Chapter III: Act II

Scene: _By the roadside. A wall of unmortared stone in the
background. Tinkers' encampment. Men, women, and children standing
round._ PAUL RUTTLEDGE _standing by a fire._

_Paul Ruttledge._ What do you mean by "tinning" the soldering iron?

_Charlie Ward._ If the face of it is not well tinned it won't lift the solder. Show me here.

[_Takes soldering iron from_ PAUL RUTTLEDGE'S _hand._

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Sitting down and drawing a tin can to him._] Now, let me see how you mend this hole. It seems easy. I'm sure I will be able to learn it as well as any of you.

[_Two tinkers come and stand over him._

_Charlie Ward._ [_Pointing to one of them._] This, sir, is Tommy the Song. He's the best singer we have, but the divil a much good he is only that. He's a great warrant to snare hares.

_Tommy the Song._ Is the gentleman going to join us?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Indeed I am, if you'll let me. There's nothing I'd like better.

_Tommy the Song._ But are you going to learn the trade?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yes, if you'll teach me. I'm sure I'll make a good tinker. Look at that now, see how I've stopped that hole already.

_Charlie Ward._ [_Taking the can from him and looking at it._] If every can had a little hole in the middle like that, I think you _would_ be able to mend them; but there's the straight hole, and the crooked hole, the round hole, the square hole, the angle hole, the bottom hole, the top hole, the side leak, the open leak, the leak-all-round, but I won't frighten you with the names of them all, only this I will say, that, when you've learned to mend all the leakages in a can--and that should take you a year--you're only in the first day of the tinker's week.

_Tommy the Song._ Don't believe him. He's only humbugging you. It's not the hardness of the work will daunt you.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Thank you. I was not believing him at all. I'm quite sure I'll be able to mend any can at the end of a week, but the bottoming of them will take longer. I can see that's not so easy. When will you start to teach me that, Charlie?

_Charlie Ward._ [_As another tinker comes up._] Paddy, here's the gentleman I was telling you about. He's going to join us for good and all. [_To_ PAUL RUTTLEDGE.] Wait till we have time and some quiet place, and he'll show you as good a cockfight as ever you saw. [_A woman comes up._] This is his wife; Molly the Scold we call her; faith, she is a better fighter than any cock he ever had in a basket; he'd find it hard to shut the lid on her.

_Molly the Scold._ The gentleman seems foolish. Is he all there?

_Paddy Cockfight._ Stop your chat, Molly, or I'll hit you a welt.

_Charlie Ward._ Keep your tongue quiet, Molly. If the gentleman has reasons for keeping out of the way it isn't for us to be questioning him. [_To_ PAUL RUTTLEDGE.] Don't mind her, she's cross enough, but maybe your own ladies would be cross as well if they saw their young sons dying by the roadside in a little kennel of straw under the ass-cart the way she did; from first to last.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I suppose you have your troubles like others. But you seem cheerful enough.

_Charlie Ward._ It isn't anything to fret about. Some of us go soon, and some travel the roads for their lifetime. What does it matter when we are under the nettles if it was with a short rope or a long one we were hanged?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yes, that is the way to take life. What does the length of our rope matter?

_Charlie Ward._ We haven't time to be thinking of troubles like people that would be shut up in a house. We have the wide world before us to make our living out of. The people of the whole world are begrudging us our living, and we make it out of them for all that. When they will spread currant cakes and feather beds before us, it will be time for us to sit down and fret.

_Tommy the Song._ It's likely you'll think the life too hard. Would you like to be passing by houses in the night-time, and the fire shining out of them, and you hardly given the loan of a sod to light your pipe, and the rain falling on you?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Why are the people so much against you?

_Tommy the Song._ We are not like themselves. It's little we care about them or they about us. If their saint did curse us itself----

_Charlie Ward._ Stop. I won't have you talking about that story here. Why would they think so much of the curse of one saint, and saints so plenty?

_Paddy Cockfight._ Where's the good of a gentleman being here? He'll be breaking down on the road. It's on the ass-cart he'll be wanting to sit.

_Tommy the Song._ Indeed, I don't think he'll stand the hardship.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh, I'll stand it well enough.

_Tommy the Song._ You're not like us that were reared to it. You were not born like us with wandering in the heart.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh yes, I have wandering in the heart. I got sick of these lighted rooms you were talking of just now.

_Charlie Ward._ That might be so. It's the dark is welcome to a man sometimes.

_Paul Ruttledge._ The dark. Yes, I think that is what I want. [_Stands up._] The dark, where there is nothing that is anything, and nobody that is anybody; one can be free there, where there is nothing. Well, if you let me stay with you, I don't think you will hear any complaints from me. Charlie Ward, Paddy, and the rest of you, I want you to understand that from this out I am one of yourselves. I'll live as you live and do as you do.

[JOHNEEN _and other children come running in._

_Johneen._ I was on the top of the bank and I seen a priest coming down the cross-road with his ass. It's collecting he is. We're going to set ourselves here to beg something from him.

_Another Child._ [_Breathlessly._] And he has a whole lot of things on the ass. A whole lot of things up behind him.

_Another Child._ O boys, O boys, we'll have our dealing trick out of them yet. The best way'll be---- [_He suddenly catches sight of_ PAUL RUTTLEDGE.] Whist, ye divils ye, don't you see the new gentleman?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Speak out, boys; don't be afraid of me; I'm one of yourselves now.

_Child._ Oh! but we were going to---- But I won't tell you. [_To the other_ children.] Come away here, and we'll not tell him what we'll do.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_To_ CHARLIE WARD.] What are they going to do? They're putting their heads together.

_Charlie Ward._ They're going to put a bush across the road, and when the friar gets down to pull it out of the way they'll snap what they can off the ass, and away with them.

_Paul Ruttledge._ And why wouldn't they tell me that? Am I not one of yourselves?

_Charlie Ward._ Ah! It's likely they'll never trust you.

_Paul Ruttledge._ But they will soon see that I am one of themselves.

_Charlie Ward._ No; but that's the very thing, you're not one of ourselves. You were not born on the road, reared on the road, married on the road like us.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Well, it's too late for me to be reared on the road, but I don't see why I shouldn't marry on the road like you. I certainly would do it if it would make me one of you.

_Charlie Ward._ It might make you one of us, there's no doubt about that. It's the only thing that would do it.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Well, find a wife for me.

_Charlie Ward._ Faith, you haven't far to go to find one. Paddy there will give you over his wife quick enough; he won't make a hard bargain over her.

_Paul Ruttledge._ But I am in earnest. I want to cut myself off from my old life.

_Charlie Ward._ Oh! I was forgetting that.

_Sabina Silver._ [_To_ MOLLY.] I wonder what was it he did? I wonder had he the misfortune to kill anybody?

_Charlie Ward._ [_Calling_ SABINA _over._] Here's a girl should make a good wife, Sabina Silver her name is. Her father is just dead; he didn't treat her over well.

_Sabina Silver._ [_Coming over._] What is it?

_Charlie Ward._ This gentleman wants to speak to you. I think he's looking out for a wife.

_Sabina Silver._ [_Hanging her head._] Don't be humbugging me.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Indeed he's not, Sabina.

_Sabina Silver._ You're only joking a poor girl. Sure, what would make you think of me at all?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Sabina, have you been always on the road with Charlie Ward and the others?

_Sabina Silver._ I have, indeed.

_Paul Ruttledge._ And you'd make a good tinker's wife?

_Sabina Silver._ You're joking me, but I would be a better wife for a tinker than for anyone else.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Sabina, will you marry me?

_Sabina Silver._ Oh! but I'd be afraid.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Why, Sabina?

_Sabina Silver._ I'd be afraid you'd beat me.

_Charlie Ward._ You see her father used to beat her. She's afraid of the look of a man now.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I would not beat you, Sabina. How can you have got such an idea?

_Sabina Silver._ Will you promise me that you won't beat me? Will you swear it to me?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Of course I will.

_Sabina Silver._ [_To_ CHARLIE WARD.] Will you make him swear it? Haven't you a little book in your pack? Bring it out and make him swear to me on it, and you'll be my witness.

_Charlie Ward._ I think, Sibby, you need not be afraid.

_Sabina Silver._ What's your name, gentleman?

_Paul Ruttledge._ My name is Paul. Do you like it?

_Sabina Silver._ Then I won't marry you, Mr. Paul, till you swear to me upon the book that you will never beat me with any stick that you could call a stick, and that you will never strike a kick on me from behind.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Charlie, go and bring out that book to satisfy her. Of course I swear that; it is absurd.

[CHARLIE WARD _brings the book out of his pack._

_Paul Ruttledge._ I swear, Sabina, that I will never strike you with any stick of any kind, and that I will never kick you. There, will that do? [_He takes book and kisses it._

_Sabina Silver._ I misdoubt you. Kiss the book again. [PAUL RUTTLEDGE _kisses it._

_Charlie Ward._ That's all right.

_A Child._ [_Crying from a distance._] He's coming now, the priest's coming!

_Paul Ruttledge._ Then the priest will marry us. That comes in very handy.

_Charlie Ward._ [_Scornfully._] A priest marry you, indeed he'll do nothing of the kind. I hate priests and friars. It's unlucky to get talking to them at all. You never know what trouble you're in for.

_A Child._ [_Coming up._] That's true, indeed. The last time I spoke to a priest it's what he leathered me with a stick; may the divil fly away with him.

_Paul Ruttledge._ But somebody must marry us.

_Charlie Ward._ Of course. You'll lep over the tinker's budget the usual way. You'll just marry her by lepping over the budget the same as the rest of us marry.

_Paul Ruttledge._ That's all I want to know. Please marry me in whatever is your usual way.

* * * * *

JEROME _enters, leading the ass. He carries a pig's cheek, some
groceries, a string of onions, etc., on the ass, which still has
its nursery trappings. He goes up to_ CHARLIE WARD _thinking he is_
PAUL RUTTLEDGE.

_Jerome._ Paul, what are you doing here?

_Charlie Ward._ [_Turning._] What do you want?

_Jerome._ Oh! I'm mistaken. I thought----

_Paul Ruttledge._ I am here, Father Jerome, but you're talking to the wrong man.

_Jerome._ Good God, Paul, what has happened?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Nothing has happened that need surprise you. Don't you remember what we talked of to-day? You told me I was too much by myself. After you went away I thought I would make a change.

_Jerome._ But a change like this!

_Paul Ruttledge._ Why should you find fault with it? I am richer now than I was then. I only lent you that donkey then, now I give him to you.

_Jerome._ What has brought you among such people as these?

_Paul Ruttledge._ I find them on the whole better company than the people I left a little while ago. Let me introduce you to----

_Jerome._ What can you possibly gain by coming here? Are you going to try and teach them?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh! no, I am going to learn from them.

_Jerome._ What can you learn from them?

_Paul Ruttledge._ To pick up my living like the crows, and to solder tin cans. Just give me that one I mended a while ago.

[_Holds it out to_ FATHER JEROME.

_Jerome._ That is all nonsense.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I am happy. Do not your saints put all opponents to the rout by saying they alone of all mankind are happy?

_Jerome._ I suppose you will not compare the happiness of these people with the happiness of saints?

_Paul Ruttledge._ There are all sorts of happiness. Some find their happiness like Thomas a Kempis, with a little book and a little cell.

_Paddy Cockfight._ I would wonder at anybody that could be happy in a cell.

_Paul Ruttledge._ These men fight in their way as your saints fought, for their hand is against the world. I want the happiness of men who fight, who are hit and hit back, not the fighting of men in red coats, that formal, soon-finished fighting, but the endless battle, the endless battle. Tell me, Father Jerome, did you ever listen in the middle of the night?

_Jerome._ Listen for what?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Did you ever, when the monastery was silent, and the dogs had stopped barking, listen till you heard music?

_Jerome._ What sort of music do you mean?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Not the music we hear with these ears [_touching his ears_], but the music of Paradise.

_Jerome._ Brother Colman once said he heard harps in the night.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Harps! It was because he was shut in a cell he heard harps, maybe it sounds like harps in a cell. But the music I have heard sometimes is made of the continual clashing of swords. It comes rejoicing from Paradise.

_Jerome._ These are very wild thoughts.

_Tommy the Song._ I often heard music in the forths. There is many of us hear it when we lie with our heads on the ground at night.

_Jerome._ That was not the music of Paradise.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Why should they not hear that music, although it may not set them praying, but dancing.

_Jerome._ How can you think you will ever find happiness amongst their devils' mirth?

_Paul Ruttledge._ I have taken to the roads because there is a wild beast I would overtake, and these people are good snarers of beasts. They can help me.

_Charlie Ward._ What kind of a wild beast is it you want?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh! it's a very terrible wild beast, with iron teeth and brazen claws that can root up spires and towers.

_Charlie Ward._ It's best not to try and overtake a beast like that, but to cross running water and leave it after you.

_Tommy the Song._ I heard one coming after me one night; very big and shadowy it was, and I could hear it breathing. But when it came up with me I lifted a hazel rod was in my hand, and it was gone on the moment.

_Paul Ruttledge._ My wild beast is Laughter, the mightiest of the enemies of God. I will outrun it and make it friendly.

_Jerome._ That is your old wild talk. Do have some sense and go back to your family.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I am never going back to them. I am going to live among these people. I will marry among them.

_Jerome._ That is nonsense; you will soon change your mind.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh! no, I won't; I am taking my vows as you made yours when you entered religion. I have chosen my wife; I am going to marry before evening.

_Jerome._ Thank God, you will have to stop short of that, the Church will never marry you.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh! I am not going to ask the help of the Church. But I am to be married by what may be as old a ceremony as yours. What is it I am to do, Charlie?

_Charlie Ward._ To lep a budget, sir.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yes, that is it, the budget is there by the wall.

_Jerome._ I command you, in the name of the Holy Church and of the teaching you have received from the Church, to leave this folly, this degradation, this sin!

_Paul Ruttledge._ You forget, Jerome, that I am on the track of the wild beast, and hunters in all ages have been a bad people to preach to. When I have tamed the beast, perhaps I will bring him to your religious house to be baptized.

_Jerome._ I will not listen to this profanity. [_To_ CHARLIE WARD.] It is you who have put this madness on him as you have stolen his clothes!

_Charlie Ward._ Stop your chat, ye petticoated preacher.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I think, Father Jerome, you had better be getting home. This people never gave in to the preaching of S. Patrick.

_Paddy Cockfight._ I'll send you riding home with your face to the tail of the ass!

_Tommy the Song._ No, stop till we show you that we can make as good curses as yourself. That you may never be warm in winter or cold in summer time----

_Charlie Ward._ That's the chat! Bravo! Let him have it.

_Tinkers._ Be off! be off out of this!

_Molly the Scold._ Now curse him, Tommy.

_Tommy the Song._ A wide hoarseness on you--a high hanging to you on a windy day; that shivering fever may stretch you nine times, and that the curses of the poor may be your best music, and you hiding behind the door. [JEROME _goes out._

_Molly the Scold._ And you hiding behind the door, and squeezed between the hinges and the wall.

_Other Tinkers._ Squeezed between the hinges and the wall. [_They follow_ JEROME.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Crying after them._] Don't harm that gentleman; he is a friend of mine.

[_He goes to the wall, and stands there silently, looking upward._

_Sabina Silver._ It was grand talk, indeed: I didn't understand a word of it.

_Paul Ruttledge._ The crows are beginning to fly home. There is a flock of them high up under that cloud. I wonder where their nests are.

_Charlie Ward._ A long way off, among those big trees about Tillyra Castle.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yes, I remember. I have seen them coming home there on a windy evening, tossing and whirling like the sea. They may have seen what I am looking for, they fly so far. A sailor told me once that he saw a crow three hundred miles from land, but maybe he was a liar.

_Charlie Ward._ Well, they fly far, anyway.

_Paul Ruttledge._ They tell one another what they have seen, too. That is why they make so much noise. Maybe their news goes round the world. [_He comes towards the others._] I think they have seen my wild beast, Laughter. They could tell me if he has a face smoky from the eternal fires, and wings of brass and claws of brass--claws of brass. [_Holds out his hands and moves them like claws._] Sabina, would you like to see a beast with eyes hard and cold and blue, like sapphires? Would you, Sabina? Well, it's time now for the wedding. So what shall we get for the wedding party? What would you like, Sabina?

_Sabina Silver._ I don't know.

_Paul Ruttledge._ What do you say, Charlie? A wedding cake and champagne. How would you like champagne? [Tinkers _begin to return_.

_Charlie Ward._ It might be middling.

_Paul Ruttledge._ What would you say to a----

* * * * *

_One of the_ Boys _runs in carrying a pig's cheek. The rest of the_
Tinkers _return with him_.

_Boy._ I knew I could do it. I told you I'd have my dealing trick out of the priest. I took a hold of this, and Johneen made a snap at the onions.

_Paul Ruttledge._ And he didn't catch you?

_Boy._ He'd want to be a lot smarter than he is to do that.

_Paul Ruttledge._ You are a smart lad, anyway. What do you say we should have for our wedding party?

_Boy._ Are you rich?

_Paul Ruttledge._ More or less.

_Boy._ I seen a whole truck full of cakes and bullseyes in the village below. Could you buy the whole of them?

_Charlie Ward._ Stop talking nonsense. What we want is porter.

_Paul Ruttledge._ All right. How many public-houses are there in the village?

_Tommy the Song._ Twenty-four.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Is there any place we can have barrels brought to?

_Charlie Ward._ There's a shed near seems to be empty. We might go there.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Then go and order as many barrels as we can make use of to be brought there.

_Paddy Cockfight._ We will; and we'll stop till we've drunk them out.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Taking out money._] I have more money than will pay for that. Sabina, we'll treat the whole neighbourhood in honour of our wedding. I'll have all the public-houses thrown open, and free drinks going for a week!

_Tinkers._ Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

_Charlie Ward._ Three cheers more, boys.

_All._ Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

_The Boys._ Now here's the budget.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Taking_ SABINA SILVER'S _hand_.] Now, Sabina, one, two, three!

CURTAIN.