Then followed the programme. There were to be four scenes from "The Ever Popular Play Entitled Robert Emmet," also "The Laughable Sketch Entitled The Cottage by the Sea," also "The Irish Farce, Miss Muldowedy from Ireland," the whole to be interspersed with variety turns by members of the club, as well as Mr. Cullen. "Don't Miss This Treat," the poster concluded. "Motto, 'Fun without Vulgarity.'"
Blessing the chance which had brought us to Donegal upon this day, I hastened back to the hotel, showed the poster to Betty, and three minutes later, we were sallying forth in quest of the town-hall, whose entrance proved to be up a little court just across the street. The prices of admission, so the bill announced, were "2s., 1s. and 6d.," and I consulted with the abashed young man at the door as to which seats we should take. He advised the shilling ones, and we thereupon paid and entered. I wondered afterwards where the two shilling seats were, for the shilling ones were the best in the house.
Although it was nearly time for the performance to begin, we were almost the first arrivals; but we soon heard heavy feet mounting the stair, and quite a crowd of men and boys began to file into the sixpenny seats at the rear. A few girls and women came forward into the shilling seats; but from the look of them, I suspected that they were deadheads, and I fear that Mr. Cullen did not reap a great fortune from that benefit!
There was a tiny stage at one end of the hall, and the stage-manager, after the habit of all such, was having his troubles, for he could not get the footlights—a strip of gas-pipe with holes in it—to work. We thought for a while that he was going to blow himself up, and the whole house along with him; but he gave up the struggle, at last; the pianist played an overture, and the curtain rose.
I have never seen the whole of "Robert Emmet," but from what I saw of it that night, I judge that it must have been written for a star, for nobody does much talking except Emmet himself. He, however, does a lot; and it was fortunate that, in this instance, he was impersonated by Mr. Cullen, for I am sure none of the other actors could have learned the part. Mr. Cullen proved to be a hatchet-faced old gentleman without any teeth; but he had a pleasing voice, and Emmet's grandiloquent speech from the dock was greeted with applause.
Of the two farces I will say nothing, except that they were really not so bad as one would expect, once the actors had recovered from their embarrassment when they perceived two strangers present; but the feature of the evening was the songs, which were many and various and well-rendered. I remember only one of them, which we then heard for the first time, but which we were to hear many times thereafter, a lilting, catchy air, in which the audience assisted with the chorus, which ran something like this:
It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go;
It's a long way to Tipperary,
The sweetest land I know.
Good-bye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square;
It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart is there.
It is the old, old theme of the Irish exile longing for home; the theme of I know not how many poems, from the time of St. Columba, banished overseas and "thinking long" of
Derry mine, my own oak grove,
Little cell, my home, my love;
down through Father Dollard's lilting "Song of the Little Villages":