SCENE: In the cheerless hour before the dawn of a wet spring
morning five gentlemen-troopers of the broken Royalist army,
fagged and outworn with three long days of siege, are holding,
with what strength and courage are left them, the Gatehouse of
the Bridge of Cashala, which is the key to the road that leads
into Connaught. The upper chamber of the Gatehouse, in which they
make their stand, is a narrow, dim-lit apartment, built of stone.
At one side is a small fireplace, and beside it a narrow, barred
door, which leads to the stairhead. At the end of the room,
gained by a single raised step, are three slit-like windows,
breast-high, designed, as now used, for defense in time of war.
The room is meagrely furnished, with a table on which are
powder-flask, touch-box, etc., for charging guns, a stool or two,
and an open keg of powder. The whole look of the place, bare and
martial, but depressed, bespeaks a losing fight. On the hearth
the ashes of a fire are white, and on the chimneypiece a brace of
candles are guttering out.
The five men who hold the Gatehouse wear much soiled and torn
military dress. They are pale, powder-begrimed, sunken-eyed, with
every mark of weariness of body and soul. Their leader, JOHN
TALBOT, is standing at one of the shot-windows, with piece
presented, looking forth. He is in his mid-twenties, of
Norman-Irish blood, and distinctly of a finer, more nervous type
than his companions. He has been wounded, and bears his left hand
wrapped in a bloody rag. DICK FENTON, a typical, careless young
English swashbuckler, sits by the table, charging a musket, and
singing beneath his breath as he does so. He, too, has been
wounded, and bears a bandage about his knee. Upon the floor (_at
right_) KIT NEWCOMBE lies in the sleep of utter exhaustion. He is
an English lad, in his teens, a mere tired, haggard child, with
his head rudely bandaged. On a stool by the hearth sits MYLES
BUTLER, a man of JOHN TALBOT'S own years, but a slower, heavier,
almost sullen type. Beside him kneels PHELIMY DRISCOLL, a
nervous, dark Irish lad, of one and twenty. He is resting his
injured arm across BUTLER'S knee, and BUTLER is roughly bandaging
the hurt.
For a moment there is a weary, heavy silence, in which the words
of the song which FENTON sings are audible. It is the doleful old
strain of "the hanging-tune."
[Footnote 1: Included by permission of the author and of Messrs.
Henry Holt and Company, the publishers, from the volume
_Allison's Lad and Other Martial Interludes._ (1910).]
FENTON (_singing_).
Fortune, my foe, why dost thou frown on me,
And will thy favors never greater be?
Wilt thou, I say, forever breed me pain,
And wilt thou not restore my joys again?
BUTLER (_shifting_ DRISCOLL'S _arm, none too tenderly_). More to the
light!
DRISCOLL (_catching breath with pain_). Ah! Softly, Myles!
JOHN TALBOT (_leaning forward tensely_). Ah!
FENTON. Jack! Jack Talbot! What is it that you see?
JOHN TALBOT (_with the anger of a man whose nerves are strained
almost beyond endurance_). What should I see but Cromwell's
watch-fires along the boreen? What else should I see, and the
night as black as the mouth of hell? What else should I see, and
a pest choke your throat with your fool's questions, Dick Fenton!
(_Resumes his watch._)
FENTON (_as who should say: "I thank you!"_). God 'a'
mercy--_Captain_ Talbot!
(_Resumes his singing._)
DRISCOLL. God's love! I bade ye have a care, Myles Butler.
BUTLEK (_tying the last bandage_). It's a stout heart you have in
you, Phelimy Driscoll--you to be crying out for a scratch. It's
better you would have been, you and the like of you, to be
stopping at home with your mother.
(_Rises and takes up his musket from the corner by the fireplace._)
DRISCOLL. You--you dare--you call me--coward? Ye black liar! I'll
lesson ye! I'll--
(_Tries to rise, but in the effort sways weakly forward and rests
with his head upon the stool which_ BUTLER _has quitted._)
BUTLER. A'Heaven's name, ha' done with that hanging tune! Ha'
done, Dick Fenton! We're not yet at the gallows' foot.
(_Joins_ JOHN TALBOT _at the shot-windows._)
FENTON. Nay, Myles, for us 'tis like to be nothing half so merry
as the gallows.
BUTLER. Hold your fool's tongue!
NEWCOMBE (_crying out in his sleep_). Oh! Oh!
JOHN TALBOT. What was that?
FENTON. 'Twas naught but young Newcombe that cried out in the
clutch of a nightmare.
BUTLER. 'Tis time Kit Newcombe rose and stood his watch.
JOHN TALBOT (_leaving the window_). Nay, 'tis only a boy. Let him
sleep while he can! Let him sleep!
BUTLER. Turn and turn at the watch, 'tis but fair. Stir yonder
sluggard awake, Dick!