Chapter VIII: Part 8

PAUL [_unlinking his arm_]. Perhaps I can show you reason. I who was born at Domremy.

JEANNE. You come from there! My home?

PAUL. Yes.

JEANNE. You know St. Remy's church and the Meuse and the beech-tree where they said the fairies used to dance. The tree. Is it still there?

PAUL. I do not know.

JEANNE. And the fields! The fields where I kept my father's sheep, and 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."

MRS. TULLY. Do you hear that, Tim Casey? Do you hear that, Shawn Early and James Ryan? Bartley Fallon was here this morning listening to red Jack Smith's wife, Kitty Keary that was! Listening to her and whispering with her! It was she started the fight so!

SHAWN EARLY. She must have followed him from her own house. It is likely some person roused him.

TIM CASEY. I never knew, before, Bartley Fallon was great with Jack Smith's wife.

MRS. TULLY. How would you know it? Sure it's not in the streets they would be calling it. If Mrs. Fallon didn't know of it, and if I that have the next house to them didn't know of it, and if Jack Smith himself didn't know of it, it is not likely you would know of it, Tim Casey.

SHAWN EARLY. Let Bartley Fallon take charge of her from this out so, and let him provide for her. It is little pity she will get from any person in this parish.

TIM CASEY. How can he take charge of her? Sure he has a wife of his own. Sure you don't think he'd turn souper and marry her in a Protestant church?

JAMES RYAN. It would be easy for him to marry her if he brought her to America.

SHAWN EARLY. With or without Kitty Keary, believe me it is for America he's making at this minute. I saw the new magistrate and Jo Muldoon of the police going into the post-office as I came up--there was hurry on them--you may be sure it was to telegraph they went, the way he'll be stopped in the docks at Queenstown!

MRS. TULLY. It's likely Kitty Keary is gone with him, and not minding a sheet or a wake at all. The poor man, to be deserted by his own wife, and the breath hardly gone out yet from his body that is lying bloody in the field! [_Enter MRS. FALLON._]

MRS. FALLON. What is it the whole of the town is talking about? And what is it you yourselves are talking about? Is it about my man Bartley Fallon you are talking? Is it lies about him you are telling, saying that he went killing Jack Smith? My grief that ever he came into this place at all!

JAMES RYAN. Be easy now, Mrs. Fallon. Sure there is no one at all in the whole fair but is sorry for you!

MRS. FALLON. Sorry for me, is it? Why would anyone be sorry for me? Let you be sorry for yourselves, and that there may be shame on you forever and at the day of judgment, for the words you are saying and the lies you are telling to take away the character of my poor man, and to take the good name off of him, and to drive him to destruction! That is what you are doing!

SHAWN EARLY. Take comfort now, Mrs. Fallon. The police are not so smart as they think. Sure he might give them the slip yet, the same as Lynchehaun.

MRS. TULLY. If they do get him, and if they do put a rope around his neck, there is no one can say he does not deserve it!

MRS. FALLON. Is that what you are saying, Bridget Tully, and is that what you think? I tell you it's too much talk you have, making yourself out to be such a great one, and to be running down every respectable person! A rope, is it? It isn't much of a rope was needed to tie up your own furniture the day you came into Martin Tully's house, and you never bringing as much as a blanket, or a penny, or a suit of clothes with you and I myself bringing seventy pounds and two feather beds. And now you are stiffer than a woman would have a hundred pounds! It is too much talk the whole of you have. A rope is it? I tell you the whole of this town is full of liars and schemers that would hang you up for half a glass of whisky. [_Turning to go._] People they are you wouldn't believe as much as daylight from without you'd get up to have a look at it yourself. Killing Jack Smith indeed! Where are you at all, Bartley, till I bring you out of this? My nice quiet little man! My decent comrade! He that is as kind and as harmless as an innocent beast of the field! He'll be doing no harm at all if he'll shed the blood of some of you after this day's work! That much would be no harm at all. [_Calls out._] Bartley! Bartley Fallon! Where are you? [_Going out._] Did anyone see Bartley Fallon? [_All turn to look after her._]

JAMES RYAN. It is hard for her to believe any such a thing, God help her! [_Enter BARTLEY FALLON from right, carrying hayfork._]

BARTLEY. It is what I often said to myself, if there is ever any misfortune coming to this world it is on myself it is sure to come! [_All turn round and face him._]

BARTLEY. To be going about with this fork and to find no one to take it, and no place to leave it down, and I wanting to be gone out of this--Is that you, Shawn Early? [_Holds out fork._] It's well I met you. You have no call to be leaving the fair for a while the way I have, and how can I go till I'm rid of this fork? Will you take it and keep it until such time as Jack Smith--

SHAWN EARLY [_backing_]. I will not take it, Bartley Fallon, I'm very thankful to you!

BARTLEY [_turning to apple stall_]. Look at it now, Mrs. Tarpey, it was here I got it; let me thrust it in under the stall. It will lie there safe enough, and no one will take notice of it until such time as Jack Smith--

MRS. TARPEY. Take your fork out of that! Is it to put trouble on me and to destroy me you want? putting it there for the police to be rooting it out maybe. [_Thrusts him back._]

BARTLEY. That is a very unneighborly thing for you to do, Mrs. Tarpey. Hadn't I enough care on me with that fork before this, running up and down with it like the swinging of a clock, and afeard to lay it down in any place! I wish I never touched it or meddled with it at all!

JAMES RYAN. It is a pity, indeed, you ever did.

BARTLEY. Will you yourself take it, James Ryan? You were always a neighborly man.

JAMES RYAN [_backing_]. There is many a thing I would do for you, Bartley Fallon, but I won't do that!

SHAWN EARLY. I tell you there is no man will give you any help or any encouragement for this day's work. If it was something agrarian now--

BARTLEY. If no one at all will take it, maybe it's best to give it up to the police.

TIM CASEY. There'd be a welcome for it with them surely! [_Laughter._]

MRS. TULLY. And it is to the police Kitty Keary herself will be brought.

MRS. TARPEY [_rocking to and fro_]. I wonder now who will take the expense of the wake for poor Jack Smith?

BARTLEY. The wake for Jack Smith!

TIM CASEY. Why wouldn't he get a wake as well as another? Would you begrudge him that much?

BARTLEY. Red Jack Smith dead! Who was telling you?

SHAWN EARLY. The whole town knows of it by this.

BARTLEY. Do they say what way did he die?

JAMES RYAN. You don't know that yourself, I suppose, Bartley Fallon? You don't know he was followed and that he was laid dead with the stab of a hayfork?

BARTLEY. The stab of a hayfork!

SHAWN EARLY. You don't know, I suppose, that the body was found in the Five Acre Meadow?

BARTLEY. The Five Acre Meadow!

TIM CASEY. It is likely you don't know that the police are after the man that did it?

BARTLEY. The man that did it!

MRS. TULLY. You don't know, maybe, that he was made away with for the sake of Kitty Keary, his wife?

BARTLEY. Kitty Keary, his wife! [_Sits down bewildered._]

MRS. TULLY. And what have you to say now, Bartley Fallon?

BARTLEY [_crossing himself_]. I to bring that fork here, and to find that news before me! It is much if I can ever stir from this place at all, or reach as far as the road!

TIM CASEY. Look, boys, at the new magistrate, and Jo Muldoon along with him! It's best for us to quit this.

SHAWN EARLY. That is so. It is best not to be mixed in this business at all.

JAMES RYAN. Bad as he is, I wouldn't like to be an informer against any man. [_All hurry away except MRS. TARPEY, who remains behind her stall. Enter MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN._]

MAGISTRATE. I knew the district was in a bad state, but I did not expect to be confronted with a murder at the first fair I came to.

POLICEMAN. I am sure you did not, indeed.

MAGISTRATE. It was well I had not gone home. I caught a few words here and there that roused my suspicions.

POLICEMAN. So they would, too.

MAGISTRATE. You heard the same story from everyone you asked?

POLICEMAN. The same story--or if it was not altogether the same, anyway it was no less than the first story.

MAGISTRATE. What is that man doing? He is sitting alone with a hayfork. He has a guilty look. The murder was done with a hayfork!

POLICEMAN [_in a whisper_]. That's the very man they say did the act; Bartley Fallon himself!

MAGISTRATE. He must have found escape difficult--he is trying to brazen it out. A convict in the Andaman Islands tried the same game, but he could not escape my system! Stand aside--Don't go far--have the handcuffs ready. [_He walks up to BARTLEY, folds his arms, and stands before him._] Here, my man, do you know anything of John Smith?

BARTLEY. Of John Smith! Who is he, now?

POLICEMAN. Jack Smith, sir--Red Jack Smith!

MAGISTRATE [_coming a step nearer and tapping him on the shoulder_]. Where is Jack Smith?

BARTLEY [_with a deep sigh, and shaking his head slowly_]. Where is he, indeed?

MAGISTRATE. What have you to tell?

BARTLEY. It is where he was this morning, standing in this spot, singing his share of songs--no, but lighting his pipe--scraping a match on the sole of his shoe--

MAGISTRATE. I ask you, for the third time, where is he?

BARTLEY. I wouldn't like to say that. It is a great mystery, and it is hard to say of any man, did he earn hatred or love.

MAGISTRATE. Tell me all you know.

BARTLEY. All that I know--Well, there are the three estates; there is Limbo, and there is Purgatory, and there is--

MAGISTRATE. Nonsense! This is trifling! Get to the point.

BARTLEY. Maybe you don't hold with the clergy so? That is the teaching of the clergy. Maybe you hold with the old people. It is what they do be saying, that the shadow goes wandering, and the soul is tired, and the body is taking a rest--The shadow! [_Starts up._] I was nearly sure I saw Jack Smith not ten minutes ago at the corner of the forge, and I lost him again--Was it his ghost I saw, do you think?

MAGISTRATE [_to POLICEMAN_]. Conscience-struck! He will confess all now!

BARTLEY. His ghost to come before me! It is likely it was on account of the fork! I to have it and he to have no way to defend himself the time he met with his death!

MAGISTRATE [_to POLICEMAN_]. I must note down his words. [_Takes out notebook._] [_To BARTLEY._] I warn you that your words are being noted.

BARTLEY. If I had ha' run faster in the beginning, this terror would not be on me at the latter end! Maybe he will cast it up against me at the day of judgment--I wouldn't wonder at all at that.

MAGISTRATE [_writing_]. At the day of judgment--

BARTLEY. It was soon for his ghost to appear to me--is it coming after me always by day it will be, and stripping the clothes off in the night time?--I wouldn't wonder at all at that, being as I am an unfortunate man!

MAGISTRATE [_sternly_]. Tell me this truly. What was the motive of this crime?

BARTLEY. The motive, is it?

MAGISTRATE. Yes; the motive; the cause.

BARTLEY. I'd sooner not say that.

MAGISTRATE. You had better tell me truly. Was it money?

BARTLEY. Not at all! What did poor Jack Smith ever have in his pockets unless it might be his hands that would be in them?

MAGISTRATE. Any dispute about land?

BARTLEY [_indignantly_]. Not at all! He never was a grabber or grabbed from anyone!

MAGISTRATE. You will find it better for you if you tell me at once.

BARTLEY. I tell you I wouldn't for the whole world wish to say what it was--it is a thing I would not like to be talking about.

MAGISTRATE. There is no use in hiding it. It will be discovered in the end.

BARTLEY. Well, I suppose it will, seeing that mostly everybody knows it before. Whisper here now. I will tell no lie; where would be the use? [_Puts his hand to his mouth, and MAGISTRATE stoops._] Don't be putting the blame on the parish, for such a thing was never done in the parish before--it was done for the sake of Kitty Keary, Jack Smith's wife.

MAGISTRATE [_to POLICEMAN_]. Put on the handcuffs. We have been saved some trouble. I knew he would confess if taken in the right way. [_POLICEMAN puts on handcuffs._]

BARTLEY. Handcuffs now! Glory be! I always said, if there was ever any misfortune coming to this place it was on myself it would fall. I to be in handcuffs! There's no wonder at all in that. [_Enter MRS. FALLON, followed by the rest. She is looking back at them as she speaks._]

MRS. FALLON. Telling lies the whole of the people of this town are; telling lies, telling lies as fast as a dog will trot! Speaking against my poor respectable man! Saying he made an end of Jack Smith! My decent comrade! There is no better man and no kinder man in the whole of the five parishes! It's little annoyance he ever gave to anyone! [_Turns and sees him._] What in the earthly world do I see before me? Bartley Fallon in charge of the police! Handcuffs on him! Oh, Bartley, what did you do at all at all?

BARTLEY. Oh, Mary, there has a great misfortune come upon me! It is what I always said, that if there is ever any misfortune--

MRS. FALLON. What did he do at all, or is it bewitched I am?

MAGISTRATE. This man has been arrested on a charge of murder.

MRS. FALLON. Whose charge is that? Don't believe them! They are all liars in this place! Give me back my man!

MAGISTRATE. It is natural you should take his part, but you have no cause of complaint against your neighbors. He has been arrested for the murder of John Smith, on his own confession.

MRS. FALLON. The saints of heaven protect us! And what did he want killing Jack Smith?

MAGISTRATE. It is best you should know all. He did it on account of a love affair with the murdered man's wife.

MRS. FALLON [_sitting down_]. With Jack Smith's wife! With Kitty Keary!--Ochone, the traitor!

THE CROWD. A great shame, indeed. He is a traitor, indeed.

MRS. TULLY. To America he was bringing her, Mrs. Fallon.

BARTLEY. What are you saying, Mary? I tell you--

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 TOGETHER [_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._]

[THE CURTAIN.]

MUSIC FOR THE SONG IN THE PLAY

THE RED-HAIRED MAN'S WIFE

Spreading the News.
I thought, my first love, there'd be but one house
be-tween you and me, And I thought
I would find your-self coax-ing
my child on your knee. O-ver 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.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

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 seat 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, it's long ago to-day I'd be dead. And it's 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 honor of translating and pirating it.

WELSH HONEYMOON[38]

By JEANNETTE MARKS

[Footnote 38: Copyright, 1912, 1916, 1917, by Jeannette
Marks. The professional and amateur stage rights of this play
are strictly reserved by the author. Application for
permission to produce the play should be made to the author,
who may be addressed in care of the publishers, Little, Brown
and Company, Boston. All rights reserved.]

Jeannette Marks, playwright, poet, essayist, and writer of short stories, was born in 1875 at Chattanooga, Tennessee. She grew up in Philadelphia, however, where her father was a member of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. Her education in this country was supplemented by a sojourn at a school in Dresden. She took her first degree at Wellesley College in 1900, and her master's degree there in 1903. Her graduate studies were pursued at the Bodleian Library and at the British Museum. Since 1901 she has taught English literature at Mount Holyoke.

The play here reprinted, _Welsh Honeymoon_, was one of the two--the other was her _The Merry, Merry Cuckoo_--that won the Welsh National Theatre First Prize for the best Welsh plays in November, 1911, the year after Josephine Preston Peabody had carried off the palm at Stratford-on-Avon.

She writes in her preface to _Three Welsh Plays_, the collection from which _Welsh Honeymoon_ is drawn:

"'Poetry' and 'song' are words which convey, better than any other two words could, the priceless gifts of the Welsh people to the world. With their love for music, for beauty, for the significance of their land and its folklore, their inherent romance in the difficult art of living, they have transformed ugliness into beauty, turned loneliness into speech, and ever recalled life to its only permanent possessions in wonder and romance.

"Curiously enough, the Welsh, rich in poetry and music, have been almost altogether devoid of plays. But no one who has read those first Welsh tales in the 'Mabinogion' (c. 1260) could for an instant think the Cymru devoid of the dramatic instinct. The Welsh way of interpreting experience is essentially dramatic. _The Dream of Maxen Wledig_, _The Dream of Rhonabwy_, both from the 'Mabinogion,' are sharply dramatic, although then and later Welsh literature remained practically devoid of the play form. Experience dramatized is, too, that Pilgrim's Progress of Gwalia: 'Y Bardd Cwsg' (1703).

"Every gift of the Welsh would seem to promise the realization some day of a great national drama, for they have not only the gift of poetry and the power to seize the symbol--short cut through experience--which can, even as the crutch of Ibsen's Little Eyolf, lift a play into greatness; they have, also, natures profoundly emotional and yet intellectually critical. They are, humanly speaking, perfect tools for the achievement of great drama. But it is a drab journey from those 'Mabinogion' days of wonder, coarse and crude as they were in many ways, yet intensely vital, through the 'Bardd Cwsg' to Twm o'r Nant (1739-1810) the so-called 'Welsh Shakespeare,' whose Interludes might, with sufficient worrying, afford delectation to the rock-ribbed Puritanism which has stood, as much as any other oppression, in the way of Gwalia's full development of her genius for beauty.

"It was, then, a significant moment when 'The Welsh National Theatre' came into existence with so powerful a patron as Lord Howard de Walden, lessee of the Haymarket, and Owen Rhoscomyl (Captain Owen Vaughan) and other gifted Welsh literati for its sponsors. And it did not seem an insignificant moment to one person, the playwright of _The Merry Merry Cuckoo_ and _Welsh Honeymoon_, when she learned through her friendly agent, Curtis Brown of London, that she had received one of the Welsh National Theatre's first prizes (1911)."

Jeannette Marks's interest in Wales is the result of a number of holidays spent in wandering through its highways and byways. Books of hers like _Through Welsh Doorways_ and _Gallant Little Wales_ bespeak an affectionate intimacy with homes and inhabitants. In the last named, especially, the chapters called "Cambrian Cottages" and "Welsh Wales" contain material that is highly illuminating in connection with the interpretation of her plays. Edward Knobloch, the playwright, is said to have pointed out to the author the dramatic situations inherent in her short stories and sketches, a suggestion which bore fruit in _Three Welsh Plays_.