RODNEY’S GLORY A Play in One Act FRANK O’CONNOR Scene: A country cottage. The time is the end of the eighteenth century. There are doors back and left of stage, the latter opening on to the road, a glimpse of which can also be seen through the window, left. Padraig O’Keeffe and his daughter Shiela are on the stage together. Shiela is extremely pretty; father is a panicky and affectionate old man whose business in life is to reconcile two conflicting tastes, one for the confessional, and the other for turbulent and at times indelicate poetry made by wandering rhymers. He is unlike the ordinary countryman of today only in the way that a man who knew several thousand lines of verse, good bad and indifferent, would be. SHIELA: And what did you say his name is, father? PADRAIG: Now Shiela I’m surprised at you! Sullivan, I said his name was, Sullivan. SHIELA: One of the Kerry Sullivans? PADRAIG: Ay, one of the Kerry Sullivans. (coaxingly) And now like a good little, sweet little girl, will you do what I ask you? SHIELA: Oh, I’ll bide my lone, I’ll let you have your fun. (with sudden irritation) Schoolmasters are a plague of the devil anyway, and you won’t find me seeking a likely boy amongst them. PADRAIG: Now, Shiela, you’re for annoying me, you are so. But I’ll let that pass; I’ll not say a cross word to you if only you’ll stay beyond in the room for this one night and let us talk in peace. And whatever you hear or don’t hear don’t utter a word, not a word now, mind you! SHIELA: (irritating herself into fluency) Poetry! Poetry! And, Holy and Immaculate Virgin! the smell from it! Old schoolmasters that would frighten the Adversary from a house by the odour of their presence! PADRAIG: Now, Shiela, Shiela, don’t you see I’m distracted enough before? SHIELA: Poetry! And I’ll engage if one of them poets was to go mauling me this blessed night there’s a man in the house wouldn’t lift me a hand for fear of offending him! PADRAIG: (restraining himself with difficulty) Now, now, isn’t that what I’m saying? Isn’t that the reason I’m telling you keep to yourself? Isn’t it so? And if you’re so haughty because a nice old man puts his arm about you what more can you ask? Can’t you be reasonable? (with a change of tone, reverting to a major preoccupation) Shiela, your eyes are better than mine; do you see e’er a one upon the road? SHIELA: (giving way to illtemper) I do not see e’er a one upon the road. You’ve this house distracted enough with the feats of cadging schoolmasters! (almost in tears) So that I’m soured and bitter before my time and my beauty gone if e’er a nice boy should come the way at last! And nothing at all for my pains but rhymes and riddles ...(quoting, scornfully) “My bed, say I, is of beds the bed that is best of them...” PADRAIG: (shortly) Now, Shiela, that’s a good rhyme, so ’tis, a good memorizable rhyme to be made on any man’s house. SHIELA: Dirty stupid old men! PADRAIG: (becoming suddenly paternal) Whisht, a lanna, whisht! SHIELA: I will not whisht! Women, women, women! Morning noon and night in prose and rhyme. PADRAIG: You don’t understand us at all, a chree. The learning is dying with us; the craft is dying with us and soon enough ’twill be gone and we with it. There’s a good child now! SHIELA: (in tears) Genealogies! PADRAIG: Yes, _a laogh_, ’tis so, ’tis so! SHIELA: Skymaidens!! PADRAIG: Oh, oh, oh! SHIELA: Charlie-over-the-water!!! PADRAIG: Och, _A Dhe_, what fine fools we are to be sure! (pats her shoulder) But whisper, alanna, do you see e’er a one coming? SHIELA: (drying her eyes) I d-do, maybe. I’m-m not sure. But I think there’s someone at the mouth of the Pass. PADRAIG: ’Tis himself surely! SHIELA: I dunno whether ’tis a man or a woman!? PADRAIG: (straining his eyes, eagerly) Aah! SHIELA: W-would he have a foxy head? PADRAIG: (startled) ’Tis he! ’Tis he! Come away from the window, alanna or he’ll see you. And ... not a word mind! SHIELA: (defeated) I’ll be quiet. PADRAIG: (producing a gigantic key) I’ll give a turn on the door, _a chuisle_. SHIELA: Why would you do that? PADRAIG: (fidgeting) Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t I so? And I telling him you’re not there at all. SHIELA: And am to be locked in all night? PADRAIG: How do I know will he stay at all? and if he stays itself he’ll have to be twenty miles from here at the noon of day. SHIELA: (overpowered by curiosity) Wwould-would he be old? PADRAIG: (hedging and frightened) Now there’s a question to put me! Would he be old? Would he indeed? The glory of Munster, the pulse of poetry, the-the...Wisha, hurry, child! SHIELA: I’m hurrying, can’t you see me? (mildly) Has he a wife? PADRAIG: God give me patience! Maybe he hasn’t, do you hear me! Maybe he hasn’t with his score of fine children and maybe grandchildren for all we’ve heard. Maybe he isn’t! King of the White Stars, will you be there all night? SHIELA: (despairingly) I’m going PADRAIG: That’s the good girl! That’s the white pet! Hurry, a vourneen! SHIELA: (shooting one last glance of defiance) But don’t you keep me wakeful all night with pishogues and codrauling. (tensely) I’ll break the house down if ye keep me from my slumbers! (exit) PADRAIG: Oh, oh, oh! There’s a daughter! There’s a daughter! (locking the door behind her) Not a word a chree, not a word! (He bends down and places his eye to the keyhole, then returns the key to is place in the lock.) PADRAIG: (mumbling contentedly to himself, a happy smile on his face) Not a word! Not a word! (Padraig goes out the door left and there is ponderous silence in the kitchen that is suddenly broken by the sound of heavy boots, and a loud, gay, very boisterous voice protesting “No, no, no!” “Mallow. All the way to Mallow!” “Stay? How could I?” and so on. Enter slowly old Padraig and Eoghan O’Sullivan, the old man clinging about the young man’s neck. Eoghan is middle-sized, very finely built and with the face of natural poet, full of an inner light. Women think him beautiful. He has a head of bright red hair and is bubbling over with life). PADRAIG: You won’t go away until morning. You won’t, surely. You’ll stop the night. There’s a few of the neighbours will turn in. A few of the...(almost choking with excitement) friends...old friends...good friends of poetry. I sent word to them not an hour ago that ’yourself would be passing this way. EOGHAN: And how did you know me at all? PADRAIG: It was a miracle from God, a miracle from the Blessed God! A tramp woman was going by. “Eoghan Ruadh,” says she, “Eoghan Ruadh,” and the heart leapt like an unborn child within me. “Eoghan Ruadh on his way to the harvest coming by the road through Knockbwee.” And “Songs?” she said, “the making of a balladsinger’s fortune in his one little bag behind!” EOGHAN: (very pleased) Did she now? Well, well, isn’t it the strange thing I can’t do as much as that without being talked of! And Knockbwee was never a place for poetry that I heard tell of. PADRAIG: Only the old ones, Eoghan. Only the old ones. We do even have poets here at times, but just indifferent singers with a catchpenny song about the hangings in the jail of Cork or a man that joined the army. But poetry! (with a magnificent gesture) My house is honoured, Eoghan Sullivan, honoured here and hereafter! EOGHAN: (moved by the old man’s fervour) If you waited long here, Padraig O’Keeffe, you waited well. And I promise you this night you’ll hear poetry that’ll never go down, not if Ireland itself was to go down. PADRAIG: (with complete conviction) I believe you, Eoghan,(4) I believe you. EOGHAN: (elated) Never! The critics say it. PADRAIG: Egan O’Rahilly himself couldn’t beat you! Eoghan a laogh, for you’ve the gift of the music. Many’s the night it brought comfort to my heart and the old bones knocking within me. (intones) One dewy morning by the Shure whon I was sick and full of care, And birds in the trees were waking and singing all in the morning air. Ah, Eoghan, Eoghan! EOGHAN: (mildly) A good poem, that is. There’s melody in that. But there’s melody and double melody in the poems I made beyond in Kerry in the spring. PADRAIG: Who would think it? Who would think it? Eoghan Ruadh himself under the roof! Oh, oh, oh! Why do they keep us waiting (runs to door left and back again) Ah, here’s Con and Michael Pat coming! Eoghan, a little drop while you’re waiting. (Takes out a bottle of whiskey and fills a glass for Eoghan). EOGHAN: To our better friendship, Padraig O’Keeffe. And now I’ll say you the toast I made one day in Killarney. PADRAIG: (glancing furtively at door back) Toast? I know it Eoghan. I know it as I know my prayers. Will those two never come? EOGHAN: A good toast that is. (quotes) Health to you and help And the wife o’ your choice... PADRAIG: (with a terrified glance around) Whisht, Eoghan, darling, whisht! EOGHAN: (startled) Why would I whisht? There’s no one with you? PADRAIG: Oh, no, oh, no! I thought I heard a step. Ah, it was Michael Pat...and Con with him. (goes fo door to greet them). (Eoghan stares after him, put out by is apparent rudeness; then drinks. A noise is heard in room back; he rises and stares at the door?(5) CON: (looking nervously around) Isn’t herself here? PADRAIG: No, no. Herself is at her aunt’s house in Rathduane. But ’come in man, come in. Come in, Michael Pat! (They come in, timidly. Con is an ordinary countryman, of an age some where between sixty and seventy. Michael Pat perhaps an older man, is afflicted with something approaching congenital idiocy.) PADRAIG: (noticing that Eoghan is standing) Eoghan, a laogh, did you want something? EOGHAN: Oh, no. I thought I heard a noise in the room beyond, that’s all. PADRAIG: (sighing) ’Tis only the wind, Eoghan, the wind! ... (irrelevantly) It does be fearfully wild in these high places. (recollecting himself; dramatically) Friends, before you stands the greatest poet in Munster, the greatest since Egan O’Rahilly and maybe the beating of him. Eoghan O’Sullivan, that was as near to a Corkman as my house and yours. (They stare openmouthed, afraid to approach. Eoghan resumes his seat with a kingly air), EOGHAN: (casually) O’Rahilly, yes of course, Egan was a good poet too...though a bit unmelodious at times. (spreading out his hands) Melody! It is all the best of us can hope to achieve in this world. Still, _Brightness of Brightness_ is a good poem, there’s melody in that. MICHAEL PAT: Oh, oh, there’s a flow of talk for you! CON: (ecstatically) Eoghan Musicmouth. EOGHAN: (gaily) Rodney’s Glory! CON: Hey? EOGHAN: That’s what they used to call me in England. They called it to me after a song I made. PADRAIG: Rodney’s Glory! CON: That’s a fine name. PADRAIG: Sit down, friends, and drink. Your children will boast of it in after days. (Gingerly they take their seats beside him and look at him long and hard. He is obviously well pleased by the naivety of their reception). PADRAIG: (as if imparting a precious secret) Harvesting he’s going to the fine country about Mallow, friends. CON: (still under the spell) Harvesting! EOGHAN: Harvesting to the mellow lands. MICHAEL PAT: Mellow lands! Oh, oh, oh! PADRAIG: A poor trade for the great poet of Munster though. EOGHAN: Poor trade as you say, but not a dull trade, and where there’s a poet the time passes quickly. ’Tis good this warm weather to sit a while by the bank of a river and sing and tell stories. (murmuring to himself) And when I’m sick and sore and the steward shall say That my strenth on a spade isn’t worth either food or pay I’ll whisper a song about Death and his lofty way And the wars in Troy and the great ones vanished away. PADRAIG: (acting as leader in a chorus of approval) And the wars in Troy and the great ones vanished away. (There comes another sound from the room behind. Padraig smiles in a sickly manner). PADRAIG: The wind. EOGHAN: Oh, the harvesting isn’t so bad though you’ve the stranger and all for master. There’s a way for dealing with him too. (with bravado) I’ve seen masters at the harvesting coming with their “Hey, Jack!” and “Hurry up there, Pat!” and clacking a whip before them, but when they’d left me they were quiet enough. PADRAIG: (with complete satisfaction) I’d warrant that. EOGHAN: What mastery have the likes of them over the like of me. They never heard the story of Dido as I’d tell it under a ditch in a warm evening in summer, and for all their bugles and their scarlet coats there isn’t one of them would know how to speak to a great lady at the end of day or win her love with hot speeches like myself. CON: (engagingly) I heard tell yourself was a terrible man with women, Eoghan. EOGHAN: There’s one thing I’ll say for the foreign masters, goodman, and ’tis I that know it, they have fine womenfolk, for learning never yet made a beautiful woman like three meals a day and the leisure for to see her long and shapely form before the looking-glass. CON: You know them, Eoghan. EOGHAN: I do know them. (bending forward confidingly though without lowering his voice) Ay, and there was one... MICHAEL PAT: (stretching himself to the full over his stick, luxuriously) A-w-w-ww! PADRAIG: (glancing at the door) Oh, _Dhe_! EOGHAN: Her father, he had scores and scores of acres of the finest land in Munster, and lace on his coat and a big sword by his side when he went out riding. And one night she came down to me in the fields and the bracelets were tinkling like bells on her little hands and feet and she lay beside me in the hay and took my hand and said “Eoghan, you are my choice and pleasure of the men of Ireland!” MICHAEL PAT: (as before) A-w-ww! EOGHAN: (with flashing eyes) A summer’s night it was! MICHAEL PAT: (glancing up as if to find out when the story will begin again) Yoy! EOGHAN: A summer’s night.... MICHAEL PAT: (peremptorily) Yoy! PADRAIG: (unable to conceal his agitation rises and begins fumbling about the room) A fine story! A perfect story! My soul, Eoghan, but ’tis yourself can tell the tale, ’tis so. Eoghan, a laogh, a drink, a little drink! (There is still a more pronounced creak from the room within, as if somebody were trying to move without being heard). CON: (suspiciously) Would there be wind to that? MICHAEL PAT: (quite irrelevantly) There’s a sperrit in every wind. There’s a wind that listens and a wind that speaks but that’s a listening wind. EOGHAN: What’s a wind? PADRAIG: (hurriedly) No, no, no. It must be weeshy dog himself that’s stirring, neighbours. CON: A dog? Did I ever see a dog in this house? PADRAIG: Our dog? Did you never see our dog? Oh, this many a day we’ve a dog in the house, but a pup, only, neighbours, a pup only. EOGHAN: (disgusted) Oh, _Dhe_! And now what was I talking about? PADRAIG: (innocently) Wasn’t it Egan O’Rahilly, Eoghan? EOGHAN: (crossly) It was not! Egan O’Rahilly. I was talking about the Colonel’s daughter when you put in on me. CON: (gamely) A Colonel’s daughter? EOGHAN: (as before, addressing Padraig) It was you were talking about Egan O’Rahilly, but now tell me this. What did Egan O’Rahilly ever see to compare with what I saw? (drinks: as the scene proceeds he becomes more and more expansive) Egan O’Rahilly was a good poet but he never knew life as I knew it, he never had a Colonel’s daughter as myself had her, and her breast rising and falling within my two arms like a sea in summer! MICHAEL PAT: Oh, oh, oh, oh! EOGHAN: And all he ever knew of the great world was what he seen in a little back parish in the wilds of Kerry. Tell me, did Egan O’Rahilly ever sail the sea as I did? MICHAEL PAT: (awed) And did you sail the sea? EOGHANN: (decisively) I did! MICHAEL PAT: (lowering his voice to a husky whisper) You wouldn’t have been with The Man Over The Water? EOGHAN: (scornfully) I was not with The Man Over The Water. It was a bloody woman was the cause of it all, (reflectively) a lady too. And there was her father behind me with a mighty big gun in one hand and a gory dagger in the other, and here was I running for my life up the Main Street of Mallow! MICHAEL PAT: By God, ’tis better than a storybook! EOGHAN: And who should I see but a red sergeant inviting likely soldiers! Swear me! says I, swear me, or my blood is on your head. So he swore me to the King of England. Then up comes the old man land he lifts a gun and the sergeant says Halt! Halt in the King’s name! PADRAIG. Oh, _Dhe_! EOGHAN: Just that. Halt in the King’s name! CON: And it held his hand? EOGHAN: Of course it held his hand How could he rebbel against the King’s name and I the King’s own sworn servant? So then t shipped me off to the West Indies among the blacks and all for to fight again the flag of France. CON: And that was how you came upon the ocean? EOGHAN It was CON: Boats must be wonderful things! EOGHAN: Ah, what the King of England floats his bold soldiers in you may call that a boat upon a lawyer’s bible! Man, if you were to see them with their tall masts like trees under bare branches and the canvas sheets between the branches like a woman’s snow-white linen hung out to dry. For when a wind comes it blows out the canvas and the big ship just drifts before it, and then another wind comes and she goes faster, and then again another wind. And each ship with a great knife under it to cut the water in two and the water bursting and foaming each side of it and the whole ship rocking and heaving above it like a juggler at a fair walking upon the slender rope. MICHAEL PAT: Oh, oh, oh! The mighty ingenuity of man! EOGHAN: (meditatively) All the long days and nights on the water I thought out poetry to myself. For what’d Egan O’Rahilly seen? to compare with the things I’d seen, him that lived out his life in a little corner of Munster and I that had seen queenly women and the firing of the redcoat guns and the wonders of the blue sea? CON Surely, surely, there was no poet ever came out of Ireland had been so far or seen so much. EOGHAN: And well it would have been for me if it’d ended there, but I wasn’t ordained to die without the fear of death, and one fine day we lined up before the fleet of France. We fired and he fired and from that minute to the end of day there was no stop to the thunder of the mighty guns. We’d the wind on our side, and we sailed through him like a mob at a pattern, and we sailed out the other side and we came up behind him and there was no end to it till you couldn’t see the decks for blood nor the ocean for the boiling gore. MICHAEL: (wildly exited) God knows, poet, I’d wish to have you with me at the end of my days telling me tales like that to rise the courage in me! (He rises and swings his stick as if it were a sword but nobody pays him attention). EOGHAN: So when that came I said: Here’s an end to soldiering for ‘me, for it was surely a sign I should come home before I’d be killed. So I made a poem about it that went like this. Give ear ye British hearts of gold That eer disdain to be controlled, Good news to you twill unfold, ’Tis of brave Rodney’s Glory, Who always borea noble hear, And from his colours ne’er would start, But always took his country’s part Against each foe who dared oppose Or blast the bloom of England’ rose, So now observe my story. CON (shaking his head with complete comprehension) English! MICHAEL PAT: English too! EOGHAN: A poem of price that was and a price I set on it. For Rodney that was the king’s own man, his eyes lighted when he seen it “Your price on that, poet!” says he. “The choice of my two feet,” says I, “to go home to Ireland!” Well, he shook his head and sad he looked. “Anything,” says he, “but that one thing.” “For,” says he, “soldiers I can get any day but a poet I cannot get this day nor any other day.” CON: That was a good saying too, and one to be remembered. EOGHAN: So then they sent me home to soldier in England. I had a great longing for Ireland on me at the time and besides I couldn’t abide the English women. Not even the English themselves can abide the women of England. (sighs) That’s why they’re always out fighting the blacks instead of being at home for their women [are] not like our own at all. MICHAEL: They’re not! EOGHAN: No. Give me the women of Ireland, Gael or Gall, till the ‘end of time. (sings drunkenly) Girl of the raven hair, There’s none is more fair, Her breath is like the swans on the water. (There comes a distinct knocking on the wall). EOGHAN: I knew there was somebody within that room. CON: (with satisfaction) It would be Shiela herself, I’m thinking. EOGHAN: What Shiela? VOICE OF SHIELA: (angrily) Have ye respect for no one’s slumbers? PADRAIG: (hurriedly) Oh, ’tis an old deaf woman we do have in the house. I’d near forgotten her. But spake low. (going to the door) Say no more, a chroidhe, we’ll be quiet now! (There is agony in his tone). (Behind Eoghan’s back Con opens his mouth wide in token of complete comprehension of Padraig’s game). MICHAEL PAT: (confusedly) Is it Shiela you said? How long is Shiela deaf? (Padraig makes wild signs at him behind Eoghan’ back). MICHAEL PAT: Oh, herself, is it? (mumbling discontentedly to himself) What a world too, what a world! Ah, man, man! PADRAIG: (whispering) The crossest woman ever was roused from her lair. Do you speak low, friends. CON (pointedly) I’d say an ordinary man or woman would hear every word we spoke? EOGHAN: (casually) Ah, who’d mind an old woman, anyway? MICHAEL PAT: (oracularly) Ears have walls! Ears have walls! EOGHAN. (passionately) I’ll say what I was saying now whether anyone hears me or not. How could Egan O’Rahilly be a greater poet than Eoghan Sullivan? Answer me that! Isn’t woman the core and kernel of all the poetry that was ever made since Helen took a boy? And is there any{27} poet but Eoghan Sullivan put rhyme upon the beauty of women? Is there? CON: (alarmed) There is not then. EOGHAN: (as before) Is there e’er a poet of Ireland ever made a line like this “With beauty upon her breasts like the shadow of gold”? Is there? CON. There’s not. EOGHAN: And when Egan O’Rahilly came to his bed of death would he be able to tell the priest he had as many lovely women as myself to inspire his perfect rhymes? CON He would not I’d say. EOGHAN. (triumphantly) He would not. And when you hear the songs I’ve with me this night I’ll ask you again whether Egan O’Rahilly is as great a poet as me. (fumbling in the back pocket of his swallowtail coat) Listen to me now, I say! (He is becoming steadily more obstreperous) And if there’s any one of ye can remember the word: I’ll be saying this night let him remember, for though no man can call Eoghan Sullivan braggart (unctuously) merrier finer songs will never be mixed with the prayers of old people or give pleasure to the studious young. Listen to me. (He pulls out a bundle of manuscripts). CON: (his eyes lighting) Poetry, all of it EOGHAN: Poetry, every line of it. PADRAIG: (piteously) If I could but hear one great night of poetry before I die! EOGHAN: You’ll hear it and remember it forever. PADRAIG. God grant it! MICHAEL PAT: (pointing with his stick to the door of Shiela’s room, then to the bottle of whiskey, then to Eoghan) Unless...(he breaks into a daft chuckle) EOGHAN: You’ll listen to poetry, I say, so cock your car for this You’ve heard Eoghan Sullivan talk tonight of his wild youth, but listen to me now and you’ll hear how Eoghan Sullivan sings it! PADRAIG: (terrified again) Eoghan, _a laogh, a chuisle_, quietly, quietly! EOGHAN: Quietly it is, neighbours. (He begins to read in a tense subdued voice, lifting himself slowly off his seat; then as his voice gets fuller he stands to his full height, walks abou the floor declaiming, tossing the red mane back from his forehead), EOGHAN: Now here is my verdict on the playboy’s behavior Though I for a long time have courted no less, But bragging and boasting and coaxing the maidens And rising their love by the strength of my kiss, And duly indidting{_sic._} each versification I extend their young thoughts from the beauties of home, By which they were led into sad situations The clergy declare they ahd best leave alone, MICHAEL PAT: Oh, the ingenunty of the man! EOGHAN: My time of a time would be time sadly wastee On tipplers and thimblemen and gay maids a score, The writ of the fathers was not what I stated, But jeers that I made and great oaths that I swore And day in day out all the wealth of my station Away upon master-musicians was thrown, And what they played to me I heard with elation Not dreaming that they too were best left alone. (There is a loud knocking on the wall. Padraig looks pitifully at Eoghan, then to the place from which the knocking comes.) PADRAIG: Oh, Eoghan, Eoghan! EOGHAN: Old hag, let her listen to this! (He strides to the door and recites thunderously through the keyhole). I abode in these ways without thought of repentance And on women and tippling my money was spent, I got into debt by my wasteful intentions For when I treated scores it is littele was left, Many mornings I noticed with exasperation That they’d licked me bare as a dog licks a bone, It was time to be wise then without procrastination And maybe indeed better leave them alone. (Shouts through the keyhole) Did you hear that? Cold old wretch there’s more to come! (There is the sound of someone flinging herself across the room and banging against the door). EOGHAN: Listen to me! VOICE OF SHIELA. Open the door! EOGHAN: (enjoying himself thoroughly shouts back) Be quiet! How can I bbe saying poetry and you making all that noise inside. Be quiet, tell you VOICE OF SHIELA. (in fury) Father! Father! Open the door for me, I tell you! Open the door! EOGHAN. (flabbergasted) Father! MICHAEL PAT: Oh, oh, oh! Think of that now, think of that! CON: ’Tis done now, Padraig, MICHAEL PAT: (in a tone of remonstrance) Oh, oh, oh! SHIELA. Father, do you hear me talking to you? (pounds at door) PADRAIG (to Con) God in heaven pity me. Am I best open it? CON: ’Tis done now. (Padraig looks pitifully at Eoghan) EOGHAN: Go on now. Open the door and tell me why you were deceiving me. PADRAIG: Eoghan, _a leanbh_, don’t be hard on me! EOGHAN, Open the door I tell you, and let me see who’s behind it. SHIELA. (Kicking with all her might) Father, I’ll break down the door! PADRAIG (shambling to the door) All right, _a chuisle_. (He unlocks the door. Shiela enters, she is in a state of fury and looks even more beautiful than before. In her anger she doesn’t see Eoghan and for a few moments addresses only her father. The change when she see Eoghan, who merely stares in stupefied admiration at her, is tremendous.) SHIELA: So this was the night’s sleep you were promising me, was it? This was the quiet night I was to have with a lousy schoolmaster screaming names at me through a locked door? Well, now you’ve had your say I’m going to have mine. I’m gomg to have no more of this under my roof, d’ye hear me, Padraig O’Keeffe. And as for your schoolmaster... (She looks round and sees Eoghan slunk into a corner. There is a dead but entirely uneasy pause for a moment). Are you the old man? EOGHAN. Are you the old woman? SHIELA. (with an uneasy laugh) I suppose I am. EOGHAN. Then I’m the old man, God have pity on me! (sits down) SHIELA: (beautifully embarrassed but determined to fight it out) Well well, well! (as if she were seeing light) So this is what ’twas all about (snufs) Whiskey? (looks at Eoghan) Company? PADRAIG, Shiela, as God 1s over me, ’twas like this... SHIELA: Oh, I see how ’twas all right. (to Con as if seeing him for the first time) Con? (Con laughs constrainedly) Michael Pat? (Michael Pat with a wicked leer puts a finger to his lips) What would the parish think of you, Michael Pat, celebrating your great age? (As if making up her mind she advances on Eoghan, holding out her hand). I won’t be cros with you, young man. I could never be cross with a fine young fellow like yourself. (She stands before him with something like shyness) Welcome, even if you’re red itself. (her voice softening as she takes in his good looks) And even if you’ve lost your manners! (Eoghan rises and stands clumsily, hands before him). SHIELA. Aren’t you the silent young fellow for your age and good looks and beyond in the room I thought you’d the hell’s own amount of talk. (with complete coquetry) But maybe you’re a young fellow wasn’t used to women. EOGHAN: (confused, miserably) I’m going away now. SHIELA: Well, well, well! What part of the country do you come from at all young man? Or maybe it’s a friar in disguise you are brought up in’a monastery where they never let you sce the likes of me? EOGHAN, (blurts out) You’re mocking me. You’re mocking me too. And this long time passed They (points to three old men) were mocking me and I was the fool that didn’t see it. But I’m going now. (looks about for his hat but the tears of indignation in hs eyes prevent him seeing it, Rushing to the door he suddenly remembers that it is on the table and retrieves it; then makes for the door again). SHIELA: (catching him by the arm and suddenly dropping her airs of coquetry) Easy now, Eoghan, easy now. You won’t leave us so soon. EOGHAN: (maudlin) And I’ll bring the curse of God down on this house. I’ll...I’ll put a rhyme on it,a rhyme that’ll never leave it. SHIELA (all in earnest to soothe him) You will not put a thyme on it Eoghan, for my sake, It was all my fault. I told them not to let on I was here at all. I thought you were like the old schoolmasters from Slieve Luachra that do be glauming me every minute. (shakes him determinedly by the arm) Come back now and sit down a while. Yourself and myself will drive away the old fellows and talk between ourselves. EOGHAN: (stiff with misery) You were listening! SHIELA. I didn’t know who was there. EOGHAN: Listening and mocking! You! SHIELA: I was not mocking, Eoghan. (almost plaintively) I thought you were an old man and I—I was just mad with you, EOGHAN And he! (pointing to poor Padraig, who is quite limp and speechless) he locked you in because he thought—because he thought I’d be near you, because he thought he knew what I was, a rascal. (exploding) The old fool! SHIELA: (endecringly) Eoghan, Eoghan, come in with me. EOGHAN (collapsing into a chair) I’m drunk, that’s what I am. (sees Shiela beckoning to the old men to go) No, let them stay ... Shiela. I’ll be off in a minute I want to think. There’s something I want to say but my head 1s stupid. (clutches his head in his hands for a moment, there is a pause, all four looking at him expectantly). I could make a rhyme about this house that would shame him until the end of time. (He points with dreadful significance at Padraig). There’s nothing he dreads like that, do you see him now? A house of inhospitality is the house of old men Where they set out the whiskey but lock the girls in. (he pauses to let the searing words sink into Padraig’s distracted brain). Ah, so that went home, did it old fox? Well, keep it to yourself, for there’s no one else will hear it. But how could an old fool like you understand me? (Buttoning his coat he rises decisively) No, I’ll keep my secret to myself! (pulling his old hat about his ears) There isn’t a house from this to Cork but some old fool or other there thinks he knows the poet’s secret and the poet’s power and thinks he 1s our master because he has hidden from us what was dearest to himself But we’re his masters still (triumphantly) we’re his masters still. We’ve our secret. There is something he doesn’t know but (pointing to Shiela) that girl knows it. (going to the door) Goodnight to you now, masters. My revenge 1s better than I thought. (He goes out and Shiela makes as if to follow him. For several minutes she stands at the door looking out and there is perfect silence within, the old fellows sitting mumchance, resigning themselves to their fate). SHIELA: (calling softly first as though she thought the poet might be in hiding nearby) Eoghan, Eoghan! Do you hear me? Eoghan Sullivan! Eoghan, my dear! (There is no answer and the old men stir uneasily in their chairs. After a few second[s] more Padraig looks up). PADRAIG Is he gone? SHIELA: He is. PADRAIG (buttoning his coat as the poet had done aggressively) I didn’t think much of that last poem he was reading, MICHAEL PAT: (the springs of emotion set free, in habitual wonder) Oh, oh, oh! PADRAIG: (dogmatically) To be a true poet a man must comb the white hairs of knowledge. CON: (with no great enthusiasm) Surely, surely. PADRAIG. A vain conceited young, fellow in some ways with his talk about women. CON. I wouldn’t like my own son to talk like that. PADRAIG, And I for one wouldn’t be believing _all_ he was telling us about his ships and soldiering MICHAEL PAT: No ships? No ships either? SHIELA: (in a dull voice, returning from the door) Here, be off with you into the room west. I’ll not have you about my kitchen. PADRAIG: (rising, with an air of complete independence) And as for comparing him with Egan O’Rahilly!!! SHIELA: (fiercely) Be quiet now! I’m tired of your shabby talk about the boy. Off with ye! PADRAIG: You were cross enough with him yourself and you coming out of the room. SHIELA: If I was I didn’t know who I had. CON: A man that talks like that about women, Shiela... SHIELA: (coldly) A man that talks like that about women must be a damn sight a simpler fellow than the old fools that lure him on. PADRAIG: Now, Shiela! SHIELA: Women! A boy that never spent an hour but with streelers in apublichouse. A boy that never had a decent door open to him nor a decent girl that wasn’t locked away from him. A boy that sings taproom songs for the pleasure of dirty old men and breaks his heart because he thinks an honest woman heard him. PADRAIG: Well, of all mortal perversity woman is worst. Maybe now you’ll praise me that poem he was reading when you came in? SHIELA: Poetry? Who cares for that? It isn’t his poetry I want but himself. PADRAIG: (speechless) Himself? That buffoon? That homeless wanderer? That...? CON: (ingratiatingly) Ah, Shiela, you’re only saying that to vex your da! SHIELA: (cuttingiy) A lot I care now whether it pleases or vexes him. CON: (losing his temper) Then you’re a silly ungrateful child! SHIELA: I was a child today maybe but I’m not a child any longer. And ye were men today ye’re not any longer but three withered old stumps sucking pleasure out of the remembrance of yer sins. Let ye get out of this now for I’m tired of ye! (drives them before her). PADRAIG: (retreating) Shiela! Listen to me! I’ll not be downfaced. SHIELA: Get out! MICHAEL PAT Oh, oh, oh! (She drives them before her into the room and closes the door suddenly behind them. The other door is still open; she goes to it and looks out; then closes it with a sigh. Returns and stands before the fire). SHIELA: (Thoughtfully) A secret? I wonder? CURTAIN Source: Irish University Review, Vol. 22, no. 2, (Autumn-Winter, 1992), pp. 224-241 URI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25484499