Three Wonder Plays by Lady I. A. Gregory

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(_Sings as he searches_.)

"Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding,
Loudly the war cries rise on the gale;
Fleetly the steed by Lough Swilly is bounding
To join the thick squadrons in Saimear's green vale.
On every mountaineer, strangers to flight and fear;
Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh
Bonnaught and gallowglass, throng from each mountain pass.
On for old Erin, O'Donnall Abu."

(_Pokes at hearthstone_.) Sure enough, it's
loose! It's moving! Wait till I'll get
a wedge under it!

(_Takes fork from table_.) It's coming!

(_Door suddenly opens and he drops fork and
springs back_.)

_Mother_: (_Coming in with Rock and Flannery_.)
Here now, come in the two of ye. Here now, Conan,
is two of the neighbours, James Rock of Lis Crohan
and Fardy Flannery the rambling herd, that are
come to get a light for the pipe and they walking
the road from the Fair.

_Conan_: That's the way you make a fool of me
promising me peace and quiet for to sleep!

_Mother_: Ah, so I believe I did. But it slipped
away from me, and I listening to the blackbird on
the bush.

_Conan_: (_To Rock_.) I wonder, James Rock,
that you wouldn't have on you so much as a halfpenny
box of matches!

_Rock_: (_Trying to get to hearth_.) So I have
matches. But why would I spend one when I can
get for nothing a light from a sod?

_Flannery_: Sure, I could give you a match I
have this long time, waiting till I'll get as much
tobacco as will fill a pipe.

_Mother_: It's the poor man does be generous.
It's gone from my mind, Fardy, what was it
brought you to be a servant of poverty?

_Flannery_: Since the day I lost on the road my
forty pound that I had to stock my little farm of
land, all has wore away from me and left me bare
owning nothing unless daylight and the run of
water. It was that put me on the Shaughrann.

(_Sings "The Bard of Armagh."_)

"Oh, list to the lay of a poor Irish harper,
And scorn not the strains of his old withered hand,
But remember the fingers could once move sharper
To raise the merry strains of his dear native land;
It was long before the shamrock our dear isle's loved emblem.
Was crushed in its beauty 'neath the Saxon Lion's paw
I was called by the colleens of the village and valley
Bold Phelim Brady, the bard of Armagh."

_Rock_: Bad management! Look what I brought
from the Fair through minding my own property--L20
for a milch cow, and thirty for a score of
lambs!

_Mother_: L20 for a cow! Isn't that terrible
money!

_Conan_: Let you whist now! You are putting
a headache on me with all your little newses and
country chat!

(_Mother goes, the others are following_.)

_Rock_: (_Turning from door_.) It might be better
for yourself, Conan Creevey, if you had minded
business would bring profit to your hand in place
of your foreign learning, that never put a penny
piece in anyone's pocket that ever I heard. No
earthly profit unless to addle the brain and leave
the pocket empty.

_Conan_: You think yourself a great sort! Let
me tell you that my learning has power to do more
than that!

_Rock_: It's an empty mouth that has big talk.

_Conan_: What would you say hearing I had
power put in my hand that could change the entire
world? And that's what you never will have power
to do.

_Rock_: What power is that?

_Conan_:

Aristotle in the hour
He left Ireland left a power....

_Rock_: Foolishness! I never would believe in
poetry or in dreams or images, but in ready money
down. (_Jingles bag_.)

_Conan_: I tell you you'll see me getting the
victory over all Ireland!

_Rock_: You have but a cracked headpiece thinking
that will come to you.

_Conan_: I tell you it will! No end at all in the
world to what I am about to bring in!

_Rock_: It's easy praise yourself!

_Conan_: And so I am praising myself, and so will
you all be praising me when you will see all that
I will do!

_Rock_: It is what I think you got demented in
the head and in the mind.

_Conan_: It is soon the wheel will be turned and
the whole of the nation will be changed for the
best. (_Sings_.)

"Dear Harp of my country, in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,
When proudly, my own Irish Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom and song,
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness
Have waken'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;
But so oft hast thou echo'd the deep sigh of sadness,
That ev'n in thy mirth it will steal from thee still."

_Flannery_: That's a great thought, if it is but a
vanity or a dream.

_Rock_: (_Sneeringly_.) Well now and what would
_you_ do?

_Flannery_: I would wish a great lake of milk,
the same as blessed St. Bridget, to be sharing with
the family of Heaven. I would wish vessels full
of alms that would save every sorrowful man. Do
that now, Conan, and you'll have the world of
prayers down on you!

_Rock_: It's what I'd do, to turn the whole of
Galway Bay to dry land, and I to have it for myself,
the red land, the green land, the fallow and the
lea! The want of land is a great stoppage to a man
having means to lay out in stock.

(_Sings_.) (_Air, "I wish I had the shepherd's lamb."_)

"I wish I had both mill and kiln,
I wish I had of land my fill;
I wish I had both mill and kiln,
And all would follow after!"

_Flannery_: Ah, the land, the land, the rotten
land, and what will you have in the end but the
breadth of your back of it? Let you now soften
the heart in that one (_points to Rock_) till he would
restore to me the thing he is aware of.

_Conan_: It was not for that the spell was
promised, to be changing a few neighbours or a
thing of the kind, or to be doing wonders in this
broken little place. A town of dead factions! To
change any of the dwellers in this place would be
to make it better, for it would be impossible to
make it worse. The time you wouldn't be meddling
with them you wouldn't know them to be
bad, but the time you'd have to do business with
them that's the time you'd know it!

_Rock_: I suppose it is what you are asking to
do, to make yourself rich?

_Conan_: I do not! I would be loth take any
profit, and Aristotle after laying down that _to_
pleasure or _to_ profit every wealthy man is a slave!

_Flannery_: What would you do, so?

_Conan_: I will change all into the similitude of
ancient Greece! There is no man at all can understand
argument but it is from Greece he is. I know
well what I'm doing. I'm not like a potato having
eyes this way and that. People were harmless
long ago and why wouldn't they be made harmless
again? Aristotle said, "Fair play is more
beautiful than the morning and the evening star!"

"Be friendly with one another," he said, "and
let the lawyers starve!" I'll turn the captains of
soldiers to be as peaceable as children picking
strawberries in the grass. I've a mind to change
the tongue of the people to the language of the
Greeks, that no farmer will be grumbling over a
halfpenny Independent, but be following the plough
in full content, giving out Homer and the praises
of the ancient world!

_Flannery_: If you make the farmers content you
will make the world content.

_Rock_: You will, when you'll bring the sun from
Greece to ripen our little lock of oats!

_Conan_: So I will drag Ireland from its moorings
till I'll bring it to the middling sea that has no ebb
or flood!

_Rock_: You will do well to put a change on the
college that harboured you, and that left you so
much of folly.

_Conan_: I'll do that! I'll be in College Green
before the dawn is white--no but before the night
is grey! It is to Dublin I will bring my spell, for
I ever and always heard it said what Dublin will
do to-day Ireland will do to-morrow! (_Sings_.)

"Let Erin remember the days of old
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her--
When Malachy wore the collar of gold
Which he won from her proud invader--
When her kings with standards of green unfurl'd,
Led the Red-Branch knights to danger;
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger."

_Rock_: And maybe you'll tell us now by what
means you will do all this?

_Conan_: Go out of the house and I will tell you
in the by and bye.

_Rock_: That is what I was thinking. You are
talking nothing but lies.

_Conan_: I tell you that power is not far from
where you stand! But I will let no one see it only
myself.

_Flannery_: There might be some truth in it.
There are some say enchantments never went out
of Ireland.

_Conan_: It is a spell, I say, that will change
anything to its contrary. To turn it upon a snail,
there is hardly a greyhound but it would overtake;
but a hare it would turn to be the slowest thing in
the universe; too slow to go to a funeral.

_Rock_: I'll believe it when I'll see it.

_Conan_: You could see it if I let you look in
this hiding-hole.

_Rock_: Good-morrow to you!

_Conan_: Then you will see it, for I'll raise up
the stone. (_Kneels_.)

_Rock_: It to be anything it is likely a pot of
sovereigns.

_Flannery_: It might be the harp of Angus.

_Rock_: I see no trace of it.

_Conan_: There is something hard! It should
likely be a silver trumpet or a hunting-horn of gold!

_Rock_: Give me a hold of it.

_Conan_: Leave go! (_Lifts out bellows_.)

_Rock_: Ha! Ha! Ha! after all your chat, nothing
but a little old bellows!...

_Conan_: There is seven rings on it.... They
should signify the seven blasts....

_Rock_: If there was seventy times seven what
use would it be but to redden the coals?

_Conan_: Every one of these blasts has power to
make some change.

_Rock_: Make one so, and I'll plough the world
for you.

_Conan_: Is it that I would spend one of my
seven blasts convincing the like of ye?

_Rock_: It is likely the case there is no power in
it at all.

_Conan_: I'm very sure there is surely. The world
will be a new world before to-morrow's Angelus bell.

_Flannery_: I never could believe in a bellows.

_Rock_: Here now is a fair offer. I'll loan you
this bag of notes to pay your charges to Dublin if
you will change that little pigeon in the crib into a
crow.

_Conan_: I will do no such folly.

_Rock_: You wouldn't because you'd be afeared
to try.

_Conan_: Hold it up to me. I'll show you am
I afeared!

_Rock_: There it is now. (_Holds up cage_.)

_Conan_: Have a care! (_Blows_.)

_Rock_: (_Dropping it with a shriek_.) It has me
bit with its hard beak, it is turned to be an old
black crow.

_Flannery_: As black as the bottom of the pot.

_Crow_: Caw! Caw! Caw!

(_Cats reappear and look over back of settle_.)

(_Music from behind_.) ("_O'Donnall Abu_.")

CURTAIN

ACT II

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 de tu Mavourneen slan!"

_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
lan.")_

"Gramachree ma cruiskeen Slainte geal mavourneen,
Gramachree a cool-in bawn, bawn, bawn, ban-ban-ban,
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.

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