Three Wonder Plays by Lady I. A. Gregory

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_First Aunt_: It is what we were saying, that
might be no drawback. It might be easier train
her in our own ways, and to do everything that
is right.

_King_: Sure we are all wishful to do the thing
that is right, but it's sometimes hard to know.

_Second Aunt_: Not in our place. What the
King of the Marshes would not know, his counsellors
and ourselves would know.

_Queen_: It will be very answerable to the Princess
to be under such good guidance.

_First Aunt_: For low people and for middling
people it is well enough to follow their own opinion
and their will. But for the Prince's wife to have
any choice or any will of her own, the people would
not believe her to be a _real_ princess.

_(Princess comes to door, listening unseen.)_

_King_: Ah, you must not be too strict with a
girl that has life in her.

_Prince_: My seven aunts that were saying they
have a great distrust of any person that is lively.

_First Aunt_: We would rather than the greatest
beauty in the world get him a wife who would be
content to stop in her home.

_(Princess comes in very stately and with a_
_fine dress. She curtseys. Aunts curtsey
and sit down again. Prince bows uneasily
and sidles away.)_

_First Aunt_: Will you sit, now, between the
two of us?

_Princess_: It is more fitting for a young girl
to stay in her standing in the presence of a king's
kindred and his son, since he is come so far to look
for me.

_Second Aunt_: That is a very nice thought.

_Princess_: My far-off grandmother, the old
people were telling me, never sat at the table
to put a bit in her mouth till such time as her
lord had risen up satisfied. She was that obedient
to him that if he had bidden her, she would have
laid down her hand upon red coals.

_(Prince looks bored and fidgets.)_

_First Aunt_: Very good indeed.

_Princess_: That was a habit with my grandmother.
I would wish to follow in her ways.

_King_: This is some new talk.

_Queen_: Stop; she is speaking fair and good.

_Princess_: A little verse, made by some good
wife, I used to be learning. "I always should:
Be very good: At home should mind: My husband
kind: Abroad obey: What people say."

_First Aunt: (Getting up.)_ To travel the world,
I never thought to find such good sense before me.
Do you hear that, Prince?

_Prince_: Sure I often heard yourselves shaping
that sort.

_Second Aunt_: I'll engage the royal family will
make no objection to this young lady taking charge
of your house.

_Princess_: I can do that! _(Counts on fingers.)_
To send linen to the washing-tub on Monday, and
dry it on Tuesday, and to mangle it Wednesday,
and starch it Thursday, and iron it Friday, and
fold it in the press against Sunday!

_Second Aunt_: Indeed there is little to learn
you! And on Sundays, now, you will go driving
in a painted coach, and your dress sewed with gold
and with pearls, and the poor of the world envying
you on the road.

_Queen: (Claps hands.)_ There is no one but
must envy her, and all that is before her for her
lifetime!

_First Aunt_: Here is the golden arm-ring the
Prince brought for to slip over your hand.

_Second Aunt_: It was put on all our generations of
queens at the time of the making of their match.

_Princess: (Drawing back her hand.)_ Mine is
not made yet.

_First Aunt_: Didn't you hear me saying, and
the Prince saying, there is nothing could be laid
down against it.

_Princess_: There is one thing against it.

_Queen_: Oh, there can be nothing worth while!

_Princess_: A thing you would think a great
drawback and all your kindred would think it.

_Queen: (Rapidly.)_ There is nothing, but maybe
that she is not so tall as you might think, through
the length of the heels of her shoes.

_Second Aunt_: We would put up with that much.

_Princess: (Rapidly.)_ It is that there was a
spell put upon me--by a water-witch that was of
my kindred. At some hours of the day I am as
you see me, but at other hours I am changed into
a sea-filly from the Country-under-Wave. And
when I smell salt on the west wind I must race and
race and race. And when I hear the call of the
gulls or the sea-eagles over my head, I must leap
up to meet them till I can hardly tell what is my
right element, is it the high air or is it the loosened
spring-tide!

_Queen_: Stop your nonsense talk. She is gone
wild and raving with the great luck that is come
to her!

_(Prince has stood up, and is watching her
eagerly.)_

_Princess_: I feel a wind at this very time that
is blowing from the wilderness of the sea, and
I am changing with it.... There. _(Pulls down
her hair.)_ Let my mane go free! I will race
you, Prince, I will race you! The wind of March
will not overtake me, Prince, and I running on the
top of the white waves!

_(Runs out; Prince entranced, rushes to door.)_

_Aunts: (Catching hold of him.)_ Are you going
mad wild like herself?

_Prince_: Oh, I will go after her!

_First Aunt: (Clutching him)_ Do not! She
will drag you to destruction.

_Prince: (Struggling to door.)_ What matter! Let
me go or she will escape me! _(Shaking himself
free.)_ I will never stop till I come to her.

_(He rushes out, Second Aunt still holding on
to him.)_

_First Aunt_: What at all has come upon him?
I never knew him this way before!

_(She trots after him.)_

_Princess: (Comes leaping in by window.)_ They
are gone running the road to Muckanish! But
they won't find me!

_Queen_: You have a right to be ashamed of
yourself and your play-game. It's easy for you
to go joking, having neither cark nor care: that
is no way to treat the second best match in Ireland!

_King_: You were saying you had your mind
made up to take him.

_Princess_: It failed me to do it! Himself and
his counsellors and his seven aunts!

_Queen_: He will give out that you are crazed
and mad.

_Princess_: He will be thankful to his life's end
to have got free of me!

_King_: I don't know. It seemed to me he
was better pleased with you in the finish than
in the commencement. But I'm in dread his
father may not be well pleased.

_Princess: (Patting him.)_ Which now of the
two of you is the most to be pitied? He to
have such a timid son or you to have such an unruly
daughter?

_Queen_: It is likely he will make an attack on
you. There was a war made by the King of Britain
on the head of a terrier pup that was sent to him
and that made away on the road following hares.
It's best for you to make ready to put yourself at
the head of your troop.

_King_: It's long since I went into my battle
dress. I'm in dread it would not close upon my
chest.

_Queen_: Ah, it might, so soon as you would
go through a few hardships in the fight.

_King_: If the rest of Adam's race was of my
opinion there'd be no fighting in the world at
all.

_Queen_: It is this child's stubbornness is leading
you into it. Go out, Nuala, after the Prince. Tell
him you are sorry you made a fool of him.

_Princess_: He was that before--thinking to
put me sitting and sewing in a cushioned chair,
listening to stories of kings making a slaughter
of one another.

_Queen_: Tell him you have changed your mind,
that you were but funning; that you will wed
with him yet.

_Princess_: I would sooner wed with the King
of Poison! I to have to go to his kingdom, I'd
sooner go earning my wages footing turf, with a
skirt of heavy flannel and a dress of the grey frieze!
Himself and his bogs and his frogs!

_Queen_: I tell you it is time for you to take a
husband.

_Princess_: You said that before! And I was
giving in a while ago, and I felt the blood of my
heart to be rising against it! And I will not give
in to you again! It is my own business and I will
take my own way.

_Queen: (To King.)_ This is all one with the
raving of a hag against heaven!

_King_: What the Queen is saying is right. Try
now and come around to it.

_Princess_: She has set you against me with her
talk!

_Queen: (To King.)_ It is best for you to lay
orders on her.

_Princess_: The King is not under your
orders!

_Queen_: You are striving to make him give in
to your own!

_King_: I will take orders from no one at all!

_Queen_: Bid her go bring back the Prince.

_Princess_: I say that I will not!

_Queen_: She is standing up against you! Will
you give in to that?

_King_: I am bothered with the whole of you!
I will give in to nothing at all!

_Queen_: Make her do your bidding so.

_King_: Can't you do as you are told?

_Princess_: This concerns myself.

_King_: It does, and the whole of us.

_Princess_: Do you think you can force me to
wed?

_King_: I do think it, and I will do it.

_Princess_: It will fail you!

_King_: It will not! I was too easy with you
up to this.

_Princess_: Will you turn me out of the house?

_King_: I will give you my word, it is little but
I will!

_Princess_: Then I have no home and no father!
It is to my mother you must give an account.
You know well it is with the first wife you will go
at the Judgment!

_Queen_: Is it that you would make threats to
the King? And put insults upon myself? Now
she is daring and defying you! Let you put an end
to it!

_King_: I will do that! _(Stands up.)_ I swear
by the oath my people swear by, the seven things
common to us all; by sun and moon; sea and dew;
wind and water; the hours of the day and night,
I will give you in marriage and in wedlock to the
first man that will come into the house!

_Princess: (Shrinking as from a blow.)_ It is the
Queen has done this.

_Queen_: I will give you out the reason, and
see will you put blame on me or praise!

_Nurse_: Oh, let you stop and not draw it down
upon her!

_Queen_: It is right for me to tell it; it is true
telling! You not to be married and wed by this
day twelvemonth, there will be a terrible thing
happen you ...

_Nurse_: Be quiet! Don't you see Fintan himself
looking in the window!

_King_: Fintan! What is it bring you here
on this day?

_Fintan: (A very old man in strange clothes at
window.)_ What brings me is to put my curse
upon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that are gone
and vanished out of this, without bringing me my
request, that was a bit of rendered lard that would
limber the swivel of my spy-glass, that is clogged
with the dripping of the cave.

_Nurse_: And you have no bad news?

_Queen_: Nothing to say on the head of the
Princess, this being, as it is, her birthday?

_Fintan_: What birthday? This is not a birthday
that signifies. It is the next will be the birthday
concerned with the great story that is foretold.

_Queen_: It is right for her to know it.

_King_: It is not! It is not!

_Princess_: Whatever the story is, let me know
it, and not be treated as a child that is without
courage or sense.

_Fintan_: It's long till I'll come out from my
cleft again, and getting no peace or quiet on the
ridge of the earth. It is laid down by the stars
that cannot lie, that on this day twelvemonth, you
yourself will be ate and devoured by a scaly Green
Dragon from the North!

END OF ACT I.

ACT II

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 _my_self.

_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.

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