MRS. FALLON. Don't say a word! I won't listen to any word you'll
say! (_Stops her ears._) Oh, isn't he the treacherous villain?
Ohone go deo!
BARTLEY. Be quiet till I speak! Listen to what I say!
MRS. FALLON. Sitting beside me on the ass car coming to the town,
so quiet and so respectable, and treachery like that in his
heart!
BARTLEY. Is it your wits you have lost, or is it I myself that
have lost my wits?
MRS. FALLON. And it's hard I earned you, slaving, slaving--and
you grumbling, and sighing, and coughing, and discontented, and
the priest wore out anointing you, with all the times you
threatened to die!
BARTLEY. Let you be quiet till I tell you!
MRS. FALLON. You to bring such a disgrace into the parish. A
thing that was never heard of before!
BARTLEY. Will you shut your mouth and hear me speaking?
MRS. FALLON. And if it was for any sort of a fine handsome woman,
but for a little fistful of a woman like Kitty Keary, that's not
four feet high hardly, and not three teeth in her head unless she
got new ones! May God reward you, Bartley Fallon, for the black
treachery in your heart and the wickedness in your mind, and the
red blood of poor Jack Smith that is wet upon your hand!
(_Voice of JACK SMITH heard singing_)
The sea shall be dry,
The earth under mourning and ban!
Then loud shall he cry
For the wife of the red-haired man!
BARTLEY. It's Jack Smith's voice--I never knew a ghost to sing
before. It is after myself and the fork he is coming! (_Goes back.
Enter_ JACK SMITH.) Let one of you give him the fork and I will be
clear of him now and for eternity!
MRS. TARPEY. The Lord have mercy on us! Red Jack Smith! The man
that was going to be waked!
JAMES RYAN. Is it back from the grave you are come?
SHAWN EARLY. Is it alive you are, or is it dead you are?
TIM CASEY. Is it yourself at all that's in it?
MRS. TULLY. Is it letting on you were to be dead?
MRS. FALLON. Dead or alive, let you stop Kitty Keary, your wife,
from bringing my man away with her to America!
JACK SMITH. It is what I think, the wits are gone astray on the
whole of you. What would my wife want bringing Bartley Fallon to
America?
MRS. FALLON. To leave yourself, and to get quit of you she wants,
Jack Smith, and to bring him away from myself. That's what the
two of them had settled together.
JACK SMITH. I'll break the head of any man that says that! Who is
it says it? (_To_ TIM CASEY) Was it you said it? (_To_ SHAWN EARLY)
Was it you?
ALL TOGETHER (_backing and shaking their heads_). It wasn't I said
it!
JACK SMITH. Tell me the name of any man that said it!
ALL TOGETHEB (_pointing to_ BARTLEY). It was _him_ that said
it!
JACK SMITH. Let me at him till I break his head!
(BARTLEY _backs in terror. Neighbors hold_ JACK SMITH _back._)
JACK SMITH (_trying to free himself_). Let me at him! Isn't he the
pleasant sort of a scarecrow for any woman to be crossing the
ocean with! It's back from the docks of New York he'd be turned
(_trying to rush at him again_), with a lie in his mouth and
treachery in his heart, and another man's wife by his side, and
he passing her off as his own! Let me at him, can't you?
(_Makes another rush, but is held back._)
MAGISTRATE (_pointing to_ JACK SMITH). Policeman, put the handcuffs
on this man. I see it all now. A case of false impersonation, a
conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice. There was a case in the
Andaman Islands, a murderer of the Mopsa tribe, a religious
enthusiast--
POLICEMAN. So he might be, too.
MAGISTRATE. We must take both these men to the scene of the
murder. We must confront them with the body of the real Jack
Smith.
JACK SMITH. I'll break the head of any man that will find my dead
body!
MAGISTRATE. I'll call more help from the barracks.
(_Blows POLICEMAN'S whistle._)
BARTLEY. It is what I am thinking, if myself and Jack Smith are
put together in the one cell for the night, the handcuffs will be
taken off him, and his hands will be free, and murder will be
done that time surely!
MAGISTRATE. Come on!
(_They turn to the right._)
[CURTAIN]