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 irS.
 
 Irish Folk-History Plays 
 
 By Lady Gregory 
 
 First Series: The Tragedies 
 
 Grania. Kincora. Dervorgilla 
 
 Second Series: The Tragic Comedies 
 
 The Canavans. The White Cockade. The 
 Deliverer
 
 Irish Folk-History 
 
 Plays 
 
 By 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 Second Series 
 
 The Tragic-Comedies 
 
 The Ganavans— The White Cockade 
 The Deliverer 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York and London 
 
 Zbz f?nicftcrbocfter press 
 
 1912
 
 Copyright 1912 
 
 BY 
 
 LADY GREGORY 
 
 These plays have been copyrighted and published simultaneously in the 
 United States and Great Britain. 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages. 
 
 All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved, in the United 
 States, Great Britain, and all countries of the Copyright Union, by the author. 
 Performances forbidden and right of representation reserved. 
 
 Application for the right of performing these plays or reading them in public 
 should be made to Samuel French, 28 West 38th Street, New York City, or 26 
 Southampton Street, Strand, London. 
 
 Ubc Itnfclierbocfier rre»«. ■»«» Kotk
 
 TO DEAR JOHN QUINN BEST FRIEND 
 BEST HELPER THESE HALF-SCORE 
 YEARS ON THIS SIDE OF THE SEA 
 
 NEW YORK FEBRUARY I912
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Canavans i 
 
 The White Cockade 76 
 
 The Deliverer I44
 
 THE CANAVANS
 
 Persons 
 Peter Canavan .... A miller 
 Antojiy Canavan .... His brother 
 Captain Headley .... His cousin 
 Widow Greely 
 Widow Deeny 
 
 Time — Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 a
 
 Act I 
 
 Scene: Interior of a mill room at Scartana, in 
 Munster. Rough table and chairs. Sacks in 
 corner. Cake, glasses, and wine on table. 
 
 Widow Greely: {Who is carrying a basket of 
 clean linen, knocking at door as she enters.) Are 
 you within, Miller Canavan? 
 
 Widow Deeny: He cannot be far off, and he 
 after bidding us to come see him. 
 
 Widow Greely: It cannot be only his shirts 
 he is wanting, and Sunday three days from us 
 yet. But it was as good bring them, and they 
 starched and ready to put on. {Puts down 
 basket.) 
 
 Widow Deeny: Cake and wine on the table, 
 and it is not a feast day at all. It is not as 
 starchers and ironers he is wanting our company 
 to-day. 
 
 Widow Greely: A very kind man indeed, and 
 a good employer of labour. 
 
 Widow Deeny: He is kind, so long as it will 
 
 3
 
 4 The Canavans 
 
 do no haim to himself to be kind. But there is 
 no doubt at all about it, he is a very timorous 
 man. 
 
 Widow Greely: That is the nature of the 
 Canavans, since the great-grandfather killed a 
 witch-hare. 
 
 Widow Deeny: The heart of the hare went into 
 them. What call had he to go eating it, and it 
 after squealing in the pot? All he did was to cut 
 the head off it, and throw it out of the door. 
 
 Widow Greely: It is harebrained the miller's 
 brother was, leaving home for the army as he did. 
 
 Widow Deeny: There did a wise woman 
 prophesy, Peter would be hare-hearted always, but 
 Antony would get the big name and the branch 
 for bravery, before ever he would come to his 
 death. 
 
 Widow Greely: No wonder a wealthy man 
 like the miller to be hare-hearted and the 
 country tossed the way it is. The Queen's 
 troops and Lord Essex havocking the whole of 
 Munster. 
 
 Widow Deeny: The Lord be with our own men 
 that are hiding in the woods! It is for them 
 I would have more respect than for any Canavan 
 at all. 
 
 Canavan: {Coming from inner door .) Welcome, 
 Widow Greely, welcome. Widow Deeny. It is 
 very neighbourly of you coming when I sent ask-
 
 The Canavans 5 
 
 ing you; but you are always neighbourly and 
 kind. 
 
 Widow Greely: Why would n't we come? And 
 here is the wash I brought with me. I tell you 
 the Captain at the Castle does not get his shirts 
 made up like that. 
 
 Canavan: The youngster Lord Essex left in 
 charge? I believe he is a kinsman of my own. 
 
 Widow Deeny: I heard them saying that. He 
 Englished his name to Headley it seems, he being 
 a genteel young man. Canavan, one head, Head- 
 ley. They say he has shirts and laces for every 
 day of the year. 
 
 Canavan: {Sitting down and motioning them to 
 do the same.) Well, it is the reason of me sending 
 for you, I am wishful to ask for your advice. 
 
 Widow Greely: Do so, and it is likely we will 
 give it in a way that will be pleasing to yourself. 
 
 Canavan: Now, when there is a course of 
 action put before any man, there is but the one 
 question to put and the one to answer; and that 
 question is: Is it safe? 
 
 Widow Greely: You were always wary, and 
 why would n't you be wary? 
 
 Canavan: Now, when Lord Essex came besieg- 
 ing the Castle above, where did he get his oats 
 and his straw and his flour from but from myself? 
 I treated him well, and he treated me middling 
 well. I made no complaint about payment — I
 
 6 The Canavans 
 
 was chary of doing that — it was best let the 
 to^Tiland think it was taken from me by force. 
 Well, it was not forgotten to me, and what has 
 come but a letter from the Lord Deputy making 
 me an offer. 
 
 Widow Greely: If it is a good one I would 
 recommend you take it. 
 
 Canavan: It is what he tenders me in this 
 letter, in return for my services and believing 
 me to be loyal to the Queen, to make me Mayor 
 of Scartana. 
 
 Widow Deeny: No less than Mayor! 
 
 Canavan: Now all I want is to be safe; to 
 keep my life, my quietness, my commodity. It 
 is \^4th the strongest I must take service to do 
 that. I have but one head only, and what I 
 have to do is not to lose it. If now, I take office, 
 will the Queen's Government be protecting me to 
 the end of my lifetime? 
 
 Widow Greely: You may be sure they will, so 
 long as you are of use to them, and that they 
 have the upper hand. 
 
 Widow Deeny: There would be safety in one 
 thing anyway, that you having taken the oath 
 to the Queen, no one would expect you to put 
 yourself out at any time, striking a blow for 
 Ireland. 
 
 Canavan: Now, as to taking the oath, I don't 
 say but it might go against me in the eyes of the
 
 The Canavans 7 
 
 neighbours. I am the loathest man in Munster 
 to give offence to any one. But who, unless a fool, 
 would go hop against a hill? There is many a 
 little thing a man will do for the sake of safety, 
 that he would not do at any common time. To 
 turn his vest and he led away by enchantment 
 in a field, or to cross himself passing by a church- 
 yard in the night time; to do these things or to 
 take the oath, what are they but a little token 
 of respect to something that might be a danger. 
 There can be no harm at all in that. 
 
 Widow Deeny: The Queen might be a danger 
 with her troops in the Castle above. That is true 
 enough. 
 
 Canavan: Caution is no load upon any one. 
 And it might be safer for the district to have me 
 as Mayor than a real Queen's man. I always 
 said I would like to do something for Ireland 
 when the right time, and the safe time, would 
 come. But it did n't come yet. I see danger 
 around on every side. 
 
 Widow Greely: I suppose so. If every one 
 would look as far before them as they do be- 
 hind, they would see plenty. 
 
 Widow Deeny: O'Connor is gaining the day in 
 some parts, the same as O'Neill in the North. 
 
 Canavan: That is what I have in my mind. 
 Our own people to get the upper hatid, would 
 they think bad of me taking office under the
 
 8 The Canavans 
 
 Queen? The mill is a lonesome place — the roof 
 of it is but thatch — any attack at all to be made 
 on it would be a great danger. 
 
 Widow Deeny: I wonder now you would not 
 bring in some person to be conversing with you 
 and heartening you in the long evenings. 
 
 Canavan: I am best without any person. I 
 was well pleased when Antony, my brother, left 
 the house. Some notion he would never die he 
 had, made him go playing and fooling, playing 
 and fooling, tricking with danger like a ball. 
 Came dressed in straw with the wrenboys one 
 Stephen's night he did, set my knees shaking 
 through his knowledge and his mockeries, I 
 taking him to be no right man. It was on the 
 head of that, I drove him out of the door. 
 
 Widow Deeny: He brought down his name 
 with his own comrades, the time he went taking 
 the pay of the Queen. 
 
 Canavan: It was maybe best. He to be 
 sworn to the Queen, I myself to be thought a 
 trusty man in Scartana; that is the way for a 
 family to keep itself safe on every side. 
 
 Widow Deeny: Is it alive at all he is, since he 
 went abroad to England? I believe there was 
 no word of him this time past. 
 
 Canavan: I would not like to be putting my- 
 self forward, sending asking news of him. Any 
 harm to have happened him, it is likely I would
 
 The Canavans 9 
 
 be sent word. If I got at any time certain news 
 of his death, I would not begrudge laying out a 
 fair share in Masses for the benefit and the safety 
 of his soul. 
 
 {Enter Antony disguised as a pedlar.) 
 
 Antony: Who wants ruffs for the neck, hoods 
 for the hair, all the fashions that are in any 
 Court at all! 
 
 Canavan: {Getting up.) Who is that? A 
 pedlar. I have no good opinion of pedlars. 
 There was a pedlar did a murder one time in 
 Cashel. To carry away the limbs he did one by 
 one in his pack. 
 
 Antony: I have better than that in my pack! 
 Buying from the old, working out the new. Ruffs 
 for the neck, hoods for the hair, wearables and 
 jewellry, combs and laces fit for the Queen of 
 England ! 
 
 Widow Greely: Are they now? {He opens pack 
 and takes out a ruff.) I never saw so sizable a frill 
 as that one, or so much like a turkey-cock's neck. 
 
 Antony: That is the right size, ma'am. That 
 is the way the Queen herself wears them. 
 
 Widow Deeny: What way would she get her 
 neck into that? Sure it is like a nut on a 
 platter her head would be! 
 
 Antony: Not at all, ma'am. It would be- 
 come yourself well if you but knew how to wear 
 it. Look here now — there is a likeness of her in
 
 10 The Canavans 
 
 the pack (Takes one out and holds it up). This 
 is the way she is — a hood on her head — two 
 bunches of hair at the sides of her face — the 
 ruff around it Hke spokes around the hub of a 
 wheel (Puts picture ofi wall). Look at that now 
 for a ruff! It is quite easy if you know what 
 way to wear it. 
 
 Widow Deeny: Isn't that great now. And 
 it is Hke that she is? Sure they say she has her 
 hair dyed red Hke your own, since she came to 
 the turn of her age. 
 
 Widow Greely: Is that herself now! The 
 woman that never took a husband, or fasted 
 from a lover. 
 
 Widow Deeny: That she may be dancing 
 quadrilles on a red hot floor this day twelve- 
 month, along with her fitting father, Henry the 
 Eighth! 
 
 Canavan: Get on now. We want none of 
 your vanities. Get on out of this! 
 
 Antony: Oh, brother Peter, is that the way 
 you are threatening a soldier of the big army ! 
 
 Canavan: Antony! Is it Antony it is! What 
 is it brings you here? 
 
 Antony: You need not think of the safety 
 of my soul yet, with many thanks to you, 
 Peter. 
 
 Canavan: Are you after putting ears on your- 
 self, and you outside the door?
 
 The Canavans ii 
 
 Antony: I heard you say nothing but the 
 thing I would expect you to say, and you the 
 same as you were. 
 
 Canavan: (To widows.) What did he hear? 
 What was I saying? It is as a spy from Lord 
 Essex he is come! 
 
 Antony: It is not from Lord Essex I am come. 
 
 Canavan: He might be questioning you. Why 
 did I open my mind at all? But I said no 
 treasonable thing. Bear witness now I said no 
 word at all against the Queen's Government! 
 
 Antony: I tell you I am no spy. You have 
 leave to give me good treatment, and not harm 
 yourself at all. 
 
 Canavan: Well, now, as to stopping here — 
 it is best be cautious — the neighbours might mis- 
 like it — they might bring it up against me, a 
 Queen's man to be harboured in the house. 
 
 Antony: Oh, I am a quiet poor creature, 
 will give them no annoyance at all. I am not 
 like a daring man would have his name rising 
 up — first over the ditches in Friesland, spitting 
 Spaniards like herrings on a pike — wounded in 
 the gate at Antwerp — blowing up red hot guns 
 with a match. If ever any one says it was I 
 myself did those deeds, you may know he is an 
 enemy of my own, and give no heed to him at 
 all. 
 
 Widow Greely: Little there 'd be to boast of if
 
 12 The Canavans 
 
 you did do them. I 'd think more of a push 
 of a pike given for Ivlunster, than of all your 
 red hot guns! 
 
 Widow Deeny: After giving your strength to 
 the enemy your weakness is not much to bring 
 home ! It 's the shell of the nut you are bringing 
 us, and the husk of the winnowed com. 
 
 Antony: That is right, that is right. That is 
 the way I would like you to be talking 
 
 Widow Greely: A man to go against his own 
 people for the sake of that lean upper crust! 
 {Points to picture.) 
 
 Antony: Little at all I did of fighting, but to 
 be sitting hatching in the camp. There is no 
 great name on me at all! 
 
 Widow Greely: It 's a place for yourself you 
 will hatch out. You will maybe be crier to the 
 Ivlayor ! 
 
 Widow Deeny: The miller has something to 
 gain by it, but you to be a traitor and poor! 
 
 Widow Greely: The rich of the world should 
 get pity, because there is temptation at their 
 side. 
 
 Widow Deeny: I would not blame their kins- 
 man at the Castle that was reared to go follow- 
 ing the Queen. 
 
 Widow Greely: It is what I was often say- 
 ing, the Canavans are not much of a race. 
 
 Widow Deeny: It is what I think. Miller
 
 The Canavans 13 
 
 Canavan, it is best for us be going home. We 
 do not care much, with respects to you, for the 
 company has come into your house. {They go 
 out.) 
 
 Canavan: Now that those corn-crakes are 
 gone, tell me what is it brings you home. 
 
 Antony: Did n't you hear me telling them I 
 have left the Queen's army? 
 
 Canavan: What were you turned out for? 
 
 Antony: I was not turned out at all. I took 
 my own leave. I was afeared to stop on in the 
 army. 
 
 Canavan: I would n't wonder at that. The 
 time fighting would be going on, the army is no 
 good trade. 
 
 Antony: It is the way it was. It is in the 
 prophecy I will not die imtil such time as my 
 name is up. My name being down, I have no 
 fear of death, but it is for ever I might live; and 
 so whatever danger there is to face, I am safe 
 facing it. 
 
 Canavan: My grief it was not for myself that 
 prophecy was made ! 
 
 Antony: But the time we were in Flanders, 
 my name was going up in spite of myself, the same 
 way it was going up and I a young lad, and that 
 I enlisted to check it. And so it was to check 
 it again that I deserted yesterday. I thought 
 it no sin bringing that pack away with me in
 
 14 The Canavans 
 
 place of my pay. I thought to find a fortune in 
 it, where it came by a Queen's messenger from 
 London. But my curse be upon it, there is 
 nothing at all but a suit of clothes and that 
 picture, as a present for the Lord Deputy's 
 lady! 
 
 Canavan: You made off without leave ! That 
 was a terrible dangerous thing to do! Hurry 
 back now or they will say you are a deserter. 
 
 Antony: They will be doing no wrong saying 
 that. It is a deserter I am. 
 
 Canavan: A deserter! What now would hap- 
 pen to me, it to be known you are a deserter! I 
 will not abet you! Go back now before you will 
 be missed! {Tries to push him to door.) 
 
 Antony: I wUl not. I tell you I am afeared. 
 If I go fighting again my name will go up in 
 spite of me. It is here in Scartana I will stop. 
 A miller like yourself I will be. They know us 
 here and they will not speak well of us. Sorting 
 the grains I will be with you — keeping the hens 
 from laying abroad. 
 
 Canavan: (Rising.) A deserter from the 
 army! And in this house! Get out of this, get 
 out! Oh, why did I let you pass the threshold! 
 A deserter ! The thing there is no forgiveness for ! 
 Oh, this is a day of great misfortune! 
 
 Antony: You need not be so tender over me. 
 They have not taken me yet.
 
 The Canavans 15 
 
 Canavan: Tender over you! Is it of you I 
 am thinking? I am thinking of myself. What 
 black wind brought you here? (Sits down and 
 rocks himself.) A deserter to come into my 
 house! (Walking up and down.) Calling the 
 whole army down upon me! A decoy duck in 
 a pond! A wire rod in a thunder-storm! A 
 squealing rabbit among weasels! A gabbling 
 turkey poult among foxes! A running partridge 
 to bring hawks! Was there ever any man put 
 in such danger in his own house and in his own 
 place since ever the world was a world ! 
 
 Antony: Who would I look to to befriend and 
 to cherish me, but my only brother? 
 
 Canavan: Why should a man be put in danger 
 if he had forty thousand brothers? I will not 
 be cumbered with you. I tell you I am going 
 to be put in a very high station. Mayor of 
 Scartana I am to be made. Look now, Antony, 
 we were always fond of one other — ^just leave 
 the place now, and go back for the sake of the 
 name — don't endanger me. 
 
 Antony: Ah, you are a great coaxer. Will 
 you wish me to go to the Castle above and 
 to give myself up to be hanged? 
 
 Canavan: That won't do, that won't do, I 'd 
 be disgraced along with you. They might im- 
 peach me for consanguinity. You have no call 
 to be twisting a rope for my neck along with
 
 i6 The Canavans 
 
 your own. You must go into hiding, you must 
 let no person see you at all! 
 
 Afitotiy: I will hide, so, till nightfall, in the shed. 
 
 Canavaji: No, no, one of the mill lads might 
 get a sight of you! 
 
 Antony: Or in the loft? 
 
 Canavan: Not safe, not safe — there is not 
 enough of straw to cover you. I would be well 
 pleased the earth to open and to swallow you 
 up out of sight! 
 
 Antony: I would n't wish the widows to know 
 I deserted from the army. They would be putting 
 big mouths on themselves among the neighbours, 
 shouting me till a bonefire would be lit in my praise. 
 Let no person know in Scartana I did anything 
 worth praising at all. 
 
 {Enter the two widows.) 
 
 Widow Greely: We have very tempestuous 
 news, Miller! 
 
 Widow Deeny: Very strange news indeed, if 
 we had but breath to bring it out. 
 
 Widow Greely: The Queen's soldiers to be 
 coming to this house! 
 
 Widow Deeny: You yourself that was going 
 to be Mayor! 
 
 Widow Greely: Indeed I would sooner it was 
 any other one. 
 
 Widow Deeny: The soldiers had a very 
 wicked look.
 
 The Canavans 17 
 
 Widow Greely: It is hard in these times to 
 keep out of danger. 
 
 Widow Deeny: It is, where Miller Canavan 
 has failed. 
 
 Canavan: What is that you are saying about 
 danger? 
 
 Widow Greely: It is much if you escape with 
 your life! 
 
 Widow Deeny: It is harbouring rebels they 
 say you are. 
 
 Canavan: Be off out of this, Antony Canavan, 
 and don't be dragging me to my death. 
 
 Antony: {At door.) I must run — no, the troops 
 are spreading themselves to surround the house. 
 
 Widow Greely: Hide yourself here under the 
 sacks — they might chance not to take notice of 
 you. {She points to a heap of sacks in the corner.) 
 
 Canavan: {Seizing Antony.) You will not hide 
 under the sacks — it is myself they will be taking 
 in your place! 
 
 Widow Deeny: It is likely indeed you will 
 suffer, and a deserter to be found on your floor ! 
 
 Canavan: I can make my defence! They 
 cannot say I am a rebel — look now at all the 
 things I might have done against the Queen and 
 didn't do! All I ever did was to strive to keep 
 my head safe. Is a man, I ask you, to go to his 
 death for that? 
 
 Widow Deeny: {At door.) A great troop of 
 
 VOL. II — 2
 
 i8 The Canavans 
 
 them indeed — and the young Captain leading 
 them on. Go under the sacks I tell you, Antony, 
 we will stand to the front of them ourselves. 
 
 Canavayi: {Dragging him fro7n them.) No, no, 
 every rib of my hair is rising! I am af eared, I am 
 af eared, in the very cockles of my heart! It is 
 I myself will go in under the sacks. Stop you 
 here, take my coat — let you personate me — they 
 will not harm you at all ! {Gives him coat atid cap 
 and creeps under sacks.) 
 
 Antony: {Puttitig on coat and cap and flouring 
 himself.) There is no fear of my life. There is 
 no big name on me yet. But you will die in a 
 frenzy at the sight of them, the same as a mouse 
 in a trap! 
 
 Canavan: Settle them over me, settle the 
 sacks over me! If they rose off me the height 
 of my finger I 'd get the shivers. 
 
 {Widows cover him up. Antony sits at desk 
 and takes up a paper.) 
 
 Antony: Faith I '11 make a handsome miller, 
 I '11 be picking fun out of the Captain. Four 
 pecks one bushel, eight bushels one quarter, four 
 bushels one coombe, thirty-six bushels one chald- 
 ron — five quarters one load. 
 
 {Headley appears at door and speaks to 
 men outside.) 
 
 Headley: Stop there, Corporal, with your 
 men. Watch all the doors. Let no one escape
 
 The Canavans 19 
 
 from the house — {to Antony) I am Captain 
 Headley, on the Queen's business. 
 ' Antony: Welcome, welcome Captain. It is 
 too great an honour you are doing me, and I 
 but a poor trader, striving to knock out a liv- 
 ing at the mill. I 'm thinking the middle of 
 the day is rising. We will have white meal 
 from the wheat this year, for there 's nothing so 
 natural as the sun. 
 
 Headley: A soldier has deserted from Lord 
 Essex's troop. He has stolen Government pro- 
 perty. He is said to be a relation of your own. 
 
 Antony: Ah, the mean villainous abominable 
 rascal ! To go bring disgrace upon my name ! 
 
 Headley: Has he come to this house? 
 
 Antony: That I may never sin if any person 
 came in at this door to-day, but myself and the 
 two widows with the wash. 
 
 Headley: We have information that the print 
 of his boots was found in the soft path above. 
 (Reads.) "One with two close runs of nails in 
 the sole; one without a toe; one with a bit of 
 another boot on it " 
 
 Antony: The brazened backbiters! Sure that 
 is the print of my own boots about the place ! 
 Look now, am I telling any lie? (Holds up boot.) 
 
 Headley: We must search the house. 
 
 Antony: We will, we will, and welcome. It is 
 I myself will go searching before you, the way you
 
 20 The Canavans 
 
 will not destroy your fine tasty suit. It is likely 
 your honour may have heard I am to be made 
 Mayor of Scartana? 
 
 Headley: Even so, you might harbour a rebel 
 of your own blood. 
 
 Antony: Is it of Canavan the miller you are 
 saying that? Would 3'ou say, neighbours, is Peter 
 Canavan a man to put himself in danger, to save 
 the life of any person on earth? 
 
 Widow Greely: He would sooner let the whole 
 of the tribes of Munster go to their death. 
 
 Headley: I believe if it were not for dread 
 of our army you would all be rebels against our 
 bright goddess, Elizabeth, the fairest princess be- 
 neath the skies. 
 
 Antony: Guide your eyes sideways. Look 
 what is forenenst you on the wall — a picture of 
 the Queen's majesty. Who would say now this 
 is not a loyal place? 
 
 Headley: Is that the Queen? 
 
 Antojiy: Herself indeed. {Takes off cap.) 
 God bless the man that brought it here! Here 
 now, Captain, is wine of Spain, you will not re- 
 fuse to drink to her health. 
 
 Headley: I will never refuse to drink to that 
 glorious one. {Drinks and Jails on one knee.) 
 But what audacious man has tried to set down 
 her portrait! 
 
 ' ' All were it Zeuxis or Praxiteles
 
 The Canavans 21 
 
 His skilful hand would fail and greatly faint 
 
 Picturing her dainty beauty, Sacred Saint " 
 
 Queen of Love! Paragon of Beauty! Prince of 
 Peace ! Crown of Lilies ! Image of the Heavens I 
 Mirror of Divine Majesty! Mirror of Grace! 
 — oh, let me look nearer (Gets up). I suppose it 
 is not a very exact portrait? 
 
 Antony: It is maybe a little too fleshy in the 
 jaw — but she was much like that the last time I 
 saw her. 
 
 Headley: {Drinking.) You saw the Queen? 
 
 Antofiy: I was mostly reared around this 
 place, but I went one time to London — with sam- 
 ples of flour I went — they made use of some of 
 it in the Court. But sure you must often have 
 seen her yourself? 
 
 Headley: Not exactly — I have not yet been in 
 the royal presence. Of course I shall be when- 
 ever I go to England — but I did n't go there yet. 
 
 Antony: Not in England! I thought by you 
 that you had never been reared in Ireland at 
 all. 
 
 Headley: What matter, it is all the one thing. 
 I have English connections — I had always an 
 English heart. Now I will call in the Corporal 
 to search. 
 
 Antony: {Stopping him.) Look here now, 
 Captain, I am your well- wisher and I have a 
 thing to put in your mind. Go over to the
 
 22 The Canavans 
 
 Court — make no delay — it will be a sure road to 
 fortune. 
 
 Headley: That has been said to me before. 
 
 Anto?iy: I hope it is not a liberty, saying 
 you are a high-up lovely young man. 
 
 Headley: I am told there are some have called 
 me the Apollo of the army. 
 
 Antony: I heard that — a very civil coun- 
 tenance — grand beautiful features — and believe 
 me if I heard it, the Queen has not been with- 
 out hearing it, for she has a great respect for 
 comeliness. 
 
 Headley: More than that again, I have been 
 told that my name has come to the royal ear. 
 
 Antony: If she could but see you now; or 
 maybe you poetise. They speak nothing at the 
 Court but poetry. 
 
 Headley: A sonnet maybe an odd time 
 
 Antony: That is good. Write me out one now 
 and I '11 mix it in my flour. I '11 take care she 
 will get it in a cake of bread. 
 
 Headley: I have not to go to those shifts. I 
 have samples of my verse given to some who will 
 lay it in the Queen's way. 
 
 Antony: And very good verse it is I '11 engage. 
 
 Headley: My comrades think well of it. (Sitigs:) 
 
 Ye traitors all that do devise 
 To plague our Paragon,
 
 The Canavans 23 
 
 And in your hearts in treacherous wise 
 Let such vain thoughts run on. 
 
 Consider what your end will be 
 Before you farther go ; 
 
 The Crown of Lilies joyfully 
 Will hang you in a row! 
 
 (Waving handkerchief as he sings it falls among 
 sacks; he takes another glass of wine.) Essex 
 keeps me here in this exile — there are some who 
 say it is jealousy. I have not the chance to 
 show myself off before Her Grace, even to write 
 a report. But I go dine with him to-night to 
 drink the Queen's health before he goes north. 
 
 Antony: Well, I won't delay you, Captain 
 {Leading him to the door), I being proud to have 
 showed you that likeness, and to be the same 
 thing as dealer with the Court. 
 
 Headley: Oh, yes, it was all a mistake; we 
 must look in some other place for that rascally 
 deserter. {Turns back at door.) Ah, I have 
 dropped my handkerchief. {Goes towards sacks, 
 as Peter, who has looked out, puts down his head.) 
 There is some noise, a rustling 
 
 Antony: It is but a mouse in the flour sacks. 
 
 Headley: I thought I saw something shaking. 
 
 Antony: A mouse — nothing but a mouse. 
 I know that mouse well. 
 
 Widow Greely: {Catching up clothes-basket and
 
 24 The Canavans 
 
 getting between Headley and sacks.) Your honour 
 might want some starching done and crimping. 
 This woman and myself are the best in the whole 
 
 town. 
 
 Widow Deeny: {Going beside her.) Great at 
 frills we are and an^^thing that is for show. Lace 
 for the cuffs or the like. 
 
 Headley: Go then to the Castle and see to 
 my ruffles. They are not fit for me to wear 
 at the dinner to-night. I suspect them of having 
 been ironed with a rusty cannon-ball. 
 
 Widow Greely: We will go up there on the 
 minute. We will follow your honour and the 
 troops. 
 
 Headley: Very good. It 's not easy to be too 
 attentive to ruffles. {Is going but turns again.) 
 But where is my laced handkerchief? {Pushes 
 past women.) It must have dropped among the 
 sacks. {He pokes in sword. A loud shriek is heard 
 and Canavan stands up.) 
 
 Canavan: Spare me! Spare me! I hope I 
 have not been thrust through with any sort of 
 a poisoned dagger! 
 
 Headley: You are the deserter I am looking 
 
 for! 
 
 Canavan: Oh, such a thing to say! I, that 
 never left the sound of the mill-wheel! 
 
 Headley: As well as deserting, you stole this 
 pack.
 
 The Canavans 25 
 
 Canavan: Blessed if I ever saw it till within 
 the last half hour! 
 
 Headley: You have disguised yourself. 
 
 Canavan: Any one would do that for safety, 
 and a wicked troop of men at his door! 
 
 Headley: You were making your way to join 
 the rebels. 
 
 Canavan: They would not take me if I would 
 join them! I would make no fist at all of 
 fighting. It would melt the marrow of O'Neill 
 himself to hear the screams I would let out of 
 me, and the first gun going off! They would 
 as soon take me among them as they would 
 weaken their drop of spirits with the shiver of 
 the water from the mill-race! Speak up for me, 
 Antony, and tell him who I am and what I am! 
 
 Antony: He is but a poor crazy hawker I 
 befriend an odd time. 
 
 Canavan: I am not ! I am the miller. 
 
 Antony: He has been drinking a drop too 
 much — 
 
 Canavan: I was not. I am sober! 
 
 Antony: Light-headed he is — innocent — 
 
 Canavan: I am not innocent! 
 
 Antony: Would n't do any grain of harm — 
 
 Canavan: t>et you not decry me! 
 
 Antony: As quiet as a child — 
 
 Canavan: Let you stop defaming me! 
 
 Antony: A simpleton —
 
 26 The Canavans 
 
 Canavan: No more than yourself! 
 
 Anto7iy: Ah, my poor Jack! 
 
 Canavan: That is not my name! 
 
 A7itony: I thought you had forgotten it. 
 
 Ca?iavan: It is you are miscalHng me! 
 
 Anto?iy: {Tapping forehead.) It is easy known 
 the moon is at the full. 
 
 Canava7i: My curse upon the moon! 
 
 Antony: He is quiet at other times. 
 
 Canavan: I will not be quiet, I will tell — 
 
 Antony: Ah, tell tale, tell tale! 
 
 Canava7i: I am the miller! 
 
 Antony: A fanciful fellow, 
 
 Canavan: I am Canavan the miller! 
 
 Ayitony: {Sitting down on table.) I gave him 
 shelter and clothed him, and now he says he is 
 myself. 
 
 Canavan: Get out of this, you scheming 
 juggler, you! 
 
 Antony: Go back to your sleep, my poor 
 Jack, and I forgive you. 
 
 Headley: Make an end of this clatter! One 
 or other of you is a rogue. 
 
 Canavan: That 's a true word! It is he is 
 the rogue! I am honest! I am no rebel! 
 
 Headley: It was guilt that m^e you hide 
 among the sacks. 
 
 Canavan: It was he hid me, it was he dis- 
 guised me. All I wanted was to keep myself
 
 The Canavans 27 
 
 safe! It is his own safety he was thinking 
 of. 
 
 Antony: Oh, my poor wandering Jack! 
 
 Canavan: Wandering yourself! It is he is 
 a stroller and a rambler and a deceiver and 
 a bad character, and a mocker and a disturber 
 and a rogue and a vagabond, and a deserter 
 from the Queen's troops. 
 
 Antony: Look now, Captain, would you say 
 that object to be the great miller, Canavan? 
 
 Canavan: Object yourself! I '11 indict you 
 for scandallation ! Save me, save me! I am of 
 your own blood — the province knows you are a 
 Canavan the same as myself — ^Henry Canavan, 
 that was reared in Waterf ord ! 
 
 Headley: (Pushing him away.) Presumptuous 
 trader! Audacious clown! You must be silenced! 
 You are both rebels, a libeller of loyalists and 
 a deserter from the Queen! I shall have some- 
 thing to write a report of at last, to lay before 
 the royal feet! {Turns to door.) Here, men, 
 come and seize these prisoners! {To Antony and 
 Canavan.) To the Castle now to be warded for 
 the night! You shall both be executed at dawn! 
 
 Curtain
 
 Act II 
 
 Scene: A room at the Castle. A bed, a chair, 
 a window, a heap of rubbish in corner and a 
 large basket of turf. A lighted lantern 
 hanging from wall. Antony asleep on the bed, 
 his pack under his head. 
 
 Canavan: {Walking up and down and wring- 
 ing his hands.) Rise up, Antony, and waken! 
 Any one would think there was a sleeping-pin 
 in your head ! 
 
 Antony: (Stretching himself.) Why are you 
 wakening me? Is it time to rise up? 
 
 Canavan: Time! What way can you sleep 
 at all, and go slugging through the night time? 
 Do you remember we are mewed up as prisoners 
 in the Castle, and locked and bolted and gaoled? 
 
 Antony: The waking is better than the dream 
 I had. I was dreaming the people were shout- 
 ing me. 
 
 Canavan: Is it nothing to you what you 
 
 have brought me to, with your follies and your 
 
 clowneries? 
 
 28
 
 The Canavans 29 
 
 Antony: Brought yourself to, it seems to me, 
 with your hiding and your crouching in the 
 sacks. 
 
 Canavan: Would any one now think that a 
 thing to hang a man for, to have striven to 
 keep himself safe? Hiding is it? Why would 
 nature teach the rabbits to hide, and the 
 badgers to live in clefts, if there was harm in 
 it and rebellion? And the otter to sink to the 
 water's depths? I could have proved all that 
 to the Captain, if you had but given me time 
 to speak! 
 
 Antony: I spoke soft and blathered him; 
 you would have been safe enough if you had 
 but held your tongue. 
 
 Canavan: It was you put me in danger, 
 making a mockery of me, and miscalling me 
 and decrying me. He would have had respect 
 for me if it wasn't for that. 
 
 Antony: He would not have seen you at all, 
 if you had not gone stirring and shaking in the 
 sacks. 
 
 Canavan: What way could I help it, and I 
 panting and quivering the way I was? And 
 that sword! What could any man do but call 
 out and he getting a thrust of a sword? My 
 chest was never in the same place since, with 
 the start I got. Oh, tell me now, Antony, is it 
 certain we are near our death?
 
 30 The Canavans 
 
 Antony: The daw-n is not far off. Cousin 
 Headley said it was to be at daw-n. 
 
 Canavaji: {Groa?iing.) To die! To die! Is 
 it to die I am going! {He walks up and down 
 mopping forehead.) Is it I myself am alive and 
 hearing it, that I am going to my death? 
 
 A?itony: That was what the Captain said, 
 and his men that were locking the door. 
 
 Canavan: Death! Death! That is a thing 
 I always had a great fear of. There are many 
 things I was always in dread of, but I think 
 that the most thing was death. I thought I 
 had it kept a long way off from me — I never 
 travelled by water, through the fear drowning 
 would smother me, or on horseback through the 
 fear of being knocked, or any way at all, if I 
 could by any means stop in the house. 
 
 Antony: Where is the use of raving and 
 crying? Death is not a mill-wheel you can stop 
 at your will. 
 
 Canavan: Death! Death! I thought I was 
 safe from any death but maybe death on the 
 pillow. And I had myself barricaded against 
 that itself. There was not a day hardly that I 
 was without mint twigs tied around the wrist, or 
 yarrow within the stocking, or an elder leaf for 
 protection against the falling sickness! Drink- 
 ing every night carrots to clear the blood, and 
 knapweed to ease the bones, and dandelion to
 
 The Canavans 31 
 
 strengthen the heart, and gentian to keep off 
 fever; the nightmare charm, the toothache 
 charm, the charm to quell a mad dog. And 
 with everything a bit of camomile in my 
 drink — for our grandmother lived to a hundred 
 years with the dint of camomile! 
 
 Antony: Well, it is not yourself that will live 
 to a hundred years. It is best for you give your 
 mind now to what is on the other side of 
 death. 
 
 Canavan: That is the worst! That is the 
 worst! To be going maybe before this day is 
 out, shivering and forlorn, into some strange 
 giddy place — it might be with the body chang- 
 ing about you, and it might be getting giddy 
 through the air — or maybe put into some strange 
 new shape. There was a woman I heard of was 
 put under the bridge beyond, working out her 
 penance seven years — I would not like that, to 
 be starved and consumed under a bridge. 
 
 Antony: Hearten yourself now, you might be 
 put in the shape of a hare. 
 
 Canavan: I would not like to be put in the 
 ugly shape of any beast, or to be spreading terror, 
 rattling my chains in the night time. 
 
 Antony: Take courage. It is not Hkely you 
 would be able to frighten any person at all. 
 
 Canavan: And all the rabble of the parish to 
 be looking at me as I die! And not one I sup-
 
 32 The Canavans 
 
 pose "wnll dare to coffin me, or to lay me in any- 
 grave worth while? 
 
 Antony: Never fear, if no other one does it, 
 the crows will give you a safe burj'ing. 
 
 Canavan: The widows might bury me in the 
 night time ; they had always a great respect for 
 me. But tell me this, Antony, is it hanged 
 we are to be, or is it beheaded we will be? Is n't 
 it beheaded traitors do be? Is it not as traitors 
 they are killing us, little as I deserve it myself? 
 
 Antony: Many a man would be proud of 
 the honour of being beheaded. 
 
 Canavan: What way will it be with me, T 
 wonder, and I after losing my head? And if it 
 is in the night time the women lay my relics in 
 the grave — is it the right head will be placed to 
 the right body, or will I be mixed up with 
 yourself? {Rocking himself as he walks.) Will I 
 be going up to the Judgment with the sins of 
 another man's body? Is it all your owoi sins I 
 might have to answer for, and I making excuses 
 for my own? It is little I ever did to harm 
 any person in the world. I never drank nor beat 
 any one. But how would I know what bad be- 
 haviour you may have had? It is likely you were 
 breaking the law of God through every day of 
 the year. I would n't wonder if you were drunken 
 and quarrelsome, going after women — grasping 
 and greedy — prone to gambling.
 
 The Canavans 33 
 
 Antony: Cheating and stealing — 
 
 Canavan: Cursing and swearing. 
 
 Antony: Blaspheming and perjuring — 
 
 Canavan: A scoffer and mocker. 
 
 Antony: Working with witches, committing 
 sacrilege, robbing the poor box, coining false money 
 ■ — what are you talking of? A hundred-murderer! 
 
 Canavan: Oh, do you tell me so ! A murderer ! 
 A coiner! A blasphemer! Oh, you scum of the 
 world! I that have one head only, to have a 
 body of that sort joined on to it for eternity ! I 
 that did n't know the name hardly of that tribe 
 of inhibited sins ! I that kept myself out of every 
 temptation! It is many a time I stopped in my 
 loneliness that I might not have occasion to sin! 
 My curse upon you, Antony Canavan, what 
 brought you back into Ireland at all! 
 
 Antony: Quit roaring and crying, and let your 
 last end be a credit to you. There can no 
 harm happen, your name to go up. There is no 
 occasion for you to shape yourself to be timorous, 
 as there is for me. 
 
 Canavan: This is no time I tell you to be 
 humbugging, and death beckoning at me the way 
 it is ! 
 
 Antony: Turn your mind from that, and give it 
 to making your will. Stretch out now and write 
 it in favour of myself. In my opinion I will not 
 die, my name being down the way it is.
 
 34 The Canavans 
 
 Canavan: Ah, don't be talking! How can I 
 be thinking of wills and I so near my end? If I 
 had a way to will my treasure, I would leave 
 all to provide for the safety of my own soul ! 
 
 Antony: I will lay out a share to do that 
 much for you. Tell me where is it you have it 
 hid. 
 
 Canavan: I will, I will! It is a great thing 
 it should be a help to me at the last! The most 
 of it is in — where now at all is it? In what 
 comer or cleft have I it hid? I knew where it 
 was and I coming here. But wherever it was, it is 
 gone from my mind. 
 
 Antony: Hurry on now and remember. 
 
 Canavan: Am n't I trying to remember? But 
 I cannot with the dint of the dread that is upon me. 
 
 Antony: {Shaking him.) Search your mind 
 and think of it. 
 
 Cajiavan: Am n't I ransacking my mind? Have 
 I no care for my own soul? But every time I 
 try to make it out, I see nothing before me but a 
 gallows and an axe. 
 
 Antony: {With another shake.) Summon your 
 wits now. 
 
 Canavan: Don't be ill-using and abusing me! 
 It is tossed and tattered my mind is. I give you 
 my last solemn oath, my memory of the hiding 
 place is gone. I would give the half of my treas- 
 ure to anyone would tell me where it is!
 
 The Canavans 35 
 
 Antony: Look at here now, I to find a way to 
 get you out of this, what will you give me of your 
 riches, to start me in some trade will keep my name 
 down? 
 
 Canavan: All! All that I have! I swear it! 
 I won't keep back so much as a miserable star- 
 vation farthing. 
 
 Antony: That is great. I will find a way of 
 living will never let my name be heard but by 
 my own customers and in my own street. There 
 will be no fear of shouts and praises for me from 
 this out. 
 
 Canavan: Make no delay! Save me! Oh, 
 what way can you save me? 
 
 Antony: I will see what I can do with this. 
 {Takes a rope from rubbish in corner and knots 
 another to it, twisting and tying in a piece of ribbon 
 Jrom his pack.) 
 
 {A knock at the door.) 
 
 Canavan: There is some one knocking at the 
 door! Oh, it is some new danger! 
 
 Widow Greely: {Looking through grating in 
 door.) Are you living yet. Miller Canavan? 
 
 Canavan: I am — I think — but hardly — it is not 
 until dawn we are to be made an end of. 
 
 Widow Deeny: We are till now settling out the 
 Captain's shirts; he bade us make a clean job of 
 them. We made our way up before going, to 
 enquire after you.
 
 36 The Canavans 
 
 Widow Greely: We were thinking it might be 
 comfortable to you to leave your last wishes with 
 us; there will be no one else to pay respect to 
 them, yourself and your cracked brother being 
 dead. 
 
 Widow Deeny: It would be a pity the money 
 you minded so well to be going into any wrong 
 hands 
 
 Widow Greely: The Captain ought not to be 
 getting it, letting on not to know his own race. 
 
 Widow Deeny: Those ruffians of soldiers might 
 seize on it, and they setting fire to the mill, to 
 fatten that red-haired battle-cock that is preying 
 upon us all. 
 
 Widow Greely: If you give us authority over 
 it, we will not forget the repose of your soul. 
 
 Canavan: Be easy will you, my head is thrown 
 to and fro! I wish I could leave it to be laid out 
 for my soul! But to my grief and my misfortune 
 it fails me to remember where I have it hid. 
 
 Widow Greely: To the poor you could leave 
 alms from it to open you the gates of Heaven. 
 
 Canavan: {Takinghis head in his hands.) Wait 
 now — I put it supposing in the one place yester- 
 day — and to-morrow I changed it to another. I 
 can partly remember yesterday, but blindfold me 
 if I can remember where it was to-morrow! 
 
 Widow Deeny: I am sure where it was twelve 
 hours ago, the time that you were talking with
 
 The Canavans 37 
 
 ourselves, and that is under the second first board 
 from the door. 
 
 Widow Greely: The board you drew the sack 
 over, and you after coming into the room. 
 
 Widow Deeny: The board you put your foot 
 upon, and the pedlar coming into the house. 
 
 Canavan: What are you saying? You knew 
 the places I kept my money? 
 
 Widow Deeny: The time you had it in the 
 chimney, we could know it by the soot upon 
 your cap. 
 
 Widow Greely: The time it was hid in the 
 stable, the bees made an attack on you through 
 the smell. 
 
 Canavan: Oh, the spies! The peerers! The 
 pryers! The magpies! The bloodhounds! The 
 witches! Was ever a man in such danger and 
 such peril of his life? To be watched and be 
 nosed and be scented that way! To be tracked 
 like a fox to his den! I not to be safe on my 
 own floor, or by my own hearthstone! Is there 
 no place, within or abroad, where a man can 
 keep himself safe? The world never saw a 
 greater wonder than I not being murdered for 
 my gold! 
 
 Antony: It 's a queer thing to be wasting 
 time talking. Bid them look for the key, if you 
 have a mind to escape. 
 
 Canavan: Where is the use of escaping out
 
 38 The Canavans 
 
 of this, and those ones having knowledge of the 
 most lonesome thoughts of my heart! 
 
 Widow Decuy: Is it an answer you are giving 
 us, Miller Canavan? 
 
 CanavaJi: {To widows.) WTiat are you jab- 
 bering and jangling for? Can't you look? Do you 
 see e'er a key? 
 
 Widow Greely: It is very dark in the place 
 where we are to search out a small thing like a 
 key. 
 
 Canavan: Search in every place I tell you. 
 I know every place a key can be hid. It might be 
 in the pocket of a coat — or in the finger of a glove 
 that would be lying on a shelf — or concealed under 
 a cloth that would be hanging from the wall. 
 
 Widow Deeny: It should be in some place. 
 If it was a dog, it would bite you. But I can 
 find no trace of it at all. 
 
 Canavan: There are many good places to 
 hide it in — I often hid a key of my own 
 — in under the ashes of the hearth or put in a 
 loaf of bread and a slice closing up the hole! 
 
 Widow Greely: There is a fire alight on the 
 hearth. I have myself scorched, and no key to 
 be found. 
 
 Widow Deeny: I see no bread or anything to 
 be eaten at all. And what is worse again, I 
 hear horses coming into the yard. It is likely it 
 is the Captain come home.
 
 The Canavans 39 
 
 Widow Greely: We had best not be here when 
 he comes. I am sorry indeed we could do nothing. 
 But we will be coming back again to see you hanged. 
 
 Antony: Look if it might be in the key-hole. 
 
 Widow Deeny: So it is in the lock all the 
 while. I would have found it long ago if the 
 miller had but left bothering me. Here it is. 
 {Throws it through grating.) Little good it will do 
 you, it is too late! It is much if we make our 
 escape. {They go.) 
 
 Canavan: {Picking it up.) Oh, open the 
 door. Oh, I can't get it into the hole. Oh, 
 my hand is shaking — there they are in the 
 room {Laughter and voices heard), it is too late. 
 {The Captain^ s voice is heard singing rather 
 tipsily.) 
 
 Antony: We might make a dash through 
 them. 
 
 Canavan: Oh, I cannot do that! I can 
 hardly stand ! 
 
 Antony: Try my plan then. I looked out 
 there when we came in. {Gets on chair and 
 looks out of window and fastens rope to stanchion.) 
 There was a guard below, and we coming here — 
 there is no one there now — this window is not 
 far above a little sloping roof, we can drop 
 on it with the help of this rope, and from that 
 to another, and there *s a buttress will help us to 
 the ground. The night dark, the town and country
 
 40 The Canavans 
 
 to befriend. It 's a good job the Captain has as 
 good as no head at all. Here, Peter, go on first. 
 
 Canavan: Is it to get out of the window we 
 must? 
 
 Antcny: That is it, and to drop on to the 
 roof. It is no great length of a drop. 
 
 Canavan: I cannot do it, I cannot do it. I 
 am scared of going out into the clouds alone. 
 
 Antony: Well, let me go first, and I '11 be a 
 stay to you. 
 
 Canavan: You must not go. You might 
 not wait for me at all. 
 
 Antony: Go through so yourself. 
 
 Ca7iavan: I will not. How can I tell what 
 danger there might be on the other side? 
 
 A7itony: Get up on the chair and look out. 
 It is nothing to be afraid of at all. 
 
 Canavan: {Getting up and looking out.) I 
 could not face it without I was a swallow or 
 a thrush. I am certain I would fall. My head 
 would go spinning like a wheel ! 
 
 Antony: Go on. Why would I go to these 
 rounds to break your neck, if I was craving to 
 break it? 
 
 Canavan: If it was a level I might face it. 
 But there is great danger of sHpping on a 
 roof. 
 
 Antony: There is the rope to hold to. 
 
 Canavan: It might give with me. It is no
 
 The Canavans 41 
 
 safe thing to hazard your life on the strength of 
 a strand of a rope. {Gets down from chair.) 
 
 Antony: Well, hang or climb or run out at 
 the door. I myself will go this way. {Gets on 
 chair.) 
 
 Canavan: {Falling on knees and holding his 
 feet.) Oh, don't go, Antony! Do not go and 
 leave me in this case. Oh, listen to him, listen 
 to him singing! Oh, I am in dread, I am in 
 dread! 
 
 Antony: {Shaking him off and getting down.) 
 You miserable shaking-scraw ! It 's a charm you 
 should carry against trembling, of the right 
 hind leg of a hare. Is there any use in striving 
 to save you at all? Though it might be no 
 hard job to outwit Cousin Headley. If I had 
 but a sheet, a ghost would do the job. 
 
 {Headley is heard singing close to the door.) 
 
 Antony: {Opening pack.) Crown of lilies! 
 That 's it. We '11 allure him with Queen 
 Elizabeth. {Takes out dress and other things.) 
 
 Canavan: Oh, he is coming in! 
 
 Antony: Clear the turf out of that basket — 
 hurry. 
 
 Canavan: That basket — {Throws out sods of 
 turf.) A good thought — it might cover me — the 
 rods of it would not shiver the way the sack 
 did. {Sits down and pidls it over him.) If I could 
 get into the corner now — {Begins crawling to
 
 42 The Canavans 
 
 corner with basket over him.) I would be as 
 hidden as a snail in its shell — if he does not think 
 now of spitting me with that sword. 
 
 {Antony meawajhile has slipped on the dress 
 and arranged his hair with his fingers, and put 
 on ruff and headdress. He bears a resemblance 
 to the portrait of Queen Elizabeth. He takes up 
 basket atid rubs his face in miller's floury 
 smock.) 
 
 Canavan: Oh, oh, oh, is it the executioner! 
 Oh, I feel the axe! It 's as cold as amber! 
 (Rushes to the bed, kneels and hides his face in 
 cloak, and remains there rocking and 77ioaning.) 
 
 {Antony steps into basket spreading out 
 skirt of dress over it as Headley is heard 
 close to door.) 
 Headley: Go to the guard room. I will 
 have an hour's sleep before dawn. {A trampling 
 heard, footsteps die away. Headley sings again.) 
 {Antony raps on floor with poker. He has a 
 pair of slippers in hand, but having 
 failed to put them on slips them into 
 pocket. Headley comes in singing. 
 He suddenly catches sight of the 
 figure in coif and silk dress.) 
 Antony: Upon your knees! 
 Headley: Who! Who! 
 
 Antony: Elizabeth, Regina Ingil terra, Francia, 
 Hibernia, Deo gratia, defendore Fides.
 
 The Canavans 43 
 
 Headley: {Sinking on his knees.) The Queen! 
 The excellent and glorious person of her Majesty! 
 
 Antony: You are before your sovereign. 
 
 Headley: Oh, angelic face! Where the red rose 
 has meddled with the white. 
 
 Antony: This is the man of whose beauty I 
 have heard — who sent me sonnets. 
 
 Headley: Oh, Queen, Queen! 
 
 Antony: I made a secret journey. I would 
 know what Essex is doing. I turned aside. I 
 would see the Apollo of my army. 
 
 Headley: Oh, Phoebus blushes to find himself 
 outshone ! 
 
 Antony: This is your vaunted devotion. 
 You have been absent. You have been swilling 
 ale. No one to guard the gates. I came in un- 
 noticed — no one heard the beat either of horsehoof s 
 or my royal feet. 
 
 Headley: Oh, the fourth of the Graces has 
 read my sonnets! 
 
 Antony: That is prose. I expect a poet to 
 talk poetry. 
 
 Headley: Oh, that I had a pen — a pen — 
 a pen. 
 
 Antony: Go on. Essex would do better than 
 that. 
 
 Headley: I 'd say: God save the Queen — 
 Amen, Amen — 
 
 Antony: That is getting on.
 
 44 The Canavans 
 
 Headlcy: Oh, Cro-wii of Lilies, say that you 
 forgive ! 
 
 Antony: Do as I bid you and you yet may 
 live. 
 
 Headley: Lay orders, dearest dread, trust me 
 again ! 
 
 Antony: Then go at once and send away 
 your men! — Look here, young Apollo, you must 
 have the gates left clear for me to go out. 
 There must be no blemish upon the name of 
 Defendore Fides! 
 
 Headley: I will go! But oh, let me kiss that 
 royal foot! 
 
 Antony: {Hastily.) No, no, the hem, the 
 hem of my dress! {Headley kisses it. She gives 
 him a slipper.) There is my slipper; you may 
 carry it away for a token. 
 
 Canavan: {Who has but just looked from under 
 his cloak, coming forward on his knees) Oh, your 
 majesty! Oh, your Grace! Give me the other 
 slipper ! Let me have it for a sign, a sign to show 
 the hangman! 
 
 Antony: Who is this floury fellow? 
 
 Canavan: Canavan the miller, your Grace, 
 no traitor, your Grace — put up for harbouring 
 traitors. I am innocent — it was all a mistake — 
 I am no rebel and no deserter — it was a brother 
 of mine — a vagabond, a tnckster, a deserter, a 
 very dangerous man!
 
 The Canavans 45 
 
 Antony: Let him be beheaded in my name! 
 
 Headley: It shall be done! His head shall 
 make a footstool for this slipper! 
 
 Anto?iy: {To Headley.) Away, go, take your 
 men. Go by the next wind to Whitehall. Who 
 knows what preferment you may find. Wear 
 that slipper round your neck; come to the Court 
 wearing it. 
 
 Canavan: I will go to Whitehall! I take 
 the oath of loyalty! I will take it as Mayor 
 of Scartana. I swear on this slipper. {Kisses it.) 
 I swear with every grain of my power, will, wit, 
 and cunning, to be loyal and faithful to your 
 Grace. God save the Queen! 
 
 Antony: Hush! Silence! Close your eyes! 
 Close your ears ! 
 
 Canavan: I will, I will! I will never open 
 them again till such time as I will get com- 
 mandment ! {Rushes back to bed and covers up his 
 head.) 
 
 Antony: {To Headley.) Hasten, Poet, hasten, 
 do not tarry — go through wind and weather — 
 think of our meeting at Whitehall! 
 
 Headley: {Holding up slipper.) 
 
 I flower, I flower that was a barren shoot 
 I have a slipper from the royal foot ! 
 
 {Rushes out.) 
 
 Antony: {Getting out of basket.) The window is
 
 46 The Canavans 
 
 quickest. Follow me, Peter, by the window or 
 by the door. {Looking at Canavan.) He hears 
 me no more than the dead! {Gets up to window.) 
 Faith it's a short life I would have before me, 
 my name to be as high as Queen Elizabeth's. 
 {Goes out oj window. Canavan still kneels at bed, 
 his head covered with his cloak.) 
 
 Curtain
 
 Act III 
 
 Scene: The Mill kitchen as before. Antony is 
 pushing the dress, ruff, and coif up the chim- 
 ney with tongs. 
 
 Antony: There goes the last of her! 
 
 Canavan: {Coming in at door.) What brought 
 you running home from the Castle before me? 
 What is it you are doing? 
 
 Antony: Hiding away things I am, that are best 
 out of sight. Any one finds them now, will be 
 full sure it was a witch went up the chimney. 
 
 Canavan: Well, this is a great night we went 
 through, and a night full of wonders ! The strong- 
 est! I know now who is the strongest! I am 
 the Queen's man now. Oh, she is the strongest, 
 a very fine woman! 
 
 Antony: What is it you are raving about? 
 
 Canavan: That Captain that has such power, 
 an army at his command, on his knees she 
 put him; trembling he was like oats in the 
 breeze. If she daunted him that way what chance 
 would there be for the like of us? 
 
 47
 
 48 The Canavans 
 
 Antony: Pup, pup, pup, pup! Is it that you 
 are thinking you saw the Queen? 
 
 Canavan: I did see her to be sure, and she 
 gave me her o^ti shoe. 
 
 Antony: Well, that was a great playgame! 
 Would n't you think now it might be some one 
 was letting on to be the Queen? 
 
 Catiavaji: She was not letting on. There was 
 no letting on in it. Taller than any woman ever 
 stood upon a floor she was! She stood up over 
 me the same as an elephant ! A great grand voice 
 she had, pitched someway squeally like a woman's, 
 but strong and high as if used to giving out orders. 
 
 Antony: A great beauty I suppose she was 
 now? 
 
 Canavan: She was that. Like the picture she 
 was. {Points to it on wall.) Long wisps of hair 
 as bright as silver — eyes shining like sparks from 
 the forge. I would sooner go creep through the 
 keyhole than go face her or speak to her again, 
 
 A ntony: Is it I that have that much beauty on 
 me? Or is it the full moon is working in his eyes? 
 
 Canavan: {Dragging out arm-chair.) Set this 
 now to the rear of the table, the same as you 
 would see it in a judge's court. I will tack up 
 the picture on the back of it to simulate the royal 
 arms. {Puts picture on back of chair, hammering 
 in tacks. Then puts on a long cloak and a chain 
 he has fetched from inner room.)
 
 The Canavans 49 
 
 Antony: Leave those vanities now for a while. 
 You promised me a share of your riches for to 
 start me in a new way of life. 
 
 Canavan: What way is that? 
 
 Antony: Enter in some business I must, that 
 will bring me no great credit and will never send 
 my name up high. Clothier, cobbler, cutler, 
 butcher, baker, skinner, tanner, grocer, barber, 
 milkman, butterman, was there ever a shout given 
 out on the heights for any one of that tribe, since 
 ever grass grew on the fields of the earth or of 
 the sea? Give me here now what will buy out 
 some wealthy tradesman in the town of Scartana. 
 
 Canavan: Stop your blather. I made you no 
 promise, or if I did, I did n't rightly know what 
 was I saying with the terrification in my mind. 
 Would you have a man bound by the thing he 
 says when the wits are out of him with fright? 
 
 Antony: Fright or no fright, a promise is a 
 promise. 
 
 Canavan: And so is a will a will, and if a 
 man makes his will in a hurry, and he in the 
 fear of death, has he no power to cancel it and 
 he coming back from the grave? 
 
 Antony: You said you would give me all you 
 had, I to save you from the gallows. I did save 
 you, and now you go back on your word. 
 
 Canavan: You take credit that you saved me ! 
 You have a great opinion of yourself indeed. 
 
 VOL. II— 4
 
 50 The Canavans 
 
 There was no one saved me but the Queen. A 
 great woman! 
 
 Ant07iy: Is it blind in the ears you are, the 
 same as in the eyes? Don't you know, you crazed 
 barley -grinder, it was I myself personated Queen 
 Elizabeth? 
 
 Canava7i: I do not know it indeed. 
 
 Antojiy: I tell you I did. Is it that you will 
 misdoubt my word? 
 
 Canavan: I will misdoubt it. Did n't I hear 
 you saying you were myself a while ago? "I am 
 Canavan the miller," you said, "and that man 
 in the sacks is Crazy Jack." It seems to me, 
 Antony Canavan, that you are very full of lies! 
 
 Anto7iy: {Rises.) Will you give me nothing 
 at all? 
 
 Canavan: I will not give you so much as the 
 point of a rush, after the insult you are after 
 putting on the Queen. 
 
 Antony: {Goes to door.) I give up so. I will 
 go join the boys that are fighting in the woods. 
 My name to go up and my life to go down, it 
 is you yourself have sent me out to that, and to 
 come to my death in the fight. 
 
 Canavan: The fight? What fighting is that? 
 
 Antony: I must go join the boys that are 
 fighting for to free Munster. 
 
 Canavaji: {Stopping Antony and shaking him.) 
 Is it a rebel you are telling me you are? I am
 
 The Canavans 51 
 
 under orders as Mayor to prosecute and oppress 
 with sword and fire any rebel at all, any one that 
 would be prejudicial to Her Sacred Majesty. 
 Sword and fire I will bring out against rebels. 
 Are you giving heed to that? 
 
 Antony: Is it Protestant you turned in the 
 night-time? 
 
 Canavan: No hurry, no hurry, till I will 
 know is the new faith the safest in both worlds. 
 I 'm not one to say Her Majesty to be the real 
 head of the Church. But it 's greatly in her 
 favour she being such a success. And no doubt 
 at all about it she 's a very fine woman, no doubt 
 at all about that. 
 
 Antony: Heaven help your poor head! It was 
 the terror of the night-time set it astray! 
 
 Canavan: At that time I had not understand- 
 ing. I have taken office presently. I have set- 
 tled myself to the service of the Queen. I must 
 stick to my class. What now, I wonder, are all 
 the other Mayors doing? 
 
 Antony: Give me the price of a horse and a 
 suit itself. 
 
 Canavan: Would you suck and consume my 
 treasure to nourish faction? Help you, is it? 
 No, but hinder and impeach and plague and pro- 
 secute you. Am n't I a stay and a pillar of the 
 Government and of the law? 
 
 Antony: Ah, sure, it would be more sociable
 
 52 The Canavans 
 
 like to be on the side of the neighbours. It 's 
 a very lonesome thing being with the law in 
 Scartana. 
 
 Canavan: Not lonesome at all. It is happy 
 and airy I am. Look at all the high comrades I 
 viill have, Marshals and Sheriffs and Aldermen, 
 Sergeants at Arms, Constables, Coroners, Gaolers, 
 Process Servers and Justices of the Peace. 
 Grand times we will have together! Sharpening 
 the decrees we will be! Shaping the laws to the 
 people we wall be — no, but the people to the 
 laws. I '11 give them plenty of gaol according 
 to their crimes! Oh, there is a certain assurance 
 of quiet and great good in settling yourself to the 
 strongest. There is very great peace and im- 
 munity in surrendering our will to their commands. 
 
 Antony: Little good I got from commands, and 
 I marching. 
 
 Canavan: There is good in them, if there is no 
 other good but that they are commands. Would 
 you be buzzing about at your own will the same 
 as a heap of flies? I tell you thousands have been 
 damned through no other thing than following 
 their own will and fancy. 
 
 Antony: It is not long that the fear of the 
 law would keep me from giving you a clout in 
 the jaw, but that I think you an unfortunate 
 creature that has madness put upon you by God. 
 
 Canavan: (Taking up chair.) Ah, you savage
 
 The Canavans 53 
 
 rebel, you! You ragtail renegade! You stam- 
 mering stroller, you! You pot-picker! You hang- 
 man's apron! You scabby clown! Would you 
 strive and wrestle with your superior? Would you 
 disparage the person of the law-giver? Would 
 you deface the image of the Queen? I'll put 
 the hue and cry after you ! I '11 hack and 
 wrack and harry you! I '11 give you up to stocks 
 and rods, and the bitterness of martial law! 
 
 Antony: Well, now, the losing of your wits 
 has put great spirit in you ! 
 
 Canavan: Get out, out of that! 
 
 Antony: {At door.) Well, the Lord leave 
 me the three faculties, wit, memory, and under- 
 standing! {Goes out, but looks in again.) Here 
 are the widows now coming, thinking to see you 
 hanged. 
 
 \Canavan: I '11 send you to the halter and the 
 bough ! The widows — it 's well I have my clothes 
 of credit put on, or they 'd think nothing of me 
 at all. {Sits down in arm-chair and arranges 
 himself.) 
 
 Widow Greely: {Coming in.) On our way to the 
 Castle to see the hanging we were, and Antony 
 is after telling us there is no hanging at all. I 
 wish I had got word sooner and I would not have 
 put on my Sunday cloak. 
 
 Widow Deeny: I 'm as disconcerted as to go to 
 a wedding, and the bridegroom to have failed
 
 54 The Canavans 
 
 at the last. We that would have buried you and 
 welcome, to go home without following you to 
 the grave! 
 
 Widow Greely: A great deception indeed. They 
 say there is nothing so good for the soul as to 
 see any person die hard. 
 
 Canavan: Well, you will not profit your soul 
 seeing me hanged, now or at any other time. 
 I have a strong back in the Queen from this 
 out. I have a sure token of that. 
 
 Widow Deeny: Is it a ring or such like? They 
 say Lord Essex has the Queen's ring, and that it 
 will keep him safe for ever. 
 
 Canavan: What 's in a ring? I daresay the 
 Queen gives out a score of rings in the year. I 
 have something from her own hand that is a surer 
 pledge than the ring of day! Look here now 
 at that! {Holds up shoe.) 
 
 Widow Deeny: A shoe! Nothing but a little 
 red shoe! 
 
 Widow Greely: You are not saying, I suppose, 
 that this is the Queen's shoe? 
 
 Canavan: It is often you have said a thing 
 that is farther from the truth than that. 
 
 Widow Deeny: Mind now what I am saying 
 to you. Don't meddle with the Queen at all. 
 Sure every man she ever had to deal with was 
 sent to the block the next day. 
 
 Widow Greely: They say there are chains
 
 The Canavans 55 
 
 rattling upon her that no one in this world can 
 see. 
 
 Canavayi: What do you know about kings 
 and queens? Did you ever see one or ever speak 
 with one? 
 
 Widow Greely: You are growing light-minded, 
 Peter Canavan, to think that you spoke with 
 one yourself. 
 
 Canavan: Don't be calling me Peter! It 's 
 Your Worship I am to-day! 
 
 Widow Deeny: Is it Mayor you are now? 
 It made you very consequential, you to have 
 taken the oath! 
 
 Canavan: I '11 have no traffic at all with trait- 
 ors! I have the sacred commission to bring the 
 country to loyal simplicity. Give me here the 
 ledger. It 's on that I will administer the 
 oath. 
 
 Widow Greely: Did n't you get very stiff with 
 taking office? Or may be it is humbugging you 
 are? 
 
 Canavan: You will see I am not humbugging. 
 When I didn't spare my own brother, I will 
 not spare yourselves or any rebel at all. 
 
 Widow Greely: Was it some wind from the 
 north made you turn about in a blast? 
 
 Canavan: Here now, don't be wilful, you your- 
 selves will give an example to the whole dis- 
 trict. You will swear on this book, the way I
 
 56 The Canavans 
 
 did on the shoe, with all your wit, will, and cun- 
 ning, to support the authority of the Queen. 
 
 Widow Greely: {Turning her back to him.) The 
 hearing is failing on me this while back by cause 
 of cold I got through beetHng the clothes. 
 
 Widow Deeny: {Turning her back.) An oath 
 is no thing to be taking, when you are likely not 
 to keep it in the end. The beneficial of baptism 
 you 'd lose breaking it, and maybe you would 
 never see God. {They edge towards door.) 
 
 Canavan: {Gettmg between the?)! and door.) 
 Let you be humble now, and limber in your 
 heart, and you '11 find me to be kind. Sure it is 
 through kindness I am wishful to bring you, the 
 same as myself, under the strength of the Queen. 
 
 Widow Greely: Her strength might not be as 
 lasting as you think. Sure the Pope has his 
 blessing promised to the generation that \\dll 
 bring her low. 
 
 Canavan: Ah, Job himself that got the 
 heavens on the head of his patience, would grow 
 surly having dealings wdth ye. The world would 
 hear him yelling, and he to be arguing with 
 a hag. 
 
 Widow Deeny: I wonder at you to be speak- 
 ing such uncomely words! Our own old fathers 
 were in this place before ever there was a Cana- 
 van in Scartana! 
 
 Canavan: Is that the way you are fleering
 
 The Canavans 57 
 
 at one in authority? Don't be turning me to be 
 your enemy! Force you to take out a license 
 for your clear starching I will ! Using foreign im- 
 portations you are, and paying no taxes to the 
 Queen! 
 
 Widow Greely: We are no clutch of pullets to 
 be frighted by a cloud or a kite! 
 
 Canavan: I '11 frame and fashion your manners 
 for you ! The next day you '11 be late with 
 the washing, I '11 indict you for default of appear- 
 ance! Tag and rag from the riverside to be 
 correcting the Mayor on the bench! 
 
 Widow Greely: I 'd sooner be boiled, burned, 
 baked, and roasted in that oven, and a hundred 
 heating it, than give in to your orders at 
 all! 
 
 Canavan: Quit now being so stubborn and so 
 disorderly! If you are deaf you are not dumb. 
 You 'd break the heart of any man, or any two 
 men, in the house. 
 
 Widow Deeny: It is easy seen by your talk 
 you were never of the blooded gentry! What 
 right at all has the like of you to bereave us of 
 our religion and our laws? 
 
 Canavan: Is it your strength you would try 
 against me? It is little I pay heed to your 
 threats! The time God made wicked cows, he 
 gave them short horns. 
 
 Widow Deeny: We are well able to revenge
 
 58 The Canavans 
 
 ourselves. WTiatever may be done in this district, 
 it 's the telling of the story is with us! 
 
 Widow Greely: Have we no curses do you 
 think? Let there be no path and no prosperity 
 before you, from now to the womb of judgment! 
 
 Widow Deeny: A gapped shaving to you ! And 
 a Monday hair-cutting! And the blood of your 
 body to be in the bosom of your shirt ! 
 
 Canavan: I '11 not let you quit this till I '11 get 
 you hunted with hounds! Don't be thinking to 
 escape me now. Rebellion is all one with witch- 
 craft, the ancient authors said that! {Seizes and 
 pushes them into corner.) 
 
 Widow Greely: Well now. Mayor Canavan, it 
 is you has gained great coiirage and great strength ! 
 
 Canavan: Why wouldn't I have courage? I 
 am Ivlayor of Scartana, I am safe from this out. 
 I am on the side of the strongest. I am Mayor 
 in the Queen's service, and I have this shoe in 
 my hand ! 
 
 {Enter Headley, his shoe hanging round his 
 neck. He has a gun in his hand, which 
 he lays down.) 
 
 Headley: Where is that pedlar? I have 
 searched the Castle, he is not there. 
 
 Canavan: He came here out of the Castle, and 
 he is gone away out of this. 
 
 Headley: He did not lose much time, 
 
 Canavan: It was I hastened him.
 
 The Canavans 59 
 
 Headley: You should have kept him. 
 
 Canavan: A worthless fellow ! 
 
 Headley: A prize — did you hear what she said? 
 {Taps shoe.) 
 
 Canavan: I did, well. {Taps other shoe.) 
 
 Headley: She said she would wish 
 
 Canavan: The place left empty. 
 
 Headley: The deserter's head. 
 
 Canavan: I forgot that. 
 
 Headley: You told her he was a deserter. 
 
 Canavan: So he was, and a rebel. 
 
 Headley: She asked for his head to put under 
 her royal feet. 
 
 Canavan: So she would, too, and she being 
 without her shoes. 
 
 Headley: It would have been a love gift for 
 me to proffer to her. I hurried back when I 
 brought it to mind. I thought it would not take 
 much time to whip off his head. 
 
 Canavan: I knew it was to be beheaded we 
 were. 
 
 Headley: I have wasted time, I have lost half 
 an hour, I have come back looking for a gift for 
 my sovereign and you have thrown it away. {He 
 strikes Canavan with shoe.) 
 
 Canavan: Stop raiHng at me and attacking me ! 
 I have a shoe of my own ! {Threatens him with it.) 
 I am grown now to be as brave as a lion ! 
 
 Headley: {Weeping.)
 
 6o The Canavans 
 
 It had been worth a ballad or a sonnet 
 
 To lay that head where she could step upon it ! 
 
 Widow Deeny: His own kinsman's head. But 
 he knows well what sort of a present would the 
 Queen like. 
 
 Widow Greely: Ah, what signifies one head to 
 her, unless it might belong to a bishop or a priest '^ 
 
 Widow Deeny: It is best for us to be going 
 home; it is milking time — but we might pick up 
 some little thing to bring along with us. There 
 is a good ruff there on the hearth — I suppose 
 it fell out of Antony's pack. 
 
 Widow Greely: There are more of his wearables 
 in the chimney {She pulls down dress with tongs.) — 
 very grand gaudy stuff indeed. {Feels it.) 
 
 Headley: That dress! What is it — what is 
 it {Seizes it.) — that dress, those flowers — that hem 
 — surely that is the hem that I kissed ! 
 
 Widow Deeny: A nice broad hem it is, and well 
 sewed. 
 
 Headley: Get out of this, woman ! Leave that 
 alone! That is no thing for you to handle! 
 {Drives them out.) 
 
 Widow Deeny: {At door.) A very unmannerly 
 man! {They go out.) 
 
 Headley: {Pulling bodice down from chimney.) 
 That silk — I am making no mistake — that ruff, 
 that headpiece — What has happened — what
 
 The Canavans 6i 
 
 does it mean — there is no delusion — that is the 
 hem that I kissed. 
 
 Canavan: {Who has sat down at table examin- 
 ing shoe.) It is the right shoe is mine. Then 
 yours must be the left. It is the right should 
 mean the most share of favour. 
 
 Headley: (Wildly.) What is it has happened? 
 You were here — where is she? Where is the 
 Queen's Majesty — did you see her leave the room 
 in the Castle? 
 
 Canavan: What way would I see her? "Close 
 your eyes and your ears," she said, and I put 
 down my head in the bed. Would you think I 
 would break the first order she laid upon me? 
 
 Headley: But her dress is here — ^you must 
 know something 
 
 Canavan: When I rose my head and looked 
 around, there was no sign of her at all, and I 
 made my way home. But quick as I was, that 
 lying rogue Antony was here before me. 
 
 Headley: What was he doing? 
 
 Canavan: He was thrusting something up 
 the chimney with the two hands of a tongs. 
 
 Headley: The Saints of Heaven preserve us! 
 What did he say? 
 
 Canavan: I asked him nothing, and he told 
 me nothing, unless lies. It was well to get quit 
 of him. He would be no sort of credit to a loyal 
 man at all.
 
 62 The Canavans 
 
 Headley: {Shaking him.) Don't you see what 
 has happened? 
 
 Canavan: He has made off, and my joy be 
 with him. 
 
 Headley: You were his abettor ! 
 
 Canavan: A very unkind thing for you to say. 
 
 Headley: You are concealing his crime. 
 
 Canavan: Stop that, I will not be molested! 
 I have the Queen's right shoe! I will not quail 
 before any man! v^ 
 
 Headley: You miserable villain! Don't you 
 see I have discovered that your fellow criminal 
 has killed the Queen! 
 
 Cajiavan: Killed the Queen is it? 
 
 Headley: You saw him hiding her dress in 
 the chimney. 
 
 Canavan: I suppose that was it now. 
 
 Headley: He had made an end of her first! 
 
 Canavan: You say he did that ? 
 
 Headley: He must have done it. 
 
 Canavan: Well now, that is a great overthrow! 
 
 Headley: What can he have done with the 
 body? He could not have carried it down the 
 Castle stairs? 
 
 Canavan: There was a rope from the window. 
 
 Headley: I saw it! A rope from the window, 
 ribbons on it — it is certain he let down the 
 body into the river! 
 
 Canavan: That was a good thought now.
 
 The Canavans 63 
 
 Headley: There is a strong current in the 
 stream that would sweep it away. 
 
 Canavan: Out into the sea. So it would too. 
 It 's with mermaids she '11 be doing her trav- 
 elling from this out, grabbing well-looking men 
 from the rocks. 
 
 Headley: But her death will be heard of. 
 
 Canavan: It is certain it cannot be long 
 hid. 
 
 Headley: The murderer will be searched for. 
 
 Canavan: He is safe enough, never fear. 
 
 Headley: Some one will be suspected. Essex 
 will take revenge. 
 
 Canavan: He may not have the chance. It 
 is not himself will be uppermost now, not hav- 
 ing the support of the Queen. 
 
 Headley: You will be questioned — they will 
 put you on the rack. 
 
 Canavan: They need not, I will tell all before 
 the tortiu*e will begin. 
 
 Headley: They will say you did it. They 
 will think you yourself have killed the Queen. 
 
 Canavan: What do you take me for? What 
 an opinion you have of me ! I would not take the 
 credit from the man that deserves it, and that is 
 my only brother, Antony Canavan! 
 
 Headley: You confess it was he did it? 
 
 Canavan: {Examining clothes.) I never thought 
 now he would have the force to do a thing like
 
 64 The Canavans 
 
 that, and she so fine a woman and he no great 
 hero of a man. 
 
 Headley: Was it done with a sword? 
 
 Canavan: A sword would be the quickest, I 
 would have heard a shot of a gun. 
 
 Headley: A stroke from behind? 
 
 Canavan: No discredit if it was. It would 
 be very hard to stand up and to face a woman of 
 that sort. 
 
 Headley: To do it so quick! 
 
 Canavan: Within three minutes, I suppose, 
 of you yourself going out. Well, Antony Can- 
 avan, I never thought you would turn out so 
 great a man! 
 
 Headley: The black-hearted coward! 
 
 Canavan: Coward yourself! You yourself 
 kneeled to the Queen, and humbled yourself, and 
 cried for mercy. But my brother, without arms, 
 or help of soldiers, or troops at his call, or 
 meat in his stomach, it was he made an end 
 of her. A great man, a great man, there can be 
 no doubt at all of that! 
 
 Headley: You make a boast of it? 
 
 Canavan: Why would n't I make a boast and 
 he my own brother? Oh, he will leave a great 
 name after him in history! "Queen Elizabeth 
 was very strong," they will say, "she killed lords 
 and priests and bishops ; but poor Antony Canavan 
 was stronger; it was he killed Queen Elizabeth!"
 
 The Canavans 65 
 
 Headley: Oh, stop, stop! {Puts hands over 
 ears.) 
 
 Canavan: I will be going now to join him. 
 The whole country will be up supporting him. 
 Essex did you say? Neither Essex nor another 
 will dare let a squeak out of himself, before the 
 man that made an end of the Queen! 
 
 Headley: You boasted of your loyalty! 
 
 Canavan: So I am loyal, to be sure. Loyal 
 to the strongest, I always said I would be that. I 
 have but one head only, and the place I will shel- 
 ter it is under the strongest shelter to be had. 
 
 Headley: A terrible thought has come to me. 
 Suppose, after all, the danger may fall upon me? 
 It may be known it was to see myself she came! 
 
 Canavan: Don't be affrighted. I will protect 
 you. Sure I said before you are of our own blood, 
 a Canavan, Henry Canavan. Who would be safe 
 if the kindred of Antony Canavan would not 
 be safe? 
 
 Headley: Yes, yes, we are of one blood, 
 but it would be better the crime not to be found 
 out. I will destroy all the testimony. I will bum 
 these clothes! {Seizes dress.) 
 
 Canavan: {Stopping him.) Quiet now and easy. 
 There will be two words to that. 
 
 Headley: Her death cannot be hidden. But 
 who can prove that she came to Scartana? 
 Even Essex does not know that. 
 
 VOL. n — 5
 
 66 The Canavans 
 
 Canavan: Wait a while. I say these testi- 
 monies should be kept. 
 
 Headley: She said she kept her coming a 
 secret. 
 
 Canavan: Just so. And I, being Antony's 
 brother, they might not accept my witness. 
 
 Headley: They may think she was drowned 
 crossing some stream. 
 
 Canavan: And the clergy would be taking the 
 praise of it, saying they brought it about by their 
 prayers. 
 
 Headley: Let them think Essex himself made 
 away with her. 
 
 Canavan: So help me, no Englishman will 
 ever take that credit to himself. 
 
 Headley: She had to pass many enemies. 
 
 Canavan: I would n't doubt O'Donnell to say 
 he did it, or O'Neill to be claiming it for the 
 North. 
 
 Headley: (Putting dress and ruff on hearth^ 
 What can they accuse me of without evidence? 
 
 Canavan: It is I myself and Antony will 
 carry the evidence through Munster! {Takes dress 
 off hearth, Headley puts it back.) I will frustrate 
 that! Antony will have it for a banner through 
 the whole of the five provinces! 
 
 Headley: Give me the tinder-box. I will 
 kindle the heap! 
 
 Canavan: Here is an answer to your kindling!
 
 The Canavans 67 
 
 {Takes water-jug and empties it on hearth.) Am I 
 going to allow evidence to be made away with 
 by fire? It seems to me you are forgetting that 
 I am Mayor of Scartana. 
 
 {Enter the two widows.) 
 
 Widow Greely: Take warning, Miller Canavan, 
 your brother is coming against you with a pick. 
 
 Widow Deeny: To bring away your gold by 
 force he is going, where you would not give it 
 for his aid. 
 
 Widow Greely: Bad as you treated us a while 
 ago, we v/ould be loth to see a neighbour to be 
 robbed. 
 
 {Antony comes in with a pick, goes to 
 board near door, and begins to rip 
 it up.) 
 
 Antony: This is the board where the widows 
 said it was hid — the second board from the door. 
 It is no robbery I to get what I was promised, and 
 what I am in need of for a way of living. 
 
 ' {Widows rush to stop him.) 
 
 Widow Greely: Let you quit robbing the 
 miller, I tell you, or I '11 have you scandalised 
 through the town. 
 
 Canavan: Whisht your wordy mouth! Leave 
 meddling with my brother ! 
 
 Headley: Oh, he is tearing up a board! It 
 is under that board he has the body buried! 
 He is going to bring it away! Oh, I will not
 
 68 The Canavans 
 
 see it! I will not look at those royal blood- 
 stains on that pearl-white neck! Oh, it would 
 haunt me, it would start me in a faint! No, 
 no, I will not look! {Turns away and hides his 
 face in ruff.) 
 
 Antony: (Shaking off Canavan.) I got the 
 promise, and I will bring away my share of 
 money in spite of you ! 
 
 Canavan: Oh, Antony, my dear brother, 
 take it! Take all that I have! 
 
 Antony: {Taking a bag frorn under board.) 
 I '11 get handsome work now! I 'm thankful to 
 you, Peter. It 's a wonder you to have turned 
 kind. 
 
 Canavan: Ah, why would n't I be kind after 
 the kindness you have showed to the whole 
 nation? Take my cloak now, and my chain 
 to put around your neck ! 
 
 Antony: It 's not an hour hardly since I 
 was a ragtail, and a fly-swarm, and a rebel, and 
 a breaker of the laws! 
 
 Canavan: You can make new laws yourself 
 now for the good of the whole nation ! 
 
 Antony: You drove me out, where I would 
 not swear to the Queen ! 
 
 Canavan: What ailed you not telling me you 
 had done better than to swear to her? Take 
 it, take it, take all my treasure and my gold! 
 You will want it, you will want it for the
 
 The Canavans 69 
 
 suit a general should wear! All that I have 
 is yours! You are my only brother! I am 
 proud of you, Antony Canavan, for the deed you 
 have done this day ! {Hugs him.) 
 
 Headley: Is he gone? Has he the body car- 
 ried away? No, but he is there still! Wretch! 
 Monster! Traitor! Rebel! I will not leave you 
 living! {Draws sword and rushes at him.) 
 
 Widow Greely: {Seizing him.) Whatever 
 Antony Canavan may have done, I will not let 
 a Queen's man attack him. 
 
 Widow Deeny: The Queen's army to make 
 an attack on him, we are sure he has done some 
 good thing! 
 
 Canavan: Bad cess to you, Henry Canavan! 
 Let you quit making that assault. Tie him 
 to the chair. I '11 learn him manners! I '11 
 learn him to attack my only brother! {He 
 and the widows overcome Headley and tie him to 
 chair. Canavan and Antony kneel down by board 
 searching for more money.) 
 
 Headley: Send me back to Lord Essex! It 
 is as well for me go confess all. "She is dead," 
 I will say, "it is my fault, it was on my account 
 she came here, on the head of my features and 
 my face. Disfigure my face," I will say. 
 "Destroy my beauty, strike off the hand that 
 wrote the verses that brought the queen to her 
 death!"
 
 70 The Canavans 
 
 Widow Greely: Brought her to her death ! Are 
 you in earnest saying the Queen was brought 
 to her death ? 
 
 Headley: It is true, it is true. But it was 
 that traitor Antony that killed her, it was he 
 struck that wicked blow. 
 
 Antony: {Afaking ready to go.) I wonder, 
 Peter, for what length of time should I be a 
 miller before I 'd get the name of a hare's heart 
 like your own? 
 
 Widow Greely: You to have a hare's heart ! 
 The heart of a roadside gander, and it defending 
 its brood ! 
 
 Widow Deeny: The heart of a homed heifer, 
 its first calf being brought away ! 
 
 Canavan: The candle of bravery and courage 
 you are, the tower of the western world! Oh, 
 my comely Antony, it is to you I will give the 
 branch ! 
 
 Antony: Have you a mind to destroy me and 
 to shorten my days? Let ye stop, I say, 
 from praising me and from putting up my 
 name. 
 
 Canavan: Bashful he is, no way high in him- 
 self, as bashful and as humble as a child of 
 two years! I tell you, Antony Canavan, it is 
 you are the pride of yoiu* race ! 
 
 Widow Greely: Our blessing for ever on the 
 man that put terror on the heart of the tyrant !
 
 The Canavans 71 
 
 Widow Deeny: A shout on the three heights 
 of Ireland for the mightiest hero of the Gael! 
 ( They shout and with Canavan begin to dance slowly 
 round him.) 
 
 A7itony: What at all are you doing? What 
 at all have you against me? Is it to destroy 
 me you would, putting a big name on me to 
 lead me to my death? {They shout ''Hi for 
 Antony.'") Is there no one at all in the whole 
 country to shout for that you must go shouting 
 for myself? You to have done that, I am a gone 
 man. It is my grave every shout is digging in 
 the clay, and it 's boards for my burying you 
 are readying with your dance. It would be as 
 well for me to go out, and meet my death in some 
 fight. 
 
 Canavan: To fight is it? There will be no 
 fighting where you will be, and where myself will 
 be! The enemy will run before us the same as 
 long-tailed lambs! It is the sight of my brave 
 Antony will set them flocking into the tide! 
 
 Widow Deeny: {Looking out of door.) Oh, let 
 you look! A troop of soldiers and Lord Essex at 
 the head of them! They are passing down the 
 road by the mill-stream! 
 
 Antony: {Sits down beside Headley.) So long 
 as you are all joined in a league for to bring 
 about my death, I wdll wait for it here and now. 
 There is no use at all trying to escape a prophecy.
 
 72 The Canavans 
 
 Give me your hand, Henry Canavan, it is 
 the one blow might put an end to the two of 
 us. 
 
 Headley: {Clinging to him.) It is happy for 
 the widows spinning wool and flax and tow, and 
 that never went knocking about among the great 
 ones of the earth. It would be best for the two 
 of us, Antony, we never to have laid an eye at 
 all on the Queen, as it is little she served us 
 in the end. 
 
 Widow Greely: Will you look at the pair of 
 them trembling, as weak as water and as pale! 
 It is you yourself, Miller Canavan, is the hardiest 
 in the house at this time. 
 
 Canavan: {Seizing gim.) Ha! Is that so? 
 So it is too. Queen Elizabeth was strong, Antony 
 Canavan was stronger — what is he now beside 
 me? Wait now tiU I have my eye cocked to 
 take aim at Lord Essex and his men! {Takes 
 aim out of door.) 
 
 Widow Deeny: Do not be so daring, to destroy 
 the whole army, and you without protection 
 unless it is the thatch above your head. 
 
 Canavan: Little I care for them! I 'm as 
 venturesome as a robin in the snow! I would 
 fire, and it to bring earthquakes! {Fires off gun 
 from door, and falls back from kick of gun. Wi- 
 dows shriek as he fires, then look cautiously 
 out.)
 
 The Canavans 73 
 
 Widow Greely: We are as good as dead this 
 time anyway. 
 
 Widow Deeny: No, but taking off his hat 
 Lord Essex is, and saluting the miller as he goes. 
 
 Antony: A salute to himself he thought it to 
 be, there being no bullet in the gun. 
 
 Canavan: {Looking out of door.) To take off 
 his hat he did! To bow and to bare his head he 
 did! To bid his men hasten their horses he did, 
 and to run before myself and my gun! {Turns 
 and holds out his arm over Headley and Antony.) 
 Let you not be daunted! It is I wUl protect the 
 whole of ye! Where is fear? It is banished from 
 the world from this day! The strongest ! Is n't it 
 the fool I was wasting time — wasting the years — 
 looldng here and there for the strongest? I give 
 you my word, it was not till this present minute 
 that I knew the strongest to be myself I 
 
 Curtain
 
 THE WHITE COCKADE 
 
 TO R. G., SCENE PAINTER 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by Lady Gregory. 
 75
 
 Persons 
 
 Patrick Sarsfield . . . EARL OF LUCAN 
 
 KtJig James II. 
 
 Carter . . . secretary to king james 
 
 A Poor Lady 
 
 Matt Kelleher owner of an inn at duncannon 
 
 MaryKelleher his wife 
 
 Owen Kelleher His son 
 
 First Sailor 
 
 Second Sailor 
 
 First Williamite 
 
 Second Williamite 
 
 A Captain and other Willianiites 
 
 76
 
 Act I 
 
 Scene: An Inn kitchen at Duncannon. Owen 
 Kelleher lying on the hearth playing jack- 
 stones. Mrs. Kelleher rubbing a bit oj meat. 
 A barrel beside her. 
 
 Owen: One — and one — and five — that 's scatters. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Leave playing jackstones, Owen, 
 and give me a hand salting the meat. 
 
 Owen: Two — and two — and one — that's 
 doubles. There is time enough. Sure it 's not 
 to-day it 's wanted. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: What 's put off till harvest is 
 put off for ever. It 's best to catch the pig by 
 the leg when you get her. The French ship 
 might be going before we have the barrels ready, 
 and some other might get the profit. 
 
 Owen: The ship didn't get orders yet from 
 King James. The sailors were not sure was it 
 to Dublin he would bid them go, or to some 
 other place. It is time for us to be hearing news 
 of him. I have a mind to go ask it. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Come over and rub a bit of 
 
 77
 
 78 The White Cockade 
 
 the meat, and leave thinking about King James. 
 We hear enough talk of him, listening to poor 
 Lady Dereen. 
 
 Owen: You have not enough of salt to pack 
 the meat till my father will bring it back from 
 Ross. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: The lamb teaching its mother 
 to bleat! If I have not itself, I have what 
 serves for rubbing it. {She pushes back dresser 
 from before a side door.) Be moving now, and 
 come down to the cellar till we bring up an- 
 other leg of the pork. 
 
 Owen: {Going 07i playing.) One — and one — 
 and one — crow's nest. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Going through door to cellar.) 
 I give you my word it is as hard to make you stir 
 as to make a hedgehog run. 
 
 {Owen whistles " The White Cockade.'') 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Coming back with another bit of 
 meat.) It is yourself finds the hob a good har- 
 bourage ! 
 
 Owen: It is not worth my while to be 
 bringing it up bit by bit — if it was to bring up 
 the whole of it now 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: I suppose not! I wonder now 
 what is worth your while if it is not to mind the 
 place and the inn that will be coming to your- 
 self some day. It is a poor hen that can't scratch 
 for itself!
 
 The White Cockade 79 
 
 Owen: There might be something worth doing 
 outside this place. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Scornfully.) There might! 
 It 's the hills far off that are green! 
 
 Owen: It is beyond the hills I would like to 
 be going. There is no stir at all in this place. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: What is it at all you are 
 wanting or talking about? 
 
 Owen: There is fighting going on through the 
 country. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: And for all the profit it will 
 bring ourselves it might be the fighting of the 
 hornless cows! It is best for us to be minding 
 our own business. 
 
 Owen: There used to be great fighters in 
 Ireland in the old times. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: If there were, they had no other 
 trade! Every crane according to its thirst. 
 Believe me, if they had found as good a way 
 of Hving as what you have, they would not have 
 asked to go rambling. I know well it is an ex- 
 cuse you are making, with your talk of fighting 
 and your songs, not to be doing the work that 
 is at your hand. You are as lazy as the tramp 
 that will throw away his bag. You would have 
 got the sluggard's prize from Aristotle of the 
 books ! 
 
 Owen: Well, it 's good to be best at something. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: If you saw a car and horse
 
 8o The White Cockade 
 
 coming at you, you would not stir out of the 
 rut! You would spend your night on the floor 
 sooner than go up a ladder to the loft! Stir! 
 You would not stir yourself to turn the crispy 
 side of a potato if you had but the one bite only ! 
 
 Owen: One — and four — high castles. 
 
 Airs. KeUelier: I tell you a day will come 
 when you will grow to the ground the way you 
 never will reach to heaven! 
 
 Owen: It is time for you to leave off faulting 
 me. There is some one coming to the door. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Looking out of door.) It is 
 the poor Lady. She wasn't here this good 
 while. It is a pity she to have gone spending 
 all for the King the way she did, and to go 
 in beggary and misery ever after. {Owen sings) — 
 
 The cuckoo has no word to say, 
 Sharp grief has put us under rent, 
 The heavy cloud is on the Gael, 
 But comely James will bring content I 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: I believe it is herself put the 
 half of those songs in your head. {Pulls dresser 
 over door.) It is best shut this door. There 
 is no use too many eyes seeing it. 
 
 {Old Lady comes in. Her hand is over her 
 eyes as if half blind. She wears ragged 
 clothes that have once been handsome.)
 
 The White Cockade 8i 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: You are welcome, my poor 
 Lady Dereen. 
 
 Lady: I thank you, Mary Kelleher. I have 
 always found a welcome in this house, and a 
 shelter from the heat and the rain. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Who should get a welcome 
 here if you would n't get it, Lady? And I born 
 and reared on your own estate before you lost it 
 through the wars. 
 
 Lady: I have had great losses, but now I will 
 have great gains. I lost all through Charles; I 
 will get all back through James. My eyes are 
 tired watching for the sun to rise in the east. 
 The sun of our success is rising at last! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It is time for success to come 
 to yourself, Lady, indeed. I remember the time 
 you had great riches. 
 
 Lady: I did not grudge anything, my lord did 
 not grudge anything to Charles Stuart, our King. 
 I shall be rich again now; I never lost my faith. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Well, I would never have faith 
 myself in the thing I would n't see. 
 
 Lady: I lost all through Charles; I will get 
 all back through James! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: That you may, Lady. I would 
 sooner you to have kept it when you had it. A 
 wren in the fist is better than a crane on loan. 
 It's hard getting butter out of a dog's mouth. 
 
 Lady: The Stuart has been under the mists 
 
 VOL. n — 6
 
 82 The White Cockade 
 
 of night. The sun is rising that will scatter 
 them. The whole country is going out to help 
 him. The young men are leaving the scythes in 
 the meadows; the old men are leaving the sta- 
 tions and the blessed wells. Give me some white 
 thing — some feathers — I have to make cockades 
 for the King's men. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Giving her feathers from the 
 dresser.) Look at that now! These come as 
 handy as a gimlet. I was plucking ducks yes- 
 terday for the captain of the French ship. 
 
 Lady: {Taking feathers and beginning to fasten 
 them together with shaking hands.) James, our own 
 King, will bring prosperity to us all. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: So long as we get it, I would n't 
 mind much what King brings it. One penny 
 weighs as good as another, whatever King may 
 have his head upon it. If you want to grow 
 old, you must use hot and cold. 
 
 Lady: Is it nothing to you, Mary Kelleher, that 
 the broken altars of the Faith will be built up 
 again? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: God grant it! Though, in- 
 deed, myself I am no great bigot. I would always 
 like to go to a Protestant funeral. You would 
 see so many well-dressed people at it. 
 
 Lady: {Beginning to make another cockade.) I 
 must be quick, very quick. There w411 be a hard 
 battle fought. William, the Dutchman, has
 
 The White Cockade 83 
 
 brought trained men from all the countries of 
 Europe. James has gone out to meet him. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Is it going to fight a battle he 
 is? It is likely he will have sent orders to the 
 French ship, so. It is to take his orders it was 
 here. The dear knows where it might be to- 
 morrow, and the pigs we have killed left on our 
 hands ! Only for you giving me no help the way 
 you did, Owen, the meat would be nearer ready 
 now than what it is. Look at him now, Lady ; 
 maybe he '11 mind what you will say. Bid 
 him leave lying on the floor at midday. 
 
 Lady: It is time you should get up, boy; 
 there is plenty of work to do. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: That is what I am saying. 
 Work for all hands. 
 
 Lady: Work for all, and no time to lose. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: That is what I am saying. 
 What is put off till harvest 
 
 Lady: It is not right for a young man with 
 strong hands to be taking his ease. {Owen gets 
 up and stands awkwardly.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: And his mother not sparing 
 herself. 
 
 Lady: You lying there, while there is a friend 
 out under the heat of the day fighting our battle. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: My poor man ! So he is. Striv- 
 ing to bring the salt. 
 
 Lady: {Giving Owen a cockade.) Take that
 
 84 The White Cockade 
 
 White Cockade. Go out, go northward. Join 
 
 the King's army, go and fight for the King! 
 Mrs. Kelleher-' To fight for the King, is it.'^ 
 Lady: Hurry, hurry, you may be in time to 
 
 strike a blow for him! {Sings with a feeble 
 
 voice) — 
 
 Our heart's desire, our pleasant James, 
 Our treasure and our only choice! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Look here now, Lady, have 
 sense. I have but the one son only, and is it 
 sending him away from me you would be? 
 
 Lady: Our King has no son; he has false 
 daughters. We must give our sons to the King! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It is my opinion we must 
 keep them to mind ourselves. What profit 
 would he get joining the King's army? It is not 
 the one thing to go to town and come from it. 
 
 Lady: {Putting hand 07i her arm.) It would 
 be a pity to disappoint so great a friend. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: That is true, but reason is 
 reason. I have but the one son to help me; and 
 it is what I say: you can't whistle and eat oatmeal; 
 the gull can't attend the two strands; words won't 
 feed the friars. How will Owen mind this place, 
 and he maybe shot as full of holes as a riddle? 
 
 Owen: When you have your minds made up 
 if it 's to go fighting I am, or to go rubbing the
 
 The White Cockade 85 
 
 bacon I am, it will be time enough for me to 
 stir myself. 
 
 Lady: Do you grudge your service? Will you 
 betray the King as the English betrayed him? 
 O my heart leaps up with my pleasant Stuart! 
 
 Owen: I would like well to go serve the 
 King; but I don't know how could I do it. 
 
 Lady: You say that because of idleness. It 
 is through idleness you have come to have a 
 coward's heart, the heart of a linnet, of a trader, 
 a poor, weak spirit, a heart of rushes. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: You are too hard now, Lady, 
 upon the boy. Leave him alone. There is no 
 man knows which is best, hurry or delay. It 's 
 often it 's not better to be first than last. 
 Many a tattered colt makes a handsome horse. 
 The first thread is not of the piece. It *s not 
 the big men cut all the harvest. When the time 
 comes, the child comes. Every good comes by 
 waiting. 
 
 Lady: King James in the country wanting all 
 his helpers! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Let every herring hang by its 
 own tail. 
 
 Lady: It is for our comfort he has come, 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: He might. It 's to please itself 
 the cat purrs. 
 
 Lady: {Putting hand on Owen^s shoulder.) The 
 Stuart in the field!
 
 86 The White Cockade 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Seizing other shoulder.) The 
 meat in the cellar! 
 
 Lady: Our hero in danger! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Our bacon in danger! 
 
 Lady: Our prince under mists! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Our meat under mildew! 
 
 Lady: Oh! The great Stuart! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Striking it.) The empty 
 barrel ! 
 
 {Owen turns from one to the other, undecided. 
 Voices are heard singing a French song.) 
 
 Lady: Is that the army of the King? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It is what is worse. It 's the 
 French sailors coming for the meat and it not 
 ready. 
 
 {Two sailors come in singing) — 
 
 Madame, si vous voulez danser 
 Vite je vous prie de commencer 
 Avec I'air des Frangais, 
 Avec I'air de la Cour. 
 
 First Sailor: We are come, Madame, for the 
 pork and the bacon. 
 
 Second Sailor: And de sau-sa-ges. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: I haven't them ready yet. 
 
 First Sailor: We must sail this night before 
 morning. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Did you get any orders from 
 King James?
 
 The White Cockade 87 
 
 First Sailor: We did not get them. He is 
 fighting in the north, at some river. We go to 
 Dublin. If he succeed, we carry news to France. 
 If he is beaten, he will want help from France. 
 We sail at sunrise when the tide is high. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Well, look now; I will have 
 the meat for you before that. 
 
 First Sailor: All right. There is moon. We 
 will come to the pier before sunrise, after the 
 midnight. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher : There is a quick way. Maybe 
 you don't know the outer door to the cellar? 
 
 Second Sailor: I do know it. I did put wine 
 in there last week — no duty; no douane. {Puts 
 finger on nose.) 
 
 {Matt Kelleher comes bursting in. He 
 throws a hag of salt on the floor.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Here is himself, and he run- 
 ning like a hare before hounds. Give me 
 here the salt. 
 
 Matt: Salt! salt! salt! Who would be talking 
 of salt ? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: The ship is going. 
 
 Matt: Where is the use of salt on such a 
 day as this, unless it might be to make a man 
 drouthy ? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: I tell you I was as idle with- 
 out it as a smith without bellows. 
 
 Matt: To make a man drouthy ! To give him
 
 88 The White Cockade 
 
 a good thirst, the way he will drink to the 
 King. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Indeed, if signs are signs, I 
 think you yourself have been drinking to the 
 King! 
 
 Matt: We will all drink to the King! Where 
 are the glasses? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Quiet yourself now. You are 
 too good a customer to yourself; putting on the 
 mill the straw of the kiln. 
 
 Matt: Would you begrudge me so much as 
 one glass on a day like this? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: What has happened on this 
 day more than any other day? 
 
 Matt: This day has brought news of the 
 battle, I tell you — of the great battle at the 
 Boyne! 
 
 First Sailor: The Boyne — that is it! That 
 is the same story we heard. 
 
 Matt: Where would you hear your story? It 
 was away in Ross I got mine. There was news 
 brought to the barracks there. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Tell me now, was the battle 
 fought in earnest? 
 
 Matt: Fought is it? It is it that was fought! 
 A great battle — the ground that was hard turn- 
 ing soft, and the ground that was soft turning 
 hard, under the trampling of feet! The sea 
 coming in on the land, and the land going out
 
 The White Cockade 89 
 
 into the sea! Fire from the edges of every sword! 
 The blood falling like a shower in harvest time! 
 The air black with ravens ; the river reddened with 
 blood ! Sarsfield going through the field the same 
 as fire through furze. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: What there is good comes 
 out in the blood. Sure he is of the race of 
 Conall Ceamach. What would an apple be like 
 but an apple? What would the cat's son do but 
 kill mice ? 
 
 Matt: King James raging like a lion in every gap ! 
 
 Lady: Oh ! I knew it ! I knew it ! The brave 
 Stuart ! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: And who was it, will you tell 
 me, that won in the fight ? 
 
 Matt: Sure, am n't I telling you, if you would 
 listen? The man has won that should win, 
 great King James! 
 
 Lady: I knew the sun would rise at last for 
 victory ! 
 
 Matt: You will get your rights now. Lady. 
 We '11 all get our rights. (Sings) — 
 
 Three times the fairest of the Scots, 
 The blossomed branch, the Phoenix rare, 
 Our secret love, our only choice, 
 The shining candle of the war! 
 
 Lady: My lord spent all upon Charles. James 
 will pay all back again!
 
 90 The White Cockade 
 
 Matt: He will, he v^'ill! You vnW get your 
 estates, Lady, and your white halls! We will 
 drink the cellar dry the day you get your estates. 
 There vAW be red wine of Spain running through 
 your white halls! 
 
 Lady: I have his promise! I have the King's 
 seal to his promise! 
 
 {She takes a large seal and folded parchment 
 from a bag hanging at her side and 
 shows it.) 
 
 Matt: It is a good seal — a grand seal. Drink 
 a health, I say, to the King's seal! Let me go 
 down to the cellar for spirits — no, but for wine! 
 {He pushes back dresser. Mrs. Kelleher 
 pulls him from the door.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: You will not go down. Thirst 
 makes thirst! 
 
 Matt: {To sailors.) Go down there, I say. 
 Bring up a bottle — two bottles — plenty of 
 bottles! {They go down.) 
 
 Lady: I will go to": Dublin. I will go to his 
 Court. I will show him the promise and the 
 seal. 
 
 Matt: You will, ma'am. He can't deny the 
 seal. 
 
 Lady: I will put on my silks and my velvets. I 
 will have jewels about my neck. I will bid my 
 waiting- women to spread out my dress. {Makes 
 a gesture as if spreading out a train.)
 
 The White Cockade 91 
 
 Matt: It is you will look well, Lady, as you 
 did in the old times, with your silks and your 
 jewels.l 
 
 Lady: I will come to the door. The coach 
 will stop — the young lords will hand me out of 
 it — my own young kinsmen will be there. 
 
 Matt: I will go see you in the coach. Lady. 
 It is I myself will open the door! 
 
 Lady: They will bring me to the throne-room. 
 I will leave my cloak at the door. I will walk 
 up to the throne! (She walks a few steps.) 
 
 Matt: (Walking crookedly.) I will walk up 
 myself. I would like well to see the King on his 
 throne. 
 
 Lady: (Curtsying.) A curtsy to the right 
 to the Queen — a curtsy to the left to the 
 princesses. 
 
 Matt: (Curtsying.) That is it, that is it! 
 We will curtsy to the princesses. 
 
 Lady: The King will smile at me. I will take 
 out the King's seal. (Touches it.) I will kneel 
 and kiss his hand. 
 
 Matt: I will kneel — no, I will not. (Stumbles 
 and kneels.) There, I did now in spite of my- 
 self. Here, Mary, help me up again. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Stop where you are, Kelleher, 
 and be ashamed of yourself. When wine goes in, 
 wit goes out. 
 
 Owen: (Helping the lady up.) All will go
 
 92 The White Cockade 
 
 well with 3'ou now, Lady, since the King has 
 gained the day. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Maybe he was not the winner 
 after all. It is often we heard news from Ross 
 that would n't be true after. 
 
 Alatt: Why would n't he win? He has the 
 prayers of the people with him. 
 
 Lady: He has God with him. 
 
 Owen: He has Sarsfield with him. 
 
 Lady: Oh! who will go to the King? who 
 will go for news of the King? 
 
 Oiven: I will go. 
 
 Lady: Yes, go, go! Here, take these to give 
 to the King's men. {She gives him cockades.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Do not go until we are sure 
 is the battle over. The last of a feast is better 
 than the first of a fight. 
 
 Owen: I will go now. I delayed long enough. 
 I wish I had gone in time for the fighting. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Well, since he is the winner 
 — a friend in Court is better than a coin in the 
 pocket — it might be for profit. 
 
 {Owen begins washing hands and face in 
 a basin. Puts on coat. Sailors bring 
 up an armful of bottles from cellar.) 
 
 Matt: {Still on the floor, seizing a bottle.) 
 Here 's to the King's health, I say! 
 
 {The sailors give him glasses; he opens bottle, 
 fills them, and they hand them round.)
 
 The White Cockade 93 
 
 Lady: {Touching glass with her lips, and throw- 
 ing it down.) The King and the King's right! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: The King and the Catholics 
 in fashion! 
 
 Owen: The King that fought the battle! 
 
 Sailors: The King-iand France! 
 
 Matt: The King and wine without duty! 
 
 All together: King James and Ireland! 
 
 All: {Singing) — 
 
 O well-tuned harp of silver strings, 
 O strong green oak, O shining Mars, 
 Our hearts' desire, fair James our King, 
 Our great Cuchulain in the war! 
 
 Curtain
 
 Act II 
 
 Scene I 
 
 Scene: A wood. James sitting on a camp stool. 
 He is richly dressed, and wears an Order. 
 Carter standing beside him. Sarsfield point- 
 ing with sword to a map on the ground. 
 
 Sarsfield: If your Majesty will look at the 
 plan I have marked on this map, you will 
 see how we can make up for the defeat of the 
 Boyne. The news we have had of William's 
 march makes it very simple. He will be in our 
 hands by morning. You know what we have to 
 do to-night. To morrow we shall be dictating 
 terms from Limerick. 
 
 James: Yes, yes, you told me all that. I 
 wonder if this wood is quite safe. {Looks round.) 
 
 Sarsfield: If our army had to fall back, it 
 fell back in good order. We have gims, stores, 
 horses. We have plenty of troops to strengthen 
 Athlone. We can keep the mass of the enemy 
 from passing the Shannon. 
 
 94
 
 The White Cockade 95 
 
 James: I hope the bridge we crossed that 
 last little river by has been broken so that no 
 one can follow us. 
 
 Sarsfield: Kilkenny must be strengthened too. 
 Waterford is loyal. Munster and Connacht are 
 safe. Our success will give us back Dublin. 
 In half an hour our horses will be rested. 
 We must be at Clonmel before midnight. 
 
 James: But there is a troop of William's 
 men somewhere about. We might fall into 
 their hands. 
 
 Sarsfield: They are in small divisions. We and 
 our few men will be more than a match for them. 
 
 James: Of course, of course; but we must 
 not risk our lives. 
 
 Carter: Not a doubt of it! The King's life 
 must not be put in danger! 
 
 Sarsfield: Danger! Who says that? Who said 
 it at the Boyne? Was it you drove the King 
 from the battle? Bad advisers! Bad advisers! 
 He who says "danger" is a bad adviser. 
 
 Carter: I did nothing — it was His Majesty's 
 own doing. 
 
 James: Yes, yes, of course. I am more than a 
 soldier. I have the whole kingdom to think of. 
 
 Carter: Not a doubt of it. But you and 
 I, Sarsfield, have only ourselves to think of. 
 
 Sarsfi£ld: You and I — may be — this dust 
 (Striking himself) — that dust of yours — has the
 
 96 The White Cockade 
 
 King's livery made us of the one baking? No, no; 
 there is some leaven in this dough. {To the King.) 
 Rouse yourself, sir. Put your hand to the work. 
 
 James: I suppose I must carry out this 
 plan of a surprise. 
 
 Sarsjield: That is right, sir. Carry it out 
 and the Boyne will be forgotten. 
 
 James: Is that some noise? (Starts.) 
 
 Sars field: It is but the trampling of our own 
 horses. 
 
 James: Just go, Sarsfield, and see to the 
 breaking of that bridge. If we are caught 
 here by those murderous Dutch, your plans 
 will be ended with a rope or a scaffold. 
 
 Sarsfield: 1 will send orders on to Clonmel. 
 The Boyne will be forgotten! — forgotten! 
 
 (Goes out.) 
 
 James: I hope Sarsfield knows what he 
 is talking about. 
 
 Carter: H'm — he may. 
 
 James: If we are sure of winning 
 
 Carter: Just so. 
 
 James: He says we are sure. 
 
 Carter: He does. 
 
 James: I .hope there will be not much more 
 fighting. 
 
 Carter: Or any. 
 
 James: That would be best; if they would 
 give in without a fight.
 
 The White Cockade 
 
 97 
 
 Carter: Best, indeed. 
 
 James: But if there is danger 
 
 Carter: There is always danger. 
 
 James: Of another battle 
 
 Carter: Or a surprise. 
 
 James : I would prefer to be elsewhere. 
 It is all very well for those who have a taste for 
 fighting. I had it once myself — when I was 
 a boy. But it has gone from me now with 
 the taste for green apples. 
 
 Carter: Not a doubt of it. 
 
 James: A king's life does not belong to himself. 
 
 Carter: He must not let it be taken. 
 
 James: He must not let it be risked. 
 
 Carter: That is what I meant. 
 
 James: Now if we had come to the sea 
 
 Carter: We would be handy to it. 
 
 James: If there were a French ship 
 
 Carter: And a fair wind. 
 
 James: We might — what is that? 
 
 {Owen's voice heard singing "The White 
 Cockade.'') 
 
 Carter: It is a friend — he is singing "The 
 White Cockade." 
 
 Owen: {Comes in singing) — 
 
 The heavy cloud is on the Gael, 
 But comely James will bring content. 
 
 James: Where are you going, boy? 
 
 VOL. II — 7
 
 98 The White Cockade 
 
 Owen: I am going looking for news of 
 King James. {Sits down and wipes his face.) 
 I'm after wringing my shirt twice, with respects 
 to you. I would not have walked so far for any 
 one living but the King! And it is bad news 
 of him I am after getting. 
 
 James: Then the defeat is known. What 
 did you hear? 
 
 Owen: I heard a great clattering of horses, 
 and then I heard a fife and drum — a tune they 
 were playing like this. 
 
 {Whistles " Lillibulero.") 
 
 James: The rebels are here! It is "Lilli- 
 bulero"! 
 
 Owen: Then I saw a troop of men and of 
 horses. 
 
 James: Were they Dutch? 
 
 Owen: They were not. They were as good 
 speakers as myself. Men from the north they 
 were, and they were giving out as they passed 
 that William had gained the day, and that King 
 James was running, and if they got him, they 
 would give his legs rest for a while. 
 
 James: Heavens! What a terrible threat! 
 
 Carter: Terrible, indeed! Is there no place 
 where we could be safe? 
 
 Owen: If you belong to King James, you 
 would be safe where I come from, and that is the 
 inn at the harbour of Duncannon.
 
 The White Cockade 99 
 
 James: The harbour! Do many ships come 
 in there? 
 
 Owen: There do not. But there is one in 
 it presently. 
 
 James: An English ship? 
 
 Owen: It is not, but a ship from France. But 
 if it is itself, it is not long it will be in it. 
 It will be sailing at sunrise. There will be a 
 boat coming from it after midnight, for the meat 
 my mother has them promised. 
 
 James: I must go to Duncannon! Look 
 here, boy, would it be safe if I — if the King 
 himself were to go there to-night? 
 
 Owen: Now that he is down, I think there is 
 not one in the place but would carry a hurt 
 dog if it belonged to King James. 
 
 James: But tell me — if — I only say ^7 the King 
 should come and should be seen by anyone — is 
 there any chance he would be known? 
 
 Owen: Every chance. Sure he is well known 
 by the songs. 
 
 James: By the songs? 
 
 Owen: {Singing) — 
 
 Curled locks like Angus of the Sidhe, 
 Friendly, brave, bright, loving, fair; 
 High hawk that gains the mastery, 
 Cupid in peace, a Mars in war! 
 
 James: {To Carter.) It will be safer not to
 
 100 The White Cockade 
 
 go till after dark. We must go quite quietly — 
 we must leave our men and horses at a dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Carter: That w^ll be best. 
 
 James : You must keep the inn clear, boy. 
 You must keep the French boat till I come — 
 till the King comes. He will knock at the door 
 before midnight. 
 
 Owen: Believe me he wdll get a good welcome! 
 If it was known he was coming there would be a 
 candle lighted in every harbour. 
 
 James: No, no candles. 
 
 Owen: I may as well be going now to make 
 all ready. {Goes out singing)- 
 
 Three times the fairest of the Scots, 
 My prince and my heart-secret, James, 
 Our treasure and our only choice — 
 The dariing Caesar of the Gael! 
 
 James: That was a good chance. We can go 
 on board at once, and slip away to France. T 
 have_done with this detestable Ireland. 
 
 {Kicks the ground.) 
 
 Carter: And I. {Kicks the ground.) 
 
 James: It might be as well 
 
 Carter: Well? 
 
 James: Not to mention anything- 
 Carter: I won't
 
 The White Cockade loi 
 
 James: That is, nothing more than the sending 
 of despatches to — here he is coming. 
 
 {Puts his finger to his lips. Carter nods. 
 Sars field comes in.) 
 
 Sarsfield: I have sent orders to Clonmel, 
 sir. A thousand of our men will have gathered 
 there to meet us at midnight. 
 
 James: I have changed my mind. I have had 
 messages. I knew France would not desert me. 
 There is a ship at Duncannon. I have des- 
 patches to send to King Louis. I will go to 
 Duncannon to-night, and not to Clonmel. 
 
 Sarsfield: We cannot afford that delay, sir. 
 We should lose the chance of surprising the 
 Dutch troop. 
 
 James: That is enough, General Sarsfield. 
 You will obey orders. 
 
 Sarsfield: Are they, sir, what is best for Ireland? 
 
 James: Yes, yes, of course. She is a very 
 good rod to beat England with. 
 
 Sarsfield: Whatever use you may put her 
 to, sir, you are bound to do your best for her 
 now. 
 
 James: Yes, yes, of course. 
 
 Sarsfield: The troops coming to us must not 
 be left to scatter again. They believe yet in the 
 King. They are siire he will not betray them 
 again 
 
 James: I am not betraying them. I am get-
 
 102 The White Cockade 
 
 ting them help from France. You need say 
 no more. When I think well of fighting I will 
 fight; when I think well of retreating I will 
 retreat. 
 
 {He walks to end of stage and looks at 
 himself in a hand-mirror.) 
 
 Carter: Not a doubt of it! I hope General 
 Sarsfield will loyally follow your Majesty's orders. 
 
 Sarsjield: Obey them? And what about Ire- 
 land — the lasting cry? Am I giving heed to the 
 lasting cry of luckless Ireland? Am I listening 
 to that? 
 
 Carter: You have sworn to obey the King. 
 
 Sarsfield: Just so, just so, we have sworn. — 
 He is our King — we have taken the oath. Well, 
 is not a feather in a hat as good a cry as 
 another? A feather in a hat, a King in a song: 
 
 The darling Caesar of the Gael, 
 The great Cuchulain of the War! 
 
 {Fife and drum heard playing "Lillibidero.'') 
 James: {Rushing back.) That is Lillibulero! 
 Oh, the rebels are coming! 
 
 Sarsfield: It is that troop we knew of. They 
 
 are not many. We have enough men to stand 
 
 against them. {Music heard, right.) 
 
 James: They are coming very close! 
 
 Carter: Here, sir, let us hide in the wood! 
 
 {They run left.)
 
 The White Cockade 103 
 
 James: They are coming this way ! 
 
 {They cross to right. Music follows.) 
 
 Carter: Is it an army or an echo? 
 
 {They run left again.) 
 
 James: {Clinging to Sarsjield.) It is all around 
 us! 
 
 Sarsfield: {Taking up cloak which James has 
 dropped.) I can offer your Majesty's ears the pro- 
 tection of this cloak. {Holds out cloak over them, 
 as music dies away.) 
 
 Scene II 
 
 Scene: Inn kitchen, much as before, but without 
 the barrel; night-time, candles burning. Owen 
 standing as if just come in. Matt and Mrs. 
 Kelleher with back to audience listening to him. 
 Old Lady sitting, her head in her hands, rocking 
 herself. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: The King beaten! Sure they 
 said first he had won. Well, the bottom comes 
 out of every riddle at the last! 
 
 Matt: I had it in my mind there was some great 
 misfortune coming upon us. I was trying to 
 hearten myself through the whole of the morning. 
 I give you my word, now, I am as sorry as if 
 there was one dead belonging to me! 
 
 Owen: Did you hear me, Lady, what I was 
 telling?
 
 104 The White Cockade 
 
 Lady: {Sitting up.) If it was true, it was a 
 dark story, a dark sorrowful story! 
 
 {She gets up and looks out of door into the 
 darkness.) 
 Owen: King James is beaten surely. 
 Lady: The King beaten, and the moon in the 
 skies not darkened! 
 
 Owen: Beaten and wandering. 
 Lady: The King beaten, and the fish not 
 dead in the rivers! 
 
 Owen: Beaten and wandering and hunted. 
 
 {Matt Kelleher gives a groan at the ejid 
 
 of each sentence.) 
 
 Lady: The King beaten, and the leaves on 
 
 the trees not withered ! {She turns from the door.) 
 
 The sun is a liar that rose in the east for victory. 
 
 What was the sun doing that day? Where was 
 
 God? Where was Sarsfield? 
 
 {SJie walks up and down, wringing her 
 hands.) 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It is what I was often saying, 
 there is nought in this world but a mist. 
 
 Lady: Where were the people that were wise 
 and learned? Where were the troop readying 
 their spears? Where are they till they smooth 
 out this knot for me? {Takes Owen by the 
 shoulders.) Why did not the hills fall upon the 
 traitors? Why did not the rivers rise against 
 them?
 
 The White Cockade 105 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Sit down now, Lady, for a while. 
 It 's no wonder you to be fretting, and your 
 lands and your means gone like froth on the 
 stream. Sure the law of borrowing, is the loan to 
 be broken. 
 
 Lady: I will not sit imder a roof and my King 
 under clouds. It is not the keening of one 
 plain I hear, but of every plain. The sea and 
 the waves crying through the harbour! The peo- 
 ple without a lord but the God of glory! Where 
 is he? Where is my royal Stuart? I will go 
 out crying after the King! {She goes out.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: But is it surely true, Owen, 
 that the King is coming to this house? 
 
 Owen: Sure and certain sure. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: If we had but known, to have 
 killed a sheep or a kid itself! I declare I would 
 think more of him now than when he had all 
 at his command. 
 
 Owen: It is likely, indeed, he found no good 
 table in the wood. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: The man without dinner is two 
 to supper. Well, the cakes are baked, and eggs 
 we have in plenty, and pork if we had but the 
 time to boil it, and a bit of corned beef. In- 
 deed if I had twenty times as much, I would n't 
 begrudge it to the King. 
 
 Matt : {Looking at bottles. ) There is good wine for 
 him anyway . The Frenchmen knew the best comer.
 
 io6 The White Cockade 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Mind yourself, now. 
 Matt: {Indignantly.) Do you think I would 
 take so much as one drop from what I have put 
 on one side for the rightful King? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Give me a hand to get down the 
 best delft. It 's well I had the barrels packed out 
 of the way. It 's getting on for midnight. He 
 might be here any time. 
 
 {Trampling of horses heard, and fife arid 
 drum playing '' Lillibulero.'') 
 Matt: What is that? Is it the King that is 
 coming? 
 
 Owen: It is not; but King William's men that 
 are looking for the King. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Keep them out of this! Foxes 
 in the hencoop! 
 ^Oweti: It is here they are coming, sure enough. 
 {Music cojues nearer. Mrs. Kelleher hur- 
 riedly puts food in cupboard and flings 
 a sack over bottles. Door is opened; two 
 men of William's army come in. They 
 have fife and drum.) 
 First Williamite: That is good ! I smell supper. 
 Second Williamite: We are lucky to find an 
 inn so handy. 
 
 First Williamite: I knew where the inn was. 
 I told the Newry troop to come meet us here. 
 {Turns to door.) Here, you lads, go and spread 
 yourselves here and there through the town:
 
 The White Cockade 107 
 
 don't go far; I will fire two shots when you are 
 wanted. {Voices outside.) "All right." "We'll 
 do that, sir." 
 
 Second Williamite: I don't think King James 
 is in these parts at all. 
 
 First Williamite: There is a French ship in 
 the harbour. He might be making for her. 
 
 Second Williamite: We will stop here anyway. 
 We have a good view of the pier in the moonlight. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: I am loath to disoblige you, 
 gentlemen, but you can't stop here to-night. 
 
 First Williamite: Why do you say that? Inns 
 were made to stop in. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: This is not an inn now — not 
 what you would rightly call an inn' — we gave 
 up business of late — we were stumbling under 
 the weight of it, like two mice under a stack. 
 
 First Williamite: I wouldn't think so small 
 a place would be so great a burden. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: A hen itself is heavy if you 
 carry it far. It 's best to give up in time. A 
 good run is better than a bad battle. We got 
 no comfort for ourselves — who is nearest the 
 church is not nearest the altar. 
 
 First Williamite: Quiet this woman, some of 
 you. Where is the man of the house? The hen 
 does n't crow when there is a cock in the yard — 
 you see, ma'am, I have proverbs myself. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {To Matt.) We must keep
 
 io8 The White Cockade 
 
 them out some way. {To Williamites.) There 
 are no beds for you to get. The beds are damp. 
 Are n't they, Matt ? 
 
 Matt: Damp, indeed — rotten with damp. 
 
 Owen: Damp and soaked with the drip from 
 the roof. 
 
 First Williamite: Beds! Are we asking for 
 beds? It is not often we feel a blanket over us, 
 thanks to King James. These chairs will do us 
 well. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: You don't know what lay on 
 those chairs last night! 
 
 First Williamite: What was that? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: A corpse — was n't it, Matt? 
 
 Matt: It was — a dead corpse. 
 
 Owen: Cold and dead. 
 
 First Williamite: {Contemptuously.) Corpses! 
 I was own brother to a corpse in the last scrim- 
 mage. A knock I got on the head. Sit down. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It is likely you don't know 
 what sickness did this one die of. Of a small- 
 pox — did n't it, Matt ? 
 
 Matt: It did. Of a pitted small-pox. 
 
 Owen: And it left lying there without a coffin. 
 
 First Williamite: It would be worse news if 
 it had got a wake that had left the house bare. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Bare! This is the house 
 that is bare! I have a bad husband, haven't I, 
 Matt ?
 
 The White Cockade 109 
 
 Matt: What 's that you are saying? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: A while drunk, a while in 
 fury, tearing the strings and going mad! {Giv- 
 ing him a nudge.) And a son that is a gam- 
 bler. {Owen starts, but she nudges him.) Two 
 hands scattering, and but one saving. They 
 spent all we had. There is nothing for you to 
 find in the house, I tell you. It 's hard to 
 start a hare out of an empty bush! 
 
 Second Williamite: (Taking sack off bottles.) 
 Here is something that looks better than holy 
 water. (Takes up bottle and micorks it.) 
 
 First Williamite: (Opening cupboard.) I see 
 the scut of a hare in this bush! 
 
 (Takes out meat.) 
 
 Second Williamite: (Drinking.) Faith, you 
 have a strong cellar. (Hands on bottle and 
 opens another.) Here, inn-keeper, have a glass of 
 youi own still — drink now to the King. 
 
 Matt: I will not. I will not touch one drop 
 from those bottles that are for 
 
 Second Williamite Drink, man; drink till 
 you are in better humour. 
 
 Matt: (Taking glass.) Well, if I do, I call 
 all to witness that I was forced to it! Four 
 against one, and forced! (Drinks and holds glass 
 out again.) And anyway, if I do (Drinks), it's 
 not to your master I am drinking, but to King 
 James!
 
 no The White Cockade 
 
 First Willi amite: Little I care! I'd drink 
 to any of them myself, if I had no other way to 
 get it. Dutch or Scotch, there 's no great 
 difference. If we had a King of our own, that 
 would be another story. 
 
 Second WiUiamite: You have taken your 
 job under William. 
 
 First WiUiamite: And am n't I doing the job, 
 drinking the wine of a Jacobite? To fight 
 for William by day, and to drink King James's 
 wine by night, isn't that doing double service? 
 
 Owen: {To Mrs. Kelleher.) I will go and turn 
 back those that were coming. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Do, and God be with you. 
 
 {He goes to door.) 
 
 First WiUiamite: Stop here, youngster, and 
 drink to the King. 
 
 Owen: I will not. 
 
 First WiUiamite: Well, stop and drink against 
 the King. 
 
 Owen: I must go. {Puts hand on latch.) 
 
 First WiUiamite: {Holdifig him.) You have 
 nothing to do that is so easy as this. 
 
 Owen: I have colts that are astray to put 
 back on the right road. 
 
 First WiUiamite: A fine lad like 3^ou to be run- 
 ning after colts, and King William wanting sol- 
 diers! Come, join our troop, and we'll make a 
 corporal of you.
 
 The White Cockade iii 
 
 Owen: Leave me alone. I have my own 
 business to mind. 
 
 Second Williamite: The drill would take that 
 stoop out of your shoulders. 
 
 First Williamite: It would, and straighten 
 his back. Wait till I drill you! I '11 give you 
 your first lesson. I '11 have you as straight as 
 a thistle before morning. See here now: left, 
 right; left, right; right about face. {He holds 
 him while the other swings him round.) ' 
 
 Second Williamite: Give him the balance- 
 step first. Now, youngster, balance step with- 
 out gaining ground. {Crooks up Owen's leg.) 
 See now, this way; stand straight or you 
 will fall over like a sack of potatoes. I 
 should get promotion now; I am training 
 recruits for King William. 
 
 Matt: {Who is by the window.) Let him go, 
 let him go. There are some persons coming. I 
 hear them. Who now would be coming here 
 so late as midnight? 
 
 Second Williamite: Are these our men ? 
 
 First Williamite: They are not. Our men 
 will be riding. 
 
 Owen: {Passionately.) Let me go. 
 
 Second Williamite: You are not through your 
 drill yet. Here now — {A knocking at the door.) 
 
 Matt: Customers, maybe. Wait till I open 
 the door.
 
 112 The White Cockade 
 
 [Owen: {To Mrs. Kelleher.) Don't let him 
 open it ! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: (Seizing him.) Leave opening 
 the door, Matt Kelleher! 
 
 Matt: Let me alone! I will open it. It 's 
 my business to open the door. 
 
 (He breaks from her.) 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Stop, I tell you! What are 
 you doing? (Whispers.) Don't you know that 
 it might be King James. 
 
 Matt: King James! The King outside in the 
 night and we not opening the door! Leave the 
 doorway clear! A welcome, a great welcome to 
 King James! 
 
 (Williamites start up and seize muskets. 
 
 Kelleher flings the door open. James 
 
 comes in, followed by Carter and 
 
 Sars field.) 
 
 Owen: (Shouting.) Are you come, strangers, 
 
 to join King William's men? 
 
 First Williamite: They are wearing the white 
 cockade ! 
 
 Second Williamite: They belong to James, sure 
 enough. , 
 
 Matt: (Seizing James's hand.) My thousand 
 welcomes to you! And tell me, now, which of 
 you is King James? 
 
 James: (Going back a step.) This is a trap! 
 Carter: Not a doubt of it!
 
 The White Cockade 113 
 
 First Williamite: Fire, fire quick! Bring back 
 our troop! 
 
 {They raise their muskets. Sars field rushes 
 
 past James, seizes the muskets which 
 
 they are raising so that they are pointed 
 
 at his own body.) 
 
 Sars field: Fire! Yes, here I am! Call back 
 
 your comrades to bury the King! 
 
 Matt: Shame! Shame! Would you kill the King? 
 First Williamite: We have orders to take him, 
 alive or dead. 
 
 Sarsfield: Back, back, put down your muskets! 
 Damn you ! Are these Dutch manners ? 
 
 First Williamite: You are our prisoner. We 
 must call our troop. 
 
 Sarsfield: {Pushing them back angrily.) Dutch 
 manners! I swear I will not go to prison on 
 an empty stomach! Supper, host, supper! Is a 
 man to be sent empty to his death, even if 
 he be a King? 
 
 First Williamite: We have orders. We are 
 King William's men. 
 
 Sarsfield: Whoever you are, I will sup here 
 to-night. Hiury, host, hurry. What have you 
 there? Here is a follower of mine who is always 
 hungry. {Pointing at Carter.) What have you 
 here? Beef — good — and bread. 
 
 {Williamites go and stand at door with 
 muskets ready.) 
 
 VOL. II— 8
 
 114 The White Gxkade 
 
 Matk (Bffniz': I ji^.e, mdeed--diat is, 
 I had. I r. 1 r :;■ These iraiixffs came — 
 it fsdl-i - 
 
 Mrs. K Yoa have 
 
 :. With yoar 
 .: hiVv : : your King 
 
 To Carter.) Give ~ r _ 
 
 Hott: \^ 
 forgive! To i>e:riy —y ?; — g. Cz.. zz.. I'z.'. 
 It 's the drink ±z.-. iii i: 
 
 Sarsfidd: Tzj.z~:i'. If- I firrive. 
 
 J5'^- Tz^:z — - l^r. O i^r rzz: -zzil I 
 
 
 5: . To First W I z . 
 
 ' zirz.:zT 'Z^. War^ri: ;- - . : ,: 
 
 : yi- ::: :.. I: so, y:u
 
 The White Cockade 115 
 
 First Williamite: We were not in that battle. 
 We were at the Lagan. 
 
 Sars field: There were good fighters there 
 too. I am sorry they were not on our side. 
 I am sorry all the men of Ireland are not on the 
 one side. 
 
 First Williamite: It is best to be on the win- 
 ning side. 
 
 Sarsfi£ld: The winning side — which is it? 
 We think we know, but heaven and hell know 
 better. Ups and downs as with this knife {Balances 
 it on his finger.) Ups and downs. Winning and 
 losing are in the course of nature, and there 's no 
 use in crying. 
 
 First Williamite: Some one must be the winner. 
 
 Sarsfield: Ups and downs, ups and downs; 
 and we know nothing till all is over. He is 
 surely the winner who gets a great tombstone, 
 a figured monument, cherubs blowing trumpets, 
 angels' tears in marble — or maybe he is the 
 winner who has none of these, who but writes 
 his name in the book of the people. I would 
 like my name set in clean letters in the book 
 of the people. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {To James.) Take another bit 
 of the beef, sir; you are using nothing at all. You 
 might have hungry days yet. Make hay while 
 the sun shines. It is n't every day that Paddy 
 kills a deer !
 
 ii6 The White Cockade 
 
 James: {In a muffled voice.) I have eaten enough. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It is well you came before 
 these Northerners had all swept. It 's a rogue 
 of a cat would find anything after them. 
 
 James: {Lnpatiently.) I have had quite enough. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Look now, don't be down 
 heartened. Sure you must be sorry for the King 
 being in danger; but things might change. 
 It is they themselves might be dancing the back 
 step yet. There 's more music than the pipes. 
 The darkest hour is before the dawn. Every 
 spring morning has a black head. It 's a good 
 horse that never stumbles. The help of God is 
 nearer than the door. 
 
 James: Let me be. That is enough. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Turning away.) I knew he 
 had n't enough ate. It 's the hungry man does 
 be fierce. 
 
 Sars field: {To First Williamite.) I am sorry 
 not to be able to ask you, fellow-soldier, to 
 sit down with us. But I know you would 
 sooner let the bones show through your coat 
 than lower that musket that is pointing at 
 me. . 
 
 First Williamite: I hope you won't take it 
 unkindly, your Majesty. I am but obeying 
 orders. 
 
 Sarsfield: You are right; you are very right 
 in not sitting down. Suppose now you were
 
 The White Cockade 117 
 
 sitting here, and the door unguarded, and the 
 King should make his escape 
 
 First Williamite: Your Majesty would not get 
 very far — we have other men. 
 
 Sarsfield: Who knows? There are ups and 
 downs. A King is not as a common man — the 
 moon has risen — there are horses not far off — • 
 he might gallop through the night. 
 
 First Williamite: He would be overtaken. 
 
 Sarsfield: He might gallop — and gallop — 
 and a few friends would know the sound and 
 would join him here and there. He might go 
 on very fast, away from the harbour, past 
 the wood, his men gathering to him as he 
 passed — to Clonmel 
 
 Second Williamite: Clonmel is full of King 
 James's men, sure enough. 
 
 Sarsfield: And then, with all that gather to 
 him there, he would go quietly, very quietly, very 
 quickly to the Gap of the Oaks 
 
 Second Williamite: Listen. That is where the 
 convoy stops to-night. 
 
 Sarsfield: A little camp— four hundred horses 
 well saddled, two hundred waggons with powder 
 enough to blow up the Rock of Cashel — and 
 in the middle of all, the yolk of the egg — the 
 kernel of the nut — the pip of the orange. 
 
 Second Williamite: He knows that, too. He 
 knows King William is making that secret march.
 
 ii8 The White Cockade 
 
 Sarsfield: A shout — the King! Sarsfield — 
 Ireland! — before there is time to pull a trigger, 
 we have carried off the prize — we have him to 
 treat "\Aith inside the walls of Limerick. We 
 send the Dutchman back to his country. Will 
 you go with him to the mud-banks, comrades, 
 or will you stop in Ireland with your own King? 
 
 First Williamite: The King will win yet. I 
 would never believe that he gave the word to 
 run from the Boyne. 
 
 Sarsfield: Now, if I were the King 
 
 Matt: Sure you are King yet, for all I did 
 to destroy you, God forgive me! 
 
 Sarsfield: That is true — yes, yes. I am a 
 King to-night, even though I may not be one 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Owen: {Who has been listening eagerly.) It 
 must be a wonderful thing to be a King! 
 
 Sarsfield: Wonderful, indeed — if he have the 
 heart of a King — to be the son and grandson 
 and great-grandson of Kings, the chosen and 
 anointed of God. To have that royal blood 
 coming from far off, from some source so high 
 that, like the water of his palace fountain, 
 it keeps breaking, ever breaking away from 
 the common earth, starting up as if to reach 
 the skies. How else would those who are not 
 noble know when they meet it what is royal 
 blood?
 
 The White Cockade 119 
 
 First Williamite: I would know in any place 
 that this King has royal blood. 
 
 Second Williamite: It is easy to see among 
 these three which of them is King. 
 
 Sarsfield: {Looking at James.) A wonderful 
 thing! If he have the high power of a King, 
 or if he take the counsel that should be taken by 
 a King. To be a King is to be a lover — a 
 good lover of a beautiful sweetheart. 
 
 First Williamite: I suppose he means the 
 coimtry, saying that. 
 
 Second Williamite: I am sure he must have a 
 heart for Ireland. 
 
 Sarsfield: He goes out so joyous, so high of 
 heart, because it is never possible for him to 
 do any deed for himself alone, but for her as well 
 that is his dear lady. She is in his hands; he 
 keeps them clean for her; it is for her he holds 
 his head high ; it is for her he shows courtesy to 
 all, because he would not have rude voices raised 
 about her. 
 
 Second Williamite: The Dutchman would not 
 have those thoughts for Ireland. 
 
 Mrs. Kellaher: It 's not from the wind he got it. 
 Mouth of ivy and heart of holly. That is what 
 you would look for in a King. 
 
 Sarsfield: If she is in trouble or under sorrow, 
 this sweetheart who trusts him, that trouble, God 
 forgive him, brings him a sort of joy ! To go out,
 
 120 The White Cockade 
 
 to call his men, to give out shouts because the 
 time has come to show what her strong lover can 
 do for her — to go hungry that she may be fed; 
 to go tired that her dear feet may tread safely; 
 to die, it may be, at the last for her with such 
 glory that the name he leaves with her is better 
 than any living love, because he has been faithful, 
 faithful, faithful! 
 
 First Williamite: (Putting down musket.) I 
 give up the Dutchman's pay. This man is the 
 best. 
 
 Second Williamite: He is the best. It is as 
 good to join him. 
 
 Owen: I will follow him by every hard road 
 and every rough road through the whole world. 
 
 Matt: I will never drink another drop till 
 he has come to his rights! I would sooner 
 shrivel up like a bunch of seaweed! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It is what I was often saying, 
 the desire of every heart is the rightful King. 
 
 First Williamite: We will follow you! We 
 will send our comrades away when they come, 
 or we will turn them to you! 
 
 Second Williamite: We will fight for you five 
 times better than ever we fought for the 
 Dutchman. We will not let so much as a scratch 
 on one belonging to you — even that lean-jawed 
 httle priest at the end of the table. 
 
 {Points at James.)
 
 The White Cockade 121 
 
 Sars field: {Rising.) That is right. I knew 
 you were good Irishmen. Now, we must set 
 out for Clonmel. 
 
 James: No, no; we cannot go. We must 
 wait for the men from the French ship. 
 
 Sarsfield: Write your orders to them. Tell 
 them to come round, and bring us help at 
 Limerick. 
 
 James: It would be best to see them. 
 
 Sarsfield: No time to lose! This good woman 
 will give the letter safely. 
 
 {Carter reluctantly gets out pen and paper. 
 James begins to write. The door opens 
 and the old Lady appears.) 
 
 Owen: It is the poor Lady. 
 
 Matt: {To Sarsfield.) The poor Lady Dereen, 
 your Majesty, that lost all for the Stuarts. 
 
 Owen: Come in. Lady, come; the King himself 
 is here. King James. 
 
 Lady: The King! And safe! Then God has 
 heard our prayers! 
 
 Owen: Come now. Lady; tell your story to 
 the King. {Leads her to Sarsfield.) 
 
 Lady: I lost all for Charles. I will get 
 all back from James. Charles was great ; James 
 will be greater! See here I have the King's own 
 seal. 
 
 Sarsfield: That is the seal indeed. The King 
 will honour it when he comes to his own.
 
 122 The White Cockade 
 
 Lady: No more beggary; no more wandering. 
 My white halls again; my kinsmen and my 
 friends! 
 
 Sarsfield: {To James.) Have we any token 
 to give this poor distracted lady? 
 
 James: Give her a promise. We have nothing 
 else to part with. 
 
 Sarsfield: {Taking off his ring.) Here, Lady; 
 here is a ring. Take this in pledge that the 
 King will pay you what he owes. 
 
 Lady: {Taking it.) Is it the sunrise? See how 
 
 it shines! I knew the lucky sun would rise at 
 
 last. I watched in the east for it every morning. 
 
 {She childishly plays with the ring.) 
 
 Matt: Would n't you thank the King now, 
 Lady, for what he is after giving you? 
 
 Lady: I had forgotten. I forgot I was in the 
 Court! I was dreaming, dreaming of hard, long 
 roads and little houses — little dark houses. I for- 
 got I was at Whitehall. I have not been to 
 Whitehall for a long time to kiss the King's hand. 
 {She gives her stick to Owen, and stands very tall 
 and straight.) I know the Court well. I re- 
 member well what to do. A curtsy to the 
 right to the Queen {curtsies) ; a curtsy to the left 
 to the princesses {curtsies.) Now I kneel to kiss 
 the King's hand. {She sweeps her dress back as if 
 it were a train and kneels. Sarsfield gives her his 
 hand; she puts her lips to it. She gets up uncertain
 
 The White Cockade 123 
 
 arid tottering, and cries out) — You have befooled 
 me! That is not the King's hand; that is no 
 Stuart hand ; that is a lucky hand — a strong, lucky- 
 hand ! 
 
 Sarsfield: You have forgotten, Lady. It was 
 a long time ago. 
 
 Lady: That is no Stuart voice! {Peers at 
 him.) That is no Stuart face ! Who was it said 
 the King is here? {She looks into Carter' s face.) 
 That is no King's face. {Takes his hand.) That 
 is no royal hand. {Going to James.) Let me 
 look at your face. {He turns away.) Let me 
 look at your hand. 
 
 James: Do not touch me! Am I to be pest- 
 ered by every beggar that comes in? 
 
 Lady: {In a shriek.) That is the voice ! That 
 
 is the voice! {Seizes his hand.) That is the hand! 
 
 I know it — the smooth, white, unlucky Stuart hand ! 
 
 {James starts up angrily. Williamites have 
 
 gone to listen at the door. " Lillibulero" 
 
 is heard sung outside) — 
 
 Dey all in France have taken a swear, 
 
 Lillibulero bullen a la! 
 Dat dey will have no Protestant heir; 
 
 Lillibulero bullen a la! 
 
 Lero, lero, lero, lillibulero bullen a la! 
 
 Though by my shoul de English do prate, 
 Lillibulero bullen a la!
 
 124 The White Cockade 
 
 De laws on dere side, and Christ knows what : 
 Lillibulero bullen a la! 
 Lero, lero, lero, lillibulero bullen a la ! 
 
 First Williamite: It is the Newry troop! 
 
 Owen: {Bolting door and putting his back to it.) 
 They must not see the King! 
 
 Second Williamite: It is too late to escape. 
 We will fight for you. 
 
 Matt: {Going to door and putting his back to it.) 
 Believe me I won't let them in this time. 
 
 Sarsfield: {Drawing sword and going before 
 James.) We will cut our way through them. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Pushing back dresser and open- 
 ing door.) It 's a poor mouse that would n't have 
 two doors to its hole! {She pushes James and 
 Carter in. Sarsfield stands at it.) Go in now. 
 When all is quiet, you can get through to the 
 pier. 
 
 Voice of Williamite Captain outside: {With a 
 bang at door.) Open! I say! 
 
 Matt: {Rattling at door while he keeps it fast.) 
 Sure, I 'm doing my best to open it — if I could 
 but meet with the latch. 
 
 Voice: Open, open! 
 
 Matt: I have an unsteady hand. I am after 
 taking a little drop of a cordial — 
 
 {Another bang at door.) 
 
 Owen: I '11 quench the light !
 
 The White Cockade 125 
 
 (Blows out candles. Sarsfield has followed 
 James. Mrs. Kelleher is pushmg 
 dresser back to its place. The door is 
 burst open.) 
 
 Captain: Who is here? 
 
 Matt: Not a one in the world, Captain, but 
 myself and herself, and the son I have, and a 
 few men of King William's army. 
 
 First Williamite: We are here, sir, according to 
 orders. 
 
 Captain: Strike a light! {Williamite strikes 
 it and lights candle.) What is going on here? 
 
 First Williamite: We are watching the pier, sir. 
 
 Captain: Why are the lights out? 
 
 Matt: It was I myself, sir — I will confess all. 
 It was not purposely I did it. I have an un- 
 steady hand; it was to snuff them I was striving. 
 
 Captain: Have you any news of King James? 
 
 First Williamite: Great news! 
 
 Captain: What is that? 
 
 First Williamite: He was seen to the east — up 
 in the wood. 
 
 Captain: We must follow him at once. 
 
 First Williamite: It is said he is going north — 
 on the road to — Wexford! 
 
 Curtain
 
 Act III 
 
 Scene: The pier at Duncannon the same night. 
 James and Carter talking together. 
 
 James: Upon my word, I am as glad to es- 
 cape from that dark cellar as I was to get into it 
 an hour ago. 
 
 Carter: I wonder how long Sarsfield will be 
 away gathering his men. 
 
 James: It should take him a little time; but 
 one never knows with him when he may appear. 
 He makes me start up. He has no feeling for 
 repose, for things at their proper time, for the 
 delicate, leisurely life. He frets and goads me. 
 He harries and hustles. I hear him now! {Starts.) 
 
 Carter: It is only the French sailors taking 
 
 away another barrel of their meat from the cellar. 
 
 {French sailors enter from left, singing as 
 
 before. They roll a barrel away to right.) 
 
 James: The long and the short of it is, it 
 
 will not be my fault if I spend another night 
 
 in this abominable island. 
 
 Carter: That is good news indeed. 
 
 126
 
 The White Cockade 127 
 
 James: The only difficulty is how to get away. 
 
 Carter: Why, your Majesty has but to get 
 into the ship. 
 
 James: Ah, if I could once get into it! But 
 the question is how am I to escape — from 
 Sarsfield? Of course he is under my orders. I 
 made him obey orders when we left the Boyne. 
 But since then there is something about him — 
 some danger in his eye, or in the toss of his head. 
 Of course, I am in no way afraid of him. 
 
 Carter: Of course not, indeed. 
 
 James: But for all that, when he begins draw- 
 ing maps with a flourish of his sword {Mimics 
 Sarsfield). or talking as if he were giving out the 
 Holy Scriptures, there is something — a something 
 — that takes away my strength, that leaves me 
 bustled, marrowless, uncertain. 
 
 Carter: Not a doubt of it. 
 
 James: I am resolved I will strike a blow for 
 myself. I will take my own way. I will be King 
 again. I will be my own master! I am deter- 
 mined that here, this moment, before he has time 
 to come back, before I cool, before my blood 
 goes down, I will make these sailors take me 
 into their boat and row me out to the ship. 
 
 Carter: Well said, indeed. 
 
 James: When Sarsfield comes back to this pier, 
 if he wants to preach to me again, he will have to 
 swim for it!
 
 128 The White Cockade 
 
 Carter: Ha, ha, very good ! 
 
 {Enter sailors from right.) 
 James: {To sailors.) Here, my men. I must 
 go to the ship at once. You must take me in 
 your boat. 
 
 First sailor: Boat not ready yet, sir. More 
 meat, more pork, more sau-sa-ges. 
 
 James: I must go at once. Here, I will give 
 you money if you will take me at once. 
 
 Sailor: Give it now, sir, and I will take you 
 {James gives it) — after one more barrel. 
 James: At once! 
 
 Sailor: At once, sir. Only one more barrel. I 
 will not be two, three minutes. You go, sir, 
 wait in the boat. We will follow you very quick. 
 
 {They go left.) 
 James: Come to the boat at once. Carter. We 
 shall be safe there. Oh, once at sea I shall be 
 King again! 
 
 Carter: Not a doubt of it! 
 
 James: Come, come, no time to lose! 
 
 {They turn right. Music is heard from right, 
 
 *' Lillibidero'' suddenly turning into 
 
 " White Cockade." The two Williamites 
 
 appear playing fife and drum, Owen 
 
 with them.) 
 
 First Williamite: That is right! We are 
 
 changing the tune well now. We had to keep 
 
 up the old one so long as our Newry comrades
 
 The White Cockade 129 
 
 were within hearing. That they may have a quick 
 journey to Wexford! Now for the white cockade! 
 {Owen gives them each one, and they put 
 them in their hats.) 
 
 Owen: You did well, getting leave to come 
 back and to watch the pier. 
 
 Second Williamite: So we will watch it well 
 
 James: Let me pass if you please. 
 
 First Williamite: Where are you going, my 
 little priest? 
 
 James: I am going on my own business. 
 Let me pass. 
 
 First Williamite: I don't know about that. 
 I have orders to watch the pier. Double 
 orders. Orders from King William to let no 
 one leave it, and orders to let no one come 
 near it, from King James. 
 
 James: I tell you I am going on King James's 
 basiness. 
 
 First Williamite: He will be here in a min- 
 ute. He is gathering men and horses below 
 to the west of the town. Wait till he comes. 
 
 James: No, no, I cannot wait. {Tries to 
 get through.) 
 
 First Williamite: You will have to wait. 
 No hurry! The Mass can't begin without you! 
 
 James: I can make you let me go with 
 one word. 
 
 Second Williamite: {Catching hold of him.) 
 
 VOL. II— 9
 
 130 The White Cockade 
 
 Faith, I can hold you without any word at 
 all. 
 
 James: {Wrenching hhnself free.) Back, fool, 
 back. I am the King! 
 
 Both the Williamites: Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! 
 
 Second Williamite: O the Har! 
 
 Carter: You must believe His Majesty. 
 
 First Williamite: I do, as much as I believe 
 you yourself to be Patrick Sarsfield. 
 
 Oiven: That Patrick Sarsfield! 
 
 Carter: How dare you doubt that this is 
 the King? 
 
 First Williamite: I don't. I have no doubt 
 at all upon the matter. I wouldn't believe 
 it from Moses on the mountain. 
 
 James: You common people cannot re- 
 cognise high blood. I say I am the King. You 
 would know it quickly enough if you could 
 see me in my right place! 
 
 First Williamite: We might. Your reverence 
 would look well upon the throne. Here, boys, 
 make a throne for His Majesty. {They cross 
 ha-nds and put him up as if on a throne.) Hur- 
 rah! This is the third King we have shouted 
 for within the last six hours! 
 
 James: Let me down, I say! 
 
 First Williamite: Throw out gold and silver 
 to the crowd! Every King throws out gold 
 and silver when he comes to the throne!
 
 The White Cockade 131 
 
 Second Williamite: Give us oiir fee! Give 
 us an estate! I would like mine in the 
 County Meath. 
 
 First Williamite: Can you touch for the 
 evil? Here is a boy that has the evil! We '11 
 know you are a King if you can cure the evil! 
 All: Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! 
 James: Let me down, traitors! 
 
 {A sound of keening heard.) 
 Owen: Here is the poor Lady. 
 
 {She comes in keening. They put down the 
 King.) 
 James: Here is a witness for me. She 
 knew me last night. 
 
 Carter: She knew the true King's hand. 
 James: Lady Dereen, you knew me last 
 night. Tell these fools what they will not believe 
 from me, that I am the King. 
 
 {She begins keening again.) 
 James: {Touching her arm.) Look at me. 
 Am I not a Stuart? Touch my hand. Am I not 
 the King? 
 
 {He holds out his hand; she takes it, looks 
 
 vacantly at it, drops it, and is silent for 
 
 a minute.) 
 
 Lady: {Crying out.) The King! There is 
 
 no King! The King is dead; he died in the 
 
 night! Did you not hear me keening him? 
 
 My lord is dead, and my kinsmen are dead,
 
 132 The White Cockade 
 
 and my heart is dead; and now my King is 
 dead! He gave his father a bad burying; 
 we will give him a good burying — deep, deep, 
 deep. Dig under the rivers, put the mountains 
 over him; he will never rise again. He is dead, 
 he is dead! {She sits down rockifig herself and 
 sings.) 
 
 Ochone, ochone, my pleasant Stuart; 
 Ochone, heart-secret of the Gael! 
 
 {Sarsfield comes in hurriedly, motio?is 
 them all back. Speaks to James.) 
 
 Sarsfield: All is well, sir. Our men are com- 
 ing in fast. There are two hundred of them to 
 the west of the harbour. We are late for the 
 surprise — that chance is gone; but we can 
 bring good help to hearten Limerick. The 
 King's presence will bring out the white 
 cockade hke rush-cotton over the bogs. 
 
 James: Yes, yes; very good, very good. 
 
 Sarsfield: Are you ready, sir? 
 
 James: Oh, yes, ready, very ready — to leave 
 this place. 
 
 Sarsfield: This way, sir, this way! 
 
 James: I know the way; but I have left my 
 papers — papers of importance — in that cellar. I 
 must go back and get them. 
 
 Sarsfield: Now William's troop has left, I
 
 The White Cockade 133 
 
 will have the horses brought to the very edge 
 of the pier — all is safe now. 
 
 James: Yes, yes, I am sure there is no danger. 
 Yes, go for the horses; take care they are well 
 saddled. 
 
 {He goes out left; Sarsfield right. Matt and 
 Mrs. Kelleher come on from left.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: And is it true, Owen, my son, 
 that you are going following after the Eang? 
 
 Owen: It is true, surely. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: You that would never stir from 
 the hearth to be taking to such hardship! Well, 
 I would n't Hke to be begrudging you to the 
 King's service. What goes out at the ebb comes 
 in on the flood. It might be for profit. 
 
 Matt: Here is the belt your grandfather 
 owned, and he fighting at Ross; pistols there are 
 in it. Do your best now for the King. I '11 drink 
 — no, I swore I would never drink another drop 
 till such time 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: There is my own good cloak 
 for you — there is something in the pocket you will 
 find no load. {Owen puts on cloak and belt.) And 
 here 's cakes for the journey — faith, you '11 be as 
 proud now as a cat with a straddle! 
 
 Owen: You will hear no story of me but a 
 story you would like to be listening to. Believe 
 me, I will fight well for the King. 
 
 {Sailors come from left, rolling a very large
 
 134 The White Cockade 
 
 barrel; they are singing tlieir song. 
 Carter is walking after it.) 
 
 Matt: Stop there! What is that barrel you 
 are bringing away? 
 
 Sailor: It is one bacon-barrel. 
 
 Matt: It is not. It is one of my big wane 
 barrels. 
 
 Sailor: Oh, ah ! I assure you there is meat in it. 
 
 Matt: {Putting his hand on it.) Do you 
 think I would not know the size of one of my 
 own barrels if I met with it rolling through the 
 stars? That is a barrel that came from France, 
 and it full of wine. 
 
 Carter: (To sailors.) Go on with the barrel. 
 
 Matt: 1 will not let it go! Why would I let 
 my good wine go out of the country, even if I can 
 have no more than the smell of it myself? Bring 
 it back to the cellar, I say, and go get your 
 meat. 
 
 Carter: It must be taken to the ship. It is 
 the King's wish. 
 
 Matt: The King's wish? If that is so — where 
 is the King, till I ask him? {Looks around.) 
 
 Carter: I tell you it must go. I will pay 
 you for it — here is the money. What is its worth? 
 
 Matt: WeU, if you pay fair, I have nothing to 
 say. If it was to the King himself it was going, 
 I would take nothing at all. He would be 
 welcome.
 
 The White Coekade 135 
 
 Carter: {Giving money.) Here, here. {To 
 sailors.) Go on, now; hurry! Be careful! 
 
 First Williamite: It is a pity now, to see good 
 wine leaving the country, and a great drouth on 
 the King's good soldiers. 
 
 Second Williamite: He should not begrudge 
 us a glass, indeed. It will strengthen us for 
 all we will have to do at Limerick. {Puts his hand 
 on barrel.) 
 
 Carter: This belongs to me! This is my 
 property. If you commit robbery, you must 
 account to the King! 
 
 Matt: . Look here, I have still-whiskey in a 
 jar. I brought it out to give you a drop to put 
 courage into you before you would go. That is 
 what will serve you as well. 
 
 First Williamite: We will let the barrel go, 
 so. 
 
 Second Williamite: We could bring away the 
 jar with us. I would sooner have wine now to 
 drink the King's health. 
 
 Lady: {Standing up, suddenly, and coming in 
 front of barrel.) Wine, wine, for the King's 
 wake ! 
 
 Second Williamite: Listen to her! That is 
 a good thought. We will drink to the King 
 living, and she will drink to him dead. 
 
 Lady: {To Matt.) "Wine, wine, red wine! 
 Do you grudge it for the King's wake? White
 
 136 The White Cockade 
 
 candles shining in the sides, red ^ine for the 
 King's pall-bearers! 
 
 {She lifts up her hands.) 
 First Williamite: She is right, she is right. 
 {To Matt.) Since you yourself turned sober, you 
 are begrudging wine for the King! Here! 
 
 {Tilts up barrel. A snuffled groan is heard 
 from inside.) 
 Second Williainite: That is a queer sort of a 
 gurgling the French wine has — there is ferment 
 in it yet. Give me an awl till I make a hole. 
 
 {Another stifled groan.) 
 Carter: Oh, oh, oh, oh! 
 
 {Puts his cloak over his ears, and retires to 
 back.) 
 First Williamite: {Taking out bayonet.) Here, 
 let me at it! 
 
 {Knocks head off barrel; Carter giving short 
 groans at every stroke.) 
 Carter: Oh! be gentle. 
 
 First Williamite: Never fear. I have no mind 
 to spill it. {Takes off top.) 
 
 {The King stajids up, pale and shaking. 
 His cloak has fallen off, and chain 
 and Order are displayed.) 
 First Williamite: It is the little priest! 
 Second Williamite: Is he King yet? Or fairy? 
 Matt: {Looking in.) Would any one, now, be- 
 lieve that he has drunk the barrel dry !
 
 The White Cockade 137 
 
 First Williamite: I wish I had been in his 
 place. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It is trying to desert he was. 
 That 's as clear as a whistle. 
 
 Owen: The traitor! Wanting to desert the 
 King! 
 
 Matt: But will any one tell me now, what in 
 the wide world did he do with all the wine? 
 
 Lady: Is not that a very strange coffin, a 
 very strange coffin to have put about a King? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Here is King James! 
 
 {They all turn to right. Sarsfield comes 
 in. He stands still.) 
 
 Owen: Deserting your Majesty, he was! 
 
 Matt: Making away in my barrel! 
 
 First Williamite: Having drunk all the wine! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Let a goat cross the threshold, 
 and he '11 make for the altar! 
 
 Sarsfield: {Taking off his hat.) Your Majesty ! 
 
 James: I wish. General Sarsfield, you would 
 control this dangerous rabble 
 
 All: Sarsfield! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Who are you at all? 
 
 Sarsfield: I am Patrick Sarsfield, a poor soldier 
 of King James. 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: And where, in the name of 
 mercy, is King James? 
 
 Sarsfield: You are in His Majesty's presence. 
 {He goes to help James out oj barrel.)
 
 138 The White Cockade 
 
 All together: That His Majesty! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: It seems to me we have a 
 wisp in place of a broom. 
 
 Owen: Misfortune on the fools that helped 
 him! 
 
 First Williamite: Is it for him we gave up 
 William? 
 
 Matt: And that I myself gave up drink! 
 
 Sarsfield: {Who has helped the King out of 
 the barrel, takes him by the hand.) Any roughness 
 that was done to the King was done, I am sure, 
 unknowingly. But now, if there are any Uttle 
 whisperings, any hidden twitterings, as to what 
 His Majesty has thought fit to do, it is I myself 
 who will give a large answer! {He unsheaths 
 sword.) 
 
 James: I have business in France. You may 
 stay here. General Sarsfield, if you will. But 
 I will lead you no longer; I will fight no more 
 for these cowardly Irish. You must shift for 
 yourselves; I will shift for myself. 
 
 Carter: Not a doubt of it! 
 
 James: {Goifig off, stops and turns.) When 
 I come back as a conqueror, with my armies 
 and my judges, there are some I may pardon — 
 my servants who deserted me, my daughters who 
 turned against me. But there are some I will 
 never forgive, some I will remember now and 
 ever, now and for ever — those of you who
 
 The White Cockade 139 
 
 stopped the barrel, those who tilted it up, and 
 those who opened it! 
 
 {He goes out right followed by Sarsfield 
 
 and sailors. Owen, throwing off cloak 
 
 and belt, and tearing cockade from 
 
 his hat, throws himself down and begins 
 
 to play jackstones as in First Act.) 
 
 Lady: {Turning to face the other way.) Where 
 
 is the sun? I am tired of looking for it in 
 
 the east. The sun is tired of rising in the east; 
 
 it may be in the west it will rise to-morrow! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Gone is he? My joy be with 
 him, and glass legs under him! Well, an empty 
 house is better than a bad tenant. It might be 
 for profit. 
 
 Matt: {Taking up jar.) Well, I am free from 
 my pledge, as the King says, now and ever, now 
 and for ever! {Drinks from jar.) No more 
 pledges! It 's as well to be free. {He sits down 
 beside Owen.) 
 
 First Williamite: "V\Tiich King are we best 
 with; the one we left or the one that left us? 
 
 Second Williamite: Little I care. Toss for it. 
 
 {Tosses a penny.) Heads, William; harps, James! 
 
 First Williamite: {Picking it up.) Heads it is. 
 
 {Taking cockade from his hat.) There *s good-bye 
 
 to the white cockade. 
 
 {He and the others throw cockades on the 
 ground, and walk off.)
 
 140 The White Cockade 
 
 Mrs. Kellcher: {To Owen.) And what will you 
 be doing, Owen? You will hardly go fighting 
 now. 
 
 Oweii: What business would I have fighting? 
 I have done with kings and makings of kings. 
 {Throws up jackstones and catches all.) Good, 
 that 's buttermilk ! 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: You are right; you are right. 
 It 's bad changing horses in the middle of a ford. 
 {She takes hack her cloak.) Is all safe in the 
 pocket? It 's long before I '11 part with it again — 
 once bit, twice shy. It might all be for profit. 
 
 {Sarsfield comes back. Stands still a minute, 
 holding hat in his hand. Lets sword 
 drop on the ground.) 
 
 Sarsfield: Gone, gone ; he is gone — he betrayed 
 me — ^he called me from the battle — he lost me 
 my great name — he betrayed Ireland. Who is 
 he? What is he? A King or what? {He pulls 
 feathers one by one from cockade.) King or knave 
 — soldier — sailor — tinker — tailor — beggarman — 
 thief! {Pulls out last feather.) Thief, that is it, 
 — thief. He has stolen away; he has stolen our 
 good name ; he has stolen our faith ; he has stolen 
 the pin that held loyalty to royalty! A thief, a 
 fox — a fox of trickery! {He sits down trembling.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Coming to him.) So you have 
 thrown away the white cockade, Sarsfield, the 
 same as Owen.
 
 The White Cockade 141 
 
 Sarsfield: {Bewildered.) The same as Owen? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Owen threw away the King's 
 cockade the same as yourself. 
 
 Sarsfield: Threw it away! What have I 
 thrown away? Have I thrown away the white 
 cockade? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: You did, and scattered it 
 
 (Sarsfield lifts his hat and looks at it.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: If you want another, they are 
 here on the ground as plenty as blackberries in 
 harvest. (Takes up a cockade.) 
 
 Sarsfield: Give it here to me. (He begins 
 putting it in his hat, his hand still trembling.) 
 
 Matt: You will go no more fighting for King 
 James! You are free of your pledge! We are 
 all free of our pledge! 
 
 Sarsfield: Where is my sword? 
 
 (Mrs. Kelleher gives it. He puts it in sheath.) 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: Look, now, the skin is nearer 
 than the shirt. One bit of a rabbit is worth two 
 of a cat. It 's no use to go looking for wool on 
 a goat. It 's best for you fight from this out 
 for your own hand and for Ireland. Why would 
 you go spending yourself for the hke of that of a 
 king? 
 
 Sarsfield: (Buckling on his sword-belt.) Why, 
 why? Who can say? What is holding me? 
 Habit, custom. What is it the priests say? — 
 the cloud of witnesses. Maybe the call of some
 
 142 The White Cockade 
 
 old angry father of mine, that fought two thousand 
 years ago for a bad master! {He stands up.) 
 Well, good-bye, good-bye. (To Mrs. Kelleher, 
 who is holding out cakes.) Yes, I will take these 
 cakes. {Takes them.) It is likely I will find 
 empty plates in Limerick. {Goes off.) 
 
 Lady: {To Mrs. Kelleher.) Is not that a 
 very foolish man to go on fighting for a dead king? 
 
 Mrs. Kelleher: {Tappi^ig her forehead.) In- 
 deed, I think there 's rats in the loft! 
 
 Lady: {Tapping her forehead.) That is it, 
 that is it — we wise ones know it. Fighting for 
 a dead king! — ha! ha! ha! Poor Patrick Sars- 
 field is very, very mad ! 
 
 Curtain
 
 THE DELIVERER 
 
 THIS ALSO IS FOR YOU JOHN QUINN 
 
 143
 
 Persons 
 Ard 
 Dan 
 Malachi 
 Ard's Wife 
 Dan's Wife 
 Malachi' s Wife 
 The King's Nurseling 
 A Steward 
 An Officer 
 One or More Soldiers 
 
 144
 
 Scene: Steps of a palace at the Inver oj the Nile. 
 At bottom of steps Ard, Dan, and Malachi are 
 mixing mortar and carrying stones. Music 
 and laughter heard from window of palace 
 above. Banners with Pharaoh's ensigns, hawk, 
 globe, and sun. The men are in poor clothes 
 and look tired 
 
 Dan: It is time for the women to be bring- 
 ing the dinner. I 'm near starved with the 
 hunger. 
 
 Ard: Here they are now bringing it. Where 
 would be the use them coming, and the bell not 
 to have rung? 
 
 {Bell rings. They all fling down what is 
 in their hands and throw themselves on 
 the ground.) 
 
 Malachi: I am racked with raising stones 
 and bearing them to their place. That is 
 work I never was reared to. 
 
 Dan: What call had our old fathers bringing 
 us away out of our own place? 
 
 Malachi: It was the time of the great hunger 
 
 VOL. II — 10 145
 
 146 The Deliverer 
 
 drove them away, the time the palmers on the 
 leaves had the crops entirely destroyed. 
 
 Ard: We would be better off there in hun- 
 gry times itself, than the way we are in this 
 place, with the over-government taking the hens 
 off the floor and the plates from the dresser, and 
 the bed itself from under us with their taxes and 
 with their rates. 
 
 Malachi: The time I was rising we were 
 treated fair enough. But the nice stock is all 
 done away with now, and buried and gone 
 to the grave. 
 
 Dan: It is a bad story for us they to be 
 wore away. 
 
 Malachi: There is nothing left in it at this 
 time but tyrants and schemers. 
 
 Dan: We to be back in our own country we 
 could knock a living out of it. It is only an 
 odd time the hunger makes headway. It is 
 often my father told me he had two horses 
 belonging to him, and they drawing loads for 
 eight of his first cousins. 
 
 Ard: If it is law it is bad law that keeps us 
 labouring out under the mad sun. A King of 
 Foreign to be getting his own profit through 
 our sweat, and we to be getting poor and 
 getting miserable. 
 
 Dan: If we had but the means to shape these 
 boards into some sort of a curragh, and to
 
 The Deliverer 147 
 
 put pins in it and to settle it with oars like, we 
 might go steer towards our own harbour. 
 
 Malachi: You have not the means to do it. 
 Sure at the time of the Flood they were a hun- 
 dred years making a bark. And if it took but 
 three ships or four to bring the twelve families 
 to this place, three times three would hardly 
 be enough to hold us at this time, and every 
 third man or so bringing a wife along with him. 
 
 Dan: There is a troop of ships out in the 
 Inver at this time, and scraping against the quay. 
 Speckled sails they were putting up and pull- 
 ing down a while ago. 
 
 Ard: It is the King's heir is after being put 
 in command of those ships, and he being come 
 to sensible years. There is talk of a young 
 queen is looking out from her window for him, 
 in Spain or Armenia or some place of the 
 sort. I was picking news out of a man of 
 the Egyptians a while ago. It is more than 
 that he was telling me. {The women come in.) 
 
 Dan: What is it you have for me, astore, 
 within in the fold of your shawl? 
 
 Dan's Wife: It is but a bit of cold stirabout. 
 
 Dan: It is made but of yellow meal. I 'm 
 in dread I might heave it up again. You 
 would n't have e 'er a drop of milk? 
 
 Dan's Wife: I thought to make kitchen with 
 an eel I chanced in the mud of the river, and I
 
 148 The Deliverer 
 
 filling a tin can at the brink. But there came a 
 cat of the King's cats into the house, and 
 snapped it off of the plate. I was afeard to 
 lay a hand on him, and he coming from the 
 place he did. 
 
 Malachi: You did well to lay no hand on 
 him. Those cats are a class in themselves. To 
 claw you they would, and bite you, and put 
 poison in your veins the same as a serpent, as 
 maybe they might be in the early time of the 
 world. 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: That 's right. I 'd sooner 
 the mice to be rimning in and out like chick- 
 ens than to bring one of them in on the 
 floor. 
 
 Ard: To gather here at the steps at the fall 
 of night they do, and to fight and to bawl for 
 the bits are thrown from the King's house. 
 
 Ard's Wife: To come into my own little street 
 a one of them did, and left me with nothing but 
 one bare duck. 
 
 Ard: It is made too much of they are en- 
 tirely. One of them to die at any time, to 
 cry and to keen him the owners will, the same 
 as they would a child or a human. 
 
 Dan: To meet with one of them in the 
 moonlight I did a while ago. I am not the 
 better of it yet. It went into some sort of a 
 hump, and said it had to walk its seven acres.
 
 The Deliverer 149 
 
 I give you my word you would say it to be as 
 big as an elephant. 
 
 Ard's Wife: I would n't doubt it, and all they 
 get thrown out from that kitchen. Sure the 
 rinsings of the plates in the servants' hall would 
 grease cabbage for the whole province. Every 
 day is Christmas in that house. 
 
 Ard: There is a grand supper to be in it 
 now that the King is come, and his big men 
 and his friends. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: Sure the world knows that. 
 It is likely it will be a feast will last through a 
 year and a day. 
 
 Ard: It will not but till to-morrow sometime, 
 when the King's nurseling will make his start in 
 the ships. 
 
 Ard's Wife: A hundred cooks that are in it, 
 boiling and roasting and mixing cakes, with cur- 
 rants and with caraway seeds. Sure the bacon 
 they have dressed in frying pans, you would 
 smell it through the seven parishes. 
 
 Dan: And ourselves dragging with hunger. 
 Nothing to eat or to fall back on. 
 
 Ard's Wife: It is the poor know all the troubles 
 of the world. 
 
 Malachi: To be a stranger and an exile, 
 that is the worst thing at all. The feet bending 
 under me, and no one belonging to me but God. 
 
 Ard: If it is law it is wrong law some to get
 
 150 The Deliverer 
 
 their seven times enough, and ourselves never 
 to get our half enough. 
 
 Dayi: We to be without a peck hardly upon 
 oiir bones, and that King to be nourished with 
 sweets and fooleries, and his stomach as big as 
 that you would n't know what to make of it. 
 
 Malachi: They would not leave us on the 
 face of the earth if it was n't that we do their 
 heavy work. 
 
 Dan: Is there another crumb of meal in 
 the handkerchief? 
 
 Dan's Wife: There is not, and no earthly thing 
 in the house itself, unless it might be a few 
 young nettles I put down to boil in the pot. 
 
 Dan: An ass that would go forage on the high- 
 way would get better provision, or the dogs that 
 go preying for themselves. 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: There is no nature in them at 
 all. 
 
 Ard: It is not right and it is not justice, 
 riches to be coming in to them, and they asleep 
 in the bed. 
 
 . Malachi: I would ask no riches at all besides 
 being in a little village of houses among my 
 own people, that would have a wish for my 
 bones. 
 
 Dan: That I may never sin, but I am 
 getting a smell I never felt since my grand- 
 father's time, the smell of a roasted goose !
 
 The Deliverer 151 
 
 Ard: It is a smell of wine I am getting, that 
 is giving me a twist-like in the heart. 
 
 Malachis Wife: You would know there to be 
 wine in it, and the laughing is among them, and 
 the stir. 
 
 Ard's Wife: There is one of them facing the 
 window — throw your eye on him now — a holy 
 circus for grandeur he is, and having a gold 
 chain about his neck. 
 
 Dan's Wife: He is very comely surely and 
 gay. A lovely dotey young man. 
 
 Ard: It is easy be comely and be light- 
 hearted, and want or trouble not to have 
 ever come anear you. 
 
 Malachis Wife: Who is he now? Is it he 
 himself is the King's son? 
 
 Dan's Wife: He should be that, and he so well- 
 shaped, and curls on every side of his poll, the 
 same as a ridge of peas. 
 
 Dan: Sure they all do have curls of that sort 
 in the King's house. I am told it is hair grew 
 on horses' necks, or maybe on the head of a 
 Corp. To shape it into rings-like they do, with a 
 bar-like would be reddened in among the coals. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: There is not a tailor or a 
 dressmaker in the district slept a wink these 
 seven nights, and all the grand suits were ordered 
 for this big day. 
 
 Dan's Wife: There is no one can become his
 
 152 The Deliverer 
 
 suit better than that King's son with the laugh 
 on his mouth. He should make joy for his lady 
 of a mother, and she to be looking on him this 
 day. 
 
 Dan: You think yourself very wise now, to be 
 giving out judgments about kings' sons. 
 
 Dan's Wife: Hasn't he the lovely face? His 
 head held up so lofty and so high, and he having 
 a hurl in his hand, and a crown of posies on his 
 brow. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: The world has flowed upon 
 him. There are some are bom having luck 
 through the stars and through the strength of the 
 moon. 
 
 Dan's Wife: Why would n't he have luck, and 
 he to be bom in the King's own palace? 
 
 Ard: That is what he would wish you to be 
 thinking. 
 
 Dan's Wife: Why would n't we think it? He 's 
 as nice as you 'd ask. I see no flaw in him at 
 all. 
 
 Ard: You are thinking him to be far above 
 myself I suppose? 
 
 Ard's Wife: Sure there must be some difference 
 in station and in blood. It was the Almighty 
 Himself put that in the world. 
 
 Ard: What would you say hearing he is not 
 far in blood from ourselves? 
 
 Dan: That is what we are after being told.
 
 The Deliverer 153 
 
 whether or no it is true. Of our own race and 
 of our tribe. 
 
 Malachi: To one of the twelve families he 
 belongs. To the one breed with myself, but 
 that the generations are scattered. 
 
 Ard: I heard that, and that his fatner gave 
 in to the hardship. 
 
 Malachi: He did so. In heaven he is now, 
 and on earth he was driving cattle. 
 
 Dan: And his mother a girl of the Kohaths, 
 threw him out from her on the rising flood. 
 
 Malachi: The King's daughter that took 
 notice of him in the flag-flowers, and she washing 
 herself at the time the flood began to slacken 
 down. 
 
 Ard: To rear him up as her own she did, and 
 on her death-bed she willed him her father's heir. 
 
 Dan: It is on this day he is to be put be- 
 yond all the rest nearly of Pharaoh's people. 
 
 Malachi: The curse of his own people be 
 on him, he to be frolicking where he is, and 
 treading the stones were quarried through our 
 labour. 
 
 Ard : Going here and forth, spending what 
 would buy an estate, sparkling abroad in the 
 fields. Following foxes with huntsmen and 
 hounds, or fowling after snipe and teal. That 
 the whole of them may tuin against him, and 
 put their beaks through his guts, or their claws
 
 154 The Deliverer 
 
 or whatever disagreeable weapon-like the Lord 
 may have given them for their own protection 
 and their aid ! 
 
 {Bell heard ringing.) 
 
 Dan: Mind yourselves, boys, there is the 
 boss at the bell. 
 
 Ard: It is his own bones I would wish to 
 see leaping and swinging up there in the place 
 the bell is! 
 
 Dan: Where 's the use talking. (Sings.) 
 
 Trouble I ne'er did find 
 
 Till I joined the work with the cruel Turk 
 At the Inver of the Nile. 
 
 Ard: Let ye all draw to silence. It is the 
 Nutcrackers is in it. He is the worst tyrant of 
 them all. 
 
 Dan: He would n't as much as give leave to 
 rise your back or look around you. There would 
 be no labourer alone with him, but would be in 
 dread he would kill him. 
 
 Malachi: That 's the way with those low quality 
 stewards that belong to the middling class. 
 
 Ard: The dirty savage! He 'd think no more 
 of a person's life than he would of a crow. 
 
 Dan: Whist your tongue. I would say he 
 has drink taken. It is out of the parlour he is 
 come.
 
 The Deliverer 155 
 
 Steward: {Coming rather unsteadily down steps.) 
 Get back now to your work, you scheming michers ! 
 Bring over mortar there, it is wanting beyond. 
 These steps had a right to be readied and finished 
 before the King coming here at all. Go bring 
 mortar, I say. 
 
 Dan: We will, your honour, the very minute 
 it will be ready. 
 
 Steward: It should be ready by this, and you 
 not to be sleeping and idle and playing odd and 
 even with bits of stones. 
 
 Malachi: It failed us to mix it, the lime being 
 all used and spent. 
 
 Steward: How well you did n't go look for more, 
 you crippled jackass. 
 
 Dan: Sure we went seeking it, and there was 
 no Ume in it, and no stones broken, and no 
 fire kindled in the kilns. 
 
 Malachi: The men had charge of them were 
 brought away to be blowing the bellows for the 
 ovens were put up for the King's big dinner. 
 
 Steward: It is too much gab you have! It 
 is well able you are to make up stories and lies. 
 If it was beef and cabbage you were sent seek- 
 ing, you would track it out swift enough ! 
 
 Malachi: We are telling no lies. There is 
 no Ume to be got. 
 
 Steward: Let ye mix the mortar, so, without 
 lime.
 
 156 The Deliverer 
 
 Malachi: There is no one, tradesman or col- 
 lege bred man, could mix it without lime. 
 
 {King's Nurseling appears at top of steps 
 and stands behind a pillar.) 
 
 Steward: Let you do it so with your enchant- 
 ments. You that have the name of being an old 
 prophecy, let you rise up and make it from that 
 bit of a board. Sure, you are able to change your- 
 self into an eel, the same as the King's Druids. 
 
 Malachi: There is no reason in what you are 
 saying. ' 
 
 Steward: No, but let you change yourself and 
 your two comrades into the shape of three hares 
 till I '11 go coursing. I '11 engage I '11 come up 
 with you! I '11 put my teeth in you! {Cracks 
 whip.) If you can't do no other thing you can 
 make sport for us! 
 
 Malachi: Any work I have to do, I will do it 
 fair and honest. There is no justice asking me 
 to do more than that. 
 
 Steward: I '11 show you justice ! All the justice 
 you have to look for in this place is in my own 
 cat-o'-nine-tails! {Cracks it.) 
 
 Malachi: Is it to strike me with your lash 
 you would? 
 
 Steward: It is, and to strip the hide ofT of 
 you, to make tacklings will yoke your brood and 
 your litter to the plough. {Lifts whip.) 
 
 Dan: Ah, now your honour, you will not lay
 
 The Deliverer 157 
 
 the whip on Malachi ! Old he is and failing from 
 the world. He is delicate, he cannot stand. 
 
 Ard: He is no way deserving of cruelty. An 
 honester man never followed a beast. There is 
 not the weight of that on his character. 
 
 Steward: There will be the weight of this 
 upon his back! (Flourishes whip.) 
 
 Malachi: Take care but I will stop your hand ! 
 
 Steward: Is it to your devils you are calling 
 now, and to the witches of the air? It is not to 
 flog you I will be satisfied. You '11 be making 
 provision for the crows to-night if there 's a rope 
 to be f oimd in Egypt ! 
 
 Malachi: I will call for help to the King's 
 nurseling. Let him say am I to be abused. 
 
 Steward: The King's nurseling! Ha, ha, ha! 
 Is it that you are thinking that one will come 
 to your help? 
 
 Malachi: It is certain he would be able to save 
 a man from the foot of the gallows. 
 
 Steward: Is it the like of ye he would stretch 
 out to, and the whole shoal of ye to be dying 
 like fish? Did n't you hear the trumpets bray- 
 ing for him since morning? This is his big day. 
 Sure, myself and the rest of the bailiffs and the 
 stewards are after drinking to his good health! 
 
 Malachi: He is of our race. 
 
 Steward: If he wasn't you might have some 
 chance. He 'd as soon confess himself to be a
 
 158 The Deliverer 
 
 pig of a herd of pigs. He that was reared to 
 the army, and is apt to be made king in the 
 finish. 
 
 Malachi: We are as good as him, but that we 
 are drowned under trouble. 
 
 Steward: Ye are, and under dirt and filth. 
 He would n't come anear you or within three 
 perches of you unless it might be to be picking 
 fun out of you. Ye that use neither head bath 
 or body bath. 
 
 Malachi: There was one of his family joined 
 with my own family in marriage, two hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 Steward: You to say that in his hearing, 
 he' d knock the wits out of you, as quick as 
 the blast of a pipe. 
 
 Malachi: I tell you it is as true as that God's 
 sunlight is shining upon us. 
 
 Steward: So it is, and as true as that there 's 
 a tail on Pharaoh's cat. Why would n't it 
 be true, and he the very dead spit and modelHng 
 of yourselves? He should know that every time 
 he would look in a body glass. {King's Nursel- 
 ing moves as if startled.) But to let on that 
 it is true, he 'd sooner drown himself on the 
 race course, that is at this time under flood. 
 
 Malachi: He to know the whole truth he will 
 help us. 
 
 Steward: He will not. Very high up in
 
 The Deliverer 159 
 
 himself he is. He would think you to be no 
 credit to him. Very proud and stiff; — and if it 
 wasn't for the King's kindness, and the King's 
 daughter that picked him from the gutter, it is 
 squealing under the lash he would be at this 
 minute the same as yourselves. The King's 
 nurseling ! A scamp that is ignorant of his mother 
 and of his father along with that ! 
 
 King's Nurseling: {Coming before them sud- 
 denly.) What are you saying? 
 
 Steward: Oh, sir, your honour, I said nothing, 
 nothing at all worth while ! 
 
 King's Nurseling: I heard what you said. 
 
 Steward: Sure, you never thought it was of 
 your honour I was speaking. I would never do a 
 thing like that. I was talking of — of a mermaid's 
 son my grandmother used to be telling me about, 
 and she enticing me to stop beside the hearth. 
 
 King's Nurseling: You said I was one of 
 these common men. 
 
 Steward: Oh, sir, what are you saying? 
 What trade or what consanguinity could there 
 be between the like of you that was reared in 
 golden cradles, and these slaves, these paupers, 
 these tricksters, rebels, liars, herds, sheepstealers, 
 worms of the earth, rogues of the highway, 
 thieves, informers? 
 
 Malachi: Stop your lies! We had some in 
 our generations that never knew the power of
 
 i6o The Deliverer 
 
 death. We had saints and angels visiting our old 
 fathers, before ever there was a Pharaoh on the 
 Nile! 
 
 Steward: Listen, sir, to that ! That 's re- 
 bellion! That 's treason-felony! That word will 
 have you hanged! Call out now your soldiers, 
 sir! {He seizes Malachi and strikes him.) 
 
 King's Nurseling: Leave your hold. {Strikes 
 Steward with his hurl. He reels and falls back 
 out of sight over the steps.) 
 
 Malachi: He is dead! 
 
 Ard: He has his neck broke. 
 
 Dan: That was a good blow and no mistake. 
 
 Ard: He has him killed with one blow of the 
 hurl. 
 
 King's Nurseling: Throw the carrion in a 
 hole of water! {Daji and Ard bear him away. 
 The women have gojie aside.) 
 
 Malachi: You stood up well to him. It 
 took 3^ou to tackle him. You behaved well doing 
 that. But I 'm in dread it will bring you under 
 trouble. The punishment for murder is death. 
 
 King's Nurseling: I am under trouble from 
 this out, surely. 
 
 Malachi: It might not be found out, and you 
 going back quick into the King's house. 
 
 King's Nurseling: I would have been long 
 out of that house, if I knew it was not from my 
 own mother and father I had a claim to it.
 
 The Deliverer i6i 
 
 Malachi: Is that the way with you? 
 
 Kings Nurseling: Yesterday I was son to 
 the King's daughter, and to-day I do not know, 
 east or west, to what tribe or family I belong. 
 
 Malachi: Be satisfied. You are a good man's 
 son. 
 
 King's Nurseling: And is it to yourselves I 
 belong by my birth? {Malachi nods.) The world 
 knows I never knew that ! 
 
 Malachi: It is not with ourselves you will 
 stop. We are in danger now to be flogged and 
 tortured and hanged. 
 
 King's Nurseling: What way could I have 
 an easy mind in it, and my own people being under 
 cruelty and torment? It is along with you I 
 will stop. 
 
 Malachi: Take care now, dear. It would be a 
 pity you to die in your young age. 
 
 King's Nurseling: They did a great wrong 
 putting a bad name on my mother's race, and 
 rearing myself to shim and to mock at you, 
 thinking myself a better breed. 
 
 Ard : {Who has come back with Dan.) Is it 
 that you will take our part? 
 
 King's Nurseling: I will not eat bread or take 
 my sleep again in that house. I will banish 
 it from me for ever. 
 
 Dan: You do not know well what you are 
 doing, and we being a crushed miserable race. 
 
 VOL. U — II
 
 i62 The Deliverer 
 
 King's Nurseling: It is not to a crushed miser- 
 able race I have a mind to belong. 
 
 Dan: Stretch out so to help us, and to bring 
 us away out of this. 
 
 Ard: Let you strive to put the fear of God 
 on the King, the way he will let us go free. 
 
 Dan: You not to be able to ready the road 
 and to make a path before us, it can be done by 
 no other one. 
 
 Ard: They have put great cruelty upon us. It 
 is you are the most Hkely one might get it taken 
 off. 
 
 Dan: There is no one but yourself to look to. 
 Every person in this place is very combined 
 against us. 
 
 Malachi: It was dreamed to me it was one 
 from the King's house would take in hand our 
 escape. 
 
 King's Nurseling: I will do all I can do. 
 
 Dan: Do that, and you will get the blessing 
 of the people. 
 
 King's Nurseling: I will bring you out from 
 this disgrace. 
 
 Malachi: So he will. That is in the prophecy. 
 I saw it in the clouds of heaven of a winter 
 night. He will win in the end, but he will not 
 pass within the mering of the Land of Promise. 
 
 King's Nurseling: Come up with me to a place 
 will have no ears. I have my plans to make. I
 
 The Deliverer 163 
 
 have commands to give you. I am thinking I 
 see a road. 
 
 {Ard and Dan follow him. Malachi tries to 
 but fails a7id sits down.) 
 
 Malachi: I have no bend in the leg. I can- 
 not get up the steps. 
 
 King's Nurseling: Stop where you are for a 
 while and take your rest while you can. When 
 this moon will be over and the next moon begun, 
 we will be back in the place our fathers owned. 
 {Walks up steps. The women come and kneel on 
 steps blessing him.) 
 
 Ard's Wife: God love you! My thousand bless- 
 ings on my two knees to you! 
 
 Dan's Wife: That the world may wonder at 
 the luck you '11 have! 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: That my blessing may com- 
 fort you, and make you that you '11 never be 
 broken up ! 
 
 Dan's Wife: May God increase you! 
 
 Ard's Wife: The Lord have mercy on every- 
 one belonging to you! 
 
 Dan's Wife: And on every one ever went from 
 you! 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: And on yourself at the latter 
 end. 
 
 Ard's Wife: The laugh that is in his eye should 
 be sunshine to ripen the barley, and bleach the 
 flax in the field !
 
 164 The Deliverer 
 
 Dan's Wife: The kindest man that ever broke 
 the world's bread ! 
 
 Malachis Wife: That he may have the bed 
 of heaven whoever will be left out ! 
 
 (King's Nurseling, Dan, and Ard have gone off.) 
 
 Malachi: The Lord be praised it is in my 
 own country my bones will be coffined at the last ! 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: There is a hundred years come 
 into your life with that great news. 
 
 Dan's Wife: Is that country I wonder as good 
 as what they say? 
 
 Malachi: It is good and kind. The best for 
 meadows and for fair water. Everything a 
 farmer would wish to have around his house 
 he will have it. 
 
 Ard's Wife: It is estated people we will be that 
 time. Hay and oats in the haggards, a stack 
 upon every small patch. 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: Sure the vessels will not hold 
 the milk there, it is down on the ground it must 
 fall. There is honey on the tops of the grass. 
 
 Malachi: I to be a beggar on the roads there 
 beyond, I would have neither cark nor care. 
 Keening done away with and treachery. It is a 
 blessed place. There will no snakes live in it. 
 They must perish at the touch of its earth. The 
 sea does be full of all sorts of fish. 
 
 Dan's Wife: I heard that. Quality fish it would 
 be easy to be eating. The bones of them will
 
 The Deliverer 165 
 
 melt away in the fire. The smiths do be forging 
 gold the same as iron. 
 
 Ard's Wife: The next young son that will be 
 bom to me, it is not as a slave he will be reared. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: Here is Dan coming. He will 
 say are we in a vision or in a dream! 
 
 Dan's Wife: What did the King's Nurseling say 
 to you? Is it in earnest at all he is.^* 
 
 Dan: He is, surely. He wanted but the wind 
 of the word. Believe me that one has a good 
 head for plans ! 
 
 Malachi: What way at all will he get us out 
 of this? 
 
 Dan: By the miracles of God, and the virtue 
 of those ships beyond at the quay. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: The ships did you say! That 
 is a great thought. They should be very an- 
 swerable. 
 
 Ard's Wife: What time will we make our start? 
 
 Dan: It is on board of those ships the whole 
 of us are to go to-night. There are orders sent to 
 the rest of the twelve families in secret. Believe 
 me, there is a good headpiece on that young boy. 
 
 Dan's Wife: And is it to our own coimtry they 
 will bring us? 
 
 Dan: To go voyage with his left hand to 
 the shore the King thinks he will, and his right 
 hand to the wideness of the sea. He to be out 
 of the harbour, it is not that way he will go,
 
 i66 The Deliverer 
 
 but his left hand to be facing the sea. At the 
 flight of night he will be facing towards a safe 
 harbour near the borders of our own country, 
 and that is free from Pharaoh's rule. 
 
 Malachi: He will send his armies after us there. 
 
 Dan: It is what the ^^oimgster was saying, we 
 to be out of his hand, every enemy has any com- 
 plaint against Pharaoh will be on our own side. 
 Believe me, he is great for plans. 
 
 Malachi s Wife: Ah, it is only foolishness. It 
 is impossible to steal away unknown. 
 
 Dan: It is far out in the night we will go, 
 the way they will feel no noise. The choice 
 captains at the supper till morning, the guard 
 will not be without every sort of beer and of 
 wine. The lad has the Heads of Police sent 
 watching higher up the river, putting in their 
 mind that the place being deserted there will be 
 wild lads spearing the King's fish. He is sending 
 provision to the ships; food for eating, gold for 
 bestowing, arms for to banish enemies. For every 
 five poimds of meal he is sending twenty pound 
 of lead. Bags and bags of money he has, gold 
 and notes to the world's end. I wish I did n't 
 wipe the mortar from me awhile ago. There 
 might some of the riches have stuck to my feet. 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: Let us be going from this ugly 
 place. It will seem to be the length of a year 
 till I will set out.
 
 The Deliverer 167 
 
 Ard's Wife: Where now is my man? I would 
 wish to put a white shirt on him before we 'd 
 set out, and to round the corners of his head. 
 
 Dan: He was sent to forewarn the neighbours 
 to make ready, and to strengthen themselves for 
 the start. To go borrow the makings of a cake 
 he will bid them, and to boil the soup of a hen. 
 
 Dan's Wife: I should go ready the children. 
 I should wish them to put on a good appearance 
 going back to their own country. It is well I 
 have a bleach of clothes out drying on the bush. 
 
 Ard's Wife: I got the lend of a little skillet- 
 like from a cook of the King's under-cooks. 
 Copper it is. Would it be any harm I wonder 
 to bring it away in my box? 
 
 Malachi's Wife: I '11 make no delay and bring 
 no load with me but to put my apron about 
 my head and to walk out of this. Look at 
 what came to me from my father and he dying. 
 The key of the housedoor in my own village. 
 It is here in the bosom of my dress. I have but 
 to turn it going in, and to sit down beside the 
 hearth. 
 
 Ard's Wife: It is likely it is a tribe of grabbers 
 you will find on the hearth before you. 
 
 Malachi: If there are grabbers there before 
 us we will know a way to make them quit. 
 
 Ard's Wife: We '11 be plentiful from this out 
 surely.
 
 1 68 The Deliverer 
 
 Dans Wife: There '11 be currant cakes on the 
 table next Shrove! 
 
 Malachi: No strangers to be meddling with 
 us, and leave to keep the feast days and to 
 gather to prayers. 
 
 Datis Wife: Let you shout out now for the 
 King's whiteheaded boy! 
 
 Malachi: He is good and he looks good. 
 He is the best we ever met! 
 
 Ard's Wife: As simple as if he wasn't worth 
 a shilling, and he dealing out money in sacks. 
 
 Dan's Wife: A real blood he is! 
 
 Da7i: Ah, he is no great family man. Just 
 a clean family, that 's all. 
 
 Malachi: A man that ignorance was hid from. 
 He should know the seven languages! 
 
 Ard's Wife: We should knock great comfort 
 out of him. He is no way flighty but good. 
 
 Dan's Wife: The skin of his face showed out 
 as fair as a sovereign. He has seven colours in 
 his clothes! 
 
 Dan: I 'm not too bad-looking myself, and 
 I to have good means and a good way and not 
 to be poor and badly clad. 
 
 Dan's Wife: The sweet eyes and the smile of 
 him! He is a dear loughy man! 
 
 Dan: That is enough of gab about himself and 
 his looks. Let you stop your clatter and your 
 talk! {Ard comes in.)
 
 The Deliverer 169 
 
 Ard's Wife: The sea and the hills would go 
 bail for him! Sure that one would have no 
 harm in him no more than a child. 
 
 Dan's Wife: We will lift him up on our shoul- 
 ders passing every bad spot on the road ! We '11 
 have a terrible illumination for him the day we 
 will come to our own! 
 
 Ard's Wife: We will, and put out shouts for 
 him through the whole of the seven parishes! 
 His name will be more lasting than the cry of the 
 plover on the bog ! 
 
 Ard: You are very ready to give praises and 
 to give trust to one you never cast an eye on till 
 this day. 
 
 Ard's Wife: Sure any one would think more j 
 of a stranger than of a person they would know, i 
 
 Malachi's Wife: We have good dependence on 
 him. He is kind hearted and willing hearted. 
 
 Ard's Wife: What could he be but good, and 
 he after making every gap easy before us? 
 
 Dan: The women are that cracked after him. 
 You would say they never got a sight of any man 
 besides a cripple or a deformed person before 
 this day. 
 
 Ard: That is the way with women and fools. 
 All that is new is beautiful. There '11 be another 
 telling by and by. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: I would say him to be a nice 
 man and a good man for the world.
 
 170 The Deliverer 
 
 Ard: Wait a while till we '11 see what way 
 will he turn out. He did n't give us our travel- 
 ling charges yet. 
 
 Da?i: I would n't begrudge him praise, and I 
 being certain he deserv^ed it. 
 
 Ard: He didn't behave too decent not leav- 
 ing us so much as a red halfpenny to drink his 
 health. What way can we be sure this voyage 
 will not be more for killing than for profit? 
 
 Dan: That is true for you. Has he skill to 
 bring us ploughing over the hills and hollows and 
 the rough headed rocks of the sea? The narrow 
 sea or the wdde? 
 
 Malachi: He to have said he will rise us up 
 out of our trouble, he will do it. 
 
 Ard: It would be a pity going so far, and black 
 sails maybe to be put up for us before we would 
 come to land. Well, drowning is laid down to 
 be an easy death. 
 
 Ard's Wife: It is often I heard my grandmother 
 saying there are great baulks and great dangers 
 on the road, and a red stream that does be 
 boiling with the heat. 
 
 Dan's Wife: It might be he has flying ships — 
 or that the whole of the stream and of the ocean 
 would open before him, he being blessed. 
 
 Ard's Wife: The blazing mountain she used to 
 be talking of, and the mountain of needles. 
 
 Dans Wife: It is likely he has enough of a charm
 
 The Deliverer 171 
 
 to change the points of the needles to green rushes, 
 and to bring us through the fire shivering, 
 
 Ard: I 'm in dread it is to put a good mouth 
 on himself he made big promises, and to leave us 
 in worse case after. 
 
 Ard's Wife: I am thinking myself it will fail 
 us to make our escape. 
 
 Dan's Wife: He to put a sleeping-pin through 
 Pharaoh's plaits, it will keep him in the feathers 
 through the length of nine days and nine nights. 
 
 Ard's Wife: Where would be the use, and the 
 King having three times fifty beagles and three 
 hundred soldiers at every cross road and every 
 open road? There could n't so much as a rib of 
 hair go pass athrough them unbeknownst. 
 
 DarCs Wife: To put a mist-like about them he 
 might, the way they would go astray and be strik- 
 ing and hitting at one another and at themselves. 
 
 Dan: I 'm in dread whatever way it is, we 
 will have a queer long road to travel. 
 
 Ard: That is true for you. I met with a 
 priest of the King's priests, and I coming out 
 over the threshold of the youngster's office. To 
 stop and to talk with me he did. A very friendly 
 man; and shook hands with me and gave me 
 the hand out. 
 
 Dan: Is it that he will help us to make our 
 escape? 
 
 Ard: It is likely he made a guess I had some
 
 172 The Deliverer 
 
 notion of the sort in my mind. He was bidding me 
 go quiet and easy, and the King would be apt to 
 come around, and to let us go free in the 
 heel. 
 
 Malachi: I would have no trade with him 
 or the like of him. The Egyptians, you never 
 can get at the root of them. 
 
 Ard: I, now, to draw up a petition, he was 
 saying 
 
 Malachi: You won't get the breadth of the 
 black of your nail that way. They will give 
 us what we will take ourselves, that is what 
 they will do. 
 
 Ard: There might be some of themselves 
 would speak for us to the over-Government. 
 
 Malachi: Ah, what way would we wrench it 
 out of the Government? To say that we will 
 is only vanity! 
 
 Ard: It is what the priest was saying, the 
 lad is proud and he is giddy. He is no way 
 religious, he was saying, on the one or the other 
 side. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: It would be a pity surely if 
 he would not be stiff in his religion. 
 
 Ard: He to have broke out of their creed, 
 and not to have joined in our own, he would not 
 be a fitting leader for ourselves. According to 
 what I am told, he's a real regular Pagan. 
 
 Ard's Wife: I would be sorry to think he
 
 The Deliverer 173 
 
 would be ignorant and not able to say off the 
 Catechism. 
 
 Malachi: Whatever he might be, we would 
 be better off with him than with them we 
 are imder at this time. 
 
 Ard: It's hard know. Some are terrible 
 wicked, but some are fair enough. 
 
 Malachi: I would make no complaint, getting 
 bad treatment from a person would be natural, 
 and of our own tribe, besides the foreign troop. 
 It is going trafficking with the Egyptians has 
 you sapped and destroyed. 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: A priest of the Egyptians to 
 be mistrustful of him, it is likely our own 
 priests would not wish us to have dealings 
 with them. 
 
 Ard's Wife: You may be certain of that. 
 
 Malachi: So you may be too. Hit one and 
 you hit all. That 's the way with clergy rule. 
 
 Ard: He to be picking knowledge out of 
 ourselves, he might maybe get through all 
 the dangers and into the good cotmtry. It is 
 himself would take the credit then, and be maybe 
 craving to make our laws. 
 
 Malachi: I was thinking before this it was 
 jealousy rose up in your head, and that gave 
 you a spleen against him. 
 
 Ard's Wife: Look at him! Is it himself at all 
 is in it?
 
 174 The Deliverer 
 
 {King's Nurseli7ig walks across at back. 
 He is wearing poor clothes like their 
 own.) 
 
 Malachi's Wife: Take care has he the evil eye 
 put upon us. He gave us no blessing as he 
 passed. 
 
 Ard's Wife: He is no great gaff, and not hav- 
 ing the grand clothes that he had, and the 
 top-knot and the fringes. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: He has put on poor clothes 
 like our own for a mockery. 
 
 Dan's Wife: Take care might it be spying on 
 us he is come. 
 
 Ard's Wife: To come as a spy and an informer, 
 that is a foul thing to do. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: I am a very bad lover of 
 deceit and of treachery. 
 
 Dan's Wife: It was a queer story his mother 
 to go cast him out of her hand, and leave him 
 to be reared by strangers. 
 
 Ard's Wife: Ah, how do we know was she wed 
 at all at that time? 
 
 Malachi's Wife: That he may never come back 
 alive or dead! I never will give in to a Pagan. 
 I have promised God and the priest. 
 
 Malachi: Is it going against him ye are, 
 and turning from praising to dispraising and 
 abuse ? 
 
 Malachi's Wife: Why would you go taking his
 
 The Deliverer 175 
 
 side, and the v/hole of the rest of us hxring against 
 him? 
 
 Malachi: I v/a:: acquainted with hi:: grand- 
 father. It is a bad day I v/ould see him wanting 
 a friend. 
 
 Malachi i Wife: You to be peaceable to this 
 frog of the ditches, I v/ill not be peaceable to 
 yourself. 
 
 Malachi: I toll you there is no other one 
 can bring us out of this. 
 
 Ard: Take care but there might be. 
 
 Malachi: There will not be any other one. 
 
 Ard: I would not be sure of that. I never 
 heard that Lad to have said tv/o v/ord:: upon 
 a x^Iatform. 
 
 Malachi: It is easy be handy in talk, and ?>; 
 supple. Is it that you yourself is thinking to 
 free us? 
 
 .(4r<f; The ships are ready. We have the 
 passv.ord. Anyone could do the job no7/. 
 
 Dan: I 'm as great a story as yourself any 
 day. If any one of us is to take the lead, I have 
 a mind to take it myself. 
 
 Ard: I won't give in to that, or to you put- 
 ting out challenges of the sort. 
 
 Malachi: Let you leave it to the man at the 
 plough to drive the furrow to the end. 
 
 Dan: Whan I v.ill not do is give Ard 
 scope to be tricking, the v/ay he will put him-
 
 176 The Deliverer 
 
 self on top. It 's a mean thing to trick. 
 I never would be trickish if I was to die with 
 hunger. 
 
 Ard: Is it a man of your sort any person 
 would take commands from? 
 
 Dan: You to be arguing like a conse- 
 quential ! A chap that could n't put a jackdaw 
 on a farm of land ! 
 
 Ard: I 'm able to put a name on you, that 
 you are not more like doing a good deed than 
 a deed of treachery. 
 
 Malachi: Stop your chat! The noise you 
 are making would bring upon us the whole 
 army of police. 
 
 Dan: Why would I stop? He 'd eat the 
 head off me, and I 'm not to eat him! 
 
 Ard: The latter end of the world to be to- 
 morrow, I 'd tell him he is not fit so much 
 as to put fetters on a sheep! 
 
 Dan: Have a care now, or I '11 whitewash the 
 steps with your bones ! 
 
 Ard: I don't wish you any harm, but God 
 is unjust if you die a natural death! 
 
 Dan: The curse of my heart on you! 
 
 Ard: A short course to you ! 
 
 Dan: You cur, you disgrace, you ! 
 
 Ard: Keep your tongue off me, you rags! 
 That bad luck may follow you! You that 
 are a rogue since the first day you were bom!
 
 The Deliverer 177 
 
 Malachi: {Seizing Dan.) Put the malice 
 out of your heart or we are all destroyed ! 
 
 Dan: Leave me alone! I am well able to 
 best him! 
 
 Ard: You may set your coffin making, for 
 I '11 beat you to the ground ! 
 
 Dan: It was n't to-day or yesterday I 
 learned to know your tricks! 
 
 Dan's Wife: Leave go of one another ! 
 
 Ard: I will not till I squeeze the breath out 
 of him ! 
 
 Ard's Wife: Leave your hold! 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: Let some person drag them 
 asunder ! 
 
 Dan's Wife: They to get in an argument, it 
 is hard part them from one another! 
 
 Ard's Wife: Oh, they are in flows of blood! 
 
 Dan: I 've a grip of you now, you mean Httle 
 tinker ! 
 
 Ard: I '11 knock the head of you, you 
 shameful pauper ! 
 
 Dan: Wait till I '11 hit him a kick! 
 
 Ard: You common rascal! 
 
 Dan: You rap! You vagabone! 
 
 All: Oh, let you stop! They '11 kill one 
 another ! 
 
 {King's Nurseling comes out, parts them 
 quickly, throws down Ard, holds Dan.) 
 
 King's Nurseling: Are you fools? Damning 
 
 VOL. II — 12
 
 178 The Deliverer 
 
 and blasting and cursing and shouting and 
 beating one another! You will bring out the 
 whole of the palace! 
 
 Ard: I done nothing. He drew a blow at 
 me. I gave him but one box. 
 
 Daji: He did, and a pelt of a stone and a 
 slap of the left hand on the jaw. 
 
 King's Nurseling: You are on the brink of 
 your escape! Keep your uproar till you are 
 out of this! (Shoves down Ard who tries to rise.) 
 
 Ard: Leave knocking me. Have you a minb 
 to make an end of me with a blow of a huri 
 the same as the Nutcracker a while ago? 
 
 Ard's Wife: Let you leave meddling with my 
 man! 
 
 Dan's Wife: Take off your hand! It is not 
 in a bunch of rushes my own man was reared! 
 
 Malachis Wife: Take care will he call to the 
 soldiers for to have us all destroyed. 
 
 Ard's Wife: We are in great danger that he will. 
 It would be right gag his mouth. 
 
 Dan's Wife: It 's best make an end of him. 
 
 Ard's Wife: It woiild be no harm to quiet him, 
 giving him a prod of a knife. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: A real idolater he is. That 
 is what the King's priest said. 
 
 Malachi: Is it at the bidding of the Egyptians 
 you will give up the man of your own race? 
 
 Ard: He will betray us to the King's men.
 
 The Deliverer 179 
 
 King's Nurseling: I have broken with that 
 troop altogether. 
 
 Ard: You will fail us yet, and the King to 
 speak out stiff to you ! 
 
 King's Nurseling: I tell you he to hinder us, 
 I will redden that tide beyond, and twist a bit 
 of crape on every house-door in Egypt. 
 
 Malachi: That is right, that is right! That is 
 the clean drop stirring in him! 
 
 Dan's Wife: It is misleading us he is. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: A man to do that it would 
 disgust you. 
 
 Ard's Wife: That my curse may follow him! 
 
 Dan's Wife: That his path may be as slippery 
 as the ditch where he was born, if he did kill the 
 King's steward. 
 
 Malachi's Wife: A long trembling to you ! 
 
 Malachi: They are set on mischief. The very 
 most people he did good to. 
 
 King's Nurseling: If you all turn against me, 
 I will fight on with my back to the wall. 
 
 Ard: We will give no place to spies! 
 
 Dan: We will leave you no time to be an 
 informer ! 
 
 Malachi: Ye are doing a great wrong! Give 
 him a show and a hearing! 
 
 Ard: It 's best make an end of him! 
 
 Dan: He can lodge no complaint that time! 
 
 Malachi: Ye are mad, raging mad!
 
 i8o The Deliverer 
 
 {Ard pushes King's Nurseling down on 
 step.) 
 Malachis Wife: {Throwing a stone.) Frog 
 spawn ! 
 
 Ard' s Wife: {Throwing a stotie.) Foundling! 
 Dan's Wife: {Throwing a stone.) By child! 
 Ard's Wife: {Throwing a stone.) Drownded 
 whelp I 
 
 {All throw stones. King's Nurseling 
 sinks back.) 
 Officer: {Appearing from palace, striking 
 gong.) Where is the King's Nurseling! 
 
 {All shrink back leaving King's Nurseling 
 on step.) 
 Officer: {Loud.) The pipes and the flutes are 
 ready ! The boiled is ready and the roast ! {Sees 
 King's Nurseling.) Rise up, you drowsy vaga- 
 bone, and say did you see the King's Nurseling in 
 any place? 
 
 King's Nurseling: The King's Nurseling? 
 Officer: The supper ready and no leave to 
 begin till he will come that is at the head of all. 
 {Strikes g07ig.) I wish I never lost sight of him. 
 King's Nurseling: He will not go back to the 
 supper. He is facing towards the wilderness of 
 the marsh. 
 
 Officer: It is blind drunk you are and little 
 you know about him. 
 
 {Kicks King's Nurseling and goes away
 
 The Deliverer i8i 
 
 sounding gong. King's Nurseling' s 
 head droops. He sinks back on the 
 ground. The others come hack 
 cautiously.) 
 Ard: There is no one to take notice of us. 
 We can make our escape to the ships. 
 
 Dan: {Looking at King's Nurseling.) There 
 is no stir in him. I thought the life would 
 not have left him so quick. 
 
 Ard: Leave him there where he is. 
 Dan: Take care would they find him and 
 know his features, and follow after us to get 
 revenge for his death. 
 
 {A loud mewing and screaming heard.) 
 Dan's Wife: What is that screeching? 
 Malachi's Wife: It is the King's cats calling 
 for their food. 
 
 Ard: Shove him over the steps to them. 
 Malachi: Will you throw him to the King's 
 cats? 
 
 Dan's Wife: A good thought. No one will 
 recognise him. They '11 have the face ate off him 
 ere morning. 
 
 Ard's Wife: Throw him to the King's cats! 
 
 (They screech again. Their shadow is seen 
 
 on steps. King's Nurseling is dragged 
 
 into darkness. A louder screech heard.) 
 
 Officer: {Coming back.) What is this uproar 
 
 of cats? Or is it the yelping of yourselves that
 
 i82 The Deliverer 
 
 are curs. It is the whole of this troop that is 
 drunk and howHng. {Takes up whip and shakes 
 it.) Stop your ugly noise! 
 
 {A soldier appears.) 
 
 Officer: Send out a squad of the guard to 
 lodge these bawling blackguards in the black 
 hole. Here, put on the handcuffs. {Soldier comes 
 and handcuffs them leaving them crouchiiig on the 
 steps.) 
 
 Officer: Sound out a loud call. I did n't find 
 him yet. 
 
 {He goes up to door. A loud blast of trumpets 
 is heard.) 
 
 Malachi: I 'm on the seventy since last July. 
 It is old bones I will leave in the gaol. 
 
 Ard: We were never destroyed out and out 
 till now. It is in bad case we are this time 
 surely. 
 
 Dan: It is you yourself was the first to 
 overthrow and to banish him. 
 
 Malachi: {Laughing to himself.) They were 
 said to give him learning and it is bad learning 
 they gave him. That young man to have read 
 history he would not have come to our help. 
 
 Malachi' s Wife: Well, the story is done now, 
 and let you leave it to God. 
 
 Malachi: It is sorrow you will Sieep with 
 from this out. You will not find the like of him 
 from the rising to the setting sun.
 
 The Deliverer 183 
 
 Dan's Wife: Look! He is living yet. He is 
 passing ! 
 
 {King's Nurseling passes slowly at foot of 
 steps towards right. His clothes are torn 
 and blood-stained and he walks with 
 difficulty.) 
 
 Dan: It is but his ghost. He is vanished from 
 us. 
 
 Dan's Wife: I wish I did n't turn against him. 
 I am thinking he might be an angel. 
 
 Dan: {To Malachi.) Will he ever come back 
 to us? 
 
 Malachi: I won't tell you what I don't know. 
 Wandering, wandering I see, through a score and 
 through two score years. Boggy places will 
 be in it and stony places and splashes — and no 
 man will see the body is put in the grave. A 
 strange thing to get the goal, and the lad of 
 the goal being dead. {Another screech of the 
 cats. He laughs.) I would n't wonder at all he to 
 bring back cross money to shoot the cats. He 
 will get satisfaction on the cats. 
 
 Curtain
 
 MUSIC FOR THE 
 
 SONGS IN THE PLAYS 
 
 NOTES AND CASTS 
 
 185
 
 MUSIC FOR THE CANAVANS 
 
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 Ye trai - tors all that do de - vise To 
 
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 plague our Par - a - gon, And in your hearts in 
 
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 treach'rous wish Let such 
 
 vain thoughts run on. 
 
 Con- 
 
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 sid 
 
 er what your end will be Be - 
 
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 S 
 
 Jt^it 
 
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 fore 
 
 you 
 
 far - ther go;. 
 
 The 
 
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 Crown of 
 
 Li - lies 
 
 i: 
 
 hang 
 
 you 
 
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 in 
 
 joy 
 
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 row! 
 
 Will 
 
 187
 
 MTSIC FOR THE WHITE COCKADE 
 
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 O vrell - rrz-ed h^rp c: sfl - ver sricgs^ O 
 
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 Strong green oak. O ijiiri-r M^-- ^rbeaj-:'; " O::: 
 
 
 rra-cc":^ Kii^ Sri:: - iz-^ caz - ils c: 
 
 m
 
 NOTES 
 THE CANAVANS 
 
 This play is founded more directly upon folklore 
 and less upon written history than the others, so far 
 as the tradition of the Virgin Queen goes in Ireland. 
 But the epithets given her by her courtiers are taken 
 from the writings of the time. The desire possessing 
 Peter Canavan to be on the safe side, on the side of the 
 strongest, is not bounded by any century or kept 
 within the borders of any country, though it jumps 
 to light more aggressively in one which, like Ire- 
 land, has been tilted between two loyalties through 
 so many generations. The play seems (to me now) 
 somewhat remote, inexplicable, as if written less 
 by logical plan than in one of those moments of 
 light-heartedness that comes, as I think, as an 
 inheritance from my French great-grandmother, 
 Frances Aigoin; a moment of that "sudden Glory, 
 the Passion which maketh those Grimaces called 
 Laughter." It plays merrily, and there are some who 
 like it best of my comedies. 
 
 As to traditions of the Tudors, this is what I am 
 told in Kiltartan: 
 
 "Henry the Eighth was crying and roaring and 
 leaping out of the bed for three days and nights before 
 
 189
 
 iQO Notes 
 
 his death. And he died cursing his children, and he 
 that had eight milHons when he came to the throne, 
 coining leather money at the end. 
 
 "Queen EUzabeth was awful. Beyond everything 
 she was. When she came to the turn she dyed her 
 hair red, and whatever man she had to do with, she 
 sent him to the block in the morning, that he would 
 be able to tell nothing. She had an awful temper. 
 She would throw a knife from the table at the waiting 
 ladies, and if anything vexed her she would maybe 
 work upon the floor. A thousand dresses she left 
 after her. Very superstitious she was. Sure after 
 her death they found a card, the ace of hearts, nailed 
 to her chair under the seat. She thought she would 
 never die while she had it there. And she bought a 
 bracelet from an old woman out in Wales that was over 
 a hundred years. It was superstition made her do that, 
 and they found it after her death, tied about her neck. 
 
 "It was a town called Calais brought her to her 
 death, and she lay chained on the floor three days 
 and three nights. The Archbishop was trying to 
 urge her to eat, but she said : ' You would not ask me 
 to do it if you knew the way I am,' for nobody could 
 see the chains. After her death they waked her for 
 six days in Whitehall, and there were six ladies 
 sitting beside the body every night. Three coffins 
 were about it, the one nearest the body of lead, and 
 then a wooden one, and a leaden one on the outside. 
 And every night there came from them a great 
 bellow. And the last night there came a bellow 
 that broke the three coffins open, and tore the velvet,
 
 Notes 191 
 
 and there came out a stench that killed the most 
 of the ladies and a million of the people of London 
 with the plague. Queen Victoria was more hon- 
 ourable than that. It would be hard to beat Queen 
 Elizabeth." 
 
 THE WHITE COCKADE 
 
 Some time ago I was looking through some poems 
 taken down in Irish from the country people, and a 
 line in one of them seemed strange to me "Prebaim 
 mo chroidhe le mo Stuart glegeal" — " My heart leaps 
 up with my bright Stuart"; for I had not heard any 
 songs of this sort in Galway and I remembered that 
 our Connacht Raftery, whose poems are still teaching 
 history, dealt very shortly with the Royal Stuarts. 
 "James," he says, "he was the worst man for habits, 
 he laid chains on our bogs and jnountains. The 
 father was n't worse than the son Charles, that left 
 sharp scourges on Ireland. When God and the people 
 thought it time the story to be done, he lost his head. 
 The next James — sharp blame to him — gave his 
 daughter to William as woman and wife; made the 
 Irish English and the Enghsh Irish, hke wheat and 
 oats in the month of harvest. And it was at Aughrim 
 on a Monday many a son of Ireland found sorrow 
 without speaking of all that died." 
 
 So I went to ask some of the wise old neighbours 
 who sit in wide chimney nooks by turf fires, and 
 to whom I go to look for knowledge of many things, 
 if they knew of any songs in praise of the Stuarts.
 
 192 Notes 
 
 But they were scornful. "No indeed," one said, 
 "there are no songs about them and no praises in the 
 West, whatever there may be in the South. Why 
 would there, and they running away and leaving the 
 country the way they did? And what good did 
 they ever do it? James the Second was a cow- 
 ard. Why did n't he go into the thick of the 
 battle Hke the Prince of Orange? He stopped on a 
 hill three miles away, and rode off to Dublin, bringing 
 the best of his troops with him. There was a lady 
 walking in the street at Dublin when he got there, 
 and he told her the battle was lost, and she said: 
 'Faith you made good haste; you made no delay on 
 the road.' So he said no more after that. The 
 people liked James well enough before he ran; they 
 did n't like him after that." 
 
 And another said: "Seumas Salach, Dirty James, 
 it is he brought all down. At the time of the battle 
 there was one of his men said, ' I have my eye cocked, 
 and all the nations will be done away with,' and 
 he pointing his cannon. 'Oh!' said James, 'Don't 
 make a widow of my daughter.' If he did n't say 
 that, the English would have been beat. It was a 
 very poor thing for him to do." 
 
 And one who lives on the border of Munster said: 
 "I used to hear them singing 'The White Cockade' 
 through the country; King James was beaten and 
 all his well-wishers; my grief, my boy that went with 
 them! But I don't think the people had ever much 
 opinion of the Stuarts, but in those days they were 
 all prone to versify." And another old man said:
 
 Notes 193 
 
 "When I was a young chap knocking about in Con- 
 nemara, I often heard songs about the Stuarts, and 
 talk of them and of the blackbird coming over the 
 water. But they found it hard to get over James 
 making off after the battle of the Boyne." And 
 when I looked through the lately gathered bundle of 
 songs again, and through some old collections of 
 favourite songs in Irish, I found they almost 
 all belonged to Munster. And if they are still sung 
 there, it is not, as I think, for the sake of the Kings, 
 but for the sake of the poets who wrote them. And 
 in these songs of sorrow for Ireland and the indictment 
 of England, the Stuart himself is often forgotten, or 
 when he appears, he is but a faint and unreal image; 
 a saint by whose name a heavy oath is sworn. 
 
 It is different with Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of 
 Lucan, a "great general that killed thousands of the 
 English"; the brave, handsome, fighting man, the 
 descendant of Conall Cearnach, the man who, 
 after the Boyne, offered to "change Kings and fight 
 the battle again." The songs about him are personal 
 enough. Here is one I have put into English : 
 
 "0 Patrick Sarsfield, health be to you, since you 
 went to France and your camps were loosened; 
 making your sighs along with the King, and you left 
 poor Ireland and the Gael defeated — Och Ochone! 
 
 " O Patrick Sarsfield, it is a man with God you are, 
 and blessed is the earth you ever walked on. The 
 blessing of the bright sun and the moon upon you 
 since you took the day from the hands of King William 
 — Och Ochone!
 
 194 Notes 
 
 "O Patrick Sarsfield, the prayer of every person 
 with you; my own prayer and the prayer of the Son 
 of Mary with you, since you took the narrow ford 
 going through Biorra, and since in Cuilenn O'Cuanac 
 you won Limerick — Och Ochone! 
 
 "They put the first breaking on us at the Bridge 
 of the Boyne; the second breaking at the Bridge of 
 Slaney; the third breaking in Aughrim of O'Kelly; 
 and O sweet Ireland, my five hundred healths to you 
 — Och Ochone! 
 
 " O'Kelly has manuring for his land, that is not sand 
 or dung, but ready soldiers doing bravery with pikes, 
 that were left in Aughrim stretched in ridges — Och, 
 Ochone ! 
 
 "Who is that beyond on the hill Beinn Edar? 
 I, a poor soldier with King James. I was last year 
 in arms and in dress, but this year I am asking 
 alms — Och, Ochone ! ' ' 
 
 As to the poor Lady, she was not the only one to 
 wander miserably, having spent all for the Stuarts. 
 
 The attempted escape of King James in the barrel 
 had already been used by Dr. Hyde in a Httle play 
 written in Irish. In these days, when so much of 
 the printed history we were taught as children is 
 being cast out by scholars, we must refill the vessel by 
 calHng in tradition, or if need be our own imaginings. 
 When my White Cockade was first produced I was 
 pleased to hear that J. M. Synge had said my method 
 had made the writing of historical drama again 
 possible.
 
 Notes 195 
 
 THE DELIVERER 
 
 I used to say in defence of friends of mine, who were 
 attacked for wild acts, and Mr. Yeats borrowed my 
 saying, that Moses was of no use to his people until 
 he had killed an Egyptian. Then I began to say in 
 relation to a " gran rifiuto ' ' of later days that some who 
 had turned upon their leader would have their forty 
 years of walking the sand. More lately in Kiltartan, 
 I was told by one who had been present at the last 
 meeting held by that deserted leader, how those who 
 had crowded to him before had left him by order, 
 and how fiery his words were and how white was his 
 face. And, it was said "The ancient Jews turned 
 against Moses in the same way." 
 
 I was at a Feis, a Festival, at Spiddal on Galway Bay 
 in honour of the Irish language about ten years ago, 
 and after it I wrote: 
 
 "In the evening there were people waiting round 
 the door to hear the songs and the pipes again. 
 An old man among them was speaking with many 
 gestures, his voice rising, and a crowd gathering about 
 him. *Tha se beo, tha se beo' — 'he is living, he is 
 hving,' I heard him say over and over again. I 
 asked what he was saying and was told : * He says that 
 Pamell is alive yet.' I was pushed away from him 
 by the crowd to where a policeman was looking on. 
 * He says that Pamell is alive still,' I said. ' There are 
 many say that,' he answered. 'And after all no 
 one ever saw the body that was buried.'" 
 
 I remember a visit of M. Paul Bourget to Coole
 
 196 Notes 
 
 and his being so excited and moved by the tragic 
 wasted face of one of the last photographs of Mr. 
 Parnell, that he could not leave it but carried it 
 about the house. I had already written on the back 
 of that portrait this verse from an old ballad : 
 
 Oh, I have dreamed a dreary dream 
 Beyond the isle of Skye, 
 I saw a dead man win a fight 
 And I think that man was I!
 
 Dates and casts of the first production of these plays 
 at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. 
 
 The Canavans was produced December 8, 1906, with 
 the following cast: 
 
 Peter Canavan 
 Antony 
 Widow Greely 
 Widow Deeny 
 Captain Headley 
 
 W. G. Fay 
 
 j. a. o'rourke 
 
 Maire O'Neill 
 
 Brigit O'Dempsey 
 
 Arthur Sinclair 
 
 The White Cockade was produced December 9, 1905, 
 with the following cast: 
 
 Matt Kelleher 
 Owen Kelleher 
 King James 
 Sarsfield 
 Carter . 
 Mrs. Kelleher 
 Old Lady 
 
 Williamite Soldier 
 Another 
 Another 
 French Sailor 
 Another 
 
 W. G. Fay 
 
 F. Walker 
 
 Arthur Sinclair 
 
 F. J. Fay 
 
 J. Dunne 
 
 . Sara Allgood 
 
 Maire ni Shiublaigh 
 
 Ambrose Power 
 
 U. Wright 
 
 J. Magee 
 
 197
 
 198 
 
 Notes 
 
 The Deliverer was produced January is, 191 1, with 
 the following cast : 
 
 Ard . 
 
 Malachi 
 
 Dan 
 
 King's Nurseling 
 
 Steward 
 
 Officer . 
 
 Ard's Wife . 
 
 Malachi' s Wife 
 
 Dan's Wife . 
 
 Fred O'Donovan 
 
 J. A. O'ROURKE 
 
 Arthur Sinclair 
 
 J. M. Kerrigan 
 
 Sydney J. Morgan 
 
 B. Macnamara 
 
 Maire ni Shiublaigh 
 
 Sara Allgood 
 
 Maire O'Neill
 
 Jt Selection from the 
 Catalogue of 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Complete Catalogue sent 
 on application
 
 Plays of Moliere 
 
 Translated by 
 
 Curtis Hidden Page 
 
 Late Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures 
 in Columbia University 
 
 4 volumes. Cr. Svo 
 
 Les Femmes Savantes 
 
 (The Learned Ladies) 
 
 The Learned Ladies, under which title Curtis Hidden 
 Page's masterly translation of Moli^e's "Les Femmes 
 Savantes " is published, is a more matured dramatic satire 
 than " Les Precieuses Ridicules," its predecessor. The 
 intellectual tone of the French salons has degenerated into 
 mere aflEectation under the poorly qualified imitators of 
 the H6tel de Rambouillet. There was a pretension of 
 learning, an artificiaHty of language, an absence of good 
 sense that must have been profoundly irritating to one so 
 free from aflfectation as the great genius of French comedy. 
 Such a condition of things Moliere presents in this master- 
 piece, though arrayed against it are the sober forces of 
 common-sense and sincerity, which in the end triumph. 
 
 Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme 
 
 (The Tradesman Turned Gentleman) 
 
 This play, produced in the maturity of Moli^e's dra- 
 matic power, is a lesson of good sense to those who suffer 
 from the social ambition of rising above their proper rank. 
 The satire is more developed and brilliant than in Georges 
 Dandin, which preceded it. 
 
 New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
 
 Plays of Moliere 
 
 Translated by 
 
 Curtis Hidden Page 
 
 Late Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures 
 in Columbia University 
 
 4 volumes. Cr. Suo 
 
 Les Precieuses Ridicules 
 
 (The Affected Misses) 
 
 Le Medecin malgre Lui 
 
 (The Doctor by Compulsion) 
 
 The above two volumes in one 
 
 The Affected Misses (Les Precieuses Ridicules), while 
 lashing the arrogance and folly and artificial enthusiasm 
 for learning of the salons, has all the vivacity, abandon, 
 and spontaneity of Moli^e's early plays. The resource- 
 ful valets, impersonating people of station and imposing 
 upon the affected ladies, can claim an ancestry stretching 
 back through the Italian comedy of masks to the slaves 
 of Latin comedy. But Molifere, creative genius that he 
 was, infused vitality into the traditional tj'pe in this 
 drama, raising farce to the dignity of comedy. The 
 Doctor by Compulsion is a roUicking comedy, in which the 
 dramatist singled out for satire a profession that is still 
 the recipient of occasional gibes — that of the doctor. 
 
 Tartuffe 
 
 or 
 
 The Hypocrite 
 
 Into this play MoUfere put more of his inner conviction 
 than into any other play that came from his pen, and it 
 will remain the enduring example of the successful depic- 
 tion of hypocrisy in its most odious form. The play was 
 produced after persistent protest from members of the 
 clergy, who feared the effect of this exposure of greed and 
 sensuality posing as sanctity. 
 
 New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
 
 Dramas of Importance 
 
 Plays 
 
 The Silver Box— Joy— Strife 
 
 By John Galsworthy 
 
 Author of " The Coiutry House," etc. 
 Crown 8vo. $ 1 .33 net 
 
 " By common consent, London has witnessed this week 
 a play of serious importance, not approached by any other 
 book or drama of the season, John Galsworthy's ' The 
 Strife.' It is regarded not merely as a_ remarkable social 
 document of significance, but as a creation which, while of 
 the most modern realism, is yet classic in its pronounced 
 art and exalted philosophy. The play shows the types of 
 the strongest men as victims of comical events and of 
 weaker men. It will be produced in America, where, on 
 account of its realistic treatment of the subject of labor 
 union, it is sure to be a sensation." — Special cable dispatch 
 to N. Y. Times. 
 
 The Nun of Kent orla 
 
 By Grace Denio Litchfield 
 
 Author of "Baldur the Beautiful," etc. 
 Crown 8vo. $ 1 .OO net 
 
 " In this drama the pure essentials of dramatic' writing 
 are rarely blended. . . . The foundation for the stirring 
 play is a pathetic episode given in Froude's Henry VIII. . . . 
 
 " The lines of the poem, while full of thought, are also 
 characterized by fervor and beauty. The strength of the 
 play is centred upon a few characters. . . . ' The Nun 
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 story." — Baltimore News. 
 
 Yzdra 
 
 A Tragedy in Three Acts 
 
 By Louis^V. Ledoux 
 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth. $1.25 net 
 
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 are clearly individualized and a just balance is preserved 
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