I thought, my first love,
There'd be but one house between you and me,
And I thought I would find
Yourself coaxing my child on your knee.
Over the tide
I would leap with the leap of a swan,
Till I came to the side
Of the wife of the red-haired man!
[Jack Smith comes in; he is a red-haired man, and is carrying a hayfork.]
Mrs. Tarpey. That should be a good song if I had my hearing.
Mrs. Fallon [shouting]. It's "The Red-haired Man's Wife."
Mrs. Tarpey. I know it well. That's the song that has a skin on it! [She turns her back to them and goes on arranging her apples.]
Mrs. Fallon. Where's herself, Jack Smith?
Jack Smith. She was delayed with her washing; bleaching the clothes on the hedge she is, and she daren't leave them, with all the tinkers that do be passing to the fair. It isn't to the fair I came myself, but up to the Five Acre Meadow I'm going, where I have a contract for the hay. We'll get a share of it into tramps to-day. [He lays down hayfork and lights his pipe.]
Bartley. You will not get it into tramps to-day. The rain will be down on it by evening, and on myself too. It's seldom I ever started on a journey but the rain would come down on me before I'd find any place of shelter.
Jack Smith. If it didn't itself, Bartley, it is my belief you would carry a leaky pail on your head in place of a hat, the way you'd not be without some cause of complaining. [A voice heard, "Go on, now, go on out o' that. Go on I say."]
Jack Smith. Look at that young mare of Pat Ryan's that is backing into Shaughnessy's bullocks with the dint of the crowd! Don't be daunted, Pat, I'll give you a hand with her. [He goes out, leaving his hayfork.]