ACT II
Scene: The Same. Princess and Nurse.
Nurse: Cheer up now, my honey bird, and
don't be fretting.
Princess: It is not easy to quit fretting, and
the terrible story you are after telling me of all
that is before and all that is behind me.
Nurse: They had no right at all to go make
you aware of it. The Queen has too much talk.
An unlucky stepmother she is to you!
Princess: It is well for me she is here. It is
well I am told the truth, where the whole of you
were treating me like a child without sense, so
giddy I was and contrary, and petted and humoured
by the whole of you. What memory would there
be left of me and my little life gone by, but of a
headstrong, unruly child with no thought but
for myself.
Nurse: No, but the best in the world, you
are; there is no one seeing you pass by but would
love you.
Princess: That is not so. I was wild and taking
my own way, mocking and humbugging.
Nurse: I never will give in that there is no
way to save you from that Dragon that is foretold
to be your destruction. I would give the
four divisions of the world, and Ireland along
with them, if I could see you pelting your ball
in at the window the same as an hour ago!
Princess: Maybe you will, so long as it will hurt
nobody.
Nurse: Ah, sure it's no wonder there to be the
tracks of tears upon your face, and that great terror
before you.
Princess: I will wipe them away! I will not
give in to danger or to dragons! No one will
see a dark face on me. I am a king's daughter
of Ireland, I did not come out of a herd's hut like
Deirdre that went sighing and lamenting till she
was put to death, the world being sick and tired
of her complaints, and her finger at her eye dripping
tears!
Nurse: That's right, now. You had always
great courage.
Princess: There is like a change within me.
You never will hear a cross word from me again.
I would wish to be pleasant and peaceable until
such time ...
(Puts handkerchief to eyes and goes.)
Dall Glic: (Coming in.) The King is greatly
put out with all he went through, and the way
the passion rose in him a while ago.
Nurse: That he may be twenty times worse
before he is better! Showing such fury towards
the innocent child the way he did!
Dall Glic: The Queen has brought him to the
grass plot for to give him his exercise, walking his
seven steps east and west.
Nurse: Hasn't she great power over him to
make him to that much?
Dall Glic: I tell you I am in dread of her myself.
Some plan she has for making my two eyes equal.
I vexed her someway, and she got queer and humpy,
and put a lip on herself, and said she would take
me in hand. I declare I never will have a minute's
ease thinking of it.
Nurse: The King should have done his seven
steps, for I hear her coming.
(Dall Glic goes to recess of window.)
Queen: (Coming in.) Did you, Nurse, ever at
any time turn and dress a dinner?
Nurse: (Very stiff.) Indeed I never did. Any
house I ever was in there was a good kitchen and
well attended, the Lord be praised!
Queen: Ah, but just to be kind and to oblige
the King.
Nurse: Troth, the same King will wait long
till he'll see any dish I will ready for him! I am
not one that was reared between the flags and the
oven in the corner of the one room! To be a nurse
to King's children is my trade, and not to go stirring
mashes, for hens or for humans!
Queen: I heard a crafty woman lay down one
time there was no way to hold a man, only by food
and flattery.
Nurse: Sure any mother of children walking the
road could tell you that much.
Queen: I went maybe too far urging him not
to lessen so much food the way he did. I only
thought to befriend him. But now he is someway
upset and nothing will rightly smooth him but to
be thinking upon his next meal; and what it will
be I don't know, unless the berries of the bush.
Dall Glic: (Leaning out of the window.) Here!
Hi! Come this way!
Queen: Who are you calling to?
Dall Glic: It is someone with the appearance
of a cook.
Queen: Are you saying it is a cook? That
now will put the King in great humour!
(Manus appears at the window.)
Nurse: (Looking at him.) I wouldn't hardly
think he'd suit. He has a sort of innocent look.
I wouldn't say him to be a country lad. I don't
know is he fitted to go readying meals for a royal
family, and the King so wrathful if they do not
please him as he is. And as to the Princess Nu!
There to be the size of a hayseed of fat overhead
on her broth, she'd fall in a dead faint.
Manus: I'll go on so.
Queen: No, no. Bring him in till I'll take a
look at him!
Manus: (Coming inside.) I am a lad in search
of a master.
Manus: (Inside.) I am a lad in search of a
master.
Queen: And I myself that am wanting a cook.
Manus: I got word of that and I going the road.
Queen: You would seem to be but a young lad.
Manus: I am not very far in age to-day. But
I'll be a day older to-morrow.
Queen: In what country were you born and
reared?
Manus: I came from over, and I am coming
hither.
Queen: What wages now would you be asking?
Manus: Nothing at all unless what you think
I will have earned at the time I will be leaving
your service.
Queen: That is very right and fair. I hope
you will not be asking too much help. The last
cook had a whole fleet of scullions that were no
use but to chatter and consume.
Manus: I am asking no help at all but the
help of the ten I bring with me.
(Holds up fingers.)
Queen: That will be a great saving in the house!
Can I depend upon you now not to be turning
to your own use the King's ale and his wine?
Manus: If you take me to be a thief I will go
upon my road. It was no easier for me to come
than to go out again.
Queen: (Holding him.) No, now, don't be so
proud and thinking so much of yourself. If I
give you trial here I would wish you to be ready
to turn your hand to this and that, and not be
saying it is or is not your business.
Manus: My business is to do as the King wishes.
Queen: That's right. That is the way the
servants were in the palace of the King of Alban.
Manus: That's the way I was myself in the
King's house of Sorcha.
Queen: Are you saying it is from that place you
are come? Sure that should be a great household!
The King of Sorcha, they were telling me, has
seven castles on land and seven on the sea, and
provision for a year and a day in every one of them.
Manus: That might be. I never was in more
than one of them at the one time.
Queen: Anyone that has been in that place would
surely be fitting here. Keep him, Nurse! Don't let
him make away from us till I will go call the King!
(Goes out.)
Nurse: Sure it was I myself that fostered the
young King of Sorcha and reared him in my lap!
What way is he at all? My lovely child! Give
me news of him!
Manus: I will do that....
Nurse: To hear of him would delight me!
Manus: It is I that can tell you....
Nurse: It is himself should be a grand king!
Manus: Listen till you hear!...
Nurse: His father was good and his mother was
good, and it's likely, himself will be the best of all!
Manus: Be quiet now and hearken!...
Nurse: I remember well the first day I saw him
in the cradle, two and a score of years back! Oh,
it is glad, and very glad, I'll be to get word of him!
Manus: He is come to sensible years....
Nurse: A golden cradle it was and it standing
on four golden balls the very round of the sun!
Manus: He is out of his cradle now. (Shakes
her shoulder.) Let you hearken! He is in need
of your help.
Nurse: He'll get it, he'll get it. I doted down
on that child! The best to laugh and to roar!
Manus: (Putting hand on her mouth.) Will
you be silent, you hag of a nurse? Can't you see
that I myself am Manus, the new King of Sorcha?
Nurse: (Starting back.) Do you say that?
And how's every bit of you? Sure I'd know you
in any place. Stand back till I'll get the full of
my eyes of you! Like the father you are, and you
need never be sorry to be that! Well, I said to
myself and you looking in at the window, I would
not believe but there's some drop of king's blood
in that lad!
Manus: That was not what you said to me!
Nurse: And wasn't the journey long on you
from Sorcha, that is at the rising of the sun? Is
it your foot-soldiers and your bullies you brought
with you, or did you come with your hound and
your deer-hound and with your horn?
Manus: There was no one knew of my journey.
I came bare alone. I threw a shell in the sea and
made a boat of it, and took the track of the wild
duck across the mountains of the waves.
Nurse: And where in the world wide did you
get that dress of a cook?
Manus: It was at a tailor's place near Oughtmana.
There was no one in the house but the mother. I
left my own clothes in her charge and my purse
of gold; I brought nothing but my own blue
sword. (Throws open blouse and shows it.) She gave
me this suit, where a cook from this house had
thrown it down in payment for a drink of milk.
I have no mind any person should know I am a king.
I am letting on to be a cook.
Nurse: I would sooner you to come as a champion
seeking battle, or a horseman that had gone astray,
or so far as a poet making praises or curses according
to his treatment on the road. It would be a bad
day I would see your father's son taken for a kitchen
boy.
Manus: I was through the world last night in
a dream. It was dreamed to me that the King's
daughter in this house is in a great danger.
Nurse: So she is, at the end of a twelvemonth.
Manus: My warning was for this day. Seeing
her under trouble in my dream, my heart was hot
to come to her help. I am here to save her, to
meet every troublesome thing that will come at
her.
Nurse: Oh, my heavy blessing on you doing
that!
Manus: I was not willing to come as a king,
that she would feel tied and bound to live for if
I live, or to die with if I should die. I am come
as a poor unknown man, that may slip away after
the fight, to my own kingdom or across the borders
of the world, and no thanks given him and no more
about him, but a memory of the shadow of a cook!
Nurse: I would not think that to be right,
and you the last of your race. It is best for you
to tell the King.
Manus: I lay my orders on you to tell no one
at all.
Nurse: Give me leave but to whisper it to the
Princess Nu. It's ye would be the finest two the
world ever saw. You will not find her equal in all
Ireland!
Manus: I lay it as crosses and as spells on you
to say no word to her or to any other that will
make known my race or my name. Give me now
your oath.
Nurse: (Kneeling.) I do, I do. But they will
know you by your high looks.
Manus: Did you yourself know me a while ago?
Nurse: (Getting up.) Oh, they're coming! Oh,
my poor child, what way will you that never handled
a spit be able to make out a dinner for the
King?
Manus: This silver whistle, that was her pipe
of music, was given to me by a queen among the
Sidhe that is my godmother. At the sound of it
that will come through the air any earthly thing
I wish for, at my command.
Nurse: Let it be a dinner so.
Manus: So it will come, on a green tablecloth
carried by four swans as white as snow. The
freshest of every meat, the oldest of every drink,
nuts from the trees in Adam's Paradise!
(King, Queen, Princess, Dall Glic come in.
Princess sits on window sill.)
Queen: (To King.) Here now, my dear. Wasn't
I telling you I would take all trouble from your
mind, and that I would not be without finding a
cook for you?
King: He came in a good hour. The want of a
right dinner has downed kingdoms before this.
Queen: Travelling he is in search of service
from the kings of the earth. His wages are in no
way out of measure.
King: Is he a good hand at his trade?
Queen: Honest he is, I believe, and ready to
give a hand here and there.
King: What way does he handle flesh, I'd wish
to know? And all that comes up from the tide?
Bream, now; that is a fish is very pleasant to me—
stewed or fried with butter till the bones of it melt
in your mouth. There is nothing in sea or strand
but is the better of a quality cook—only oysters,
that are best left alone, being as they are all gravy
and fat.
Queen: I didn't question him yet about cookery.
King: It's seldom I met a woman with right
respect for food, but for show and silly dishes and
trash that would leave you in the finish as dwindled
as a badger on St. Bridget's day.
Queen: If this youth of a young man was able to
give satisfaction at the King of Sorcha's Court,
I am sure that he will make a dinner to please
yourself.
Manus: I will do more than that. I will dress
a dinner that will please myself.
Princess: (Clapping hands.) Very well said!
King: Sound out now some good dishes such
as you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the Queen
will put them down in a line of writing, that I can
be thinking about them till such time as you will
have them readied.
Queen: There are sheeps' trotters below; you
might know some tasty way to dress them.
Manus: I do surely. I'll put the trotters within
a fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and the goose in
a suckling pig, and the suckling pig in a fat lamb,
and the lamb in a calf, and the calf in a Maderalla ...
King: What now is a Maderalla?
Manus: He is a beast that saves the cook trouble,
swallowing all those meats one after another—in
Sorcha.
King: That should be a very pretty dish. Let
you go make a start with it the way we will not be
famished before nightfall. Bring him, Dall Glic,
to the larder.
Dall Glic: I'm in dread it's as good for him to
stop where he is.
King: What are you saying?
Dall Glic: Those lads of apprentices that left
nothing in it only bare hooks.
Nurse: It is the Queen would give no leave
for more provision to come in, saying there was
no one to prepare it.
Manus: If that is so, I will be forced to lay
my orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and the
Brown Otter of the Stream to bring in meat at
my bidding.
King: Hurry on so.
Queen: I myself will go and give you instructions
what way to use the kitchen.
Manus: Not at all! What I do I'd as lief do
in your own royal parlour! (Blows whistle; two dark-skinned
men come in with vessels.) Give me here
those pots and pans!
Queen: What now is about to take place?
Dall Glic: I not to be blind, I would say those
to be very foreign-looking men.
King: It would seem as if the world was grown
to be very queer.
Queen: So it is, and the mastery being given
to a cook.
Manus: So it should be too! It is the King
of Shades and Shadows would have rule over the
world if it wasn't for the cooks!
King: There's some sense in that now.
(Strange men are moving and arranging baskets
and vessels.)
Manus: There was respect for cooks in the
early days of the world. What way did the Sons
of Tuireann get their death but going questing
after a cooking spit at the bidding of Lugh of the
Long Hand! And if a spit was worthy of the death
of heroes, what should the man be worth that is
skilled in turning it? What is the difference
between man and beast? Beast and bird devour
what they find and have no power to change it.
But we are Druids of those mysteries, having
magic and virtue to turn hard grain to tender cakes,
and the very skin of a grunting pig to crackling
causing quarrels among champions, and it singing
upon the coals. A cook! If I am I am not without
good generations before me! Who was the first
old father of us, roasting and reddening the fruits
of the earth from hard to soft, from bitter to kind,
till they are fit for a lady's platter? What is it
leaves us in the hard cold of Christmas but the
robbery from earth of warmth for the kitchen
fire of (takes off cap) the first and foremost of all
master cooks—the Sun!
Princess: You are surely not ashamed of your
trade!
Manus: To work now, to work. I'll engage to
turn out a dinner fit for Pharaoh of Egypt or
Pharamond King of the Franks! Here, Queen, is
a silver-breast phoenix—draw out the feathers—
they are pure silver—fair and clean. (Queen plucks
eagerly.) King, take your golden sceptre and stir
this pot.
(Gives him one.)
King: (Interested.) What now is in it?
Manus: A broth that will rise over the side
and be consumed and split if you stop stirring
it for one minute only! (King stirs furiously.)
Princess (She is looking on and he goes over to her),
there are honey cakes to roll out, but I will not
ask you to do it in dread that you might spoil the
whiteness ...
Princess: I have no mind to do it.
Manus: Of the flour!
Princess: Give them here.
(Rolls them out indignantly.)
Manus: That is right. Take care, King, would
the froth swell over the brim.
Princess: It seems to me you are doing but
little yourself.
Manus: I will turn now and ... boil these
eggs.
(Takes some on a plate; they roll off.)
Princess: You have broken them.
Manus: (Disconcerted.) It was to show you a
good trick, how to make them sit up on the narrow
end.
Princess: That is an old trick in the world.
Manus: Every trick is an old one, but with
a change of players, a change of dress, it comes
out as new as before. Princess (speaks low), I
have a message to give you and a pardon to ask.
Princess: Give me out the message.
Manus: Take courage and keep courage through
this day. Do not let your heart fail. There is
help beside you.
Princess: It has been a troublesome day indeed.
But there is a worse one and a great danger before
me in the far away.
Manus: That danger will come to-day, the
message said in the dream. Princess, I have a
pardon to ask you. I have been playing vanities.
I think I have wronged you doing this. It was
surely through no want of respect.
Gatekeeper: (Coming in.) There is word come
from Ballyvelehan there is a coach and horses
facing for this place over from Oughtmana.
Queen: Who would that be?
Gatekeeper: Up on the hill a woman was, brought
word it must be some high gentleman. She could
see all colours in the coach, and flowers on the
horse's heads.
Goes out.)
Dall Glic: That is good hearing. I was in
dread some man we would have no welcome for
would be the first to come in this day.
Queen: Not a fear of it. I had orders given
to the Gateman who he would and would not
keep out. I did that the very minute after the
King making his proclamation and his law.
King: Pup, pup. You need not be drawing
that down.
Queen: It is well you have myself to care you
and to turn all to good. I gave orders to the
Gateman, I say, no one to be let in to the door
unless carriage company, no other ones, even if they
should wipe their feet upon the mat. I notched
that in his mind, telling him the King was after
promising the Princess Nu in marriage to the first
man that would come into the house.
Manus: The King gave out that word?
Queen: I am after saying that he did.
Dall Glic: Come along, lad. Don't be putting
ears on yourself.
Manus: I ask the King did he give out that
promise as the Queen says?
King: I have but a poor memory.
Nurse: The King did say it within the hour,
and swore to it by the oath of his people, taking
contracts of the sun and moon of the air!
Dall Glic: What is it to you if he did? Come
on, now.
Manus: No. This is a matter that concerns
myself.
Queen: How do you make that out?
Manus: You, that called me in, know well that
I was the first to come into the house.
Queen: Ha, ha! You have the impudence! It
is a man the King said. He was not talking about
cooks.
Manus: (To the King.) I am before you as a
serving lad, and you are a King in Ireland. Because
you are a King and I your hired servant you will not
refuse me justice. You gave your word.
King: If I did it was in haste and in vexation,
and striving to save her from destruction.
Manus: I call you to keep to your word and
to give your daughter to no other one.
Queen: Speak out now, Dall Glic, and give
your opinion and your advice.
Dall Glic: I would say that this lad going away
would be no great loss.
Manus: I did not ask such a thing, but as it
has come to me I will hold to my right.
Queen: It would be right to throw him to the
hounds in the kennel!
Manus: (To King.) I leave it to the judgment
of your blind wise man.
Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Take care would you
offend myself or the King!
Manus: I put it on you to split justice as it
is measured outside the world.
Dall Glic: It is hard for me to speak. He
has laid it hard on me. My good eye may go
asleep, but my blind eye never sleeps. In the
place where it is waking, an honourable man, king
or beggar, is held to his word.
King: Is it that I must give my daughter to
a lad that owns neither clod nor furrow? Whose
estate is but a shovel for the ashes and a tongs for
the red coals.
Queen: It is likely he is urged by the sting of
greed—it is but riches he is looking for.
King: I will not begrudge him his own asking
of silver and of gold!
Manus: Throw it out to the beggars on the
road! I would not take a copper half-penny!
I'll take nothing but what has come to me from
your own word!
(King bows his head.)
Princess: (Coming forward.) Then this battle
is not between you and an old king that is feeble,
but between yourself and myself.
Manus: I am sorry, Princess, if it must be a
battle.
Princess: You can never bring me away against
my will.
Manus: I said no word of doing that.
Princess: You think, so, I will go with you of
myself? The day I will do that will be the day
you empty the ocean!
Manus: I will not wait longer than to-day.
Princess: Many a man waited seven years for
a king's daughter!
Manus: And another seven—and seven generations
of hags. But that is not my nature.
I will not kneel to any woman, high or low, or
crave kindness that she cannot give.
Princess: Then I can go free!
Manus: For this day I take you in my charge.
I cross and claim you to myself, unless a better
man will come.
Princess: I would think it easier to find a better
man than one that would be worse to me!
Manus: If one should come that you think
to be a better man, I will give you your own way.
Princess: It is you being in the world at all
that is my grief.
Manus: Time makes all things clear. You
did not go far out in the world yet, my poor little
Princess.
Princess: I would be well pleased to drive
you out through the same world!
Manus: With or without your goodwill, I
will not go out of this place till I have carried out
the business I came to do.
Dall Glic: Is it the falling of hailstones I hear
or the rumbling of thunder, or is it the trots of
horses upon the road?
Queen: (Looking out.) It is the big man that
is coming—Prince or Lord or whoever he may be.
(To Dall Glic.) Go now to the door to welcome
him. This is some man worth while. (To Manus.)
Let you get out of this.
Manus: No, whoever he is I'll stop and face
him. Let him know we are players in the one game!
King: And what sort of a fool will you make
of me, to have given in to take the like of you for
a son-in-law? They will be putting ridicule on me
in the songs.
Queen: If he must stop here we might put
some face on him.... If I had but a decent
suit.... Give me your cloak, Dall Glic. (He
gives it.) Here now ... (To Manus.) Put this
around you.... (Manus takes it awkwardly.) It
will cover up your kitchen suit.
Manus: Is it this way?
Queen: You have no right handling of it—
stupid clown! This way!
Manus: (Flinging it off.) No, I'll change no
more suits! It is time for me to stop fooling and
give you what you did not ask yet, my name. I
will tell out all the truth.
Gatekeeper: (At door.) The King of Sorcha!
(Taig comes in.)
King and Queen: The King of Sorcha! (They
rush forward to greet him.)
Nurse: (To Manus.) Did ever anyone hear
the like!
Manus: It seems as if there will be a judgment
between the man and the clothes!
Queen: (To Taig.) There is someone here that
you know, King. This young man is giving out
that he was your cook.
Taig: He was not. I never laid an eye on him
till this minute.
Queen: I was sure he was nothing but a liar
when he said he would tell the truth! Now, King,
will you turn him out the door?
King: And what about the great dinner he has
me promised?
Manus: Be easy King. Whether or no you
keep your word to me I'll hold to mine! (Blows
whistle.) In with the dishes! Take your places!
Let the music play out!
(Music plays, the strange men wheel in tables
and dishes.)
CURTAIN