Marshes !

32 The Dragon

(Enter Prince, very young and timid,
an old lady on each side slightly in
advance of him.)

King: A great welcome before you

And who may these be ?

Prince: Seven aunts I have . . .

First Aunt: (Interrupting. ) If he has, there
are but two of us have come along with him.

Second Aunt: For to care him and be com-
pany for him on his journey,, it being the first
time he ever quitted home.

Queen: This is a great honour. Will you
take a chair ?

First Aunt: Leave that for the Prince of
the Marshes. It is away from the draught of
the window.

Second Aunt: We ourselves are in charge
of his health. I have here his eel-skin boots
for the days that will be wet under foot.

First Aunt: And I have here my little bag
of cures, with a cure in it that would rise the
body out of the grave as whole and as sound
as the time you were born.
(Lays it down.)

The Dragon 33

King: (To Prince.) It is many a day your
father and myself were together in our early
time. What way is he ? He was farther out in
age than myself.

Prince: He is ...

First Aunt: (Interrupting.) He is only
middling these last years. The doctors have
taken him in hand.

King: He was more for fowling, and I
was more for horses — before I increased so
much in girth. Is it for horses you are,
Prince?

Prince: I didn't go up on one up to this.

First Aunt: Kings and princes are getting
scarce. They are the most class is wearing
away, and it is right for them keep in mind
their safety.

Second Aunt: The Prince has no need to
go upon a horse, where he has always a coach
at his command.

King: It is fowling that suits you so?

Prince: I would be well pleased . . .

First Aunt: There is great danger going

34 The Dragon

out fowling with a gun that might turn on you
after and take your life.

Second Aunt: Why would the Prince go into
danger, having servants that will go following
after birds?

Queen: He is likely waiting till his enemies
will make an attack upon the country to defend
it.

First Aunt: There is a good dyke around
about the marshes, and a sort of quaking bog.
It is not likely war will come till such time as
it will be made by the birds of the air.

King: Well, we must strive to knock out
some sport or some pleasure.

Prince: It was not on pleasure I was sent.

First Aunt: That's so, but on business.

Second Aunt: Very weighty business.

King: Let the lad tell it out himself.

Prince: I hope there is no harm in me corn-
ing hither. I would be loth to push on you . . .

First Aunt: We thought it was right, as he
was come to sensible years . . .

King: Stop a minute, ma'am, give him his
time.

The Dragon 35

Prince: My father . . . and his counsel-
lors . . . and my seven aunts . . . that said
it would be right for me to join with a wife.

Queen: They showed good sense in that.

Prince: {Rapidly.) They bade me come
and take a look at your young lady of a Prin-
cess to see would she be likely to be pleasing
to them.

First Aunt: That's it, and that is what
brought ourselves along with him — to see
would we be satisfied.

King: I don't know. The girl is young —
she's young.

First Aunt: It is what we were saying, that
might be no drawback. It might be easier train
her in our own ways, and to do everything that
is right.

King: Sure we are all wishful to do the thing
that is right, but it's sometimes hard to know.

Second Aunt: Not in our place. What the
King of the Marshes would not know, his coun-
sellors and ourselves would know.

Queen: It will be very answerable to the
Princess to be under such good guidance.

36 The Dragon

First Aunt: For low people and for mid-
dling people it is well enough to follow their
own opinion and their will. But for the
Prince's wife to have any choice or any will
of her own, the people would not believe her to
be a real princess.

(Princess comes to door, listening un-
seen. )

King: Ah, you must not be too strict with
a girl that has life in her.

Prince: My seven aunts that were saying
they have a great distrust of any person that is
lively.

First Aunt: We would rather than the
greatest beauty in the world get him a wife
who would be content to stop in her home.

(Princess comes in very stately and
with a fine dress. She curtseys.
Aunts curtsey and sit down again.
Prince bows uneasily and sidles
away- )

First Aunt: Will you sit, now, between the
two of us?
Princess: It is more fitting for a young girl

The Dragon 37

to stay in her standing in the presence of a
king's kindred and his son, since he is come
so far to look for me.

Second Aunt: That is a very nice thought.

Princess: My far-off grandmother, the old
people were telling me, never sat at the table
to put a bit in her mouth till such time as her
lord had risen up satisfied. She was that obedi-
ent to him that if he had bidden her, she would
have laid down her hand upon red coals.
(Prince looks bored and fidgets.)

First Aunt: Very good indeed.

Princess: That was a habit with my grand-
mother. I would wish to follow in her ways.

King: This is some new talk.

Queen: Stop; she is speaking fair and good.

Princess: A little verse, made by some good
wife, I used to be learning. "I always should :
Be very good : At home should mind : My hus-
band kind: Abroad obey: What people say."

First Aunt: (Getting up.) To travel the
world, I never thought to find such good sense
before rne. Do you hear that, Prince, f

38 The Dragon

Prince: Sure I often heard yourselves shap-
ing that sort.

Second Aunt: I'll engage the royal family
will make no objection to this young lady tak-
ing charge of your house.

Princess: I can do that! (Counts on fin-
gers.) To send linen to the washing- tub on
Monday, and dry it on Tuesday, and to mangle
it Wednesday, and starch it Thursday, and
iron it Friday, and fold it in the press against
Sunday !

Second Aunt: Indeed there is little to learn
you ! And on Sundays, now, you will go driv-
ing in a painted coach, and your dress sewed
with gold and with pearls, and the poor of the
world envying you on the road.

Queen: (Claps hands.) There is no one but
must envy her, and all that is before her for
her lifetime!

First Aunt: Here is the golden arm-ring
the Prince brought for to slip over your hand.

Second Aunt: It was put on all our genera-
tions of queens at the time of the making of
their match.

The Dragon 39

Princess: (Drawing back her hand.) Mine
is not made yet.

First Aunt: Didn't you hear me saying, and
the Prince saying, there is nothing could be
laid down against it.

Princess: There is one thing against it.

Queen: Oh, there can be nothing worth
while !

Princess: A thing you would think a great
drawback and all your kindred would think it.

Queen: (Rapidly.) There is nothing, but
maybe that she is not so tall as you might think,
through the length of the heels of her shoes.

Second Aunt: We would put up with that
much.

Princess: (Rapidly.) It is that there was
a spell put upon me — by a water-witch that was
of my kindred. At some hours of the day I am
as you see me, but at other hours I am changed
into a sea-filly from the Country-under-Wave.
And when I smell salt on the west wind I must
race and race and race. And when I hear the
call of the gulls or the sea-eagles over my head,
I must leap up to meet them till I can hardly

40 The Dragon

tell what is my right element, is it the high air
or is it the loosened spring-tide !

Queen: Stop your nonsense talk. She is
gone wild and raving with the great luck that
is come to her!

(Prince has stood up, and is watching
her eagerly.)

Princess: I feel a wind at this very time that
is blowing from the wilderness of the sea, and
I am changing with it. . .' . There. (Pulls
down her hair. ) Let my mane go free ! I will
race you, Prince, I will race you ! The wind of
March will not overtake me, Prince, and I run-
ning on the top of the white waves !

(Runs out; Prince entranced, rushes to
door.)

Aunts: (Catching hold of him.) Are you
going mad wild like herself?

Prince: Oh, I will go after her!

First Aunt: (Clutching him.) Do not! She
will drag you to destruction.

Prince: (Struggling to door.) What mat-
ter ! Let me go or she will escape me ! (Shak-

The Dragon 41

ing himself free. ) I will never stop till I come
to her.

(He rushes out, Second Aunt still hold-
ing on to him.)

First Aunt: What at all has come upon him?
I never knew him this way before!
(She trots after him.)

Princess: (Comes leaping in by window.)
They are gone running the road to Muckanish !
But they won't find me !

Queen: You have a right to be ashamed of
yourself and your play-game. It's easy for you
to go joking, having neither cark nor care : that
is no way to treat the second best match in
Ireland !

King: You were saying you had your mind
made up to take him.

Princess: It failed me to do it! Himself
and his counsellors and his seven aunts !

Queen: He will give out that you are crazed
and mad.

Princess: He will be thankful to his life's
end to have got free of me !

King: I don't know. It seemed to me he

42 The Dragon

was better pleased with you in the finish than
in the commencement. But I'm in dread his
father may not be well pleased.

Princess: (Patting him.) Which now of
the two of you is the most to be pitied? He to
have such a timid son or you to have such an
unruly daughter?

Queen: It is likely he will make an attack
on you. There was a war made by the King
of Britain on the head of a terrier pup that was
sent to him and that made away on the road
following hares. It's best for you to make
ready to put yourself at the head of your troop.

King: It's long since I went into my battle
dress. I'm in dread it would not close upon
my chest.

Queen: Ah, it might, so soon as you would
go through a few hardships in the fight.

King: If the rest of Adam's race was of my
opinion there'd be no fighting in the world at
all.

Queen: It is this child's stubbornness is lead-
ing you into it. Go out, Nuala, after the

The Dragon 43

Prince. Tell him you are sorry you made a
fool of him.

Princess: He was that before — thinking to
put me sitting and sewing in a cushioned chair,
listening to stories of kings making a slaughter
of one another.

Queen: Tell him you have changed your
mind, that you were but funning ; that you will
wed with him yet.

Princess: I would sooner wed with the
King of Poison ! I to have to go to his king-
dom, I'd sooner go earning my wages footing
turf, with a skirt of heavy flannel and a dress
of the grey frieze! Himself and his bogs and
his frogs!

Queen: I tell you it is time for you to take
a husband.

Princess: You said that before ! And I was
giving in a while ago, and I felt the blood of
my heart to be rising against it! And I will
not give in to you again! It is my own busi-
ness and I will take my own way.

Queen: (To King.) This is all one with
the raving of a hag against heaven!

44 The Dragon

King: What the Queen is saying is right
Try now and come around to it.

Princess: She has set you against me with
her talk!

Queen: (To King.) It is best for you to lay
orders on her.

Princess: The King is not under your
orders !

Queen: You are striving to make him give
in to your own !

King: I will take orders from no one at all !

Queen: Bid her go bring back the Prince.

Princess: I say that I will not !

Queen: She is standing up against you!
Will you give in to that?

King: I am bothered with the whole of you!
I will give in to nothing at all !

Queen: Make her do your bidding so.

King: Can't you do as you are told?

Princess: This concerns myself.

King: It does, and the whole of us.

Princess: Do you think you can force me
to wed?

King: I do think it, and I will do it.

The Dragon 45

Princess: It will fail you !

King: It will not! I was too easy with you
up to this.

Princess: Will you turn me out of the
house ?

King: I will give you my word, it is little
but I will!

Princess: Then I have no home and no
father! It is to my mother you must give an
account. You know well it is, with the first
wife you will go at the Judgment !

Queen: Is it that you would make threats
to the King? And put insults upon myself?
Now she is daring and defying you! Let you
put an end to it !

King: I will do that! (Stands up.) I swear
by the oath my people swear by, the seven
things common to us all ; by sun and moon ; sea
and dew ; wind and water ; the hours of the day
and night, I will give you in marriage and in
wedlock to the first man that will come into the
house !

Princess: (Shrinking as from a blow.) It
is the Queen has done this.

46 The Dragon

Queen: I will give you out the reason, and
see will you put blame on me or praise!

Nurse: Oh, let you stop and not draw it
down upon her !

Queen: It is right for me to tell it; it is true
telling! You not to be married and wed by
this day twelvemonth, there will be a terrible
thing happen you . . .

Nurse: Be quiet! Don't you see Fintan
himself looking in the window!

King: Fintan! What is it bring you here
on this day?

Fintan: (A very old man in strange clothes
at window.) What brings me is to put my
curse upon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that
are gone and vanished out of this, without
bringing me my request, that was a bit of ren-
dered lard that would limber the swivel of my
spy-glass, that is clogged with the dripping of
the cave.

Nurse: And you have no bad news ?

Queen: Nothing to say on the head of the
Princess, this being, as it is, her birthday?

Fintan: What birthday? This is not a

The Dragon 47

birthday that signifies. It is the next will be
the birthday will be concerned with the great
story that is foretold.

Queen: It is right for her to know it.

King: It is not! It is not!

Princess: Whatever the story is, let me
know it, and not be treated as a child that is
without courage or sense.

Fintan: It's long till I'll come out from my
cleft again, and getting no peace or quiet on
the ridge of the earth. It is laid down by the
stars that cannot lie, that on this day twelve-
month, you yourself will be ate and devoured
by a scaly Green Dragon from the North !

END OF ACT I.

ACT II

ACT II

Scene: The Same. Princess and Nurse.

Nurse: Cheer up now, my honey bird, and
don't be fretting.

Princess: It is not easy to quit fretting, and
the terrible story you are after telling me of
all that is before and all that is behind me.

Nurse: They had no right at all to go make
you aware of it. The Queen has too much
talk. An unlucky stepmother she is to you !

Princess: It is well for me she is here. It is
well I am told the truth, where the whole of
you were treating me like a child without sense,
so giddy I was and contrary, and petted and
humoured by the whole of you. What memory
would there be left of me and my little life gone
by, but of a headstrong, unruly child with no
thought but for myself.

Nurse: No, but the best in the world you
51

52 The Dragon

are; there is no one seeing you pass by but
would love you.

Princess: That is not so. I was wild and
taking my own way, mocking and humbugging.

Nurse. I never will give in that there is no
way to save you from that Dragon that is fore-
told to be your destruction. I would give the
four divisions of the world, and Ireland along
with them, if I could see you pelting your ball
in at the window the same as an hour ago !

Princess: Maybe you will, so long as it will
hurt nobody.

Nurse: Ah, sure it's no wonder there to be
the tracks of tears upon your face, and that
great terror before you.

Princess: I will wipe them away ! I will not
give in to danger or to dragons ! No one will
see a dark face on me. I am a king's daughter
of Ireland, I did not come out of a herd's hut
like Deirdre that went sighing and lamenting
till she was put to death, the world being sick
and tired of her complaints, and her finger at
her eye dripping tears !

The Dragon 53

Nurse: That's right, now. You had always
great courage.

Princess: There is like a change within me.
You never will hear a cross word from me
again. I would wish to be pleasant and peace-
able until such time . . .

(Puts handkerchief to eyes and goes.)

Dall Glic: (Coming in.) The King is
greatly put out with all he went through, and
the way the passion rose in him a while ago.

Nurse: That he may be twenty times worse
before he is better! Showing such fury to-
wards the innocent child the way he did !

Dall Glic: The Queen has brought him to
the grass plot for to give him his exercise,
walking his seven steps east and west.

Nurse: Hasn't she great power over him to
make him do that much?

Dall Glic: I tell you I am in dread of her
myself. Some plan she has for making my two
eyes equal. I vexed her someway, and she got
queer and humpy, and put a lip on herself, and
said she would take me in hand. I declare I
never will have a minute's ease thinking of it.

54 The Dragon

Nurse: The King should have done his
seven steps, for I hear her coming.

(Dall Glic goes to recess of window.)

Queen: {Coming in.) Did you, Nurse, ever
at any time turn and dress a dinner ?

Nurse: (Very stiff.) Indeed I never did.
Any house I ever was in there was a good kit-
chen and well attended, the Lord be praised!

Queen: Ah, but just to be kind and to oblige
the King.

Nurse: Troth, the same King will wait long
till he'll see any dish I will ready for him ! I
am not one that was reared between the flags
and the oven in the corner of the one room!
To be a nurse to King's children is my trade,
and not to go stirring mashes, for hens or for
humans !

Queen: I heard a crafty woman lay down
one time there was no way to hold a man, only
by food and flattery.

Nurse: Sure any mother of children walk-
ing the road could tell you that much.

Queen: I went maybe too far urging him
not to lessen so much food the way he did. I

The Dragon 55

only thought to befriend him. But now he is
someway upset and nothing- will rightly smooth
him but to be thinking upon his next meal ; and
what it will be I don't know, unless the berries
of the bush.

Dall Glic: (Leaning out of the window.)
Here ! Hi ! Come this way !

Queen: Who are you calling to?

Dall Glic: It is someone with the appear-
ance of a cook.

Queen: Are you saying it is a cook? That
now will put the King in great humour !
(Manus appears at the window.)

Nurse: (Looking at him.) I wouldn't
hardly think he'd suit. He has a sort of inno-
cent look. I wouldn't say him. to be a country
lad. I don't know is he fitted to go readying
meals for a royal family, and the King so
wrathful if they do not please him as he is.
And as to the Princess Nu! There to be the
size of a hayseed of fat overhead on her broth,
she'd fall in a dead faint.

Manus: I'll go on so.

56 The Dragon

Queen: No, no. Bring him in till I'll take
a look at him !

Manus: (Coming inside.) I am a lad in
search of a master.

Manus: (Inside.) I am a lad in search of
a master.

Queen: And I myself that am wanting a
cook.

Manus: I got word of that and I going the
road.

Queen: You would seem to be but a young
lad.

Manus: I am. not very far in age to-day.
But I'll be a day older to-morrow.

Queen: In what country were you born and
reared ?

Manus: I came from over, and I am coming
hither.

Queen: What wages now would you be
asking?

Manus: Nothing at all unless what you
think I will have earned at the time I will be
leaving your service.

Queen: That is very right and fair. I hope

The Dragon 57

you will not be asking too much help. The last
cook had a whole fleet of scullions that were no
use but to chatter and consume.

Manus: I am asking no help at all but the
help of the ten I bring with me.
(Holds up fingers.)

Queen: That will be a great saving in the
house ! Can I depend upon you now not to be
turning to your own use the King's ale and
his wine?

Manus: If you take me to be a thief I will
go upon my road. It was no easier for me to
come than to go out again.

Queen: (Holding him.) No, now, don't be
so proud and thinking so much of yourself.
If I give you trial here I would wish you to be
ready to turn your hand to this and that, and
not be saying it is or is not your business.

Manus: My business is to do as the King
wishes.

Queen: That's right. That is the way the
servants were in the palace of the King of
Alban.

58 The Dragon

Manus: That's the way I was myself in the
King's house of Sorcha.

Queen: Are you saying it is from that place
you are come? Sure that should be a great
household! The King of Sorcha, they were
telling me, has seven castles on land and seven
on the sea, and provision for a year and a day
in every one of them.

Manus: That might be. I never was in
more than one of them at the one time.

Queen: Anyone that has been in that place
would surely be fitting here. Keep him, Nurse !
Don't let him make away from us till I will go
call the King!

(Goes out.)

Nurse: Sure it was I myself that fostered
the young King of Sorcha and reared him in
my lap! What way is he at all? My lovely
child ! Give me news of him !

Manus: I will do that . . .

Nurse: To hear of him would delight me !

Manus: It is I that can tell you. . . .

Nurse: It is himself should be a grand king!

Manus: Listen till you hear! . . .

The Dragon 59

Nurse: His father was good and his mother
was good, and it's likely, himself will be the
best of all !

Manus: Be quiet now and hearken! . . .

Nurse: I remember well the first day I saw
him in the cradle, two and a score of years
back! Oh, it is glad, and very glad, I'll be to
get word of him !

Manus: He is come to sensible years. . . .

Nurse: A golden cradle it was and it stand-
ing on four golden balls the very round of the
sun!

Manus: He is out of his cradle now.
(Shakes her shoulder. ) Let you hearken ! He
is in need of your help.

Nurse: He'll get it, he'll get it. I doted
down on that child ! The best to laugh and to
roar!

Manus: (Putting hand on her mouth.)
Will you be silent, you hag of a nurse? Can't
you see that I myself am Manus, the new King
of Sorcha?

Nurse: (Starting back.) Do you say that?
And how's every bit of you? Sure I'd know

60 The Dragon

you in any place. Stand back till I'll get the
full of my eyes of you! Like the father you
are, and you need never be sorry to be that!
Well, I said to myself and you looking in at the
window, I would not believe but there's some
drop of kings' blood in that lad !

Manus: That was not what you said to me !

Nurse: And wasn't the journey long on you
from Sorcha, that is at the rising of the sun?
Is it your foot-soldiers and your bullies you
brought with you, or did you come with your
hound and your deer-hound and with your
horn?

Manus: There was no one knew of my jour-
ney. I came bare alone. I threw a shell in the
sea and made a boat of it, and took the track
of the wild duck across the mountains of the
waves.

Nurse: And where in the world wide did
you get that dress of a cook?

Manus: It was at a tailor's place near
Oughtmana. There was no one in the house
but the mother. I left my own clothes in her
charge and my purse of gold; I brought noth-

The Dragon 61

ing but my own blue sword. (Throws open
blouse and shows it.) She gave me this suit,
where a cook from this house had thrown it
down in payment for a drink of milk. I have
no mind any person should know I am a king.
I am letting on to be a cook.

Nurse: I would sooner you to come as a
champion seeking battle, or a horseman that
had gone astray, or so far as a poet making
praises or curses according to his treatment on
the road. It would be a bad day I would see
your father's son taken for a kitchen boy.

Manus: I was through the world last night
in a dream. It was dreamed to me that the
King's daughter in this house is in a great
danger.

Nurse: So she is, at the end of a twelve-
month.

Manus: My warning was for this day. See-
ing her under trouble in my dream, my heart
was hot to come to her help. I am here to save
her, to meet every troublesome thing that will
come at her.

62 The Dragon

Nurse: Oh, my heavy blessing on you doing
that!

Manus: I was not willing to come as a king,
that she would feel tied and bound to live for
if I live, or to die with if I should die. I am
come as a poor unknown man, that may slip
away after the fight, to my own kingdom or
across the borders of the world, and no thanks
given him and no more about him, but a mem-
ory of the shadow of a cook!

Nurse: I would not think that to be right,
and you the last of your race. It is best for
you to tell the King.

Manus: I lay my orders on you to tell no
one at all.

Nurse: Give me leave but to whisper it to
the Princess Nu. It's ye would be the finest
two the world ever saw. You will not find her
equal in all Ireland!

Manus: I lay it as crosses and as spells on
you to say no word to her or to any other that
will make known my race or my name. Give
me now your oath.

The Dragon 63

Nurse: (Kneeling.) I do, I do. But they
will know you by your high looks.

Manus: Did you yourself know me a while
ago?

Nurse: (Getting up.) Oh, they're coming!
Oh, my poor child, what way will you that
never handled a spit be able to make out a din-
ner for the King?

Manus: This silver whistle, that was her
pipe of music, was given to me by a queen
among the Sidhe that is my godmother. At
the sound of it there will come through the air
any earthly thing I wish for, at my command.

Nurse: Let it be a dinner so.

Manus: So it will come, on a green table-
cloth carried by four swans as white as snow.
The freshest of every meat, the oldest of every
drink, nuts from the trees in Adam's Paradise !
(King, Queen, Princess, Dall Glic come
in. Princess sits on window sill.)

Queen: (To King.) Here now, my dear.
Wasn't I telling you I would take all trouble
from your mind, and that I would not be with-
out finding a cook for you?

64 The Dragon

King: He came in a good hour. The want
of a right dinner has downed kingdoms before
this.

Queen: Travelling he is in search of service
from the kings of the earth. His wages are in
no way out of measure.

King: Is he a good hand at his trade?

Queen: Honest he is, I believe, and ready to
give a hand here and there.

King: What way does he handle flesh, I'd
wish to know? And all that comes up from
the tide? Bream, now; that is a fish is very
pleasant to me — stewed or fried with butter till
the bones of it melt in your mouth. There is
nothing in sea or strand but is the better of a
quality cook — only oysters, that are best left
alone, being as they are all gravy and fat.

Queen: I didn't question him yet about
cookery.

King: It's seldom I met a woman with right
respect for food, but for show and silly dishes
and trash that would leave you in the finish as
dwindled as a badger on St. Bridget's day.

Queen: If this youth of a young man was

The Dragon 65

able to give satisfaction at the King of Sor-
cha's Court, I am sure that he will make a din-
ner to please yourself.

Manus: I will do more than that. I will
dress a dinner that will please myself.

Princess: (Clapping hands.) Very well
said!

King: Sound out now some good dishes such
as you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the
Queen will put them down in a line of writing,
that I can be thinking about them till such time
as you will have them readied.

Queen: There are sheeps' trotters below;
you might know some tasty way to dress them.

Manus: I do surely. I'll put the trotters
within a fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and
the goose in a suckling pig, and the suckling
pig in a fat lamb, and the lamb in a calf, and
the calf in a Maderalla . . .

King: What now is a Maderalla?

Manus: He is a beast that saves the cook
trouble, swallowing all those meats one after
another — in Sorcha.

King: That should be a very pretty dish.

66 The Dragon

Let you go make a start with it the way we
will not be famished before nightfall. Bring
him, Dall Glic, to the larder.

Dall Glic: I'm in dread it's as good for him
to stop where he is.

King: What are you saying?

Dall Glic: Those lads of apprentices that
left nothing in it only bare hooks.

Nurse: It is the Queen would give no leave
for more provision to come in, saying there
was no one to prepare it.

Manus: If that is so, I will be forced to lay
my orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and
the Brown Otter of the Stream to bring in
meat at my bidding.

King: Hurry on so.

Queen: I myself will go and give you in-
structions what way to use the kitchen.

Manus: Not at all! What I do I'd as lief
do in your own royal parlour ! (Blows whistle;
two dark-skinned men come in with vessels.)
Give me here those pots and pans !

Queen: What now is about to take place?

The Dragon 67

Dall Glic: I not to be blind, I would say
those to be very foreign-looking men.

King: It would seem as if the world was
grown to be very queer.

Queen: So it is, and the mastery being given
to a cook.

Manus: So it should be too ! It is the King
of Shades and Shadows would have rule over
the world if it wasn't for the cooks!

King: There's some sense in that now.

(Strange men are moving and arrang-
ing baskets and vessels. )

Manus: There was respect for cooks in the
early days of the world. What way did the
Sons of Tuireann get their death but going
questing after a cooking spit at the bidding of
Lugh of the Long Hand! And if a spit was
worthy of the death of heroes, what should the
man be worth that is skilled in turning it?
What is the difference between man and beast ?
Beast and bird devour what they find and have
no power to change it. But we are Druids of
those mysteries, having magic and virtue to
turn hard grain to tender cakes, and the very

68 The Dragon

skin of a grunting pig to crackling causing
quarrels among champions, and it singing upon
the coals. A cook! If I am I am not without
good generations before me! Who was the
first old father of us, roasting and reddening
the fruits of the earth from hard to soft, from
bitter to kind, till they are fit for a lady's plat-
ter? What is it leaves us in the hard cold of
Christmas but the robbery from earth of
warmth for the kitchen fire of (takes off cap)
the first and foremost of all master cooks —
the Sun!

Princess: You are surely not ashamed of
your trade !

Manus: To work now, to work. I'll engage
to turn out a dinner fit for Pharaoh of Egypt
or Pharamond King of the Franks! Here,
Queen, is a silver-breast phoenix — draw out
the feathers — they are pure silver — fair and
clean. (Queen plucks eagerly.) King, take
your golden sceptre and stir this pot.
(Gives him one.)

King: (Interested.) What now is in it?

Manus: A broth that will rise over the side

The Dragon 69

and be consumed and split if you stop stirring
it for one minute only! (King stirs furi-
ously.) Princess (She is looking on and he
goes over to her), there are honey cakes to roll
out, but I will not ask you to do it in dread that
you might spoil the whiteness . . .

Princess: I have no mind to do it.

Manus: Of the flour!

Princess: Give them here.

(Rolls them out indignantly.)

Manus: That is right. Take care, King,
would the froth swell over the brim.

Princess: It seems to me you are doing but
little yourself.

Manus: I will turn now and .... boil
these eggs.

(Takes some on a plate; they roll off.)

Princess: You have broken them,

Manus: (Disconcerted.) It was to show
you a good trick, how to make them sit up on
the narrow end.

Princess: That is an old trick in the world.

Manus: Every trick is an old one, but with
a change of players, a change of dress, it comes

7o The Dragon

out as new as before. Princess (speaks low), I
have a message to give you and a pardon to ask.

Princess: Give me out the message.

Manus: Take courage and keep courage
through this day. Do not let your heart fail.
There is help beside you.

Princess: It has been a troublesome day in-
deed. But there is a worse one and a great
danger before me in the far away.

Manus: That danger will 'come to-day, the
message said in the dream. Princess, I have
a pardon to ask you. I have been playing vani-
ties. I think I have wronged you doing this.
It was surely through no want of respect.

Gatekeeper: (Coming in-) There is word
come from Ballyvelehan there is a coach and
horses facing for this place over from Ought-
mana.

Queen: Who would that be ?

Gatekeeper: Up on the hill a woman was,
brought word it must be some high gentleman.
She could see all colours in the coach, and
flowers on the horse's heads.
(Goes out.)

The Dragon 71

f

Dall Glic: That is good hearing. I was in
dread some man we would have no welcome
for would be the first to come in this day.

Queen: Not a fear of it. I had orders given
to the Gateman who he would and would
not keep out. I did that the very minute
after the King making his proclamation and
his law.

King: Pup, pup. You need not be drawing
that down.

Queen: It is well you have myself to care
you and to turn all to good. I gave orders to
the Gateman, I say, no one to be let in to the
door unless carriage company, no other ones,
even if they should wipe their feet upon the
mat. I notched that in his mind, telling him
the King was after promising the Princess Nu
in marriage to the first man that would come
into the house.

Manus: The King gave out that word?

Queen: I am after saying that he did.

Dall Glic: Come along, lad. Don't be put-
ting ears on yourself.

72 The Dragon

Manus: I ask the King did he give out that
promise as the Queen says?

King: I have but a poor memory.

Nurse: The King did say it within the hour,
and swore to it by the oath of his people, tak-
ing contracts of the sun and moon of the air !

Dall Glic: What is it to you if he did?
Come on, now.

Manus: No. This is a master that concerns
myself.

Queen: How do you make that out?

Manus: You, that called me in, know well
that I was the first to come into the house.

Queen: Ha, ha! You have the impudence!
It is a man the King said. He was not talking
about cooks.

Manus: (To the King-) I am before you
as a serving lad, and you are a, King in Ireland.
Because you are a King and I your hired ser-
vant you will not refuse me justice. You gave
your word.

King: If I did it was in haste and in vexa-
tion, and striving to save her from destruction.

The Dragon 73

Manus: I call you to keep to your word and
to give your daughter to no other one.

Queen: Speak out now, Dall Glic, and give
your opinion and your advice.

Dall Glic: I would say that this lad going
away would be no great loss.

Manus: I did not ask such a thing, but as
it has come to me I will hold to my right.

Queen: It would be right to throw him to
the hounds in the kennel !

Manus: (To King.) I leave it to the judg-
ment of your blind wise man.

Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Take care would
you offend myself or the King!

Manus: I put it on you to split justice as it
is measured outside the world.

Dall Glic: It is hard for me to speak. He
has laid it hard on me. My good eye may go
asleep, but my blind eye never sleeps. In the
place where it is waking, an honourable man,
king or beggar, is held to his word.

King: Is it that I must give my daughter to
a lad that owns neither clod nor furrow?

74 The Dragon

Whose estate is but a shovel for the ashes and
a tongs for the red coals.

Queen: It is likely he is urged by the sting
of greed — it is but riches he is looking for.

King: I will not begrudge him his own ask-
ing of silver and of gold!

Manus: Throw it out to the beggars on the
road! I would not take a copper half -penny!
I'll take nothing but what has .come to me from
your own word !

(King bows his head.)

Princess: (Coming forward.) Then this
battle is not between you and an old king that is
feeble, but between yourself and myself.

Manus: I am sorry, Princess, if it must be
a battle.

Princess: You can never bring me away
against my will.

Manus: I said no word of doing that.

Princess: You think, so, I will go with you
of myself? The day I will do that will be the
day you empty the ocean !

Manus: I will not wait longer than to-day.

The Dragon 75

Princess: Many a man waited seven years
for a king's daughter !

Manus: And another seven — and seven gen-
erations of hags. But that is not my nature.
I will not kneel to any woman, high or low, or
crave kindness that she cannot give.

Princess: Then I can go free !

Manus: For this day I take you in my
charge. I cross and claim you to myself, un-
less a better man will come.

Princess: I would think it easier to find a
better man than one that would be worse to
me!

Manus: If one should come that you think
to be a better man, I will give you your own
way.

Princess: It is you being in the world at all
that is my grief.

Manus: Time makes all things clear. You
did not go far out in the world yet, my poor
little Princess.

Princess: I would be well pleased to drive
you out through the same world!

Manus: With or without your goodwill, I

76 The Dragon

will not go out of this place till I have carried
out the business I came to do.

Dall Glic: Is it the falling of hailstones I
hear or the rumbling of thunder, or is it the
trots of horses upon the road?

Queen: (Looking out.) It is the big man
that is coming — Prince or Lord or whoever he
may be. ( To Dall Glic. ) Go now to the door
to welcome him. This is some man worth
while. (To M anus.) Let you get out of this.

Manus: No, whoever he is Pll stop and face
him. Let him know we are players in the one
game!

King: And what sort of a fool will you
make of me, to have given in to take the like of
you for a son-in-law? They will be putting
ridicule on me in the songs.

Queen: If he must stop here we might put
some face on him. . . . If I had but a decent
suit. . . . Give me your cloak, Dall Glic. ( He
gives it. ) Here now . . . ( To Manus. ) Put
this around you. . . . (Manus takes it awk-
wardly. ) It will cover up your kitchen suit.

Manus: Is it this way?

The Dragon 77

Queen: You have no right handling of it —
stupid clown ! This way !

Manus: (Flinging it off.) No, I'll change
no more suits ! It is time for me to stop fooling
and give you what you did not ask yet, my
name. I will tell out all the truth.

Gatekeeper: (At door.) The King of Sor-
cha ! ( Taig comes in. )

King and Queen: The King of Sorcha!
(They rush forward to greet him.)

Nurse: (To Manus.) Did ever anyone hear
the like!

Manus: It seems as if there will be a judg-
ment between the man and the clothes !

Queen: (To Taig.) There is someone here
that you know, King. This young man is giv-
ing out that he was your cook.

Taig: He was not. I never laid an eye on
him till this minute.

Queen: I was sure he was nothing but a
liar when he said he would tell the truth!
Now, King, will you turn him out the door ?

King: And what about the great dinner he
has me promised?

78 The Dragon

Manus: Be easy King. Whether or no you
keep your word to me I'll hold to mine ! (Blows
whistle.) In with the dishes! Take your
places ! Let the music play out !

(Music plays, the strange men wheel in
tables and dishes. )

CURTAIN

ACT III

ACT III

Scene: Same. Table cleared of all but vessels
of fruit, cocoa-nuts, etc. Queen and Taig
sitting in front, Nurse and Dall Glic
standing in background.

Queen: Now, King, the dinner being at an
end, and the music, we have time and quiet to
be talking.

Taig: It is with the King's daughter I am
come to talk.

Queen: Go, Dall Glic, call the Princess. She
will be here on the minute, but it is best for you
to tell me out if it is to ask her in marriage you
are come.

Taig: It is so, where I was after being told
she would be given as a wife to the first man
that would come into the house.

Queen: And who in the world wide gave
that out?

Taig: It was the Gateman said it to a

81

82 The Dragon

hawker bringing lobsters from the strand, and
that got no leave to cross the threshold by rea-
son of the oath given out by the King. The
half of the kingdom she will get, they were
telling me, and the king living, and the whole
of it after he will be dead.

Nurse: There did another come in before
you. Let me tell you that much !

Taig: There did not. The lobster man that
set a watch upon the door.

Queen: A great honour you did us coming
asking for her, and you being King of Sorcha !

Taig: Look at my ring and my crown. They
will bear witness that I am. And my kind coat
of cotton and my golden shirt ! And under that
again there's a stiff pocket. (Slaps it.) Is
there e'er a looking-glass in any place? (Gets
up.)

Dall Glic: There is the shining silver basin
of the swans in the garden without.

Taig: That will do. I would wish to look
tasty when I come looking for a lady of a wife.
(He and Dall Glic go outside window but in
sight.)

The Dragon 83

(Princess comes in very proud and sad.)

Queen: You should be proud this day, Nu-
ala, and so grand a man coming asking you in
marriage as the King of Sorcha.

Nurse: Grand, indeed! As grand as hands
and pins can make him.

Princess: Are you not satisfied to have
urged me to one man and promised me to an-
other since sunrise?

Queen: What way could I know there was
this match on the way, and a better match be-
yond measure? This is no black stranger go-
ing the road, but a man having a copper crown
over his gateway and a silver crown over his
palace door ! I tell you he has means to hang
a pearl of gold upon every rib of your hair!
There is no one ahead of him in all Ireland,
with his chain and his ring and his suit of the
dearest silk!

Princess: If it was a suit I was to wed with
he might do well enough.

Queen: Equal in blood to ourselves!
Brought up to good behaviour and courage and
mannerly ways.

84 The Dragon

Princess: In my opinion he is not.

Queen: You are talking foolishness. A
King of Sorcha must be mannerly, seeing it is
he himself sets the tune for manners.

Princess: He gave out a laugh when old
Michelin slipped on the threshold. He kicked
at the dog under the table that came looking
for bones.

Queen: I tell you what might be ugly be-
haviour in a common man is suitable and right
in a king. But you are so hard to please and
so pettish, I am seven times tired of yourself
and your ways.

Princess: If no one could force me to give
in to the man that made a claim to me to-day,
according to my father's bond, that bond is
there yet to protect me fr.om any other one.

Queen: Leave me alone! Myself and the
Ball Glic will take means to rid you of that lad
from the oven. I'll send in now to you the
King of Sorcha. Let you show civility to him,
and the wedding-day will be to-morrow.

Princess: I will not see him, I will have
nothing to do with him; I tell you if he had the

The Dragon 85

rents of the whole world I would not go with
him by day or by night, on foot or on horse-
back, in light or in darkness, in company or
alone !

(Queen has gone while she cries this out.)

Nurse: The luck of the seven Saturdays on
himself and on the Queen !

Princess: Oh, Muime, do not let him come
near me! Have you no way to help me?

Nurse: It's myself that could help you if I
was not under bonds not to speak!

Princess: What is it you know? Why
won't you say one word?

Nurse: He put me under spells. . . . There
now, my tongue turned with the word to be
dumb.

Taig: (At the window.) Not a fear of me,
Queen. It won't be long till I bring the Prin-
cess around.

Princess: I will not stay! Keep him here
till I will hide myself out of sight! (Goes.)

Taig: (Coming in.) They told me the
Princess was in it.

86 The Dragon

Nurse: She has good sense, she is in some
other place.

Taig: {Sitting down-) Go call her to me.

Nurse: Who is it I will call her for ?

Taig: For myself. You know who I am.

Nurse: My grief that I do not !

Taig: I am the King of Sorcha.

Nurse: If you say that lie again there will
blisters rise up on your face.

Taig: Take care what you are saying, you
hag!

Nurse: I know well what I am saying. I
have good judgment between the noble and the
mean blood of the world.

Taig: The Kings of Sorcha have high,
noble blood.

Nurse: If they have, there is not so much
of it in you as would redden a rib of scutch-
grass.

Taig: You are crazed with folly and age.

Nurse: No, but I have my wits good enough.
You ought to be as slippery as a living eel, I'll
get satisfaction on you ye* ! I'll show out who
you are !

The Dragon 87

Taig: Who am I so?

Nurse: That is what I have to get know-
ledge of, if I must ask it at the mouth of cold
hell!

Taig: Do your best! I dare you!

Nurse: I will save my darling from you as
sure as there's rocks on the strand! A girl
that refused sons of the kings of the world!

Taig: And I will drag your darling from
you as sure as there's foxes in Oughtmana !

Nurse: Oughtmana ... Is that now your
living place?

Taig: It is not. ... I told you I came from
the far-off kingdom of Sorcha. Look at my
cloak that has on it the sign of the risen sun!

Nurse: Cloaks and suits and fringes. You
have a great deal of talk of them. . . . Have
you e'er a needle around you, or a shears ?

Taig: (His hand goes to breast of coat, but
he withdraws it quickly. ) Here ... no ...
What are you talking about ? I know nothing
at all of such things.

Nurse: In my opinion you do. Hearken

88 The Dragon

now. I know where is the real King of Sor-
cha!

Taig: Bring him before me now till I'll
down him !

Nurse: Say that the time you will come face
to face with him! Well, I'm under bonds to
tell out nothing about him, but I have liberty to
make known all I will find out about yourself.

Taig: Hurry on so. Little I care when once
I'm wed with the King's daughter !

Nurse: That will never be !

Taig: The Queen is befriending me and in
dread of losing me. I will threaten her if there
is any delay I'll go look for another girl of
a wife.

Nurse: I will make no delay. I'll have my
story and my testimony before the white dawn
of the morrow.

Taig: Do so and welcome! Before the yel-
low light of this evening I'll be the King's son-
in-law! Bring your news, then, and little
thanks you'll get for it ! The King and Queen
must keep up my name then for their own
credit's sake. (Makes a face at her as King

The Dragon 89

comes in with Dall Glic, and servants with
cushions. Nurse goes out, shaking her fist.)
(Rises- ) I was just asking to see you, King, to
say there is a hurry on me. . . .

King: (Sitting down on window seat while
Servant arranges cushions about him.) Keep
your business a while. It's a poor thing to be
going through business the very minute the
dinner is ended.

Taig: I wouldn't but that it is pressing.

King: Go now to the Queen, in her parlour,
and be chatting and whistling to the birds. I
give you my word since I rose up from the table
I am going here and there, up and down, crav-
ing and striving to find a place where I'll get
leave to lay my head on the cushions for one
little minute.

(Taig goes reluctantly.)

Dall Glic: (Taking cushions from serv-
ants.) Let you go now and leave the King to
his rest.

(They go out.)

King: I don't know in the world why any-
one would consent to be a king, and never to

9O The Dragon

be left to himself, but to be worried and wear-
ied and interfered with from dark to daybreak
and from morning to the fall of night.

Doll Glic: I will be going out now. I have
but one word only to say . . .

King: Let it be a short word! I would be
better pleased to hear the sound of breezes in
the sycamores, and the humming of bees in the
hive and the crooning and sleepy sounds of the
sea!

Dall Glic: There is one thing only could
cause me to annoy you.

King: It should be a queer big thing that
wouldn't wait till I have my rest taken.

Dall Glic: So it is a big matter, and a
weighty one.

King: Not to be left in quiet and all I am
after using ! Food that was easy to eat ! Drink
that was easy to drink! That's the dinner that
was a dinner. That cook now is a wonder !

Dall Glic: That is now the very one I am
wishful to speak about.

King: I give you my word, I'd sooner have

The Dragon 91

one goose dressed by him than seven dressed
by any other one!

Dall Glic: The Queen that was urging me
for to put my mind to make out some way to
get quit of him.

King: Isn't it a hard thing the very minute
I find a lad can dress a dinner to my liking, I
must be made an attack on to get quit of him?

Dall Glic: It is on the head of the Princess
Nu.

King: Tell me this, Dall Glic. Supposing,
now, he was ... in spite of me ... to wed
with her . . . against my will . , . and it
might be unknownst to me.

Dall Glic: Such a thing must not happen.

King: To be sure, it must notxhappen. Why
would it happen ? But supposing — I only said
supposing it did. Would you say would that
lad grow too high in himself to go into the
kitchen ... it might be only an odd time . . .
to oblige me ... and dress a dinner the same
as he did to-day?

Dall Glic: I am sure and certain that he
would not. It is the way, it is, with the com-

92 The Dragon

mon sort, the lower orders. He'd be wishful
to sit on a chair at his ease and to leave his
hand idle till he'd grow to be bulky and wishful
for sleep.

King: That is a pity, a great pity, and a
great loss to the world. A big misfortune he to
have got it in his head to take a liking to the
girl. I tell you he was a great lad behind the
saucepans !

Doll Glic: Since he did get it in his head,
it is what we have to do now, to make an end
of him.

King: To gaol him now, and settle up ovens
and spits and all sorts in the cell, wouldn't he,
to shorten the day, he apt to start cooking?

Dall Glic: In my belief he will do nothing
at all, but to hold you to the promise you made,
and to force you to send away the King of
Sorcha.

King: To have the misfortune of a cook for
a son-in-law, and without the good luck of
profiting by what he can do in his trade ! That
is a hard thing for a father to put up with, let
alone a king !

The Dragon 93

Dall Glic: If you will but listen to the ad-
vice I have to give . . .

King: I know it without you telling me.
You are asking me to make away with the lad !
And who knows but the girl might turn on me
after, women are so queer, and say I had a
right to have asked leave from herself?

Dall Glic: There will no one suspect you of
doing it, and you to take my plan. Bid them
heat the big oven outside on the lawn that is
for roasting a bullock in its full bulk.

King: Don't be talking of roasted meat! I
think I can eat no more for a twelvemonth !

Dall Glic: There will be nothing roasted that
any person will have occasion to eat. When
the oven door will be open, give orders to your
bullies and your foot-soldiers to give a tip to
him that will push him in. When evening
comes, news will go out that he left the meat to
burn and made off on his rambles, and no more
about him.

King: What way can I send orders when
I'm near crazed in my wits with the want of

94 The Dragon

rest. A little minute of sleep might soothe and
settle my brain.

(Lies down.)

Dall Glic: The least little word to give leave
... or a sign . . . such as to nod the head.

King: I give you my word, my head is tired
nodding! Be off now and close the door after
you and give out that anyone that comes to this
side of the house at all in the next half-hour,
his neck will be on the block before morning!

Dall Glic: (Hurriedly-) I'm going! I'm
going.

(Goes.)

King: (Locking door and drawing window
curtains.) That you may never come back
till I ask you! (Lies down and settles himself
on pillows. ) I'll be lying here in my lone lis-
tening to the pigeons seeking their meal.
"Coo-coo," they're saying, "Coo-coo."
(Closes eyes.)

Nurse: (At door.) Who is it locked the
door? (Shakes it-) Who is it is in it? What
is going on within? Is it that some bad work
is after being done in this place? Hi ! Hi ! Hi !

The Dragon 95

King: (Sitting up.) Get away out of that,
you torment of a nurse! Be off before I'll
have the life of you!

Nurse: The Lord be praised, it is the King's
own voice ! There's time yet !

King: There's time, is there? There's time
for everyone to give out their chat and their
gab, and to do their business and take their
ease and have a comfortable life, only the
King! The beasts of the field have leave to
lay themselves down in the meadow and to
stretch their limbs on the green grass in the
heat of the day, without being pestered and
plagued and tormented and called to and wak-
ened and worried, till a man is no less than
wore out!

Nurse: Up or down, I'll say what I have to
say, if it costs me my life. It is that I have to
tell you of a plot that is made and a plan!

King: I won't listen! I heard enough of
plots and plans within the last three minutes!

Nurse: You didn't hear this one. No one
knows of it only myself.

King: I was told it by the Dall Glic.

96 The Dragon

Nurse: You were not! I am only after
making it out on the moment !

King: A plot against the lad of the sauce-
pans?

Nurse: That's it! That's it! Open now the
door!

King: (Putting a cushion over each ear and
settling himself to sleep.) Tell away and wel-
come!

(Shuts eyes.)

Nurse: That's right! You're listening.
Give heed now. That schemer came a while
ago letting on to be the King of Sorcha is no
such thing! What do you say? . . . Maybe
you knew it before? I wonder the Dall Glic
not to have seen that for himself with his one
eye. . . . Maybe you don't believe it? Well,
I'll tell it out and prove it. I have got sure
word by running messenger that came cross-
cutting over the ridge of the hill. . . . That
carrion that came in a coach, pressing to bring
away the Princess before nightfall, giving
himself out to be some great one, is no other
than Taig the Tailor, that should be called

The Dragon 97

Taig the Twister, down from his mother's
house from Oughtmana, that stole grand
clothes which were left in the mother's charge,
he being out at the time cutting cloth and shap-
ing lies, and has himself dressed out in them
the way you'd take him to be King! (King
has slumbered peacefully all through.) Now,
what do you say? Now, will you open the
door?

Queen: (Outside.) What call have you to
shouting and disturbing the King?

Nurse: I have good right and good reason
to disturb him !

Queen: Go away and let me open the door.

Nurse: I will go and welcome now; I have
told out my whole story to the King.

Queen: (Shaking door.) Open the door,
my dear! It is I myself that is here! (King
looks up, listens, shakes his head and sinks
back.) Are you there at all, or what is it ails
you?

Nurse: He is there, and is after conversing
with myself.

Queen: (Shaking again.) Let me in, my

98 The Dragon

dear King! Open! Open! Open! unless that
the falling sickness is come upon you, or that
you are maybe lying dead upon the floor !

Nurse: Not a dead in the world.

Queen: Go, Nurse, I tell you, bring the
smith from the anvil till he will break asunder
the lock of the door !

(King, annoyed, waddles to door and
opens it suddenly. Queen stumbles
in.)

King: What at all has taken place that you
come bawling and calling and disturbing my
rest?

Queen: Oh! Are you sound and well? I
was in dread there did something come upon
you, when you gave no answer at all.

King: Am I bound to answer every call and
clamour the same as a hall-porter at the door ?

Queen: It is business that cannot wait.
Here now is a request I have written to the
bully of the King of Alban, bidding him to
strike the head off whatever man will put the
letter in his hand. Write your name and sign
to it, in three royal words.

The Dragon 99

King: I wouldn't sign a letter out of my
right hour if it was to make the rivers run
gold. There is nothing comes of signing let-
ters but more trouble in the end.

Queen: Give me, so, to bind it a drop of your
own blood as a token and a seal. You will not
refuse, and I telling you the messenger will go
with it, and that will lose his head through it,
is no less than that troublesome cook !

King: (With a roar.) Anyone to say that
word again I will not leave a head on any neck
in the kingdom ! I declare on my oath it would
be best for me to take the world for my pillow
and put that lad upon the throne !

(Queen goes back frightened to door.)
Gateman: (Coming in.) There is a man
coming in that will take no denial. It is Fin-
tan the Astrologer.

(Fintan enters with Dall Glic, Nurse,
Princess, Taicj, Manus and Prince
of the Marshes crowding after
him. )

King: Another disturbance! The whole
world would seem to be on the move !

ioo The Dragon

Queen: Fintan! What brings him here
again ?

Fintan: A great deceit? A terrible decep-
tion!

King: What at all is it?

Fintan: Long and all as I'm in the world,
such a thing never happened in my lifetime!

Queen: What is it has happened?

Fintan: It is not any fault of myself or any
miscounting of my own ! I am certain sure of
that much. Is it that the stars of heaven are
gone astray, they that are all one with a clock —
unless it might be on a stormy night when they
are wild-looking around the moon.

King: Go on with your story and stop your
raving.

Fintan: The first time ever I came to this
place I made a prophecy.

Dall Glic: You did, about the child was in
the cradle.

Fintan: And that was but new in the world.
It is what I said, that she was born under a cer-
tain star, and that in a score of years all but
two, whatever acting was going on in that star

The Dragon 101

at the time she was born, she would get her
crosses in the same way.

Dall Glic: The cross you foretold to her was
to be ate by a Dragon. You laid down it would
come upon a twelvemonth from this very day.

Fintan: That's it. That was according to
my reckoning. There was no mistake in that.
And I thought better of the Seven Stars than
they to make a fool of me, after all the respect
I had showed them, giving my life to watching
themselves and the plans they have laid down
for men and for mortals.

King: It seems as if I myself was the best
prophet and that there is no Dragon at all.

Fintan: What a bad opinion you have of me
that I would be so far out as that ! It would be
a deception and a disappointment out of meas-
ure, there to come no Dragon, and I after fore-
telling and prophesying him.

King: Troth, it would be no disappointment
at all to ourselves.

Fintan: It would be better, I tell you, a score
of king's daughters to be ate and devoured,
than the high stars in thejr courses to be.

IO2 The Dragon

proved wrong. But it must be right, it surely
must be right. I gave the prophecy according
to her birth hour, that was one hour before the
falling back of the sun.

Dall Glic: It was not, but an hour before
the rising of the sun.

Pint an: Not at all! It was the Nurse her-
self told me it was at evening she was born.

Queen: There is the Nurse now. Let you

ask her account.
%

Pint an: (To Nurse.) It was yourself laid
down it was evening !

Nurse: Sure I wasn't in the place at all till
Samhuin time, when she was near three months
in the world.

Fintan: Then it was some other hag the
very spit of you! I wish she didn't tell a lie.

Nurse: Sure that one was banished out of
this on the head of telling lies. An hour ere
sunrise, and before the crowing of the cocks.
The Dall Glic will tell you that much.

Dall Glic: That is so. I have it marked
upon the genealogies in the chest.

: That is great news ! It was a heavy

The Dragon 103

wrong was done me ! It had me greatly upset.
Twelve hours out in laying down the birth-
time! That clears the character of myself and
of the carwheel of the stars. I knew I could
make no mistake in my office and in my billet !

King: Will you stop praising yourself and
give out some sense?

Fintan: Knowledge is surely the greatest
thing in the world ! And truth ! Twelve hours
with the planets is equal to twelve months on
earth. I am well satisfied now.

Queen: So the Dragon is not coming, and
the girl is in no danger at all?

Fintan: Not coming! Heaven help your
poor head! Didn't I get word within the last
half -hour he is after leaving his den in the
Kingdoms of the Cold, and is at this minute,
ploughing his way to Ireland, the same as I
foretold him, but that I made a miscount of a
year?

Nurse: (Putting her arm round Princess.)
Och ! do not listen or give heed to him at all !

Queen: When is he coming so?

Fintan: Amn't I tired telling you this day

IO4 The Dragon

in the place of this day twelvemonth. But as
to the minute, there's too much lies in this place
for me to be rightly sure.

King: The curse of the seven elements upon
him!

Fintan: Little he'll care for your cursing.
The whole world wouldn't stop him coming to
your own grand gate.

Princess: (Coming forward.) Then I am
to die to-night?

Fintan: You are, without he will be turned
back by someone having a stronger star than
your own, and I know of no star is better, un-
less it might be the sun.

Queen: If you had minded me, and given
in to ring the wedding bells, you would be safe
out of this before now.

Fintan: That Dragon not to find her before
him, he will ravage and destroy the whole dis-
trict with the poisonous spittle of his jaw, till
the want will be so great the father will disown
,his son and will not let him in the door. Well,
good-bye to ye! Ye'll maybe believe me to
have foreknowledge another time, and I

The Dragon 105

proved to be right. I have knocked great com-
fort out of that!
(Goes.)

King: Oh, my poor child! My poor little
Nu ! I thought it never would come to pass, I
to be sending you to the slaughter. And I too
bulky to go out and face him, having led an
easy life!

Princess: Do not be fretting.

King: The world is gone to and fro! I'll
never ask satisfaction again either in bed or
board, but to be wasting away with water-
cresses and rising up of a morning before the
sun rises in Babylon! (Weeps.) Oh, we
might make out a way to baffle him yet! Is
there no meal will serve him only flesh and
blood? Try him with Grecian wine, and with
what was left of the big dinner a while ago!

Gateman: (Coming in.) There is some
strange thing in the ocean from Aran out. At
first it was but like a bird's shadow on the sea,
and now you would nearly say it to be the big
island would have left its moorings, and it
steering its course towards Aughanish!

io6 The Dragon

Dall Glic: I'm in dread it should be the
Dragon that has cleared the ocean at a leap !

King: (Holding Princess.) I will not give
you up! Let him devour myself along with
you!

Dall Glic: (To Princess.) It is best for me
to put you in a hiding-hole under the ground,
that has seven locked doors and seven locks on
the farthest door. It might fail him to make
you out.

Nurse: Oh, it would be hard for her to go
where she cannot hear the voice of a friend or
see the light of day!

Princess: Would you wish me to save my-
self and let all the district perish? You heard
what Fintan said. It is not right for destruc-
tion to be put 'on a whole province, and the
women and the children that I know.

Queen: There is maybe time yet for you to
wed.

Princess: So long as I am living I have a
choice. I will not be saved in that way. It is
alone I will be in my death.

Manus: (Coming to King.) I am going out

The Dragon 107

from you, King. I might not be coming in to
you again. I would wish to set you free from
the promise you made me a while ago, and the
bond.

King: What does it signify now? What
does anything signify, and the world turning
here and there !

Manus: And another thing. I would wish
to ask pardon of the King's daughter. I ought
not to have laid any claim to her, being a
stranger in this place and without treasure or
attendance. And yet . . . and yet . . .
(stoops and kisses hem of her dress), she was
dear to me. It is a man who never may look on
her again is saying that.
(Turns to door-)

Taig: He is going to run from the Dragon !
It is kind father for a scullion to be timid!

Queen: It is in his blood. He is maybe not
to blame for what is according to his nature.

Manus: That is so. I am doing what is ac-
cording to my nature.

(Goes, Nurse goes after him.)

Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Go throw a dish-

The Dragon

cloth after him that the little lads may be mock*
ing him along the road!

Doll Glic: I will not. I have meddled
enough at your bidding. I am done with living
under dread. Let you blind me entirely ! I am
free of you. It might be best for me the two
eyes to be withered, and I seeing nothing but
the ever-living laws!

Prince of Marshes: (Costing to Princess.)
It is my grief that with all the teachers I had
there was not one to learn me the handling of
weapons or of arms. But for all that I will not
run away, but will strive to strike one blow in
your defence against that wicked beast.

Princess: It is a good friend that would rid
us of him. But it grieves me that you should
go into such danger.

Prince of Marshes: (To Doll Glic.) Give
me some sword or casting spears.

(Doll Glic gives him spears.)

Princess: I am sorry I made fun of you a
while ago. I think you are a good kind man.

Prince of Marshes: {Kissing her hand.)

The Dragoo 109

Having that word of praise I will bring a good
heart into the fight.
(Goes.)
( Taig is slipping out after him. )

Queen: See now the King of Sorcha slipping
away into the fight. Stop here now! (Pulls
him back.) You have a life that is precious to
many besides yourself. Do not go without
being well armed — and with a troop of good
fighting men at your back.

Taig: I am greatly obliged to you. I think
I'll be best with myself.

Queen: You have no suit or armour upon
you.

Taig: That is what I was thinking.

Queen: Here anyway is a sword.

Taig: (Taking it.) That's a nice belt now.
Well worked, silver thread and gold.

Queen: The King's own guard will go out
with you.

Taig: I wouldn't ask one of them! What
would you think of me wanting help ! A Dra-
gon! Little I'd think of him. I'll knock the
life out of him. I'll give him cruelty !

no The Dragon

Queen: You have great courage indeed!

Taig: I'll cut him cross ways and length-
ways the same as a yard of frieze! I'll make
garters of his body! I'll smooth him with a
smoothing iron! Not a fear of me! I never
lost a bet yet that I wasn't able to pay it !

Gateman: (As he rushes in, Taig slips
away.) The Dragon! The Dragon! I seen it
coming and its mouth open1 and a fiery flame
from it ! And nine miles of the sea is dry with
all it drank of it ! The whole country is gath-
ering the same as of a fair day for to see him
devour the Princess.

(Princess trembles and sinks into a
chair. King, Queen and Dall Glic
look from zvindow. They turn to
her as they speak.)

Queen: There is a terrible splashing in the
sea! It is like as if the Dragon's tail had
beaten it into suds of soap !

Dall Glic: He is near as big as a whale!

King: He is, and bigger!

Queen: I see him! I see him! He would
seem to have seven heads !

The Dragon in

Dall Glic: I see but one.

Queen: You would see more if you had your
two eyes ! He has six heads at the least !

King: He has but one. He is twisting and
turning it around.

Dall Glic: He is coming up towards the
flaggy shore!

King: I hear him ! He is snoring like a flock
of pigs !

Queen: He is rearing his head in the air!
He has teeth as long as a tongs !

Dall Glic: No, but his tail he is rearing up!
It would take a ladder forty feet long to get
to the tip of it!

Queen: There is the King of Sorcha going
out the gate for to make an end of him.

Dall Glic: So he is, too. That is great
bravery.

King: He is going to one side. He is come
to a stop.

Dall Glic: It seems to me he is ready to fall in
his standing. He is gone into a little thicket
of furze. He is not coming out, but is lying

H2 The Dragon

crouched up in it the same as a hare in a tuft.
I can see his shoulders narrowed up.

Queen: He maybe got a weakness.

King: He did, maybe, of courage. Shaking
and shivering, he is like a hen in thunder. In
my opinion, he is hiding from the fight.

Queen: There is the Prince of the Marshes
going out now, and his coach after him! And
his two aunts sitting in it and screeching to
him not to run into danger !

King: He will not do much. He has not
pith or power to handle arms. That sort brings
a bad name on kings.

Dall Glic: He is gone away from the coach.
He is facing to the flaggy shore !

Queen: Oh, the Dragon has put up his head
and is spitting at him !

King: He has cast a spear into its jaw!
Good man !

{Princess goes over to window.)

DallGlic: He is casting another ! His hand
shook ... it did not go straight. He is gone
on again! He has cast another spear! It
should hit the beast . . it let a roar !

The Dragon 113

Princess: Good little Prince ! What way is
the battle now ?

Dall Glic: It will kill him with its fiery
breath! He is running now ... he is stum-
bling . . . the Dragon is after him! He is up
again! The two Aunts have pushed him into
the coach and have closed the iron door.

King: It will fail the beast to swallow him
coach and all. It is gone back to refresh itself
in the sea. You can hear it puffing and plung-
ing!

Queen: There is nothing to stop it now.
( To Princess. ) If you have e'er a prayer, now
is the time to say it.

Dall Glic: Stop a minute . . . there is an-
other champion going out.

King: A man wearing a saffron suit . . .
who is he at all? He has the look of one used
to giving orders.

Princess: (Looking out.) Oh ! he is but go-
ing to his death. It would be better for me to
throw myself into the tide and make an end
of it.

(Is rushing to door. )

U4 The Dragon

King: (Holding her-) He is drawing his
sword. Himself and the Dragon are thrusting
at one another on the flags !

Princess: Oh, close the curtains ! Shut out
the sound of the battle.

(Dall Glic closes curtains.)
King: Strike up now a tune of music that
will deafen the sound !

(Orchestra plays. Princess is kneeling
by King. Music changes from dis-
cord to victory. Two Aunts and
Gateman rush in. Noise of cheer-
ing heard without as the Gateman
silences music. )

Gateman: Great news and wonderful news
and a great story!

First Aunt: The fight is ended!
Second Aunt: The Dragon is brought to his
last goal !

Gateman: That young fighting man that has
him flogged ! Made at him like a wave break-
ing on the strand! They crashed at one an-
other like two days of judgment! Like the
battle of the cold with the heat !

The Dragon 115

First Aunt: You'd say he was going
through dragons all his life !

Second Aunt: It can hardly put a stir out
of itself!

Gateman: That champion has it baffled and
mastered! It is after being chased over seven
acres of ground !

First Aunt: Drove it to its knees on the
flaggy shore and made an end of it !

King: God bless that man to-day and to-
morrow !

Second Aunt: He has put it in a way it will
eat no more kings' daughters!

Princess: And the stranger that mastered
it — is he safe?

First Aunt: What signifies if he is or is not,
so long as we have our own young prince to
bring home !

Gatekeeper: He is not safe. No sooner had
he the beast killed and conquered than he fell
dead, and the life went out of him.

Princess: Oh, that is not right! He to be
dead and I living after him !

King: He was surely noble and high-

u6 The Dragon

blooded. There are some that will be sorry
for his death.

Princess: And who should be more sorry
than I myself am sorry? Who should keen
him unless myself? There is a man that gave
his life for me, and he young and all his days
before him, and shut his eyes on the white
world for my sake!

Queen: Indeed he was a man you might have
been content to wed with, hard and all as you
are to please.

Princess: I never will wed with any man
so long as my life will last, that was bought for
me with a life was more worthy by far than
my own ! He is gone out of my reach ; let him
wait for me to give him my thanks on the other
side. Bring me now his sword and his shield
till I will put them before me and cry my eyes
down with grief !

Gateman: Here is his cap for you, anyway,
and his cleaver and his bunch of skivers. For
the champion you are crying was no other than
that lad of a cook!

Queen: That is not true! It is not possible!

The Dragon 117

Gateman: Sure I seen him myself going out
the gate a while ago. He put off his cook's
apparel and threw it along with these behind
the turf stack. I gathered them up presently
and I coming in the door.

King: The world is gone beyond me entire-
ly ! But what I was saying all through, there
was something beyond the common in that
boy! ,

Queen: (To Princess, who is clinging to
chair.) Let you be comforted now, knowing
he cannot come back to lay claim to you in mar-
riage, as it is likely he would, and he living.

Princess: It is he saved me after my un-
kindness! .... Oh, I am ashamed . . . .
ashamed !

Queen: It is a queer thing a king's daughter
to be crying after a man used to twisting the
spit in place of weapons, and over skivers in
the place of a sword !

Princess! (Gropes and totters.) What has
happened? There is something gone astray!
I have no respect for myself. ... I cannot
live! I am ashamed? Where is Nurse?

u8 The Dragon

Muime ! Come to me Muime ! . . . My grief !
The man that died for me, whether he is of the
noble or the simple of the world, it is to him I
have given the love of my soul !

(Dall Glic supports her and lays her on
window seat.)

Nurse: (Rushing in.) What is it, honey?
What at all are they after doing to you?

Queen: Throw over her a' skillet of water.
She is gone into a faint.

Dall Glic: (Who is bending over her.) She
is in no faint. She is gone out.

Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling!
What call had I to leave you among them at
all?

King: Raise her up. It is impossible she
can be gone.

Dall Glic: Gone out and spent, as sudden as
a candle in a blast of wind.

King: Who would think grief would do
away with her so sudden, there to be seven of
the like of him dead?

Nurse: (Rises.) What did you do to her

The Dragon 119

at all, at all? Or was it through the fright
and terror of the beast?

Queen: She died of the heartbreak, being
told that the strange champion that had put
down the Dragon was killed dead.

Nurse: Killed, is it? Who now put that lie
out of his mouth ? (Shouts in her ear. ) What
would ail him to be dead? It is myself can tell
you the true story. No man in Ireland ever
was half as good as him ! It was himself mas-
tered the beast and dragged the heart out of
him and forced down a squirrel's heart in its
place, and slapped a bridle on him. And he
himself did but stagger and go to his knees in
the heat and drunkenness of the battle, and
rose up after as good as ever he was ! It is out
putting ointments on him that I was up to this,
and healing up his cuts and wounds ! Oh, what
ails you, honey, that you will not waken?

Queen: She thought it to be a champion and
a high up man that had died for her sake. It
is what broke her down in the latter end, hear-
ing him to be no big man at all, but a clown !

Nurse: Oh, my darling! And I not here to

I2O The Dragon

tell you ! You are a motherless child, and the
curse of your mother will be on me! It was
no clown fought for you, but a king, having
generations of kings behind him, the young
King of Sorcha, Manus, son of Solas son of
Lugh.

King: I would believe that now sooner than
many a thing I would hear.

Nurse: (Keening.) Oh, my child, and my
share! I thought it was you would be closing
my eyes, and now I am closing your own ! You
to be brought away in your young youth!
Your hand that was whiter than the snow of
one night, and the colour of the foxglove on
your cheek.

(A great shouting outside and burst of
music. A march played. Manus
comes in, follozved by Fintan and
Prince of the Marshes. Shouts
and music continue. He leads the
Dragon by a bridle. The others
are in front of Princess, huddled
from Dragon. Queen gets up on
a chair.)

The Dragon 121

Manus: Where is the Princess Nu? I have
brought this beast to bow itself at her feet.

{All are silent. Manus flings bridle to
Fintan's hand. Dragon backs out.
All go aside from Princess. )

Nurse: She is here dead before you.

Manus: That cannot be ! She was well and
living half an hour ago.

Nurse: (Rises.) Oh, if she could but waken
and hear your voice! She died with the fret
of losing you, that is heaven's truth ! It is tor-
mented she was with these giving out you were
done away with, and mocking at your weapons
that they laid down to be the cleaver and the
spit, till the heart broke in her like a nut.

Manus: (Kneeling beside her.) Then it is
myself have brought the death darkness upon
you at the very time I thought to have saved
you!

Nurse: There is no blame upon you, but
some that had too much talk!
(Goes on keening.)

Manus: What call had I to come humbug-
ging and letting on as I did, teasing and tor-

122 The Dragon

menting her, and not coming as a King should
that is come to ask for a Queen! Oh, come
back for one minute only till I will ask your
pardon !

Dall Glic: She cannot come to you or an-
swer you at all for ever.

Manus: Then I myself will go follow you
and will ask for your forgiveness wherever you
are gone, on the Plain of Wonder or in the
Many-Coloured Land! That is all I can do
.... to go after you and tell you it was no
want of respect that brought me in that dress,
but hurry and folly and taking my own way.
For it is what I have to say to you, that I gave
you my heart's love, what I never gave to any
other, since first I saw you before me in my
sleep ! Here, now, is a short road to reach you !
(Takes sword.)

Prince of Marshes: (Catching his hand.)
Go easy now, go easy.

Manus: Take off your hand! I say I will
die with her!

Prince of Marshes: That will not raise her
up again. But I, now, if I have no skill in kill-

The Dragon 123

ing beasts or men, have maybe the means of
bringing her back to life.

Nurse: Oh, my blessing on you! What is it
you have at all?

Prince of Marshes: (Taking bag from his
Aunt.) These three leaves from the Tree of
Power that grows by the Well of Healing.
Here they are now for you, tied with a thread
of the wool of the sheep of the Land of Prom-
ise. There is power in them to bring one per-
son only back to life.

First Aunt: Give them back to me! You
have your own life to think of as well as any
other one!

Second Aunt: Do not spend and squander
that cure on any person but yourself !

Prince of Marshes: (Giving the leaves.)
And if I have given her my love that it is likely
I will give to no other woman for ever, indeed
and indeed, I would not ask her or wish her to
wed with a very frightened man, and that is
what I was a while ago. But you yourself
have earned her, being brave.

124 The Dragon

Manus: (Taking leaves.) I never will for-
get it to you. You will be a brave man yet.

Prince of Marshes: Give me in place of it
your sword; for I am going my lone through
the world for a twelvemonth and a day, till I
will learn to fight with my own hand.

(Manus gives him sword. He throws
off cloak and outer coat and fas-
tens it on. )

Nurse: Stand back, now. Let the whole of
ye stand back. (She lays a leaf on the Prin-
cess's mouth and one on each of her hands. ) I
call on you by the power of the Seven Belts of
the Heavens, of the Twelve Winds of the
World, of the Three Waters of the Sea!
(Princess stirs slightly.)

King: That is a wonder of wonders! She
is stirring!

Manus: Oh, my share of the world! Are
you come back to me?

Princess: It was a hard fight he wrestled
with. ... I thought I heard his voice. . . .
Is he come from danger ?

Nurse: He did. Here he is. He that saved

The Dragon 125

you and that killed the Dragon, and that let on
to be a serving boy, and he no less than one of
the world's kings!

Manus: Here I am, my dear, beside you, to
be your comrade and your company for ever.
Princess: You! . . . Yes, it is yourself.
Forgive me. I am sorry that I spoke unkindly
to you a while ago ; I am ashamed that it failed
me to know you to be a king.

(She stands up, helped by Nurse.)
Manus: It was my own fault and my folly.
What way could you know it ? There is noth-
ing to forgive.

Princess: But ... if I did not recognise
you as a king . . . anyway . . . the time you
dropped the eggs ... I was nearly certain
that you were no cook!
(They embrace.)

Queen: There now I have everything
brought about very well in the finish !

(A scream at door. Taig rushes in, fol-
lowed by Sibby, in country dress.
He kneels at the Queen's feet, hold-
ing on to her skirt.)

126 The Dragon

Sibby: Bad luck and bad cess to you! Tor-
ment and vexation on you! (Seises him by
back of neck and shakes him. ) You dirty little
scum and leavings! You puny shrimp you!
You miserable ninth part of a man!

Queen: Is it King or the Dragon Killer he
is letting on to be yet, or do you know what he
is at all?

Sibby: It's myself knows that, and does
know it! He being Taig the tailor, my own
son and my misfortune, that stole away from
me a while ago, bringing with him the grand
clothes of that young champion (points to
Manus) and his gold ! To borrow a team of
horses from the plough he did, and to bring
away the magistrate's coach! But I followed
him! I came tracking him on the road! Put
off now those shoes that are too narrow for
you, you red thief, you ! For, believe me, you'll
go facing home on shank's mare !

Taig: (Whimpering.) It's a very unkind
thing you to go screeching that out before the
King, that will maybe strike my head off!

Sibby: Did ever you know of anyone mak-

The Dragon 127

ing a quarrel in a whisper? To wed with the
King's daughter, you would? To go vanquish
the water-worm you would? I'll engage you
ran before you went anear him!

Taig: If I didn't I'd be tore with his claws
and scorched with his fiery breath. It is likely
I'd be going home dead !

Sibby: Strip off now that cloak and that
bodycoat and come along with me, or I'll make
split marrow of you! What call have you to
a suit that is worth more than the whole of the
County Mayo? You're tricky and too much
tricks in you, and you were born for tricks ! It
would be right you to be turned into the shape
of a limping foxy cat !

Taig: (Weeping as he takes off clothes.)
Sure I thought it no harm to try to go better
myself.

Prince of Marshes: (Giving his cloak and
coat.) Here, I bestow these to you. If you
were a while ago a tailor among kings, from
this out you will be a king among tailors.

Sibby: (Curtseying.) Well, then, my thou-
sand blessings on you! He'll be as proud as

ia8 The Dragon

the world of that. Now, Taig, you'll be as
dressed up as the best of them ! Come on now
to Oughtmana, as it is long till you'll quit it.
(They go towards door.)

Dragon: (Putting his head in at window.)
Manus, King of Sorcha, I am starved with the
want of food. Give me a bit to eat.

Fintan: He is not put down! He will de-
vour the whole of us ! F<J. sooner face a bullet
and ten guns !

Dragon: It is not mannerly to eat without
being invited. Is it any harm to ask where will
I find a meal will suit me?

Princess: Oh, does he ask to make a meal of
me, after all?

Dragon: I am hungry and dancing with the
hunger ! It was you, Manus, stopped me from
the one meal. Let you set before me another.

King: There is reason in that. Drive up
now for him a bullock from the meadow.

Dragon: Manus, it is not bullocks I am crav-
ing, since the time you changed the heart with-
in me for the heart of a little squirrel of the
wood.

The Dragon 129

Manus: (Taking a cocoa-nut from table.)
Here is a nut from the island of Lanka, that
is called Adam's Paradise. Milk there is in
it, and a kernel as white as snow.

(He throws it out. Dragon is heard
crunching. )

Dragon: (Putting head in again.) More!
Give me more of them ! Give them out to me
by the dozen and by the score!

Manus: You must go seek them in the east
of the world, where you can gather them in
bushels on the strand.

Dragon: So I will go there! I'll make no
delay ! I give you my word, I'd sooner one of
them than to be cracking the skulls of kings'
daughters, and the blood running down my
jaws. Blood! Ugh! It would disgust me!
I'm in dread it would cause vomiting. That
and to have the plaits of hair tickling and tor-
menting my gullet !

Princess: (Claps hands.) That is good
hearing, and a great change of heart.

Dragon: But if it's a tame dragon I am
from this out, I'm thinking it's best for me to

130 The Dragon

make away before you know it, or it's likely
ye'll be yoking me to harrow the clods, or to be
dragging the water-car from the spring well.
So good-bye the whole of ye, and get to your
supper. Much good may it do you! I give
you my word there is nothing in the universe
I despise, only the flesh-eaters of Adam's race !

CURTAIN.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I wrote The Dragon in 1917, that now seems so
many long years away, and I have been trying to
remember how I came to write it. I think perhaps
through some unseen inevitable kick of the swing
towards gay-coloured comedy from the shadow of
tragedy. It was begun seriously enough, for I see
among my scraps of manuscripts that the earliest
outline of it is entitled "The Awakening of a Soul,"
the soul of the little Princess who had not gone "far
out in the world." And that idea was never quite
lost, for even when it had all turned to comedy I see
as an alternative name "A Change of Heart." For
even the Dragon's heart is changed by force, as
happens in the old folk tales and the heart of some
innocent creature put in its place by the conqueror's
hand; all change more or less except the Queen. She
is yet satisfied that she has moved all things well, and
so she must remain till some new breaking up or
re-birth.

As to the framework, that was once to have been
the often-told story of a King's daughter given to
whatever man can "knock three laughs out of her."
As well as I remember the first was to have been when
the eggs were broken, and another when she laughed

132 Author's Note

with the joy of happy love. But the third was the
stumbling-blbck. It was necessary the ears of the
Abbey audience should be tickled at the same time as
those of the Princess, and old-time jests like those of
Sir Dinadin of the Round Table seem but dull to ears
of to-day. So I called to my help the Dragon that
has given his opportunity to so many a hero from
Perseus in the Greek Stories to Shawneen in those of
Kiltartan. And he did not sulk or fail me, for after
one of the first performances the producer wrote:
"I wish you had seen the play last night when a big
Northern in the front of the stalls was overcome
with helpless laughter, first by Sibby and then by the
Dragon. He sat there long after the curtain fell,
unable to move and wiping the tears from his eyes;
the audiences stopped going out and stood and
laughed at him." And even a Dragon may think it a
feather in his cap to have made Ulster laugh.

A. G.
Coole,
February, 1920.

ORIGINAL CAST

"The Dragon" was first produced at the Abbey
Theatre, Dublin, on 2ist April, 1919, with the follow-
ing cast:

The King BARRY FITZGERALD

The Queen MARY SHERIDAN

The Princess Nula EITHNE MAGEE

The Dall Glic (The Blind Wise

Man) PETER NOLAN

The Nurse MAUREEN DELANY

The Prince of the Marshes J. HUGH NAGLE

Manus — King of Sorcha ARTHUR SHIELDS

Fin tan — The Astrologer F. J. MACCORMICK

Taig FLORENCE MARKS

The Dragon SEAGHAN BARLOW

The Porter STEPHEN CASEY

The Gatekeeper HUBERT M'GuiRE

Two Aunts of the Prince of the f ESME WARD
Marshes IDYMPHNA DALY

133

ARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS

135

PERSONS.

THE MOTHER.

CELIA

CONAN

TIMOTHY .

ROCK

FLANNERY

Two CATS.

Her Daughter

. Her Stepson

Her Serving Man

. A Neighbour

His Herd

137

ACT I

139

ACT I

Scene: A Room in an old half-ruined castle.

Mother: Look out the door, Celia, and see is
your uncle coming.

Celia: (Who is lying on the ground, a bunch of
ribbons in her hand, and playing with a pigeon, looks
towards door without getting up). I see no sign of
him.

Mother: What time were you telling me it was a
while ago?

Celia: It is not five minutes hardly since I was
telling you it was ten o'clock by the sun.

Mother: So you did, if I could but have kept
it in mind. What at all ails him that he does not
come in to the breakfast?

Celia: He went out last night and the full moon
shining. It is likely he passed the whole night
abroad, drowsing or rummaging, whatever he does
be looking for in the rath.

Mother: I'm in dread he'll go crazy with
digging in it.

Celia: He was crazy with crossness before that.

Mother: If he is it's on account of his learning.
141

142 Aristotle's Bellows

Them that have too much of it are seven times
crosser than them that never saw a book.

Celia: It is better to be tied to any thorny bush
than to be with a cross man. He to know the
seventy-two languages he couldn't be more
crabbed than what he is.

Mother: It is natural to people do be so clever
to be fiery a little, and not have a long patience.

Celia: It's a pity he wouldn't stop in that
school he had down in the North, and not to come
back here in the latter end of life.

Mother: Ah, he was maybe tired with enlight-
ening his scholars and he took a notion to acquaint
ourselves with knowledge and learning. I was
trying to reckon a while ago the number of the
years he was away, according to the buttons of my
gown (fingers bodice): — but they went astray on
me at the gathers of the neck.

Celia: If the hour would come he'd go out of
this, I'd sing, I'd play on all the melodeons that
ever was known ! (Sings.} (Air, "Shule Aroon.")

" I would not wish him any ill,
But were he swept to some far hill
It's then I'd laugh and laugh my fill,
Coo, Coo, my birdeen ban astore.

" I wish I was a linnet free
To rock and rustle on the tree
With none to haste or hustle me,
Coo, Coo, my birdeen ban astore!"

Aristotle's Bellows 143

Mother: Did you make ready now what will
please him for his breakfast ?

Celia: (Laughing.) I'm doing every whole
thing, but you know well to please him is not
possible.

Mother: It is going astray on me what sort of
egg best suits him, a pullet's egg or the egg of a
duck.

Celia: I'd go search out if it would satisfy him
the egg of an eagle having eyes as big as the moon,
and feathers of pure gold.

Mother: Look out again would you see him.

Celia: (Sitting up reluctantly.) I wonder will
the rosy ribbon or the pale put the best appearance
on my party dress to-night? (Looks out.) He is
coming down the path from the rath, and he having
his little old book in his hand, that he gives out
fell down before him from the skies.

Mother: So there is a little book, whatever
language he does be wording out of it.

Celia: If you listen you'll hear it now, or hear
his own talk, for he's mouthing and muttering as
he travels the path.

Conan: (Comes in: the book in his hand open,
he is not looking at it.) " Life is the flame of the
heart . . . that heat is of the nature of the
stars." ... It is Aristotle had knowledge to
turn that flame here and there. . . . What way
now did he do that?

Mother: Ah, I'm well pleased to see you coming

144 Aristotle's Bellows

in, Conan. I was getting uneasy thinking you
were gone astray on us.

Conan: (Dropping his book and picking it up
again.} I never knew the like of you, Maryanne,
under the canopy of heaven. To be questioning
me with your talk, and I striving to keep my mind
upon all the wisdom of the ancient world. (Sits
down beside fire.)

Mother: So you would be too. It is well able
you are to do that.

Conan: (To Celia.) Have you e'er a meal to
leave down to me?

Celia: It will be ready within three minutes of
time.

Conan: Wasting the morning on me! What
good are you if you cannot so much as boil the
breakfast ? Hurry on now.

Celia: Ah, hurry didn't save the hare. (Sings
ironically as she prepares breakfast.) (Air, "Mo
Bhuachailin Buidhe")

"Come in the evening or come in the morning,
Come when you're looked for or come without

warning;

Kisses and welcome you'll find here before you
And the oftner you come here the more I'll adore

you."

Conan: Give me up the tea-pot.
Celia: Best leave it on the coals awhile.
Conan: Give me up those eggs so. (Seizes them.)

Aristotle's Bellows 145

Celia: You can take the tea-pot too if you are
calling for it. (Goes on singing mischievously as
she turns a cake.}

"I'll pull you sweet flowers to wear if you'll choose

them,

Or after you've kissed them they'll lie on my
bosom."

Conan: (Breaking eggs.} They're raw and
running !

Celia: There's no one can say which is best,
hurry or delay.

Conan: You had them boiled in cold water ;

Celia: That's where you're wrong.

Conan: The young people that's in the world
now, if you had book truth they wouldn't believe
it. (Flings eggs into the fire and pours out tea.}

Mother: I hope now that is pleasing to you?

Conan: (Threatening Celia with spoon.} My
seven curses on yourself and your fair-haired tea.
(Puts back tea-pot.}

Celia: (Laughing.} It was hurry left it so
weak on you !

Mother: Ah, don't be putting reproaches on
him. Crossness is a thing born with us. It do
run in the blood. Strive now to let him have a
quiet life.

Conan: I am not asking a quiet life! But to
come live with your own family, you might as well
take your coffin on your back !

Aristotle's Bellows

Celia: (Sings.)

"We'll look on the stars and we'll list to the river
'Till you ask of your darling what gift you can
give her."

Conan: That girl is a disgrace sitting on the
floor the way she is! If I had her for a while I'd
put betterment on her. No one that was under
me ever grew slack !

Celia: You would never tie satisfied and you
to see me working from dark to dark as hard as a
pismire in the tufts.

Mother: Leave her now, she's a quiet little
girl and comely.

Conan: Comely! I'd sooner her to be like the
ugliest sod of turf that is pockmarked in the bog,
and a handy housekeeper, and her pigeon doing
something for the world if it was but scaring its
comrades on a stick in a barley garden !

Celia: Ah, do you hear him! (Stroking
pigeon.} (Sings.)

"But when your friend is forced to flee
You'll spread your white wings on the sea
And fly and follow after me —
Go-d6 tu Mavourneen slan ! ' '

Mother: I wonder you to be going into the rath
the way you do, Conan. It is a very haunted place.

Conan: Don't be bothering me. I have my
reason for that.

Aristotle's Bellows 147

Mother: I often heard there is many a one
lost his wits in it.

Conan: It's likely they hadn't much to lose.
Without the education anyone is no good.

Mother: Ah, indeed you were always a tip- top
scholar. I didn't ever know how good you were
till I had my memory lost.

Conan: Indeed, it is a strange thing any wits
at all to be found in this family.

Mother: Ah, sure we are as is allotted to us at
the time God made the world.

Conan: Now I to make the world —

Mother: You are not saying you would make a
better hand of it?

Conan: I am certain sure I could.

Mother: Ah, don't be talking that way !

Conan: I'd make changes you'd wonder at.

Celia: It's likely you'd make the world in one
day in place of six.

Mother: It's best make changes little by little
the same as you'd put clothes upon a growing
child, and to knock every day out of what God
will give you, and to live as long as we can, and
die when we can't help it.

Conan: And the first thing I'd do would be to
give you back your memory and your sense.
(Sings.) (Air, " The Bells of Shandon. ")

"My brain grows rusty, my mind is dusty,
The time I'm dwelling with the likes of ye,

148 Aristotle's Bellows

While my spirit ranges through all the changes
Could turn the world to felicity !
When Aristotle .

Mother: It is like a dream to me I heard that
name. Aristotle of the books.

Conan: (Eagerly.} What did you hear about
him?

Mother: I don't know was it about him or was
it some other one. My memory to be as good as
it is bad I might maybe bring it to mind.

Conan: Hurry on now and remember !

Mother: Ah, it's hard remember anything and
the weather so uncertain as what it is.

Conan: Is it of late you heard it?

Mother: It was maybe ere yesterday or some
day of the sort ; I don't know. Since the age tam-
pered with me the thing I'd hear to-day I wouldn't
think of to-morrow.

Conan: Try now and tell me was it that
Aristotle, the time he walked Ireland, had come to
this place.

Mother: It might be that, unless it might be
some other thing.

Conan: And that he left some great treasure
hid — it might be in the rath without.

Mother: And what good would it do you a pot of
gold to be hid in the rath where you would never
come near to it, it being guarded by enchanted
cats and they having fiery eyes?

Aristotle's Bellows 149

Conan: Did I say anything about a pot of
gold? This was better again than gold. This
was an enchantment would raise you up if you
were gasping from death. Give attention now . . .
Aristotle.

Mother: It's Harry he used to be called.

Conan: Listen now. (Sings.} (Air, "Bells of
Shandon")

"Once Aristotle hid in a bottle
Or some other vessel of security
A spell had power bring sweet from sour
Or bring blossoms blooming on the blasted tree."

Mother: (Repeating last line.} " Or bring blos-
soms blooming on the blasted tree."

Conan: Is that now what you heard . . . that
Aristotle has hid some secret spell?

Mother: I won't say what I don't know. My
memory is too weak for me to be telling lies.

Conan: You could strengthen it if you took it
in hand, putting a knot in the corner of your shawl
to keep such and such a thing in mind.

Mother: If I did I should put another knot in
the other corner to remember what was the first
one for.

Conan: You'd remember it well enough if it
was a pound of tea !

Mother: Ah, maybe it's best be as I am and not
to be running carrying lies here and there, putting
trouble on people's mind.

Aristotle's Bellows

Conan: Isn't it terrible to be seeing all this
folly around me and not to have a way to better it !

Mother: Ah, dear, it's best leave the time under
the mercy of the Man that is over us all.

Conan: (Jumping up furious.) Where's the
use of old people being in the world at all if they
cannot keep a memory of things gone by ! (Sings.)
(Air, "0 the time I've lost in wooing")

"O the time I've lost pursuing
And feeling nothing doing,
The lure that led me from my bed
Has left me sad and rueing !
Success seemed very near me !
High hope was there to cheer me !
I asked my book where would I look
And all it did was fleer me! "

Mother: What is it ails you?

Conan: That secret to be in the world, and I
all to have laid my hand on it, and it to have gone
astray on me !

Mother: So it would go too.

Conan: A secret that could change the world!
I'd make it as good a world to live in as it was in
the time of the Greeks. I don't see much good-
ness in the trace of the people in it now. To
change everything to its contrary the way the
book said it would! There would be great satis-
faction doing that. Was there ever in the world
a family was so little use to a man? (Sings in
dejection.) (Air, "My Molly O.")

Aristotle's Bellows 151

"There is a rose in Ireland, I thought it would be

mine
But now that it is hid from me I must forever

pine.
Till death shall come and comfort me for to the

grave I'll go
And all for the sake of Aristotle's secret O!"

Celia: I wonder you wouldn't ask Timothy
that is older again than what my mother is.

Conan: Timothy ! He has the hearing lost.

Celia: Well there is no harm to try him.

Conan: (Going to door.} Timothy! . V .
There, he's as deaf as a beetle.

Mother: It might be best for him. The thing
the ear will not hear will not put trouble on the
heart.

Celia: (Who has gone out comes pushing him in.)
Here he is now for you.

Conan: Did ever you hear of Aristotle?

Timothy: Aye ?

Conan: Aristotle !

Timothy: Ere a bottle? I might . . .

Conan: Aristotle. . . . That had some
power?

Timothy: I never seen no flower.

Conan: Something he hid near this place.

Timothy: I never went near no race.

Conan: Has the whole world its mind made
up to annoy me !

152 Aristotle's Bellows

Celia: Raise your voice into his ear.
Conan: (Chanting.)

"Aristotle in the hour
He left Ireland left a power
In a gift Eolus gave
Could all Ireland change and save!"

Timothy: Would it now?

Conan: You said you had heard of a bottle.

Timothy: A charmed bottle. It is Biddy Early
put a cure in it and bestowed it in her will to her son.

Conan: Aristotle that left one in the same way.

Timothy: It is what I am thinking that my old
generations used to be talking about a bellows.

Conan: A bellows ! There's no sense in that !

Timothy: Have it your own way so, and give
me leave to go feeding the little chickens and the
hens, for if I cannot hear what they say and they
cannot understand what I say, they put no re-
proach on me after, no more than I would put
it on themselves. (Goes.) v ,,.. •

Celia: Let you be satisfied now and not tor-
ment yourself, for if you got the world wide you
couldn't discover it. You might as well think to
throw your hat to hit the stars.

Conan: You have me tormented among the
whole of ye. To be without ye would be no harm
at all. (Sits down and weeps.) Of all the families
anyone would wish to live away from I am full
sure my family is the worst.

Aristotle's Bellows 153

Mother: Ah, dear, you're worn out and con-
trary with the want of sleep. Come now into the
room and stretch yourself on the bed. To go
sleeping out in the grass has no right rest in it at
all ! ( Takes his arm.}

Conan: Where's the use of lying on my bed
where it is convenient to the yard, that I'd be
afflicted by the turkeys yelping and the pullets
praising themselves after laying an egg! and the
cackling and hissing of the geese.

Mother: Lie down so on the settle, and 1 11 let
no one disturb you. You're destroyed, avic, with
the want of sleep.

Conan: There'll be no peace in this kitchen no
more than on the common highway with the
people running in and out.

Mother: I'll go sit in the little gap without, and
the whole place will be as quiet as St. Colman's
wilderness of stones.

Conan: The boards are too hard.

Mother: I'll put a pillow in under you.

Conan: Now it's too narrow. Leave me now
it'll be best.

Mother: Sleep and good dreams to you. (Goes
singing sleepy song.}

Conan: The most troublesome family ever I
knew in all my born days! Why is that people
cannot have behaviour now the same as in ancient
Greece. (Sits up.} I'll not give them the satis-
faction of going asleep. I'll drink a sup of the

154 Aristotle's Bellows

tea that is black with standing and with strength.
(Drinks and lies down.) I'll engage that'll keep
me waking. (Music heard.) Is it to annoy me
they are playing tunes of music? I'll let on to be
asleep! (Shuts eyes.)

(Two large Cats with fiery eyes look over top
of settle.)

1st Cat: See the fool that crossed our path
Rummaging within the rath.

Coveting a spell is bound
Agelong in our haunted ground.

Hid that none disturb its peace
By a Druid out from Greece.

Spies and robbers have no call
Rooting in our ancient wall.

Man or mortal what is he
Matched against the mighty Sidhe?

2nd Cat: Bid our riders of the night

Daze and craze him with affright,

Leave him fainting and forlorn
Hanging on the moon's young horn.

Let the death-bands turn him pale
Through the venom of our tail.

Let him learn to love our law
With the sharpness of our claw.

Aristotle's Bellows 155

Let our King-cat's fiery flash
Turn him to a heap of ash.

ist Cat: Punishment enough he'll find
In his cross and cranky mind.

Ha, ha, ha, and ho, ho, ho,
He'd a sharper penance know,

We'd have better sport today
If he got his will and way,

Found the spell that lies unknown
Underneath his own hearthstone.
(They disappear saying together:)

Men and mortals what are ye
Matched against the mighty Sidhe?

Conan: (Looking out timidly.) Are they gone?
Here, Puss, puss! Come hither now poor Puss!
They're not in it. ... Here now! here's milk
for ye. And a drop of cream. . . . (Gets up,
peeps under settle and around.) They are gone!
And that they may never come back ! I wouldn't
wish to be brought riding a thorny bush in the night
time into the cold that is behind the sun ! What
now did they say ? Or is it dreaming I was ? Oh,
it was not! They spoke clear and plain. The
hidden spell that I was seeking, they said it to be
in the hiding hole under the hearth. (Pokes,
sneezes.) Bad cess to Celia leaving that much

156 Aristotle's Bellows

ashes to be choking me. Well, the luck has come
to me at last !

(Sings as he searches.)

"Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding,

Loudly the war cries rise on the gale ;

Fleetly the steed by Lough Swilly is bound-
ing

To join the thick squadrons in Saimear's green
vale.

On every mountaineer, strangers to flight and
fear;

Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh

Bonnaught and gallowglass, throng from each
mountain pass.

On for old Erin, O'Donnall Abu."

(Pokes at hearthstone.) Sure enough, it's
loose! It's moving! Wait till I'll get
a wedge under it !

(Takes fork from table.) It's coming !
(Door suddenly opens and he drops fork and

springs back.)

Mother: (Coming in with Rock and Flannery.)
Here now, come in the two of ye. Here now, Conan,
is two of the neighbours, James Rock of Lis Crohan
and Fardy Flannery the rambling herd, that are
come to get a light for the pipe and they walking
the road from the Fair.

Conan: That's the way you make a fool of me
promising me peace and quiet for to sleep !

Mother: Ah, so I believe I did. But it slipped

Aristotle's Bellows 157

away from me, and I listening to the blackbird on
the bush.

Conan: (To Rock.} I wonder James Rock,
that you wouldn't have on you so much as a half-
penny box of matches !

Rock: (Trying to get to hearth.} So I have
matches. But why would I spend one when I can
get for nothing a light from a sod ?

Flannery: Sure, I could give you a match I
have this long time, waiting till I'll get as much
tobacco as will fill a pipe.

Mother: It's the poor man does be generous.
It's gone from my mind, Fardy, what was it
brought you to be a servant of poverty ?

Flannery: Since the day I lost on the road my
forty pound that I had to stock my little farm of
land, all has wore away from me and left me bare
owning nothing unless daylight and the run of
water. It was that put me on the Shaughrann.
(Sings "The Bard of Armagh"}

"Oh, list to the lay of a poor Irish harper,
And scorn not the strains of his old withered

hand,
But remember the fingers could once move

sharper

To raise the merry strains of his dear native land ;
It was long before the shamrock our dear isle's

loved emblem
Was crushed in its beauty 'neath the Saxon Lion's

paw

158 Aristotle's Bellows

I was called by the colleens of the village and

valley
Bold Phelim Brady, the bard of Armagh."

Rock: Bad management! Look what I
brought from the Fair through minding my own
property — £20 for a milch cow, and thirty for a
score of lambs !

Mother: £20 for a cow! Isn't that terrible
money !

Conan: Let you whist now! You are putting
a headache on me with all your little newses and
country chat !

(Mother goes, the others are following.}

Rock: ( Turning from door.} It might be better
for yourself, Conan Creevey, if you had minded
business would bring profit to your hand in place
of your foreign learning, that never put a penny
piece in anyone's pocket that ever I heard. No
earthly profit unless to addle the brain and leave
the pocket empty.

Conan: You think yourself a great sort! Let
me tell you that my learning has power to do more
than that !

Rock: It's an empty mouth that has big talk.

Conan: What would you say hearing I had
power put in my hand that could change the entire
world? And that's what you never will have power
to do.

Rock: What power is that?

Aristotle's Bellows 159

Conan: Aristotle in the hour

He left Ireland left a power. . . .

Rock: Foolishness! I never would believe in
poetry or in dreams or images, but in ready money
down. (Jingles bag.)

Conan: I tell you you'll see me getting the
victory over all Ireland !

Rock: You have but a cracked headpiece think-
ing that will come to you.

Conan: I tell you it will ! No end at all in the
world to what I am about to bring in !

Rock: It's easy praise yourself!

Conan: And so I am praising myself, and so will
you all be praising me when you will see all that
I will do!

Rock: It is what I think you got demented in
the head and in the mind.

Conan: It is soon the wheel will be turned and
the whole of the nation will be changed for the
best. (Sings.)

"Dear Harp of my country, in darkness I found
thee,

The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,

When proudly, my own Irish Harp, I unbound
thee,

And gave all thy chords to light, freedom and
song,

The warm lay of love and the light note of glad-
ness

Have waken 'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;

160 Aristotle's Bellows

But so oft hast thou echo'd the deep sigh of

sadness,
That ev'n in thy mirth it will steal from thee

still."

Flannery: That's a great thought, if it is but a
vanity or a dream.

Rock: (Sneeringly.) Well now and what would
you do?

Flannery: I would wish a great lake of milk,
the same as blessed St. Bridget, to be sharing with
the family of Heaven. I would wish vessels full
of alms that would save every sorrowful man. Do
that now, Conan, and you'll have the world of
prayers down on you !

Rock: It's what I'd do, to turn the whole of
Galway Bay to dry land, and I to have it for my-
self, the red land, the green land, the fallow and the
lea ! The want of land is a great stoppage to a man
having means to lay out in stock.

(Sings.) (Air, "7 wish I had the shepherd's

lamb.'')

i , .. . I • fir. i ... '<•' i

"I wish I had both mill and kiln,
I wish I had of land my fill;
I wish I had both mill and kiln,
And all would follow after!"

Flannery: Ah, the land, the land, the rotten
land, and what will you have in the end but the
breadth of your back of it? Let you now soften

Aristotle's Bellows 161

the heart in that one (points to Rock} till he would
restore to me the thing he is aware of.

Conan: It was not for that the spell was
promised, to be changing a few neighbours or a
thing of the kind, or to be doing wonders in this
broken little place. A town of dead factions ! To
change any of the dwellers in this place would be
to make it better, for it would be impossible to
make it worse. The time you wouldn't be med-
dling with them you wouldn't know them to be
bad, but the time you'd have to do business with
them that's the time you'd know it !

Rock: I suppose it is what you are asking to
do, to make yourself rich?

Conan: I do not ! I would be loth to take any
profit, and Aristotle after laying down that to
pleasure or to profit every wealthy man is a slave !

Flannery: What would you do, so?

Conan: I will change all into the similitude of
ancient Greece ! There is no man at all can under-
stand argument but it is from Greece he is. I know
well what I'm doing. I'm not like a potato having
eyes this way and that. People were harmless
long ago and why wouldn't they be made harm-
less again? Aristotle said, "Fair play is more
beautiful than the morning and the evening star!"

"Be friendly with one another," he said, "and
let the lawyers starve!" I'll turn the captains of
soldiers to be as peaceable as children picking
strawberries in the grass. I've a mind to change

162 Aristotle's Bellows

the tongue of the people to the language of the
Greeks, that no farmer will be grumbling over a
halfpenny Independent, but be following the
plough in full content, giving out Homer and the
praises of the ancient world !

Flannery: If you make the farmers content
you will make the world content.

Rock: You will, when you'll bring the sun from
Greece to ripen our little lock of oats !

Conan: So I will drag Ireland from its moor-
ings till I'll bring it to the middling sea that has
no ebb or flood !

Rock: You will do well to put a change on the
college that harboured you, and that left you so
much of folly.

Conan: I'll do that! I'll be in College Green
before the dawn is white — no but before the night
is grey! It is to Dublin I will bring my spell, for
I ever and always heard it said what Dublin will
do to-day Ireland will do to-morrow ! (Sings.)

"Let Erin remember the days of old
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her —
When Malachy wore the collar of gold
Which he won from her proud invader —
When her kings with standards of green unfurl'd,
Led the Red-Branch knights to danger ;
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger."

Rock: And maybe you'll tell us now by what
means you will do all this?

Aristotle's Bellows 163

Conan: Go out of the house and I will tell you
in the by and bye.

Rock: That is what I was thinking. You are
talking nothing but lies.

Conan: I tell you that power is not far from
where you stand ! But I will let no one see it only
myself.

Flannery: There might be some truth in it.
There are some say enchantments never went out
of Ireland.

Conan: It is a spell, I say, that will change
anything to its contrary. To turn it upon a snail,
there is hardly a greyhound but it would overtake ;
but a hare it would turn to be the slowest thing in
the universe ; too slow to go to a funeral.

Rock: I'll believe it when I'll see it.

Conan: You could see it if I let you look in
this hiding-hole.

Rock: Good-morrow to you !

Conan: Then you will see it, for I'll raise up
the stone. (Kneels.)

Rock: It to be anything it is likely a pot of
sovereigns.

Flannery: It might be the harp of Angus.

Rock: I see no trace of it.

Conan: There is something hard! It should
likely be a silver trumpet or a hunting-horn of
gold!

Rock: Give me a hold of it.

Conan: Leave go ! (Lifts out bellows.)

164 Aristotle's Bellows

Rock: Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! after all your chat, nothing
but a little old bellows ! . . .

Conan: There is seven rings on it. . . . They
should signify the seven blasts. . . .

Rock: If there was seventy times seven what
use would it be but to redden the coals?

Conan: Every one of these blasts has power to
make some change.

Rock: Make one so, and I'll plough the world
for you.

Conan: Is it that I would spend one of my
seven blasts convincing the like of ye?

Rock: It is likely the case there is no power in
it at all.

Conan: I'm very sure there is surely. The
world will be a new world before to-morrow's
Angelus bell.

Flannery: I never could believe in a bellows.

Rock: Here now is a fair offer. I'll loan you
this bag of notes to pay your charges to Dublin if
you will change that little pigeon in the crib into a
crow.

Conan: I will do no such folly.

Rock: You wouldn't because you'd be afeared
to try.

Conan: Hold it up to me. I'll show you am
I afeared !

Rock: There it is now. (Holds up cage.}

Conan: Have a care ! (Blows.)

Rock: (Dropping it with a shriek.) It has me

Aristotle's Bellows 165

bit with its hard beak, it is turned to be an old
black crow.

Flannery: As black as the bottom of the pot.
Crow: Caw! Caw! Caw!

(Cats reappear and look over back of settle.)
(Music from behind.) ("O'Donnall Abu.")

CURTAIN

ACT II

167

ACT II

Conan alone holding up bellows, singing:

Conan:

"And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I've been wandering away
Deceived for a moment it's now in my hands —
I breathe the fresh air of life's morning again!"

Celia: (Comes in having listened amused at
door; claps hands.} Very good ! It is you yourself
should be going to the dance house to-night in
place of myself. It is long since I heard you rise
so happy a tune !

Conan: (Putting bellows behind him.} What
brings you here ? Is there no work for you out in
the garden — the cabbages to be cutting for the
cow. . . .

Celia: I wouldn't wish to roughen my hands be-
fore evening. Music there will be for the dancing !
(She lilts Miss McLeod's Reel.}

Conan: Let you go ready yourself for it so.

Celia: Is it at this time of the day? You
should be forgetting the hours of the clock the
same as the poor mother.

169

i7° Aristotle's Bellows

Conan: It is a strange thing since I came to
this house I never can get one minute's ease and
quiet to myself.

Celia: It was hearing you singing brought me in .

Conan: I'd sooner have you without! Be
going now.

Celia: I will and welcome. It is to bring out
my little pigeon I will, where there is a few grains
of barley fell from a car going the road.

Conan: Hurry on so ! ,

Celia: (Taking up cage.} He is not in his crib.
(Looking here and there.) Where now can he
have gone?

Conan: He should have gone out the door.

Celia: He did not. He could not have come
out unknown to me. Coo, coo, — coo — coo.

Conan: Never mind him now. You are put-
ting my mind astray with your Coo, coo —

Celia: He might be in under the settle.
(Stoops.) Where are you my little bird. (Sings.)
(Air, "Shule Aroon.")

"But now my love has gone to France
His own fair fortune to advance;
If he come back again 'tis but a chance ;
Os go de tu Mavourneen slan!"

Conan: (Pulling her away.) What way would
he be in it? Let you put a stop to that humming.
(Seizes her.) Come here to the light . . . is it
you sewed this button on my coat?

Aristotle's Bellows 17 l

Celia: It was not. It is likely it was some
tailor down in the North.

Conan: It is getting loose on the sleeve.

Celia: Ah, it will last a good while yet. Coo,
coo!

Conan: (Getting before her.) It would be no
great load on you to get a needle and put a stitch
would tighten it.

Celia: I'll do it in the by and bye. There, I
twisted the thread around it. That'll hold good
enough for a while.

Conan: "Anything worth doing at all is worth
doing well."

Celia: Aren't you getting very dainty in your
dress?

Conan: Any man would like to have a decent
appearance on his suit.

Celia: Isn't it the same to-day as it was yester-
day?

Conan: Have you ne'er a needle?

Celia: I don't know where is it gone.

Conan: You haven't a stim of sense. Can't
you keep in mind "Everything in its right
place."

Celia: Sure, there's no hurry — the day is long.

Conan: Anything has to be done, the quickest
to do it is the best.

Celia: I'm not working by the hour or the day.

Conan: Look now at Penelope of the Greeks,
and all her riches, and her man not at hand to urge

Aristotle's Bellows

her, how well she sat at the loom from morn till
night till she'd have the makings of a suit of frieze.

Celia: Ah, that was in the ancient days, when
you wouldn't buy it made and ready in the shops.

Conan: Will you so much as go to find a towel
would take the dust off of the panes of glass?

Celia: I wonder at you craving to disturb the
spider and it after making its web.

Conan: Well, go sit idle outside. I wouldn't
wish to be looking at you! l Aristotle that said a
lazy body is all one with a lazy mind. You'll be
begging your bread through the world's streets
before your poll will be grey.
(Sings,)

"You'll dye your petticoat, you'll dye it red,
And through the world you'll beg your bread ;
And you not hearkening to e'er a word I said,
It's then you'll know it to be true!"

Celia: (Sings.)

"Come here my little birdeen! Coo!"

Conan: (Putting his hand on her mouth.) Be
going out now in place of calling that bird that is
as lazy and as useless as yourself.

Celia: My little dove ! Where are you at all !

Conan: A cat to have ate it would be no great
loss!

Celia: Did you yourself do away with him?

Conan: I did not.

Aristotle's Bellows 173

Celia: (Wildly breaking free throws herself
down.} There is no place for him to be only in
under the settle !

Conan: (Dragging at her.} It is not there.

Celia: (Who has put in her hand.) O what is
that ? It has hurt me !

Conan: A nail sticking up out of the floor.

Celia: (Jumping up with a cry.) It's a crow!
A great big wicked black crow !

Conan: If it is let you leave it there.

Celia: (Weeping.) I'm certain sure it has my
pigeon killed and ate !

Conan: To be so doleful after a pigeon! You
haven't a stim of sense!

Celia: It was you gave it leave to do that !

Conan: Stop your whimpering and blubbering !
What way can I settle the world and I being
harassed and hampered with such a contrary class !
I give you my word I have a mind to change my-
self into a ravenous beast will kill and devour ye
all ! That much would be no sin when it would be
according to my nature. (Sings or chants.)

"On Clontarf he like a lion fell,
Thousands plunged in their own gore ;
I to be such a lion now
I'd ask for nothing more!"

Celia: (Sitting down miserable.) You are a
very wicked man !

Conan: Get up out of that or I'll make you!

174 Aristotle's Bellows

Celia: I will not! I'm certain you did this
cruel thing !

Conan: (Taking up bellows.} I'd hardly be-
grudge one of my six blasts to be quit of your slow-
ness and your sluggish ways ! Rise up now before
I'll make you that you'll want shoes that will never
wear out, you being ever on the trot and on the
run from morning to the fall of night ! Start up
now! I'm on the bounds of doing it!

Celia: What are your raving about ?

Conan: To get quit of you I cannot, but to
change your nature I might ! I give you warning
w V . one, two, three!

(Blows.*) (Sings: "With a Chirrup.") (Air,
"Garryowen.")

"Let you rise and go light like a bird of the air
That goes high in its flight ever seeking its

share ;

Let you never go easy or pine for a rest
Till you'll be a world's wonder and work with the
best!

With a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup ! "

Celia: (Staring and standing up.) What is
that ? Is it the wind or is it a wisp of flame that is
going athrough my bones !

(Rock and Flannery come in.)

(Celia rushes out.)

Aristotle's Bellows 175

Rock: (Out of breath.} We went looking for a
car to bring you to the train !

Flannery: There was not one to be found.

Rock: But those that are too costly !

Flannery: Till we went to the Doctor of the
Union.

Rock: For to ask a lift for you on the
ambulance. . . .

Flannery: But when he heard what we had to
tell—

Rock: He said he would bring you and glad
to do it on his own car, and no need to hansel
him.

Flannery: And welcome, if it was as far as the
grave !

Rock: All he is sorry for he hasn't a horse that
would rise you up through the sky —

Conan: Let him give me the lift so — it will be
a help to me. It wasn't only with his own hand
Alexander won the world !

Flannery: Unless you might give him, he was
saying, a blast of the bellows, that would change
his dispensary into a racing stable, and all that
come to be cured into jockeys and into grooms !

Conan: What chatterers ye are! I gave ye
no leave to speak of that.

Rock: Ah, it costs nothing to be giving out
newses.

Flannery: The world and all will be coming to
the door to throw up their hats for you, and you

1 76 Aristotle's Bellows

making your start, cars and ass cars, jennets and
traps. (Sings.)

"O Bay of Dublin, how my heart your troublin',
Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream;
Like frozen fountains that the sun set bubblin'
My heart's blood warms when I but hear your
name!"

Conan: It's my death I'll come to in Dublin.
That news to get there ahead of me I'll be pressed
in the throng as thin as a griddle.

Flannery: So you might be, too. All I have
that might protect you I offer free, and that's this
good umbrella that was given to me in a rainstorm
by a priest. (Holds it out.)

Rock: And what do you say to me giving you
the loan of your charges for the road ?

Conan: Come in here, Maryanne! and give a
glass to these honest men till they'll wish me good
luck upon my journey, as it's much I'll need it,
with the weight of all I have to do.

Mother: (Coming in.) So I will, so I will and
welcome . . . but that I disremember where did
I put the key of the chest.

Conan: I'll engage you do! There it is before
you in the lock since ere yesterday. (Mother puts
bottle and glasses on table.)

Flannery: (Lifting glass.) That you may
bring great good to Ireland and to the world !

Rock: Here's your good health !

Aristotle's Bellows 177

Conan: I'm obliged to you!
Rock and Planner y: (Sing.} (Air, "The Cruiskeen
Idn.")

"Gramachree ma cruiskeen Slainte geal mavour-
neen,

Gramachree a cool-in bawn, bawn, bawn, ban-
ban-ban,

Oh, Gra-ma-chree a cool-in bawn."

(They nod as they finish and take out their
pipes and sit down. A banging is heard. )
Conan: What disturbance is that ?

Celia comes in, her hair screwed up tight,
skirt tucked up, is carrying a pail,
brush, cloth, etc., lets them drop and
proceeds to fasten up skirt.)
Mother: Ah, Celia, what is on you? I never
saw you that way before.

Conan: Ha ! Very good ! I think that you will
say there is a great change come upon her, and a
right change.

Celia: Look now at the floor the way it is.
Mother: I see no other way but the way it is
always.

Celia: There's a bit of soot after falling down
the chimney. (Picks up tongs.)

Mother: Ah, leave it now, dear, a while.
Celia: Anything has to be done, the quickest
way to do it is the best. (Having taken up soot,
flings down tongs.)

178 Aristotle's Bellows

Conan: Listen to that! Now am I able to
work wonders?

Rock: It is that you have spent on her a blast ?

Conan: If I did it was well spent.

Planner y: I'm in dread you have been robbing
the poor.

Rock: It is myself you have robbed doing that.
You have no call to be using those blasts for your
own profit !

Conan: I have every right to bring order in
my own dwelling before I can do any other thing !

Celia: All the dust of the world's roads is
gathered in this kitchen. The whole place ate
with filth and dirt.

(Begins to sweep.)

Conan: Ah, you needn't hardly go as far as that.

Celia: Anything that is worth doing is worth
doing well. (To Rock.) Look now at the marks
of your boots upon the ground. Get up out of
that till I'll bustle it with the broom!

Rock: (Getting up.) There is a change indeed
and a queer change. Where she used to be sing-
ing she is screeching the same as a slate where
you'd be casting sums!

Celia: (To Flannery.) What's that I see in
under your chair? Rise up. (He gets up.) It's
a pin! (Sticks it inker dress.) Everything in its
right place! (Goes on flicking at the furniture.)

Mother: Leave now knocking the furniture to
flitters.

Aristotle's Bellows 179

Celia: I will not, till I'll free it from the dust
and dander of the year.

Mother: That'll do now. I see no dust.

Celia: You'll see it presently. (Sweeps up a
cloud.}

Mother: Let you speak to her, Conan.

Conan: Leave now buzzing and banging about
the room the same as a fly without a head !

Celia: Never put off till to-morrow what you
can do to-day.

Conan: I tell you I have things to settle and
to say before the car will come that is to bring me
on my road to Dublin.

Celia: (Stopping short.) Is it that you are
going to Dublin ?

Conan: I am, and within the hour.

Celia: Pull off those boots from your feet !

Conan: I will not! Let you leave my boots alone!

Celia: You are not going out of the house with
that slovenly appearance on you ! To have it said
out in Dublin that you are a class of man never has
clean boots but of a Sunday !

Conan: They'll do well enough without you
meddling !

Celia: Clean them yourself so! (Gives him a
rag and blacking and goes on dusting.)
(Sings.) (Air, "City oj Sligo. ")

"We may tramp the earth
For all that we're worth,

i8o Aristotle's Bellows

But what odds where you and I go,

We never shall meet

A spot so sweet

As the beautiful city of Sligo."

Conan: What ailed me that I didn't leave her
as she was before.

Celia: (Stopping work.) What way are they
now?

Conan; (Having cleaned his boots, putting them
on hurriedly.) They're very good. (Wipes his
brow, drawing hand across leaving mark of blacking.)

Celia: The time I told you to put black on
your shoes I didn't bid you rub it upon your brow !

Conan: I didn't put it in any wrong place.

Celia: I ask the whole of you, is it black his face
is or white?

All: It is black indeed.

Celia: Would you put a reproach on the whole
of the barony, going up among big citizens with a
face on you the like of that ?

Conan: I'll do well enough. There will be
the black of the smoke from the engine on it any
way, and I after journeying in the train.

Celia: You will not go be a disgrace to me.

Conan: If it is black it is yourself forced me
to it.

Celia: If I did I'll make up for it, putting a
clean face upon you now. (Dips towel in pail and
sings ' ' With a fillip ' ' — air, ' ' Garryowen ' ' — as she
washes him.)

Aristotle's Bellows 181

" Bring to mind how the thrush gathers twigs for

his nest

And the honey bee toils without ever a rest
And the fishes swim ever to keep themselves clean,
And you'll praise me for making you fit to be seen !
With a fillip, a fillip, a fillip.
A fillip, a fillip, a fillip.
A fillip, a fillip, a fillip, a fillip,
A fillip, a fillip, a fillip, a fillip!"

Conan: Let me go, will you! Let you stop!
The soap that is going into my eye !

Celia: My grief you are ! Let you be willing
to suffer, so long as you will be tasty and decent
and be a credit to ourselves.

Conan: The suds are in my mouth !

Celia: One minute now and you'll be as clean
as a bishop !

Conan: Let me go, can't you!

Celia: Only one thing wanting now.

Conan: I'm good enough, I tell you!

Celia: To cut the wisp from the back of your
poll.

Conan: You will not cut it !

Celia: And you'll go into the grandeurs of
Dublin and you being as neat as an egg.

Conan: (With a roar.} Leave meddling with
my hair. I that can change the world with one
turn of my hand!

Celia: Wait till I'll find the scissors! That's
not the way to be going showing off in the

182 Aristotle's Bellows

town, if you were all the saints and Druids of the
universe !

Conan: (Breaking free and rushing out.') My
seven thousand curses on the minute when I didn't
leave you as you were. (Goes.)

Celia: (Looking at Mother.) There's meal on
your dress from the cake you're after putting in
the oven — where now did that bellows fall from?
(Taking up bellows.) It comes as handy as a
gimlet. There (blows the meal off), that now will
make a big difference in you.

Rock: (Seizing bellows.) Leave now that down
out of your hand. Let you go looking for a
scissors !

(Celia goes off singing "The Beautiful City
ofSligo.")

Mother: (Sitting down.) I'm thinking it's
seven years to-day, James Rock, since you took a
lend of my clock.

Rock: You're raving ! What call would I have
to ask a lend of your clock?

Mother: The way you would rise in time for
the fair of Feakle in the morning.

Rock: Did I now?

Mother: You did, and that's my truth. I was
standing here, and you were standing there, and
Celia that was but ten years was sucking the sugar
off a spoon I was after putting in a bag that had
come from the shop, for to put a grain into my
tea.

Aristotle's Bellows 183

Rock: (Sneering.) Well now, didn't your mem-
ory get very sharp !

Mother: You thought I had it forgot, but I re-
member it as clear as pictures. The time it stood
at was seven minutes after four o'clock, and I
never saw it from that day till now. This very
day of the month it was, the year of the black
sheep having twins.

Rock: It was but an old clock anyway.

Mother: If it was it is seven years older since
I laid an eye on it. And it's kind father for you
robbing me, where it's often you robbed your own
mother, and you stealing away to go cardplaying
the half crowns she had hid in the churn.

Rock: Didn't you get very wicked and hurtful,
you that was a nice class of a woman without no
harm!

Flannery: Ah, Ma'am, you that was easy-
minded, it is not kind for you to be a scold.

Mother: And another thing, it was the same
day where Michael Flannery (turns to him) came in
an' told me of you being grown so covetous you
had made away with your dog, by reason you
begrudged it its diet.

Rock: (To Flannery.) You had a great deal
to say about me!

Mother: And more than that again, he said
you had it buried secretly, and had it personated,
creeping around the haggard in the half dark
and you barking, the way the neighbours would

184 Aristotle's Bellows

think it to be living yet and as wicked as it was
before.

Rock: (To Flannery.) I'll bring you into the
Courts for telling lies !

Mother: (Coming near Rock and speaking into
his ear.) And there's another thing I know, and
that I made a promise to her that was your wife
not to tell, but death has that promise broke.

Rock: Stop, can't you !

Mother: I know by sure witness that it was
you found the forty pound he (points to Flannery
who nods) lost on the road, and kept it for your
own profit. Bring me now, I dare you, into the
Courts !

Rock: (Fearfully.) That one would remember
the world! It is as if she went to the grinding
young !

(Conan' s voice heard. Singing: "Let me be
merry" in a melancholy voice.)

"If sadly thinking with spirits sinking
Could more than drinking my cares compose,
A cure for to-morrow from sighs I'd borrow,
And hope to-morrow would end my woes.
But as in wailing there's nought availing,
And Death unfailing will strike the blow,
Then for that reason and for a season,
Let us be merry before we go!"

Mother: It is Conan will near lose his wits
with joy when he knows what is come back to me !
Conan: (Peeping in.) IsCeliagone?

Aristotle's Bellows 185

Flannery: She is, Conan.

Conan: It's a queer thing with women. If
you'll turn them from one road it's likely they'll
go into another that is worse again.

Rock: That is so indeed. There is Celia's
mother that is running telling lies, and leaving a
heavy word upon a neighbour.

Mother: I'll give my promise not to tell it out
in Court if he will give to poor Michael Flannery
what is due to him, and that is the whole of what
he has in his bag !

Conan: (Laughing scornfully.) Sure she has no
memory at all. It fails her to remember that two
and two makes four.

Mother: You think that? Well, listen now to
me. Two and two is it ? No, nine times two that
is eighteen and nine times three twenty-seven,
nine times four thirty-six, nine times five forty-
five, nine times six fifty-four, nine times seven
sixty-three, nine times eight seventy-two, nine
times nine eighty-one. . . . Yes and eleven
times, and any times that you will put before me!

Conan: That's enough, that's enough !

Mother: Ha, ha! You giving out that I can
keep no knowledge in mind and no learning, when
I should sit on the chapel roof to have enough of
slates for all I can cast up of sums! Multiplica-
tion, Addition, Subtraction, and the rule of
three !

Conan: Whist your tongue !

i86 Aristotle's Bellows

Mother: Is it the verses of Raftery's talk into
the Bush you would wish me to give out, or the
three hundred and sixty-nine verses of the Con-
tention of the Bards — (Repeats verse of "The Talk
with the Bush" in Irish).

"Cead agus mile roimh am na h-Airce
Tus agus crothugadh m'aois agus mo dhata
Tha me o shoin im' shuidhe san ait so
Agus is iomdha sgeal a bhfeadain tracht air."

Or I'll English it if that will please you:

"A hundred years and a thousand before the time

of the Ark
Was the beginning and creation of my age and

my date;

I am from that time sitting in this place,
And it's many a story I am able to give news of."

Conan: (Putting hands to ears and walking
away.) I am thinking your mind got unsettled
with the weight of years.

Mother: (Following him.) No, but your own
that got scattered from the time you ran barefoot
carrying worms in a tin can for that Professor of a
Collegian that went fishing in the stream, and that
you followed after till you got to think yourself a
lamp of light for the universe !

Conan: Will you stop deafening the whole
world with your babble !

Mother: There was always a bad drop in you

Aristotle's Bellows 187

that attached to you out of the grandfather. What
did your languages do for you but to sharpen
your tongue, till the scrape of it would take the
skin off, the same as a cat ! My blessing on you,
Conan, but my curse upon your mouth !

Conan: Oh, will you stop your chat !

Mother: Every word you speak having in it
the sting of a bee that was made out of the curses
of a saint !

Conan: Stop your gibberish !

Mother: Are you satisfied now?

Conan: I'm not satisfied!

Mother: And never will be, for you were ever
and always a fault-finder and full of crossness
from the day that you were small suited.

Conan: You remember that, too?

Mother: I do well !

Conan: Where is the bellows? Was it you
(to Flannery) that blew a blast on her?

Planner y: It was not.

Conan: Or you?

Rock: It's long sorry I'd be to do such a thing !

Conan: It is certain someone did it on her.
Where now is it ?

Mother: (Seizing him.) And I remember the
day you threw out your mug of milk into the street,
by reason, says you, you didn't like the colour of
the cow that gave it !

Conan: Will you stop ripping up little annoy-
ances, till I'll find the bellows!

1 88 Aristotle's Bellows

Rock: It's what I'm thinking, her memory will
soon be back at the far side of Solomon's Temple.

Mother: (Repeats in Irish.} Agus is iomdha
sgeal a bhf eadain tracht air !

Conan: (Shouting.} Is it that you'll drive the
seven senses out of me !

Mother: Is it that you begrudge me my recol-
lection? Ha! I have it in spite of you. (Sings.}

"Of tin the stilly night
Ere slumber's chain hath bound me
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
The smiles, the tears, of childhood's years,
The words of love then spoken —
The eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.

Thus in the stilly night — ere slumber's chain

hath bound me
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me!"

Celia: (Bursting in.} Where is Conan ?
Conan: What do you want of me?
Celia: I have got the hair brush.
Conan: Let you not come near me !
Celia: And the comb !
Conan: Get away from me !
Celia: And the scissors.

Conan: Will you drive me out of the house or
will I drive you out of it !

Aristotle's Bellows 189

Celia: Ah, be easy!

Conan: I will not be easy!

Celia: (Pushing him back in a chair.) It will
delight the world to see the way I'll send you out !

Conan: Is the universe gone distracted mad !

Celia: Be quiet now!

Conan: Leave your hold of me!

Celia: One stir, and the scissors will run into
you!

(Sings ' ' With a snippet, a snippet, a snippet.")

CURTAIN

ACT III

191

ACT III

The two Cats are looking over the settle.
Music behind scene: "0 Johnny, I hardly knew
you!"

ist Cat: We did well leaving the bellows for
that foolish Human to see what he can do. There
is great sport before us and behind.

2nd Cat: The best I ever saw since the Jesters
went out from Tara.

ist Cat: They to be giving themselves high
notions and to be looking down on Cats !

2nd Cat: Ha, Ha, Ha, the folly and the crazi-
ness of men ! To see him changing them from one
thing to the next, as if they wouldn't be a two-
legged laughing stock whatever way they would
change.

ist Cat: There's apt to be more changes yet
till they will hardly know one another, or every
other one, to be himself ! (Sings.}

"Where are your eyes that looked so mild,

Hurroo ! Hurroo !

Where are your eyes that looked so mild
When my poor heart you first beguiled,
Why did you run from me and the child ?
O Johnny, I hardly knew you !

13 I93

194 Aristotle's Bellows

"With drums and guns and guns and drums,
The enemy nearly slew you !
My darling dear you look so queer,
O Johnny, I hardly knew you !

"Where are the legs with which you run,
When you went to carry a gun.
Indeed your dancing days are done,

O Johnny, I hardly knew you!"

(Timothy and Mother come in from opposite
doors. Cats disappear — music still heard
faintly.) ^

Mother: (Looking at little bellows in her hand.)
Do you know That what it is, Timothy?

Timothy: Is it now a hand-bellows? It's long
since I seen the like of that.

Mother: It is, but what bellows?

Timothy: Not a bellows? I'd nearly say it to
be one.

Mother: There has strange things come to pass.

Timothy: That's what we've all been praying
for this long time !

Mother: Ah, can't you give attention and strive
to listen to me. It is all coming back to my mind.
All the things I am remembering have my mind
tattered and tossed.

Timothy: (Who has been trying to hear the
music, sings a verse.)

"You haven't an arm and you haven't a leg,
Hurroo ! Hurroo !

Aristotle's Bellows 195

You're a yellow noseless chickenless egg,
You'll have to put up with a bowl to beg.

O Johnny, I hardly knew you! (Music
ceases.)

Mother: Will you give attention, I say! It
will be worth while for you to go chat with me now
I can be telling you all that happened in my years
gone by. What was it Conan was questioning me
about a while ago? What was it now. . m.-\\\.

"Aristotle in the hour
He left Ireland left a power!" . . .

Timothy: That now is a very nice sort of a
little prayer.

Mother: (Calling out.) That's it! Aristotle's
Bellows! I know now what has happened. This that
is in my hand has in it the power to make changes.
Changes! Didn't great changes come in the
house to-day! (Shouts.) Did you see any great
change in Celia?

Timothy: Why wouldn't I, and she at this
minute fighting and barging at some poor travel-
ling man, saying he laid a finger mark of bacon-
grease upon the lintel of the door. Driving him
off with a broken-toothed rake she is, she that
was so gentle that she wouldn't hardly pluck the
feathers of a dead duck !

Mother: It was surely a blast of this worked
that change in her, as the blast she blew upon me
worked a change in myself. O ! all the thoughts

196 Aristotle's Bellows

and memories that are thronging in my mind and
in my head ! Rushing up within me the same as
chaff from the flail! Songs and stories and the
newses I heard through the whole course of my
lifetime ! And I having no person to tell them out
to! Do you hear me what I'm saying, Timothy?
(Shouts in his ear.) What is come back to me is
what I lost so long ago, my MEMORY.
Timothy: So it is a very good song.
(Sings.)

"By Memory inspired, and love of glory fired,
The deeds of men I love to dwell upon,
And the sympathetic glow of my spirit must

bestow
On the memory of Mitchell that is gone, boys,

gone —
The memory of Mitchell that is gone!"

Mother: Thoughts crowding on one another,
mixing themselves up with one another for the want
of sifting and settling ! They'll have me distracted
and I not able to speak them out to some person !
Conan as surly as a bramble bush, and Celia
wrapped up in her bucket and her broom! And
yourself not able to hear one word I say. (Sobs,
and bellows falls from her hands.)

Timothy: I'll lay it down now out of your way,
ma'am, the way you can cry your fill whatever
ails you.

Mother: (Snatching it back.) Stop! I'll not

Aristotle's Bellows 197

part with it ! I know now what I can do ! Now !
(Points it at him.} I'll make a companion to be
listening to me through the long winter nights and
the long summer days, and the world to be with-
out any end at all, no more than the round of the
full moon! You that have no hearing, this will
bring back your hearing, the way you'll be a
listener and a benefit to myself for ever. I
wouldn't feel the weeks long that time !

(Blows. Timothy turns away and gropes
toward wall.)

(She sings: Air, "Eileen Aroon. ")

"What if the days go wrong,
When you can hear !
What if the evening's long,
You being near,
I'll tell my troubles out,
Put darkness to the rout
And to the roundabout !
Having your ear!"

(Rock at door: sneezes. Mother drops bel-
lows and goes. Timothy gives a cry,
claps hands to ears and rushes out as if
terrified.)

Rock: (Coming in seizes bellows.) Well now,
didn't this turn to be very lucky and very good!
The very thing I came looking for to be left there
under my hands ! (Puts it hurriedly under coat.)

Flannery: (Coming in.) What are you doing
here, James Rock?

i98 Aristotle's Bellows

Rock: What are you doing yourself?

Flannery: What is that in under your coat ?

Rock: What's that to you?

Flannery: I'll know that when I see it.

Rock: What call have you to be questioning me ?

Flannery: Open now your coat !

Rock: Stand out of my way !

Flannery: (Suddenly tearing open coat and
seizing bellows.) Did you think it was unknownst
to me you stole the bellows?

Rock: Ah, what steal?

Flannery: Put it back in the place it was '

Rock: I will within three minutes.

Flannery: You'll put it back here and now.

Rock: (Coaxingly.) Look at here now, Michael
Flannery, we'll make a league between us. Did
you ever see such folly as we're after seeing to-day?
Sitting there for an hour and a half till that one
settled the world upside down !

Flannery: If I did see folly, what I see now is
treachery.

Rock: Didn't you take notice of the way that
foolish old man is wasting and losing what was
given him for to benefit mankind ? A blast he has
lost turning a pigeon to a crow, as if there wasn't
enough in it before of that tribe picking the spuds
out of the ridges. And another blast he has lost
turning poor Celia, that was harmless, to be a holy
terror of cleanness and a scold.

Flannery: Indeed, he'd as well have left her

Aristotle's Bellows 199

as she was. There was something very pleasing
in her little sleepy ways.
(Sings.)

"But sad it is to see you so
And to think of you now as an object of woe;
Your Peggy'll still keep an eye on her beau.
O Johnny, I hardly knew you!"

Rock: Bringing back to the memory of his
mother every old grief and rancour. She that has
a right to be making her peace with the grave !

Ftannery: Indeed it seems he doesn't mind
what he'll get so long as it's something that he
wants.

Rock: Three blasts gone! And the world
didn't begin to be cured.

Flannery: Sure enough he gave the bellows no
fair play.

Rock: He has us made a fool of. He using it
the way he did, he has us robbed.

Flannery: There's power in the four blasts
left would bring peace and piety and prosperity
and plenty to every one of the four provinces of
Ireland.

Rock: That's it. There's no doubt but I'll
make a better use of it than him, because I am a
better man than himself.

Flannery: I don't know. You might not get
so much respect in Dublin.

Rock: Dublin, where are you! What would

200 Aristotle's Bellows

I'd do going to Dublin? Did you never hear said
the skin to be nearer than the shirt ?

Flannery: What do you mean saying that?

Rock: The first one I have to do good to is
myself.

Flannery: Is it that you would grab the benefit
of the bellows?

Rock: In troth I will. I've got a hold of it, and
by cripes I'll knock a good turn out of it.

Flannery: To rob the country and the poor for
your own profit? You are a class of man that is
gathering all for himself.

Rock: It is not worth while we to fall out of
friendship. I will use but the one blast.

Flannery: You have no right or call to meddle
with it.

Rock: The first thing I will meddle with is my
own rick of turf. And I'll give you leave to go do
the same with your own umbrella, or whatever
property you may own.

Flannery: Sooner than be covetous like your-
self I'd live and and die in a ditch, and be buried
from the Poorhouse !

Rock: Turf being black and light in the hand,
and gold being shiny and weighty, there will be
no delay in turning every sod into a solid brick of
gold. I give you leave to do the same thing, and
we'll be two rich men inside a half an hour!

Flannery: You are no less than a thief!
(Snatches at bellows.}

Aristotle's Bellows 201

Rock: Thief yourself. Leave your hand off
it!

Flannery: Give it up here for the man that
owns it !

Rock: You may set your coffin making for I'll
beat you to the ground.

Flannery: (As Tie clutches.} Ah, you have
given it a shove. It has blown a blast on your-
self!

Rock: Yourself that blew it on me! Bad cess
to you! But I'll do the same bad turn upon you!
(Blows.)

Flannery: There is some footstep without.
Heave it in under the ashes.

Rock: Whist your tongue! (Flings bellows
behind hearth.)

(Conan comes in.)

Conan: With all the chattering of women I
have the train near lost. The car is coming
for me and I'll make no delay now but to set
out.

(Sings.)

"Oh the French are on the sea,

Says the Sean Van Vocht,
Oh the French are on the sea,

Says the Sean Van Vocht,
Oh the French are in the bay,

They'll be here without delay,
And the Orange will decay,

Says the Sean Van Vocht!"

202 Aristotle's Bellows

Here now is my little pack. You were saying,
Thomas Flannery, you would be lending me the
loan of your umbrella.

Flannery: Ah, what umbrella? There's no fear
of rain.

Conan: (Taking it.) You to have proffered it
I would not refuse it.

Flannery: (Seizing it.) I don't know. I have
to mind my own property. It might not serve
it to be loaning it to this one and that. It might
leave the ribs of it bare.

Conan: That's the way with the whole of ye. I
to give you my heart's blood you'd turn me upside
down for a pint of porter !

Flannery: I see no sense or charity in lending to
another anything that might be of profit to myself.

Conan: Let you keep it so ! That your ribs may
be as bare as its own ribs that are bursting out
through the cloth !

Rock: Do not give heed to him, Conan. There
is in this bag (takes it out) what will bring you every
whole thing you might be wanting in the town.
(Takes out notes and gold and gives them.)

Conan: It is only a small share I'll ask the lend
of.

Rock: The lend of ! No, but a free gift !

Conan: Well now, aren't you turned to be very
kind ? ( Takes notes.)

Rock: Put that back in the bag. Here it is, the
whole of it. Five and fifty pounds. Take it

Aristotle's Bellows 203

and welcome ! It is yourself will make a good use
of it laying it out upon the needy and the poor.
Changing all for their benefit and their good ! Oh,
since St. Bridget spread her cloak upon the
Curragh this is the most day and the happiest day
ever came to Ireland.

Conan: (Giving bag to Flannery.) Take it you,
as is your due by what the mother said a while ago
about the robbery he did on you in the time past.

Flannery: Give it here to me. I'll engage I'll
keep a good grip on it from this out. It's long
before any other one will get a one look at it !

Conan: There would seem to be a great change
—and a sudden change come upon the two of ye.
. . . (With a roar.) Where now is the bellows?

Flannery: (Sulkily.) What way would I
know?

Conan: (Shaking him.) 1 know well what
happened ! It is ye have stolen two of my blasts !
Putting changes on yourselves ye would — much
good may it do ye — Thieving with your covet-
ousness the last two nearly I had left !

Rock: (Sulkily.) Leave your hand off me! I
never stole no blast !

Conan: There's a bad class going through the
world. The most people you will give to will be
the first to cry you down. This was a wrong out
of measure! Thieves ye are and pickpockets!
Ye that were not worth changing from one to an-
other, no more than you'd change a pinch of dust

204 Aristotle's Bellows

off the road into a puff of ashes. Stealing away
my lovely blasts, bad luck to ye, the same as Pro-
metheus stole the makings of a fire from the ancient
gods!

Flannery: That is enough of keening and
lamenting after a few blasts of barren wind — I'll
be going where I have my own business to attend.

Conan: Where, so, is the bellows?

Flannery: How would I know?

Conan: The two of ye won't quit this till I'll
find it! There is another two blasts in it that
will bring sense and knowledge into Ireland yet !

Rock: Indeed they might bring comfort yet
to many a sore heart !

Conan: (Searching.) Where now is it? I
couldn't find it if the earth rose up and swallowed
it. Where now did I lay it down ?

Rock: There's too much changes in this place
for me to know where anything is gone.

Conan: (At door.) Where are you Maryanne !
Celia! Timothy! Let ye come hither and search
out my little bellows !

(Timothy comes in followed by Mother.)

Conan: Hearken now, Timothy!

Timothy: (Stopping his ears.) Speak easy,
speak easy!

Conan: Take down now your ringers from your
ears the way you will hear my voice !

Timothy: Have a care now with your screeching
would you split the drum of my ear?

Aristotle's Bellows 205

Conan: Is it that you have got your hearing ?

Timothy: My hearing is it? As good as that I
can hear a lie, and it forming in the mind.

Conan: Is that the truth you're saying?

Timothy: Hear, is it ! I can hear every whisper
in this parish and the seven parishes are nearest.
And the little midges roaring in the air. — Let ye
whist now with your sneezing in the draught !

Conan: This is surely the work of the bellows.
Another blast gone !

Rock: So it would be too. Mostly the whole
of them gone and spent. It's hard know in the
morning what way will it be with you at night.
(Sings.}

"I saw from the beach when the morning was shin-
ing

A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on —
I came when the sun o'er the beach was declining,
The bark was still there, but the waters were
gone."

Timothy: It is yourself brought the misfortune
on me, calling your Druid spells into the house.

Conan: It is not upon you I ever turned it.

Timothy: You have a great wrong done to
me!

Mother: It is glad you should be and happy.

Timothy: Happy, is it ? Give me a hareskin cap
for to put over my ears, having wool in it very thick!
(Sings.)

2o6 Aristotle's Bellows

"Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water,
Break not ye breezes your chain of repose,
While murmuring mournfully Lir's lonely

daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.

When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep with wings in darkness furl'd?
When will heaven its sweet bells ringing
Call my spirit from this stormy world?"

Mother: Come with me now and 1 11 be chatting
to you.

Timothy: Why would I be listening to your
blather when I have the voices of the four winds to
be listening to? The night wind, the east wind,
the black wind and the wind from the south !

Conan: Such a thing I never saw before in all
my natural life.

Timothy: To be hearing, without understand-
ing it, the language of the tribes of the birds!
(Puts hands over ears again.} There's too many
sounds in the world! The sounds of the earth
are terrible! The roots squeezing and jostling
one another through the clefts, and the crashing
of the acorn from the oak. The cry of the little
birdeen in under the silence of the hawk !

Conan: (To Mother.) As it you let it loose
upon him, let you bring him away to some hole or
cave of the earth.

Timothy: It is my desire to go cast myself in
the ocean where there'll be but one sound of its

Aristotle's Bellows 207

waves, the fishes in its meadows being dumb!
(Goes to corner and hides his head in a sack.)

Mother: Even so there might likely be a mer-
maid playing reels on her silver comb, and your-
self craving after the world you left.

(Sings: Air, " Spailpin Fdnach. ' ' )

"You think to go from every woe to peace in the

wide ocean,
But you will find your foolish mind repent its

foolish notion.
When dog-fish dash and mermaids splash their

finny tails to find you,
I'll make a bet that you'll regret the world you

left behind you!"

Celia. (Clattering in with broom, etc.) What
are ye doing, coming in this room again after I hav-
ing it settled so nice ? I'll allow no one in the place
again, only carriage company that will have no
speck of dust upon the sole of their shoe !

Mother: Oh, Celia, there has strange things
happened !

Celia: What I see strange is that some person
has meddled with that hill of ashes on the hearth
and set it flying athrough the air. Is it hens ye
are wishful to be, that would be searching and
scratching in the dust for grains ? And this thrown
down in the midst ! (Holds up bellows.)

Conan: Give me my bellows !

Mother: No, but give it to me !

Rock and Flannery: Give it to myself!

208 Aristotle's Bellows

Timothy: (Looking up, with hands on ears.}
My curse upon it and its work. Little I care if it
goes up with the clouds.

Celia: What in the world wide makes the whole
of ye so eager to get hold of such a thing?

Conan: It has but the one blast left '
(Sings.)

" Tis the last Rose of Summer
Left blooming alone,
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone.
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes
Or give sigh for sigh!"

Celia: What are you fretting about blasts and
about roses?

Rock: It has a charm on it —

Flannery: To change the world —

Mother: That changed myself —

Conan: For the worse —

Mother: And Timothy —

Conan: For the worse —

Rock: Myself and Flannery —

Conan: For the worse, for the worse —

Mother: Conan that changed yourself with it —

Conan: For the very worst !

Celia: (To Conan.) Is it riddles, or is it that
you put a spell and a change upon me?

Conan: If I did, it was for your own good !

Aristotle's Bellows 209

Celia: Do you call it for my good to set me run-
ning till I have my toes going through my shoes?
(Holds them out.}

Conan: I didn't think to go that length.

Celia: To roughen my hands with soap and
scalding water till they're near as knotted and as
ugly as your own !

Conan: Ah, leave me alone ! I tell you it is not
by my own fault. My plan and my purpose that
went astray and that broke down.

Celia: I will not leave you till you'll change me
back to what I was. What way can these hands go
to the dance house to-night ? Change me back, I say !

Rock: And me —

Timothy: And myself, that I'll have quiet in my
head again.

Conan: I cannot undo what has been done.
There is no back way.

Timothy: Is there no way at all to come out of it
safe and sane?

Conan: (Shakes head.} Let ye make the best of it.

Flannery: (Sings.) (Air," I saw from the Beach")

1 ' Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning
The close of our day, the calm eve of our night.
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness

of morning,

Her clouds and her tears are worth evening's best
light."

Mother: (Who has bellows in her hand.) Stop!
Stop — my mind is travelling backward ... so

210 Aristotle's Bellows

far I can hardly reach to it . . . but I'll come
to it . . . the way I'll be changed to what I was
before, and the town and the country wishing me
well, I having got my enough of unfriendly looks
and hard words !

Timothy: Hurry on Ma'am, and remember, and
take the spell off the whole of us.

Mother: I am going back, back, to the longest
thing that is in my mind and my memory ! . . .
I myself a child in my mother's arms the very day
I was christened. . . .

Conan: Ah, stop your raving!

Mother: Songs and storytelling, and my old
generations laying down news of this spell that is
now come to pass. . . .

Rock: Did they tell what way to undo the charm ?

Mother: You have but to turn the bellows the
same as the smith would turn the anvil, or St.
Patrick turned the stone for fine weather . . .
and to blow a blast . . . and a twist will come
inside in it and the charm will fall off with that
blast, and undo the work that has been done !

All: Turn it so!

(Cats look over, playing on fiddles "0 Johnny,
I hardly knew you," while mother blows
on each.)

Timothy: Ha ! ( Takes hands from ears and puts
one behind his ear.)

Rock: Ha! Where now is my bag? (Turns
out his pockets, unhappy to find them empty.)

Aristotle's Bellows 211

Flannery: Ha ! (Smiles and holds out umbrella
to Conan who takes it.)

Mother to Celia. Let you blow a blast on me.
(Celia does so.) Now it's much if I can remember
to blow a blast backward upon yourself !

Celia: Stop a minute ! Leave what is in me of
life and of courage till I will blow the last blast is
in the bellows upon Conan.

Conan: Stop that! Do you think to change
and to crow over me. You will not or I'll lay my
curse upon you, unless you would change me into
an eagle would be turning his back upon the whole
of ye, and facing to his perch upon the right hand
of the master of the gods !

Celia: Is it to waste the last blast you would?
Not at all. As we burned the candle we'll burn the
inch ! I'll not make two halves of it, I'll give it to
you entirely!

Conan: You will not, you unlucky witch of illwill !
(Protects himself with umbrella)

Celia: (Having got him to a corner) Let you
take things quiet and easy from this out, and be as
content as you have been contrary from the very
day and hour of your birth !

(She blows upon him and he sits down smiling.
Mother blows on Celia, and she sits down
in first attitude.)

Celia: (Taking up pigeon.) Oh, there you are
come back my little dove and my darling !
(Sings: "Shule Aroon")

212 Aristotle's Bellows

"Come sit and settle on my knee
And I'll tell you and you'll tell me
A tale of what will never be,

Go-de-tou-Mavourneen slan!"
• .!'..« I !' iT

Conan: (Lighting pipe.) So the dove is there,
too. Aristotle said there is nothing at the end but
what there used to be at the beginning. Well now,
what a pleasant day we had together, and what
good neighbours we all are, and what a comfortable
family entirely.

Rock: You would seem to have done with your
complaints about the universe, and your great plan
to change it overthrown.

Conan: Not a complaint ! What call have I to
go complaining? The world is a very good world,
the best nearly I ever knew.
(Sings.)

"O, a little cock sparrow he sat on a tree,
O, a little cock sparrow he sat on a tree,
O, a little cock sparrow he sat on a tree,
And he was as happy as happy could be,
With a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup !

"A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup!
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup !
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup !
A chirrup, a chirrup, a !"

CURTAIN

NOTE TO ARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS

I had begun to put down some notes for this play
when in the autumn of 1919 I was suddenly obliged,
(through the illness and death of the writer who had
undertaken it), to take in hand the writing of the "Life
and Achievement" of my nephew Hugh Lane, and
this filled my mind and kept me hard at work for a
year.

When the proofs were out of my hands I turned
with but a vague recollection to these notes, and was
surprised to find them fuller than they had appeared
in my memory, so that the idea was rekindled and the
writing was soon begun. And I found a certain rest
and ease of mind in having turned from a long struggle,
(in which, alas, I had been too often worsted) for
exactitude in dates and names and in the setting down
of facts, to the escape into a world of fantasy where I
could create my own. And so before the winter was
over the play was put in rehearsal at the Abbey
Theatre, and its first performance was on St. Patrick's
Day, 1921.

I have been looking at its first scenario, made ac-
cording to my habit in rough pen and ink sketches,
coloured with a pencil blue and red, and the changes
from that early idea do not seem to have been very
great, except that in the scene where Conan now

213

214 Aristotle's Bellows

hears the secret of the hiding-place of the Spell from the
talk of the cats, the Bellows had been at that time left
beside him by a dwarf from the rath, in his sleep.
The cats work better, and I owe their success to the
genius of our Stage Carpenter, Mr. Sean Barlow, whose
head of the Dragon from my play of that name had
been such a masterpiece that I longed to see these
other enchanted heads from his hand.

The name of the play in that first scenario was
"The Fault-Finder" but my cranky Conan broke
from that narrowness. If the play has a moral it is
given in the words of the Mother, "It's best make
changes little by little, the same as you'd put clothes
upon a growing child." The restlessness of the time
may have found its way into Conan's mind, or as some
critic wrote, "He thinks of the Bellows as Mr. Wilson
thought of the League of Nations," and so his disap-
pointment comes. As A. E. writes in "The National
Being," "I am sympathetic with idealists in a hurry,
but I do not think the world can be changed suddenly
by some heavenly alchemy, as St. Paul was smitten
by a light from the overworld. Though the heart in
us cries out continually, 'Oh, hurry, hurry to the
Golden Age,' though we think of revolutions, we know
that the patient marshalling of human forces is
wisdom. . . . Not by revolutions can humanity
be perfected. I might quote from an old oracle, ' The
gods are never so turned away from man as when he
ascends to them by disorderly methods.' Our spirits
may live in the Golden Age but our bodily life moves
on slow feet, and needs the lantefn on the path and the
staff struck carefully into the darkness before us to

Aristotle's Bellows 215

see that the path beyond is not a morass, and the light
not a will o' the wisp. ' ' (But this may not refer to our
own Revolution, seeing that has been making a step
now and again towards what many judged to be a
will o' the wisp through over seven hundred years.)

As to the machinery of the play, the spell was first
to have been worked by a harp hung up by some
wandering magician, and that was to work its change
according to the wind, as it blew from north or south,
east or west. But that would have been troublesome
in practice, and the Bellows having once entered my
mind, brought there I think by some scribbling of the
pencil that showed Conan protecting himself with an
umbrella, seemed to have every necessary quality,
economy, efficiency, convenience.

As to Aristotle, his name is a part of our folklore.
The old wife of one of our labourers told me one day,
as a bee buzzed through the open door: "Aristotle of
the Books was very wise but the bees got the better
of him in the end. He wanted to know how did they
pack the comb, and he wasted the best part of a fort-
night watching them, and he could not see them doing
it. Then he made a hive with a glass cover on it and
put it over them, and he thought to watch them.
But when he went to put his eye to the glass, they had
it all covered with wax so that it was as black as the pot,
and he was as blind as before. He said he was never
rightly killed till then. The bees had him beat that time
surely." And Douglas Hyde brought home one day a
story from Kilmacduagh bog, in which Aristotle took
the place of Solomon, the Wise Man in our tales as
well as in those of the East. And he said that as the

216 Aristotle's Bellows

story grew and the teller became more familiar, the
name of Aristotle was shortened to that of Harry.

As to the songs they are all sung to the old Irish airs
I give at the end.

A. GREGORY.

August 18, 1921.

THE JESTER

A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

217

FOR RICHARD

JANUARY, 1919

A. G.

v;\\

219

PERSONS.

The Five Princes.

The Five Wrenboys.

The Guardian of the Princes and Governor of

the Island.

The Servant. <^{

The Two Dowager Messengers.
The Ogre.
The Jester.
Two Soldiers.

The Scene is laid in The Island of Hy Brasil, that
appears every seven years.

Time: Out of mind.

220

ACT I

221

ACT I

Scene: A winter garden, with pots of flowering
trees or fruit-trees. There are books about and
some benches with cushions on them, and many
cushions on the ground. The young PRINCES
are sitting or lying at their ease. One is playing
"Home, Sweet Home" on a harp. The SERV-
ANT— an old man — is standing in the background.

1st Prince: Here, Gillie, will you please take off
my shoe and see what there is in it that is pressing
on my heel.

Servant: (Taking it off and examining it.) I
see nothing.

1st Prince: Oh, yes, there is something; I have
felt it all the morning. I have been thinking this
long time of taking the shoe off, but I waited for
you.

Servant: All I can find is a grain of poppy seed.

1st Prince: That is it of course — it was enough
to hurt my skin.

2nd Prince: Gillie, there is a mayfly tickling
my cheek. Will you please brush it away.

Servant: I will and welcome. (Fans it off.)
223

224 The Jester

3rd Prince: Just give me, please, that book
that is near my elbow. I cannot reach to it with-
out taking my hand off my cheek.

Servant: I wouldn't wish you to do that.
(Gives him book.}

4th Prince: Gillie, I think, I am nearly sure,
there is a feather in this cushion that has the quill
in it yet. I feel something hard.

Servant: Give it to me till I will open it and
make a search.

4th Prince: No, wait a while till I am not lying
on it. I will put up with the discomfort till
then.

5th Prince. Would it give you too much
trouble, Gillie, when you waken me in the morn-
ing, to come and call me three times, so that I can
have the joy of dropping off again?

Servant: Why wouldn't I? And there is a
thing I would wish to know. There will be a
supper laid out here this evening for the Dowager
Messengers that are coming to the Island, and I
would wish to provide for yourselves whatever
food would be pleasing to you.

1st Prince: It is too warm for eating. All I
will ask is a few grapes from Spain.

2nd Prince: A mouthful of jelly in a silver
spoon . . . or in the shape of a little castle with
towers. When will the Lady Messengers be here?

Servant: Not before the fall of day.

2nd Prince: The time passes so quietly and

The Jester 225

peaceably it does not feel like a year and a day since
they came here before.

Servant: No wonder the time to pass easy and
quiet where you are, with comfort all around you,
and nothing to mark its course, and every season
feeling the same as another, within the glass walls
and the crystal roof of this place. And the old
Queen, your godmother, sending her own Cham-
berlain to take charge of you, and to be your Guard-
ian, and Governor of the Island. Sure, the wind
itself must slacken coming to this sheltered place.

3rd Prince: That is a great thing. I would
not wish the rough wind to be blowing upon me.

4th Prince. Or the dust to be rising and coming
in among us to spoil our suits.

5th Prince: Or to be walking out on the hard
roads, or climbing over stone walls, or tearing
ourselves in hedges.

ist Prince: That is the reason we were sent
here by the Queen, our Godmother, in place of
being sent to any school. To be kept safe and
secure.

2nd Prince: Not to be running here and there
like our own poor five first cousins, that used to
be slipping out and rambling in their young youth,
till they were swallowed up by the sea.

jrd Prince: It was maybe by some big fish of
the sea.

2nd Prince: It might be they were brought
away by sea-robbers coming in a ship.

226 The Jester

3rd Prince: Foolish they were and very foolish
not to stay in peace and comfort in the house where
they were safe.

Servant: There is no fear of ye stirring from
where you are, having every whole thing ye can
wish.

4th Prince: Here is the Guardian coming!
(They all rise.)

Guardian: (A very old man, much encumbered
with wraps coming slowly in.) Are you all here,
all the five of you?

All: We are here!

Guardian: (Standing, leaning on a stick, to ad-
dress them.) It's a pity that these being holidays,
your teachers and tutors are far away,

Gone off afloat in a cedar boat to a College of
Learning out in Cathay.

1st Prince: It's a pity indeed they're not here
to-day.

Guardian: For it's likely you looked in your
almanacs, or judged by the shape of the lessening
moon,

That your Godmother's Dowager Messengers
are due to arrive this afternoon.

2nd Prince: We did and we think they'll be
here very soon.

Guardian: But I know they'll be glad that each
royal lad, put under my rule in place of a school,

Can fashion his life without trouble or strife, and
be shielded from care in a nice easy chair.

The Jester 227

jrd Prince: As we always are and we always

were.

Guardian: It is part of my knowledge that lads
in a college, and made play one and all with a bat
and a ball,

Come often to harm with a knock on the arm,

and their hands get as hard as the hands of a clown.

4th Prince: But ours are as soft as thistledown.

Guardian: And I've seen young princes not

far from your age, go chasing beasts on a winter

day,

And carted home with a broken bone, and a
yard of a doctor's bill to pay;

Or going to sail in the teeth of a gale, when the
waves were rising mountains high,

Or fall from a height that was near out of sight,
robbing rooks from their nest in a poplar tree.

5th Prince: (To another.') But that never
happened to you or me.

Guardian: Or travelling far to a distant war,
with battles and banners filling their mind,

And creeping back like a crumpled sack, content
if they'd left no limbs behind.

ist Prince: But we'll have nothing to do with
that, but stop at home with an easy mind.

Guardian: (Sitting down.} That's right. And
now I would wish you to say over some of your
tasks, to make ready for the Dowager Messengers,
that they may bring back a good report to the
Queen, your Godmother.

228 The Jester

ist Prince: We'll do that. We would wish to be
a credit to you, sir, and to our teachers.

Guardian: Say out now some little piece of
Latin; that one that is my favourite.

ist Prince:

Aere sub gelido nullus rosa fundit odores,
Ut placeat tellus, sole calesce Dei.

Guardian: Say out the translation.

2nd Prince: Beneath a chilly blast the rose,
loses its sweet, and scentless blows;

If you would have earth keep its charm, stop
in the sunshine and keep warm.

Guardian: Very good. Now your history
book; you were learning of late some genealogies
of kings, might suit your Godmother.

3rd Prince:

William the First as the Conqueror known
At the Battle of Hastings ascended the throne,
His Acts were all made in the Norman tongue
And at eight every evening the curfew was rung
When each English subject by royal desire
Extinguished his candle and put out his fire.
He bridled the kingdom with forts round the Border
And the Tower of London was built by his order.

2nd Prince:

William called Rufus from having red hair,
Of virtues possessed but a moderate share,
But though he was one whom we covetous call,
He built the famed structure called Westminster
Hall.

The Jester 229

Walter Tyrrell his favourite, when hunting one

day,

Attempted a deer with an arrow to slay,
But missing his aim, shot the King to the heart
And the body was carried away in a cart.

Guardian: That will do. You have that very
well in your memory. Now let me hear the
grammar lesson.
3rd Prince:

A noun's the name of any thing
As school or garden, hoop or swing.
Guardian: Very good, go on.
4th Prince:

Adjectives tell the kind of noun
As strong or pretty, white or brown.
5th Prince:

Conjunctions join the nouns together
As men and children, wind or weather.
Guardian: It will be very useful to you to have
that so well grafted in your mind. . . . What
noise is that outside?
Servant: It is some strolling people.
ist Prince: Oh, Guardian, let them come in.
We will do our work all the better if we have some
amusement now.

Guardian: Maybe so. I am well pleased when
amusements come to our door, that you can see
without going outside the walls.

(A Jester enters in very ragged green clothes
and broken shoes.}

230 The Jester

But this is a very ragged looking man. Do
you know anything about him, Gillie?

Servant: I seen him one time before. . . .
At the time of the earthquake out in Foreign. A
mad jester he was. A tramp class of a man. (To
Jester.) Where is it you stop?

Jester: Where do I stop? Where would I be
but everywhere, like the bad weather. I stop in
no place, but going through the whole roads of the
world.

Guardian: What brought you in here?

Jester: Hearing questions going on, and an-
swers. I am well able to give help in that. It's
not long since I was giving instruction to the sons
of the King of Babylon. Here now is a question.
How many ladders would it take to reach to the
moon?

1st Prince: It should be a great many.

2nd Prince: I give it up.

Jester: One . . . if it is long enough? Which
is it easier to spell, ducks or geese?

jrd Prince: Ducks I suppose because it's
shorter.

Jester: Not at all but geese. Do you know
why? Because it is spelled with ees. Tell me
now, can you spell pup backwards?

4th Prince: P-u-p. . . .

Jester: Not at all.

4th Prince: But it is.

Jester: No, that is pup straight forwards. . . .

The Jester 231

Can you run back and forwards at the same time?

4th Prince: Answer it yourself so.

Jester: You would be as wise as myself then.
But I'll show you some tricks. Look at these
three straws on my hand. Will I be able to blow
two of them away, and the other to stay in its
place?

5th Prince: They would all blow away.

Jester: Look now. Puff! (He has put his
finger on the middle one.} Now is it possible?

5th Prince: It is easy when you know the way.

Jester: That is so with all knowledge. Can
you wag one ear and keep the other quiet ?

ist Prince: Nobody can do that.

Jester: (Wagging one ear with his finger}
There, now you see I have done it ! There's more
learning than is taught in books. Wait now and
I'll give you out a song I'll engage you never
heard. (Sings or repeats}

It's I can rhyme you out the joy
That's ready for a lively boy.
Cuchulain flung a golden ball
And followed it where it would fall,
And when they counted him a child
He took the flying swans alive.
And Finn was given hares to mind
Till he outran them and the wind;
And he could swim and overtake
The wild duck swimming on the lake.
Osgar's young music was to thwack
The enemy and drive him back. . . .

232 The Jester

Guardian: That's enough now. I have no
fancy for that class of song. What other amuse-
ments are there?

Servant: There are the Wrenboys are come
here at the end of their twelve days' funning.

Jester: That's it! The Wrenboys; a rambling

troop ; rambling the world like myself. I will make

place for them. The old must give way to the young.

(He goes and sits down in a corner, munching

a crust and dozing.}

Servant: Come in here let ye, and show what
ye can do !

(Wrenboys come in playing a fife. They are
wearing little masks and are dressed in
ragged tunics; they carry drum and fife,
and stand in a line.)
All Five Wrenboys: (Together.)

The wren, the wren, the King of all birds,
On Stephen's Day was caught in the furze.
Although he's small his family's great,
Rise up kind gentry and give us a treat !
(Rub-a-tub-tub-tub, on the drum.)

Down with the kettle and up with the pan
And give us money to bury the wren !
(Rub-a-tub.)

We followed him twenty miles since morn,
The Wrenboys are all tattered and torn
From Kyle-na-Gno we started late
And here we are at this grand gate !
(Rub-a-tub.)

The Jester 233

He dipped his wing in a barrel of beer —
We wish you all a Happy New Year !
Give us now money to buy him a bier
And if you don't, we'll bury him here!
(Rub-a-tub, and fife.)

(Princes laugh and clap hands.)

1st Prince: That is very good.

2nd Prince: We must give them some money
to bury the wren !

Guardian: Come on then and I will give you
some. They will be glad of it. Play now the
harp as you go.

(Princes go off playing, "Home, Sweet Home"
The Wrenboys sit down.)

1st Wrenboy: It is likely we'll get good treat-
ment.

Jester: (Coming forward.) Ye should be tired.

2nd Wrenboy: We should be, but that we have
our feet well soled, — with the dust of the road!

^rd Wrenboy: If walking could tire us we might
be tired. But we're as well pleased to be moving,
where we have no house or home that you'll call a
house or a home.

Jester: That's not so with those young princes.
Wouldn't you be well pleased if ye could change
places with them? (He goes back to his corner.)

4th Wrenboy: They are lovely kind young
princes. I was near in dread they might set the
dogs at us.

$th Wrenboy: They would do that if they

234 The Jester

knew the Ogre had sent us to spy out the place
for him.

1st Wrenboy: It failed us to see what he wanted
us to see. It is likely he will beat us, when we go
back, with his cat-o' -nine-tails.

2nd Wrenboy: Wouldn't it be good if we could
do as that Jester was saying and change places with
those sons of kings! They that can lie in the
sunshine on soft pillows.

jrd Wrenboy: They that can use food when they
ask it, and not have to wait till they can find it,
or steal it, or get it what way they can.

3rd Wrenboy: And not to be waiting till you'll
hear a rabbit squealing, with the teeth of a weasel
in his neck.

4th Wrenboy: And the weasel when you take
it to be spitting poison at you, the same as a
serpent.

5th Wrenboy: It would be a nice thing to be
eating sweet red apples in place of the green crabs.

1st Wrenboy: Or to be maybe sucking marrow-
bones.

2nd Wrenboy: It is likely they are as airy and
as careless as the blackbird singing on the bush.

^rd Wrenboy: It's likely they go following after
foxes on horses, having huntsmen and beagles at
their feet.

4th Wrenboy: Or go out sporting and fowling
with their greyhound and with their gun.

$th Wrenboy: Or matching fighting cocks.

The Jester 235

1st Wrenboy: It's likely they lead a gentleman's
life, card-playing and eating and drinking, and
racing with jockeys in speckled clothes.

2nd Wrenboy: Their brooches were shining like
green fire, the same as a marten cat's eyes. They
have everything finer than another.

3rd Wrenboy: Their faces as clean as a linen
sheet. Their hair as if combed with a silver comb.

4th Wrenboy: There is no one to so much as
put a clean shirt on ourselves.

5th Wrenboy: (Rubbing his hand.} I never
felt uneasy at the dirt that is grinted into me till
I saw them so nice.

ist Wrenboy: That music they were playing
put me in mind of some far thing. It is dreamed
to me, and it is never leaving my mind, that there
is something I remember in the long ago . . .
music in a house that was as bright as the moon,
or as the brightest night of stars.

5th Wrenboy: Whisht! They are coming!
(The Princes come back.)

ist Prince: Here are coppers for you.

2nd Prince: And white money.

3rd Prince: And here is a piece of gold.

3rd Wrenboy: We are thankful to you! We'll
bury the Wren in grand style now!

4th Prince: Have you far to go?

ist Wrenboy: Not very far if it was a straight
road. But it is through the forest we go, beyond
the lake.

236 The Jester

2nd Wrenboy: We will hardly be there before
the moon rises.

ist Prince: Are you afraid in the night time?

2nd Wrenboy: I am not. But I've seen a great
deal of strange things at that time.

2nd Prince: What sort of things?

2nd Wrenboy: Fairies you'd see.

3rd Prince: Are there such things?

2nd Wrenboy: One night I was attending a pot-
still, roasting oats for to make still-whiskey, and I
seen hares coming out of the wood, by fours and by
sixes, and they as thin as thin . . .

jrd Wrenboy: Hares are the biggest fairies of all.

4th Wrenboy: And down by the sea / met a
weasel bringing up a fish in his mouth from the
tide. And I often seen seals there, seals that are
enchanted and look like humans, and will hold up
a hand the same as a Christian.

5th Wrenboy: I that saw a hedgehog running
up the side of a mountain as swift as a racehorse.

ist Wrenboy: It's the moonlight is the only
time!

ist Prince: I never saw the moon but through
a window.

ist Wrenboy: That's the time to go ramble.
(He chants.)

You'll see the crane in the water standing,
And never landing a fish, for fright,
For he can but shiver seeing in the river
His shadow shaking in the bright moon light.

The Jester 237

2nd Wrenboy:

Or you may listen to the plover's whistle,
When high above him the wild geese screech;
Or the mallard flying, as the night is dying,
His neck out-stretched towards the salt sea beach.

jrd Wrenboy:

When dawn discloses the oak and shows us
The wide sky whitening through the scanty ash,
High in the beeches the furry creatures,
Squirrel and marten lightly pass.

4th Wrenboy:

The badger scurries to find his burrow
The rabbit hurries to hide underground.

5th Wrenboy:

The pigeon rouses the thrush that drowses,
The woods awaken and the world goes round !

ist Wrenboy: Come now, it's time to be taking
the road. Thank you, noble Gentlemen ! That you
may be doing the same thing this day fifty years !
(They go off playing fife and beating drum.)

ist Prince: I would nearly wish to be in their
place to go through the world at large.

2nd Prince: They can go visit strange cities,
sailing in white-sailed ships.

3rd Prince: They have no lessons to learn.

4th Prince: No hours to keep. No clocks to
strike.

5th Prince: No Lady Messengers coming to
show off to.

ist Prince: They should be as merry as midges.

238 The Jester

2nd Prince: As free as the March wind.

3rd Prince: I don't know how we stopped so
long shut up in this place.

4th Prince: I would be nearly ready to change
places with them if such a thing were possible.

Jester: (Who has had his back to them comes
forward; the Princes stand on his right in a half
circle.} And why wouldn't you change?

5th Prince: It is a thing not possible.

Jester: I never could know the meaning of that
word "impossible." Where there's a will there's
a way.

ist Prince: It seems to me like the sound of a
bell ringing a long way off, that I had leave at one
time to go here and there.

Jester: If you are in earnest wanting to come to
that freedom again you will get it.

2nd Prince: No, we would be followed and
brought back through kindness.

Jester: If you have the strong wish to make
the change you can make it.

1st Prince: I think I was never so much in
earnest in all my life.

(The Jester takes his pipe and plays a note
on it. The Wrenboys come back beating
their drum. They stand in a half circle
on Jester's left.)

Jester: (To all.)

If it's true ye wish to change,
Some to have a wider range,

The Jester 239

Some to have an easy life,
Some to rove into the wild,
If you do it, do it fast,
Do it while you have the chance.
Wrenboys: (Together.) We will change ! We will!
Jester: (To Princes.)

If you wish to leave your ease
And live wild and free like these
Like the fawn free and wild,
Not closed in as is a child,
Take your chance as it has come,
Let you run and run and run,
Where you'll get your joy and fun !
2nd Prince: They will know us, they will know
us!

Jester: Change your clothes, change your
clothes!

3rd Prince: They will know us every place.
Jester: Put their masks upon your face.
(Wrenboys give them the masks.)
You never will be missed
For I will throw a dust
Before every body's eye
That wants to look or pry
To see if you are here, —
And if you should appear
To be someway strange or queer
They will think themselves are blind
Or confused in the mind !
(Throws a handful of dust over all the boys.)

240 The Jester

Dust of Mullein, work your spell;
Keep the double secret well !
5th Prince: (To a Wrenboy.)

Give me here your coat now fast
I don't want to be the last.
(They all rapidly change coats and caps.)
Jester: That will do, that is enough.
1st Wrenboy: But my hands are very rough.
Jester:

Never mind; never mind,
The truth is hard to find !
Guardian: (Off stage.) Gillie, do as you are
told, shut the door, it's getting cold.

ist Prince: Oh, I'm in dread! What will be
said!

2nd Prince: I'd sooner stay in my old way!
Jester:

Never mind, never mind !
The truth is hard to find !
Keep steady. Are you ready?
ist Wrenboy: I'll be ashamed if I am blamed.
2nd Wrenboy: I have no grace or lovely face !
Jester: (To Princes.) Too late, too late! Go
out the gate!

(The Princes have taken up fife and drum.
They march out playing.)

CURTAIN

ACT II

16

241

ACT II

SCENE I

(A front scene. A poor hut or tent, the
Princes are coming in slowly, some
limping. They are in Wrenboys' clothes
and the masks are in their hands.}

1st Prince: This should be the hut where the
Wrenboys told us to come.

2nd Prince: It is a poor looking place.

3rd Prince: It is good to have any place to sit
down in for a while. My back is aching.

4th Prince: My feet are all scratched and torn.
There are blisters rising.

5th Prince: I thought we would never come to
the end of the road. The stones by the lake were
so hard and so sharp.

ist Prince: It was a root of a tree I fell over
that made these bruises on my knees. I was
watching a hawk that was still and quiet up in the
air, and when it made a swoop all of a sudden
I stumbled and fell.

2nd Prince: It was in slipping where the rocks
are high I gave this twist to my arm. I can
hardly move it.

243

244 The Jester

3rd Prince: But wasn't the sight of the sunset
splendid over the lake? And the hills so blue!

4th Prince: I like the tall trees best. I tried
to climb up one of them, but it was so smooth I
did but slip and fall.

ist Prince: I would wish to walk as far as the
hills, and to have a view of the ocean that is
beyond.

5th Prince: I am hungry. I wonder where we
will get our supper.

4th Prince: Not in this place anyway, it must
be making ready in some big guesthouse.

^rd Prince: What will they give us, I wonder?

2nd Prince: I wish we had in our hand what
they have ready for us at home.

ist Prince: What use would it be to us? Do
you remember what we asked to be given, some
jellies and a few grapes? It is not that much
would satisfy me now.

2nd Prince: Indeed it would not. I never felt
so sharp a hunger in my longest memory.

3rd Prince: It is roasted meat I would wish for.

4th Prince: There were pigeons in the tall
trees. They will maybe give us a pigeon pie.

5th Prince: I would be content with a plate of
minced turkey with poached eggs.

ist Prince: I would sooner have a roasted
chicken, with bread sauce.

2nd Prince: Be quiet. ... I think I hear
someone coming ! (Looks out.)

The Jester 245

3rd Prince: (Looking out.) I see him. He is not
a right man ... he is very strange look-
ing. . . .

4th Prince: (Looking out.) Oh! It is an Ogre!
A Grugach!

(All shrink back and hurriedly put on masks.)

Ogre: (Coming in: he wears a frightful mask, has
red hair and a cloak of rough skins and carries a
whip with many lashes.) What makes ye late to-
night, ye young schemers? What was it delayed
ye? Lagging along the road.

ist Prince: We came as fast as we could. It
was getting dusk in the wood.

Ogre: Dusk, good morrow to you! I'll dusk
ye! I had a mind to go after ye and to change
myself into the form of a wolf, and catch a hold of
ye with my long sharp teeth!

2nd Prince: We did not know there was any
great hurry.

Ogre: There is always hurry when you are on
my messages. What did I bring you away from
your own house for and put ye on the shaughraun
for and keep ye wandering, if it was not to be
serviceable and helpful to myself. Show me now
what ye have in your pocket or your bag.

3rd Prince: This is all we got in the bag.
(Holds it out) It is but very little.

Ogre: (Turning it out and counting it) Cop-
pers! Silver! What is this? A piece of gold!
Is that what ye call little ? What notions ye have !

246 The Jester

Take care did ye keep any of it back! If ye did
I'll skin ye with the lash of my cat -o' -nine-tails,
(Shakes it.)

4th Prince: That is all we got. It should
maybe pay for our supper in some place.

Ogre: What supper? To go buy supper with
my money! It will go to add to my store of
treasure in the cave that is under ground.

5th Prince: We are hungry, very hungry.
When will the supper be ready?

Ogre: It will be ready whenever ye will ready
it for yourselves. Ye should know that by this
time.

1st Prince: We would make it ready if we were
acquainted with the way.

Ogre: It is gone cracked ye are? What is it
ye are thinking to get for your supper? What
ailed ye that ye didn't climb a tree and suck a
few pigeon's eggs?

2nd Prince: We were thinking of a pigeon pie.

Ogre: A what! ! !

2nd Prince: A pigeon pie.

Ogre: Hurry on then making your pigeon pie!
There are pigeons enough there in the corner, that
a hawk that is my carrier brought me in a while
ago. And there's a pike that was in the lake these
hundred years, an otter is after leaving at my
door.

3rd Prince: (Taking a pigeon.) I don't think
this is a right pigeon.

The Jester 247

4th Prince: Pigeons in a pie are not the pigeons
that have feathers.

5th Prince: (To Ogre.} Please, sir, where can
we find pigeons without feathers, that are trussed
on a silver skewer?

Ogre: Aye? What's that?

ist Prince: Never mind. You'll anger him.
Maybe we can pull the feathers off these. I have
read of plucking a pigeon in our books. (They
begin to pluck.)

2nd Prince: It is very hard work.

3rd Prince: I never knew feathers could stick
in so hard.

4th Prince: The more we pull out the more
there would seem to be left.

5th Prince: It will be a feather pie we will be
getting in the end.

ist Prince: (Throwing it down.} It is no use.
We might work at it to-day and to-morrow and be
no nearer to a finish.

2nd Prince: The pike might be better.

3rd Prince: It has no feathers anyway.

4th Prince: (Touching it.} It is raw and
bleeding!

5th Prince: We might roast it.

ist Prince: The fire is black out.

2nd Prince: I wonder what way can we kindle
it?

3rd Prince : Better ask him. (Points to
Ogre.}

248 The Jester

2nd Prince: Please, sir, what way can we
kindle the fire?

Ogre: What!

4th Prince: We would wish to light the fire.

Ogre: Well, do so.

5th Prince: If we had a box of matches. . . .

Ogre: Matches! What are you talking about?
Matches won't be invented for the next seven
hundred years.

1st Prince: What can we do then, we are starv-
ing with hunger.

Ogre: Let ye blow a breath upon a coal under
the ashes, and bring in small sticks from the
wood.

2nd Prince: (Blowing.) The ashes are choking
me.

Ogre: Very good. Then you'll put no delay
on me, waiting till you'll cook your supper.

3rd Prince: Where can we get it then ?

Ogre: You'll go without it, as you were too
helpless to catch it, or to dress it, there's no one
will force you to eat it.

4th Prince: If there is nothing for us to eat we
had best pass the time in sleep.

5th Prince: I am all covered with ashes and
dirt. (To Ogre.) Please, where can I find a
towel and a piece of soap ?

Ogre: Soap! Is it bewitched ye are or de-
mented in the head? Did ever anyone hear of
soap unless of a Saturday night ? Letting on to be

The Jester 249

as dainty and as useless as those young princes
beyond, that are kept closed up in a tower of glass.
Come on now. If there is no food that suits you,
leave it. It is time for us to get to work.

1st Prince: But it is bed-time.

Ogre: Your bed-time is the time when I have
no more use for you. Don't you know I have
made a plan? What was it I sent you for, spying
out that place of the young princes? Wasn't it
to see where is it that treasure is kept, the golden-
handled sword of Justice that is used by the
Guardian when he turns Judge.

2nd Prince: That is kept in the Courthouse.

Ogre: That's right ... in what part of it?

3rd Prince: What do you want it for?

Ogre: I have it in my mind this long time to
get and to keep it in my cave under ground, along
with the rest of my treasures that are in charge of
my two enchanted cats. I have had near enough
of grubbing for gold with a pick in the clefts and
crannies of the earth. It is time for me to find
some rest, and get into my hand what is ready
worked and smelted and purified. We are going
to that Courthouse to-night. If we cannot get in
at the door, I will put ye in at the window and ye
can open the door to myself. I will find out
where the sword is, and away with us, and it in
my hand.

4th Prince: But that would be stealing.

Ogre: What else would it be?

250 The Jester

4th Prince: But that is wrong. It is against
the law.

Ogre: The law! That is the Judge's trade.
Breaking it is mine.

5th Prince: Ask him for it and maybe he will
give it to you, he is so kind.

Ogre: I'll take no charity! What I get 111
earn by taking it. I would feel no pleasure it
being given to me, any more than a huntsman
would take pleasure being made a present of a
dead fox, in place of getting a run across country
after it. Come on now! We'll have the moon
wasted. We'll hardly get there before the dawn
of day.

ist Prince: Whatever time you get there the
Guardian will be awake. There is a cock of Den-
mark perched on the curtain rod of his bed,
specially to waken him if there is any stir.

Ogre: There is, is there? What a fool you
think me to be. Do you see that pot?

2nd Prince: We do see it.

Ogre: Look what there is in it.

3rd Prince: Nothing but a few bare bones.

Ogre: Well, that is all that is left of the Judge's
cock of Denmark, that was brought to me awhile
ago by a fox that is my messenger, and that I have
boiled and ate and devoured.

All the Princes: O! O! O!

Ogre: (Cracking his whip.) He was boiled in
the little pot. Come on now and lead the way, or

The Jester 251

I give you my word it is in the big pot your own
bones will be making broth for my breakfast in the
morning ! (Cracks whip.} Now. right about face !
Quick march!

CURTAIN

SCENE II

(The Winter Garden, evening. The Servant settling
benches and a table.')

Guardian: (Coming in.} Are the Dowager
Messengers come ? They are late.

Servant: They are come. They are at the
looking-glasses settling themselves.

Guardian: As soon as they are ready you will
call in the Princes for their examination before
them, and their tasks.

Servant: I will.

Guardian: The Messengers will have a good
report to bring back of them. They have come
to be good scholars, in poetry, in music, in lan-
guages, in history, in numbers and all sorts. The
old Queen-Godmother will be well satisfied with
their report.

Servant: She might and she might not.

Guardian: They would be hard to please if they
are not well pleased with the lads, as to learning
and as to manners and behaviour.

Servant: Maybe so. Maybe so. There are
strange things in the world.

Guardian: You're in bad humour, my poor
252

The Jester 253

Gillie. Have you been quarrelling with the cook,
or did you get up on the wrong side of your bed?

Servant: There is times when it is hard not to
be in a bad humour.

Guardian: What are you grumbling and hint-
ing at?

Servant: There's times when it's hard to be-
lieve that witchcraft is gone out of the world.

Guardian: That is a thing that has been done
away with in this Island through my government,
and through enlightenment and through learning.

Servant: Maybe so. Maybe so.

Guardian: I suppose a three-legged chicken has
come out of the shell, or a magpie has come before
you in your path? Or maybe some token in the
stars?

Servant: It would take more than that to put
me astray.

Guardian: Whatever it is you had best tell it out .

Servant: To see lads of princes, sons of kings,
and the makings of kings, that were mannerly and
well behaved and as civil as a child a few hours
ago, to be sitting in a corner at one time as if in
dread of the light, and tricking and fooling and
grabbing at other times.

Guardian: Oh, is that all! The poor lads.
They're out of their habits because of their God-
mother's Messengers coming. They are making
merry and funning, thinking there might be
messages for them or presents.

254 The Jester

Servant: Funning is natural. But blowing
their nose with their fingers is not natural.

Guardian: High spirits. Just to torment you
in their joy.

Servant: To get a bit of chalk, and to make
marks in the Hall of dancing, and to go playing
hop-scotch.

Guardian: High spirits, high spirits! I never
saw boys better behaved or more gentle or with
more sweetness of speech. I am thinking there is
not one among them but will earn the name of
Honey-mouth.

Servant: Have it your own way. But is it a
natural thing, I am asking, for the finger nails to
make great growth in one day?

Guardian: Stop, stop, be quiet. Here now
are the Dowager Messengers. (Two old ladies in
travelling costume appear; bowing low to them.)
You are welcome for the sake of her that sent you,
and for your own sakes.

1st Dowager Messenger: We are come from the
Court of the Godmother Queen, for news of the
Princes now in your charge;

She hopes they have manners, are minded well,
and never let run at large;

For she never has yet got over the fret, of their
five little cousins were swept away.

Guardian: Let your mind be at ease, for you'll
be well pleased with the youngsters you're going
to see to-day.

The Jester 255

They're learning the laws to speak and to pause —
may be orators then, or Parliament men.

2nd Dowager Messenger: Are they shielded
from harm ?

Guardian:

In my sheltering arm;

Do their work and their play in a mannerly way
And go holding their nose, and tipped on their

toes,

If they pass through a street, that they'll not soil
their feet.

2nd Dowager Messenger: And next to good
manners and next to good looks . . .

Guardian:
I know what you'll say . . . she asks news of

the cooks ;

I'm with her in putting them equal to btx>ks;
There's some rule by coaxing and some rule by

beating,
But my principle is, tempt them on with good

eating.

When everything's said, isn't Sparta as dead
As many a place never heard of black bread?
And as to a lad who a tartlet refuses, —
If Cato stewed parsnips he hated the Muses !

1st Dowager Messenger: And at meals are they
taught to behave as they ought ?

Guardian:

You'll be well satisfied and the Queen will have
pride,

256 The Jester

You will see every Prince use a fork with his

mince,

And eating his peas like Alcibiades,
Who would sooner go mute than play on the flute
Lest it made him grimace and contorted his face.

1st Dowager Messenger: Oh, all that you say
delights us to-day !

We'll have good news to bring of these sons of a
king.

Servant: Here they are now coming.

(Wrenboys in Princes' clothes come in
awkwardly.}

Guardian:

Now put out a chair.
Where these ladies may hear.
Come over, my boys . . . (Now what is that

noise?)
Come here, take your places, and show us your

faces,

And say out your task as these ladies will ask.
I would wish them to know how you say Parlez-

vous,

And I'd like you to speak in original Greek
And make numeration, and add up valuation ;
But to lead you with ease and on by degrees
In case you are shy in the visitors' eye
I will let you recite, as you easily might,
The kings of that Island that no longer are silent
But ask recognition and to take a position —
(Though if stories are true they ran about blue,

The Jester 257

While we in Hy-Brasil wore our silks to a frazzle — )
So the rhymes you may say that I heard you to-day ;
And the opening will fall on the youngest of all.

Servant: Let you stand up now and do as you
are bid. (Touches 5th Wrenboy)

Guardian: Go on, my child, say out your lesson.
William the First as the Conqueror known. . . .
(Boy puts finger in mouth and hangs his head.)

Ah, he is shy. Don't be affrighted, go on now;
don't you remember it?

5th Wrenboy: I do not.

Guardian: Try it again now. You said it off
quite well this morning.

5th Wrenboy: It fails me.

Guardian: Now I will give you a start; "Wil-
liam the First as the Conqueror known,

At the Battle of Hastings ascended the
throne . . . " Say that now.

5th Wrenboy: (Nudging 4th.) Let you word it.

4th Wrenboy: (To Guardian.) Let you word it
again, sir.

Guardian: "William the First as the Con-
queror known."

4th Wrenboy: William the First as the conger-
eel known. . . .

Guardian: What is that? You would not do
it to vex me! Gillie is maybe right. There is
something strange. . . . (To another) You
may try now. Go on to the next verse. "Wil-
liam called Rufus from having red hair." . . .
17

258 The Jester

(He does not answer.} Say it anyone who
knows. . . U;

3rd Wrenboy: (Putting up his hand.} I know
a man that has red hair!

All the Wrenboys: (Cheerfully.} So do I! So
do I!

2nd Wrenboy: He lives in the wood beyond!
He is no way good! He is an Ogre, a
Grugach. . . .

1st Wrenboy: He can turn himself into the
shape of a beast, or he can change his face at any
time; sometimes he'll be that wicked you would
think he was a wolf; he would skin you with his
cat-o' -nine-tails !

Guardian: What gibberish are you talking?

2nd Wrenboy: He goes working underground
to get gold!

3rd Wrenboy: It is minded by enchanted
cats!

4th Wrenboy: They would tear in bits anyone
that would find itl

Guardian: Now take care, lads, this is carry-
ing a joke too far. I was wrong to begin with
that silly history. Tell me out now the parts of
speech.

"A noun's the name of anything
As school or garden, hoop or swing."

5th Wrenboy: An owl's the name of any-
thing. . . .

Guardian: A noun.

The Jester 259

5th Wrenboy: An owl.

Guardian: Don't pretend you don't know it.

5th Wrenboy: I do know it. I know an owl
that sits in the cleft of the hollow sycamore and
eats its fill of mice, till it can hardly put a stir
out of itself.

Guardian: I do wish you would stop talking
nonsense.

1st Wrenboy: It is not, but sense. It devoured
ere yesterday a whole fleet of young rats.

2nd Wrenboy: It's as wise as King Solomon.

Guardian: Gillie was right. There is surely
something gone wrong in their heads.

2nd Wrenboy: Go out yourself and you'll see are
we wrong in the head ! Inside in the old sycamore
he is sitting through the daylight.

1st Dowager Messenger: There is something
gone wrong in somebody's head.

2nd Dowager Messenger: (Tapping her fore-
head.) The poor Guardian; he is too long past
his youth. It is well we came to look how things
were going before it is too late.

ist Dowager Messenger: Ask them to say
something they do know.

Guardian: Here, you're good at arithmetic,
say now your numbers.

ist Wrenboy: Twelve coppers make a shilling.
I never handled more than that.

Guardian: (Angrily.) Well, do as the lady
said, tell us something you do know.

260 The Jester

2nd Wrenboy: (Standing up, excited.) I know
the way to make bird-lime, steeping willow rods in
the stream. . . .

3rd Wrenboy: I know how to use my fists; I
knocked a tinker bigger than myself.

4th Wrenboy: I am the best at wrestling. I
knocked himself. (Pointing at jrd.)

5th Wrenboy: I that can skin a fawn after
catching him running !

2nd Dowager Messenger. Where now did you
get that learning?

5th Wrenboy: Here and1 there, rambling the
woods, sleeping out at night. I would never
starve in any place where grass grows !

1st Dowager Messenger: This is worse than
neglect. The poor old Guardian the Queen put
her trust in must be in his dotage.

Guardian: (Hastily.) Here, there is at least one
thing you will not fail in. Take the harp (hands
it to the 1st Wrenboy) and draw out of it sweet
sounds. (To Dowager Messengers.) He can play
a tune so sweet it has been known to send all the
hearers into a sound sleep. Here now, touch the
strings with all your skill.

(ist Wrenboy bangs harp making a crash.)

2nd Dowager Messenger: (With hands to ears.)
Mercy ! Our poor ears !

ist Dowager Messenger: That is the poorest
music we have ever heard.

2nd Dowager Messenger: That sound would

The Jester 261

send no one into their sleep. It would be more
likely to send them into Bedlam.

1st Dowager Messenger: Whatever they knew
last year, they have forgotten it all now.

Guardian: (Weeping into his handkerchief.) I
don't know what has come upon them! At
noon they were the most charming lads in the
whole world. Their memory seems to have left
them!

2nd Dowager Messenger: It is as if another
memory had come to them. They did not learn
those wild tricks shut up in the garden.

Servant: (To Boys.) Can't ye behave nice
and not ugly? (To Guardian.) You would not
believe me a while ago. I said and I say still
there is enchantment on them, and spells.

Guardian: Oh, I would be sorry to think such
a thing. But they never went on this way in
their greenest youth.

2nd Dowager Messenger: If there is a spell
upon them what way can it be taken off?

Servant: It is what I always heard, that to
make a rod of iron red in the fire, and to burn the
enchantment out of them is the only way.

Guardian: Oh, boys, do you hear that! You
would not like to be burned with a red hot rod!
Say out now what at all is the matter with you?
What is it you feel within you that is putting you
from your gentle ways?

1st Wrenboy: The thing that I feel in me is

262 The Jester

hunger. The thing I would wish to feel inside
me is a good fistful of food.

ist Dowager Messenger: They have been
starved and stinted! It would kill their God-
mother on the moment if she was aware of that !

Guardian: It is a part of their playgame.
They have everything they ask.

2nd Wrenboy: I did not eat a farthing's worth
since yesterday.

3rd Wrenboy: My teeth are rusty with the want
of food !

4th Wrenboy: I want some dinner!

5th Wrenboy: We want something to eat !

Guardian: Give them whatever you have ready
for them, Gillie.

Servant: (Giving the plates) Here is the sup-
per ye gave orders for this morning.

ist Wrenboy: What is it at all?

Servant: It is your choice thing. Jellies and
grapes from Spain.

2nd Wrenboy: (Pushing away grapes.) Berries !
I thought to get better than berries from the bush.

3rd Wrenboy: There's not much satisfaction in
berries !

4th Wrenboy: If it was a pig's foot now; or as
much as a potato with a bit of dripping.

5th Wrenboy: (Looking at jelly.} What now
is this? It has like the appearance of frog
spawn.

ist Wrenboy: Or the leavings of a fallen star.

The Jester 263

5th Wrenboy: Shivering it is and shaking. It's
not natural! (Drops his plate,)

4th Wrenboy: There is nothing here to satisfy
our need.

2nd Dowager Messenger: I am nearly sorry for
them, poor youngsters. When they were but little
toddlers they never behaved like that at home.

3rd Wrenboy: It's the starvingest place ever I
was in !

ist Dowager Messenger: There must be some-
thing in what they say. They would not ask for
food if they were not in need of it. And the
Guardian making so much talk about his table and
his cooks. We cannot go home and report that
they have no learning and no food.

2nd Dowager Messenger: As to learning I don't
mind. But as to food, I would not wish to leave
them without it for the night. They might be as
small as cats in the morning.

Guardian: They are dreaming when they say
they are in want of food.

ist Dowager Messenger: It is a dream that will
waken up their Godmother.

Servant: Look ma'am, at the table behind you,
and you will see is this a scarce house! That is
what is set out for yourselves, ma'am, lobsters
from Aughanish! A fat turkey from the barley
gardens ! A spiced and larded sucking pig ! Cakes
and sweets and all sorts! It is not the want of
provision was ever brought against us up to this!

264 The Jester

2nd Dowager Messenger: If all this is for us, we
would sooner give it up to those poor children.

(To Wrenboy s.) Here, my dears, we will not
eat while you are in want of food. We will give it
all to you.

ist Wrenboy: Is it that we can have what is on
that table?

2nd Dowager Messenger: You may, and wel-
come.

ist Wrenboy: (With a shout.) Do you hear
that news! Come on now. Take your chance!
I'll have the first start! Skib scab! Hip, hip,
hooray !

(They rush at table and upset it flinging
themselves on the food.)

CURTAIN

ACT III

265

ACT III

The Hall of Justice. It is nearly dawn. The last
of the Princes is getting in through the window.
They are wearing their masks.

Ogre: (Outside door to left.} Open now the
door for myself.

ist Prince: No, we will get rid of him now.
Let the Grugach stay outside.

2nd Prince: That will be best. He cannot
break the bars of this door, or get round over the
high wall to the door on the other side.

3rd Prince: I am sore with the blows he put on
us, driving us before him through the wood.

4th Prince: Let us call to the Guardian, and let
him deal with him. He can bring his foot soldiers
and his guns.

5th Prince: A villain that Ogre is and a thief,
wanting to steal away the golden-handled sword.
But we would not tell him where it was, and he
never will find it under the step of the Judge's
chair. (Lifts top of step, takes out sword and puts it
back again.)

Ogre: (Outside.) Are ye going to open the
door?

267

268 The Jester

ist Prince: It is a great thing to have that
strong door between us.

2nd Prince: Take care would he break it in.

3rd Prince: No fear. It would make too much
noise. It would bring every person in the house
running.

4th Prince: Let us go quick and call the
Guardian.

5th Prince: What will he say seeing us in these
clothes? He will be vexed with us.

ist Prince: It was folly of us running away.
But he will forgive us, knowing it will teach us
better sense.

2nd Prince: Come to him then, I don't mind
what he will do to us so long as we are safe from
the terrible Grugach of an Ogre. (All go to right
door, it opens and Ogre bursts in.)

Ogre: Ye thought to deceive me did ye? Ye
thought to bar me out and to keep me out ? And
I after minding you and caring you these seven
years!

3rd Prince: What way did you get in?

Ogre: It's easy for me to get in any place. If
I had a mind I could turn into a house fly and come
through the lockhole of the door. It's much if I
don't change the whole lot of ye into small birds,
and myself to a hawk going through you ! Or, into
frightened mice, and I myself into a starving cat !
It's much if I don't skin you with this whip, and
grind your bones as fine as rape seed !

The Jester 269

4th Prince: I will call for help ! (Tries to shout.}

Ogre: (Putting hand over his mouth and lifting
whip.} Shout now and welcome, and it is bare
bones will be left of you! If it wasn't that I need
you to search out the golden-handled sword for me
I'd throttle the whole of ye as easy as I'd squeeze
an egg! Come on now! Show me where the
treasure is hid.

5th Prince: How would we know?

Ogre: Didn't I send ye spying it out, and if it
fails ye to make it out, I'll boil and bake you!

1st Prince: (Looking about and pointing to end
of room.) It might be there.

Ogre: What way would it be on the bare floor?
Search it out.

2nd Prince: (Looking under a bench.} It might
be here.

Ogre: It is not there.

jrd Prince: (Looking up chimney.} This would
be a good hiding-place.

Ogre: (Looks up.} There is nothing in it, only
an old nest of a jackdaw, — a bundle of bare twigs.
Trying to deceive me you are and to lead me
astray.

4th Prince: It might be on the shelf.

Ogre: Stop your chat unless you have some-
thing worth saying.

5th Prince: (Sitting down on step under which
sword is hidden.} Are you certain there is any
treasure at all?

270 The Jester

Ogre: You are humbugging and making a fool
of me! (Lashes whip and seizes him.) Get up
now out of that! (Drags him up and taps board.}
There is a hollow sort of a sound. . . . That is
a sort of place where a treasure might be hid.
(Drags up board.} I see something shining.
(Pulls out sword.} Oh, it is a lovely sword! And
the handle of pure gold. The best I ever seen !

ist Prince: (To the others.} I'll make a run now
and call out and awaken all in the house ! (Is going
towards door.}

Ogre: (Seizing him} You'd make your escape
would you?

ist Prince: (Calling out.} Ring the big bell,
ring the bell ! I forgot it till now.

(They pull a bell-rope and bell is heard

clanging.}

Ogre: (Rushing at them as they ring it} I'll
stop that!

(Voices are heard at door to right. Ogre

rushes to other door.}

2nd Prince: I'll get the sword from him.
(Snatches it away as Ogre is rushing at him. Servant
and Guardian come in}

Guardian: What is going on! (Blows a
whistle.} Here, soldiers of the guard!

(Feet are heard marching and bugle blowing at
left door. Ogre rapidly slips off his mask,
and appears as a harmless old man.}
Guardian: Thieves! Robbers! Burglars!

The Jester 271

Here, soldiers, surround the place; who are these
ruffians? Murder! Robbery! Fire!
(Two soldiers come in.}

Servant: They are the very same youngsters
were at our door this morning, doing their play;
those Wrenboys !

Guardian: They are thieves. There is one
of them bringing away my gold-handled sword.
(He and Servant seize sword.}

Ogre: (Coming forward and bowing low.} It
is time for you to come, your honour my lordship !
I am proud to see you coming! It was I myself
that rang the bell and that called and awakened
you, where I would not like to see the place robbed
and left bare by these scum of the world!

All the Princes: Oh! Oh! Oh!

Guardian: What have you to do with it?
Where do you come from?

Ogre: An honest poor man I am. . . .

Servant: You have a queer wild sort of a dress.

Ogre: Making a living I do be, dressing up as a
hobgoblin and a bogey man to get an odd copper
from a mother here and there, would be wishful to
frighten a stubborn child from bawling or from
tricks. Passing the door I was, and hearing a
noise I looked in, and these young villains were
after rising a board and taking out that sword you
seen in their hands. It is then that I made a
clamour with the bell.

(The Princes laugh.)

272 The Jester

Guardian: Who are they at all?

Ogre: It is I myself say it; they are the terror
of the whole district.

ist Prince: You may save your breath and
stop that talk. This gentleman knows us well.
He knows us and will recognise us.

Guardian: I do recognise you. I saw you
but yesterday.

2nd Prince: There now, what do you say?

Guardian: You are those vagabond Wrenboys
that came tricking and begging to my gate.

Princes: Oh! Oh! Oh!1

Ogre: That's it! Spying round they were!
Thinking to do a robbery ! Robbery they're after
doing !

3rd Prince: We were doing no such thing !

Guardian: You were! I stopped you making
off with my sword of Justice.

Ogre: If it wasn't for me hindering them they
would have it swept.

Guardian: That was very honest of you.

4th Prince: (Rushing at Ogre.} It is you that
are a rogue and a thief!

Other Princes: Throw him down while we have
the chance. (They surround him.)

Guardian: Silence! Don't make that dis-
turbance! I felt a suspicion yesterday the first
time I saw your faces there was villainy hidden
beneath the dust that was on your cheeks.

4th Prince: Listen to us, listen !

The Jester 273

Guardian: And whatever I thought then, you
are seventeen times more wicked looking now!
And the very scum of the roads !

5th Prince: Oh, have you forgotten your
nurslings!

Guardian: It is well you reminded me of them.
(To Servant.} Go now and bring the young
Princes here till they will see justice done! They
are maybe gone a bit wild and foolish since yester-
day, put out by those Dowager Messengers. But
whatever they were at their worst, they are King
George compared with these !

1st Prince: You ww^listen!

Guardian: Must! What is that language!
That is a word was never said to me since I was
made the Queen's Chamberlain. Here! Put a
gag upon their mouths! (Soldiers do so, tying a
Itandkerchief on mouth of each.) Tie their hands
behind them with ropes. (This is done.) Rapscal-
lions ! Do they think to terrify and command me !
I that am not only Governor of the Island but am
Supreme Judge whenever I come into this Court.

Ogre: That is very good and very right ! Keep
the gag in their mouth! You wouldn't like to be
listening to the things they were saying a while
ago! They were giving out great impudence and
very disrespectful talk!

Guardian: Give me here my Judge's wig and
my gown! (Puts them on.) Where now are the
young Princes?

18

274 The Jester

Servant: They are coming now.

Guardian: It will be a great help in their edu-
cation seeing justice done by me, as straight as
was ever done by Aristides. Give me here that
book of punishments and rewards. I'll see what
is bad enough for these lads! (He consults book.)

Servant: Here now are the Princes.

(Wrenboys come in wearing Princes' clothes.}

ist Wrenboy: (To another.} Do you see who it
is that is in it?

2nd Wrenboy: It is the young Princes in our
clothes!

3rd Wrenboy: What in the world wide brought
them here? Believe me it was through some
villainy of the Grugach.

4th Wrenboy: What at all has happened?

5th Wrenboy: Go ask them what it was brought
them, or what they came doing.

ist Wrenboy: (To Princes.} What is it brought
you here so soon?

(Princes shake their heads.}

2nd Wrenboy: (Coming back.} There is a gag
on their mouths !

3rd Wrenboy: (Going and looking.} Their
hands are tied with a rope.

4th Wrenboy: They had not the wit to stand
against the Grugach ; it is not long till they were
brought to trouble.

5th Wrenboy: It was seventeen times worse
for them to be under him than for ourselves that

The Jester 275

was used to him, and to his cruelty and his
ways.

ist Wrenboy: It was bad enough for ourselves.
We were not built for roguery.

(The Dowager Messengers rushing in.)

Dowager Messengers: (Together.) What is
going on? What has happened?

Guardian: What you see before you has hap-
pened. Those young thieves came to try and to
rob the house. They were found by myself in the
very act of bringing away my golden -handled
sword! They were stopped by this honest man.
(Points to Ogre.)

ist Dowager Messenger: There would seem to
be a great deal of wickedness around this place !

Guardian: I'll put a stop to it! I'll use my
rights as Judge! To have that sort of villainy
running through the Island, it would come through
walls of glass or of marble, and lead away the
best.

2nd Dowager Messenger: There must be some-
thing gone wrong in the stars, our own young
princes having gone wild out of measure, and
these young vagabonds doing no less than house-
breaking ! It is hard to live !

Ogre: Indeed, ma'am, it would be a great bless-
ing to the world if all the boys in it could be born
grown up.

Guardian: (Sighing.) I, myself, am beginning
to have that same opinion.

276 The Jester

ist Dowager Messenger: And so am I myself.
Young men have strength and beauty, and old
men have knowledge and wisdom, but as to boys!
After what we saw a while ago in the supper room!

Servant: The Court is about to sit! Take
your places!

(Wreriboys make for the dock and Princes
the jury-box.)

Guardian: What do you mean prisoners, going
up there, that is the place for honourable men!
For a jury! It is here in the criminals' dock your
place is.

Servant: (To Wrenboys.) Oh, that is the
wrong place you're in. That is for the wicked and
the poor that are brought to be tried and con-
demned.

ist Wrenboy: It is a place the like of that I was
put one time I was charged before a magistrate
for snaring rabbits.

Servant: Silence in the Court! The Judge is
about to speak !

Guardian: (Reading out of book.)
It's laid down in a clause of the Cretian laws,
That were put through a filter by Solon,
That for theft the first time, though a capital

crime

A criminal may keep his poll on.
Though (consults another book) some jurists believe
That a wretch who can thieve,
Has earned a full stop, not a colon.

The Jester 277

Ogre: That was said by a better than Solon.

Guardian:

And the book says in sum, to cut off the left thumb,
May be penalty enough for a warning;
Though (looks at another book) the commentors say
That one let off that way
Will be thieving again before morning.

Ogre: So he will, and the jury suborning.

Guardian:
For the second offence, as the crime's more

immense,

Take the thumb off the right hand instead;
And the third time he'll steal, without any appeal,
The hangman's to whip off his head.

Ogre:

Very right to do so, for a thief as we know,
Isn't likely to steal when he's dead.

2nd Dowager Messenger:

You won't order the worst, as this crime is the first,
It's a pity if they have to swing.

Guardian:

In the Commentors' sense, a primal offence
Is as much an impossible thing
As a stream without source, a blow struck without

force,
Or leaves without roots in the spring.

Ogre: Or a catapult wanting a sling.

Guardian:

But although this case is proved on its face
To be what is called a priori

278 The Jester

I cannot refuse to consider the views

Of the amiable lady before me. (Bows to 2nd

Dowager Messenger.)
In compliance to her I am ready to err
On the side that she leans to, of mercy,
For she has a kind tongue, and the prisoners are

young;

But that they may not live to curse me,
I give out my decree, the left thumb shall be
Kept in Court till the next time they'll come.
And now if you please let whoever agrees
With my pledge turn down his own thumb.

ist Dowager Messenger: It is very just and
right. (Turns down hers.)

Ogre: You're letting them off too easy.
They're a bad example to the world. But to take
the thumb off them is better than nothing!
(Turns down both his thumbs.)

Guardian: (To Wrenboys.) Well, my dear
pupils, I don't see you turn down your thumbs.

ist Wrenboy: We cannot do it. (They cover
their faces with their hands.)

Ogre: Get on so. I never saw the work I'd
sooner do than checking youngsters !

Guardian: Where is the Executioner?

Servant: I sent seeking him a while ago, think-
ing he might be needed.

Guardian: Bring him in.

Servant: He is not in it. There was so little
business for him this long time under your own

The Jester 279

peaceable rule, that he is after leaving us, and
taking a job in a slaughter house out in foreign.

2nd Dowager Messenger: Maybe that is a token
we should let them off.

Ogre: (Briskly.} I am willing to be useful;
give me here a knife or a hatchet !

Servant: (To Ogre.} You need not be pushing
yourself forward. (To Guardian.} There is a
stranger of an Executioner chanced to be passing
the road, just as I sent out, and he looking for
work. He said he would do the job for a four-
penny bit and his dinner, that he is sitting down
to now.

Guardian: (Sitting up straight and taking up
sword.)
Bring him in quick. It often seems a curious

thing that I,
Who in my ordinary clothes would hardly hurt a

%,

Hold to the rigour of the law when I put on gown

and wig,

As if for mere humanity I didn't care a fig.
For once I'm seated on the bench I do not shrink

or flinch
From the reddest laws of Draco, or the practice

of Judge Lynch.
Servant: (At door.) Here he is now.

(Jester comes in, disguised as Executioner, a

long cloak with hood over his head}
Guardian: Here is the sword (hands it to him

280 The Jester

and reads), "In case of the first act of theft the
left thumb is to be struck off." There are the
criminals before you. That is what you have to do.

Jester: (Taking the sword.) Stretch out your
hands! There is hurry on me. I was sitting at
the dinner I engaged for. I was called away
from the first mouthful, and I would wish to go
back to the second mouthful that is getting cold.

Guardian: (Relenting.) Maybe now the fright
would be enough to keep them from crimes from
this out. They are but young.

Jester: (To Princes.) Don't be keeping me
waiting! Put out now your hands. (They shake
their heads.)

Servant: They cannot do that, being bound.

Jester: If you will not stretch out your hands
when I ask you, I will strike off your heads without
asking! (Flourishes sword.)

Guardian: (Standing up.) I did not empower
you to go so far as that! It is without my
authority!

Jester: You have given over the power of the
law to the power of the sword. It must take its
way!

Guardian: I will not give in to that! I have
all authority here!

Jester: If you grow wicked with the Judge's
wig on your head, so do I with this sword in my
hand! You called me in to do a certain busi-
ness and I am going to do it! I am not going

The Jester 281

to get a bad name put on me for breach of con-
tract! If a labourer is given piece work cutting
thistles with a hook he is given leave to do it, or
a rat catcher doing away with vermin in the same
way! He is not bid after his trouble to let them
go loose out of his bag ! And why would an Exe-
cutioner that is higher again in the profession be
checked. Isn't my pride in my work the same as
theirs? And along with that, let me tell you I
belong to a Trades Union !

(Guardian moans and covers his face.)
(To the Princes.) Kneel down now! Where you
kept me so long waiting and that the Judge at-
tempted to interfere with me, I have my mind
made up to make an end of you! (Holds up
sword.)

ist Wrenboy: (Rushing forward and putting his
arms about Prince.) You must not touch him!
These lads never did any harm !

2nd Wrenboy: (Protecting a Prince.) It is we
ourselves are to be punished if anyone must be
punished.

3rd Wrenboy: They are innocent whoever is to
blame.

Jester: Take their place so ! Someone must be
put an end to.

(All the Wrenboy s kneel.)

ist Wrenboy: Here we are so. We changed
places with them for our own pleasure, thinking
to lead a prince's life, and if there is anyone must

282 The Jester

suffer by reason of that change let it be our-
selves.

Jester: I'll take off their gags so and let them
free.

(He cuts cords oj gags and hands, then throws
some dust over all boys as before saying):
• w::- Dust of Mullein leave the eyes
You made fail to recognise
Princes in their poor disguise;
Princes all, had men clear eyes !
(The Princes throw off their masks.)
ist Prince: It is all a mistake! Oh, Guardian,
don't you know now that we are your nurslings
and your wards! Look at the royal mark upon
our arm, that we brought with us into the world.
(They turn up sleeves and show their arms.)

2nd Dowager Messenger: I am satisfied without
looking at the royal sign. I have been looking at
their finger nails. Those other nails (pointing to
Wrenboys) have never been touched with a soapy
brush.

2nd Prince: It is strange you did not recognise
us. It was that Jester yesterday when we changed
out coats that threw a dust of disguise between
you and us.

ist Dowager Messenger: Was it that these lads
robbed you of your clothes ?
3rd Prince: Not at all.

4th Prince: We ourselves that were discon-
tented and wishful to change places with them.

The Jester 283

Guardian: A very foolish thing, and that I have
never read of in any of my histories.

5 th Prince: We were the first to wish the change.
It is we should be blamed.

5th Wreriboy: No, but put the blame on us!
The Wrenboys you seen yesterday.

Guardian: Ah, be quiet, how do I know who
you are, or if ever I saw you before! My poor
head is going round and round.

1st Wrenboy: Now do you know us! (All
recite "The Wren, the Wren, the King oj All Birds"
Give first verse.}

Guardian: (Stopping his ears.} Oh, stop it!
That makes my poor head worse again.

2nd Wrenboy: (Pulling up sleeve.} If you had
chanced to see our right arm you would recognise
us. We were not without bringing a mark into
the world with us, if it is not royal itself.
(Wrenboys strip their arms.}

ist Dowager Messenger: What is he talking
about ? (Seizes arm and looks at it.}

2nd Dowager Messenger: It is the same mark as
is on the princes, the sign and token of a King !

ist Dowager Messenger: It is certain these must
be their five little royal cousins, that were stolen
away from the coast.

ist Wrenboy: If we were brought away it was
by that Grugach that has kept us in his service
through the years.

2nd Dowager Messenger: It is no wonder they

284 The Jester

took to one another. It was easy to know by the
way they behaved they had in them royal blood.
(The Boys turn to each other, the Ogre is
slipping out.}

Jester: (Throwing off his cloak and showing his
green ragged clothes.') Stop where you are!

Ogre: Do your best ! You cannot hinder me !
I have spells could change the whole of ye to a
cairn of grey stones ! (Makes signs with his hands. )

Jester: (In a terrible voice.} Are you thinking
to try your spells against mine?

Ogre: (Trembling and falling on his knees.)
Oh, spare me! Hold your hand! Do not use
against me your spells of life and death ! I know
you now! I know you well through your ragged
dress! What are my spells beside yours? You
the great Master of all magic and all enchantments,
Manannan, Son of the Sea !

Jester: Yes, I am Manannan, that men are
apt to call a Jester and a Fool, and a Disturber,
and a Mischief-maker, upsetting the order of the
world and making confusion in its order and its
ways. (Recites or sings.)

For when I see a master
Hold back his hireling's fee
I shake my pepper castor
Into his sweetened tea !

And when I see a plan make
The Birds that watch us frown,

The Jester 285

I come and toss the pancake
And turn it upside down !

In this I follow after
Lycurgus who was wise ;
To the little god of laughter
I make my sacrifice !

And now here is my word of command ! Everyone
into his right place !

Ogre: Spare me! Let me go this time!

Jester: Go out now ! I will not bring a blemish
on this sword by striking off your ugly head. But
as you have been through seven years an enemy
to these young boys, keeping them in ignorance
and dirt, they that are sons of a king, I cross and
command you to go groping through holes and dirt
and darkness through three times seven years in
the shape of a rat, with every boy, high or low,
gentle or simple, your pursuer and your enemy.
And along with that I would recommend you to
keep out of the way of your own enchanted cats !
(Ogre gives a squeal and creeps away on all fours.)

Guardian: I think I will give up business and
go back to my old trade of Chamberlain and of
shutting out draughts from the Court. The
weight of years is coming on me, and it is time for
me to set my mind to some quiet path.

ist Dowager Messenger: Come home with us
so, and help us to attend to our cats, that they will
be able to destroy the rats of the world.

286 The Jester

2nd Dowager Messenger: (To Princes.) It is
best for you come to your Godmother's Court, as
your Guardian is showing the way.

ist Prince: We may come and give news of
our doings at the end of a year and a day.

But now we will go with our comrades to learn
their work and their play.

2nd Prince: For lying on silken cushions, or
stretched on a feathery bed.

We would long again for the path by the lake,
and the wild swans overhead.

^rd Prince: Till we'll i harden our bodies
with wrestling and get courage to stand in a
fight.

4th Prince: And not to be blind in the woods
or in dread of the darkness of night.

ist Wrenboy: And we who are ignorant block-
heads, and never were reared to know

The art of the languaged poets, it's along with
you we will go.

$th Prince: Come show us the wisdom of
woods, and the way to outrun the wild deer,

Till we'll harden our minds with courage, and
be masters of hardship and fear.

2nd Wrenboy: But you are candles of know-
ledge, and we'll give you no ease or peace,

Till you'll learn us manners and music, and
news of the Wars of Greece.

ist Prince: Come on, we will help one another,
and going together we'll find,

The Jester 287

Joy with those great companions, Earth, Water,
Fire, and Wind. (They join hands.)

Jester: It's likely you'll do great actions, for
there is an ancient word,

That comradeship is better than the parting of
the sword,

And that if ever two natures should join and
grow into one,

They will do more together than the world has
ever done.

So now I've ended my business, and I'll go, for
my road is long,

But be sure the Jester will find you out, if ever
things go wrong !

(He goes off singing.)
And so I follow after
Lycurgus who was wise ;
To the little god of laughter
I pay my sacrifice !

CURTAIN

NOTES FOR THE JESTER

I was asked one Christmas by a little schoolboy to
write a play that could be acted at school ; and in look-
ing for a subject my memory went back to a story
I had read in childhood called "The Discontented
Children," where, though I forget its incidents, the
gamekeeper's children changed places for a while
with the children of the Squire, and I thought I might
write something on these lines. But my mind soon
went miching as our people (and Shakespeare) would
say, and broke through the English hedges into the
unbounded wonder-world. Yet it did not quite run
out of reach of human types, for having found some
almost illegible notes, I see that at the first appearance
of Manannan I had put in brackets the initials
"G.B.S. " And looking now at the story of that
Great Jester, in the history of the ancient gods, I see
that for all his quips and mischief and "tricks and
wonders," he came when he was needed to the help
of Finn and the Fianna, and gave good teaching to
the boy-hero, Cuchulain; and I read also that "all the
food he would use would be a vessel of sour milk or a
few crab-apples. And there never was any music
sweeter than the music he used to be playing."

I have without leave borrowed a phrase from "The
Candle of Vision," written by my liberal fellow-

288

The Jester 289

countryman, A. E., where he says, "I felt at times as
one raised from the dead, made virginal and pure,
who renews exquisite intimacies with the divine com-
panions, with Earth, Water, Air, and Fire." And I
think he will forgive me for quoting another passage
now from the same book, for I think it must have been
in my mind when I wrote of my Wrenboys: "The
lands of Immortal Youth which flush with magic the
dreams of childhood, for most sink soon below far
horizons and do not again arise. For around childhood
gather the wizards of the darkness and they baptize it
and change its imagination of itself, as in the Arabian
tales of enchantment men were changed by sorcerers
who cried, 'Be thou beast or bird.' So ... is the
imagination of life about itself changed and one will
think he is a worm in the sight of Heaven, he who is
but a god in exile. . . . What palaces they were
born in, what dominions they are rightly heir to, are
concealed from them as in the fairy tale the stolen
prince lives obscurely among the swineherd. Yet at
times men do not remember, in dreams or in the deeps
of sleep, they still wear sceptre and diadem and par-
take of the banquet of the gods."

The Wrenboys still come to our door at Coole on
St. Stephen's Day, as they used in my childhood to
come to Roxborough, but it is in our bargain that the
wren itself must be symbolic, unmolested, no longer
killed in vengeance for that one in the olden times
that awakened the sentinels of the enemy Danes by
pecking at crumbs on a drum. And, indeed, these
last two or three years the rhymes concerning that

290 The Jester

old history have been lessened, and their place taken
by "The Soldiers Song."

I think the staging of the play is easy. The Ogre's
hut may be but a shallow front scene, a curtain that
can be drawn away. The masks are such as might
be used by Wrenboys, little paper ones, such as one
finds in a Christmas cracker, held on with a bit of
elastic, and would help to get the change into the eyes
of the audience, which Manannan's Mullein-dust may
not have reached.

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Uk )t

Jt Selection from the
Catalogue of

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Complete Catalogue* sent
on application

Three Plays

By

A. A. Milne

Mr. Milne is one of the few English play-
wrights enjoying the distinction of having their
plays successfully produced both in London and
New York, and of these few he is undoubtedly
the most popular. England and America alike
have warmly welcomed the plays in this volume,
The Dover Road, The Great Broioppf and The
Truth About Blayds, Of the latter the N. Y,
Evening Post says: " It is a real comedy. The
sparkling but unlabored dialogue, the deft and
vital sketches of character, the strokes of keen
but not unkindly satire, the essential veracity of
the picture and the freshness of it all met with
instant appreciation."

Many critics rank The Dover Road and The
Great Brozopp even higher than the one just
mentioned.

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York London

IF

By

Lord Dunsany

Try to imagine in your own life what might
have happened, if at some particular moment in
it, you had acted differently. This is the story
of a man who one day, years ago, missed the
8.15 to town, and of all, in consequence, he
missed besides. The scene of the play is mainly
laid in the east and concerns the powers of a
magic crystal which " undid " ten years of a
man's life and substituted ten other most amaz-
ing ones.

" Here is a blend of the strange and romantic
with the commonplace and banal fashioned with
masterly skill and with rich humor. The reader
will peruse with delight and wait with impatience
for the theatre manager to stage it."

Philadelphia Public Ledger.

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York London

The Supernatural in
Modern English Fiction

By

Dorothy Scarborough

In a style brilliant and incisive, the author
has written a book that, in these days
when the occult is receiving so much serious
attention, should appeal not only to those
interested in literary history, but, to all
who have faith that there are forces about
us, as yet imperfectly explored, it is true,
that partake of the supernatural. While
paying tribute to the convincing achieve-
ments in this division of fiction the author
has been quick to detect the literary char-
latan and to expose his lack of sincerity
with her keen comments.

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York London

Seven Short Plays

noJbi? fi&s%n'i im&oM

Lady Gregory

Author of "New Comedies," "Our Irish Theatre," etc.
72°.

The plays in this volume are the following:
Spreading the Newst Hyacinth Halvey, The
Rising of the Moon, The Jackdaw, The Work*-
house Ward, The Travelling Man, The Gaol Gate,
The volume also contains music for the songs in
the plays and notes explaining the conception of
the plays.

Among the three great exponents of the
modern Celtic movement hi Ireland, Lady
Gregory holds an unusual place. It is she from
whom came the chief historical impulse which
resulted hi the re-creation for the present
generation of the elemental poetry of early
Ireland, its wild disorders, its loves and hates —
all the passionate light and shadow of that fierce
and splendid race.

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York London

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES

COLLEGE LIBRARY

This book is due on the last date stamped below.

Book Slip-10m-5,'58(372.7s4)4280

UCLA-College Library

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L 005 697 613 7

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