the wolves would not come near when I had charge of them, and the
birds came to me and ate bread from my lap. You know those fields of
Domremy?
PAUL. I knew them once.
JEANNE. You knew my church. It still is there?
PAUL. Who can say?
JEANNE. Cannot you, who were baptized in it?
PAUL. Jeanne, the Germans came to Domremy. I do not know if anything
is left.
JEANNE. The Germans? But the Germans did not count when I lived there.
FRED. No, and they'll count a sight less before so long.
PAUL. They came like a thunderstorm, Jeanne. They swept our men away.
They tore up treaties, and they came through Belgium and ravished it,
and took us unawares. They blotted out our frontiers and came on like
the tide till even Paris heard the sound of German guns. And then the
English came, slowly at first, and just a little late, but not too
late, then more and more and all the time more English came. They
swept the Germans from the seas and drove their ships to hide.
Shoulder to shoulder they have fought for France. They hurled the
Germans back from Paris, and when their soldiers fell more came and
more. Their plowmen and their clerks, their great lords and their
scullions, all came to France to fight with us for la patrie. Their
women make munitions and--
FRED. Yus. I daresay. Very fine. Only that'll do. We ain't done
nothing to make a song about.
PAUL. Our children and our children's children will make songs of what
the English did.
FRED. You let 'em. Leave it to 'em. Way I look at it is this, lady.
There's a big swelled-headed bully, and he gets a little fellow down
and starts kicking 'im. Well, it ain't manners, and we blokes comes
along to teach 'im wot's wot. That's all there is to it.
PAUL. There's more than I could tell in a hundred years, Jeanne.
FRED. Then what's the good of trying?
JEANNE. He tried because he had to make me understand your friendship
and all the noble thought and noble deed that lie behind this little
wreath. [_She raises the wreath._]
FRED [_interposing_]. Oh, I say now, lady, go easy with that wreath,
won't you? I--I wouldn't trample it if I were you. Battle of
Waterloo's a long time ago.
JEANNE. Don't be afraid.
FRED. Gave me a turn to see you pick it up like that.
JEANNE [_putting it on her head_]. The English wreath is in its right
place now. Here, on the head of Jeanne d'Arc. I'll wear that wreath
forever. Give me your hand, you English soldier.
FRED. I've not washed since morning, lady.
JEANNE. Your hand, that fights for France. [_She takes it._] And
yours, soldier of France.
PAUL. Jeanne! But you--[_Holding back timidly._]
JEANNE. I am where I would always be--[_she has a hand of
both_]--amongst my fighting men. They have set me on a pedestal and
made a saint of me, but I am better here, between you two, both
soldiers of France. They will not let me fight for France to-day. Save
for this mystic hour on Christmas Eve I am a thing of stone. But
Jeanne lives on. Her spirit fights for France to-day as Jeanne fought
five hundred years ago. And, in this hour when I am granted speech, I
say, "Fight on, fight on for France till France and Belgium are free
and the invader pays the price of treachery. And you, you English who
have come to France, and you in England who are making arms for
France, I, who have hated you, I, whom you burnt, I, Jeanne d'Arc of
Rheims and Orleans, I give you thanks. My people are your people, and
my cause your cause. Vivent! Vivent les Anglais!" [_During this speech
she drops the soldiers' hands. They resume gradually their sleeping
attitudes. JEANNE mounts her pedestal, and gives the last words from
it, then becomes stone again. The light fades to darkness, then
becomes the moonlight of the opening. BLANCHE enters L. She goes to
the steps, looks at the sleeping soldiers, and stands above them. Her
basket is empty but for one flower._]
PAUL [_stirring and seeing her_]. Jeanne!
BLANCHE. My name is Blanche, monsieur.
PAUL. But I--you--[_he rises_]. Mademoiselle, you are very like--
BLANCHE. I am the flower-girl whom you saw before you went to sleep,
and I am very like myself, monsieur.
PAUL. Was I asleep? [_Looks at statue._] Yes. There is Jeanne.
BLANCHE. Where else should Jeanne be but on her pedestal?
FRED [_stirring_]. Revelley again before you've hardly closed your
blooming eyes. [_Sits up sharply on seeing BLANCHE._] Hullo!
You're--you're--[_Turns to PAUL._] Why, cockey, it wasn't a yarn. The
statues do walk about in France. There's one of them doing it.
PAUL. You saw her too?
FRED. Saw her? Of course I seen her. She's there. Ain't you and me
been talking familiar with her for the last ten minutes?
PAUL. Yes, with Jeanne.
FRED. Took my 'and she did, and chanced the dirt.
BLANCHE. You have been dreaming, monsieur. C'etait une reverie.
FRED. Who's raving? Well, it may be raving, but we all raved together.
You and me and 'im, and I'll eat my bayonet raw if you didn't stand
there and take us by the hands and tell us you were that there Joan of
Arc what used to tell old Bonaparte what to do when he was in an 'ole.
BLANCHE. It was not I. There is the statue, monsieur. [_Points to
it._]
FRED. Where? [_Looks._] Well, that's queer. You're the dead spit and
image of 'er, too. And 'ere, 'ere, cockey! [_Takes PAUL's arm
excitedly._]
PAUL. Monsieur?
FRED. Look at the statue. Look at its head. Who put that wreath on it?
Did you climb up there?
PAUL. No.
FRED. No. You know you didn't. We saw her put it on herself.
PAUL. But, monsieur, then you have dreamed the same dream as I.
FRED. I saw you all right, and you saw me?
PAUL. I saw you.
FRED. And we both saw 'er. It's a rum go, cockey, but I told you I'd
given up being surprised. Our lot and yours we're going whacks in
licking the Germans, ain't we? Yus, and now we're going whacks in the
same dream, so that's that and chance it. Ententing again, only extra
cordial. [_Scratches head._] I don't quite see where she comes in,
though, if she ain't the statue.
BLANCHE. I am a flower-girl, monsieur.
FRED. Not so many flowers about you, then.
BLANCHE. I have sold out, all but one flower, monsieur, and I came
back to see if you [_to PAUL_] had got your wish.
PAUL. Yes, mademoiselle, I had my wish. The saints sent Jeanne to me
in a dream.
BLANCHE. You happy man, to get your wish!
PAUL. I am happy, mademoiselle. I have spoken with Jeanne d'Arc.
FRED. And you and me will be speaking with our sergeants if we don't
buck up and catch that blinking train. Come on, old son, back to the
Big Stink for us.
BLANCHE. Messieurs return to fight?
FRED. Lord love you, no. It's only a rumor about the war. We're a
Cook's excursion on a joy-ride seeing the sights of France. [_FRED and
PAUL move R. together._]
BLANCHE. Monsieur!
FRED [_stopping_]. Well?
BLANCHE. I kept one flower back. It is for you--for the brave English
soldier who goes out to fight for France.
FRED. Don't make me homesick. Reminds me of the flower-pots on my
kitchen window-sill. [_Takes flower and produces chocolate._] 'Ere,
miss, 'ave a bit of chocolate. Made in England, that was.
BLANCHE. Monsieur will need it for himself.
FRED. Go on. Take it. I'm all right. It's Christmas Day and extra
rations. [_Kisses her._]
BLANCHE. Merci, monsieur. Et bonne chance, mes braves, bonne chance.
FRED. Oh, we'll chance it all right. Merry Christmas, old dear. [_FRED
and PAUL go off together R. BLANCHE watches them go. Lights in the
church go out. Girls enter L. as if coming from Mass, singing a
carol._]
GIRLS
Noel! Noel! thy babe that lies
Within the manger, Mother-Maid,
Is King of earth and Paradise,
O guard him well, Noel, Noel
Ye shepherds sing, be not afraid.
O little hills of France, awake,
For angel hosts are chanting high,
His heart is pierced for our sake,
Noel, Noel, we guard him well,
He liveth though all else shall die.
[_BLANCHE joins them, singing as they cross._]
[THE CURTAIN.]
SPREADING THE NEWS[37]
By AUGUSTA GREGORY
[Footnote 37: Copyright, in United States, 1909, by Augusta
Gregory. Reprinted by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, New
York and London.
This play has been copyrighted and published simultaneously
in the United States and Great Britain.
All rights reserved, including that of translation into
foreign languages.
All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are
reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and all
countries of the Copyright Union, by the author. Performances
forbidden and right of presentation reserved.
Application for the right of performing this play or
reading it in public should be made to Samuel French, 28 West
38 St., New York City.]
Isabella Augusta Persse, later Lady Gregory, was born at Roxborough,
County Galway, Ireland, in 1859. One who saw her in the early years of
her married life describes her thus: "She was then a young woman, very
earnest, who divided her hair in the middle and wore it smooth on
either side of a broad and handsome brow. Her eyes were always full of
questions. ... In her drawing-room were to be met men of assured
reputation in literature and politics and there was always the best
reading of the times upon her tables."
Two closely related interests have always divided Lady Gregory's
attention. Her occupation with the Irish Players has been constant,
and she has from the beginning been a director of the Abbey Theatre,
where _Spreading the News_ was first performed on December 27, 1904.
This play was also included in the American repertory of the Players,
whom Lady Gregory accompanied on their visit to the United States in
1911. The spirit that she puts into her work with them is well
illustrated by those lines of Blake which she quoted in a speech made
at a dinner given her by _The Outlook_ when she was in New York. Her
hard work having been commented on, she replied:
"I will not cease from mental strife
Or let the sword fall from my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In--Ireland's--fair and lovely land."
In her book on _Our Irish Theatre, A Chapter of Autobiography_, she
relates the story of how one day when she assembled the company for
rehearsal in Washington, D. C., she invited them to leave their work
and come with her to Mount Vernon for a holiday and picnic. "I told
them," she writes, "the holiday was not a precedent, for we might go
to a great many countries before finding so great a man to honor."
Washington, it seems, had been a friend of her grandfather's who had
been in America with his regiment.
Her other great interest has been the folklore of Ireland. She has
been called the Irish Malory, because through her retelling of the
Irish sagas, she has popularized and made accessible the great cycles
of heroic legends. She has employed for the vernacular of these
romances and folk tales what she calls Kiltartan English, Kiltartan
being the village near her home, the dialect of which she has
assimilated and utilized. Lady Gregory has also used her historical
and legendary knowledge for the background of some of her plays.
It is said that the original impulse that influenced Lady Gregory to
interest herself in these old Irish stories came from Yeats, her
friend and associate in the project of the Irish National Theatre. It
was his suggestion in the first place that led to her writing
_Cuchulain of Muirthemne_. "He could not have been long at Coole,"
writes George Moore of Yeats, "before he began to draw her attention
to the beauty of the literature that rises among the hills and bubbles
irresponsibly, and set her going from cabin to cabin taking down
stories, and encouraging her to learn the original language of the
country, so that they might add to the Irish idiom which the peasant
had already translated into English, making in this way a language for
themselves." The influence continues, for her latest book, _Visions
and Beliefs in the West of Ireland_, contains two essays and notes
from the pen of Yeats.
The literary association of Yeats and Lady Gregory has been a fruitful
one for Ireland. Not only has Yeats encouraged Lady Gregory's
researches into the past, but she has been of the greatest assistance
to him in his work. When he is at Coole, she writes from his
dictation, arranges his manuscript, reads to him and serves him as
literary counselor.
Lady Gregory's life touches the life of Ireland at many points. In
addition to her literary occupations, she lectures and co-operates
actively with a number of societies that have as their aim social or
political betterment.
SPREADING THE NEWS
CHARACTERS
BARTLEY FALLON.
MRS. FALLON.
JACK SMITH.
SHAWN EARLY.
TIM CASEY.
JAMES RYAN.
MRS. TARPEY.
MRS. TULLY.
JO MULDOON, _a policeman_.
A REMOVABLE MAGISTRATE.
_SCENE._--_The outskirts of a Fair. An Apple Stall. MRS. TARPEY
sitting at it. MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN enter._
MAGISTRATE. So that is the Fair Green. Cattle and sheep and mud. No
system. What a repulsive sight!
POLICEMAN. That is so, indeed.
MAGISTRATE. I suppose there is a good deal of disorder in this place?
POLICEMAN. There is.
MAGISTRATE. Common assault?
POLICEMAN. It's common enough.
MAGISTRATE. Agrarian crime, no doubt?
POLICEMAN. That is so.
MAGISTRATE. Boycotting? Maiming of cattle? Firing into houses?
POLICEMAN. There was one time, and there might be again.
MAGISTRATE. That is bad. Does it go any farther than that?
POLICEMAN. Far enough, indeed.
MAGISTRATE. Homicide, then! This district has been shamefully
neglected! I will change all that. When I was in the Andaman Islands,
my system never failed. Yes, yes, I will change all that. What has
that woman on her stall?
POLICEMAN. Apples mostly--and sweets.
MAGISTRATE. Just see if there are any unlicensed goods
underneath--spirits or the like. We had evasions of the salt tax in
the Andaman Islands.
POLICEMAN [_sniffing cautiously and upsetting a heap of apples_]. I
see no spirits here--or salt.
MAGISTRATE [_to MRS. TARPEY_]. Do you know this town well, my good
woman?
MRS. TARPEY [_holding out some apples_]. A penny the half-dozen, your
honor.
POLICEMAN [_shouting_]. The gentleman is asking do you know the town!
He's the new magistrate!
MRS. TARPEY [_rising and ducking_]. Do I know the town? I do, to be
sure.
MAGISTRATE [_shouting_]. What is its chief business?
MRS. TARPEY. Business, is it? What business would the people here have
but to be minding one another's business?
MAGISTRATE. I mean what trade have they?
MRS. TARPEY. Not a trade. No trade at all but to be talking.
MAGISTRATE. I shall learn nothing here. [_JAMES RYAN comes in, pipe in
mouth. Seeing MAGISTRATE he retreats quickly, taking pipe from
mouth._]
MAGISTRATE. The smoke from that man's pipe had a greenish look; he may
be growing unlicensed tobacco at home. I wish I had brought my
telescope to this district. Come to the post-office, I will telegraph
for it. I found it very useful in the Andaman Islands. [_MAGISTRATE
and POLICEMAN go out left._]
MRS. TARPEY. Bad luck to Jo Muldoon, knocking my apples this way and
that way. [_Begins arranging them._] Showing off he was to the new
magistrate. [_Enter BARTLEY FALLON and MRS. FALLON._]
BARTLEY. Indeed it's a poor country and a scarce country to be living
in. But I'm thinking if I went to America it's long ago the day I'd be
dead!
MRS. FALLON. So you might, indeed. [_She puts her basket on a barrel
and begins putting parcels in it, taking them from under her cloak._]
BARTLEY. And it's a great expense for a poor man to be buried in
America.
MRS. FALLON. Never fear, Bartley Fallon, but I'll give you a good
burying the day you'll die.
BARTLEY. Maybe it's yourself will be buried in the graveyard of
Cloonmara before me, Mary Fallon, and I myself that will be dying
unbeknownst some night, and no one a-near me. And the cat itself may
be gone straying through the country, and the mice squealing over the
quilt.
MRS. FALLON. Leave off talking of dying. It might be twenty years
you'll be living yet.
BARTLEY [_with a deep sigh_]. I'm thinking if I'll be living at the
end of twenty years, it's a very old man I'll be then!
MRS. TARPEY [_turns and sees them_]. Good morrow, Bartley Fallon; good
morrow, Mrs. Fallon. Well, Bartley, you'll find no cause for
complaining to-day; they are all saying it was a good fair.
BARTLEY [_raising his voice_]. It was not a good fair, Mrs. Tarpey. It
was a scattered sort of a fair. If we didn't expect more, we got less.
That's the way with me always; whatever I have to sell goes down and
whatever I have to buy goes up. If there's ever any misfortune coming
to this world, it's on myself it pitches, like a flock of crows on
seed potatoes.
MRS. FALLON. Leave off talking of misfortunes, and listen to Jack
Smith that is coming the way, and he singing. [_Voice of JACK SMITH
heard singing:_]
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!
[_JACK SMITH comes in; he is a red-haired man, and is carrying a
hayfork._]
MRS. TARPEY. That should be a good song if I had my hearing.
MRS. FALLON [_shouting_]. It's "The Red-haired Man's Wife."
MRS. TARPEY. I know it well. That's the song that has a skin on it!
[_She turns her back to them and goes on arranging her apples._]
MRS. FALLON. Where's herself, Jack Smith?
JACK SMITH. She was delayed with her washing; bleaching the clothes on
the hedge she is, and she daren't leave them, with all the tinkers
that do be passing to the fair. It isn't to the fair I came myself,
but up to the Five Acre Meadow I'm going, where I have a contract for
the hay. We'll get a share of it into tramps to-day. [_He lays down
hayfork and lights his pipe._]
BARTLEY. You will not get it into tramps to-day. The rain will be down
on it by evening, and on myself too. It's seldom I ever started on a
journey but the rain would come down on me before I'd find any place
of shelter.
JACK SMITH. If it didn't itself, Bartley, it is my belief you would
carry a leaky pail on your head in place of a hat, the way you'd not
be without some cause of complaining. [_A voice heard, "Go on, now, go
on out o' that. Go on I say."_]
JACK SMITH. Look at that young mare of Pat Ryan's that is backing into
Shaughnessy's bullocks with the dint of the crowd! Don't be daunted,
Pat, I'll give you a hand with her. [_He goes out, leaving his
hayfork._]
MRS. FALLON. It's time for ourselves to be going home. I have all I
bought put in the basket. Look at there, Jack Smith's hayfork he left
after him! He'll be wanting it. [_Calls._] Jack Smith! Jack
Smith!--He's gone through the crowd--hurry after him, Bartley, he'll
be wanting it.
BARTLEY. I'll do that. This is no safe place to be leaving it. [_He
takes up fork awkwardly and upsets the basket._] Look at that now! If
there is any basket in the fair upset, it must be our own basket! [_He
goes out to right._]
MRS. FALLON. Get out of that! It is your own fault, it is. Talk of
misfortunes and misfortunes will come. Glory be! Look at my new
egg-cups rolling in every part--and my two pound of sugar with the
paper broke--
MRS. TARPEY [_turning from stall_]. God help us, Mrs. Fallon, what
happened your basket?
MRS. FALLON. It's himself that knocked it down, bad manners to him.
[_Putting things up._] My grand sugar that's destroyed, and he'll not
drink his tea without it. I had best go back to the shop for more,
much good may it do him! [_Enter TIM CASEY._]
TIM CASEY. Where is Bartley Fallon, Mrs. Fallon? I want a word with
him before he'll leave the fair. I was afraid he might have gone home
by this, for he's a temperate man.
MRS. FALLON. I wish he did go home! It'd be best for me if he went
home straight from the fair green, or if he never came with me at all!
Where is he, is it? He's gone up the road [_jerks elbow_] following
Jack Smith with a hayfork. [_She goes out to left._]
TIM CASEY. Following Jack Smith with a hayfork! Did ever anyone hear
the like of that. [_Shouts._] Did you hear that news, Mrs. Tarpey?
MRS. TARPEY. I heard no news at all.
TIM CASEY. Some dispute I suppose it was that rose between Jack Smith
and Bartley Fallon, and it seems Jack made off, and Bartley is
following him with a hayfork!
MRS. TARPEY. Is he now? Well, that was quick work! It's not ten
minutes since the two of them were here, Bartley going home and Jack
going to the Five Acre Meadow; and I had my apples to settle up, that
Jo Muldoon of the police had scattered, and when I looked round again
Jack Smith was gone, and Bartley Fallon was gone, and Mrs. Fallon's
basket upset, and all in it strewed upon the ground--the tea here--the
two pound of sugar there--the egg-cups there--Look, now, what a great
hardship the deafness puts upon me, that I didn't hear the
commincement of the fight! Wait till I tell James Ryan that I see
below; he is a neighbor of Bartley's, it would be a pity if he
wouldn't hear the news! [_She goes out. Enter SHAWN EARLY and MRS.
TULLY._]
TIM CASEY. Listen, Shawn Early! Listen, Mrs. Tully, to the news! Jack
Smith and Bartley Fallon had a falling out, and Jack knocked Mrs.
Fallon's basket into the road, and Bartley made an attack on him with
a hayfork, and away with Jack, and Bartley after him. Look at the
sugar here yet on the road!
SHAWN EARLY. Do you tell me so? Well, that's a queer thing, and
Bartley Fallon so quiet a man!
MRS. TULLY. I wouldn't wonder at all. I would never think well of a
man that would have that sort of a moldering look. It's likely he has
overtaken Jack by this. [_Enter JAMES RYAN and MRS. TARPEY._]
JAMES RYAN. That is great news Mrs. Tarpey was telling me! I suppose
that's what brought the police and the magistrate up this way. I was
wondering to see them in it a while ago.
SHAWN EARLY. The police after them? Bartley Fallon must have injured
Jack so. They wouldn't meddle in a fight that was only for show!
MRS. TULLY. Why wouldn't he injure him? There was many a man killed
with no more of a weapon than a hayfork.
JAMES RYAN. Wait till I run north as far as Kelly's bar to spread the
news! [_He goes out._]
TIM CASEY. I'll go tell Jack Smith's first cousin that is standing
there south of the church after selling his lambs. [_Goes out._]
MRS. TULLY. I'll go telling a few of the neighbors I see beyond to the
west. [_Goes out._]
SHAWN EARLY. I'll give word of it beyond at the east of the green.
[_Is going out when MRS. TARPEY seizes hold of him._]
MRS. TARPEY. Stop a minute, Shawn Early, and tell me did you see red
Jack Smith's wife, Kitty Keary, in any place?
SHAWN EARLY. I did. At her own house she was, drying clothes on the
hedge as I passed.
MRS. TARPEY. What did you say she was doing?
SHAWN EARLY [_breaking away._] Laying out a sheet on the hedge. [_He
goes._]
MRS. TARPEY. Laying out a sheet for the dead! The Lord have mercy on
us! Jack Smith dead, and his wife laying out a sheet for his burying!
[_Calls out._] Why didn't you tell me that before, Shawn Early? Isn't
the deafness the great hardship? Half the world might be dead without
me knowing of it or getting word of it at all! [_She sits down and
rocks herself._] Oh, my poor Jack Smith! To be going to his work so
nice and so hearty, and to be left stretched on the ground in the full
light of the day! [_Enter TIM CASEY._]
TIM CASEY. What is it, Mrs. Tarpey? What happened since?
MRS. TARPEY. Oh, my poor Jack Smith!
TIM CASEY. Did Bartley overtake him?
MRS. TARPEY. Oh, the poor man!
TIM CASEY. Is it killed he is?
MRS. TARPEY. Stretched in the Five Acre Meadow!
TIM CASEY. The Lord have mercy on us! Is that a fact?
MRS. TARPEY. Without the rites of the Church or a ha'porth!
TIM CASEY. Who was telling you?
MRS. TARPEY. And the wife laying out a sheet for his corpse. [_Sits up
and wipes her eyes._] I suppose they'll wake him the same as another?
[_Enter MRS. TULLY, SHAWN EARLY, and JAMES RYAN._]
MRS. TULLY. There is great talk about this work in every quarter of
the fair.
MRS. TARPEY. Ochone! cold and dead. And myself maybe the last he was
speaking to!
JAMES RYAN. The Lord save us! Is it dead he is?
TIM CASEY. Dead surely, and the wife getting provision for the wake.
SHAWN EARLY. Well, now, hadn't Bartley Fallon great venom in him?
MRS. TULLY. You may be sure he had some cause. Why would he have made
an end of him if he had not? [_To MRS. TARPEY, raising her voice._]
What was it rose the dispute at all, Mrs. Tarpey?
MRS. TARPEY. Not a one of me knows. The last I saw of them, Jack Smith
was standing there, and Bartley Fallon was standing there, quiet and
easy, and he listening to "The Red-haired Man's Wife."