Introduction.—This scene introduces the following characters:—Conn, the Shaughraun, a reckless, devil-may-care, true-hearted young vagabond, who is continually in a scrape from his desire to help a friend and his love of fun; his mother, Mrs. O'Kelly; his sweetheart, Moya Dolan, niece of the parish priest.
It is evening. Moya is alone in the kitchen. She has just put the kettle on the fire when Mrs. O'Kelly, Conn's mother, enters.
Mrs. O'K.—Is it yourself, Moya? I've come to see if that vagabond of mine has been around this way.
Moya.—Why should he be here, Mrs. O'Kelly? Hasn't he a home of his own?
Mrs. O'K.—The Shebeen is his home when he is not in jail. His father died o' drink, and Conn will go the same way.
Moya.—I thought your husband was drowned at sea?
Mrs. O'K.—And bless him, so he was.
Moya.—Well, that's a quare way o' dying o' drink.
Mrs. O'K.—The best of men he was, when he was sober—a betther never drhawed the breath o' life.
Moya.—But you say he never was sober.
Mrs. O'K.—Niver! An' Conn takes afther him!
Moya.—Mother, I'm afeared I shall take afther Conn.
Mrs. O'K.—Heaven forbid, and purtect you agin him! You a good dacent gurl, and desarve the best of husbands.
Moya.—Them's the only ones that gets the worst. More betoken yoursilf, Mrs. O'Kelly.
Mrs. O'K.—Conn niver did an honest day's work in his life—but dhrinkin' and fishin', an' shootin', an' sportin', and love-makin'.
Moya.—Sure, that's how the quality pass their lives.
Mrs. O'K.—That's it. A poor man that sports the sowl of a gintleman is called a blackguard.
(At this moment Conn appears in the doorway.)
Conn.—(At left.) Some one is talkin' about me! Ah, Moya, Darlin', come here. (Business as if he reached out his hands to Moya as he comes forward to meet her, and passes her over to his left so he seems to stand in center between Moya on left and Mrs. O'Kelly on right.) Was the old Mother thryin' to make little o' me? Don't you belave a word that comes out o' her! She's jealous o' me. (Laughing as he shakes his finger at his mother.) Yes, ye are! You're chokin' wid it this very minute! Oh, Moya darlin', she's jealous to see my two arms about ye. But she's proud o' me. Oh, she's proud o' me as an old him that's got a duck for a chicken. Howld your whist now Mother! Wipe your mouth and give me a kiss.
Mrs. O'K.—Oh, Conn, what have you been afther? The polls have been in the cabin today about ye. They say you stole Squire Foley's horse.
Conn.—Stole his horse! Sure the baste is safe and sound in his paddock this minute.
Mrs. O'K.—But he says you stole it for the day to go huntin'?
Conn.—Well, here's a purty thing, for a horse to run away wid a man's characther like this! Oh, Wurra! may I never die in sin, but this was the way of it. I was standin' by owld Foley's gate, whin I heard the cry of the hounds coming across the tail of the bog, an' there they wor, my dear, spread out like the tail of a paycock, an' the finest dog fox ye ever seen a sailin' ahead of thim up the boreen, and right across the churchyard. It was enough to raise the inhabitints out of the ground! Well, as I looked, who should come and put her head over the gate besoide me but the Squire's brown mare, small blame to her. Divil a word I said to her, nor she to me, for the hounds had lost their scent, we knew by their yelp and whine as they hunted among the gravestones. When, whist! the fox went by us. I leapt upon the gate, an' gave a shriek of a view-halloo to the whip; in a minute the pack caught the scent again, an' the whole field came roaring past.
The mare lost her head entoirely and tore at the gate. "Stop," says I, "ye divil!" an' I slipt a taste of a rope over her head an' into her mouth. Now mind the cunnin' of the baste, she was quiet in a minute. "Come home, now," ses I. "aisy!" an' I threw my leg across her.
Be jabbers! No sooner was I on her back than—Whoo! Holy Rocket! she was over the gate, an' tearin' afther the hounds loike mad. "Yoicks!" ses I; "Come back you thafe of the world, where you takin' me to?" as she carried me through the huntin' field, an' landed me by the soide of the masther of the hounds, Squire Foley himself.
He turned the color of his leather breeches.
"Mother o'Moses!" ses he, "Is that Conn, the Shaughraun, on my brown mare?"
"Bad luck to me!" ses I, "It's no one else!"
"You sthole my horse," ses the Squire.
"That's a lie!" ses I, "for it was your horse sthole me!"
Moya.—(Laughing.) And what did he say to that, Conn?
Conn.—I couldn't stop to hear, Moya, for just then we took a stone wall together an' I left him behind in the ditch.
Mrs. O'K.—You'll get a month in jail for this.
Conn.—Well, it was worth it.
BOUCICAULT.