Hyacinth:(Pointing to Fardy.) He will be witness.
Fardy:O! Mr. Halvey, I would not wish to do that. Get me off and I will say nothing.
Hyacinth:Sure you must. You will be put on oath in the court.
Fardy:I will not! I will not! All the world knows I don’t understand the nature of an oath!
Mr. Quirke:(Coming forward.) Is it blind ye all are?
Mrs. Delane:What are you talking about?
Mr. Quirke:Is it fools ye all are?
Miss Joyce:Speak for yourself.
Mr. Quirke:Is it idiots ye all are?
Sergeant:Mind who you’re talking to.
Mr. Quirke:(Seizing Hyacinth’s hands.) Can’t you see? Can’t you hear? Where are your wits? Was ever such a thing seen in this town?
Mrs. Delane:Say out what you have to say.
Mr. Quirke:A walking saint he is!
Mrs. Delane:Maybe so.
Mr. Quirke:The preserver of the poor! Talk of the holy martyrs! They are nothing at all to what he is! Will you look at him! To save that poor boy he is going! To take the blame on himself he is going! To say he himself did the robbery he is going! Before the magistrate he is going! To gaol he is going! Taking the blame on his own head! Putting the sin on his own shoulders! Letting on to have done a robbery! Telling a lie—that it may be forgiven him—to his own injury! Doing all that I tell you to save the character of a miserable slack lad, that rose in poverty.
(Murmur of admiration from all.)
Mr. Quirke:Now, what do you say?
Sergeant:(Pressing his hand.) Mr. Halvey, you have given us all a lesson. To please you, I will make no information against the boy. (Shakes him and helps him up.) I will put back the half-crown in the poor-box next Sunday. (To Fardy.) What have you to say to your benefactor?
Fardy:I’m obliged to you, Mr. Halvey. Youbehaved very decent to me, very decent indeed. I’ll never let a word be said against you if I live to be a hundred years.
Sergeant:(Wiping eyes with a blue handkerchief.) I will tell it at the meeting. It will be a great encouragement to them to build up their character. I’ll tell it to the priest and he taking the chair——
Hyacinth:O stop, will you——
Mr. Quirke:The chair. It’s in the chair he himself should be. It’s in a chair we will put him now. It’s to chair him through the streets we will. Sure he’ll be an example and a blessing to the whole of the town. (Seizes Halvey and seats him in chair.) Now, Sergeant, give a hand. Here, Fardy.
(They all lift the chair with Halvey in it, wildly protesting.)
Mr. Quirke:Come along now to the Courthouse. Three cheers for Hyacinth Halvey! Hip! hip! hoora!
(Cheers heard in the distance as the curtain drops.)
PersonsSergeant.Policeman X.Policeman B.A Ragged Man.
THE RISING OF THE MOON
Scene: Side of a quay in a seaport town. Some posts and chains. A large barrel. Enter three policemen. Moonlight.
(Sergeant, who is older than the others, crosses the stage to right and looks down steps. The others put down a pastepot and unroll a bundle of placards.)
Policeman B:I think this would be a good place to put up a notice. (He points to barrel.)
Policeman X:Better ask him. (Calls to Sergt.) Will this be a good place for a placard?
(No answer.)
Policeman B:Will we put up a notice here on the barrel? (No answer.)
Sergeant:There’s a flight of steps here that leads to the water. This is a place that should be minded well. If he got down here, his friends might have a boat to meet him; they might send it in here from outside.
Policeman B:Would the barrel be a good place to put a notice up?
Sergeant:It might; you can put it there.
(They paste the notice up.)
Sergeant:(Reading it.) Dark hair—dark eyes, smooth face, height five feet five—there’s not much to take hold of in that—It’s a pity I had no chance of seeing him before he broke out of gaol. They say he’s a wonder, that it’s he makes all the plans for the whole organization. There isn’t another man in Ireland would have broken gaol the way he did. He must have some friends among the gaolers.
Policeman B:A hundred pounds is little enough for the Government to offer for him. You may be sure any man in the force that takes him will get promotion.
Sergeant:I’ll mind this place myself. I wouldn’t wonder at all if he came this way. He might come slipping along there (points to side of quay), and his friends might be waiting for him there (points down steps), and once he got away it’s little chance we’d have of finding him; it’s maybe under a load of kelp he’d be in a fishing boat, and not one to help a married man that wants it to the reward.
Policeman X:And if we get him itself, nothing but abuse on our heads for it from the people, and maybe from our own relations.
Sergeant:Well, we have to do our duty in the force. Haven’t we the whole country depending on us to keep law and order? It’s those that are down would be up and those that are up would bedown, if it wasn’t for us. Well, hurry on, you have plenty of other places to placard yet, and come back here then to me. You can take the lantern. Don’t be too long now. It’s very lonesome here with nothing but the moon.
Policeman B:It’s a pity we can’t stop with you. The Government should have brought more police into the town, withhimin gaol, and at assize time too. Well, good luck to your watch.
(They go out.)
Sergeant:(Walks up and down once or twice and looks at placard.) A hundred pounds and promotion sure. There must be a great deal of spending in a hundred pounds. It’s a pity some honest man not to be the better of that.
(A ragged man appears at left and tries to slip past. Sergeant suddenly turns.)
Sergeant:Where are you going?
Man:I’m a poor ballad-singer, your honour. I thought to sell some of these (holds out bundle of ballads) to the sailors. (He goes on.)
Sergeant:Stop! Didn’t I tell you to stop? You can’t go on there.
Man:Oh, very well. It’s a hard thing to be poor. All the world’s against the poor!
Sergeant:Who are you?
Man:You’d be as wise as myself if I told you, but I don’t mind. I’m one Jimmy Walsh, a ballad-singer.
Sergeant:Jimmy Walsh? I don’t know that name.
Man:Ah, sure, they know it well enough in Ennis. Were you ever in Ennis, sergeant?
Sergeant:What brought you here?
Man:Sure, it’s to the assizes I came, thinking I might make a few shillings here or there. It’s in the one train with the judges I came.
Sergeant:Well, if you came so far, you may as well go farther, for you’ll walk out of this.
Man:I will, I will; I’ll just go on where I was going. (Goes towards steps.)
Sergeant:Come back from those steps; no one has leave to pass down them to-night.
Man:I’ll just sit on the top of the steps till I see will some sailor buy a ballad off me that would give me my supper. They do be late going back to the ship. It’s often I saw them in Cork carried down the quay in a hand-cart.
Sergeant:Move on, I tell you. I won’t have any one lingering about the quay to-night.
Man:Well, I’ll go. It’s the poor have the hard life! Maybe yourself might like one, sergeant. Here’s a good sheet now. (Turns one over.) “Content and a pipe”—that’s not much. “The Peeler and the goat”—you wouldn’t like that. “Johnny Hart”—that’s a lovely song.
Sergeant:Move on.
Man:Ah, wait till you hear it. (Sings:)
There was a rich farmer’s daughter lived near the town of Ross;She courted a Highland soldier, his name was Johnny Hart;Says the mother to her daughter, “I’ll go distracted madIf you marry that Highland soldier dressed up in Highland plaid.”
Sergeant:Stop that noise.
(Man wraps up his ballads and shuffles towards the steps)
Sergeant:Where are you going?
Man:Sure you told me to be going, and I am going.
Sergeant:Don’t be a fool. I didn’t tell you to go that way; I told you to go back to the town.
Man:Back to the town, is it?
Sergeant:(Taking him by the shoulder and shoving him before him.) Here, I’ll show you the way. Be off with you. What are you stopping for?
Man:(Who has been keeping his eye on the notice, points to it.) I think I know what you’re waiting for, sergeant.
Sergeant:What’s that to you?
Man:And I know well the man you’re waiting for—I know him well—I’ll be going.
(He shuffles on.)
Sergeant:You know him? Come back here. What sort is he?
Man:Come back is it, sergeant? Do you want to have me killed?
Sergeant:Why do you say that?
Man:Never mind. I’m going. I wouldn’t be in your shoes if the reward was ten times as much. (Goes on off stage to left). Not if it was ten times as much.
Sergeant:(Rushing after him.) Come back here, come back. (Drags him back.) What sort is he? Where did you see him?
Man:I saw him in my own place, in the County Clare. I tell you you wouldn’t like to be looking at him. You’d be afraid to be in the one place with him. There isn’t a weapon he doesn’t know the use of, and as to strength, his muscles are as hard as that board (slaps barrel).
Sergeant:Is he as bad as that?
Man:He is then.
Sergeant:Do you tell me so?
Man:There was a poor man in our place, a sergeant from Ballyvaughan.—It was with a lump of stone he did it.
Sergeant:I never heard of that.
Man:And you wouldn’t, sergeant. It’s not everything that happens gets into the papers. And there was a policeman in plain clothes, too.... It is in Limerick he was.... It was after the time of the attack on the police barrack at Kilmallock.... Moonlight ... just likethis ... waterside.... Nothing was known for certain.
Sergeant:Do you say so? It’s a terrible county to belong to.
Man:That’s so, indeed! You might be standing there, looking out that way, thinking you saw him coming up this side of the quay (points), and he might be coming up this other side (points), and he’d be on you before you knew where you were.
Sergeant:It’s a whole troop of police they ought to put here to stop a man like that.
Man:But if you’d like me to stop with you, I could be looking down this side. I could be sitting up here on this barrel.
Sergeant:And you know him well, too?
Man:I’d know him a mile off, sergeant.
Sergeant:But you wouldn’t want to share the reward?
Man:Is it a poor man like me, that has to be going the roads and singing in fairs, to have the name on him that he took a reward? But you don’t want me. I’ll be safer in the town.
Sergeant:Well, you can stop.
Man:(Getting up on barrel.) All right, sergeant. I wonder, now, you’re not tired out, sergeant, walking up and down the way you are.
Sergeant:If I’m tired I’m used to it.
Man:You might have hard work before you to-night yet. Take it easy while you can. There’splenty of room up here on the barrel, and you see farther when you’re higher up.
Sergeant:Maybe so. (Gets up beside him on barrel, facing right. They sit back to back, looking different ways.) You made me feel a bit queer with the way you talked.
Man:Give me a match, sergeant (he gives it and man lights pipe); take a draw yourself? It’ll quiet you. Wait now till I give you a light, but you needn’t turn round. Don’t take your eye off the quay for the life of you.
Sergeant:Never fear, I won’t. (Lights pipe. They both smoke.) Indeed it’s a hard thing to be in the force, out at night and no thanks for it, for all the danger we’re in. And it’s little we get but abuse from the people, and no choice but to obey our orders, and never asked when a man is sent into danger, if you are a married man with a family.
Man:(Sings)—
As through the hills I walked to view the hills and shamrock plain,I stood awhile where nature smiles to view the rocks and streams,On a matron fair I fixed my eyes beneath a fertile vale,As she sang her song it was on the wrong of poor old Granuaile.
Sergeant:Stop that; that’s no song to be singing in these times.
Man:Ah, sergeant, I was only singing to keep my heart up. It sinks when I think of him. To think of us two sitting here, and he creeping up the quay, maybe, to get to us.
Sergeant:Are you keeping a good lookout?
Man:I am; and for no reward too. Amn’t I the foolish man? But when I saw a man in trouble, I never could help trying to get him out of it. What’s that? Did something hit me?
(Rubs his heart.)
Sergeant:(Patting him on the shoulder.) You will get your reward in heaven.
Man:I know that, I know that, sergeant, but life is precious.
Sergeant:Well, you can sing if it gives you more courage.
Man:(Sings)—
Her head was bare, her hands and feet with iron bands were bound,Her pensive strain and plaintive wail mingles with the evening gale,And the song she sang with mournful air, I am old Granuaile.Her lips so sweet that monarchs kissed....
Sergeant:That’s not it.... “Her gown she wore was stained with gore.” ... That’s it—you missed that.
Man:You’re right, sergeant, so it is; I missedit. (Repeats line.) But to think of a man like you knowing a song like that.
Sergeant:There’s many a thing a man might know and might not have any wish for.
Man:Now, I daresay, sergeant, in your youth, you used to be sitting up on a wall, the way you are sitting up on this barrel now, and the other lads beside you, and you singing “Granuaile”?...
Sergeant:I did then.
Man:And the “Shan Bhean Bhocht”?...
Sergeant:I did then.
Man:And the “Green on the Cape?”
Sergeant:That was one of them.
Man:And maybe the man you are watching for to-night used to be sitting on the wall, when he was young, and singing those same songs.... It’s a queer world....
Sergeant:Whisht!... I think I see something coming.... It’s only a dog.
Man:And isn’t it a queer world?... Maybe it’s one of the boys you used to be singing with that time you will be arresting to-day or tomorrow, and sending into the dock....
Sergeant:That’s true indeed.
Man:And maybe one night, after you had been singing, if the other boys had told you some plan they had, some plan to free the country, you might have joined with them ... and maybe it is you might be in trouble now.
Sergeant:Well, who knows but I might? I had a great spirit in those days.
Man:It’s a queer world, sergeant, and it’s little any mother knows when she sees her child creeping on the floor what might happen to it before it has gone through its life, or who will be who in the end.
Sergeant:That’s a queer thought now, and a true thought. Wait now till I think it out.... If it wasn’t for the sense I have, and for my wife and family, and for me joining the force the time I did, it might be myself now would be after breaking gaol and hiding in the dark, and it might be him that’s hiding in the dark and that got out of gaol would be sitting up where I am on this barrel.... And it might be myself would be creeping up trying to make my escape from himself, and it might be himself would be keeping the law, and myself would be breaking it, and myself would be trying maybe to put a bullet in his head, or to take up a lump of a stone the way you said he did ... no, that myself did.... Oh! (Gasps. After a pause.) What’s that? (Grasps man’s arm.)
Man:(Jumps off barrel and listens, looking out over water.) It’s nothing, sergeant.
Sergeant:I thought it might be a boat. I had a notion there might be friends of his coming about the quays with a boat.
Man:Sergeant, I am thinking it was with thepeople you were, and not with the law you were, when you were a young man.
Sergeant:Well, if I was foolish then, that time’s gone.
Man:Maybe, sergeant, it comes into your head sometimes, in spite of your belt and your tunic, that it might have been as well for you to have followed Granuaile.
Sergeant:It’s no business of yours what I think.
Man:Maybe, sergeant, you’ll be on the side of the country yet.
Sergeant:(Gets off barrel.) Don’t talk to me like that. I have my duties and I know them. (Looks round.) That was a boat; I hear the oars.
(Goes to the steps and looks down.)
Man:(Sings)—
O, then, tell me, Shawn O’Farrell,Where the gathering is to be.In the old spot by the riverRight well known to you and me!
O, then, tell me, Shawn O’Farrell,Where the gathering is to be.In the old spot by the riverRight well known to you and me!
O, then, tell me, Shawn O’Farrell,Where the gathering is to be.In the old spot by the riverRight well known to you and me!
O, then, tell me, Shawn O’Farrell,
Where the gathering is to be.
In the old spot by the river
Right well known to you and me!
Sergeant:Stop that! Stop that, I tell you!
Man:(Sings louder)—
One word more, for signal token,Whistle up the marching tune,With your pike upon your shoulder,At the Rising of the Moon.
One word more, for signal token,Whistle up the marching tune,With your pike upon your shoulder,At the Rising of the Moon.
One word more, for signal token,Whistle up the marching tune,With your pike upon your shoulder,At the Rising of the Moon.
One word more, for signal token,
Whistle up the marching tune,
With your pike upon your shoulder,
At the Rising of the Moon.
Sergeant:If you don’t stop that, I’ll arrest you.
(A whistle from below answers, repeating the air.)
Sergeant:That’s a signal. (Stands between him and steps.) You must not pass this way.... Step farther back.... Who are you? You are no ballad-singer.
Man:You needn’t ask who I am; that placard will tell you. (Points to placard.)
Sergeant:You are the man I am looking for.
Man:(Takes off hat and wig. Sergeant seizes them.) I am. There’s a hundred pounds on my head. There is a friend of mine below in a boat. He knows a safe place to bring me to.
Sergeant:(Looking still at hat and wig.) It’s a pity! It’s a pity. You deceived me. You deceived me well.
Man:I am a friend of Granuaile. There is a hundred pounds on my head.
Sergeant:It’s a pity, it’s a pity!
Man:Will you let me pass, or must I make you let me?
Sergeant:I am in the force. I will not let you pass.
Man:I thought to do it with my tongue. (Puts hand in breast.) What is that?
(Voice of Policeman X outside:) Here, this is where we left him.
Sergeant:It’s my comrades coming.
Man:You won’t betray me ... the friend of Granuaile. (Slips behind barrel.)
(Voice of Policeman B:) That was the last of the placards.
Policeman X:(As they come in.) If he makes his escape it won’t be unknown he’ll make it.
(Sergeant puts hat and wig behind his back.)
Policeman B:Did any one come this way?
Sergeant:(After a pause.) No one.
Policeman B:No one at all?
Sergeant:No one at all.
Policeman B:We had no orders to go back to the station; we can stop along with you.
Sergeant:I don’t want you. There is nothing for you to do here.
Policeman B:You bade us to come back here and keep watch with you.
Sergeant:I’d sooner be alone. Would any man come this way and you making all that talk? It is better the place to be quiet.
Policeman B:Well, we’ll leave you the lantern anyhow. (Hands it to him.)
Sergeant:I don’t want it. Bring it with you.
Policeman B:You might want it. There are clouds coming up and you have the darkness of the night before you yet. I’ll leave it over here on the barrel. (Goes to barrel.)
Sergeant:Bring it with you I tell you. No more talk.
Policeman B:Well, I thought it might be a comfort to you. I often think when I have it inmy hand and can be flashing it about into every dark corner (doing so) that it’s the same as being beside the fire at home, and the bits of bogwood blazing up now and again.
(Flashes it about, now on the barrel, now on Sergeant.)
Sergeant:(Furious.) Be off the two of you, yourselves and your lantern!
(They go out. Man comes from behind barrel. He and Sergeant stand looking at one another.)
Sergeant:What are you waiting for?
Man:For my hat, of course, and my wig. You wouldn’t wish me to get my death of cold?
(Sergeant gives them.)
Man:(Going towards steps.) Well, good-night, comrade, and thank you. You did me a good turn to-night, and I’m obliged to you. Maybe I’ll be able to do as much for you when the small rise up and the big fall down ... when we all change places at the Rising (waves his hand and disappears) of the Moon.
Sergeant:(Turning his back to audience and reading placard.) A hundred pounds reward! A hundred pounds! (Turns towards audience.) I wonder, now, am I as great a fool as I think I am?
Curtain.
THE JACKDAW
Scene: Interior of a small general shop at Cloon. Mrs. Broderick sitting down. Tommy Nally sitting eating an orange Sibby has given him. Sibby, with basket on her arm, is looking out of door.
Sibby:The people are gathering to the door of the Court. The Magistrates will be coming there before long. Here is Timothy Ward coming up the street.
Timothy Ward:(Coming to door.) Did you get that summons I left here for you ere yesterday, Mrs. Broderick?
Mrs. Broderick:I believe it’s there in under the canister. (Takes it out.) It had my mind tossed looking at it there before me. I know well what is in it if I made no fist of reading it itself. It’s no wonder with all I had to go through if the reading and writing got scattered on me.
Ward:You know it is on this day you have to appear in the Court?
Mrs. Broderick:It isn’t easy to forget that, though indeed it is hard for me to be keeping anything in my head these times, but mayberemembering to-morrow the thing I was saying to-day.
Ward:Up to one o’clock the magistrates will be able to attend to you, ma’am, before they will go out eating their meal.
Mrs. Broderick:Haven’t I the mean, begrudging creditors now that would put me into the Court? Sure it’s a terrible thing to go in it and to be bound to speak nothing but the truth. When people would meet with you after, they would remember your face in the Court. What way would they be certain was it in or outside of the dock?
Ward:It is not in the dock you will be put this time. And there will be no bodily harm done to you, but to seize your furniture and your goods. It’s best for me to be going there myself and not to be wasting my time. (Goes out.)
Mrs. Broderick:Many a one taking my goods on credit and I seeing their face no more. But nothing would satisfy the people of this district. Sure the great God Himself when He came down couldn’t please everybody.
Sibby:I am thinking you were talking of some friend, ma’am, might be apt to be coming to your aid.
Mrs. Broderick:Well able he is to do it if the Lord would but put it in his mind. Isn’t it a strange thing the goods of this world to shut up the heart of a brother from his own, the same asEsau and Jacob, and he having a good farm of land in the County Limerick. It is what I heard that in that place the grass does be as thick as grease.
Sibby:I suppose, ma’am, you wrote giving him an account of your case?
Mrs. Broderick:Sure, Mr. Nestor, the dear man, has his fingers wore away writing for me, and I telling him all he had or had not to say. At Christmas I wrote, and at Little Christmas, and at St. Brigit’s Day, and on the Feast of St. Patrick, and after that again such time as I had news of the summons being about to be served. And you may ask Mrs. Delane at the Post Office am I telling any lie saying I got no word or answer at all.... It’s long since I saw him, but it is the way he used to be, his eyes on kippeens and some way suspicious in his heart; a dark weighty tempered man.
Sibby:A person to be crabbed and he young, it is not likely he will grow kind at the latter end.
Tommy Nally:That is no less than true now. There are crabbed people and suspicious people to be met with in every place. It is much that I got a pass from the Workhouse this day, the Master making sure when I asked it that I had in my pocket the means of getting drink.
Mrs. Broderick:It would maybe be best to go join you in the Workhouse, Tommy Nally, when I am out of this, than to go walking the world from end to end.
Tommy Nally:Ah, don’t be saying that, ma’am; sure you couldn’t be happy within those walls if you had the whole world. Clean outside, but very hard within. No rank but all mixed together, the good, the middling and the bad, the well reared and the rough.
Mrs. Broderick:Sure I’m not asking to go in it. You could never be as stiff in any place as in any sort of little cabin of your own.
Tommy Nally:The tea boiled in a boiler, you should close your eyes drinking it, and ne’er a bit of sugar hardly in it at all. And our curses on them that boil the eggs too hard! What use is an egg that is hard to any person on earth? And as to the dinner, what way would a tasty person eat it not having a knife or a fork?
Mrs. Broderick:That I may live to be in no one’s way, but to have some little corner of my own!
Tommy Nally:And to come to your end in it, ma’am! If you were the Lady Mayor herself you’d be brought out to the deadhouse if it was ten o’clock at night, and not a wash unless it was just a Scotch lick, and nobody to wake you at all!
Mrs. Broderick:I will not go in it! I would sooner make any shift and die by the side of the wall. Sure heaven is the best place, heaven and this world we’re in now!
Sibby:Don’t be giving up now, ma’am. Hereis Mr. Nestor coming, and if any one will give you an advice he is the one will do it. Why wouldn’t he, he being, as he is, an educated man, and such a great one to be reading books.
Mrs. Broderick:So he is too, and keeps it in his mind after. It’s a wonder to me a man that does be reading to keep any memory at all.
Nally:It’s easy for him to carry things light, and his pension paid regular at springtime and harvest.
(Nestor comes in reading “Tit-Bits.”)
Nestor:There was a servant girl in Austria cut off her finger slicing cabbage....
All:The poor thing!
Nestor:And her master stuck it on again with glue. That now was a very foolish thing to do. What use would a finger be stuck with glue that might melt off at any time, and she to be stirring the pot?
Sibby:That is true indeed.
Nestor:Now, if I myself had been there, it is what I would have advised....
Sibby:That’s what I was saying, Mr. Nestor. It is you are the grand adviser. What now will you say to poor Mrs. Broderick that has a summons out against her this day for up to ten pounds?
Nestor:It is what I am often saying, it is a very foolish thing to be getting into debt.
Mrs. Broderick:Sure what way could I helpit? It’s a very done-up town to be striving to make a living in.
Nestor:It would be a right thing to be showing a good example.
Mrs. Broderick:They would want that indeed. There are more die with debts on them in this place than die free from debt.
Nestor:Many a poor soul has had to suffer from the weight of the debts on him, finding no rest or peace after death.
Sibby:The Magistrates are gone into the Courthouse, Mrs. Broderick. Why now wouldn’t you go up to the bank and ask would the manager advance you a loan?
Mrs. Broderick:It is likely he would not do it. But maybe it’s as good for me go as to be sitting here waiting for the end.
(Puts on hat and shawl.)
Nestor:I now will take charge of the shop for you, Mrs. Broderick.
Mrs. Broderick:It’s little call there’ll be to it. The time a person is sunk that’s the time the custom will go from her. (She goes out.)
Nally:I’ll be taking a ramble into the Court to see what are the lads doing. (Goes out.)
Sibby:(Following them.) I might chance some customers there myself.
(Goes out calling—oranges, good oranges.)
Nestor:(Taking a paper from his pocket, sittingdown, and beginning to read.) “Romantic elopement in high life. A young lady at Aberdeen, Missouri, U.S.A., having been left by her father an immense fortune....”
(Stops to wipe his spectacles, puts them on again and looks for place, which he has lost. Cooney puts his head in at door and draws it out again.)
Nestor:Come in, come in!
Cooney:(Coming in cautiously and looking round.) Whose house now might this be?
Nestor:To the Widow Broderick it belongs. She is out in the town presently.
Cooney:I saw her name up over the door.
Nestor:On business of her own she is gone. It is I am minding the place for her.
Cooney:So I see. I suppose now you have good cause to be minding it?
Nestor:It would be a pity any of her goods to go to loss.
Cooney:I suppose so. Is it to auction them you will or to sell them in bulk?
Nestor:Not at all. I can sell you any article you will require.
Cooney:It would be no profit to herself now, I suppose, if you did?
Nestor:What do you mean saying that? Do you think I would defraud her from her due in anything I would sell for her at all?
Cooney:You are not the bailiff so?
Nestor:Not at all. I wonder any person to take me for a bailiff!
Cooney:You are maybe one of the creditors?
Nestor:I am not. I am not a man to have a debt upon me to any person on earth.
Cooney:I wonder what it is you are at so, if you have no claim on the goods. Is it any harm now to ask what’s this your name is?
Nestor:One Joseph Nestor I am, there are few in the district but know me. Indeed they all have a great opinion of me. Travelled I did in the army, and attended school and I young, and slept in the one bed with two boys that were learning Greek.
Cooney:What way now can I be rightly sure that you are Joseph Nestor?
Nestor:(Pulling out envelope.) There is my pension docket. You will maybe believe that.
Cooney:(Examining it.) I suppose you may be him so. I saw your name often before this.
Nestor:Did you now? I suppose it may have travelled a good distance.
Cooney:It travelled as far as myself anyway at the bottom of letters that were written asking relief for the owner of this house.
Nestor:I suppose you are her brother so, Michael Cooney?
Cooney:If I am, there are some questions thatI want to put and to get answers to before my mind will be satisfied. Tell me this now. Is it a fact Mary Broderick to be living at all?
Nestor:What would make you think her not to be living and she sending letters to you through the post?
Cooney:I was saying to myself with myself, there was maybe some other one personating her and asking me to send relief for their own ends.
Nestor:I am in no want of any relief. That is a queer thing to say and a very queer thing. There are many worse off than myself, the Lord be praised!
Cooney:Don’t be so quick now starting up to take offence. It is hard to believe the half the things you hear or that will be told to you.
Nestor:That may be so indeed; unless it is things that would be printed on the papers. But I would think you might trust one of your own blood.
Cooney:I might or I might not. I had it in my mind this long time to come hither and to look around for myself. There are seven generations of the Cooneys trusted nobody living or dead.
Nestor:Indeed I was reading in some history of one Ulysses that came back from a journey and sent no word before him but slipped in unknown to all but the house dog to see was his wifeminding the place, or was she, as she was, scattering his means.
Cooney:So she would be too. If Mary Broderick is in need of relief I will relieve her, but if she is not, I will bring away what I brought with me to its own place again.
Nestor:Sure here is the summons. You can read that, and if you will look out the door you can see by the stir the Magistrates are sitting in the Court. It is a great welcome she will have before you, and the relief coming at the very nick of time.
Cooney:It is too good a welcome she will give me I am thinking. It is what I am in dread of now, if she thinks I brought her the money so soft and so easy, she will never be leaving me alone, but dragging all I have out of me by little and little.
Nestor:Maybe you might let her have but the lend of it.
Cooney:Where’s the use of calling it a lend when I may be sure I never will see it again? It might be as well for me to earn the value of a charity.
Nestor:You might do that and not repent of it.
Cooney:It is likely I’ll be annoyed with her to the end of my lifetime if she knows I have as much as that to part with. It might be she would be following me to Limerick.
Nestor:Wait now a minute till I will give you an advice.
Cooney:It is likely my own advice is the best. Look over your own shoulder and do the thing you think right. How can any other person know the reasons I have in my mind?
Nestor:I will know what is in your mind if you will tell it to me.
Cooney:It would suit me best, she to get the money and not to know at the present time where did it come from. The next time she will write wanting help from me, I will task her with it and ask her to give me an account.
Nestor:That now would take a great deal of strategy.... Wait now till I think.... I have it in my mind I was reading in a penny novel ... no but on the “Gael” ... about a boy of Kilbecanty that saved his old sweetheart from being evicted.
Cooney:I never heard my sister had any old sweetheart.
Nestor:It was playing Twenty-five he did it. Played with the husband he did, letting him win up to fifty pounds.
Cooney:Mary Broderick was no cardplayer. And if she was itself she would know me. And it’s not fifty pounds I am going to leave with her, or twenty pounds, or a penny more than is needful to free her from the summons to-day.
Nestor:(Excited.) I will make up a plan! I am sure I will think of a good one. It is given in to me there is no person so good at making up a plan as myself on this side of the world, not on this side of the world! I will manage all. Leave here what you have for her before she will come in. I will give it to her in some secret way.
Cooney:I don’t know. I will not give it to you before I will get a receipt for it ... and I’ll not leave the town till I’ll see did she get it straight and fair. Into the Court I’ll go to see her paying it.
(Sits down and writes out receipt.)
Nestor:I was reading on “Home Chat” about a woman put a note for five pounds into her son’s prayer book and he going a voyage. And when he came back and was in the church with her it fell out, he never having turned a leaf of the book at all.
Cooney:Let you sign this and you may put it in the prayer book so long as she will get it safe. (Nestor signs. Cooney looks suspiciously at signature and compares it with a letter and then gives notes.)
Nestor:(Signing.) Joseph Nestor.
Cooney:Let me see now is it the same handwriting I used to be getting on the letters. It is. I have the notes here.
Nestor:Wait now till I see is there a prayerbook.... (Looks on shelf). Treacle, castor oil, marmalade.... I see no books at all.
Cooney:Hurry on now, she will be coming in and finding me.
Nestor:Here is what will do as well.... “Old Moore’s Almanac.” I will put it here between the leaves. I will ask her the prophecy for the month. You can come back here after she finding it.
Cooney:Amn’t I after telling you I wouldn’t wish her to have sight of me here at all? What are you at now, I wonder, saying that. I will take my own way to know does she pay the money. It is not my intention to be made a fool of.
(Goes out.)
Nestor:You will be satisfied and well satisfied. Let me see now where are the predictions for the month. (Reads.) “The angry appearance of Scorpio and the position of the pale Venus and Jupiter presage much danger for England. The heretofore obsequious Orangemen will refuse to respond to the tocsin of landlordism. The scales are beginning to fall from their eyes.”
(Mrs. Broderick comes in without his noticing her. She gives a groan. He drops book and stuffs notes into his pocket.)
Mrs. Broderick:Here I am back again and no addition to me since I went.
Nestor:You gave me a start coming in so noiseless.
Mrs. Broderick:It is time for me go to the Court, and I give you my word I’d be better pleased going to my burying at the Seven Churches. A nice slab I have there waiting for me, though the man that put it over me I never saw him at all, and he a far off cousin of my own.
Nestor:Who knows now, Mrs. Broderick, but things might turn out better than you think.
Mrs. Broderick:What way could they turn out better between this and one o’clock?
Nestor:(Scratching his head.) I suppose now you wouldn’t care to play a game of Twenty-five?
Mrs. Broderick:I am surprised at you, Mr. Nestor, asking me to go cardplaying on such a day and at such an hour as this.
Nestor:I wonder might some person come in and give an order for ten pounds’ worth of the stock?
Mrs. Broderick:Much good it would do me. Sure I have the most of it on credit.
Nestor:Well, there is no knowing. Some well-to-do person now passing the street might have seen you and taken a liking to you and be willing to make an advance or a loan.
Mrs. Broderick:Ah, who would be taking a liking to me as they might to a young girl in her bloom.
Nestor:Oh, it’s a sort of thing might happen. Sure age didn’t catch on to you yet; you are clean and fresh and sound. What’s this I was reading in “Answers.” (Looks at it.) “Romantic elopement....”
Mrs. Broderick:I know of no one would be thinking of me for a wife ... unless it might be yourself, Mr. Nestor....
Nestor:(Jumping up and speaking fast and running finger up and down paper.) “Performance of Dick Whittington.” ... There now, there is a story that I read in my reading, it was called Whittington and the Cat. It was the cat led to his fortune. There might some person take a fancy to your cat....
Mrs. Broderick:Ah, let you have done now. I have no cat this good while. I banished it on the head of it threatening the jackdaw.
Nestor:The jackdaw?
Mrs. Broderick:(Fetches cage from inner room.) Sure I reared it since the time it fell down the chimney and I going into my bed. It is often you should have seen it, in or out of its cage. Hero his name is. Come out now, Hero.
(Opens cage.)
Nestor:(Slapping his side.) That is it ... that’s the very thing. Listen to me now, Mrs. Broderick, there are some might give a good price for that bird. (Sitting down to the work.) Itchances now there is a friend of mine in South Africa. A mine owner he is ... very rich ... but it is down in the mine he has to live by reason of the Kaffirs ... it is hard to keep a watch upon them in the half dark, they being black.
Mrs. Broderick:I suppose....
Nestor:He does be lonesome now and again, and he is longing for a bird to put him in mind of old Ireland ... but he is in dread it would die in the darkness ... and it came to his mind that it is a custom with jackdaws to be living in chimneys, and that if any birds would bear the confinement it is they that should do it.
Mrs. Broderick:And is it to buy jackdaws he is going?
Nestor:Isn’t that what I am coming to. (He pulls out notes.) Here now is ten pounds I have to lay out for him. Take them now and good luck go with them, and give me the bird.
Mrs. Broderick:Notes is it? Is it waking or dreaming I am and I standing up on the floor?
Nestor:Good notes and ten of them. Look at them! National Bank they are.... Count them now, according to your fingers, and see did I tell any lie.
Mrs. Broderick:(Counting.) They are in it sure enough ... so long as they are good ones and I not made a hare of before the magistrates.
Nestor:Go out now to the Court and showthem to Timothy Ward, and see does he say are they good. Pay them over then, and its likely you will be let off the costs.
Mrs. Broderick:(Taking shawl.) I will go, I will go. Well, you are a great man and a kind man, Joseph Nestor, and that you may live a thousand years for this good deed.
Nestor:Look here now, ma’am, I wouldn’t wish you to be mentioning my name in this business or saying I had any hand in it at all.
Mrs. Broderick:I will not so long as it’s not pleasing to you. Well, it is yourself took a great load off me this day! (She goes out.)
Nestor:(Calling after her.) I might as well be putting the jackdaw back into the cage to be ready for the journey. (Comes into shop.) I hope now he will be well treated by the sailors and he travelling over the sea.... Where is he now.... (Chirrups.) Here now, come here to me, what’s this your name is.... Nero! Nero! (Makes pounces behind counter.) Ah, bad manners to you, is it under the counter you are gone!
(Lies flat on the floor chirruping and calling, Nero! Nero! Nally comes in and watches him curiously.)
Nally:Is it catching blackbeetles you are, Mr. Nestor? Where are they and I will give you a hand....
Nestor:(Getting up annoyed.) It’s that bird I was striving to catch a hold of for to put him back in the cage.
Tommy Nally:(Making a pounce.) There he is now. (Puts bird in cage.) Wait now till I’ll fasten the gate.
Nestor:Just putting everything straight and handy for the widow woman I am before she will come back from the settlement she is making in the Court.
Nally:What way will she be able to do that?
Nestor:I gave her advice. A thought I had, something that came from my reading. (Taps paper.) Education and reading and going in the army through the kingdoms of the world; that is what fits a man now to be giving out advice.
Tommy:Indeed, it’s good for them to have you, all the poor ignorant people of this town.
Cooney:(Coming in hurriedly and knocking against Nally as he goes out.) What, now, would you say to be the best nesting place in this town. Nests of jackdaws I should say.
Nestor:There is the old mill should be a good place. To the west of the station it is. Chimneys there are in it. Middling high they are. Wait now till I’ll tell you of the great plan I made up....
Cooney:What are you asking for those rakes in the corner? It’s no matter, I’ll take one oncredit, or maybe it is only the lend of it I’ll take. ... I’ll be coming back immediately. (He goes out with rake.)
Sibby:(Coming in excitedly.) If you went bird-catching, Mr. Nestor, tell me what way would you go doing it?
Nestor:It is not long since I was reading some account of that ... lads that made a trade of it ... nets they had and they used to be spreading them in the swamps where the plover do be feeding....
Sibby:Ah, sure where’s the use of a plover!
Nestor:And snares they had for putting along the drains where the snipe do be picking up worms.... But if I myself saw any person going after things of the sort, it is what I would advise them to stick to the net.
Sibby:What now is the price of that net in the corner?
Nestor:(Taking it down.) It is but a little bag that is, suitable for carrying small articles; it would become your oranges well. Twopence I believe, Sibby, is what I should charge you for that.
Sibby:(Taking money out of handkerchief.) Give it to me so! Here I’ll get the start of you, Timothy Ward, anyway.
(She takes it and goes out, almost overturning Timothy Ward, who is rushing in.)
Nestor:Well, Timothy, did you see the Widow Broderick in the Court?
Ward:I did see her. It is in it she is, now, looking as content as in the coffin, and she paying her debt.
Nestor:Did she give you any account of herself?
Ward:She did to be sure, and to the whole Court; but look here now, I have no time to be talking. I have to be back there when the magistrates will have their lunch taken. Now you being so clever a man, Mr. Nestor, what would you say is the surest way to go catching birds?
Nestor:It is a strange thing now, I was asked the same question not three minutes ago. I was just searching my mind. It seems to me I have read in some place it is a very good way to go calling to them with calls; made for the purpose they are. You have but to sit under a tree or whatever place they may perch and to whistle ... suppose now it might be for a curlew.... (Whistles.)
Timothy Ward:Are there any of those calls in the shop?
Nestor:I would not say there are any made for the purpose, but there might be something might answer you all the same. Let me see now.... (Gets down a box of musical toys and turns them over.)
Ward:Is there anything now has a sound like the croaky screech of a jackdaw?
Nestor:Here now is what we used to be calling a corncrake.... (Turns it.) Corncrake, corncrake ... but it seems to me now that to give it but the one creak, this way ... it is much like what you would hear in the chimney at the time of the making of the nests.
Ward:Give it here to me!
(Puts a penny on counter and runs out.)
Tommy Nally:(Coming in shaking with excitement.) For the love of God, Mr. Nestor, will you give me that live-trap on credit!
Nestor:A trap? Sure there is no temptation for rats to be settling themselves in the Workhouse.
Nally:Or a snare itself ... or any sort of a thing that would make the makings of a crib.
Nestor:What would you want, I wonder, going out fowling with a crib?
Nally:Why wouldn’t I want it? Why wouldn’t I have leave to catch a bird the same as every other one?
Nestor:And what would the likes of you be wanting with a bird?
Nally:What would I want with it, is it? Why wouldn’t I be getting my own ten pounds?
Nestor:Heaven help your poor head this day!
Nally:Why wouldn’t I get it the same as Mrs. Broderick got it?
Nestor:Well, listen to me now. You will not get it.
Nally:Sure that man is buying them will have no objection they to come from one more than another.
Nestor:Don’t be arguing now. It is a queer thing for you, Tommy Nally, to be arguing with a man like myself.
Nally:Think now all the good it would do me ten pound to be put in my hand! It is not you should be begrudging it to me, Mr. Nestor. Sure it would be a relief upon the rates.
Nestor:I tell you you will not get ten pound or any pound at all. Can’t you give attention to what I say?
Nally:If I had but the price of the trap you wouldn’t refuse it to me. Well, isn’t there great hardship upon a man to be bet up and to have no credit in the town at all.
Nestor:(Exasperated, and giving him the cage.) Look here now, I have a right to turn you out into the street. But, as you are silly like and with no great share of wits, I will make you a present of this bird till you try what will you get for it, and till you see will you get as much as will cover its diet for one day only. Go out now looking for customers and maybe you will believe what I say.
Nally:(Seizing it.) That you may be doing thesame thing this day fifty years! My fortune’s made now! (Goes out with cage.)
Nestor:(Sitting down.) My joy go with you, but I’m bothered with the whole of you. Everyone expecting me to do their business and to manage their affairs. That is the drawback of being an educated man!
(Takes up paper to read.)
Mrs. Broderick:(Coming in.) I declare I’m as comforted as Job coming free into the house from the Court!
Nestor:Well, indeed, ma’am, I am well satisfied to be able to do what I did for you, and for my friend from Africa as well, giving him so fine and so handsome a bird.
Mrs. Broderick:Sure Finn himself that chewed his thumb had not your wisdom, or King Solomon that kept order over his kingdom and his own seven hundred wives. There is neither of them could be put beside you for settling the business of any person at all.
(Sibby comes in holding up her netted bag.)
Nestor:What is it you have there, Sibby?
Sibby:Look at them here, look at them here.... I wasn’t long getting them. Warm they are yet; they will take no injury.
Mrs. Broderick:What are they at all?
Sibby:It is eggs they are ... look at them. Jackdaws’ eggs.
Nestor:(Suspiciously.) And what call have you now to be bringing in jackdaws’ eggs?
Sibby:Is it ten pound apiece I will get for them do you think, or is it but ten pound I will get for the whole of them?
Nestor:Is it drink, or is it tea, or is it some change that is come upon the world that is fitting the people of this place for the asylum in Ballinasloe?
Sibby:I know of a good clocking hen. I will put the eggs under her.... I will rear them when they’ll be hatched out.
Nestor:I suppose now, Mrs. Broderick, you went belling the case through the town?
Mrs. Broderick:I did not, but to the Magistrates upon the bench that I told it out of respect to, and I never mentioned your name in it at all.
Sibby:Tell me now, Mrs. Broderick, who have I to apply to?
Mrs. Broderick:What is it you are wanting to apply about?
Sibby:Will you tell me where is the man that is after buying your jackdaw?
Mrs. Broderick:(Looking at Nestor.) What’s that? Where is he, is it?
Nestor:(Making signs of silence.) How would you know where he is? It is not in a broken little town of this sort such a man would be stopping, and he having his business finished.
Sibby:Sure he will have to be coming back here for the bird. I will stop till I’ll see him drawing near.
Nestor:It is more likely he will get it consigned to the shipping agent. Mind what I say now, it is best not be speaking of him at all.
(Timothy Ward comes in triumphantly, croaking his toy. He has a bird in his hand.)
Ward:I chanced on a starling. It was not with this I tempted him, but a little chap that had him in a crib. Would you say now, Mr. Nestor, would that do as well as a jackdaw? Look now, it’s as handsome every bit as the other. And anyway it is likely they will both die before they will reach to their journey’s end.
Nestor:(Lifting up his hands.) Of all the foolishness that ever came upon the world!
Ward:Hurry on now, Mrs. Broderick, tell me where will I bring it to the buyer you were speaking of. He is fluttering that hard it is much if I can keep him in my hand. Is it at Noonan’s Royal Hotel he is or is it at Mack’s?
Nestor:(Shaking his head threateningly.) How can you tell that and you not knowing it yourself?
Ward:Sure you have a right to know what way did he go, and he after going out of this.
Mrs. Broderick:(Her eyes apprehensively on Nestor.) Ah, sure, my mind was tattered on me.I couldn’t know did he go east or west. Standing here in this place I was, like a ghost that got a knock upon its head.
Ward:If he is coming back for the bird it is here he will be coming, and if it is to be sent after him it is likely you will have his address.
Mrs. Broderick:So I should, too, I suppose. Where now did I put it? (She looks to Nestor for orders, but cannot understand his signs, and turns out pocket.) That’s my specs ... that’s the key of the box ... that’s a bit of root liquorice.... Where now at all could I have left down that address?
Ward:There has no train left since he was here. Sure what does it matter so long as he did not go out of this. I’ll bring this bird to the railway. Tell me what sort was he till I’ll know him.
Mrs. Broderick:(Still looking at Nestor.) Well, he was middling tall ... not very gross ... about the figure now of Mr. Nestor.
Ward:What aged man was he?
Mrs. Broderick:I suppose up to sixty years. About the one age, you’d say, with Mr. Nestor.
Ward:Give me some better account now; it is hardly I would make him out by that.
Mrs. Broderick:A grey beard he has hanging down ... and a bald poll, and grey hair like a fringe around it ... just for all the world like Mr. Nestor!
Nestor:(Jumping up.) There is nothing so disagreeable in the whole world as a woman that has too much talk.
Mrs. Broderick:Well, let me alone. Where’s the use of them all picking at me to say where did I get the money when I am under orders not to tell it?
Ward:Under orders?
Mrs. Broderick:I am, and strong orders.
Ward:Whose orders are those?
Mrs. Broderick:What’s that to you, I ask you?
Ward:Isn’t it a pity now a woman to be so unneighbourly and she after getting profit for herself?
Mrs. Broderick:Look now, Mr. Nestor, the way they are going on at me, and you saying no word for me at all.
Ward:How would he say any word when he hasn’t it to say? The only word could be said by any one is that you are a mean grasping person, gathering what you can for your own profit and keeping yourself so close and so compact. It is back to the Court I am going, and it’s no good friend I’ll be to you from this out, Mrs. Broderick!