THE SLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD
(A Play in the Irish Manner.)
Scene I.—A hovel by the sea at Ballycottin, near Queenstown. Eamon, in squalid garments and in an appropriate attitude of misery, is crouched over the fire. Seamus Smitha is distilling poteen by the door. Peadar Roabensôn and the Men of Gunn (a war-like clan) are lurking in the background. Caitilin ni Houlihan, Bridgeen Dick, and the Widow Markiewicz are watching Eamon with speechless devotion. The door is flung open and Sean de Browna bursts in.
—A hovel by the sea at Ballycottin, near Queenstown. Eamon, in squalid garments and in an appropriate attitude of misery, is crouched over the fire. Seamus Smitha is distilling poteen by the door. Peadar Roabensôn and the Men of Gunn (a war-like clan) are lurking in the background. Caitilin ni Houlihan, Bridgeen Dick, and the Widow Markiewicz are watching Eamon with speechless devotion. The door is flung open and Sean de Browna bursts in.
Sean: Where’s himself?
Seamus: Taking a bit of sleep, maybe, if he’s able—God help him!
Sean(exultantly): There’s fine doings on the sands this night, with great ships boarded and sunk and the lads making grand talk. Rifles and cannon we’ve taken, and munitions would be enough for a great war.
The Men of Gunn(murmuring appreciatively): Bully for you, Kid!
Peadar: It’s himself will bless these tidings. (Addressing Eamon with conspicuous timidity): Mister, honey, he’s after saying they’vesunk the British Navy, and captured all the munitions in the western world.
Eamon: The blessing of Gunn upon those words! (Dropping his voice): I say, what d’you imagine they’ve really got?
Peadar(dropping his): Oh, I don’t know—a few dozen rifles, I suppose, and a couple of boxes of S.A.A. One has to exaggerate a bit in an Irish drama.
(Enter Boûgus, claimant to the throne of Ulster, followed by Naisi and Narsti, the sons of Gunn.)
(Enter Boûgus, claimant to the throne of Ulster, followed by Naisi and Narsti, the sons of Gunn.)
Boûgus(in bloodthirsty tones): It’s taking the arms up to the caves they are, till all’s ready to strike the blow; and it’s fine gory heads there’ll be, and great masses of dead bodies that day in the six counties, and throughout the land, so you’ll not avoid to tread on the white upturned faces of the dead, they lying so thick. And I’ll be king that day in Ulster, and the black Orangemen destroyed and vanquished.
The Men of Gunn(with appreciation): Sa-ay, kid, that’s talking.
Eamon: Let you go down now, Boûgus, with Naisi and Narsti and the men of Gunn; for I’ve word that Cosgrave, or perhaps Mulcahy, do be coming to Castlebar or maybe Dundalk, and it’s there he must besent away with scorn and laughter, and maybe a leaden bullet or two.
The Men of Gunn(springing to their feet): Easy money. Get right after it, boys.
Boûgus(bursting into song): Oh, Alannah, Acushla, Asthore, Macree, Honomandhiaul!!! (He dashes out at the head of the party. Eamon wraps himself complacently in his rags and nods over the fire. The women continue to regard him with speechless devotion.)
Scene II.—A hovel by the sea at Ballyruff. The roar of breakers almost drowns the voices of the speakers. Enter Seamus Smitha and Peadar hurriedly.
—A hovel by the sea at Ballyruff. The roar of breakers almost drowns the voices of the speakers. Enter Seamus Smitha and Peadar hurriedly.
Seamus: Where’s himself?
Sean: Asleep, God help him, and dreaming of Caitilin ni Houlihan, the creature, and her wedded to him in these coming days.
Peadar(roughly): It’s her he can put from his mind then, for she’s up there on the hillside with Cosgrave and Mulcahy, and James Craig, and they going on together with dancing and merriment, the way would surprise the stags for leppin’; and her that let on to be a decent woman would marry a holy man.
Bridgeen Dick(sharply): Let yourself be holding your tongue now, Peadar Roabensôn, with your great noises to waken the seven sleepers,and he not stretched in his bed a dozen hours to be resting after his great labours.
Boûgus(rushing in, followed by Naisi and Narsti): It’s destroyed we are, entirely.
Eamon(sitting up suddenly): I beg your pardon? Did you say destroyed?
Boûgus: Aye, destroyed.... She’s turned against us, and joined the hands of Cosgrave and James in friendship—as Deirdre, in the days of old, did try with Conchubor and the sons of Usna.
Eamon(in an undertone, to one of his personal retinue): My God, what are we to do now?
The Other(whispering): You must make a speech in Gaelic.
Eamon(also whispering): I can’t. I’ve left the book at the Mansion House.
The Other: Well, you must think of something appropriate in English, then.
Boûgus(keening): Oh, whirra, whirra, Ochone, Ochone. (They all burst into tears.)
Eamon(as one pronouncing a curse): If the sun could have darkened to hide her shame, and the waters of the great ocean given themselves to wash away her faithlessness, it’s a strange, black, arid world we’d be living in this day. O’Connell, Parnell, Redmond, she’s broken the heart in all of them; and now it’s mine she’s broken, too; and it’snot Cosgrave and James that she’ll spare in the days to come.—I will go out with the Men of Gunn....
Scene III.—A hovel by the sea among the Balmy Stones of Claptrapatrick, near Ballyidiocee. EnterSeamusas usual.
—A hovel by the sea among the Balmy Stones of Claptrapatrick, near Ballyidiocee. EnterSeamusas usual.
Seamus: Where’s himself?
Sean: Musha avick, how many more times will I be telling you in this play that he’s asleep, God help him, the holy man, and maybe dreaming, if he’s able, of the grand goings on there’ll be when they’re after making him Pope and King of all the world, and he a scraggy, thin, weakly man would put you in mind of an old hen, or maybe a worn-out jackass to be taken from the shafts and turned away among the roots and grasses to die.
Peadar: Sure, I’m thinking that’s not what he’d be dreaming at all, but the great joy of making combats and running here and there in high spirits, with the Men of Gunn around him.
Eamon(mournfully): The heart’s broke in me, Seamus Smitha, for it’s all put aside and finished now, and there’s no more doings I can contrive; and there’s nothing left but to go back, the way we came, among theBohunks and Dagoes, and die in a little dirty state in the hind end of America.
The Widow Markiewicz(scornfully): And isn’t there land called England over across a dirty bit of water would hardly wet your boots to cross it; where do be fine houses, and gold ornaments, and a stupid uncomplaining people to govern, and a crazy Parliament over it all is calling for ever on the Mother of God to send an alternative Government?
The Men of Gunn: Gee whiz!!
The Widow: How do you say, Eamon! Will you take this country and people and make a new Ireland there; and be leaving the North and the South to slit the throats on each other?
Eamon(in a great voice): I’ll do it, so.... And won’t it be the fine adventure to hold it over the heads of Cosgrave and Mulcahy, when I’m sitting in the seat of Lloyd George with the Kings and Emperors and Presidents of the world around under my feet, and Boûgus beside me, and Naisi and Narsti on my either hand, and the Men of Gunn holding the fair land of England, and me Lord of it all?
Bridgeen: And haven’t you the right, Mister honey, to be sitting in that place and takingyour ease, and a sup of whiskey itself maybe; for it’s you surely is destroyed by thinking and fighting in these days in Ireland, and where would there be your match for craft and savagery in all the western islands?
Eamon: I have so. (To Naisi and Narsti): Call up the Men of Gunn, and let Boûgus be there, and Seamus, and Sean, and Peadar Roabensôn, and any other man would make his future, so; and I’ll lead them out to England, or Russia itself if need be, and split the brainpan on Lloyd George and all of them, and be master of the world in their places; and so I will. (They go out.)
The Widow Markiewicz(looking after them as they go): And isn’t he the fine handsome lad to be riding forth on a great adventure; and he, God help him, nothing but a poor crazy scholar, with a great savagery and bitterness in his heart?