(_They build a square wall with sticks._)
_Child:_ (_Taking up branch._) I will put this in the middle. This is
the tree. I will get something to make it stand up. (_Gets up and
looks at dresser._) I can't reach it, get up and give me that shining
jug.
(_Travelling Man gets up and gives him the jug._)
_Travelling Man:_ Here it is for you.
_Child:_ (_Puts it within the walls and sets the branch in it._) Tell
me something else that is in the garden?
_Travelling Man:_ There are four wells of water in it, that are as
clear as glass.
_Child:_ Get me down those cups, those flowery cups, we will put them
for wells. (_He hands them down._) Now I will make the gates, give me
those plates for gates, not those ugly ones, those nice ones at the
top.
(_He takes them down and they put them on the four sides for
gates. The Child gets up and looks at it._)
_Travelling Man:_ There now, it is finished.
_Child:_ Is it as good as the other garden? How can we go to the
Golden Mountain to see the other garden?
_Travelling Man:_ We can ride to it.
_Child:_ But we have no horse.
_Travelling Man:_ This form will be our horse. (_He draws a form out
of the corner, and sits down astride on it, putting the child before
him._) Now, off we go! (_Sings, the child repeating the refrain_)--
Come ride and ride to the garden,
Come ride and ride with a will:
For the flower comes with the fruit there
Beyond a hill and a hill.
_Refrain_
Come ride and ride to the garden,
Come ride like the March wind;
There's barley there, and water there,
And stabling to your mind.
_Travelling Man:_ How did you like that ride, little horseman?
_Child:_ Go on again! I want another ride!
_Travelling Man_ (_sings_)--
The Archangels stand in a row there
And all the garden bless,
The Archangel Axel, Victor the angel
Work at the cider press.
_Refrain_
Come ride and ride to the garden, &c.
_Child:_ We will soon be at the Golden Mountain now. Ride again. Sing
another song.
_Travelling Man_ (_sings_)--
O scent of the broken apples!
O shuffling of holy shoes!
Beyond a hill and a hill there
In the land that no one knows.
_Refrain_
Come ride and ride to the garden, &c.
_Child:_ Now another ride.
_Travelling Man:_ This will be the last. It will be a good ride.
(_The mother comes in. She stares for a second, then throws
down her basket and snatches up the child._)
_Mother:_ Did ever anyone see the like of that! A common beggar, a
travelling man off the roads, to be holding the child! To be leaving
his ragged arms about him as if he was of his own sort! Get out of
that, whoever you are, and quit this house or I'll call to some that
will make you quit it.
_Child:_ Do not send him out! He is not a bad man; he is a good man;
he was playing horses with me. He has grand songs.
_Mother:_ Let him get away out of this now, himself and his share of
songs. Look at the way he has your bib destroyed that I was after
washing in the morning!
_Child:_ He was holding me on the horse. We were riding, I might have
fallen. He held me.
_Mother:_ I give you my word you are done now with riding horses. Let
him go on his road. I have no time to be cleaning the place after the
like of him.
_Child:_ He is tired. Let him stop here till evening.
_Travelling Man:_ Let me rest here for a while, I have been travelling
a long way.
_Mother:_ Where did you come from to-day?
_Travelling Man:_ I came over Slieve Echtge from Slieve na n-Or. I had
no house to stop in. I walked the long bog road, the wind was going
through me, there was no shelter to be got, the red mud of the road
was heavy on my feet. I got no welcome in the villages, and so I came
on to this place, to the rising of the river at Ballylee.
_Mother:_ It is best for you to go on to the town. It is not far for
you to go. We will maybe have company coming in here.
(_She pours out flour into a bowl and begins mixing._)
_Travelling Man:_ Will you give me a bit of that dough to bring with
me? I have gone a long time fasting.
_Mother:_ It is not often in the year I make bread like this. There
are a few cold potatoes on the dresser, are they not good enough for
you? There is many a one would be glad to get them.
_Travelling Man:_ Whatever you will give me, I will take it.
_Mother:_ (_Going to the dresser for the potatoes and looking at the
shelves._) What in the earthly world has happened all the delf? Where
are the jugs gone and the plates? They were all in it when I went out
a while ago.
_Child:_ (_Hanging his head._) We were making a garden with them. We
were making that garden there in the corner.
_Mother:_ Is that what you were doing after I bidding you to sit still
and to keep yourself quiet? It is to tie you in the chair I will
another time! My grand jugs! (_She picks them up and wipes them._) My
plates that I bought the first time I ever went marketing into Gort.
The best in the shop they were. (_One slips from her hand and
breaks._) Look at that now, look what you are after doing.
(_She gives a slap at the child._)
_Travelling Man:_ Do not blame the child. It was I myself took them
down from the dresser.
_Mother:_ (_Turning on him._) It was you took them! What business had
you doing that? It's the last time a tramp or a tinker or a rogue of
the roads will have a chance of laying his hand on anything in this
house. It is jailed you should be! What did you want touching the
dresser at all? Is it looking you were for what you could bring away?
_Travelling Man:_ (_Taking the child's hands._) I would not refuse
these hands that were held out for them. If it was for the four winds
of the world he had asked, I would have put their bridles into these
innocent hands.
_Mother:_ (_Taking up the jug and throwing the branch on the floor._)
Get out of this! Get out of this I tell you! There is no shelter here
for the like of you! Look at that mud on the floor! You are not fit to
come into the house of any decent respectable person!
(_The room begins to darken._)
_Travelling Man:_ Indeed, I am more used to the roads than to the
shelter of houses. It is often I have spent the night on the bare
hills.
_Mother:_ No wonder in that! (_She begins to sweep floor._) Go out of
this now to whatever company you are best used to, whatever they are.
The worst of people it is likely they are, thieves and drunkards and
shameless women.
_Travelling Man:_ Maybe so. Drunkards and thieves and shameless women,
stones that have fallen, that are trodden under foot, bodies that are
spoiled with sores, bodies that are worn with fasting, minds that are
broken with much sinning, the poor, the mad, the bad....
_Mother:_ Get out with you! Go back to your friends, I say!
_Travelling Man:_ I will go. I will go back to the high road that is
walked by the bare feet of the poor, by the innocent bare feet of
children. I will go back to the rocks and the wind, to the cries of
the trees in the storm! (_He goes out._)
_Child:_ He has forgotten his branch!
(_Takes it and follows him._)
_Mother:_ (_Still sweeping._) My good plates from the dresser, and
dirty red mud on the floor, and the sticks all scattered in every
place. (_Stoops to pick them up._) Where is the child gone? (_Goes to
door._) I don't see him--he couldn't have gone to the river--it is
getting dark--the bank is slippy. Come back! Come back! Where are you?
(_Child runs in._)
_Mother:_ O where were you? I was in dread it was to the river you
were gone, or into the river.
_Child:_ I went after him. He is gone over the river.
_Mother:_ He couldn't do that. He couldn't go through the flood.
_Child:_ He did go over it. He was as if walking on the water. There
was a light before his feet.
_Mother:_ That could not be so. What put that thought in your mind?
_Child:_ I called to him to come back for the branch, and he turned
where he was in the river, and he bade me to bring it back, and to
show it to yourself.
_Mother:_ (_Taking the branch._) There are fruit and flowers on it. It
is a branch that is not of any earthly tree. (_Falls on her knees._)
He is gone, he is gone, and I never knew him! He was that stranger
that gave me all! He is the King of the World!
THE GAOL GATE
PERSONS
_Mary Cahel_ AN OLD WOMAN
_Mary Cushin_ HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
_The Gatekeeper_
THE GAOL GATE
_Scene: Outside the gate of Galway Gaol. Two countrywomen, one
in a long dark cloak, the other with a shawl over her head,
have just come in. It is just before dawn._
_Mary Cahel:_ I am thinking we are come to our journey's end, and that
this should be the gate of the gaol.
_Mary Cushin:_ It is certain it could be no other place. There was
surely never in the world such a terrible great height of a wall.
_Mary Cahel:_ He that was used to the mountain to be closed up inside
of that! What call had he to go moonlighting or to bring himself into
danger at all?
_Mary Cushin:_ It is no wonder a man to grow faint-hearted and he shut
away from the light. I never would wonder at all at anything he might
be driven to say.
_Mary Cahel:_ There were good men were gaoled before him never gave in
to anyone at all. It is what I am thinking, Mary, he might not have
done what they say.
_Mary Cushin:_ Sure you heard what the neighbours were calling the
time their own boys were brought away. "It is Denis Cahel," they were
saying, "that informed against them in the gaol."
_Mary Cahel:_ There is nothing that is bad or is wicked but a woman
will put it out of her mouth, and she seeing them that belong to her
brought away from her sight and her home.
_Mary Cushin:_ Terry Fury's mother was saying it, and Pat Ruane's
mother and his wife. They came out calling it after me, "It was Denis
swore against them in the gaol!" The sergeant was boasting, they were
telling me, the day he came searching Daire-caol, it was he himself
got his confession with drink he had brought him in the gaol.
_Mary Cahel:_ They might have done that, the ruffians, and the boy
have no blame on him at all. Why should it be cast up against him, and
his wits being out of him with drink?
_Mary Cushin:_ If he did give their names up itself, there was maybe
no wrong in it at all. Sure it's known to all the village it was Terry
that fired the shot.
_Mary Cahel:_ Stop your mouth now and don't be talking. You haven't
any sense worth while. Let the sergeant do his own business with no
help from the neighbours at all.
_Mary Cushin:_ It was Pat Ruane that tempted them on account of some
vengeance of his own. Every creature knows my poor Denis never handled
a gun in his life.
_Mary Cahel:_ (_Taking from under her cloak a long blue envelope._) I
wish we could know what is in the letter they are after sending us
through the post. Isn't it a great pity for the two of us to be
without learning at all?
_Mary Cushin:_ There are some of the neighbours have learning, and you
bade me not bring it anear them. It would maybe have told us what way
he is or what time he will be quitting the gaol.
_Mary Cahel:_ There is wonder on me, Mary Cushin, that you would not
be content with what I say. It might be they put down in the letter
that Denis informed on the rest.
_Mary Cushin:_ I suppose it is all we have to do so, to stop here for
the opening of the door. It's a terrible long road from Slieve Echtge
we were travelling the whole of the night.
_Mary Cahel:_ There was no other thing for us to do but to come and to
give him a warning. What way would he be facing the neighbours, and he
to come back to Daire-caol?
_Mary Cushin:_ It is likely they will let him go free, Mary, before
many days will be out. What call have they to be keeping him? It is
certain they promised him his life.
_Mary Cahel:_ If they promised him his life, Mary Cushin, he must live
it in some other place. Let him never see Daire-caol again, or Daroda
or Druimdarod.
_Mary Cushin:_ O, Mary, what place will we bring him to, and we driven
from the place that we know? What person that is sent among strangers
can have one day's comfort on earth?
_Mary Cahel:_ It is only among strangers, I am thinking, he could be
hiding his story at all. It is best for him to go to America, where
the people are as thick as grass.
_Mary Cushin:_ What way could he go to America and he having no means
in his hand? There's himself and myself to make the voyage and the
little one-een at home.
_Mary Cahel:_ I would sooner to sell the holding than to ask for the
price paid for blood. There'll be money enough for the two of you to
settle your debts and to go.
_Mary Cushin:_ And what would yourself be doing and we to go over the
sea? It is not among the neighbours you would wish to be ending your
days.
_Mary Cahel:_ I am thinking there is no one would know me in the
workhouse at Oughterard. I wonder could I go in there, and I not to
give them my name?
_Mary Cushin:_ Ah, don't be talking foolishness. What way could I
bring the child? Sure he's hardly out of the cradle; he'd be lost out
there in the States.
_Mary Cahel:_ I could bring him into the workhouse, I to give him some
other name. You could send for him when you'd be settled or have some
place of your own.
_Mary Cushin:_ It is very cold at the dawn. It is time for them open
the door. I wish I had brought a potato or a bit of a cake or of
bread.
_Mary Cahel:_ I'm in dread of it being opened and not knowing what
will we hear. The night that Denis was taken he had a great cold and a
cough.
_Mary Cushin:_ I think I hear some person coming. There's a sound like
the rattling of keys. God and His Mother protect us! I'm in dread of
being found here at all!
(_The gate is opened, and the Gatekeeper is seen with a lantern
in his hand._)
_Gatekeeper:_ What are you doing here, women? It's no place to be
spending the night time.
_Mary Cahel:_ It is to speak with my son I am asking, that is gaoled
these eight weeks and a day.
_Gatekeeper:_ If you have no order to visit him it's as good for you
go away home.
_Mary Cahel:_ I got this letter ere yesterday. It might be it is
giving me leave.
_Gatekeeper:_ If that's so he should be under the doctor, or in the
hospital ward.
_Mary Cahel:_ It's no wonder if he's down with the hardship, for he
had a great cough and a cold.
_Gatekeeper:_ Give me here the letter to read it. Sure it never was
opened at all.
_Mary Cahel:_ Myself and this woman have no learning. We were loth to
trust any other one.
_Gatekeeper:_ It was posted in Galway the twentieth, and this is the
last of the month.
_Mary Cahel:_ We never thought to call at the post office. It was
chance brought it to us in the end.
_Gatekeeper:_ (_Having read letter._) You poor unfortunate women,
don't you know Denis Cahel is dead? You'd a right to come this time
yesterday if you wished any last word at all.
_Mary Cahel:_ (_Kneeling down._) God and His Mother protect us and
have mercy on Denis's soul!
_Mary Cushin:_ What is the man after saying? Sure it cannot be Denis
is dead?
_Gatekeeper:_ Dead since the dawn of yesterday, and another man now in
his cell. I'll go see who has charge of his clothing if you're wanting
to bring it away.
(_He goes in. The dawn has begun to break._)
_Mary Cahel:_ There is lasting kindness in Heaven when no kindness is
found upon earth. There will surely be mercy found for him, and not
the hard judgment of men! But my boy that was best in the world, that
never rose a hair of my head, to have died with his name under
blemish, and left a great shame on his child! Better for him have
killed the whole world than to give any witness at all! Have you no
word to say, Mary Cushin? Am I left here to keen him alone?
_Mary Cushin:_ (_Who has sunk on to the step before the door, rocking
herself and keening._) Oh, Denis, my heart is broken you to have died
with the hard word upon you! My grief you to be alone now that spent
so many nights in company!
What way will I be going back through Gort and through Kilbecanty? The
people will not be coming out keening you, they will say no prayer for
the rest of your soul!
What way will I be the Sunday and I going up the hill to the Mass?
Every woman with her own comrade, and Mary Cushin to be walking her
lone!
What way will I be the Monday and the neighbours turning their heads
from the house? The turf Denis cut lying on the bog, and no
well-wisher to bring it to the hearth!
What way will I be in the night time, and none but the dog calling
after you? Two women to be mixing a cake, and not a man in the house
to break it!
What way will I sow the field, and no man to drive the furrow? The
sheaf to be scattered before springtime that was brought together at
the harvest!
I would not begrudge you, Denis, and you leaving praises after you.
The neighbours keening along with me would be better to me than an
estate.
But my grief your name to be blackened in the time of the blackening
of the rushes! Your name never to rise up again in the growing time of
the year! (_She ceases keening and turns towards the old woman._) But
tell me, Mary, do you think would they give us the body of Denis? I
would lay him out with myself only; I would hire some man to dig the
grave.
(_The Gatekeeper opens the gate and hands out some clothes._)
_Gatekeeper:_ There now is all he brought in with him; the flannels
and the shirt and the shoes. It is little they are worth altogether;
those mountainy boys do be poor.
_Mary Cushin:_ They had a right to give him time to ready himself the
day they brought him to the magistrates. He to be wearing his Sunday
coat, they would see he was a decent boy. Tell me where will they bury
him, the way I can follow after him through the street? There is no
other one to show respect to him but Mary Cahel, his mother, and
myself.
_Gatekeeper:_ That is not to be done. He is buried since yesterday in
the field that is belonging to the gaol.
_Mary Cushin:_ It is a great hardship that to have been done, and not
one of his own there to follow after him at all.
_Gatekeeper:_ Those that break the law must be made an example of. Why
would they be laid out like a well behaved man? A long rope and a
short burying, that is the order for a man that is hanged.
_Mary Cushin:_ A man that was hanged! O Denis, was it they that made
an end of you and not the great God at all? His curse and my own curse
upon them that did not let you die on the pillow! The curse of God be
fulfilled that was on them before they were born! My curse upon them
that brought harm on you, and on Terry Fury that fired the shot!
_Mary Cahel:_ (_Standing up._) And the other boys, did they hang them
along with him, Terry Fury and Pat Ruane that were brought from
Daire-caol?
_Gatekeeper:_ They did not, but set them free twelve hours ago. It is
likely you may have passed them in the night time.
_Mary Cushin:_ Set free is it, and Denis made an end of? What justice
is there in the world at all?
_Gatekeeper:_ He was taken near the house. They knew his footmark.
There was no witness given against the rest worth while.
_Mary Cahel:_ Then the sergeant was lying and the people were lying
when they said Denis Cahel had informed in the gaol?
_Gatekeeper:_ I have no time to be stopping here talking. The judge
got no evidence and the law set them free.
(_He goes in and shuts gate after him._)
_Mary Cahel:_ (_Holding out her hands._) Are there any people in the
streets at all till I call on them to come hither? Did they ever hear
in Galway such a thing to be done, a man to die for his neighbour?
Tell it out in the streets for the people to hear, Denis Cahel from
Slieve Echtge is dead. It was Denis Cahel from Daire-caol that died in
the place of his neighbour!
It is he was young and comely and strong, the best reaper and the best
hurler. It was not a little thing for him to die, and he protecting
his neighbour!
Gather up, Mary Cushin, the clothes for your child; they'll be wanted
by this one and that one. The boys crossing the sea in the springtime
will be craving a thread for a memory.
One word to the judge and Denis was free, they offered him all sorts
of riches. They brought him drink in the gaol, and gold, to swear
away the life of his neighbour!
Pat Ruane was no good friend to him at all, but a foolish, wild
companion; it was Terry Fury knocked a gap in the wall and sent in the
calves to our meadow.
Denis would not speak, he shut his mouth, he would never be an
informer. It is no lie he would have said at all giving witness
against Terry Fury.
I will go through Gort and Kilbecanty and Druimdarod and Daroda; I
will call to the people and the singers at the fairs to make a great
praise for Denis!
The child he left in the house that is shook, it is great will be his
boast in his father! All Ireland will have a welcome before him, and
all the people in Boston.
I to stoop on a stick through half a hundred years, I will never be
tired with praising! Come hither, Mary Cushin, till we'll shout it
through the roads, Denis Cahel died for his neighbour!
(_She goes off to the left, Mary Cushin following her._)
_Curtain_
MUSIC FOR THE SONGS IN THE PLAYS
[Illustration: Music sheet for THE RED-HAIRED MAN'S WIFE
THE RED-HAIRED MAN'S WIFE
_Spreading the News._
I thought, my first love, there'd be but one house between you and me,
And I thought I would find yourself coaxing my child on your knee.
Over the tide I would leap with the leap of a swan,
Till I came to the side of the wife of the red-haired man.]
[Illustration: Music sheet for GRANUAILE
GRANUAILE
_The Rising of the Moon._
As through the hills I walked to view the bills and sham-rock plain,
I stood a while where nature smiles to view the rocks and streams.
On a ma-tron fair I fixed my eyes beneath a fer-tile vale,
As she sang her song--it was on the wrong of poor old Gran-u-aile.
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--]
[Illustration: Music sheet for JOHNNY HART
JOHNNY HART
_The Rising of the Moon._
There was a rich far-mer's daugh-ter lived near the town of Ross;
She courted a High-land soldier, His name was John-ny Hart;
Says the mother to her daughter, "I'll go distracted mad
If you mar-ry that Highland soldier dressed up to his High-land plaid."]
[Illustration: Music sheet for THE RISING OF THE MOON
THE RISING OF THE MOON
O, then, tell me, Shawn O' Far-rell, where the gath'ring is to be.
In the old spot by the river, Right well known to you and me.
One word more, for signal token whistle up the march-ing tune,
With your pike up - on your shoulder at the rising of the moon.]
[Illustration: Music sheet for GAOL GATE
GAOL GATE
Caions.
_Tempo, ad lib._
What way will I be the Sun-day
And I going up the hill to the Mass;
Ev'ry woman with her own comrade
And Mary Cush-in to be walk-ing her lone.
{_Spoken_.}
What way drive the furrow?
{_Sings_.}
The sheaf to be scat-tered before spring-time that was
brought together at the harvest!
{_Spoken_.}
I would not--an estate.
{_Sings_.}
But my grief your name to be blackened in
the time of the black'ning of the rushes
Your ... name never to rise up again
In the growing time ... of ... the year.]
NOTES AND CASTS
SPREADING THE NEWS
The idea of this play first came to me as a tragedy. I kept seeing as
in a picture people sitting by the roadside, and a girl passing to the
market, gay and fearless. And then I saw her passing by the same place
at evening, her head hanging, the heads of others turned from her,
because of some sudden story that had risen out of a chance word, and
had snatched away her good name.
But comedy and not tragedy was wanted at our theatre to put beside the
high poetic work, _The King's Threshold_, _The Shadowy Waters_, _On
Baile's Strand_, _The Well of the Saints_; and I let laughter have its
way with the little play. I was delayed in beginning it for a while,
because I could only think of Bartley Fallon as dull-witted or silly
or ignorant, and the handcuffs seemed too harsh a punishment. But one
day by the sea at Duras a melancholy man who was telling me of the
crosses he had gone through at home said--"But I'm thinking if I went
to America, its long ago to-day I'd be dead. And its a great expense
for a poor man to be buried in America." Bartley was born at that
moment, and, far from harshness, I felt I was providing him with a
happy old age in giving him the lasting glory of that great and
crowning day of misfortune.
It has been acted very often by other companies as well as our own,
and the Boers have done me the honour of translating and pirating it.
HYACINTH HALVEY
I was pointed out one evening a well-brushed, well-dressed man in the
stalls, and was told gossip about him, perhaps not all true, which
made me wonder if that appearance and behaviour as of extreme
respectability might not now and again be felt a burden.