ACT II
Conan alone holding up bellows, singing:
Conan:
"And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I've been wandering away
Deceived for a moment it's now in my hands—
breathe the fresh air of life's morning again!"
Celia: (Comes in having listened amused at
door; claps hands.) Very good! It is you yourself
should be going to the dance house to-night in
place of myself. It is long since I heard you rise
so happy a tune!
Conan: (Putting bellows behind him.) What
brings you here? Is there no work for you out in
the garden—the cabbages to be cutting for the
cow....
Celia: I wouldn't wish to roughen my hands
before evening. Music there will be for the dancing!
(She lilts Miss McLeod's Reel.)
Conan: Let you go ready yourself for it so.
Celia: Is it at this time of the day? You
should be forgetting the hours of the clock the
same as the poor mother.
Conan: It is a strange thing since I came to
this house I never can get one minute's ease and
quiet to myself.
Celia: It was hearing you singing brought me in.
Conan: I'd sooner have you without! Be
going now.
Celia: I will and welcome. It is to bring out
my little pigeon I will, where there is a few grains
of barley fell from a car going the road.
Conan: Hurry on so!
Celia: (Taking up cage.) He is not in his crib.
(Looking here and there.) Where now can he
have gone?
Conan: He should have gone out the door.
Celia: He did not. He could not have come
out unknown to me. Coo, coo,—coo—coo.
Conan: Never mind him now. You are putting
my mind astray with your Coo, coo—
Celia: He might be in under the settle.
(Stoops.) Where are you, my little bird. (Sings.)
(Air, "Shule Aroon.")
"But now my love has gone to France
His own fair fortune to advance;
If he comes back again 'tis but a chance;
Os go dé tu Mavourneen slân!"
Conan: (Putting her away.) What way would
he be in it? Let you put a stop to that humming.
(Seizes her.) Come here to the light ...is it
you sewed this button on my coat?
Celia: It was not. It is likely it was some
tailor down in the North.
Conan: It is getting loose on the sleeve.
Celia: Ah, it will last a good while yet. Coo, coo!
Conan: (Getting before her.) It would be no
great load on you to get a needle and put a stitch
would tighten it.
Celia: I'll do it in the by and bye. There, I
twisted the thread around it. That'll hold good
enough for a while.
Conan: "Anything worth doing at all is worth
doing well."
Celia: Aren't you getting very dainty in your
dress?
Conan: Any man would like to have a decent
appearance on his suit.
Celia: Isn't it the same to-day as it was
yesterday?
Conan: Have you ne'er a needle?
Celia: I don't know where is it gone.
Conan: You haven't a stim of sense. Can't
you keep in mind "Everything in its right place."
Celia: Sure, there's no hurry—the day is long.
Conan: Anything has to be done, the quickest
to do it is the best.
Celia: I'm not working by the hour or the day.
Conan: Look now at Penelope of the Greeks,
and all her riches, and her man not at hand to urge
her, how well she sat at the loom from morn till
night till she'd have the makings of a suit of frieze.
Celia: Ah, that was in the ancient days, when
you wouldn't buy it made and ready in the shops.
Conan: Will you so much as go to find a towel
would take the dust off of the panes of glass?
Celia: I wonder at you craving to disturb the
spider and it after making its web.
Conan: Well, go sit idle outside. I wouldn't
wish to be looking at you! Aristotle that said a
lazy body is all one with a lazy mind. You'll be
begging your bread through the world's streets
before your poll will be grey.
(Sings.)
"You'll dye your petticoat, you'll dye it red,
And through the world you'll beg your bread;
And you not hearkening to e'er a word I said,
It's then you'll know it to be true!"
Celia: (Sings.)
"Come here my little birdeen! Coo!"
Conan: (Putting his hand on her mouth.) Be
going out now in place of calling that bird that is
as lazy and as useless as yourself.
Celia: My little dove! Where are you at all!
Conan: A cat to have ate it would be no great
loss!
Celia: Did you yourself do away with him?
Conan: I did not.
Celia: (Wildly breaking free throws herself down.)
There is no place for him to be only in under
the settle!
Conan: (Dragging at her.) It is not there.
Celia: (Who has put in her hand.) O what is
that? It has hurt me!
Conan: A nail sticking up out of the floor.
Celia: (Jumping up with a cry.) It's a crow!
A great big wicked black crow!
Conan: If it is let you leave it there.
Celia: (Weeping.) I'm certain sure it has my
pigeon killed and ate!
Conan: To be so doleful after a pigeon! You
haven't a stim of sense!
Celia: It was you gave it leave to do that!
Conan: Stop your whimpering and blubbering!
What way can I settle the world and I being
harassed and hampered with such a contrary class!
I give you my word I have a mind to change
myself into a ravenous beast will kill and devour ye
all! That much would be no sin when it would be
according to my nature. (Sings or chants.)
"On Clontarf he like a lion fell,
Thousands plunged in their own gore;
I to be such a lion now
I'd ask for nothing more!"
Celia: (Sitting down miserable.) You are a very
wicked man!
Conan: Get up out of that or I'll make you!
Celia: I will not! I'm certain you did this
cruel thing!
Conan: (Taking up bellows.) I'd hardly begrudge
one of my six blasts to be quit of your slowness
and your sluggish ways! Rise up now before
I'll make you that you'll want shoes that will never
wear out, you being ever on the trot and on the
run from morning to the fall of night! Start up
now! I'm on the bounds of doing it!
Celia: What are you raving about?
Conan: To get quit of you I cannot, but to
change your nature I might! I give you warning
...one, two, three!
(Blows.) (Sings: "With a chirrup.") (Air,
"Garryowen.")
"Let you rise and go light like a bird of the air
That goes high in its flight ever seeking its share;
Let you never go easy or pine for a rest
Till you'll be a world's wonder and work with the best!
With a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup!"
Celia: (Staring and standing up.) What is
that? Is it the wind or is it a wisp of flame that
is going athrough my bones!
(Rock and Flannery come in.)
(Celia rushes out.)
Rock: (Out of breath.) We went looking for a
car to bring you to the train!
Flannery: There was not one to be found.
Rock: But those that are too costly!
Flannery: Till we went to the Doctor of the
Union.
Rock: For to ask a lift for you on the ambulance....
Flannery: But when he heard what we had to
tell—
Rock: He said he would bring you and glad
to do it on his own car, and no need to hansel
him.
Flannery: And welcome, if it was as far as the
grave!
Rock: All he is sorry for he hasn't a horse that
would rise you up through the sky—
Conan: Let him give me the lift so—it will be
a help to me. It wasn't only with his own hand
Alexander won the world!
Flannery: Unless you might give him, he was
saying, a blast of the bellows, that would change
his dispensary into a racing stable, and all that
come to be cured into jockeys and into grooms!
Conan: What chatterers ye are! I gave ye no
leave to speak of that.
Rock: Ah, it costs nothing to be giving out
newses.
Flannery: The world and all will be coming to
the door to throw up their hats for you, and you
making your start, cars and ass cars, jennets and
traps. (Sings.)
"O Bay of Dublin, how my heart your troublin',
Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream;
Like frozen fountains that the sun set bubblin'
My heart's blood warms when I but hear your name!"
Conan: It's my death I'll come to in Dublin.
That news to get there ahead of me I'll be pressed
in the throng as thin as a griddle.
Flannery: So you might be, too. All I have
that might protect you I offer free, and that's this
good umbrella that was given to me in a rainstorm
by a priest. (Holds it out.)
Rock: And what do you say to me giving you
the loan of your charges for the road?
Conan: Come in here, Maryanne! and give a
glass to these honest men till they'll wish me good
luck upon my journey, as it's much I'll need it,
with the weight of all I have to do.
Mother: (Coming in.) So I will, so I will and
welcome ...but that I disremember where did
I put the key of the chest.
Conan: I'll engage you do! There it is before
you in the lock since ere yesterday. (Mother puts
bottle and glasses on table.)
Flannery: (Lifting glass.) That you may bring
great good to Ireland and to the world!
Rock: Here's your good health!
Conan: I'm obliged to you!
Rock and Flannery: (Sing.) (Air, "The Cruiskeen
lán.")
"Gramachree ma cruiskeen Slainte geal mavourneen,
Gramachree a cool-in bawn, bawn, bawn, bân-bán-bán,
Oh, Gra-ma-chree a cool-in bawn."
(They nod as they finish and take out their
pipes and sit down. A banging is heard.)
Conan: What disturbance is that?
(Celia comes in, her hair screwed up tight,
skirt tucked up, is carrying a pail,
brush, cloth, etc., lets them drop and
proceeds to fasten up skirt.)
Mother: Ah, Celia, what is on you? I never
saw you that way before.
Conan: Ha! Very good! I think that you will
say there is a great change come upon her, and a
right change.
Celia: Look now at the floor the way it is.
Mother: I see no other way but the way it is
always.
Celia: There's a bit of soot after falling down
the chimney. (Picks up tongs.)
Mother: Ah, leave it now, dear, a while.
Celia: Anything has to be done, the quickest
way to do it is the best. (Having taken up soot,
flings down tongs.)
Conan: Listen to that! Now am I able to
work wonders?
Rock: It is that you have spent on her a blast?
Conan: If I did it was well spent.
Flannery: I'm in dread you have been robbing
the poor.
Rock: It is myself you have robbed doing that.
You have no call to be using those blasts for your
own profit!
Conan: I have every right to bring order in
my own dwelling before I can do any other thing!
Celia: All the dust of the world's roads is
gathered in this kitchen. The whole place ate
with filth and dirt.
(Begins to sweep.)
Conan: Ah, you needn't hardly go as far as that.
Celia: Anything that is worth doing is worth
doing well. (To Rock.) Look now at the marks
of your boots upon the ground. Get up out of
that till I'll bustle it with the broom!
Rock: (Getting up.) There is a change indeed
and a queer change. Where she used to be singing
she is screeching the same as a slate where you'd
be casting sums!
Celia: (To Flannery.) What's that I see in
under your chair? Rise up. (He gets up.) It's
a pin! (Sticks it in her dress.) Everything in its
right place! (Goes on flicking at the furniture.)
Mother: Leave now knocking the furniture to
flitters.
Celia: I will not, till I'll free it from the dust
and dander of the year.
Mother: That'll do now. I see no dust.
Celia: You'll see it presently. (Sweeps up a cloud.)
Mother: Let you speak to her, Conan.
Conan: Leave now buzzing and banging about
the room the same as a fly without a head!
Celia: Never put off till to-morrow what you
can do to-day.
Conan: I tell you I have things to settle and
to say before the car will come that is to bring me
on my road to Dublin.
Celia: (Stopping short.) Is it that you are going
to Dublin?
Conan: I am, and within the hour.
Celia: Pull off those boots from your feet!
Conan: I will not! Let you leave my boots
alone!
Celia: You are not going out of the house with
that slovenly appearance on you! To have it said
out in Dublin that you are a class of man never has
clean boots but of a Sunday!
Conan: They'll do well enough without you
meddling!
Celia: Clean them yourself so! (Gives him a
rag and blacking and goes on dusting.)
(Sings.) (Air, "City of Sligo.")
"We may tramp the earth
For all that we're worth,
But what odds where you and I go,
We never shall meet
A spot so sweet
As the beautiful city of Sligo."
Conan: What ailed me that I didn't leave her
as she was before.
Celia: (Stopping work.) What way are they now?
Conan: (Having cleaned his boots, putting them
on hurriedly.) They're very good. (Wipes his brow,
drawing hand across leaving mark of blacking.)
Celia: The time I told you to put black on
your shoes I didn't bid you rub it upon your brow!
Conan: I didn't put it in any wrong place.
Celia: I ask the whole of you, is it black his face
is or white?
All: It is black indeed.
Celia: Would you put a reproach on the whole
of the barony, going up among big citizens with a
face on you the like of that?
Conan: I'll do well enough. There will be
the black of the smoke from the engine on it any
way, and I after journeying in the train.
Celia: You will not go be a disgrace to me.
Conan: If it is black it is yourself forced me to it.
Celia: If I did I'll make up for it, putting a
clean face upon you now. (Dips towel in pail and
sings "With a fillip"—air, "Garryowen"—as she
washes him.)
"Bring to mind how the thrush gathers twigs for his nest
And the honey bee toils without ever a rest
And the fishes swim ever to keep themselves clean,
And you'll praise me for making you fit to be seen!
With a fillip, a fillip, a fillip.
A fillip, a fillip, a fillip.
A fillip, a fillip, a fillip, a fillip,
A fillip, a fillip, a fillip, a fillip!"
Conan: Let me go, will you! Let you stop!
The soap that is going into my eye!
Celia: My grief you are! Let you be willing
to suffer, so long as you will be tasty and decent
and be a credit to ourselves.
Conan: The suds are in my mouth!
Celia: One minute now and you'll be as clean
as a bishop!
Conan: Let me go, can't you!
Celia: Only one thing wanting now.
Conan: I'm good enough, I tell you!
Celia: To cut the wisp from the back of your
poll.
Conan: You will not cut it!
Celia: And you'll go into the grandeurs of
Dublin and you being as neat as an egg.
Conan: (With a roar.) Leave meddling with
my hair. I that can change the world with one
turn of my hand!
Celia: Wait till I'll find the scissors! That's
not the way to be going showing off in the town,
if you were all the saints and Druids of the universe!
Conan: (Breaking free and rushing out.) My
seven thousand curses on the minute when I didn't
leave you as you were. (Goes.)
Celia: (Looking at Mother.) There's meal on
your dress from the cake you're after putting in
the oven—where now did that bellows fall from?
(Taking up bellows.) It comes as handy as a
gimlet. There (blows the meal off), that now will
make a big difference in you.
Rock: (Seizing bellows.) Leave now that down
out of your hand. Let you go looking for a
scissors!
(Celia goes off singing "The Beautiful City
of Sligo.")
Mother: (Sitting down.) I'm thinking it's seven
years to-day, James Rock, since you took a lend
of my clock.
Rock: You're raving! What call would I have
to ask a lend of your clock?
Mother: The way you would rise in time for
the fair of Feakle in the morning.
Rock: Did I now?
Mother: You did, and that's my truth. I was
standing here, and you were standing there, and
Celia that was but ten years was sucking the sugar
off a spoon I was after putting in a bag that had
come from the shop, for to put a grain into my
tea.
Rock: (Sneering.) Well now, didn't your memory
get very sharp!
Mother: You thought I had it forgot, but I
remember it as clear as pictures. The time it stood
at was seven minutes after four o'clock, and I
never saw it from that day till now. This very
day of the month it was, the year of the black
sheep having twins.
Rock: It was but an old clock anyway.
Mother: If it was it is seven years older since
I laid an eye on it. And it's kind father for you
robbing me, where it's often you robbed your own
mother, and you stealing away to go cardplaying
the half crowns she had hid in the churn.
Rock: Didn't you get very wicked and hurtful,
you that was a nice class of a woman without no
harm!
Flannery: Ah, Ma'am, you that was easy-minded,
it is not kind for you to be a scold.
Mother: And another thing, it was the same
day where Michael Flannery (turns to him) came in
an' told me of you being grown so covetous you
had made away with your dog, by reason you
begrudged it its diet.
Rock: (To Flannery.) You had a great deal to
say about me!
Mother: And more than that again, he said
you had it buried secretly, and had it personated,
creeping around the haggard in the half dark
and you barking, the way the neighbours would
think it to be living yet and as wicked as it was
before.
Rock: (To Flannery.) I'll bring you into the
Courts for telling lies!
Mother: (Coming near Rock and speaking into
his ear.) And there's another thing I know, and
that I made a promise to her that was your wife
not to tell, but death has that promise broke.
Rock: Stop, can't you!
Mother: I know by sure witness that it was
you found the forty pound he (points to Flannery,
who nods) lost on the road, and kept it for your
own profit. Bring me now, I dare you, into the
Courts!
Rock: (Fearfully.) That one would remember
the world! It is as if she went to the grinding
young!
(Conan's voice heard. Singing: "Let me be
merry" in a melancholy voice.)
"If sadly thinking with spirits sinking
Could more than drinking my cares compose,
A cure for to-morrow from sighs I'd borrow,
And hope to-morrow would end my woes.
But as in wailing there's nought availing,
And Death unfailing will strike the blow,
Then for that reason and for a season,
Let us be merry before we go!"
Mother: It is Conan will near lose his wits
with joy when he knows what is come back to me!
Conan: (Peeping in.) Is Celia gone?
Flannery: She is, Conan.
Conan: It's a queer thing with women. If
you'll turn them from one road it's likely they'll
go into another that is worse again.
Rock: That is so indeed. There is Celia's
mother that is running telling lies, and leaving a
heavy word upon a neighbour.
Mother: I'll give my promise not to tell it out
in Court if he will give to poor Michael Flannery
what is due to him, and that is the whole of what
he has in his bag!
Conan: (Laughing scornfully.) Sure she has no
memory at all. It fails her to remember that two
and two makes four.
Mother: You think that? Well, listen now to
me. Two and two is it? No, nine times two that
is eighteen and nine times three twenty-seven,
nine times four thirty-six, nine times five forty-fi
ve, nine times six fifty-four, nine times seven
sixty-three, nine times eight seventy-two, nine
times nine eighty-one.... Yes, and eleven times,
and any times that you will put before me!
Conan: That's enough, that's enough!
Mother: Ha, ha! You giving out that I can
keep no knowledge in mind and no learning, when
I should sit on the chapel roof to have enough of
slates for all I can cast up of sums! Multiplication,
Addition, subtraction, and the rule of three!
Conan: Whist your tongue!
Mother: Is it the verses of Raftery's talk into
the Bush you would wish me to give out, or the
three hundred and sixty-nine verses of the Contention
of the Bards—(Repeats verse of "The Talk
with the Bush" in Irish.)
"Céad agus míle roiámh am na h-Airce
Tús agus crothugadh m'aois agus mo dhata
Thá me o shoin im' shuidhe san áit so
Agus is iomdha sgéal a bhféadain trácht air."
Or I'll English it if that will please you:
"A hundred years and a thousand before the time of the Ark
Was the beginning and creation of my age and my date;
I am from that time sitting in this place,
And it's many a story I am able to give news of."
Conan: (Putting hands to ears and walking
away.) I am thinking your mind got unsettled
with the weight of years.
Mother: (Following him.) No, but your own
that got scattered from the time you ran barefoot
carrying worms in a tin can for that Professor of a
Collegian that went fishing in the stream, and that
you followed after till you got to think yourself a
lamp of light for the universe!
Conan: Will you stop deafening the whole world
with your babble!
Mother: There was always a bad drop in you
that attached to you out of the grandfather. What
did your languages do for you but to sharpen
your tongue, till the scrape of it would take the
skin off, the same as a cat! My blessing on you,
Conan, but my curse upon your mouth!
Conan: Oh, will you stop your chat!
Mother: Every word you speak having in it
the sting of a bee that was made out of the curses
of a saint!
Conan: Stop your gibberish!
Mother: Are you satisfied now?
Conan: I'm not satisfied!
Mother: And never will be, for you were ever
and always a fault-finder and full of crossness
from the day that you were small suited.
Conan: You remember that, too?
Mother: I do well!
Conan: Where is the bellows? Was it you
(to Flannery) that blew a blast on her?
Flannery: It was not.
Conan: Or you?
Rock: It's long sorry I'd be to do such a thing!
Conan: It is certain someone did it on her.
Where now is it?
Mother: (Seizing him.) And I remember the
day you threw out your mug of milk into the street,
by reason, says you, you didn't like the colour of
the cow that gave it!
Conan: Will you stop ripping up little annoyances,
till I'll find the bellows!
Rock: It's what I'm thinking, her memory will
soon be back at the far side of Solomon's
Temple.
Mother: (Repeats in Irish.) Agus is iomdha
sgéal a bhféadain traácht air!
Conan: (Shouting.) Is it that you'll drive the
seven senses out of me!
Mother: Is it that you begrudge me my recollection?
Ha! I have it in spite of you. (Sings.)
"Oft in the stilly night
Ere slumber's chain hath bound me
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
The smiles, the tears, of childhood's years,
The words of love then spoken—
The eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.
"Thus in the stilly night—ere slumber's chain hath bound me
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me!"
Celia: (Bursting in.) Where is Conan?
Conan: What do you want of me?
Celia: I have got the hair brush.
Conan: Let you not come near me!
Celia: And the comb!
Conan: Get away from me!
Celia: And the scissors.
Conan: Will you drive me out of the house or
will I drive you out of it!
Celia: Ah, be easy!
Conan: I will not be easy!
Celia: (Pushing him back in a chair.) It will
delight the world to see the way I'll send you out!
Conan: Is the universe gone distracted mad!
Celia: Be quiet now!
Conan: Leave your hold of me!
Celia: One stir, and the scissors will run into
you!
(Sings "With a snippet, a snippet, a snippet.")
CURTAIN
ACT III