EDWARD MARTYN 
 
 ViTH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 GEORGE MOORE * 
 
 California 
 
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 THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
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 All Rights Reserved.
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 AND 
 
 MAEVE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD MARTYN 
 
 "AUTHOR OF " MOROANTE THE LESSER " 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 GEORGE MOORE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DUCKWORTH & CO. 
 
 3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 
 
 MDCCCXCIX
 
 I DEDICATE THESE TWO PLAYS TO 
 GEORGE MOORE, W. B. YEATS 
 
 AND 
 ARTHUR 8YMON8. 
 
 E. M .
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IN the publication of the two plays in this volume are 
 involved many things : " Le Theatre Libre," its echo in 
 England, " The Independent Theatre," Ibsen, Mr George 
 Alexander, Mr William Archer, "The New Century 
 Theatre," the "Irish Literary Theatre," and the normal 
 intelligence of theatrical audiences in France and Eng- 
 land. It would be impossible I mean that it would 
 be impossible for me to speak of the plays before speak- 
 ing of these contiguous matters. Therefore with your 
 permission . . . 
 
 It was for the purpose of acting the psychological 
 drama, which seems to interest no part of the public 
 except actors and men of letters, that the "Theatre 
 Libre" was founded. It had become known that many 
 distinguished authors, without thought of supplying a 
 popular demand, had written psychological plays. These 
 remained in their desks unacted until the " Theatre 
 Libre" asked permission to act them. M. Antoine, its 
 director, was anxious to put the taste of the public to 
 the test, to find out whether the public was as opposed 
 to the literary drama as managers seemed to think. 
 The "Theatre Libre" was imitated in England under 
 the name of the "Independent Theatre," with this 
 difference, that I did not hope to discover any psy- 
 chological drama in England. English prose is mer- 
 
 vii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 cenary, English dramatic prose is the most mercenary 
 of all. I did not expect to recover literary drama from 
 the desks of our dramatists, I knew that none was there. 
 Before a nation can produce art it must see art, and my 
 hope rested on the supposition that the wealthy would 
 subscribe sufficient money to pay for a monthly perform- 
 ance of a work of art. That this work of art should be 
 of British origin did not seem to me to be of immediate 
 importance ; and the money required was so little, 2000 
 a year or even less, 1500, would have been ample funds 
 for the " Independent Theatre." I gave up all my time 
 and energy to the production of the first plays produced 
 by the " Independent Theatre." They created some pass- 
 ing literary interest, but little by little the truth was borne 
 in upon me that there were not 1500 people in London 
 who cared sufficiently for dramatic art to pay one guinea 
 a year to save dramatic writing from the grave into which 
 it was slipping. Having made sure of this fact I cut the 
 " Independent Theatre " adrift. It has long ceased to 
 exist, and the " Theatre Libre " in France has ceased to 
 exist too, and for the same reason. 
 
 Our dislike to good painting nearly equals our dislike to 
 a good play, but good painting is dependent on the good 
 taste of a very few. The pre-Raphaelite movement was 
 kept alive by half-a-dozen men of taste ; but the art of the 
 dramatist demands a more numerous patronage, and even 
 the little patronage necessary for the existence of an in- 
 dependent Theatre was not forthcoming. The public in both 
 countries, in France and England, for some obscure reason, 
 which it would be vain to attempt to elucidate, regards 
 any dramatic movement outside of the ordinary scheme of 
 the ordinary commercial theatre, not merely with the indif- 
 
 viii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ference which might be expected, but with a fierce hos- 
 tility which is incomprehensible. To many this will seem 
 an exaggeration, but many will remember the sullen op- 
 position to the first performance of " The Doll's House." 
 It is not too much to say that to like Ibsen's plays 
 in the eighties was equivalent to liking Wagner's music. 
 Both were regarded with oblique looks, and few were 
 quite sure that the new music and the new drama were 
 not an immorality, which it was perhaps the duty of the 
 state to stamp out. Not infrequently this view found 
 expression in the writings of men who, on all other 
 points, were as sane and as mediocre as their fellows. 
 It was not until the other day that the critic ceased to 
 confuse the poet philosopher with a social reformer, in- 
 terested in the liberation of women from their husbands, 
 and in the struggle between capital and labour. It has 
 only just come to be suspected that perhaps Ibsen did 
 not write his plays to prove the necessity for reformation 
 in these directions. 
 
 Wagner has had his revenge ; but Ibsen, though he 
 has ceased to be execrated, has remained unpopular ; 
 perhaps he has even lost adherents, for, in replying to 
 some admirers, he admitted that poetry interested him 
 more than social reformations. 
 
 In Ibsen are combined poet, philosopher and dramatist 
 in almost the same proportions as in Shakespeare, more 
 than in Racine, Goethe or Hugo. He is deficient only 
 in the romantic spectacle which Shakespeare provides in 
 abundance. Shakespeare alone amid dramatists was able to 
 remain a poet for his pleasure while conceding booths and 
 roundabouts to his audience for theirs. But the psycho- 
 logical drama does not admit of spectacle ; that is why 
 
 ix
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 it fails on the stage. The explanation is a sad one, for 
 if it be true we shall never possess a popular literary 
 drama again. The psychological drama is the only 
 possible literary drama in the nineteenth century. The 
 romantic incidents which abound in Shakespeare were 
 part and parcel of Elizabethan life ; there was more 
 room in the world then ; at every few miles the reali- 
 ties of life faded to a romantic background. In the 
 seventeenth century, duels, conspiracies, serenades and 
 poisoned goblets were common circumstances, and could 
 be freely used by the dramatists ; they are still the stock- 
 in-trade of the drama of the nineteenth century ; they 
 still hold the interest of sophisticated audiences anxious 
 to be amused, but the skill of no one will ever endow 
 them with life again. . . . Perhaps without laying our- 
 selves open to the suspicion of believing that a theatrical 
 audience will ever be found less unintelligent than the 
 audiences which collect nightly in our theatres, we may 
 wonder if this present theatrical convention will not wear 
 itself out as the convention of Italian opera has worn out. 
 The theatrical folk of fifty years hence, possessed by a 
 foolish notion of progress, may decide that they do not 
 care for scenery, dresses and romantic adventure, and 
 welcome as a change the psychological drama which to-day 
 is deemed pernicious and intolerable, even when written 
 by the second greatest dramatic genius this world has seen. 
 In this long interval the drama will exist as a pre- 
 text for actors and actresses to dress themselves in fine 
 clothes and to posture for the mild distraction of a public 
 that has eaten itself into a stupor. But should a revolution 
 in taste come to pass, will it endure ? The public is the 
 original jungle, and the garden that has been won from the 
 
 x
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 jungle very soon returns to the jungle. A better chance 
 is that some man may awake to the idea that there are 
 others to endow hospitals and that it is his mission to 
 endow a theatre. Until then those who write plays 
 from impulse, because they have something to say, must 
 publish their plays in book form. Appeal may be made 
 to the vanity of the actor-manager and his wife; the 
 vanity of the actor and actress is a gleam of hope in a 
 dark outlook, a fugitive gleam. 
 
 "I have brought to you a play, Alexander, in which 
 there is a real live man, one just born into literary 
 life he has never been seen on the stage no, he is 
 not out of a novel. But," I added, seeing his face 
 brighten too rapidly, " there is not a penny of money in 
 the play. It is merely a good part." 
 
 " Is it then so well written that 
 
 "The fault lies deeper than the writing. The 
 public will tolerate good writing, but what it will not 
 tolerate is, that a play should be built on a solid base 
 of human idea and emotion, etc. ... If the play be 
 frivolous in its conception, the public will tolerate 
 artifices of language." 
 
 Mr Alexander read the play and promised to produce it 
 at a morning performance, and that he did not fulfil his 
 promise is no part of my present grievance. A broken 
 promise were a pitiful thing to lament. It would be 
 no wiser to reproach Mr Alexander for having produced 
 plays out of whose inanities he has made a fortune. He 
 did well to produce these plays, for nine-tenths of an actor's 
 life must be given up to rubbish ; rubbish is the fare 
 
 xi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the multitude, and it is the multitude that enables 
 the actor to keep the roof over his head ; but he 
 should reserve a tenth part of his life for himself for 
 his art. All actors try to do this, for actors love their 
 art ; they talk about it incessantly and never about 
 their salaries ; in this respect their attitude towards their 
 art compares very favourably with that of authors towards 
 theirs. (When I say authors, I of course mean the 
 members of the Society of Authors.) No one recognises 
 the human emotions and no one welcomes them in a play 
 more than actors, and if it were their taste that obtained, 
 Ibsen would be the most popular dramatist. The taste 
 of actors in plays is identical with that of the "Inde- 
 pendent Theatre," but it is the taste of the public that 
 obtains, and so Sardou and Cyrano de Bergerac, which is 
 merely rhymed Sardou, are hoisted above Ibsen. The 
 vanity of the actor impels him toward art; for six 
 months, for ten months of the year he is forced to inhale 
 and exhale nonsense, on the eleventh he longs to rush out 
 of the confined and vitiated atmosphere of the theatre 
 into the open air of art ; his tired lungs pant for a breath 
 of human emotion ; and this is the moment when the 
 dramatic author should get him to sign an agreement to 
 produce his play. It was in such a revulsion of feeling 
 that Mr Alexander was caught, and if he broke his 
 promise after having made it to me, it was the fault of 
 the dramatic critics. I will name the principal delinquent, 
 Mr Archer, and explain. 
 
 True it is that he and I are moved by the same desire 
 to see literature on the stage ; he has given up his life, I 
 gave up some months, perhaps a year of my life, to attain 
 this object. I retired from the struggle, he has persisted. 
 
 xii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Our taste in dramatic literature often coincided; our 
 admiration of Ibsen is the same, but though our eyes 
 were set on the same goal, the ways by which we 
 hoped to reach that goal were different ways. My belief 
 was that the most likely way of arriving at the goal was 
 by an uncompromising sincerity, by taking no heed of vain 
 appearance, by going to the root of things and denouncing 
 all pseudo-literature in the rudest possible terms. For 
 plays like the " Circus Girl " and " Charlie's Aunt " much 
 toleration should be shown, but the pseudo-literature 
 play should be held up to contempt. Mr Archer's 
 belief was that the goal could be reached by encourag- 
 ing, with insincere praise, all work that seemed new, 
 every play that seemed better than the last play ; his 
 attitude towards dramatic writing has therefore been one 
 of benevolent insincerity. He has pursued this policy for 
 twenty years, and he has only to hear the plays now run- 
 ning at the London theatres to be convinced that he has 
 not " educated " the public taste. 
 
 Like another he probably once believed that he had 
 not lived in vain. The night of the production of 
 " The Second Mrs Tanqueray " his hopes stood higher 
 than they ever did before or since. Some years have 
 passed, the circumstances which engendered the play are 
 scattered, we can see it in its relation to literature and 
 measure it by its humanities. It must be now plain 
 to every one that it was no more than a dramatic 
 version of the current gossip of the street. Folk 
 were then talking of women with pasts : were asking 
 what a man should do if he married a woman who told 
 him that she had had a lover before she was married, and 
 then what a man should do if he found out that his wife 
 b xiii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 had had a lover before her marriage, and so on. The most 
 astonishingly ill-devised tales were concocted by our drama- 
 tists on these themes. Mr Alexander, who likes betting on 
 the taste of the public, produced one with success ; and in 
 the same spirit he bet on the taste of the public with a very 
 horrible play called " The Conquerors " and lost. But 
 Mr Archer mistook " The Second Mrs Tanqueray " for a 
 work of art, he declared it to be a play of the deepest 
 social and literary significance, and the beginning of a 
 dramatic renaissance. The actor-manager's conscience 
 or his vanity was appeased ; he was convinced against his 
 better judgment that he had ceased to talk nonsense on the 
 stage ; he believed that he was engaged in earnest work, 
 etc. ; why, therefore, should he produce " The Heather 
 Field " ? I had admitted that I did not think it would 
 draw money, he was agreed with me on that point ; as 
 for art, why speak of it ? Had he not fulfilled his artistic 
 destiny by producing " The Second Mrs Tanqueray " ? 
 
 Actors are better judges of literature than is generally 
 supposed, their love of the humanities from which they 
 are for ever debarred leads them aright, but bewildered 
 by the press, Mr Alexander for a moment seems to 
 have thought that perhaps, after all, there was a little 
 money in literature, and hearing that Mr Henry James 
 had written some plays he applied for one. I would not 
 be discourteous to Mr Henry James ; perhaps the worst 
 discourtesy would be to refrain from saying exactly 
 what I think of his play. Speak of it I must the 
 explanation on which I am engaged obliges me to speak 
 of it ; and what it is needful that I should say about "Guy 
 Domville" he knows already. He knows that it was not 
 vulgar, like "The Second Mrs Tanqueray," but a mere 
 
 xiv
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 hapless effort to speak in a language which he had not 
 yet moulded to his lips. The knowledge that what he 
 wrote was going to be spoken and not read seemed 
 to have paralyzed his thoughts, until in the third act he 
 could not express himself at all. In the first act some 
 design was recognisable, but in the second and third acts 
 everything that makes life, instinct, desire and reason, was 
 swallowed up in flat fog. The incomparable Tourgueneff 
 underwent the same kind of aberration when he wrote 
 his five-act comedy, and his failure was in the same 
 direction as Mr James's. But instead of such simple 
 truth every kind, almost every kind, of insincerity 
 filled the newspapers. About the construction of the 
 story some doubt was expressed, but the writing of 
 it could not be sufficiently praised. Did the critics 
 look into their hearts to discover what they really 
 thought of the writing of the play or did they say it 
 was well written because Mr James wrote it? They 
 were impressed by the sentences, which were elaborately 
 composed and wore a thoughtful air. Alas, current 
 criticism cannot understand that to think well is to write 
 well, that an idea which has been conceived in hesitation 
 and fear must of necessity be badly written. If the 
 critics had looked into their hearts, if they had striven 
 to discover their real thoughts from floating masses 
 of preconceived opinion, they must have learnt that the 
 play for different reasons, but for equally valid reasons, 
 was no nearer to literature than any drama by Mr 
 George R. Sims. Few read dramatic criticism, and it 
 is forgotten as soon as the page on which it appears 
 is passed. Dramatic criticism is as ephemeral as a 
 fashion article ; successful plays are but fashions ; but even 
 
 xv
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 about fashions the critic is behoven to write truthfully. 
 We may not answer, ' what matter whether women wear 
 one kind of sleeve or another?' Every lie matters, and the 
 attitude of benevolent insincerity which the critics assumed 
 towards Mr James's play produced its little effect in the 
 subconscious mind of Mr Alexander and in the general 
 mind, which is always subconscious. The critical articles 
 which condoned instead of condemning induced a feeling 
 of resentment against literature, a feeling that may be 
 interpreted in the following words : " So that is literature ! 
 you all say it is, ... well, literature does not do on 
 the stage." 
 
 The next attempt to foster the literary play was made 
 by a new Society constituted probably after the fashion 
 of the " Independent Theatre" Society. It was called the 
 " New Century Theatre," and the first play that the new 
 dramatic society produced was Ibsen's " John Gabriel 
 Borkman." 
 
 To produce Ibsen was so obviously the right thing to 
 do that the wisdom of the management does not transpire 
 in the choice any more than the wisdom of the captain of 
 a man-of-war transpires when he fires a salute to the 
 Queen. To judge the wisdom of the new management 
 we must look to its second rather than to its first pro- 
 duction, and the second play that the New Century 
 Theatre produced was a sort of sea captain's yarn of 
 robbery and murder, written in a language compiled very 
 carefully from the Bible and Scotch idiom. That Mr 
 Archer, the admirer of "The Second Mrs Tan- 
 queray" and "Guy Domville" should mistake this piece 
 of ingenious tinkering for a work of original genius seems 
 natural enough if we consider how his taste oscillates 
 
 xvi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 between love of an exhibition of some social problem 
 on one side and literary writing on the other. The 
 difficulty is not to understand why he should like the 
 three above mentioned plays, but why he should also like 
 the "Master Builder." For Catholicity in art consists 
 in admiring such different things as the sculpture of the 
 Parthenon and that of Chartres Cathedral ; but if a third 
 admiration let us say a picture by Sir Edward Bunie 
 Jones be introduced, we are forced to conclude that the 
 critic has not understood either the first or the second. 
 
 The management of the New Century Theatre was in 
 the hands of Mr Archer, Mr Massingham, and Miss 
 Robins ; and not only did they choose a sea-captain's yarn 
 for their second production, but they still further exposed 
 the feebleness of their taste by selecting a one-act play 
 to precede it, whose feebleness ranged beyond those wide 
 bounds marked out for feebleness to range in by un- 
 pretentious suburban managements. 
 
 Mr Archer and Mr Massingham are critics of the drama. 
 They advocate Wagner theatres and subsidised theatres, 
 so I will say to them that it would be well to have a 
 subsidised theatre if we had a man with a sufficiently 
 definite taste to conduct it ; a man who could admire 
 the Parthenon and Chartres Cathedral, but who did 
 not dally with Mr Leader or his Associate Jones. 
 Antoine was such a man, and Mr Archer did seen) 
 once like the man who could successfully direct a 
 literary theatre. But he likes so many things ; his 
 taste is so varied that he may be said to have 
 no taste. He admires another Jones and praises 
 " Michael and his Lost Angel." " The Second Mrs 
 Tanqueray " induced him to believe that we were 
 
 xvii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 on the eve of a dramatic renaissance. The variations 
 in Mr Archer's tastes are so unexpected that he has 
 become for me what the game of " Patience " is for 
 others. In lonely evenings it is always a distraction to 
 try to penetrate to the secret of his nature, to discover 
 why he likes "Redder Gabler" and "The Benefit 
 of the Doubt." We all play the game of "Patience" 
 in some form or other, and the reconcilement of an 
 admiration for " The Benefit of the Doubt " with any 
 considerable intelligence is the problem I often set 
 myself. And sometimes I think that it may be explained 
 by the antagonism of the Puritan Mr Archer to the 
 playgoer Mr Archer ; the Puritan demanded atonement 
 from the playgoer, and the atonement that the Scotch 
 ancestor demanded was the sacrifice of all personal 
 vanity ; so Mr Archer became a dramatic critic. But 
 the original ancestor demanded further sacrifice; and Mr 
 Archer renounced original work and accepted the hard 
 fare of translation. But outraged Nature has reasserted 
 herself in Mr Archer's sub-conscious mind. He says, ' I 
 lay no egg but I think I might hatch one.' Of all objects 
 in Nature none is perhaps more pathetic than a clucking 
 hen, and when the last chicken was hatched out I con- 
 sented to go and see it " He really has begun to think," 
 said the anxious parent. " But," I said, " the thinking 
 chicken does not begin to think, he begins by thinking." 
 
 The play was the unfortunate " Benefit of the Doubt," 
 and the divorce court has always been accepted by Mr 
 Archer as the symbol of thoughtfulness. . . . There is 
 no reason why the hapless tale should be unfolded here ; 
 it matters little whether the wife confessed or the husband 
 found her out ; suffice it to say that Mr Pinero, who is 
 
 xviii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 about as subjective as a clown, soon began to wander 
 round the dramatic ring hoop in hand. All the usual 
 hoops were jumped in the second act, overheard conversa- 
 tions and the rest ; but not one of his characters could he 
 get through the psychological hoop ; round and round 
 they went, missing it time out of mind. The poor jester 
 stood in the middle of the third act, a psychological and 
 a theological hoop in either hand, tired out, the horses 
 at walking pace, the ladies swinging limp on their wide 
 saddles. It was eleven o'clock ! There was nothing for 
 it but to call a bishop down from the gallery to pull the 
 performance through somehow. There were a bishop in 
 the play and a young man- called Claude, and these were 
 the folk who did not satisfy Mr Archer. The bishop after 
 all did bring the play to a conclusion, and Claude seemed 
 to me one of the most amusing creations of the greatest 
 creator of comic characters since Dickens. 
 
 No one discovered the moral of this play ; perhaps it 
 had none, but the moral of the articles that were written 
 about it was clear enough. Again the press endeavoured 
 to deceive the public. Mr Pinero had been put forward 
 as a thinker ; the play was rigmarole, but to admit that 
 it was rigmarole would be to compromise for ever the 
 literary drama. So Mr Archer thought ; whereas it is 
 by supporting such plays that the press compromises 
 the chances of the literary drama. "Again," the public 
 said, in its dim sub-conscious way, " if that is literature 
 I do not like literature." And since the failure of that 
 most dismal play indifference has settled over things 
 theatrical : farce and melodrama and musical comedy 
 are everywhere. 
 
 xix
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I have to reproach Mr Archer with sins of omission as 
 well as with sins of commission. For while he was 
 defending the indefensible and exhausting the patience 
 of the public with a tale of the sea, there was pub- 
 lished unbeknown to him in London a play, beautiful 
 as anything in Maeterlinck, a play possessing all the 
 beauties of the Princess Maleine, and the beauty of verses 
 equal to the verses of Homer. The name of this play is 
 the " Countess Cathleen," and the name of its author is 
 W. B. Yeats, If I had mentioned the name of a certain 
 popular writer of military jargon our silly literary press 
 would bubble with enjoyment, but the genius of W. B. 
 Yeats, being a survival of that of the prophet and the seer 
 of old time, escapes the appreciation of the newspapers. 
 
 That those who find the natural outlet of their lives in 
 Newmarket and the Riviera should not have read the 
 " Countess Cathleen " is comprehensible enough ; but that 
 those whose life's business would seem to be to understand 
 art, should read the " Countess Cathleen " and prefer 
 "Admiral Guinea" and "The Benefit of the Doubt," 
 is surely a sign of the degrading influence of newspaper 
 criticism upon those who write it. Or shall we hazard 
 a conjecture? Shall we say that Mr Archer has not 
 spoken or written about this play because the English 
 reviews are only open to chatter about the doings of 
 little Belgians and Frenchmen ? The bi-monthly article 
 about a French poet is one of the literary conventions 
 of our day. But even if we accept this convention 
 as a sufficient explanation for Mr Archer's silence re- 
 garding the " Countess Cathleen," the choice of the 
 New Century Theatre for its second production still 
 remains unexplained. The beauty of the verses and 
 
 xx
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the perfection of the construction of this play will be 
 admitted by Mr Archer ; it will be on the character draw- 
 ing that he will sharpen his pen. . . . But do we not hear 
 too much of the differentiation of one man from another ? 
 Is not character drawing a mere rind of life in which 
 the English novel is still seeking an existence ? And 
 without being thought to say that it were well to ignore 
 social differences, may it not be suggested that they 
 are worthy of no more than a passing notice ? Tem- 
 peramental differences are more important, but even 
 they are but the threshold of the deep regions of 
 humanity those states of eternal consciousness which 
 are souls in a far deeper sense than we are souls. 
 When the critic has said, as he says too frequently, 
 "I do not see your hero, I do not see your heroine," 
 he has not said everything ; he has not uttered, as he 
 thinks he has, the final reproof. What we see most 
 clearly is not always most real, another and a more abiding 
 reality exists in our immortal instincts. The Countess 
 Cathleen being a creature of myth, and stripped of all 
 circumstantial habit, is visible only to the eyes of the 
 soul, and represents only that which is most human 
 and eternal in man. . . . She would barter her soul to 
 gain the salvation of those who are selling their souls 
 for food in famine time. But this compact is an im- 
 possible compact ; we barter our souls only for selfish 
 gratification ; and it was the genius of the primitive poem 
 to imagine such paradoxical sacrifice, in order to represent 
 the blindness of human pity. A fixed idea like the 
 Countess Cathleen looks neither to the right nor left ; 
 she walks straight for the chasm, but instead of falling 
 she ascends an angel to heaven, her intention being pure. 
 
 xxi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It was open to Mr Archer, Miss Robins and Mr 
 Massingham to have produced this divine play; or if 
 they had wanted a prose play they might have produced 
 " The Heather Field," which will now be performed by the 
 Irish Literary Theatre on alternate nights with Mr Yeats' 
 play. ... I sent "The Heather Field" to Mr Archer, 
 but he did not see as much as Mr Alexander saw in it, 
 nor did discussion help him to understand that it was 
 the first play written in English inspired by the examples 
 of Ibsen. He seemed still involved in the traditional 
 comprehension of Ibsen which discerns a social reformer 
 in the greatest dramatic poet and thinker since Shake- 
 speare, or maybe it was the man who paints from life, 
 straight away, without troubling himself about symbolism, 
 that Mr Archer saw in Ibsen at that time. He said, 
 speaking of "The Heather Field" and "The Benefit 
 of the Doubt," that it was open to me to prefer a piece of 
 rude original sculpture to a piece of academic work. It 
 is not required that I should raise the question whether 
 academic work expresses qualities of balance, design, 
 sequence. However this may be, it is certain that 
 these qualities are as conspicuously present in " The 
 Heather Field " as they are conspicuously absent from 
 "The Benefit of the Doubt." A play that possesses 
 qualities of balance, design, sequence is a work of art 
 and will hold its own in any company ; and although 
 "The Heather Field" will seem small by the side of 
 "The Wild Duck," it will hold its own by the side of 
 " The Wild Duck," or " Macbeth," or " Hamlet," just 
 as a housewife by Peter de Hoogh will hold its own 
 by the side of the " Marriage Feast " by Veronese, or the 
 "Entombment of Christ" by Titian, or the "Last Judg- 
 
 xxii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ment" by Michael Angelo. The little story entitled 
 " Ships that Pass in the Night " is not lofty in conception 
 nor very profound, but it is wistful and true, and it there- 
 fore holds its own by the side of " Don Quixote," " On 
 the Eve," and "1'Education Sentimentale." A picture 
 or poem that does not hold its own by the side of the 
 greatest works is not worthy of consideration, is not 
 art. Art is full of differences of style which seem to 
 amount to contradictions, but art is always the same, and 
 the true critic is he who is not deceived by the superficial 
 appearance. But the mission of the journalist is to record 
 appearances. ... I think that in these last lines I have 
 made something clear that was not clear before, and it is 
 not impossible that many will understand now why " The 
 Second Mrs Tanqueray " stands beyond the pale, not being 
 of the right flesh and blood, while " The Heather Field " 
 stands well within the pale. I apologise for the words 
 "well within," they are unnecessary; there is no border- 
 land: picture, poem, statue, novel, sonata, should enter 
 instantly by right of birth or be thrust outside like 
 hirelings. 
 
 M. Jules Lemaitre has published several volumes of 
 criticism, and so far as I remember without failing to 
 distinguish between the sheep and the goats. But Mr 
 Archer is never sure which is which, and his sins of 
 commission are only to be paralleled by his sins of 
 omission. He failed to perceive that the hero of "The 
 Heather Field," Garden Tyrrell, is the first appearance 
 of humanity in the English prose drama of to-day 
 of the eternal instinctive humanities and not the ephe- 
 meral differences which divide the grocer from the 
 baronet. It were surely impossible to point to a 
 
 xxiii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 scene in the English prose drama of the present 
 century so essentially human as the scene in which 
 Garden Tyrrell speaks to his brother Miles of the days 
 when they sailed their skiff to Lorlie, and Garden, who 
 is the elder brother, tells Miles, who was then a boy, the 
 legends of the Rhine. This scene is certainly a beautiful 
 and pathetic expression of that passionate wistfulness 
 which rises up in the heart and brain when we look back 
 on the days of our early youth, those days fresh and 
 fugitive as the days of early spring, when the buds are 
 breaking into tiny leaf and the dp.ffodils star the 
 grass. In a moment we are in the midst of the 
 emotion which Mr Martyn has expressed in this scene, 
 an emotion known to all over thirty, to the hind as 
 well as the king. Expression of it has hitherto been 
 sought by bringing together an elderly spinster and an 
 elderly bachelor who did not marry, and who fear 
 that it is now too late, the assumption being that if 
 they had married they would have been happy. But 
 Mr Martyn probes deeper than the ephemeral griefs 
 which circumstances create, and in the scene between 
 Garden Tyrrell and Miles Tyrrell we are face to face with 
 that primal melancholy which is at the root of human 
 existence, we look into its eyes, infinite as the sky, and 
 are absorbed in pity for all things that live, and we feel in 
 our soul the truth that man was not intended to be happy. 
 This scene occurs again at the close of the third act ; 
 in a modified form, it brings the play to its conclu- 
 sion. Garden Tyrrell is a man whose dreams are in 
 conflict with reality. He might have lived in some quiet 
 library or some dim museum, happy in antiquarian re- 
 search, but attracted by her beauty he marries a narrow- 
 
 xxiv
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 minded conventional woman of the world, and his dreams, 
 instead of being expended in art, turn to the reclamation 
 of the Heather Field. Mortgage after mortgage is placed 
 upon the property, and the future of his wife and child 
 is compromised. The play resolves itself into a duel 
 between husband and wife, and one of its merits is that 
 although all right and good sense are on the wife's side, 
 the sympathy is always with Garden. We forget the 
 ruin he is bringing on his family, and we love him for 
 his dreams, for his dreams are the eternal aspiration of 
 man for the ideal. He hears voices, magical voices on 
 the mountain side, and in his heart the sound of a silver 
 harp string. 
 
 The Heather Field is the symbol of his incurable nature ; 
 whatever its circumstances it will seek its destiny out 
 and find it ; and with the flowering of the Heather Field 
 Garden passes quietly over the border-land. The years, 
 with all their hideous realities fall behind him, wife, 
 domestic misfortunes and middle age, all that has been 
 done becomes undone ; his wife becomes Miss Desmond ; 
 his little son Kit becomes his brother Miles; Garden 
 is young again and he babbles of the rainbow, of 
 the Rhine, the gold of the Rhine and its legends ; he 
 attains his lost youth, the soft scent and colour of the 
 spring mornings, the green leaf and the meadow starred 
 with daffodils. "It is always morning now for me," he 
 exclaims. The others watch him baffled and unhappy, 
 they are still involved in the cruel coil of reality which 
 he has shaken off, and he leads the child to see the rain- 
 bow, " that mystic highway of man's speechless longings." 
 
 Garden Tyrrell will appear to the superficial reader 
 merely as a man who lives in a state of chronic mis- 
 
 XXV
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 understanding with his wife, and squanders his fortune in 
 experiments for the reclamation of waste land ; and in 
 Maeve the superficial reader will perceive a young lady 
 who finds herself unable to marry the man she has 
 promised to marry, and who is rescued from her dilemma 
 by Queen Maeve who rises from the great cairn, and 
 accompanied by her harpers and warriors, carries the 
 young girl away to Tir-nan-ogue. But the discerning 
 reader will at once understand that notwithstanding 
 much apparent dissimilarity of subject the two plays 
 are but different expressions of the same thought, 
 and the power to re-tell the same story in a different 
 form he will recognise as the sign of the true artist. 
 The idea of both plays is that silvery beauty which 
 survives in the human heart, which we see shimmer- 
 ing to the horizon, leading our longings beyond the 
 world, and we hear it in our hearts like silver harp 
 strings, sounding seemingly of themselves, for no hand is 
 by. The morning light, the hoar frost, the moonlight 
 wandering among the mountains are the natural symbols 
 of this divine beauty. Therefore Maeve is made of moon- 
 light and hoar frost and light of morning. We do not 
 discover her among our acquaintances, but everyone dis- 
 covers her when he wills to do so in his own heart. 
 Maeve is a character evolved out of a place ; she is 
 made out of the light of the keen bright Irish spring 
 and the loneliness of the Clare mountains that sur- 
 round her home, of the round tower, the masterwork 
 of Goban, on which she gazes with intense eyes; of 
 the legends of the ancient Irish gods, of the beauty of 
 the Irish romanesque ornament, those exquisite traceries 
 which are a reflection of the Byzantine, but more refined. 
 
 xxvi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Maeve is the spirit and sense of an ill-fated race, and she 
 portrays its destiny and bears the still unextinguished 
 light of its heroic period. Maeve is all ecstasy, tremulous 
 white ecstasy, cold as ice and glittering like ice in the 
 moonlight. She looks beyond the world for her love ; she 
 is haunted by the herolepsy of the plume and the spear of 
 the warrior, and sees her lover the chiefest among the 
 chieftains of Queen Maeve. Maeve's love is a cerebral 
 erithism which shrinks from all contact or even thought 
 of the contact of flesh. But this severance of her tempera- 
 ment from the strange fruition of all our holy and most 
 tender aspirations does not alienate our sympathy from her. 
 Although shorn of all common humanity, our sympathy is 
 with her as it is with Garden Tyrrell, and we cry, " Be- 
 lieve in your warrior of long ago, and let go by you the 
 young Englishman who seeks to rob you of your dream ; " 
 and to triumph thus over common instincts and infect 
 the reader with sympathies and longing which lie beyond 
 the world is surely to succeed where hitherto no modern 
 English dramatist has even dreamed that drama was to 
 be found. 
 
 These plays are perfectly constructed ; they could be 
 acted as they are written, without curtailment ; they 
 were composed with strict regard for the stage, though 
 perhaps not with a view to representation on the stage. 
 Mr Martyn was not innocent enough to think that plays 
 in which human emotion is the whole of the play, 
 would be tolerated in a theatre of the present day. 
 He wrote them with strict regard for the stage, because 
 it is impossible to write good plays without the actors 
 and the actresses who will never interpret them, always 
 
 xxvii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 before your eyes. It is as impossible to compose literary 
 plays that do not act as it is to compose sonnets in fifteen 
 lines ; but by some strange irony it has come to pass that 
 the plays which lend themselves to interpretation are the 
 plays which are neglected on the stage and cherished in 
 the study. 
 
 GEORGE MOORE. 
 
 xxvni
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 A PLAY IN THREE ACTS
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONJE 
 
 BARRY USSHER, a landowner, student, philosopher, &c. 
 LORD SHRULE, a neighbouring landowner. 
 LADY SHRULE (LILIAN), his wife. 
 GARDEN TYRRELL. 
 
 MRS GRACE TYRRELL (born DESMOND), his wife. 
 KIT, their son, nine years old. 
 
 MILES TYRRELL, scholar of Trinity College, Dublin, and 
 brother of Garden. 
 
 DOCTOR DOWLING, ) 
 
 > physicians. 
 DOCTOR ROCHE, J 
 
 The action takes place about the year 1890 in GARDEN TYRRELL'S 
 house on the West coast of Ireland.
 
 ACT I 
 
 SCENE : CARDEN TYERELL'S library. On the right a door 
 leads to the dining-room and rest of house. On the left is 
 a large empty fire-place. At back through open glass fold- 
 ing-doors a small garden is visible, below which the Atlantic 
 Ocean, flanked by a mountain at left, stretches out to the 
 horizon. Between fire-place and folding-doors stands a 
 writing-table with chairs on either side. At the opposite 
 part of the room near folding-doors is a large sofa. Books 
 in shelves line all walls. In front at the right is another 
 table covered with papers, magazines, &c., which are likewise 
 thrown negligently over other chairs in the room. It is a 
 bright forenoon in the Autumn. 
 
 MILES TYKBELL, a young light-haired man of about nineteen, 
 dressed in a blue serge suit, is seated at the writing-table in 
 deep study with several books around him. After a pause 
 he looks up wearily, then again bends over his books. 
 
 BARRY USSHER, a lean man of about two and thirty, of 
 medium height, with dark hair, a short pointed beard, and 
 dressed in a riding-costume of sombre grey, enters from 
 garden at back. 
 
 MILES (starting). Ah, Barry. 
 
 USSHER (throwing his hat and hunting-whip on the 
 sofa). Hallo, Miles, good morning. I see you are 
 determined to win that gold medal at Trinity and 
 become one day Lord Chancellor of Ireland too, I'lljbe 
 bound. 
 
 MIL. (with a faint smile). Lord Chancellor, indeed! I 
 
 3
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 shall be lucky if I can pass my examination and then 
 find just so many briefs as will afford me a living. 
 
 Uss. Why are you so despondent ? You have ability. 
 
 MIL. Perhaps if there was an opportunity of dis- 
 playing it Oh, this is no place for work. 
 
 Uss. I know what you mean. But why not study 
 in your room upstairs? 
 
 MIL. I might do that. Still it is not so much the 
 interruptions. It is the knowledge of what goes on, 
 perpetually. 
 
 Uss. Are things as bad as ever ? 
 
 MIL. Yes my brother and his wife cannot agree. 
 
 Uss. How sad it is. 
 
 MIL. Oh, if only I had a quiet house to study in 
 like yours. You live there like a sage absorbed in 
 your books and ideas. 
 
 Uss. I fear I also find difficulties in cultivating the 
 tastes that are congenial to me. 
 
 MIL. Why? 
 
 Uss. You see, Miles, an unfortunate landowner must 
 devote all his attention to keeping a little of his be- 
 longings together in these bad times. 
 
 MIL. As if you were affected by bad times you, 
 with that fine place here joining us, and with your un- 
 encumbered estate, and no one depending upon you. 
 You're a lucky fellow. No wonder the luck of Barry 
 Ussher is a by-word with the country people. 
 
 Uss. They know nothing about it. 
 
 MIL. Well, in any case you seem able to live as 
 you please. You have always means to travel, and 
 never want for anything. 
 
 Uss. So that is your idea of luck, Miles ? 
 
 4
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 MIL. Well, somewhat I fancy. Isn't it yours ? 
 
 Uss. I don't think these things make much difference 
 either way. 
 
 MIL. Oh, come, Barry, you can't expect me to believe 
 that. 
 
 Uss. Yes, I mean that what we have on one side 
 is taken away from the other; so the world's lots are 
 more fairly divided than you imagine. Our natures 
 remain much the same at their root. There is always 
 the original pain. 
 
 MIL. I suppose you cynical philosophers must invent 
 some grievance from lack of real troubles. 
 
 Uss. No, Miles. 
 
 MIL. Well, if you only knew how my brother envies 
 your good fortune. 
 
 Uss. There are others Garden Tyrrell might envy, 
 but he need not envy me. By the way, where is he? 
 
 MIL. He is out I suppose in the heather field. 
 
 Uss. Oh (After a short pause) He has finished all 
 his work there, hasn't he? 
 
 MIL. Yes, the young grass is coming up beautifully 
 now. Do you want to see him at once? I can send 
 for him. In any case he is sure to be back soon. 
 
 Uss. That will do. I am in no great hurry. 
 
 MIL. You have some business with him ? 
 
 Uss. Well, yes. It is about this very subject of land 
 reclamation. I hear he is about to raise another large 
 loan from Government, in order to extend these opera- 
 tions of his. 
 
 MIL. Really? 
 
 Uss. So they told me yesterday in Dublin at the 
 Board of Works.
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 MIL. When Grace hears this, there will be more 
 troubles and disputes. 
 
 Uss. Most likely. What a pity your sister-in-law- 
 defeats all her objects by her manner towards Garden. 
 
 MIL. Oh indeed, she is very impatient with him. Yet 
 she is good enough in her way too. 
 
 Uss. Precisely ; and would probably have made an 
 excellent wife for almost any other man ; but for your 
 brother well, it might have been better if he had never 
 thought of marriage at all. 
 
 MIL. What? Surely he might have found some one 
 to suit him. Why should you say such a thing ? 
 
 Uss. (with a frightened look}. Why? 
 
 MIL. Yes, Barry. But what is the matter with 
 you? 
 
 Uss. (quickly recovering himself). Oh, nothing, 
 Miles nothing. I merely meant to say that it would 
 be very difficult for anyone to suit Garden. He is a 
 person so much of himself, you know. 
 
 MIL. Ah, it is certainly a great misfortune he ever met 
 Grace. And their estrangement is so extraordinary for 
 he once used to be so fond of her. 
 
 Uss. Yes, they generally begin that way. I remember 
 just before he became engaged he told me that he thought 
 till then he should never marry, but that at last he had 
 found real happiness. They all say that, you know. 
 
 MIL. You may very well philosophise over what is 
 past, Barry. But why did you not then try to dissuade 
 him? 
 
 Uss. Of course I tried to dissuade him then. I did 
 my best. 
 
 MIL. Oh, you did, did you ? 
 
 6
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 Uss. Yes, of course. I warned him against the danger 
 of marrying a girl with whom he was only acquainted so 
 short a time. I entreated him to wait a while at all 
 events, as he was then only twenty-one and she some- 
 thing younger. But all to no purpose. Ah, if he had 
 waited, he could not have failed to discover that she was 
 only marrying him for his means and position, and that 
 she did not in the least care for him. Besides I was 
 certain from the first that he had no real affection or 
 respect for her. 
 
 MIL. Indeed ? What made you so certain of that, 
 Barry? 
 
 Uss. Well, you see, Garden and I had been intimate 
 so long. We had been brought up together in fact, so 
 that I fancy I understand him better than anyone. The 
 sudden overturning of all his ideas at that time seemed to 
 me strange and unnatural. He was like one bewitched. 
 A man's whole nature somehow does not change in a 
 moment. You were too young, Miles, to know him in 
 those days ; but he was so ideal, so imaginative, as engag- 
 ing as some beautiful child who saw nothing real in the 
 world outside his own fairy dreams. 
 
 MIL. (with a baffled look). I have memories of those 
 days! 
 
 Uss. They are vivid with me. Oh, he always did so 
 fascinate and interest me. What poetry he put into those 
 days of my youth the days that are dead. (Pause.) 
 Then to see him suddenly changed, grown even prosy 
 under the power of her influence, it made it impossible 
 for me to consider this attachment of his genuine or likely 
 to endure. And has not the result proved that I was 
 right? 
 
 7
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 MIL. I fear I must admit, Barry, that you were, alas, 
 a reliable prophet. 
 
 Uss. Oh, I foresaw all. I knew this change could not 
 last. The old, wild nature had to break out again when 
 the novelty was over. It was a misfortune since he was 
 married, but it was inevitable. There are some dis- 
 positions too eerie, too ethereal, too untamable for good, 
 steady, domestic cultivation, and if so domesticated they 
 avenge themselves in after time. Ah, foolishly his wife 
 and her friends thought they were going to change Garden 
 to their model of a young man, but the latent, untam- 
 able nature was not to be subdued. Its first sign of 
 revolt against suppression was when he began this vast 
 work in the heather field. 
 
 MIL. (with a puzzled look). Barry, I I do not 
 understand. 
 
 Uss. Miles, you must admit it was rather an extra- 
 vagant work. He has sunk a fortune of borrowed 
 capital in the reclamation of that mountain. Look at 
 all the men he employed to root up rocks, and the steam 
 ploughs, too, that have been working during these last 
 years. 
 
 MIL. But surely he will obtain a large rent for the 
 rich grass he has made to grow there. That ought to 
 more than compensate for his outlay. 
 
 Uss. Meanwhile interest is accruing. The grass has 
 not grown sufficiently for letting as yet. Then payment 
 of rent cannot follow till long after, always supposing 
 that it ever produces much rent. 
 
 MIL. (surprised). Why do you say that ? Is not the 
 land good now. 
 
 Uss. Ah, Miles, do you not know that the soil in such 
 
 8
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 places is very wild and untamable ? If heather lands 
 are brought into cultivation for domestic use, they must 
 be watched, they must have generous and loving treat- 
 ment, else their old wild nature may avenge itself. 
 
 [He averts his look. 
 
 MIL. (with mingled wonder and uneasiness). Avenge 
 itself? How, Barry? 
 
 Uss. Why, the wild heather may break out upon 
 them soon again. 
 
 MIL. Oh (Then eagerly} But don't you think Garden 
 has given the best of treatment to the heather field ? 
 
 Uss. (slowly and gently). I do not know whether 
 his treatment was sufficiently kind, as farmers say here 
 in West Ireland. Somehow he seemed too impatient 
 for the change. He was hardly considerate enough, 
 perhaps, in the accomplishment of his will. 
 
 MIL. (with dejection). You evidently think there is 
 something unsatisfactory in the business. 
 
 Uss. Let us hope for the best, Miles. In any case 
 we ought to try and prevent him from embarking in 
 further schemes. 
 
 MIL. Do, Barry. If there is one person in the world 
 he will listen to, it is you. Besides you will remove a 
 fresh cause of quarrels with Grace : and who knows but 
 you may be able to do more afterwards. Stop I see 
 him coming now through the garden. 
 
 [GARDEN TYRRELL, a rather powerfully built man 
 of one and thirty, with light hair, spare growth 
 of beard, unsteady eyes, very large forehead, and 
 lower part of face small, dressed negligently in a 
 dark suit, enters from the back. 
 
 TYR. (smiling). Oh, how goes it with you, Barry ? You 
 
 9
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 have not favoured us with visits much of late. What have 
 you been doing ? 
 
 Uss. Well, I have been to Dublin for one thing. 
 
 TYR. So I heard. But is it true you are reducing all 
 your rents ? 
 
 Uss. Yes, I have been reducing them somewhat 
 
 TYR. My goodness. I suppose you will end by 
 making the tenants a present of your property. You call 
 me a dreamer, but it seems that I am the practical 
 man. 
 
 Uss. (laughing). Oh, that does not follow at all. I 
 consider it wiser to give a little in time, than later on to 
 have perhaps more wrung from me by the Land Commis- 
 sion. 
 
 TYR. But one should never depreciate the value of one's 
 property. I am afraid, Barry, you are mismanaging your 
 affairs. Have you begun yet to reclaim that bog outside 
 your demesne, as I advised ? 
 
 Uss. No, Garden. 
 
 TYR. There, you see. Well, a fortune is to be made by 
 such work. You would be much better employed at it 
 than at reducing your rents. But, my dear old Barry, 
 there is no use in arguing with you, when you are once set 
 upon a thing. I suppose it is because you knew I would 
 not approve of what you are doing that you have not been 
 to see me for so long. 
 
 Uss. Always suspicious, Garden. But, may I ask why 
 you never come to see me ? 
 
 TYR, You forget all I have undertaken all my re- 
 sponsibilities. I have little time. 
 
 Uss. And one would think my time was of no value. 
 Perhaps, Garden, the real reason is that I might possibly 
 
 10
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 not appreciate some of your undertakings and responsi- 
 bilities. 
 
 TYR. (with a swift shy glance}. Why should you think 
 so? 
 
 Uss. (smiling). Oh, I don't know. I was only won- 
 dering. 
 
 TYR. But why should that prevent me from going to 
 you? 
 
 Uss. Precisely, why indeed? I should never have 
 thought of it, if you had not first suggested the thought. 
 
 TYR. Well, you have no reason to think anything of the 
 kind. Just as if I could be occupied in the way you 
 imagine. 
 
 Uss. It seems odd that you should, Garden. 
 
 TYR. Yet you have an idea all the same, that I 
 could. 
 
 Uss. Well, to tell you the truth, I heard yesterday that 
 you were contemplating what seems to me certainly most 
 rash. 
 
 TYR. Oh, you did, did you ? Let us hear what seems 
 to you most rash. 
 
 Uss. It is true, is it not, that you are about to borrow 
 another large sum of money for new land improvements ? 
 
 TYR. (somewhat confused). Yes it is true well ? 
 
 Uss. Well don't you think you had better not ? 
 
 TYR. Why not? 
 
 Uss. Don't you think you have done enough work for 
 the present, at all events ? Would it not be better to wait 
 for a time and see whether what you have already accom- 
 plished is going to be successful ? 
 
 MIL. Yes, Garden, don't you think you ought to wait 
 for a while longer ? 
 
 11
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 TYR. Wait ? Why wait, when I know the work must 
 be successful nay, is already successful ? 
 
 Uss. You can scarcely yet be sure of that, Garden. 
 
 TYR. Why not? 
 
 Uss. (rather confused). Oh, the nature 
 
 [He hesitates. 
 
 MIL. You can scarcely yet be sure of what the land is 
 capable, you know. 
 
 TYR. Can I not see what grass it has produced. 
 
 Uss. Yes, but will that continue ? 
 
 TYR, (scornfully). Will that continue? Who ever 
 heard so absurd a question. As well ask will the air 
 continue to bear up the birds? Will its myriad life 
 continue to pant underneath the sea? Come my old 
 friend, my brother I will not have you talk in this dis- 
 couraging way and make such insinuations, as if you were 
 indeed nothing more than mere country neighbours, who 
 cannot understand my ideas. No, you must believe in 
 me, and inspire me with heart. 
 
 MIL. We do believe in you, Garden but 
 
 Uss. We only suggest prudence. 
 
 MIL. Be prudent, Garden. 
 
 TYR. Oh, but when you understand the matter, you 
 will see how prudent I have been. For it was absolutely 
 necessary to obtain this further loan unless the value of 
 the previous one was to be destroyed. 
 
 Uss. I do not follow you. Will you explain ? 
 
 TYR. Well, you see, the drainage of the heather field 
 has practically swamped the lands below it ; so I now 
 must necessarily drain the water off from them right 
 down to the sea. When I have finished all that grand 
 ramification of drains, I shall have created a whole vast 
 
 12
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 tract of fertile pasture which will double the value of my 
 property. What do you think of that ? Why, I believe 
 all you people imagine that I am working in the dark, 
 that I do not know what I am about. But I tell you I 
 have excellent reasons for everything I undertake. 
 
 Uss. Yes, Garden, of course but you have borrowed 
 a vast sum of money. Take care that the interest you 
 will have to pay the Board of Works does not exceed 
 your income. 
 
 TYB. There is no danger, Barry. Have I not told you 
 that my income must be greatly increased ? 
 
 Uss. You have indeed. I can only hope most sincerely 
 that it will be so. 
 
 TYR. But you still seem to doubt it all the same. 
 (UssHER is silent). Oh, come, Barry, this is unfriendly 
 of you. Barry, you are a prophet of evil. Heaven grant 
 that your doubts may be vain, else Oh, I should be the 
 most miserable of men. But they are vain they are, 
 they are even despite your other memorable prophecy 
 that, alas, has come too true. Ah, do you remember 
 your warning to me ten years ago ? 
 
 Uss. You mean just before your marriage ? Yes. 
 
 TYR. (gloomily). I wonder had that anything to do 
 with its unhappiness. I wonder if these doubts now will 
 bring misfortune on my present undertakings. 
 
 Uss. (in a frightened voice). Garden, for pity's sake 
 stop. Don't speak like that. Forget any doubts I may 
 have now expressed. Forget them forget them. I was 
 wrong ever to have interfered with my advice. Never 
 will I do so again. No I have not the right. See, 
 Garden, for all I know you may succeed now. I heartily 
 hope you will. You are determined to, and discourage- 
 
 13
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 ment might only cause you to fail No you must not 
 have a second misfortune to cast at me. Good-bye. 
 
 [He prepares to go. 
 
 MIL. Oh, Barry, do not leave us in this way. Think 
 
 TYR. Oh, I am sorry you should take anything I said in 
 that light. I did not mean, Barry, really to 
 
 Uss. No, Garden, forgive me, but I was for the 
 moment unnerved by the thought that you should attri- 
 bute to me any of your ill luck. No I hope you will 
 always find me a help to you instead, whenever you may 
 require me. 
 
 TYR. Ah, now you are like yourself again the Barry 
 of other days. I knew you would understand me when I 
 explained everything to you. 
 
 Uss. I hope, Garden, at least I may never be to you 
 the cause of ill luck. [Exit at back. 
 
 TYR. Dear old Barry, it makes him positively angry 
 to see me improving my property, because he has not the 
 enterprise to improve his own. But I think I have 
 convinced him that he was mistaken in his estimate of 
 my work. 
 
 MIL. You certainly frightened him, Garden. I have 
 never seen him as he was just now. 
 
 TYR. Oh, I really did not mean what I said. He 
 only annoyed me by his stupid doubting. 
 
 MIL. Still as a matter of fact long ago he tried to 
 dissuade you from marrying Grace isn't that so ? 
 
 TYR. Yes. He was full of doubts and objections then 
 as now only then he was right. But now ha, ha 
 well, I know he is altogether wrong. 
 
 MIL. Why do you say you know, Garden ? Why are 
 you so certain now ? 
 
 14
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 TYR. Because I see so clearly before me. 
 
 MIL. That at least is a comfort. But perhaps he 
 might be wrong in the other matter too. Don't you think 
 it would be well also if you would determine to belie his 
 doubts of long ago as well as of to-day ? 
 
 TYB. What do you mean ? 
 
 MIL. Why, Garden, to try and prove that after all he 
 was wrong when he advised you not to marry Grace. 
 
 TYR. (with a sigh). Ah impossible. 
 
 MIL. Don't say that, Garden. 
 
 TYR. Oh, Miles, you do not understand. 
 
 MIL. But have you never tried ? 
 
 TYR. Tried? 
 
 MIL. Yes, tried. You know there is nothing really 
 wrong about her. 
 
 TYR. Nothing, nothing and everything. The same 
 thing that is wrong about me. That is how it is 
 between us. 
 
 MIL. But might you not try to fall in just a little with 
 her ways ? She is good after all. 
 
 TYR. My dear Miles you don't know what you are 
 talking about. Of course she is good enough. I know 
 that perfectly well. But she has no sense of compromise 
 no consideration for me at all. She always despised 
 me. 
 
 MIL. Oh, Garden, no 
 
 TYR. Oh, but yes. That is why she is so indignant 
 I should take an interest in anything except herself. 
 She would shape my life altogether after her own standard 
 and that of Lady Shrule. I have often given in before, 
 but the result was she became more and more exacting, 
 until at last I found matters quite intolerable. Oh, it 
 
 15
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 is useless to deny that here at least Barry's warnings have 
 come true. 
 
 MIL. How extraordinary that you should have changed 
 so towards her you who once were so devoted. 
 
 TYR. Ah, Miles, I have simply found her to be ab- 
 solutely different from what I once imagined her. I 
 was very young then, very inexperienced. I longed for 
 sympathy, and thought it was easy to find. I idealised 
 women in those days. I believed that they were idealists. 
 Ah, that was my fatal error. 
 
 MIL. But surely you don't mean to deny that some 
 are? 
 
 TYR. I don't believe any are, really. They may be on 
 an average more fanciful than man, but your true idealist 
 can only be a man. Alas ! had I known that then, my 
 fate would have been very different. I thought others 
 were easy to find, in whom I could confide as in 
 Barry. 
 
 MIL. Do you consider him an idealist ? 
 
 TYR. I should think so indeed a true idealist only 
 he is in a way so drilled and careful, that he will never let 
 himself go. But he is such a friend, and understands 
 everything. No, I never knew isolation when we were 
 together in our youth. Isolation only began with my 
 marriage which led me out into a lonely world. Oh, 
 it was a great misfortune. And I have no one to blame 
 but myself. 
 
 MIL. And yet and yet were you really so much to 
 blame ? She was so beautiful 
 
 TYR. Ah, you have said it. There you have found 
 the cause of all the trouble. But Barry would never have 
 wavered. 
 
 16
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 MIL. Oh, he is a hardened philosopher whom no 
 beauty could soften. 
 
 TYR. That is because, unlike most people, he can see 
 the truly beautiful, and so is heedless of shams. 
 
 MIL. Shams? And you can speak like that of her 
 beauty. How I remember her on your wedding-day, 
 when as her little page I held her train? I was only 
 nine years old then, and thought she was some tall white 
 fairy that had come to live with us. Oh, Garden, think 
 of that time. Its memory might banish much bitterness. 
 
 TYR. Too late, too late. You are still very young, 
 Miles. I have outgrown the capability of such senti- 
 ment. 
 
 MIL. But you have not outgrown the great kindness 
 of your nature. No, that I could never believe. Ought 
 it not in these difficulties to help you ? Why, see how good 
 you are always to me. 
 
 TYR. Ah, yes, that is different, Miles. 
 
 MIL. And Kit, too are you not most affectionate and 
 kind to him ? 
 
 TYR. My poor little son, of course how could I be 
 otherwise to him ? He is really so loveable and such a 
 companion to me. For just now he is wonderfully like 
 what you were, Miles, when you acted as that; pretty 
 page. His age besides is the same as yours was then ; so 
 that the very sight of him calls back to me the days of 
 my youth. Oh, that happy time before my fatal mistake ! 
 Miles, do you remember that time ? 
 
 MIL. Remember ? How well I remember ! 
 
 TYR. I suppose I had troubles then, as now; but 
 memory has idealised those past scenes, till only their 
 beauty remains, wafted back to me like an aroma from 
 B 17
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 some lost paradise. I feel I shall never know the joy of 
 those days again. 
 
 MIL. You must not think such things, Garden. Days 
 as good as these will, I am sure, return. 
 
 TYR. Ah no, Miles their poetry, never the hope 
 that shines like a spring-day sun upon our youth ! It 
 warms us with such life. It inspires us to attempt so 
 many deeds. With what expectations we travel. What 
 materials we are to make out of it all. Do you remember 
 when we went abroad together ? 
 
 MIL. (joyfully). Oh, yes, of course I do, Garden. 
 
 TYR. Well, it seems funny that I should have taken you 
 with me then on travels you were too young to appreciate : 
 but I could not bear to leave you who had no protector 
 save me after our father died. 
 
 MIL. You kind brother. 
 
 TYR. Yes, I carried you off, my little Miles, as you 
 were then. 
 
 MIL. And how I enjoyed myself. 
 
 TYR. What fairie towns we came to Boppart on the 
 Rhine with its quaint old houses. Then we sailed our 
 boat through the hills to Lorlei, and watched where the 
 river nymphs used long ago to glide, laughing, through 
 the gold-lit depths of the stream. 
 
 MIL. Yes, and you told me the legend of their gold 
 how it was robbed and restored and still guarded by 
 them. 
 
 TYR. I did; and you, little practical man that you 
 were, you bent down to the water expecting to see the 
 glitter of the Rhine Gold ! 
 
 MIL. (laughing). The marvellous seemed real in those 
 days. 
 
 18
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 TYR. Ah, those bright happy days! And do you 
 remember that Sunday morning in Cologne Cathedral 
 when all the boys sang Palestrina so divinely? 
 
 MIL. I remember we stood by great iron gates. I 
 looked up in your face and wondered why it shone 
 through its tears. 
 
 TYR. How pure the silver voice chords soared to the 
 vaults of stone! Pure as our joy in those days. Fit 
 music for those bright young days. 
 
 MIL. Yes, everything seemed joyful then. 
 
 TYR. Oh, what brave times we used to have together. 
 You know we were always such friends. 
 
 MIL. (with emotion). Indeed we always were, Garden. 
 There is no one in the whole world I love as well as you. 
 You have ever been the best of brothers to me. 
 
 TYR. (goes over mysteriously to MILES). Then you 
 think, Miles, you will always help me ? 
 
 MIL. (surprised}. Why, Garden, of course 
 
 TYR. (with anxious intensity). You will not leave me, 
 if if ever I should stand helpless and alone, will you 
 Miles ? 
 
 MIL. Good gracious, no. But what makes you imagine 
 such a thing ? 
 
 TYR. Well, somehow I feel that persons and objects 
 are receding from me and becoming more unreal in these 
 later times. (Crosses over to sofa at right and kneeling on 
 it with one knee, gazes out at the mountain.) Do you 
 know, Miles, I often think that my life of pain and unrest 
 here is only a dream after all. 
 
 MIL. And like a dream this suffering will pass away, 
 Garden, let us hope never to return. 
 
 TYR. (sadly). No, oh no. It would be too much to 
 
 19
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 expect that. A dream a bad dream (as if suddenly 
 illumined), yet with intervals too of wakefulness now and 
 then. 
 
 MIL. (approaching him). Of wakefulness? What do 
 you mean ? When are those intervals ? 
 TYR. When I am out in the heather field. 
 MIL. The heather field ? 
 
 TYR. (with enthusiasm). Yes the great mountain field 
 out there (points out at back), that it was my ideal to 
 bring to fruitfulness. There I awaken to true life indeed, 
 as I stand looking over the Atlantic ; and sea winds sweep 
 against my feet the young grass in its matchless Irish 
 green that gleams a golden green in the Autumn sun 
 to-day. There I am haunted by those departed joys of 
 my youth again and again. 
 
 MIL. (with a puzzled look). There ? But why there, 
 Garden. Why there more than anywhere else? 
 
 TYR. Oh you matter-of-fact Miles still the same as 
 the little wise Miles of long ago, who used to ask such 
 quaint questions. How different we are? Yet how 
 delightful I always find you. "Why there?" you ask. 
 Ha, ha! 
 
 MIL. (a little disconcerted). Evidently you consider it 
 a superfluous question. But I think I may very reason- 
 ably ask it all the same. 
 
 TYR. Well, then, because there after years of joyless 
 stagnation I find myself again in an ideal domain away 
 from fretful surroundings alone ! except for little Kit 
 who loves the mountain and its wild flowers. You 
 know, Miles, how like I have said he now looks to what 
 you were in the old days? At moments, indeed, I can 
 hardly believe it is he and not you. So his presence there 
 
 20
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 is no hindrance to that evocation of the past. No ; 
 he serves rather to quicken the magic of the heather 
 field. 
 
 MIL. (with sudden emotion). Oh, to think I could 
 ever have been so much to you. How good you always 
 were to me, Garden. 
 
 TYR.. I could not help it. You belonged to the beauty 
 of that time. 
 
 MIL. All this sounds like the marvellous tales you used 
 to tell me when I was a child. I see your imagination is 
 the same as ever. 
 
 TYR. And you call what I tell you only imagination. 
 
 MIL. Well, Garden but what else. 
 
 TYR. (resignedly}. Ah, I suppose I cannot help you. 
 You too are like Barry who said the same thing when I 
 once told him of the voices 
 
 MIL. (with vague alarm). Voices, Garden ? Why 
 what now are these ? 
 
 TYR. Out there over the mountain. Oh, the vivid 
 brightness of those voices, as they float back from the 
 past on each changing breeze ! 
 
 MIL. (anxiously). You only heard the wind whistle 
 along the coast. Don't heed it any more, Garden. 
 
 TYR. Why should I not heed such celestial song ? 
 
 MIL. A dream phantom of the desolate mountain. 
 
 TYR. No ; it is only your words I hear as in a troubled 
 dream. 
 
 MIL. (gently). Garden, it is deceiving you this 
 wonderful imagination. 
 
 TYR. What ? imagination again ? 
 
 MIL. Of course. 
 
 TYR, (patiently). Ah well, I cannot convince you, 
 
 21
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 Miles. But what does it matter ? You are delightfully 
 sympathetic to me all the same. I feel this opening of 
 my soul to you has even done me good. Yes, it does me 
 good to be listened to occasionally. It leaves a great 
 peace after it ; and I have not felt so peaceful as now for 
 many a day. Indeed, if this could last, it would be 
 almost like the old time again. 
 
 [MRS GRACE TYRRELL, a rather tall, thin woman of 
 about thirty but looking younger, with a pale face, 
 brown hair and an undejinable attractiveness in her 
 outward manner and movements enters by door at 
 R. She is dressed plainly, but with exceeding neat- 
 ness. TYRRELL takes a large book from the shelves 
 at back of sofa on which he then sits and turns 
 over the leaves, suppressing a look of annoyance. 
 MIL. (going towards her politely). I suppose you 
 have been out on your rounds this morning as usual, 
 Grace ? 
 
 GR. Yes, as usual. Have you been here since breakfast ? 
 MIL. Yes. 
 
 GR. Studying, I suppose. 
 MIL. Not much. 
 GR. Why? 
 
 MIL. Oh, Barry Ussher was here, and then Garden and 
 I have been talking. 
 
 Gr. And so your morning was wasted, Miles ? 
 MIL. Oh, not wasted, Grace. 
 
 GR. I think it would have been more profitably em- 
 ployed in working for your examinations than in talking 
 to your brother. 
 
 MIL. I am not at all so certain you are right. 
 GR. You must admit you have plenty of time for 
 
 22
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 talking without allowing it to interfere with your 
 studies. 
 
 TYR. (looking up from his book). It is so hard for 
 us, Miles, is it not, when we are together, to refrain ? 
 
 GR. What you two can have to say perpetually to each 
 other puzzles me. You never visit anywhere nor seem to 
 know what is going on in the neighbourhood. 
 
 TYR. If we did, I am certain we shouldn't trouble to 
 speak about it. 
 
 GR. Oh, indeed. 
 
 TYR. No ; the subjects that mutually interest us are 
 far different. Among other things, we were talking 
 before you came in over our journey long ago on the Con- 
 tinent. (Then as if carried away by the subject of the 
 moment) Look, in this architectural book there are 
 plates representing some buildings we saw then. Here is 
 a Romanesque house at Boppart on the Rhine. It is a 
 unique specimen of domestic architecture in that period. 
 And here this is the bishop's house at Wiirzburg. How 
 beautifully the oriel is poised there at the angle, like a 
 hooded falcon on its perch ; what a genius these medieval 
 architects had for soothing with picturesque ideality the 
 restless suffering spirit of their time. To gaze on their 
 work makes one forget oneself and everything else 
 
 GR. (who the while has been looking about her with 
 an impatient and wearied expression). Goodness me, 
 what a litter the room is in with all these books and 
 papers. 
 
 TYR. (with a momentary look of humiliation). Oh ! 
 
 GR. What brought me here, by the way, was to tell 
 you that I must have it thoroughly dusted and tidied at 
 once, as the Shrules come to lunch to-morrow. 
 
 23
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 TYR. Yes, but what have they got to do with my room? 
 
 GR. We shall want it to sit in. I could not think of 
 letting anyone see it in its present state. 
 
 TYR. (fretfully). Can't you leave my room alone ? 
 
 GR. There ! as usual, you are disagreeable when your 
 wife wants anything. 
 
 TYR. No ; but I have a quantity of important papers 
 that it would give me endless trouble at present to sort, 
 and put away. 
 
 MIL. Oh, why cause him all this inconvenience, Grace ? 
 Will not the drawing-room suit you just as well ? 
 
 GR. Lord Shrule has had an attack of gout and does 
 not like going upstairs 
 
 MIL. Then bring them here. But you need not upset 
 the room. Everyone knows it's a work-room. 
 
 GR. I could not think of allowing any strangers to see 
 it in this state. 
 
 MIL. I wonder how you can attach so much im- 
 portance 
 
 GR. (coldly). That will do, Miles. As usual you don't 
 know what you are talking about 
 
 MIL. Hei-ho. 
 
 [He begins to gather his books together on the writing- 
 table. 
 
 TYR. You are not going, Miles, are you ? 
 
 MIL. I think I shall try if I can read in the summer- 
 house outside. 
 
 [Exit at back, carrying with him his books. 
 
 GR. (quietly). Well, I suppose you had better put 
 away all these old papers at once, and let the housemaid 
 come in. 
 
 TYR. Impossible. I am too busy. 
 
 24
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 GR. That's what you always say. You imagine your- 
 self the busiest man in the world ; and as a matter of fact 
 you have nothing to do. 
 
 TYR, Nothing to do ? 
 
 GR, (calmly). What have you to do ? 
 
 TYR, (checking his irritation). Very well, we won't 
 discuss that old subject. Anyhow I require my papers, 
 as a man comes to see me to-morrow on business con- 
 nected with them. 
 
 GR. Who is this man ? 
 
 TYR. The drainage inspector of the Board of Works. 
 
 GR. Indeed ! Why, I thought he had finished every- 
 thing here long ago. 
 
 TYR. Oh, so he has. 
 
 GR. Well, what is he coming for now ? 
 
 TYR. (vaguely). Oh you see it would take too long 
 to explain just at present. Besides you might not under- 
 stand. 
 
 GR. (with a penetrating look}. You know I would 
 understand well enough. But you never were a person 
 to be relied upon ! You are now trying to hide something 
 from me. Come, it is as good to tell it to me at once. 
 
 TYR. (bridling up). I am not trying to hide anything 
 from you. I don't care whether you know it or not. 
 
 GR. Well, then, why is this man coming ? 
 
 TYR. He is to lay out some drains in the valley beneath 
 the heather field. 
 
 GR. (astounded). What ? You don't mean to say you 
 are going to drain all that immense tract of land too ? 
 
 TYR. Yes. It is necessary now after the other work. 
 So I am going to obtain a new loan from Government to 
 carry it out, 
 
 25
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 GR. A new loan! We shall certainly be ruined this 
 time. 
 
 TYR. No no Why, can you not see the enormous 
 improvement this work must be to the estate ? 
 
 GR. Oh, that is what you are always saying ; and the 
 estate for some years past has been steadily growing 
 worse and worse, until now we are almost reduced to 
 difficulties. 
 
 TYR. You are quite mistaken. I tell you we are on 
 the eve of seeing one income doubled. Just consider the 
 rent that must soon be produced by the heather field. 
 
 GR. (with a gesture of impatience). The heather field. 
 Up to this, indeed, it has been nothing but a gigantic 
 loss. And who knows but it may never be anything 
 else ? My goodness, can you not wait to see if it will be 
 a success before you swamp the estate with this new 
 debt? 
 
 TYR. No no every delay is a loss of profit. You do 
 not understand. 
 
 GR, Oh, I am tired of your always telling me that I do 
 not understand. I understand perfectly that you are 
 bringing us to beggary. 
 
 TYR. Well it is certainly amazing that you should 
 think so. But then, you know, you are never open to 
 reason never in sympathy with my ideas. 
 
 GR. How on earth can I be, when like everyone else 
 I believe you to be utterly mistaken in what you are 
 doing ? 
 
 TYR. I do not mean what I am doing at present but 
 the whole tenor of my life and ideas. You have never 
 understood them. 
 
 GR. (sharply). Look here, it's beginning to irritate me 
 
 26
 
 ACT i. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 this talk about my not understanding. So I see you 
 think yourself the great incomprehensible, ha, ha. Well, 
 you are quite mistaken. Everyone understands you. So 
 do I, absolutely. For in spite of all your efforts to be 
 singular, you are a very ordinary person, in whom there is 
 nothing particular to understand. 
 
 TYR. (helplessly). What on earth do you mean by 
 always harping on my efforts to be singular ? Heaven 
 knows I cannot see how I try to be so. 
 
 GR. (with a little laugh, as she taps her foot on the 
 floor). I suppose you are now habituated to the effort. 
 
 TYR. (looking at her with a sort of wonder). Oh, how 
 impossible it is for you ever to know how I have suffered 
 how I have aspired ! 
 
 GR. (impatiently). Really, it becomes too provoking 
 when you begin talking about these imaginary sufferings 
 and aspirations of yours. What on earth have you to 
 suffer ? You are in good health are you not ? Were you 
 not more than fortunate to have married as you did? 
 Have you not independent means ? What then can a man 
 like you aspire more to ? It is true, of course, that you 
 have crippled your resources by mismanagement and ex- 
 travagance. But, if you will now be led by me, and put 
 this new scheme of drainage out of your head, and if we 
 are economical for a while, the property must recover. 
 Then you can have absolutely nothing to trouble you. 
 
 TYR. Oh, this matter-of-fact way you have of looking 
 at things ! This simple barren prose of your mind ! It is 
 that, that is driving me mad. 
 
 GR. Driving you mad 
 
 [Pause, during which they look at each other. 
 
 TYR. Well, I suppose you think I am so. (He waits 
 
 27
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT i. 
 
 for her answer.) What an absurd idea. This is another 
 means of annoying me. 
 
 GR. I must defend myself. 
 
 TYR. What do you mean ? 
 
 GR. Seeing you are so bent on ruining our child and 
 me, I can only think one thing. 
 
 TYR. That I am mad ? 
 
 GR. (without answering him walks to back). 
 
 TYR. Grace. 
 
 GR. (turning). Well what is it ? 
 
 TYR. Do you mean this ? 
 
 GR. (still walking to back). What did I say ? 
 
 TYR. You said I mean you insinuated that I am 
 mad. 
 
 GR. (Does not answer.) 
 
 TYR. You do not mean this. Take back what you have 
 said. 
 
 GR. (turning suddenly). I cannot. 
 
 [She still walks to back. 
 
 TYR. Before you go take back your words. You don't 
 know how they frighten me. Again I beseech you to take 
 back those words. You do not believe what you 
 say. 
 
 GR. I do believe them. I believe you to be mad. 
 
 [Exit at back. 
 
 TYR. (laughing nervously). Oh ha mad. How can 
 she say such a thing? Mad who is saner than I am? 
 Ha ha I suppose people of her type think everyone 
 who differs from them, mad. How curious ! Ah, we have 
 not a single sympathy. That is what it is. ( With a look 
 of terror) Merciful heaven, is it possible, though, she 
 may be right ? Can there possibly be a doubt as to 
 
 28
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 which is the reality and which is the dream ? Oh, horror 
 horror ! [He sinks upon the sofa and covers his face 
 
 with his hands. 
 MILES TYRRELL, carrying his books as before, enters 
 
 at back. 
 
 MIL. It is rather chilly reading out of doors. As I saw 
 Grace just go through the garden, I may perhaps again 
 have this place to myself. (Perceiving Tyrrell.) Oh, you 
 here still. Why, Garden, what is the matter with you ? 
 
 TYR. (rising, approaches in a dazed manner, and seems 
 involuntarily to feel his way with his hands). Nothing 
 only that persons and things now more than ever seem 
 strangely to recede from me and become more unreal. But 
 you you, Miles, said you would never leave me (glances 
 around with a shudder) if ever I should stand helpless 
 and alone. Oh, Miles, my brother 
 
 [He hides his face on Miles' shoulder. 
 MIL. Garden 
 
 [The books fall from his arms on the floor. 
 (End of Act I.} 
 
 ACT II 
 
 SCENE : The same as last, except that the room is tidied, 
 the window doors at back are closed, vases of flowers stand 
 on the tables from which the papers, &c., have been removed 
 and replaced by sundry drawing-room ornaments. It is the 
 afternoon of the following day. 
 
 MRS GRACE TYRRELL opens the door at right for LADY 
 SHRULE, a plain, fashionable-looking woman of about five- 
 and-thirty, in a riding habit and straw hat which fit her to 
 perfection. She enters somewhat jauntily. 
 
 GR. (following her). I thought we might as well sit 
 here after lunch instead of in the drawing-room. I know 
 Lord Shrule is not very fond of going upstairs. 
 
 29
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 LADY S. No ; my husband, dear old man, finds it 
 trying after his attack of gout. Well, upon my word, 
 Grace, this is quite a pretty room. What a pity not to 
 turn all these frowzy books out of it. 
 
 GR. (sighing). Oh, of course, it ought to be a drawing- 
 room. 
 
 LADY S. Then why don't you make it one ? 
 
 GR. My goodness, Lilian, you know I can do nothing 
 in this house. 
 
 LADY S. I know you have a wretched time of it, dear, 
 with that husband of yours. Still I cannot help thinking 
 that if, at the beginning, you had really tried, you might 
 have made him more amenable. 
 
 GR. That sounds very easy. You have no idea what he is. 
 
 LADY S. Oh, nonsense, Grace. Most men have notions 
 before they marry : but they are soon brought to their 
 senses, if their wives are clever. And you are clever : 
 so that is why I say you cannot have tried. 
 
 GR. I have tried everything, Lilian, although you won't 
 believe it. 
 
 LADY S. What everything ? 
 
 GR. Yes. 
 
 LADY S. There is one thing I am sure you have never 
 tried. 
 
 GR. (eagerly). What is that ? 
 
 LADY S. Flattery. 
 
 GR. Lilian, don't be silly. As if there was anything I 
 could flatter him about. 
 
 LADY S. Well, you know, in spite of all, people do say 
 he is clever. 
 
 GR. (impatiently). I must say I have never found 
 him so. 
 
 30
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 LADY S. I confess I never have either. But then I 
 don't see very much of him. To tell you the truth he 
 always seemed to me odd and ridiculous : for he never 
 cared for society, never went to races, dances, or tennis 
 parties, you know, like other people. Still it might be 
 worth your while to do as I advised. You can hardly 
 imagine what effect it has even on the most unpromising 
 men. 
 
 GR. That may be, that may be, when they are really 
 superior to one ; but to flatter him ugh never (half 
 to herself as she turns away). Besides it is impossible 
 after yesterday. 
 
 LADY S. (pricking up her ears). Yesterday? What 
 happened yesterday, Grace? 
 
 Grace is silent. 
 
 LADY S. (goes up to her). What is the matter, dear ? 
 
 GR. (petulantly). Oh, nothing, Lilian. I did not mean 
 you to hear. 
 
 LADY S. Oh, but there is something, Grace. I see it 
 by your troubled look. He must have done something 
 dreadful yesterday. Perhaps I might be of help to you. 
 What was it ? 
 
 GR. Well this. Yesterday I discovered that he has 
 embarked on a new folly which must end in our ruin ; and 
 when I tried to remonstrate with him he would not listen 
 to a word I said. Just think, he he 
 
 LADY S. He must be a great savage. But what else 
 can you expect from the life he leads ? 
 
 GR. Quite true. You are perfectly right, Lilian. 
 
 LADY S. What is this new folly you say he has em- 
 barked on, Grace? 
 
 GR. Oh, a monstrous plan of draining another immense 
 
 31
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 morass. As if our means were not already sufficiently 
 crippled by his extravagance in this way. 
 
 LADY S. I should think so, indeed. What a mis- 
 fortune for you that you ever married him. 
 
 GR. Yes what a misfortune ! 
 
 LADY S. I have always wondered why you did, Grace. 
 You know you never cared for him. How, indeed, could any 
 girl care for such a man least of all the Grace Desmond 
 I remember in those days, when we used to meet at every 
 party and ball in the county. 
 
 GR. Yes, yes, Lilian, I know that. But you see he 
 was a good match at the time ; and I thought I would be 
 able to make him sensible, and to lead him ; for he was 
 so much in love with me. 
 
 LADY S. Was he ever really, do you think ? 
 
 GR. Oh, I think so : he must have been at first ; for 
 then it seemed to me that I used to monopolise all his 
 attention. 
 
 LADY S. How came he to change? Some other 
 woman, I suppose 
 
 GR. No no. There is no one else. I am sure of that. 
 I have watched him closely now for some years. 
 
 LADY S. Nonsense, dear just as if you could watch him. 
 I tell you it is impossible that a man can exist without 
 loving some woman. 
 
 GR. Yes I know we women all think so. But this is 
 quite a case in itself. He is such a queer creature. 
 You cannot imagine how strange his ideas are. ( With a 
 certain relief and confidence.) Oh, no there is no one else ; 
 and it is very wicked of you, Lilian, to suggest such a thing. 
 
 LADY S. (a little nettled). How then, do you account 
 for his behaviour? 
 
 32
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 GR. I cannot think, for I have always been most 
 amiable to him and patient with his eccentricities, which 
 are dreadfully irritating. Gracious, I remember when he 
 first began to weary me with his strange ideas that I 
 could not make head or tail of. (So you may be sure, 
 dear, they were sheer nonsense.) It was then, when 
 I tried to draw him from such folly, and to centre his 
 interest upon myself, that I noticed a curious change 
 in him. It seemed all at once that I became as nothing 
 to him that what he loved was something mysterious 
 beyond me. 
 
 LADY S. Ah, he never loved you, Grace. I am certain, 
 now, he never did. 
 
 GR. Oh, yes, he must have at first. You should have 
 seen how I made him do almost anything for me. Why, 
 he settled down, entertained, shot, even farmed. Imagine 
 that for him. 
 
 LADY S. (composedly}. Well what was the result ? 
 What about the farming, for instance ? 
 
 GR. (crestfallen). Indeed the only result of the farm- 
 ing has been the heather field. 
 
 LADY S. Ah, Grace, for all you made him do, you 
 were not able to make him give up the heather field my 
 poor Grace ! 
 
 GR. (with violent emotion). Oh, that folly ! That 
 abominable work ! With the beginning of it I noticed 
 his first change towards me. 
 
 LADY S. He never loved you, Grace. He is a terrible 
 man. These Tyrrells were always a queer lot. You 
 know the father was very eccentric ; and the mother 
 well, Shrule tells me she went quite out of her mind 
 before she died, at the birth of the young brother. What 
 33
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 kind is he, by the way ? He is very good-looking, don't 
 you think? 
 
 GB. Oh, Miles is all right. He is a harmless creature, 
 wonderfully clever at college, I hear. He is certainly 
 amiable, but vexes me occasionally with his foolish 
 admiration for my husband. 
 
 LADY S. Yes, I can imagine how annoying that must 
 be. 
 
 GR. Yes, and to have that fellow Ussher, too, dropping 
 in to complete the mutual admiration society ! Oh, I 
 always disliked him. 
 
 LADY S. I don't think much of him either, with his 
 sad, lonely way of living there in that great place of his. 
 I believe he has it filled with such strange things. 
 
 GR. Yes, books and hideous pictures. I have not 
 been there for years. I avoid him as much as possible ; 
 for he was always my enemy, and does his best to destroy 
 whatever influence I might have with my husband. 
 
 LADY S. My poor Grace, what a strange crew you 
 have fallen among ! This dreadful husband ! So at last 
 he is going selfishly to sacrifice you for the gratification of 
 his theories and whims. 
 
 GR. (with determination). He shall not sacrifice me, 
 Lilian. I am certain of that now. 
 
 LADY S. Why, dear, what are you thinking of ? 
 
 GR. All those facts you have mentioned about the 
 Tyrrells only confirm a suspicion that has haunted me for 
 some time. 
 
 LADY S. (with increasing curiosity}. What suspicion, 
 Grace ? 
 
 GR. That my husband is not in his right senses. 
 
 LADY S. Do you mean you think him mad ? 
 
 34
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 GR. Yes mad. 
 
 LADY S. Oh ! 
 
 GR. Yes, Lilian ; I feel there can be no doubt about 
 it now. You know his monstrous extravagance, his wild 
 manner of talking and then what you tell me about 
 his father and mother. Oh, he must certainly be mad. 
 
 LADY S. I suppose you are right. 
 
 GR. Of course that is what it is poor man ! Measures 
 ought therefore to be taken at once to prevent him from 
 ruining his family. 
 
 LADY S. What measures can you take, Grace ? 
 
 GR. I don't see why I should not commence a legal suit 
 to deprive him of control over the property. 
 
 LADY S. But that would mean placing him under 
 restraint, wouldn't it ? 
 
 GR. I suppose so, if necessary. All I know is that I 
 am determined to prevent this new burden from being 
 put on the estate. 
 
 LADY S. Wouldn't it be well, Grace, if you were first 
 to have medical advice as to the state of your husband's 
 mind? 
 
 GR. I have already thought of that, Lilian. I have 
 been in communication with Doctor Dowling and Doctor 
 Roche. 
 
 LADYS. What really? 
 
 GR. Yes. I believe two doctors are required, are they 
 not, in cases of this sort ? 
 
 LADY S. I don't know : but we can ask Shrule. 
 
 GR. Of course : he is sure to know. How lucky I have 
 you both here. 
 
 LADY S. When do you think of sending for the 
 doctors ? 
 
 35
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 GR. Well, Lilian, the sooner the better, if this govern- 
 ment loan is to be stopped. (Hesitating) Well, the fact 
 is I I have sent for them to-day. 
 
 LADY S. To-day ? 
 
 GR. Yes. Was I not right ? 
 
 LADY S. But your husband suspects nothing of this ? 
 
 GR. Good heavens, no ! Neither do the doctors as yet. 
 No I have sent for them upon the plea of their holding 
 a consultation about Kit. As Doctor Roche has been 
 attending him lately off and on for little attacks of fever- 
 ishness and nausea, their visit will not look in any way 
 suspicious. I will then take care they have conversation 
 with my husband. You see ? 
 
 LADY S. What energy and resource you have, dear, 
 to be sure. 
 
 GR. Ah, when a woman is reduced to such desperate 
 straits as I am at present, it sharpens her wits. But the 
 doctors may arrive now at any moment, and as I must 
 see and prepare them beforehand for this task, let us go 
 out to the end of the shrubbery where we can meet them 
 on their way. 
 
 LADY S. Very well and you can bring Shrule to join 
 in our consultation afterwards, when he comes from the 
 dining-room. 
 
 GR. What a comfort, Lilian, to have you both to 
 consult. ( Vehemently) You must help me. I tell you I 
 must succeed in this undertaking. It means the very 
 existence of my child and me. 
 
 GARDEN TYRRELL enters hastily at the back. 
 
 TYR. Oh, have you finished lunch so soon ? How do 
 you do, Lady Shrule ? (They shake hands). I hope you 
 
 36
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 will excuse my absence. I was very busy all the morning 
 with the Board of Works inspector. 
 
 LADY S. Oh, not at all. Have you finished your 
 business ? 
 
 TYR. No but I expect to by to-night. The inspector 
 has gone in before me to lunch so, with your permission, 
 I will leave you to look after him. 
 
 LADY S. Of course, Mr Tyrrell we will excuse you. 
 Grace and I were just about to take a stroll around the 
 garden. You will find Shrule in the dining-room. 
 
 [Exeunt LADY SHRULE and MRS GRACE TYRRELL at 
 back. GARDEN TYRRELL gazes after them as they 
 disappear in the garden, then goes to writing table 
 where he searches for something which he cannot 
 find, while he grumbles indistinctly. He looks 
 around the room with an expression of annoyance 
 at its altered condition, then exit by door at right. 
 
 Enter at back BARRY USSHER and KIT TYRRELL, a 
 rather wild though pensive-looking boy with short, 
 fair hair, and dressed in a sailor suit. He has a 
 daisy chain swung across his shoulder, and holds a 
 bunch of wild flowers in his hand. 
 
 KIT. (dragging USSHER by the sleeve}. Come in, Barry, 
 come in. I missed you yesterday. Have you brought me 
 anything this time ? 
 
 Uss. I am afraid nothing this time, Kit. You see, 
 when I left home I did not intend to come here ; but on 
 the road I met by chance Doctor Roche, who told me he 
 had been sent for by your mother. So I thought I would 
 just turn in, and see if anything was the matter. There 
 is no one ill, is there ? 
 
 37
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 KIT. No, of course not. They are only bringing him 
 to bother me again. I have nothing the matter with me ; 
 and still he is always saying I must not eat this and I 
 must not eat that. 
 
 Uss. What a nasty old fellow ! 
 
 KIT. Yes isn't he horrid ? He says, too, I mustn't lie 
 on the grass. I suppose he'll soon want to prevent me 
 hunting for wild flowers. 
 
 Uss. That would be a privation, Kit. You love 
 them so much, don't you? What nice ones you have 
 brought in to-day. Where did you get them so late, 
 too, in the year ? 
 
 KIT. Oh, you can't think how I had to search for 
 them here and there through the long grass in the 
 heather field. It is the only place now where any 
 wild flowers are left. How I love being there with 
 father. 
 
 Uss. So you, Kit, have also caught the sickness of the 
 heather field. 
 
 KIT. What is this sickness you are all saying I have ? 
 I tell you I am quite well. (With impatience) Oh, how 
 I wish I were a man. 
 
 Uss. Alas, are you not much better as you are ? Why 
 do you want to be a man ? 
 
 KIT. Because then they could not prevent me doing 
 what I like. I should be a sailor and find out what is 
 beyond that great sea father and I are always looking at 
 from the heather field. 
 
 Uss. Be a sailor, Kit, and give up the wild flowers ? 
 
 KIT. Oh, I forgot. But should I have to, do you 
 think ? 
 
 Uss. I fear you could not gather flowers on the sea, 
 
 38
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 except, perhaps, a few poor crushed ones, torn from its 
 depths by the storms. 
 
 KIT. Then there are some, after all ? 
 
 Uss. Yes down under the sea grow numberless fair 
 flowers whose leaves close softly around many a poor 
 sailor. 
 
 KIT. (dreamily). What beautiful flowers ! 
 
 Uss. I hope you will never be such a sailor, Kit. No, 
 you are far better as you are ! Do not wish to be a 
 man. 
 
 KIT. Why, Barry ? 
 
 Uss. Because you understand so many things now you 
 never could then. How much nicer to be always a little 
 wildflower elf! In the lives of dream children such as 
 you it is beautiful to think of a heather field. 
 
 KIT. Oh, but can they prevent me from going there ? 
 
 Uss. They cannot. I will see that old Roche attempts 
 no such tyranny. 
 
 KIT. Oh, thank you, Barry. How good you always 
 are! 
 
 LORD SHRULE, an elderly benevolent-looking man dressed 
 in a somewhat old-fashioned riding costume, MILES 
 TYRRELL, and GARDEN TFRRELL enter by the door 
 at right. 
 
 LORD S. Now that the inspector has gone out again to 
 his work, I must say, my dear Garden, I am astounded at 
 hearing of this new expenditure you contemplate. I did 
 not like to speak before him Ah, Ussher, how do you 
 do ? (To KIT) And how is my little man ? 
 
 KIT. (holding out his hand). Very well, thanks. 
 
 LORD S. That's right, that's right. I was saying, my 
 
 39
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT 11. 
 
 dear Garden, your fresh project of expenditure fills me 
 with amazement. Have you heard about it, Ussher ? 
 
 Uss. I have indeed. 
 
 LORD S. Well, does it not seem to you extremely 
 imprudent nay, reckless ? 
 
 Uss. Oh, you must not ask me, Lord Shrule. Garden 
 seems determined. And, after all, he is the best judge 
 of his own affairs. 
 
 TYR. Yes, Barry, that is just it. 
 
 LORD S. Come, come, Garden, you will not mind the 
 advice of an old man who has a long experience in the 
 management of land. Your father and I were always 
 fast friends, and I naturally take a great interest in you 
 and your family. 
 
 TYR, I know you have always been very kind, Lord 
 Shrule. Forgive me if I have spoken hastily. I did not 
 mean 
 
 LORD S. Of course not, my dear Garden. I quite 
 understand you. I fear indeed you must think it 
 rather impertinent of your friends to interfere in your 
 business. But then, as I have said, I consider myself 
 privileged. 
 
 TYR. You may be quite sure, Lord Shrule, I could 
 not take anything from you except in good part. 
 
 LORD S. I thought so. Well, let me implore of you, 
 if only for the sake of your family, to desist. This is 
 certainly the wildest scheme I ever heard of, and 
 couldn't pay, even if the drainage were to turn out a 
 success. 
 
 TYR. But you forget it is necessary now that the 
 drainage of the heather field falls into this land. I must 
 make a cutting for the water to get to the sea. And 
 
 40
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 then, what is easier than to reclaim the land through 
 which this cutting goes ? 
 
 LORD S. My dear Garden, don't mind the cutting 
 don't mind the heather field. What you have only got to 
 think of is to cease altogether from loading your estate 
 with an ever-growing burden of debt. For goodness' 
 sake leave these works alone. If you continue them you 
 will simply beggar yourself. 
 
 TYR. (uneasily). I do not see that at all. The work 
 will be very remunerative. It will double the value of 
 the estate. 
 
 LORD S. Oh, Garden, listen to me. I know well the 
 nature of such works as you are carrying on. I have 
 tried them myself on a far smaller scale, of course. 
 They never repay their expenditure. 
 
 TYR. That is a mere assertion unsupported by argu- 
 ment. On the other hand, I have excellent reasons why 
 I should believe that what I am about to undertake 
 must have the best results. Look at the rich pasture 
 now in the heather field. And am I to suppose that 
 I shall not have the same in the valley when it is re- 
 claimed ? Until you can prove logically that I am mis- 
 taken, I must continue those works, which I clearly see 
 are so profitable. Am I not right, Barry ? 
 
 Uss. I have said I shall never again discourage you, 
 Garden. 
 
 LORD S. Ussher, upon my word I thought you knew 
 better. But I suppose it is useless remonstrating on these 
 experiments, which amount with him to absolute mania. 
 MRS GRACE TYRRELL enters at back. 
 
 GR. (after bowing to USSHER). Oh, Lord Shrule, we 
 have been waiting for you in the garden. Won't you 
 
 41
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 come ? I want to show you my little greenhouse. The 
 plants you gave me are doing so well in it. 
 
 LORD. S. I am delighted to hear you say so, Mrs 
 Tyrrell. Let us go and see them. But I hope you will 
 not make me walk much, as I have barely recovered from 
 that last attack of gout, and can only get about as yet 
 quietly on my pony. Let me see, I left my hat in the 
 hall. 
 
 GR. We can go through there, just as well 
 
 [Exeunt LORD SHRULE and MRS GRACE TYRRELL 
 
 by door at right. 
 
 TYR. It is really too bad that I should be molested thus 
 perpetually with unsolicited advice. All my acquaint- 
 ances seem to consider it incumbent upon them to 
 interfere in and direct my affairs just like their own. 
 One would think I had no right to do anything. That 
 old fellow, you know, means well ; but it is very 
 annoying to be taken to task by a person who has 
 really no right to meddle. Ha ! it is too absurd indeed 
 that I should have to defend what I have a perfect 
 right to do. 
 
 MIL. I know it must be very trying, Garden. 
 
 TYR. I should think so, indeed. And I am not going 
 to stand it any longer. I will live my life as I want, and 
 will take dictation from nobody. 
 
 Uss. But you must expect to be criticised, Garden. 
 That is the penalty, you know, for attempting to do 
 anything. 
 
 TYR. Oh, I don't mind any amount of outside criticism 
 nor even the strictures of friends like Lord Shrule, as 
 long as their remarks are not to my face. No, it is other 
 criticism nearer that leaves a sting. 
 
 42
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 MIL. Well, Garden, I am sure Barry and I are not in 
 the habit of finding fault with you. At least we never 
 mean to. 
 
 Uss. Of that, at all events, I am certain. 
 
 TYK. No not you two, kindest and best. It is even 
 nearer home this criticism and opposition this hearing 
 perpetually amidst the strain of labour, bitter and dis- 
 heartening words. That is what is so unbearable. 
 
 MIL. Be patient with her, Garden. Grace cannot as 
 yet understand. This is a period of trial. One day you 
 will see her loyally helping and inspiring you. 
 
 TYK. (impatiently). Inspiring me ! I wish, Miles, you 
 would not use a sublime word in a vulgar sense. When 
 you have more experience you will find that instead of 
 inspiring they more often prevent us from doing any- 
 thing. 
 
 MIL. Oh, Garden how unlike you ! That is more the 
 style of the cynic philosopher, there Barry. See how he 
 is smiling. I am sure he regrets he missed saying such a 
 thing himself instead. 
 
 Uss. Well, really, Miles 
 
 TYR. (laughing). Oh, you dear Miles. You were al- 
 ways the most wonderful body in the world for dispelling 
 bitterness and gloom with that beautiful light you seem to 
 carry about you ! (Hopefully) Well, two friends such as 
 you ought to compensate me for what I have to bear from 
 others. Bah, I will not mind them. I will be merry 
 while I work ; and my work will be incessant, leaving no 
 time for brooding over unpleasant things. And both of 
 you will always be present with me, if difficulties should 
 arise. Yes, with you I know I cannot suffer defeat from 
 the rest. 
 
 43
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 Enter at back MRS GRACE TYRRELL, DOCTOR DOWLINO, 
 a thick-set man of about forty, dressed in a tweed 
 suit, and DOCTOR ROCHE, an elderly, lean and some- 
 what prim man, wearing spectacles and black clothes. 
 Looking a little ill at ease, the DOCTORS exchange 
 salutations with TYRRELL, MILES, USSHER, and KIT. 
 
 KIT. Mother! 
 
 GR. Yes, my dear ? 
 
 KIT. Who is that with Doctor Roche ? 
 
 GR, Doctor Dowling. 
 
 KIT. Is he coming to see me too ? 
 
 GR. Just to look at you, Kit. That's all. 
 
 KIT. But I have nothing the matter with me, mother. 
 
 GR. Never mind neither will hurt you only save 
 you from possible peril oh, my own sweet boy. (She 
 kisses him.) 
 
 TYR. (to GRACE). You cannot think there was cause 
 for summoning these two physicians. 
 
 GR. (vaguely). Cause ? well I was a little anxious 
 on the child's account, and thought it best they should 
 consult about him. But I expected to find you alone. 
 (She glances at USSHER). 
 
 Uss. (taking the hint). Garden, I must go. I hope 
 there is nothing really the matter with Kit. He doesn't 
 look as if there was. 
 
 KIT. Oh, Barry, don't go. You know you promised 
 
 Uss. Hush, Kit. 
 
 TYR. Yes, stay where you are, Barry. There is no 
 reason for making such a mystery of this business. 
 Besides, I must soon go out to the inspector, and w r e can 
 walk together. (To GRACE) By the way, what has 
 become of the Shrules ? 
 
 44
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 GR. (uneasily). Oh, Lord Shrule had to return home 
 suddenly about some matter of importance. They both 
 desired me to say " good-bye " to you. 
 
 TYR. So much the better. Well, doctors, I certainly 
 cannot understand the necessity of this consultation. 
 The boy seems to me perfectly well. 
 
 GR. No, I assure you, Doctor Dowling, he is not so. 
 He is often ill from eating all sorts of unwholesome 
 sweets. How do you find him looking to-day, Doctor 
 Roche ? 
 
 Roc. He appears healthier, on the whole, I think, Mrs 
 Tyrrell. (To KIT) Come here, and let me look well at 
 you, my little man. There, put out your tongue. 
 
 KIT. Ah, I suppose, Barry, I must now expect the 
 worst. 
 
 Uss. Never fear, Kit. They don't look as if they 
 meant to do much to you. 
 
 GR. (suspiciously). I am afraid, Mr Ussher, you spoil 
 him as much as his father, and I shall get no good of 
 him while you are here. You and Miles ought to take a 
 walk. It would be so nice on this fine day, wouldn't it ? 
 But won't you return to dinner ? Do return to dinner, 
 Mr Ussher. 
 
 Uss. No, thank you, Mrs Tyrrell, I regret I cannot. I 
 shall be going now in a minute with Garden. Kit must 
 not expect any countenance from me. 
 
 KIT. But I thought you said you would not let Doctor 
 Roche 
 
 Uss. Now, Kit, you must do as you are told. Have 
 I not said you needn't fear ? 
 
 [The DOCTORS look at Km, feel his pulse, 
 talk together, &c. 
 45
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 Uss. (aside to MILES). Your sister-in-law seems par- 
 ticularly anxious to get rid of us. 
 
 MIL. (aside to USSHER, with an enquiring look). Do 
 you really think so ? I wonder why ? 
 
 Uss. (aside to MILES). I am not certain yet. 
 
 TYR. How needless this consultation is, to be sure. 
 There is nothing the matter with the boy. 
 
 GR. You do well to say so you, who are the chief 
 cause of his illness. 
 
 TYR. I, the cause ? 
 
 GR. Of course you are. He is sick at night after those 
 long days when you keep him out fasting on the mountain, 
 and then feed him with sweets at dinner afterwards. This 
 must all cease. 
 
 KIT. Oh, mother, do not prevent me from going to the 
 heather field. I don't want these sweets I was only sick 
 once. 
 
 GR. Can you not see, Kit, that I am only acting for 
 your good? (Sadly) It is I who fight for his interests, 
 and he leaves me for his father. 
 
 TYR. Only sick once, and all this fuss for that ! Never 
 mind, Kit, you shall not be prevented. I will take care 
 in future that you get plenty to eat and at proper times. 
 So there will be no danger of sickness again. 
 
 KIT. Then you will not let anyone prevent me from 
 going with you, father ? 
 
 TYR. Ah, you see, Kit, I never could get on without 
 you in the heather field. We should feel so lonely both 
 of us, shouldn't we ? 
 
 [GRACE looks significantly at the DOCTORS, who 
 now begin to observe TYRRELL closely. 
 
 KIT. Yes, father, dear. 
 
 46
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 Uss. (aside to MILES). The doctors seem strangely in- 
 attentive now to Kit and his ailments. 
 
 MIL. (aside to USSHER, with a puzzled expression). So 
 it seems. What do you think they mean ? 
 
 Uss. (aside to MILES). Wait. I have an uncomfortable 
 suspicion. It is well we stayed here. 
 
 GR. Alas, the child's health must be sacrificed like 
 everything else, I suppose. 
 
 TYR. How sacrificed ? 
 
 GR. Oh, to add zest to your infatuation for that 
 mountain. 
 
 TYR. Nothing of the kind. If I had known he had 
 ever been ill, I would have taken every precaution, in 
 spite of my infatuation as you choose to call the interest 
 I take in my work. 
 
 Dow. Is that your land work, Mr Tyrrell? 
 
 TYR. Yes. 
 
 Dow. You are an extensive reclaimer of waste land ? 
 
 TYR. Yes ; I fancy there are few in Ireland more 
 extensive. 
 
 Roc. You are certainly most enterprising. 
 
 TYR. Ay it is a grand work. 
 
 Dow. And you believe in the possibility of its paying ? 
 
 TYR. Of course. Wait till you see the profits I shall 
 make. With these I shall extend my works ; and with 
 the further profits I shall embark on such a scale of 
 business as in time will enable me to start a company 
 for buying up and reclaiming or reafForesting every inch 
 of waste land in Ireland. 
 
 Uss. That is truly a gigantic scheme, Garden. Look 
 here, I must really be going; and your inspector, too, 
 must be waiting for you. Let us be oft'. Come along. 
 
 47
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 TYR. Oh, wait a moment, Barry. I want to explain. 
 I will go with you directly. (To the DOCTORS) With 
 the far-reaching usefulness of my projects I must become 
 a real benefactor to the country, and in a time, too, when 
 so many quack remedies in the way of legislation are being 
 offered to the public. 
 
 Roc. True, true. How very interesting. 
 
 Dow. Upon my word, most interesting. 
 
 TYR. Oh, the work is a glorious one. There is some- 
 thing creative about it this changing the face of a whole 
 country! None of the humdrum, barn-door work of 
 ordinary farming, with its sordid accompaniment of the 
 cattle fair ! When from the ideal world of my books 
 those people forced me to such a business, I was bound 
 to find the extreme of its idealisation. 
 
 Dow. (aside to DOCTOR ROCHE). What the dickens 
 does he mean by that ? 
 
 Roc. You mean you have idealised farming, Mr 
 Tyrrell? 
 
 TYR. Of course, what else ? Do you think I could go 
 on doing the dull drudgery they forced upon me ? No 
 I considered how I could elevate it. I pondered and 
 pondered and never rested, until at last there came to me 
 the master-thought of the heather-field. 
 
 Roc. (slowly nodding assent). Oh, indeed. Dear 
 me. 
 
 TYR. (with evident pleasure at the surprise he is creat- 
 ing). Yes ; was it not a discovery ? And what content- 
 ment it brought after the previous life-drudgery. I felt 
 like returning to my youth's ideals in that free mountain 
 air. Oh ! there is magic in those mountain breezes ! 
 
 Dow. All I know, sir, is, that the Faculty consider sea 
 
 48
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 air blowing over a mountain bog to be the finest remedy 
 in the world for bile or dyspepsia. (He looks around him 
 facetiously.) 
 
 TYR. (with an expression of disgust). So that is the 
 only thought suggested to you by the ethereal mountain 
 breeze ! There are some people who can never recognize a 
 beautiful meaning in anything. 
 
 Dow. Maybe so, Mr Tyrrell. (As if struck with an 
 idea) Do you find any meaning yourself, though, in this 
 mountain air ? 
 
 TYR. (disdainfully). Do I ? Why, of course I do. I 
 find in it a medium between the beauty of the past and 
 myself. 
 
 Dow. Indeed. 
 
 TYR. Yes ; nature's ethereal phonograph, as it might be, 
 treasuring for my delight past ecstasies of sound. I hear 
 in its waves those voices floating back to me from 
 
 Uss. (with alarm, aside to MILES). You must take 
 your brother away at once. 
 
 Dow. What is that you are saying, Mr Tyrrell ? 
 
 Roc. Voices you don't mean to say you hear voices ? 
 
 TYR. I do mean to say it. 
 
 Dow. Whose voices do you hear ? 
 
 TYR. Choristers singing of youth in an eternal sunrise ! 
 
 Roc. But you must know that this is all imagination. 
 
 TYR. (irritably). Imagination always imagination. 
 How wearisome that word sounds to me. I tell you 
 there is no such thing as imagination. 
 
 Dow. That is a bold statement, sir. 
 
 TYR. No you either perceive or you don't perceive. 
 Therefore it vexes me, when I perceive anything, to be 
 told that it is only imagination. 
 D 49
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 GR. Wouldn't it be more accurate, then, to call it 
 hallucination ? 
 
 TYR. (hastily to her). That's always how you enter into 
 the spirit of my ideas. 
 
 Dow. You can hardly expect her to agree with them. 
 
 TYR. (resignedly). No I suppose there must always be 
 distortion of my meaning. 
 
 Dow. Then would you mind explaining your meaning ? 
 
 Roc. You told us you hear voices ? 
 
 TYR. Yes, of course. 
 
 Roc. Do you ever remember anything they say ? 
 
 TYR. (thinking). Yes. 
 
 Dow. Well, would you let us know ? 
 
 TYR, They keep telling me I am not what I am. 
 
 Roc. How very strange ! 
 
 Dow. Humph ! do they say anything else, sir ? 
 
 TYR. They often call me back to my real life. 
 
 Roc. What do you mean by your real life ? 
 
 TYR. That life before I wandered into this dream. 
 
 Dow. And so you think you are only dreaming 
 now? 
 
 TYR. How can you tell that you also are not now in a 
 dream ? 
 
 Uss. Answer that, if you are able, doctor. 
 
 Dow. A man ought to know very well whether he is 
 asleep or awake. 
 
 TYR. That is just it ; and I know I am in a dream. 
 
 Uss. (impatiently). Really, Garden, I don't see what 
 you gain by discussing your ideas with people who can 
 neither understand nor sympathize with them. Come, 
 come away. I cannot wait any longer. 
 
 TYR. (rather dejected). Yes, Barry, I suppose you are 
 
 50
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 right. It was stupid of me. Let us go out. Good 
 evening, doctors. 
 
 Uss. (to TYRRELL). You walk on with Miles and Kit. I 
 just remember I have something to consult Doctor Roche 
 about. 
 
 MIL. Come, Garden. 
 [Exeunt at back GARDEN, MILES, and KIT TYRRELL. 
 
 Uss. (very gravely). Doctor Dowling and Doctor 
 Roche, you were sent for by Mrs Tyrrell to-day to 
 consult on a matter altogether different from the health 
 of the little boy. 
 
 GR. (defiantly). Well, then, and if they were ! 
 
 Uss. Your husband fortunately suspects nothing ; and 
 I have warned Miles against saying anything to enlighten 
 him. 
 
 GR. If you consider me in your power, you are greatly 
 mistaken. 
 
 Uss. (austerely). I consider nothing of the sort, Mrs 
 Tyrrell. You have strangely misunderstood me. 
 
 GR. I don't know. Anyhow, I have nothing to fear from 
 you. The opinions of Doctor Dowling and Doctor Roche 
 will ensure the success of the measures I have decided 
 upon for the security of the child's interests and mine. 
 
 Uss. You seem very sure as to the conclusions these 
 gentlemen are to arrive at. 
 
 GR. Well, they know all about my poor husband's 
 reckless expenditure, his inability to act like other people, 
 his futile disputes with the tenantry, and to-day they have 
 seen how he has conducted himself, and have heard him 
 speak. I hardly think they can have any doubt as to 
 the condition of his mind. What do you say, Doctor 
 Dowling and Doctor Roche? 
 
 51
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 Dow. I am of opinion, ma'am, it is a case of dementia 
 but curable with proper treatment. 
 
 Uss. Indeed. And what are your reasons for consider- 
 ing it dementia? 
 
 Dow. The general tenor, Mr Ussher, of the patient's 
 behaviour ; his reckless expenditure of his means, as Mrs 
 Tyrrell says ; his queer deranged enthusiasm ; and, above 
 all, his talk about hearing voices. There is no more 
 common sign of insanity than for persons to believe that 
 they hear voices. 
 
 Roc. Quite so. That is by far the most serious 
 symptom in the case. 
 
 Uss. But surely you must see that a highly-gifted man 
 like Garden Tyrrell is not to be judged by your everyday 
 rules. These voices you speak of he heard long ago 
 in happier days. They are only memories made vivid by 
 the force of imagination. Why, he told you as much. 
 Did he not? 
 
 Dow. That was not the impression conveyed to me. 
 
 Uss. Doctor Roche, you cannot agree with this, I am 
 sure. 
 
 Roc. Well, really, Mr Ussher, I fear I must that is 
 to say, with certain reservations. Our responsibility in 
 certifying to madness is no doubt grave ; but then, on 
 the other hand, we would incur a graver responsibility 
 if, by our indulgence, the patient afterwards were to harm 
 himself or anyone else. 
 
 GR. If he is not restrained he will surely bring the child 
 and me to irreparable ruin. You see he has almost done 
 so already. Oh, think of that, Doctor Roche. You know 
 he is not fit to have the control of anything. 
 
 Roc. I know there might be some doubt as to the 
 
 52
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 question of madness, if we had nothing more to go upon 
 than these extravagant land improvements of his. 
 
 Uss. (eagerly). Yes. 
 
 Roc. But then I am confronted by this unpleasant 
 symptom of his hearing voices that have no existence 
 a most common sign, as you say rightly, Bowling, of 
 insanity. 
 
 Uss. Did not Joan of Arc declare she heard voices 
 calling on her to accomplish a work which proved to 
 be one of the most wonderful and practical in history ? 
 Was not Socrates firmly convinced that he was in the 
 habit of receiving admonitions from his daemon ? I might 
 quote you several other instances of celebrated personages 
 whose imaginations led them to believe they heard voices. 
 Yet no one has ever thought of calling them insane. 
 Come now, Doctor Roche, a man of your experience and 
 culture must admit the truth of what I say. 
 
 Roc. Ah, Mr Ussher, I fear all forms of madness might 
 be explained away by your arguments. 
 
 GR. Of course, Doctor Roche. Pray don't listen to 
 him. 
 
 Roc. But, at the same time, Mrs Tyrrell, I am bound to 
 admit that madness partakes more of an infirmity whereby 
 the natural sequence of ideas is disconnected. 
 
 Uss. Quite so, quite so. If you talk with a lunatic 
 you find that you can never keep him to any consecutive 
 line of thought. He is perpetually off here, off there, 
 on some new and irrelevant tangent. You can never 
 obtain a direct answer to a question. His mental process 
 resembles a chain, at intervals unlinked. These are the 
 real symptoms of that pitiful and uninteresting malady. 
 Are they not ? 
 
 53
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 Roc. Yes, Mr Ussher, on the whole you are fairly right. 
 
 Uss. Very well then, are any such symptoms discover- 
 able in Garden Tyrrell ? Who is more clearly consecutive 
 in his ideas than he ? Discuss any question with him 
 politics or books what you will I am bound he acquits 
 himself ably. 
 
 GR. And land improvement too, Mr Ussher, you forget 
 that. 
 
 Dow. There you just have it, ma'am. 
 
 Uss. His reasons for making these improvements are 
 quite consecutive and rational. (DOCTOR DOWLING and 
 GRACE laugh.) Oh, but I assure you they are so. His 
 work may or may not be practical. Who knows ? Per- 
 sonally I agree with you in thinking it is not Still, that 
 is no plea for trying to deprive him of his liberty and 
 rights. If it were, I fear that many, and those too in 
 responsible positions, might have their freedom of action 
 endangered. It is only common-place and unimaginative 
 people who consider the poetic and original temperament 
 to be a mark of madness. 
 
 Roc. There is a great deal in what you say, Mr Ussher. 
 I- 
 
 GR. (alarmed). Doctor Roche, you cannot be serious ? 
 You are not giving in to such arguments ? 
 
 Roc. (apologetically). No no, Mrs Tyrrell. I merely 
 admit their truth in a general way. That is all. 
 
 Uss. You are far too clever a man, Doctor, not to see 
 their truth. Then again, think of the gravity and danger 
 of what you propose doing. You know, of course, gentle- 
 men, that you will be asked to confirm on oath before a 
 Commission of Lunacy the opinion you now so rashly 
 form of my friend. 
 
 54
 
 ACT IT. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 Dow. I am quite prepared, Sir, to swear before any 
 Commission. 
 
 Uss. That may be, Doctor Dowling. However, Doctor 
 Roche, the matter doubtless appears in another light to 
 you. You may be quite certain that when Garden Tyrrell 
 is forewarned, he will be particularly careful not to com- 
 promise himself at his private examination by the Com- 
 mission, who will then, of course, ridicule the idea of 
 preventing him from managing his estate. The defeated 
 parties afterwards will be open to an action by their 
 victim for damages, of which action the law costs, whether 
 he succeeds or not, are sure to be considerable on all 
 sides. When this conspiracy 
 
 GR. Mr Ussher, you forget yourself. How dare you ? 
 
 Uss. Yes, Mrs Tyrrell, it is an unpleasant word, but 
 excusable in my resentment of this cruel injustice to my 
 old and best friend. You may be sure, too, it is the word 
 the world will use. Why did the Shrules leave here so 
 suddenly to-day ? 
 
 GR. (haughtily}. You have already heard the reason. 
 
 Uss. I am bound to accept it. But I cannot help 
 thinking that Lord Shrule invented his excuse. 
 
 GR. I think we have heard quite enough from you, Mr 
 Ussher. You are not likely to intimidate us by your 
 threats. (To the DOCTORS) Isn't that so ? 
 
 Dow. Oh, I am prepared to stand by my opinion, 
 ma'am. 
 
 GR. And you, Doctor Roche ? 
 
 Roc. (nervously). Well, you see, Mrs Tyrrell, I never 
 held so decided an opinion of the case as my friend 
 Doctor Dowling. I think for the present that is to 
 say perhaps 
 
 55
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 GR. For the present? Surely you must know that if 
 we do not act at once we shall be too late to prevent the 
 raising of this ruinous loan. 
 
 Roc. Ah, yes, yes, but I am afraid I cannot make up 
 my mind about the patient as yet. I could not undertake 
 to swear on oath that he is now insane. 
 
 GR. It is quite clear that you are intimidated, Doctor 
 Roche. 
 
 Roc. (indignantly). I allow no one to intimidate me, 
 Mrs Tyrrell. 
 
 GR. And you will leave the child and me to be ruined ? 
 
 Roc. What can I do? Have I not told you my 
 difficulties ? 
 
 GR. Oh, Doctor Roche, we are in your hands. Our 
 fate lies upon your decision. I implore of you not to 
 fail us. 
 
 Roc. (very confused). You must excuse me, Mrs Tyrrell; 
 but on consideration I would not venture to grant your 
 request. I have an appointment just now. Pray excuse 
 me. Good afternoon, Mrs Tyrrell. Good afternoon, good 
 afternoon. [Exit, bowing to all, at back. 
 
 Dow. Well, I suppose after this I am not much use 
 here, so I may as well also be on my way. I am sorry, 
 ma'am, the Doctor was persuaded to change his mind ; 
 but he is a nervous, timid man. To me the case seems 
 a pretty clear one. However, perhaps it is better to 
 do nothing just at present. 
 
 [He bows, and exit by door at back. 
 
 GR. (to USSHER, with suppressed anger.) I suppose 
 you are prepared to bear the responsibility you have 
 incurred. 
 
 Uss. Yes I am prepared to bear it. But did you 
 
 56
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 fully consider the responsibility you were so eager to take 
 upon yourself, Mrs Tyrrell? I can only hope that you 
 had not considered the question. 
 
 GR. I do not understand you. 
 
 Uss. I am sorry for it. Is it then so light a matter to 
 imprison a man, and above all such a man as your 
 husband ? It would practically mean his death. To 
 take him away from all that he loves, his free life on 
 the mountains, his intimate delight in nature, his interests 
 and occupations, without which life would become for 
 him meaningless can you not understand the cruelty of 
 this? 
 
 GR. I have no wish to be cruel. I must only protect 
 myself. 
 
 Uss. Yes but it seems to me in attempting this 
 protection you are very inexorable very cruel. And 
 the worst of it is, you appear not to realise the cruelty 
 which you are so ready to inflict. Have you forgotten 
 that he is your husband, that he once loved you very 
 dearly? Have you forgotten everything except your- 
 self? 
 
 GR. I have not forgotten my child 
 
 Uss. You are, of course, bound to think of him, but 
 not, I am sure, to the detriment of your husband. Garden 
 has his rights as well as Kit. Is the father to be wholly 
 sacrificed for the child ? (Pause.") But, Mrs Tyrrell, were 
 you only thinking of your child ? 
 
 GR. What do you mean ? 
 
 Uss. Was there not another reason besides the child 
 which caused you to be so resolute? That personal 
 dislike Remember you and Garden have not been 
 living very amicably for some time. 
 
 57
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT n. 
 
 GR. Oh you consider that ill-feeling has actuated 
 me in this matter? 
 
 Uss. I don't say so I only suggest the probability. 
 Are you sure that it is hot so ? 
 
 GR. (indignantly). What a base insinuation. No 
 I am sure it is not so of course it is not so. I may no 
 longer care for my husband. Perhaps I never cared much 
 for him. But I know that now I am only thinking of my 
 child. It was for little Kit's sake that I wished 
 
 Uss. Yes to imprison his father in a madhouse. 
 
 GR. I was willing to accept the responsibility. Are 
 you still willing to accept yours? It is a heavy one. 
 There was a chance of saving our fortune ; and you have 
 wrecked it. What will you now do to save the child 
 and me from this madman who is devouring our sub- 
 stance ? 
 
 Uss. Hush hush. For heaven's sake do not talk in 
 this manner. 
 
 GR. Oh, why did you do me this cruel wrong to- 
 day? 
 
 Uss. I only prevented your doing a cruel wrong. 
 
 GR. You have done us all a cruel wrong. 
 
 Uss. No I feel I have done you all a good deed 
 to-day. 
 
 GR. (scornfully). A good deed truly a deed giving 
 power to carry out those projects which are our ruin ! 
 
 Uss. Who can tell but that his projects may succeed ? 
 Be patient. Be gentle with him. I believe you might 
 win him yet by gentleness from very great extrava- 
 gance. Try. 
 
 GR. (gloomily). Too late. 
 
 Uss. Why too late ? 
 
 58
 
 ACT ii. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 GR. It was too late from the moment his thoughts 
 first turned to the heather field. 
 
 Uss. (starts and looks at her for a moment with vague 
 alarm. Then says very gently} There is no reason why 
 he should ever learn the part you have played against 
 him to-day. Henceforth you will be different to him, will 
 you not ? 
 
 GR. (gazing steadfastly before her). Too late 
 
 Uss. Ah well [Exit quietly at back. 
 
 [Pause. There is a noise as of some one approach- 
 ing. GRACE looks out at back, then recedes to door 
 at right. GARDEN TYRRELL enters hurriedly, 
 carrying a sheet of the ordnance map, which he 
 lays upon the writing-table at left and studies, 
 unaware of his wife's presence. She watches him 
 with an expression of gathering anger, then exit 
 sobbing by door at right. He starts and turns to 
 see her just disappear, then sighing he shrugs his 
 shoulders, and resumes his eager study of the map. 
 
 (End of Act II.) 
 
 59
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT m. 
 
 ACT III 
 
 SCENE : The same as last, only that the place, by the absence 
 of all drawing-room ornaments, has assumed once more its 
 aspect of a library. A fire of fresh ashwood in the large fire- 
 place burns cheerfully, while sunlight streams in through the 
 window-doors at back. A sheet of the ordnance map lies on 
 writing table. Several months have passed ; and it is now 
 Spring. 
 
 KIT TYRRELL runs in by door at right carrying a child's 
 kite, which he examines as he kneels down in front of the 
 fire. Measuring out the string at arm's length, he appears 
 dissatisfied. Then, as if suddenly remembering, he runs over 
 to the book-case at back, and climbing up on its ledge he takes 
 from behind the books on an upper row a mass of cord. He 
 returns, and disentangling it ties its end to the cord attached 
 to the kite, which he then carries to the window-doors at 
 back. These he opens, and stands in a flood of sunlight. 
 Outside is heard the singing of birds. 
 
 GARDEN TYRRELL, somewhat aged and careworn, enters by 
 door at right. 
 
 TYR. (half to himself as he watches KIT). Oh, 
 memories 
 
 KIT. (after a short pause, perceiving TYRRELL and 
 running to him). Father. 
 
 TYR. The little birds are singing in the sunlight to my 
 little bird. Where are you going, Kit ? 
 
 KIT. I am going to fly the kite. Oh, come out, father, 
 with me to the heather field. There is sure to be a 
 splendid breeze there to-day. 
 
 TYR. (sadly}. Ah, the heather field. No, Kit, I cannot. 
 
 KIT. You have not been there for such a long time. 
 Why can't you come ? 
 
 60
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 TYR. I can't; it is unbearable to be always followed 
 and watched and in that place above all others. 
 
 KIT. But, father, why don't you tell those policemen 
 to go away ? 
 
 TYR, I have done so over and over again. They will 
 not go. 
 
 KIT. But why must they watch you, father, dear ? 
 
 TYR. (looks at KIT for a moment, then in an unsteady 
 voice as he turns away). Do not ask me, boy. You 
 would not understand. 
 
 KIT. (catching TYRRELL by the arm). Really? Yet 
 Barry says that I understand so many things better than 
 if I were a man. 
 
 TYR. (thoughtfully). He is right. Only those who 
 become as you are, can know the rarest joys of life. 
 
 KIT. Then why do you think, father, I would not 
 understand the reason they are watching you. 
 
 TYR. Because because it would appear well, some- 
 thing incredible to you. There, do not ask, boy. (He 
 flings himself moodily into the chair on the outside of the 
 writing table. A short pause.) 
 
 KIT. (coming near). Father, dear, you are not angry 
 with me ? 
 
 TYR. No, Kit. Only a bit worried by things in general. 
 
 KIT. I am sorry if I have ever worried you. I will try 
 not to do it again. I love you. Oh, you don't know 
 how I love you, father. 
 
 TYR. (throwing his arms around KIT). My darling, you 
 have never worried me. I could not live without you. 
 
 KIT. (hiding his face on TYRRELL'S neck). Oh, father, 
 father ! 
 
 TYR. Yes, Kit, you are the little elf that calls up for 
 
 61
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT in. 
 
 me the magic of the heather field. Henceforth we must 
 never be divided you and I. 
 
 KIT. Never, oh never, father dear. You don't know 
 how lonely I feel away from you. I have not been to the 
 heather field for ever so long. It seemed such a sad place 
 when you were not there. 
 
 TYR. Even in spite of its wild flowers, Kit ? It is time 
 for them now to be coming out again. 
 
 KIT. Yes, the heather field will be beginning to look 
 lovely now. 
 
 TYR. How I wish I were free to walk among its flowers 
 on this soft spring day. 
 
 KIT. Poor father! but would you like me to fetch 
 you some of them. Shall I go ? 
 
 TYR. Yes, do, Kit. I should like some flowers from the 
 heather field. 
 
 BARRY USSHER enters at back. 
 
 KIT. Oh, there's Barry. 
 
 TYR. What Barry ! It is an event when I see anyone 
 now. 
 
 Uss. As if it were not your own doing. 
 
 TYR. (somewhat ruffled). You may say what you like 
 for all I care. 
 
 Uss. (shrugging his shoulders). Heigh-ho ! Well, Kit, 
 are you glad the winter is over ? 
 
 KIT. Oh, yes, how horrid and dark it was. 
 
 Uss. I wonder how you ever managed to exist through 
 it. And you never got the pony, after all ? 
 
 KIT. No you see when father promised me one he 
 thought he could afford it. But now he cannot, until he 
 lets the heather field. I must wait a while longer. Is 
 not that so, father ? 
 
 62
 
 ACT m. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 TYR. Yes, Kit, we must wait. 
 
 KIT. You know, Barry, I could not think of worrying 
 him any more about the pony. 
 
 Uss. You good little son, there is no need to wait any 
 longer. I have just brought you such a nice pony. 
 
 TYR. What is this, Barry ? what is this ? 
 
 KIT. Oh, where is he, Barry ? 
 
 Uss. Out in the yard waiting for you bridle, saddle 
 and all. 
 
 KIT. Oh, thank you, Barry. Father, is he not nice and 
 kind? 
 
 TYR. (looking at USSHER). Yes, always the kind friend 
 always the same. 
 
 KIT. Father, I shall ride the pony off to the heather- 
 field at once, and get you those flowers. [Exit at back. 
 
 Uss. How happy the little fellow is. 
 
 TYR. You have indeed made him so by your kindness, 
 Barry. 
 
 Uss. Bah a selfish kindness at most. I tell you, I 
 have not felt for a long time such real happiness as just 
 now when I saw myself looked at like some good spirit 
 by that little face. 
 
 TYR. And to think that you who are so lucky, to whom 
 most things come so easily, should say this ! Why, even I, 
 with all my troubles, could hardly speak more despoud- 
 ingly. What would you do if you were imprisoned as I 
 am here since those evictions ? 
 
 Uss. Your health will be ruined by your obstinacy. 
 
 TYR. What can I do ? The police have orders never to 
 lose sight of me if I go out. They say I should be shot at 
 otherwise. 
 
 Uss. Ha! 
 
 63
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT m. 
 
 TYR. And you know I never could bear to be followed 
 by a guard. It makes me feel like a criminal. I would 
 much rather stay indoors. 
 
 Uss. (after thinking for a moment). Look here, 
 Garden, you ought to leave this place for a while. We 
 will go together. We will travel. 
 
 TYR. Impossible, the drainage of the valley could 
 never go on in my absence. 
 
 Uss. Why not? You haven't been near it for ever so long. 
 
 TYR. Oh, that doesn't matter in the least. I can 
 direct it just as well from this room. There on the 
 writing table is my .map with all the drains marked upon 
 it. The superintendent comes to me at stated intervals, 
 reports the progress of each man's work, and takes the 
 fresh orders which I give him from the map. I assure 
 you it gives me greater pleasure to conduct operations 
 in this way scientifically, than if I were to go on the 
 ground. One can imagine oneself in such a situation, 
 like Moltke fighting battles from his study. 
 
 Uss. (gives a quick look at TYRRELL. Then after a 
 short pause ) Well, if you won't leave here, at all 
 events try and settle with those peasants, so that you 
 may dispense with police and be able to go about again. 
 
 TYR. Settle? How could I settle with them? The 
 only settlement they would hear of I could never grant. 
 Oh no a nice ending, indeed, that would be to our battle ! 
 
 Uss. Is there no compromise you will come to ? 
 
 TYR. I will reinstate the evicted, if they pay in full 
 their rents and the costs I have incurred on their account. 
 
 Uss. Oh, that is no compromise at all. 
 
 TYR. Well, it is as much as I can agree to. I told 
 these people when they struck, that I could not afford to 
 
 64
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 give abatements on rents which had already been reduced 
 so much by the Land Commission, and I can less afford 
 to give any now with pressing mortgagees who have not 
 been paid for so long. 
 
 Uss. But would it not be better to get some rent for 
 that land instead of leaving it idle ? Others, you know, 
 will not dare to take it from you. 
 
 TYR. I cannot help that. I must work it myself. 
 
 Uss. Meanwhile how are you going to pay the mort- 
 gagees their interest ? 
 
 TYR. Oh, there is the great difficulty. The chief mort- 
 gagee is most pressing, and threatens to foreclose im- 
 mediately. I have implored of him again and again to 
 wait until I can let the heather field, but in vain. Miles, 
 whom I expect home this evening, was to have made a 
 final appeal to him in Dublin last night I can only 
 hope for a favourable result. 
 
 Uss. I think you had better come to terms with those 
 tenants, Garden. 
 
 TYR. I shall never give in to them. I shall never 
 voluntarily reduce the value of my property. Besides, if 
 the worst should come, I have always the great resource. 
 
 Uss. What is that ? 
 
 TYR. The heather field ! 
 
 Uss. Garden, take care. It is a dangerous thing 
 trusting to only one resource. 
 
 TYR. (a little irritated). What do you mean? Are 
 you too going to join the enemy? 
 
 Uss. (uneasily). No, no, Garden, you do not under- 
 stand me ; but 
 
 TYR. But what? 
 
 Uss. Oh, I should so like to see you on good terms 
 E 65
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT in. 
 
 with your people again. I am sure the remembrance of 
 all that friendship with them in the past must make this 
 quarrel unbearable to you. 
 
 TYR. Yes, indeed that is true. 
 
 Uss. And this continual watch upon your movements 
 too must be dreadful. 
 
 TYR, Dreadful, it is gradually wearing me out. I 
 know I cannot stand it much longer. And most of the 
 long dreary winter I had no one about me whom I could 
 confide in or consult ; for Miles has been away at College 
 as you know. 
 
 Uss. Yes, carrying everything before him. I see he has 
 won a scholarship. He is sure of his gold medal now. 
 
 TYR. Miles is of the stuff to succeed. I am so fond of 
 Miles. He was always such good company. 
 
 Uss. Of course, a most charming boy. I am glad he is 
 to be at home to-day. 
 
 TYR. Indeed his companionship will make a great 
 difference to me, now that I can never get about. 
 
 Uss. (anxiously). Oh, but Garden, you cannot continue 
 in this way. You have always been used to so free a life 
 in the open air. I say this imprisonment will kill you. 
 Already I see a very marked change in your appearance. 
 
 TYR, (doggedly). I cannot help it. My past demands 
 that I must suffer. 
 
 [With a sigh, fie passes to right of doors at back, 
 where he looks out in a reverie. 
 
 Uss. (watching him). For heaven's sake, Garden, do 
 not be so fatally unreasonable. 
 
 TYR. (after a pause, still looking in the same direction). 
 No I am not so ; you think those remedies you suggest 
 would avail to relieve me but they would not. 
 
 66
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 Uss. Why not? 
 
 TYR. You ask you who are such a philosopher? 
 Can you not understand that the only remedy for me 
 must be something that has no relation whatever with 
 those circumstances that may affect me ill or otherwise ? 
 
 Uss. You mean that improvement of circumstances has 
 little to do with bringing contentment. 
 
 TYR. I mean that the only remedy must be something 
 which would make me forgetful that I am myself. 
 (Mysteriously) Barry, would you believe it, often in 
 moments of darkest anxiety I am arrested by the sight of 
 some flower or leaf or some tiny nook in the garden out 
 there. And oh I become then at once so peaceful that 
 I care not what may happen to me. I think it is only 
 when we turn to them in our misery that we can really 
 see the exquisite beauty of these things. 
 
 Uss. Ah, Garden, nature is a marvellous sedative. How 
 infinite her ingenuousness amidst all our pains and fears. 
 
 TYR. Yes and just this moment when I looked upon 
 the ocean there and the land awakening with such fresh- 
 ness from its winter sleep, I felt something that no 
 improvement of circumstances could bring. (Then with a 
 strange enthusiasm) Oh, to feel that despite all suffering 
 one has the firmament, the earth, the sea ! What more 
 can one really require from the world ? 
 
 Uss. Ay true enough. " For all things were made 
 from these," to quote the great mediaeval philosopher. 
 Nevertheless I think I might bring you another and very 
 real sort of relief from this present trouble, if you would 
 but allow me. 
 
 TYR. And what if you might ? It would only be 
 succeeded by some further trouble. That is the only 
 
 67
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT m. 
 
 sort of relief you could ever bring. Ah, there is a trouble 
 past all your remedies. 
 
 Uss. Alas, I fear there are many. How could I pre- 
 tend otherwise ? But will you tell me this particular one ? 
 
 TYR. I wonder will you understand. 
 
 Uss. Why not, Garden ? 
 
 TYR. Well then, have you ever seen on earth something 
 beautiful beyond earth that great beauty which appears 
 in divers ways ? And then have you known what it is to 
 go back to the world again ? 
 
 Uss. {sadly). I know, I know the pain of loss. 
 
 TYR. Is it not misery ? But you have seen the great 
 beauty have you not ? Oh, that immortal beauty so far 
 away always so far away. 
 
 Uss. Yes yes, our ideal of beauty that for ever haunts 
 and eludes us through life. ( With a movement of resigna- 
 tion) But let us not speak of it any more. 
 
 TYR. Why, Barry ? 
 
 Uss. Because, as you say, it makes one so miserable in 
 the world, and it is such a hopeless phantom after all. 
 
 TYR. How can you say so? You who know that 
 it is alone the reality in the world. 
 
 Uss. (cautiously). Hush, Garden, I do not know. 
 
 TYR. (laughing bitterly). There just like you, Barry, 
 careful never to let yourself go. 
 
 Uss. No no, Garden, but you brood too much on 
 these thoughts. You are overworked you ought really 
 to come away from here. Do let us travel somewhere 
 together for a change. 
 
 TYR. Ah, not now at some future time, perhaps 
 but not now. My difficulties are gathering before me. I 
 must stand and hew them from my path. 
 
 68
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 GRACE TYRRELL enters hurriedly and excitedly by 
 door at right. 
 
 GR. (pauses when she sees USSHER, then to TYRRELL). 
 Oh, but I suppose as you have no secrets from him 
 
 TYR. (starting). Well, what is the matter ? 
 
 GR. (holding out a paper). A dreadful - looking man 
 has just handed me this. 
 
 TYR. Let me see (takes paper). Ah 
 
 GR. I have so often asked you for money to pay this 
 person. 
 
 TYR. I am very sorry. I had nothing to give you. 
 
 GR. Alas, you always had plenty to squander on that 
 mountain. 
 
 TYR. That was Government money, and it could not 
 honestly be expended except on the object for which it 
 was advanced. 
 
 GR. I am afraid I must have some of it now. I can- 
 not be left in this condition. 
 
 TYR. Indeed you shall not have one penny of it. 
 
 GR. What you mean to leave me under the stigma 
 of such an insult ? 
 
 TYR. (impatiently). There is no particular urgency. 
 I will see if I can possibly meet this writ by some 
 money of my own. (With a painful distracted look) 
 Oh this worry this worry. [Exit by door at right. 
 
 GR. Well, Mr Ussher, I hope you are satisfied now. 
 We are ruined ; and my husband is becoming stranger in 
 his behaviour every day. But for you, he might have been 
 cured by this, and the estate in a very different condition. 
 
 Uss. I have nothing, Mrs Tyrrell, to reproach myself 
 with. I did all for the best. 
 
 GR. Yes, of course. That is the only satisfaction one 
 
 69
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT m. 
 
 ever receives for injuries done through gratuitous inter- 
 ference. 
 
 Uss. Nothing has since happened to convict me of 
 having acted wrongly. I have done you no injury. 
 GR. No injury? Well! 
 
 Uss. You cannot lay to my account this quarrel 
 with the tenants which is the cause of your present 
 difficulties. Goodness knows I have done my best to 
 mend it. 
 
 GR. (impatiently}. Oh, that is only a temporary diffi- 
 culty. But the estate will be ruined for ever by the great 
 debt from which we should have saved it, if you had not 
 interfered. (Pause.) Yes I see now how it all will be. 
 The child and I will be driven out, ruined, to battle with 
 the world. 
 
 Uss. Oh, don't think of such a thing, Mrs Tyrrell. It 
 can never come to that. 
 
 GR. (sadly). Ah, yes. You destroyed my last chance 
 of saving our home. I might have kept it lovingly for 
 Kit until he grew to be a man ; but now I see it must go 
 from us. I shall have to bid everything farewell the 
 familiar rooms the garden where I found an occupation 
 for my life even those common useless things about the 
 house I have been accustomed to look at for years. Oh, 
 you don't know what it is this parting from those every- 
 day things of one's life. 
 
 Uss. Yes, yes indeed I do and from my heart I feel 
 for you. 
 
 GR. And yet you could have acted as you have. 
 
 Uss. I acted only in good faith. Heaven knows that 
 is the truth. 
 
 GR. The injury remains still the same. 
 
 70
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 Uss. (with strong emotion). If it is I who have injured 
 you, Mrs Tyrrell, you must allow me to make amends. 
 
 GR. Alas, what amends are possible ? 
 
 Uss. Who can tell ? I promise you, at least, you shall 
 never, never bid farewell to your home. 
 
 GR. (in a trembling voice). If only what you say might 
 come true. 
 
 LADY SHRULE, LORD SHRULE, and GARDEN TYRRELL 
 enter by door at right. 
 
 LORD S. Garden, I believe your servant was actually 
 going to say " not at home " to us, if I had not caught 
 sight of you in the hall. Ha, ha. 
 
 LADY S. What a shame, Mr Tyrrell, to try and prevent 
 me from seeing Grace. How do you do, Grace dear? 
 (Giving her hand apathetically to USSHER) How do you 
 do? 
 
 LORD S. (shakes hands with GRACE and USSHER). We 
 should have been so disappointed. 
 
 TYR. I assure you, Lord Shrule, my attempt to escape 
 is purely an imagination on your part. 
 
 LORD S. Oh, you sly fellow, you think I do not know. 
 You are just like your father when people used to call 
 although he would never run away from me, I can tell 
 you. 
 
 TYR. No more did I. I was only surprised to see you ; 
 that was all. When I heard the bell I thought it was 
 Miles come from Dublin. I am anxiously expecting him 
 now at any moment. 
 
 LORD S. Ah, it will be a pleasure to see Miles again. 
 We have all heard of his University triumphs. How 
 proud your poor father would have been. 
 
 71
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT in. 
 
 TYR. Yes, and how delighted to share his satisfaction 
 with you. 
 
 LORD S. Poor Marmaduke, we were such friends at 
 our very last interview he asked me to keep you and your 
 brother always in mind after he was gone. So I have 
 always felt somehow like a father towards you both, you 
 know, and with a father's privilege occasionally have 
 given advice. 
 
 GR. Yes, Lord Shrule, and how I wish your good 
 advice occasionally had been followed. 
 
 LORD S. Ah, we cannot help that, Mrs Tyrrell. 
 Nothing will ever teach the young save bitter ex- 
 perience. 
 
 GR. I am sure there has been enough bitter experience ; 
 but it seems to have taught nothing at all. 
 
 LORD S. Well, well, I hope it won't be so. Eh, 
 Garden ? 
 
 TYR. I do not see how my experience can teach me to 
 act differently from my present way of acting. (Aside to 
 USSHER) Miles ought to have arrived by this. Oh, I 
 am nearly dead with anxiety to know the news he will 
 bring. 
 
 Uss. (aside to TYRRELL). I hope there will be good 
 news. 
 
 LORD S. Never mind, Mrs Tyrrell. Garden will come 
 by degrees to see his mistakes. 
 
 GR. I fear we are now in so bad a way that it does 
 not much matter whether he sees them or not. 
 
 LADY S. No really, Grace, you do not say so ? 
 
 GR. Oh, Lilian, we are ruined. 
 
 LORD S. Come, come, I am sure it cannot be as bad as 
 that. 
 
 72
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 TYR. Goodness me, of course not, Lord Shrule. On 
 the contrary, in the near future we shall make a fortune. 
 
 GR. I say we are ruined, utterly, irretrievably. 
 
 TYR. No no 
 
 Uss. What noise is that ? (Listens, then opens door at 
 right.) Why, Miles has arrived. 
 
 TYR. Miles oh! 
 
 Uss. There, Garden, for goodness sake be calm. 
 
 Enter MILES TYRRELL by door at right. 
 
 MIL. Garden. (He grasps his brother by the hand, 
 then greets all the rest.) 
 
 TYR. What news, Miles ? Will he wait ? 
 
 MIL. (turning away dejectedly). I did my best, Garden. 
 There is no hope, I fear. 
 
 GR. No hope ? What is this new misfortune ? Who 
 won't wait ? 
 
 MIL. The chief mortgagee. 
 
 GR. Is he going to foreclose ? 
 
 MIL. He says so. 
 
 LORD S. Ha this is a most serious matter. 
 
 TYR. But Miles, didn't you explain to him all about 
 the heather field ? 
 
 MIL. Yes. 
 
 TYR. Didn't you assure him that it would soon bring 
 in what would more than pay his interest ? 
 
 MIL. Indeed I did, Garden. 
 
 TYR. Well? 
 
 MIL. Well, that only seemed to make him impatient 
 with me. But I used every argument I could think of, 
 and pleaded with him for nearly an hour in his office, 
 until at last he had to get rid of me almost brutally. 
 
 73
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT in. 
 
 TYR. (with a look of humiliation and despair). Oh 
 ruin! ruin! 
 
 Uss. No, no, Garden it is not yet that. We must 
 see how we can help you through this difficulty. 
 
 TYR. (quietly). With all your goodwill, Barry, what 
 can you do now ? 
 
 Uss. Who knows ? Just keep quiet, and do not dis- 
 tress yourself. Leave it all to me. 
 
 TYR. (almost staggering). Yes such a severe blow 
 this. It has quite upset me. I am sure you will all 
 excuse me. You, Barry, will see what you can do, won't 
 you ? Yes (He goes to door at right.) 
 
 Uss. Yes, Garden, I hope all will come well. 
 
 LORD S. How much of the property does this mortgage 
 cover ? 
 
 GR. Oh, pretty nearly all, I should think. 
 
 TYR. (suddenly turning). All, do you say? No not 
 all. This vulture cannot touch the heather field! My 
 hope it is my only hope now, and it will save me in 
 the end. Ha, ha ! these wise ones ! They did not 
 think the barren mountain of those days worth naming 
 in their deed. But now that mountain is a great green 
 field worth more than all they can seize, (with a strange 
 intensity) and it is mine all mine ! 
 
 [Exit by door at right. 
 
 LORD S. (throwing up his hands). Oh dear, oh dear, 
 what infatuation ! 
 
 GR. Yes indeed, it has caused us all to be cast 
 adrift in the world. Oh, what is to become of me 
 what is to become of me? (She sobs in her handker- 
 chief.) 
 
 LADY S. Grace, you must not lose heart. 
 
 74
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 GR. Ah, the final misfortune has come. 
 
 LADY S. We shall try and help you, dear there. 
 
 Uss. Yes, we must lose no time now to see what can 
 be done for Garden. 
 
 LADY S. You should indeed bestir yourself, Mr Ussher, 
 and save him ; for we have you to thank that he was left 
 in a position to ruin himself. 
 
 Uss. And have not you too, Lady Shrule, to thank 
 yourself for the same thing? 
 
 LADY S. I ? How so, pray ? 
 
 Uss. Why did you and Lord Shrule disappear so 
 suddenly on that day the doctors were here? Your 
 advocacy would doubtless have made them heedless of my 
 objections 
 
 LADY S. Ha why indeed? You know, Shrule, I 
 wanted you to 
 
 LORD S. Well, well, I could not bear to act in such a 
 way to the son of my old friend. But I suppose in my 
 weakness I did wrong. 
 
 Uss. No, Lord Shrule, you did right. You never 
 could be suspected by anyone of doing otherwise. 
 
 LORD S. I hope not, Ussher! Still, I am inclined 
 to think it might have been wiser then to have taken 
 some definite step. 
 
 LADY S. I should think so. Just see what has 
 happened since. 
 
 GR. Nothing less than the ruin of a helpless woman 
 and her child. 
 
 LADY S. You have, indeed, incurred a nice responsi- 
 bility, Mr Ussher. 
 
 GR. (to USSHER). What what right had you to do my 
 child and me this wrong ? 
 
 75
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT in. 
 
 Uss. I only prevented what I thought a grievous wrong 
 from being done to my friend. 
 
 GR. It was no wrong it was for his good for all our 
 good. In your heart you must know I was right. 
 
 Uss. I have often said, Mrs Tyrrell, I know nothing of 
 the sort. 
 
 LADY S. Still, you must admit that his actions since 
 more than justify Mrs Tyrrell in the course she adopted. 
 
 LORD S. Alas, I fear that is the case. 
 
 Uss. I admit he is very wilful and extravagant, but no 
 more. I cannot discover any mental infirmity. His mind 
 has a perfect grasp of ideas. 
 
 GR. Don't talk of ideas. I have heard enough about 
 them since I was married to give me a horror of them for 
 the rest of my life. 
 
 LADY S. They have certainly caused the wreck of this 
 household. 
 
 LORD S. Oh, I hope not. We must not be too pessi- 
 mistic. Who can tell? perhaps the heather field may 
 turn out a success after all ! 
 
 GR. (with contempt). The heather field. 
 
 LORD S. If it were to, there can be no doubt but that 
 all would be saved. I wonder how it is going on. Have 
 you been there lately, Mrs Tyrrell ? 
 
 GR. Of course not, Lord Shrule. The very thought of 
 the place fills me with despair. 
 
 MIL. That is a pity, Grace a great pity, when so much 
 depends upon the success of the heather field. 
 
 GR. No good can ever come of that abominable 
 work. 
 
 MIL. You must not speak such words ; no luck can 
 come from such words. 
 
 76
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 GR. I cannot help it. 
 
 MIL. Oh, I know you have much to endure, but I 
 cannot remain here and listen to such denunciation of 
 what my brother holds nearest to his heart. 
 
 GR. I have only said the truth. 
 
 MIL. You cannot be certain of this truth. It is not 
 right to speak such words. [Exit by door at right. 
 
 LADY S. My poor Grace. 
 
 GR. Oh, Lilian. 
 
 LADY S. These troubles are driving you to distraction. 
 You had better leave this place for a while. Will you 
 not come and stay with us ? 
 
 LORD S. Oh yes, won't you stay with us, Mrs Tyrrell ? 
 You might be saved much annoyance and worry. 
 
 GR. You are both so kind I should like to for a little 
 while, certainly. This house has become unbearable of 
 late with debts and difficulties on every side. 
 
 LADY S. Oh dear, how terrible. You had better leave 
 at once, Grace. Perhaps you might have some of your 
 things seized. Anyhow, bring with you those that you 
 most value. We will take care of them. 
 
 GR. Thanks, Lilian. 
 
 LORD S. Well then, that is agreed, Mrs Tyrrell. I am 
 so glad we may be of use to you. 
 
 LADY S. We shall expect you this evening, dear. 
 
 GR. Yes, I shall get ready at once. 
 
 LADY S. And it is time for us to return home. Good- 
 bye, Mr Ussher. 
 
 Uss. Good-bye, Lady Shrule. 
 
 LORD S. Good-bye. 
 
 [Exeunt LADY SHRULE, GRACE TYRRELL, and 
 LORD SHRULE by door at right. 
 77
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT in. 
 
 Uss. (gloomily). Heaven help her help them all. 
 What is to be done? Stay I might go security, I 
 would do anything to help them. But would it really 
 be of use ? Other difficulties must follow these, so that 
 my whole fortune would not suffice. I will think the 
 matter over. I wonder how the heather field is going on. 
 No one seems to have been there lately. 
 
 KIT TYRRELL, carrying a small white bundle, enters 
 through door at back. 
 
 KIT (placing the bundle on sofa). Barry, the pony is 
 splendid. I had such galloping over the heather field. 
 
 Uss. Well, did you bring back any flowers ? 
 
 KIT. They have not yet come out. All I could find 
 there were these little buds in my handkerchief. ( Unties 
 the bundle) Look. 
 
 Uss. (with a start). What buds of heather ? Has 
 your father seen these, Kit ? 
 
 KIT. Yes, I told him I found them growing all over 
 the heather field. 
 
 Uss. You did, boy and what did he say ? 
 
 KIT. Nothing for a while. But he looked he looked 
 well, I have never seen him look like that before. 
 
 Uss. Ha and then ? 
 
 KIT. Oh, then he seemed to forget all about it. He 
 became so kind, and oh, Barry, what do you think, he 
 called me, his " little brother Miles." So I am really his 
 brother, he says, after all 
 
 MILES TYRRELL, in haste and violent trepidation, 
 enters through door at back. 
 
 MIL. Barry, for pity's sake (sees KIT and suddenly 
 
 78
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 checks himself, then brings USSHER over to fireplace). 
 Barry, something dreadful has come over Garden. He 
 does not know me. 
 
 Uss. (in a trembling voice, as he gazes fixedly before 
 him). The vengeance of the heather field. 
 
 MIL. Oh ! for pity's sake, come to him. Come to 
 him 
 
 Uss. Where is he ? 
 
 MIL. Wandering helpless about the garden. Oh, 
 heavens, what shall we do ? 
 
 Uss. (with suppressed terror). Let us find him. (He 
 turns to go.) 
 
 GARDEN TYRRELL appears outside doorway at back. 
 He has a strange, collected look. 
 
 Uss. (starting). Garden ! 
 
 TYR. (coming in). Well, Barry ? Why, what has 
 happened to you since yesterday? My goodness, you 
 look at least ten years older. (Glancing at MILES) 
 Who is that ? He was annoying me about something 
 just now in the fuchsia walk. 
 
 MIL. Oh, I cannot stand this torture. Garden, dear 
 Garden, look at me 
 
 TYR. (retreats like a frightened animal towards USSHER, 
 keeping always his eyes fixed on MILES). Barry, what is 
 the matter with him ? Don't leave me alone with him, 
 Barry. Get him to go away. 
 
 Uss. You need not fear him, Garden. (He signs to 
 MILES, who retires with an inconsolable expression and 
 stands by fireplace.) 
 
 TYR. (after a moment, mysteriously). Barry 
 
 Uss. Yes, Garden. 
 
 79
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT in. 
 
 TYR. (looking cautiously around}. You remember our 
 conversation yesterday. 
 
 Uss. (puzzled). Yesterday ? I did not see you yesterday. 
 
 TYR. (with impatience). We did not walk together on 
 the cliff yesterday, when you advised me not to marry 
 Grace Desmond ? What do you mean ? 
 
 Uss. (suddenly recollecting). Oh, I remember, I re- 
 member. (Then in a trembling voice) But Garden 
 Garden, that was ten years ago. Don't you know that 
 you are now married to her ? 
 
 TYR, (with a surprised baffled look). I am ? 
 
 Uss. (very gently). Yes, indeed. 
 
 TYR. Oh! (His expression for a moment grows vaguely 
 painful, then gradually passes into one of vacant calm. 
 After a short pause) Barry, you are quite right. 
 
 Uss. (joyfully). I knew you would understand me, 
 Garden. 
 
 TYR. Yes, I will take your advice. I will not ask her 
 to be my wife. 
 
 Uss. (with cruel disappointment). Hopeless I see it is 
 hopeless now. 
 
 TYR. (unheeding). I do not care for her any more. I 
 know now I never cared for her. 
 
 Uss. Do you ? Why ? 
 
 TYR. (distressfully). Oh, I have had such a dreadful 
 dream. 
 
 Uss. A dream ? 
 
 TYR, I must tell it to you. Let me see, what was it ? 
 No I cannot remember no, it has gone completely 
 from me before the beauty of the morning. (Looks out 
 at back and stretches his arms) Oh, is not this Spring 
 morning divine ? 
 
 80
 
 ACT in. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 Uss. But Garden, can you not see that it is evening ? 
 
 TYR. Ah, I must have been a long time asleep a long, 
 long time. Yet it looks like the morning. Yes, it seems 
 as if it would always be morning now for me. 
 
 Uss. (with interest). Indeed is that so ? 
 
 TYR. Yes its genius somehow is always about me. 
 
 Uss. And what do you call this genius of the morning ? 
 
 TYR. (with a strange ecstacy). Joy ! Joy ! 
 
 Uss. (after looking at him for a while in wonder). 
 Then, you are happy, Garden ? 
 
 TYR. Oh, yes so happy. Why not ? 
 
 Uss. (with hesitation). You have no troubles, have you ? 
 
 TYR. Troubles ? No, except sometimes in dreams 
 but oh, when I awake to the joy of this great beauty 
 
 Uss. Yet great beauty is it not for ever far away ? 
 
 TYR. No it is for ever by me. (Then as if suddenly 
 recollecting) Ah, now I can tell you my dreadful dream. 
 (Slowly) I dreamed that my lot was to wander through 
 common luxurious life seeing now and then in glimpses, 
 that beauty but so far away ! And when the vision left 
 me ah, you do not know the anguish I felt in looking 
 again at my lot in life. 
 
 Uss. And this was only a dream ? 
 
 TYR. (fervently). Thank heaven only a dream ! (He 
 goes to the sofa, where KIT all this time has been playing 
 with the heather buds.) 
 
 Uss. (meditatively sorrowful). And are beauty and 
 happiness mere illusions after all? (Goes towards 
 MILES) I am dazed in the presence of this awful mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 MIL. (approaching USSHER). Oh, the misery of seeing 
 him like this. He thinks he is living in the old days. 
 F 81
 
 THE HEATHER FIELD ACT m. 
 
 Uss. It has come upon him again that eerie ethereal 
 youth I remember so well. 
 
 MIL. And for which he would yearn with such fond 
 regret. But Grace and the child Oh, what is to be- 
 come of them? I fear their ruin is now certain and 
 complete. 
 
 Uss. (as if suddenly awakened). Not so. It may be 
 possible to save them now that there is no danger of 
 further expenditure. And I will save them. I will be 
 security for the payment of all their debts. I will save 
 the estate, if it costs me every penny I have in the 
 world. 
 
 MIL. (grasping USSHER by the hand). Oh, Barry, this 
 is good of you. ( They go towards the fireplace in earnest 
 discourse.) 
 
 TYR. (placing a heather wreath on KIT'S head). There 
 you are like a young field-faun now. 
 
 KIT. What sort of thing is that ? 
 
 TYR. Why, one of the field-fairies fresh and clean as 
 those soft heather-shoots around your hair. 
 
 KIT (delighted). What the fairies that live in green 
 hillocks, and dance by the river bank, in the valley over 
 there ? Oh, tell me of them again. 
 
 TYR. Yes, beautiful child-fairies that play with the 
 water nymphs those sirens, you know, who sing in the 
 wistful depths of the stream. ( With a sudden transport) 
 Oh, we must go to Lorlei as last year, where the river is 
 lit with their gold. (Pointing out at back) See, even 
 now the sky is darkening as in that storm scene of the 
 old legend I told you on the Rhine. See, the rain across 
 a saffron sun trembles like gold harp strings, through the 
 purple Irish Spring ! 
 
 82
 
 ACT m. THE HEATHER FIELD 
 
 MRS GRACE TYRRELL enters by door at right, dressed for 
 going out, with her face thinly veiled and looking 
 altogether younger and more handsome. 
 
 GR. (to TYRRELL). I am just starting to visit the 
 Shrules for some days. 
 
 TYR. (turns surprised). Miss Desmond Oh ( With 
 emotion and signs of struggle) Oh, where is that beauty 
 now that music of the morning ? (Suddenly arrested) 
 Such strange solemn harmonies. (Listens.) The voices 
 yes, they are filling the house those white-stoled 
 children of the morning. (His eyes after a moment 
 wander slowly to the doorway at back) Oh, the rain- 
 bow ! (To KIT) Come quick, see the lovely rainbow! 
 (They go to watch it hand in hand.) Oh, mystic high- 
 way of man's speechless longings ! My heart goes forth 
 upon the rainbow to that horizon of joy ! ( With a fearful 
 exaltation) The voices I hear them now triumphant in 
 a silver glory of song ! 
 
 GR. (looking bewildered from MILES to USSHER). 
 What what is all this? 
 
 Uss. Ah, your fears have come true, Mrs Tyrrell. You 
 have not heard 
 
 GR. No. What has happened? For heavens' sake, 
 speak. 
 
 Uss. The wild heath has broken out again in the 
 heather field. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 83
 
 MAEVE 
 
 A PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA IN TWO ACTS
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 THE O'HEYNES, Colman O'ffeynes, Prince of Burren. 
 
 MAEVE O'HEYNES. 1 . 
 
 T-I TT (his daughters. 
 
 FlNOLA OHEYNES, J 
 
 HUGH FITZ WALTER, a y&ung Englishman. 
 PEG INERNY, a vagrant. 
 
 In the dream of MAEVE appear QUEEN MAEVE, A BOY PAGE, 
 CHORUS OF BOY PAGES, ancient Irish harpers, chieftains, 
 warriors, people, etc. 
 
 The action takes place during the present time about and 
 at O'Heynes Castle among the Burren Mountains of County 
 Clare in Ireland.
 
 ACT I 
 
 A ruined abbey in a green valley among mountains 
 covered with layers of grey rock. At back a little removed is 
 a cairn overgrown with grass. Gray limestones belonging to 
 the ruin are strewn about the ground. At the left in the 
 surrounding pasture of pale green, great leafless ash trees 
 stand among boulders spotted with white and orange lichen. 
 It is a sunny evening in the month of March. 
 
 (MAEVE 'HEYNES a girl of about three and twenty with 
 a fair complexion, gold hair, and a certain boyish beauty in 
 the lines and movement of her slim figure, rests thoughtful 
 and attentive on one of the fallen stones. She wears a red 
 frieze dress with a black jacket and folding linen collar, and 
 has on her head a sailor's cap of black wool.) 
 
 (FiNOLA O 'HEYNES a dark rather submissive-looking girl 
 somewhat younger, dressed simply in an ordinary gown, sits 
 near on another stone.) 
 
 FINOLA (reading from an old book). 
 
 " Eveiy hill which is at this Oenach 
 Hath under it heroes and queens, 
 And poets and distributors, 
 And fair fierce women." 
 
 MAEVE (rises and gazes before her as if in a dream). 
 And fair fierce women ! 
 
 FIN. (closing the book, goes to her). Maeve what are 
 you thinking of so earnestly ? 
 
 MA. (recalled to herself). Visions visions. That is 
 all. 
 
 87
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 FIN. Has this old West Connacht poem brought you 
 visions? 
 
 MA. Ah, the bard Dorban, who wrote it, was a poet ! 
 (She sighs and covers her face with her hands.) 
 
 FIN. (turning away). I am sorry I thought of reading 
 it to you. 
 
 MA.* Why, sister ? 
 
 FIN. Because it seems to have called you back to your 
 old self. 
 
 MA. (smiling sadly). My old self. As if I could ever 
 have left my old self. 
 
 FIN. Oh yes, you were peaceful and contented a little 
 while ago. 
 
 MA. It seems so long ago, Finola. 
 
 FIN. Something strange has come over you now. 
 
 MA. (with restlessness). No, it is nothing. It is only 
 the look of the evening. 
 
 FIN. But this is such a peaceful evening with that 
 saffron sunlight over the ruins. Why should it make 
 you anything else but peaceful ? 
 
 MA. Oh, Finola, when I see the ruins like that, I know 
 the visions are near me. 
 
 FIN. Then, after all, it was not because I read that 
 poem ? 
 
 MA. Yes that, and the evening. 
 
 FIN. (looking at her anxiously). Why should the visions 
 make you so sad, Maeve ? 
 
 MA. (wistfully). Such beautiful dead people ! They 
 used to walk in the oldest of these ruins before it was 
 a ruin ; they watched Goban, the great architect, building 
 that round tower (pointing to the right), building his 
 master-work. I see them now, and I see others who 
 
 88
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 lived long before them (turns and looks to the back), and 
 are buried in that green cairn. Oh, I am dying because 
 I am exiled from such beauty. 
 
 FIN. (with great gentleness). Darling, you must not 
 think of these things. You know to-morrow 
 
 MA. (with a sudden chillness). To-morrow, why do 
 you speak of to-morrow while it is still to-day, and I can 
 still think of my love ? 
 
 FIN. Tomorrow when you are married, Maeve, it will 
 be your husband who will be entitled to that love. 
 
 MA. (significantly). He has not yet returned. 
 
 FIN. Hugh will certainly return before night. 
 
 MA. But he has not yet returned, Finola. 
 
 FIN. Do you really think he will not return ? 
 
 MA. (with a baffled look). Oh, I don't know : but some- 
 how I cannot believe that I am to be married to-morrow. 
 (Looks around) To leave all this for an English home 
 
 FIN. (with increased anxiety). Maeve 
 
 MA. The very stones, as I wander among them, seem 
 to forbid it. [Exit among the ruins at back. 
 
 FIN. (walking about in agitation). Oh, why does not 
 Hugh return? (Then suddenly stopping) Here is father 
 again. Poor father. 
 
 THE O'HEYNES enters from the left, leaning heavily on 
 a stick. He is an old man, with thin, white 
 dishevelled hair almost falling to his shoulders, 
 wears a tall hat and clothes of a somewhat bygone 
 fashion; while about his whole appearance there 
 is just a suggestion of the peasant. 
 
 THE O'H. (restlessly). Finola, I wonder will Hugh 
 come after all? 
 
 89
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 FIN. Of course he will, father. Why have you been 
 asking me this question all day ? 
 
 THE O'H. Because he has been promising to come for 
 ever so long, and he has not come. 
 
 FIN. Well you know the reason. 
 
 THE O'H. (peevishly). Yes yes legal business 
 always the same excuse. 
 
 FIN. You surely must understand that he had to con- 
 sult the lawyers about many matters before his marriage 
 with Maeve. 
 
 THE O'H. When he left here for England he said it 
 would only be for a little time, and here he has been 
 away more than two months. 
 
 FIN. The delay was very unfortunate, but necessary, 
 I suppose. You see every sort of legal business is so 
 tedious. 
 
 THE O'H. I don't know I don't know. I distrust his 
 excuses. He said he would certainly return to-day, and 
 there, he hasn't after all. 
 
 FIN. But to-day is not yet over. Oh, you needn't fear. 
 He will return before to-morrow. 
 
 THE O'H. Ah, this is the way you are perpetually 
 making excuses for him, Finola. 
 
 FIN. (a little confused}. Father, why do you say so ? 
 
 THE O'H. I understand it all. Another girl would not 
 be so forgiving as you are, Finola. 
 
 FIN. I have nothing to forgive. 
 
 THE O'H. That is well, child. But, believe me, I had 
 far rather he had married you than Maeve. 
 
 FIN. Oh, no. He always liked Maeve from the first, 
 and no one else. I never at any time doubted that, 
 father. 
 
 90
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 THE O'H. Well, this is certainly a queer way of show- 
 ing his affection for her. 
 
 FIN. I suppose it would be, if there were no reasons 
 for it. 
 
 THE O'H. (indignantly). To think he should have put 
 off coming until his very wedding morning. He deserves 
 to lose her after leaving her all this time. Oh the per- 
 sistent ill-luck that has pursued me all through life. 
 
 FIN. I'm sure I can't think how you consider it ill-luck 
 to be on the eve of having all your wishes fulfilled. 
 
 THE O'H. Ah, that is just it, child. I have so often 
 been on the eve of having my wishes fulfilled : and then 
 somehow the unforeseen has come about : and all my 
 hopes have gone from me. I am surely the most un- 
 fortunate of men. 
 
 FIN. Father, dear, you must not despond in this way. 
 
 THE O'H. To think of all the anxiety your sister has 
 caused me, Finola, and the trouble she put me to before 
 she would accept this rich young Englishman. She must 
 have been mad. As if the coming into this place of such 
 a suitor was an everyday event to her. 
 
 FIN. (pensively). He never for a moment interested her 
 somehow. It was very strange, his coming wasn't it ? 
 
 THE O'H. Was there ever such good fortune? I 
 advertise the fishing of my river in the papers. He 
 arrives here last summer, and takes it at once. To be 
 sure it is splendid salmon fishing but that it should 
 have brought such a tenant as Hugh Fitz Walter and 
 that he should have fallen in love with Maeve well 
 
 FIN. (with a sigh). Well, father, you ought to be 
 content with such good fortune. 
 
 THE O'H. (despondingly). Ah, I am afraid it is too 
 
 91
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 good to come to anything. But just think that after all 
 he should be the one to wreck this good fortune Oh, I 
 am distracted. (He begins to work his hands and tear 
 his hair.) 
 
 FIN. (alarmed). Father, don't fret in this way. It is 
 bad for your health. And you know there is no reason 
 for it. 
 
 THE O'H. (feebly). Oh child, if you could only realise 
 how I have waited and waited for this for the time when 
 fortune would enable our family to resume its fitting 
 position in the county ! Hugh has at last promised me 
 this fortune. Is it surprising that I should be anxious, 
 when I see the danger of his failing me ? 
 
 FIN. (inadvertently). He is not the one who will fail 
 you, father. 
 
 THE O'H. (with a quick suspicion). You think Maeve 
 is more likely to eh ? Where is she ? 
 
 FIN. Oh don't trouble about her. She is safe. 
 
 THE O'H. I noticed she was taking to her old habits 
 lately. I had again to forbid her to wander through the 
 country at night. 
 
 FIN. (as if laughing the matter off). You must not 
 mind these wanderings of hers. They are very harmless, 
 father. 
 
 THE O'H. (anxiously). Does she still talk of this 
 strange one she is in love with? 
 
 FIN. Oh that is nothing. Don't trouble about it 
 
 THE O'H. I am not so sure of what you say, Finola. 
 I'll take my oath she is thinking about some good for 
 nothing fellow after all. 
 
 FIN. No no, nothing of the kind. You don't under- 
 stand her. 
 
 92
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 THE O'H. Indeed I don't, child. 
 
 FIN. It is not often easy to do so. She seems to live 
 by the brain as we live by the heart. 
 
 THE O'H. She seems to me quite regardless of realities. 
 
 FIN. Those feelings and impulses which are in our 
 hearts and which govern our affections, with her are all 
 in the head. This sounds strange : but it is the only 
 way I can account for her nature. 
 
 THE O'H. (surprised). In the head ? 
 
 FIN. Yes that is why she appears so cold, and, as 
 you say, regardless of realities. I even think if this one 
 she loves were to become a reality, he would cease to 
 fascinate her. 
 
 THE O'H. (curiously). Have you ever found out who 
 he is? 
 
 FIN. No not altogether. 
 
 THE O'H. I wonder what put such an extravagant idea 
 in her head. 
 
 FIN. I think I know. 
 
 THE O'H. Well, what is it ? 
 
 FIN. Would you believe it, father, I think it is those 
 books that belonged to Uncle Bryan. 
 
 THE O'H. You mean those books up in the top room. 
 They are mostly about ancient Greece, aren't they ? 
 
 FIN. Yes. She is always poring over them and looking 
 at their pictures white statues and beautiful wall orna- 
 ments which she told me were in Greece. And then she 
 showed me other books too, with pictures of pillars and 
 arches all ornamented like those in the abbey here. 
 Then I have seen her take the writings of Uncle Bryan 
 and study them with all these pictures before her. 
 
 THE O'H. Poor Bryan's writings, do you say ? I didn't 
 
 93
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 think there were any here. I thought the Society he 
 belonged to, took them all. ( With plaintive regret} My 
 poor brother Bryan ; he was a great scholar. They used 
 to talk of him in Dublin. They said if he had lived to 
 complete his book, it would have made him famous. 
 
 FIN. What was he writing about when he died, father ? 
 
 THE O'H. Let me see I think his work was to be 
 called " The Influence of Greek Art on Celtic Ornament " 
 or something of the sort. 
 
 FIN. That must have been it; for Maeve is always 
 talking of that, and of the brotherhood of the Greek and 
 Celtic races, and of a curious unreal beauty besides, 
 which she says the Greeks invented. She thinks she has 
 discovered something similar in the Celt. 
 
 THE O'H. Is that what you say she is in love with ? 
 
 FIN. (with earnest conviction). I verily believe so, 
 father. (Then after a moment's consideration) Still it 
 often seems to me she must have some individual in 
 her mind besides. 
 
 THE O'H. I thought that was the case. 
 
 FIN. Oh not what you think. 
 
 THE O'H. What then, child? 
 
 FIN. I don't know ; she speaks of his beauty as if it 
 had some sort of likeness to the Celtic ornament she is so 
 much in love with. 
 
 THE O'H. Ah, she must have discovered this in the 
 writings of Bryan. He had all sorts of odd theories 
 about everything, poor fellow. 
 
 FIN. Yes, and she is as full of theories. She says that, 
 because Celtic ornament is as rare and delicate as the 
 Greek, so her pattern of Celtic youth must, in the same 
 way, equal the perfection of Greek youth. 
 
 94
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 THE O'H. (astonished). My goodness, is the whole of 
 life like this to her ? 
 
 FIN. Ah, now you understand what I meant when 
 I told you that everything with her seemed to be only in 
 the head. 
 
 THE O'H. (seriously). Yes, Finola, and nothing in the 
 heart. She has no warm feelings of the heart. She was 
 always cold and distant from her earliest childhood. 
 
 FIN. No, I would not say so much. I think it is only 
 her imagination that has absorbed all the warmth of 
 her nature. 
 
 THE O'H. What you say is the same thing, my dear. 
 Whatever may be the cause, depend upon it, she has 
 no feeling. 
 
 FIN. Oh, don't say that, father. 
 
 THE O'H. Oh no, she hasn't, Finola; and I don't 
 wonder that this young man's affection should at last 
 weary of her apathy. 
 
 FIN. It is not any want of affection that has delayed 
 him, father. 
 
 THE O'H. I cannot believe any more in his affection. 
 (Querulously) Why is he not here? Why is he not here? 
 
 FIN. You will surely see him very soon. For good- 
 ness sake, do not fret so. Go in, and try and rest. 
 
 THE O'H. Rest I cannot rest. How can I rest with 
 this anxiety gnawing at me ? 
 
 FIN. Oh, this miserable pride and position. They are 
 ruining your health and peace. 
 
 THE O'H. (with a sudden reviving of energy). Not 
 they, my girl, indeed why do you say so ? Why should 
 what are good for every other man be bad for old Colman 
 O'Heynes ? 
 
 95
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 FIN. Yes, yes, father dear, I know. But somehow we 
 have been so happy and united in our seclusion here. We 
 are going to be divided. 
 
 THEO'H. How divided? 
 
 FIN. Maeve will soon leave us. 
 
 THE O'H. Ah yes, of course. 
 
 FIN. Let that be sufficient. Let us at least not try to 
 go out into the world. 
 
 THE O'H. Why not, Finola ? 
 
 FIN. The world is such a great lonely place. 
 
 THE O'H. But my lost position the lost dignity of 
 our family. I have that to reassert. When my rich son- 
 in-law comes there will be an end of our poverty. 
 
 FIN. You are the Prince of Burren. Is not the royalty 
 of our race acknowledged ? What place can we find in 
 a grotesque world of plutocrats and shop-keeper peers? 
 This change in our life seems unnatural to me. And then 
 that wicked old Peg Inerny is always talking. 
 
 THE O'H. (sharply). Eh what does she say ? 
 
 FIN. Oh, nothing definite nothing but insinuations 
 and mystery, till I feel quite terrified. 
 
 THE O'H. She has been the curse of our house ; and 
 now the infernal witch has bewitched your sister. 
 
 FIN. I don't think that I hope not. Maeve is only 
 fascinated by her strange tales the past, always the past. 
 
 THE O'H. Ay, it was the same way with your poor 
 mother and this Peg Inerny who was a servant here long 
 ago, and put it into her head to call your sister by the 
 name of Maeve. Peg Inerny, I know, had some sinister 
 object for this. 
 
 FIN. Oh, no, no. 
 
 THE O'H. Ah wait a while. 
 
 96
 
 ACT I. MAEVE 
 
 FIN. (with a scared look). Father, don't forebode evil. 
 Try and be contented try and check this restlessness 
 that is urging you to change your life. Let us go in. 
 (As they move to the left) Look at our old castle. How 
 spectral those giant ash trees rise up around it from the 
 pale March grass. How peaceful they all live in the 
 sunset. Would it not be misery to leave that peace for 
 a world where there is at least no peace. 
 
 HUGH FITZ WALTER a good-looking young English- 
 man of about five and twenty, dressed in a tweed 
 suit enters at the right. 
 
 HUGH (eagerly). So I have arrived, you see, at last. 
 
 THE O'H. (turning). Who is that ? what, Hugh ? 
 
 HUGH. It is I. 
 
 THE O'H. And so it is. Heaven be praised. I thought 
 you were never coming, Hugh. (He shakes him by the 
 hand.) 
 
 FIN. (also shaking him by the hand). I am so glad 
 you have come at last. 
 
 HUGH. But I wrote to you my reason for not getting 
 here sooner. 
 
 THE O'H. Yes, I know, of course. But why should 
 you have put off coming like this till the very last ? 
 
 HUGH. Haven't I explained to you again and again 
 how my affairs delayed me ? 
 
 THE O'H. (peevishly). Yes yes explanations. You 
 have caused me, Hugh, the greatest anxiety for all that. 
 
 HUGH. I assure you, O'Heynes, this delay was sorely 
 against my will: and I am sorry you have had any 
 anxiety on my account. Why you have, indeed, I 
 cannot understand. 
 
 G 97
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 THE O'H. My mind has been a prey to all sorts of 
 doubts and forebodings. 
 
 HUGH (alarmed). Good gracious. What is this for? 
 Isn't Maeve well ? How is she ? 
 
 THE O'H. (impatiently). Oh, she is well well enough. 
 
 HUGH. You are hiding something from me, O'Heynes. 
 
 THE O'H. No not at all. 
 
 HUGH. I, too, was anxious. That is why I hurried here 
 at once after my arrival in the village. 
 
 THE O'H. (suspiciously). Eh why were you anxious ? 
 
 HUGH. I had not heard about her from Finola for some 
 days. 
 
 THE O'H. There is nothing the matter with her except 
 what has come by your protracted absence. 
 
 HUGH (frightened). What has come to her? You 
 alarm me. 
 
 THE O'H. Only a return of her strange ways that used 
 to trouble me before her engagement to you. That is all. 
 
 HUGH (with visible relief). Oh that is all. 
 
 THE O'H. (involuntarily). She frightens me sometimes. 
 
 HUGH. In what way ? 
 
 THE O'H. (hesitates and looks confused). 
 
 FIN. Oh, don't worry her about such things. Hush, 
 here she comes. 
 
 MAEVE O'HEYNES enters from the back. 
 
 HUGH. Oh, Maeve, what is it ? 
 
 MA. (starts when she perceives him). 
 
 HUGH (goes eagerly to her, but is checked by the chill- 
 ness of her manner, then taking her hand which she gives 
 apathetically). I hope you are not angry, Maeve. I came 
 as soon as it was possible for me. 
 
 98
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 MA. (with some recovered composure}. Oh for that 1 
 am not angry in the least I am not angry at all. 
 
 HUGH. You looked as if something disturbed you. 
 
 FIN. Hugh, it is only her surprise at suddenly seeing you. 
 
 THE O'H. Yes, indeed, when you have disappointed 
 her so often. But, thank heaven, you have arrived safe at 
 last. Come, Finola, come, now I can rest. I feel I want 
 rest after all this suspense. Come, let us go indoors. 
 
 [Exeunt THE O'HEYNES and FINOLA O'HEYNES at 
 left. 
 
 HUGH (to MAEVE). Well, I am back at last ; and you 
 you are so silent and forgetful there among those old 
 stones. 
 
 MA. (as if recalled to herself}. No. I am in reality 
 thinking of this very thing. 
 
 HuGm Of my coming ? 
 
 MA. Yes. 
 
 HUGH. It has no interest for you one way or the other? 
 
 MA. Oh yes. But I can not understand father's reason 
 for being so troubled about it. 
 
 HUGH. Of course not. As if I wouldn't return on the 
 first opportunity to you. Why do you seem annoyed that 
 I should tell you this ? 
 
 MA. (restlessly}. Somehow there seem such cross pur- 
 poses in this world of ours. 
 
 HUGH. Cross purposes how so ? 
 
 MA. Oh I don't know persons seem to give others 
 what those others don't want from them, but want from 
 someone else. 
 
 HUGH. That is indeed a world of cross purposes. 
 
 MA. (sadly}. Don't you see that it is just so with us 
 here? 
 
 99
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 HUGH, (dejectedly). You mean that I give what is 
 not wanted. 
 
 MA. Yes, and that another would give you what you 
 want from some one else. 
 
 HUGH. Who is that other ? 
 
 MA. The one whom you once appeared to like 
 best. 
 
 HUGH. You are the one I always liked best in the 
 world. 
 
 MA. The world did not think so. 
 
 HUGH. Indeed ? You puzzle me. Explain what you 
 are saying ? 
 
 MA. (toith a certain embarrassment). I thought you 
 liked my sister better than me. 
 
 HUGH. Than you ? Oh no impossible. I know you 
 don't believe what you are saying. 
 
 MA. But you appeared to be so much more intimate 
 with her than you have been with me. 
 
 HUGH. Ah, that is just it. I have the greatest affec- 
 tion for Finola. I admire her goodness and unselfishness. 
 She has indeed the disposition of an angel. 
 
 MA. And yet you could leave her for one so less 
 worthy, as I am. 
 
 HUGH. You shall not say you are less worthy ; I can 
 see no fault in you. 
 
 MA. Oh, why did you ever leave Finola ? 
 
 HUGH. You forget we were never more than friends. 
 She is one of my very dearest friends. 
 
 MA. And you were never engaged to her ? 
 
 HUGH. Never. It was only when I despaired of your 
 consent that I thought for a while of Finola. But it was 
 no use. Your image always rose up between us. I soon 
 
 100
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 understood that for me you were the only one in the 
 world. (Pause.) 
 
 MA. (absently). The only one in the world. What 
 happiness it must be to find the one who is so much as 
 that. 
 
 HUGH. It may also be misery that is, in a certain 
 sense. 
 
 MA. (a little surprised). Really? How can it be 
 misery? 
 
 HUGH. When we know that nothing of what we feel 
 is returned. 
 
 MA. (abstractedly). I should not have thought that 
 much mattered. 
 
 HUGH. Do you say this because I persist in loving 
 you through all your contempt of my love ? 
 
 MA. Oh no I was not thinking of you at all. 
 
 HUGH. What was your reason then for saying it ? 
 
 MA. (with a pensive deliberation). I should have 
 imagined that if one really loved, one would shrink from 
 a return of love. 
 
 HUGH, (surprised). You wouldn't like your love 
 returned ? 
 
 MA. Ah no, for I think if it were, the beauty of love 
 would come to an end in the lover. 
 
 HUGH. How very strange. But why should I think 
 so ? Yours is the reasoning of one who has never known 
 love. 
 
 MA. So you think I have never known love ? 
 
 HUGH. Certainly. (Pause.) Have you ? 
 
 MA. Well, I can tell you truly that I have. 
 
 HUGH (in a serious tone). Is that really so ? 
 
 MA. Yes. 
 
 101
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 HUGH (with a sudden suspicion). Do you love some 
 one now? 
 
 MA. (quietly). Yes. 
 
 HUGH (growing excited). Who is he ? 
 
 MA. (wearily). Oh, what is the use of telling you ? 
 
 HUGH. Who is he, I say ? For pity's sake speak. 
 
 MA. You would never understand. 
 
 HUGH (bitterly). I should understand only too well. 
 
 MA. Look around you, then. 
 
 HUGH (puzzled, looking around him). Well ? I see no 
 one. 
 
 MA. (scornfully). I knew you would not understand. 
 
 HUGH (wondering). I see nothing but these ruins that 
 mysterious round tower the stony mountains and your 
 gray castle through the leafless boughs of great ash trees. 
 
 MA. (with a visionary look in her eyes). And you see 
 nothing but these ? 
 
 HUGH. Oh, what is this mystery ? Will you tell me ? 
 
 MA. (smiling ecstatically). Among all these that you see 
 listen to what Grainne says in the old poem 
 " There lives a one 
 On whom I would love to gaze long, 
 For whom I would give the whole world, 
 All, all, though it is a delusion." 
 
 HUGH (downcast). You are mocking me. 
 
 MA. (gently). Oh, no. How can you think so? Are 
 not all things beautiful that remind us of our love ? 
 
 HUGH (after looking at her calmly for some time). 
 Yes, you are right. How strange you are. I do not 
 understand you. Among us simple men you seem like one 
 of your golden fairies. What is the name you call them ? 
 
 MA. Tuatha d6 Danann, those tall beautiful children of 
 102
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 the Dagda M6r. It is said they were the old people 
 of Erin and were afterwards worshipped as gods. 
 
 HUGH. But you do not believe they are really gods ? 
 
 MA. Oh, no only a race whose great beauty still haunts 
 our land. (Sadly) They were too beautiful to compare 
 with me. 
 
 HUGH. They could not be more beautiful than you are. 
 You don't know how beautiful you are to me. No if 
 you knew, you would not be so indifferent. Ah, I realise 
 but too well how little you care for me. You would 
 never have consented to be my wife but for your father : 
 you are doing it all for your father not for me. 
 
 MA. Oh, why do you go back to all that ? Have I not 
 consented ? And is not that the main thing ? 
 
 HUGH (resignedly). Yes, I suppose I must be satisfied. 
 I must only trust to time for winning you completely. 
 
 MA. (with mysterious significance). Let us all trust to 
 time. 
 
 HUGH (brightening). May I put my trust in time ? 
 
 MA. You must ask that question of Time himself. 
 
 HUGH. Oh, I am confident of his answer. 
 
 MA. And I too, am confident in Time. 
 
 [Exeunt leisurely at the left. 
 
 As they are going, PEG INERNY a little old woman in a 
 ragged red frieze petticoat, a black frieze cloak raised 
 up to partially cover her head, and with dark woollen 
 stockings worn away at the bare soles of her feet 
 enters stealthily from among the ruins at back. 
 Muttering indistinctly she follows the two for a 
 while, then squats down on a stone and gazes fixedly 
 at the cairn. 
 
 103
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 After a pause MAEVE and FINOLA O'HEYNES enter at 
 the left. 
 
 FIN. Oh, Maeve, why do you come out here again ? 
 
 MA. (joyfully). He is gone. Until to-morrow, at least 
 I shall be free. 
 
 FIN. Poor Hugh. 
 
 MA. He is gone ; and I will make the most of my little 
 liberty. I have to say good-bye to beauty. How this 
 moonlit night this Irish night comes like a fawn ! 
 
 FIN. (perceives PEG INERNY and stands as if trans- 
 fixed). 
 
 MA. What's the matter, Finola? (Turns and looks) 
 Oh, it is only Peg Inerny. 
 
 FIN. Come away, Maeve, for heavens' sake come. I 
 have left father sleeping in the hall ; and if he awakes he 
 is sure to call me, and ask where you are. 
 
 MA. (not heeding FINOLA). Peg, Peg, I have not seen 
 you for many days. What has brought you here to-night ? 
 
 PEG (rousing lierself slowly and looking steadily at 
 MAEVE). I come to take a last farewell of my Princess on 
 the night before her wedding day. 
 
 MA. (with a rigid melancholy). Yes, I shall never re- 
 turn here, Peg. 
 
 PEG. Do you think you will ever leave, Princess ? 
 
 FIN. Oh, what is that she says ? I am terrified. 
 
 MA. (carelessly). You are always alarmed at one thing 
 or another, Finola. 
 
 FIN. (uneasily). No no but didn't you hear her ? 
 
 PEG. (to FINOLA). Princess, do not fear a poor old 
 woman. 
 
 FIN. Why will you always call us princesses ? 
 
 104
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 PEG. Isn't your father a prince? The Prince of 
 Burren ? 
 
 MA. (impatiently). A prince indeed. It is a mockery 
 now to call him that. 
 
 PEG. The O'Heynes is none the less a prince whatever 
 he may have done to put shame on his race. 
 
 MA. (helplessly). Oh, what a misfortune it was. 
 
 FIN. (expostulating). Maeve darling. 
 
 PEG (slyly). They told me my Princess Maeve was con- 
 tent to marry her young Englishman. 
 
 MA. (with suppressed scorn). Ha no one ever troubled 
 before to consider whether she was or not. 
 
 PEG. He is so rich so rich with his grand English 
 house and possessions. 
 
 MA. Yes indeed and that is how the whole tragedy 
 has come about 
 
 PEG. I was sure you cared not, Princess, for this 
 world's riches. 
 
 MA. (sadly). Heaven knows I never had any greed of 
 them. 
 
 FIN. Oh Maeve, I thought you had done with these 
 complaints once and for all. 
 
 MA. (pained and irresolute). So I, too, thought once 
 perhaps. But to-day in the abbey it was so beautiful. 
 Something seemed to come back to me. 
 
 PEG. It was haunting you, Princess ? The day-ghost, 
 eh? 
 
 MA. (with a wan look). The day-ghost. Oh the wist- 
 ful pleading of a day-ghost ! 
 
 FIN. (frightened). Why do you say that, Maeve ? 
 
 MA. Ah if you saw him but you never have, 
 Finola. 
 
 105
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 FIN. Saw him good heavens, where ? 
 
 MA. (pointing to the round tower). In the master- 
 work of Goban in the mountains too. 
 
 PEG. Your love is dreaming among the rocks of these 
 mountains, Princess. 
 
 MA. (with a sort of ecstacy). Oh, how I have grown 
 to love these stony mountains. 
 
 PEG. They are the pleasure haunts of many a beautiful 
 ghost. 
 
 MA. The many beautiful buried in that cairn. 
 
 PEG. Oh what a world there is underneath that cairn. 
 
 MA. (pensively). Yes, the great beautiful Queen Maeve 
 who reigned over Connacht hundreds of years ago she is 
 buried in that cairn you say ? 
 
 PEG. Haven't I often told you so, Princess ? 
 
 FIN. But I have always understood that Queen Maeve 
 was buried at Rathcroghan in County Roscommon. 
 
 PEG. No, Princess, she is here. 
 
 FIN. (inquiringly). Can you know that ? 
 
 PEG. Can I know ? I can know many things. ( With 
 a low laugh) Indeed I ought to know where Queen 
 Maeve is. 
 
 MA. Why you especially, Peg ? 
 
 PEG. Haven't I dwelt in her palace, child ? 
 
 FIN. (timidly approaching MAEVE). That is a strange 
 thing to say. 
 
 PEG. (continuing with a sort of inward satisfaction). 
 Yes, I have dwelt in her palace. Ha ha does anyone 
 think that I could bear my miserable outcast life in the 
 world if I could not live the other life also? Oh, my 
 sweet ladies, you don't know the grandeur of that other 
 life. 
 
 106
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 MA. (eagerly). Tell me, do tell me of that other life. 
 
 FIN. Maeve take care don't ask such a thing. 
 
 MA. (impatiently). Oh Finola, you mustn't prevent 
 me in this way. (To PEG INERNY) Tell me. 
 
 PEG. A life among the people with beautiful looks. 
 
 MA. (suddenly delighted). With beautiful looks ! 
 
 PEG. Yes, Princess Oh, just so graceful and clean as 
 you are yourself. I often think you must be one of them. 
 
 MA. Tell me more about those people. 
 
 PEG. They are now ruled over by the great Queen 
 Maeve. 
 
 MA. (puzzled). But she is dead, isn't she ? Didn't you 
 say she was buried in the cairn ? 
 
 PEG (with an enigmatical grimace). Yes, yes, Princess 
 but not dead Oh, I never said that she was dead. 
 
 MA. What new and wonderful tale are you now telling 
 me? 
 
 PEG. Haven't I told you before that Queen Maeve has 
 ever been watchful of you ? 
 
 MA. (surprised). No you have not. What does this 
 mean ? 
 
 PEG. Just fancy, Princess, it was she who had you 
 called after herself. 
 
 FIN. (excitedly). Maeve, don't believe her. How is 
 this possible? 
 
 PEG. Ah, Princess Finola, didn't you ever know that I 
 was once a servant in the Castle ? 
 
 FIN. (restraining herself). Yes, I believe you were. It 
 was a very long time ago, was it not ? 
 
 PEG. When your beautiful sister here was born. 
 
 FIN. Well then, supposing you were, what has that to 
 do with Queen Maeve naming my sister ? 
 
 107
 
 MAEVE ACT i. 
 
 PEG (slyly). Oh only 'twas I made them think of 
 calling her Maeve. 
 
 FIN. But you said Queen Maeve did so ? 
 
 PEG (with veiled significance). Haven't I told you of 
 the other life I lead, sweet Princess Finola ? 
 
 FIN. (starts, then looking awed and mystified at PEG 
 INERNY, says in a trembling voice) Maeve, she is a wicked 
 woman. It is not right to hold any intercourse with 
 her. 
 
 MA. (who has been listening with a troubled expression). 
 Ah me, I am the most miserable one in the world. 
 
 FIN. (terrified). Dearest, for pity's sake don't don't 
 give way to such a feeling. 
 
 MA. (despairingly). My father oh, my father. 
 
 PEG. I know it was for his sake alone that you promised 
 to marry this Hugh Fitz Walter. 
 
 MA. Yes, father will become rich and great but my 
 heart will break. 
 
 FIN. (anxiously). No no, Maeve, you must remember 
 how good and kind Hugh is. He will surely never cause 
 you unhappiness. 
 
 MA. How could he be anything but unhappiness to me, 
 when I can only think of my beloved ? 
 
 PEG (insidiously). That one who haunts the mountains 
 and the beautiful old buildings, Princess 
 
 MA. My beloved whom I am leaving for ever ! 
 
 FIN. (throwing her arms around her sister). Hush you 
 must not think of him any more, Maeve. 
 
 PEG. Ah you cling to her like ivy, my Lady Finola. 
 You were the one made for clinging. You were the wife 
 that would have been best for the Englishman. 
 
 MA. Oh, if he could but understand that this is so. 
 108
 
 ACT i. MAEVE 
 
 PEG. They never can, Princess. Dwellers in the valley 
 are always looking at the heights above them. 
 
 MA. (sadly). I am no longer on those heights. I have 
 fallen from them miserably, and have become (looking at 
 FINOLA) like the ivy in the valley. 
 
 PEG. Not yet you are still on the heights. No, you are 
 still like the tall smooth larch on the top of the mountain. 
 
 MA. (dejectedly). Ah, no, not any longer. 
 
 PEG. Come then, to the mountains, Princess there 
 you will believe it. 
 
 FIN. (restraining her). Maeve, Maeve, do not go. It will 
 kill father if he hears you have wandered away to-night. 
 
 PEG. See how bright it is. The night is lit for your 
 visit. (MAEVE appears to hesitate.) Beware of the 
 ivy clinging around the larch, Princess Maeve. It will 
 kill the fairy growth of the larch. 
 
 MA. (restlessly). Let me go, Finola, let me go. 
 
 FIN. I will not, Maeve. 
 
 MA. Let me go to the mountains for this last time ; I 
 promise to return soon. 
 
 FIN. Oh, sister, do not go there to-night. 
 
 MA. How white the moon rays dance upon the 
 mountains. 
 
 PEG. It is the mountains, Princess, that are white with 
 the dancing feet of the fairies. 
 
 MA. (desperately). I must go there to-night. 
 
 FIN. You shall not, Maeve. 
 
 MA. (gazing fondly on the mountains). Oh beauty of 
 my day-dreams come forth from the mountains. 
 
 PEG. Princess, what is it that you see ? 
 
 MA. (with transport). My love, like an exhalation from 
 the earth to the stars ! 
 
 109
 
 MAEVE ACT ii. 
 
 PEG (moving towards the back). Come, Princess, come. 
 
 MA. I am coming. 
 
 FIN. (with a sudden determination). Then I shall go 
 too. I could not bear the suspense of your absence. 
 (Distant voice of THE O'HEYNES is heard several times 
 calling "FiNOLA.") Good heavens, there is father 
 calling (runs to the left and listens in great agitation 
 while the calling is repeated). Yes, father, yes, father. 
 
 [Exeunt MAEVE O'HEYNES and PEG INERNY quickly 
 
 at the back. 
 
 FIN. If he finds she has gone he will be so distressed. 
 I must not tell him. Oh, Maeve, why, why have you gone ? 
 Yes, father coming coming. [Exit at left. 
 
 ACT II 
 
 The exterior of O'Heynes Castle. At the left a large square 
 tower with its two roof gables facing right and left, and 
 Irish battlements which carry two high chimneys, one at 
 front and one at back of roof. On ground level at front is 
 the pointed Gothic entrance-door, over which a square- 
 headed window lights a room above, while on the side facing 
 the right above a hall window, is another square-headed 
 window belonging to the same upper room. Around great 
 leafless ash trees grow upon the pale green grass. Some way 
 off at the right is the cairn with the abbey ruins beyond ; and 
 stony mountain ranges, as in the first act, form a background 
 to the whole scene. 
 
 It is a frosty night with a very bright moon. 
 
 FINOLA O'HEYNES, closely muffled, comes out through the 
 door of the castle. 
 
 FIN. Maeve. Are you there, Maeve ? (Pause.) Maeve. 
 (Goes to the right and peers about) I don't see any sign of 
 
 110
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 her. Oh dear, oh dear, I wonder does she intend to 
 come back. (With an anxious and undecided look) I 
 don't know which way to search for her. Stop I will 
 try this path leading to the mountain. 
 
 [Exit at back behind the Castle. 
 
 MAEVE O'HEYNES, looking very pale and listless, enters 
 from the right. 
 
 MA. (gazing forlorn around the scene). Oh, moon and 
 mountain and ruin, give a voice to my infinite sadness! 
 (Pause.) 
 
 [FINOLA O'HEYNES re-enters from behind the Castle. 
 
 FIN. sister, you are here ! 
 
 MA. (slowly). Yes. 
 
 FIN. Thank heaven, you have returned. (She advances 
 towards her.) 
 
 MA. I said I would return, Finola. 
 
 FIN. Oh, I was so frightened. Aren't you perished 
 without a cloak on, this bitter night ? 
 
 MA. (wearily). Is it so cold ? 
 
 FIN. (surprised). Cold? You must feel this biting 
 frosty air ? 
 
 MA. No not particularly. 
 
 FIN. (feeling the hands and face of MAEVE). Why, 
 Maeve, you are like ice. 
 
 MA. (as if remembering). Like ice. How beautiful to 
 be like the ice ! 
 
 FIN. Oh, come in, come in from the cold. 
 
 MA. No let me wait here, in the moonlight. 
 
 FIN. Darling, you will get dreadfully ill and on your 
 wedding morning too. 
 
 Ill
 
 MAEVE ACT n. 
 
 MA. (with a shudder). What it is not yet the day ? 
 
 FIN. Midnight has just passed yes, this is your 
 wedding day. 
 
 MA. (mournfully). Oh, so soon so soon. 
 
 FIN. Far better had it been sooner, my poor sister. 
 
 MA. Oh, don't say that, Finola. 
 
 FIN. Yes, yes, this long delay since your engagement 
 has brought the old trouble upon you again. 
 
 MA. (with a scornful smile). Do you think I was ever 
 really reconciled to my fate ? 
 
 FIN. And yet and yet you seemed happy for a while. 
 
 MA. No never really. I was only talked into a false 
 sort of happiness, Finola. 
 
 FIN. (expostulating). Oh, how can you say that ? 
 
 MA. Yes, I deceived myself there among you. You all 
 seemed so happy, and were so kind and indulgent to me, 
 that I wished to believe this marriage was for the best 
 
 FIN. And you never really believed it ? 
 
 MA. Never I was soon certain that I never did. 
 
 Fm. When was that ? 
 
 MA. When he went to England to arrange with his 
 lawyers, and this family happiness that encircled me 
 gradually disappeared 
 
 FIN. Do you think so ? I am sure father and I have 
 never changed. 
 
 MA. Perhaps not, but you understand, I was left more 
 to myself and had time to think over what I had done. 
 (Despairingly) Ah then I saw that I never could be 
 reconciled to my fate. 
 
 FIN. Darling, you should not have encouraged such a 
 thought. It will leave you, when you are married and 
 away from here. 
 
 112
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 MA. Oh, the sacrifice I make it for father's sake. 
 
 FIN. Be sure your sacrifice for father's sake will have 
 its reward. 
 
 MA. It is a cruel sacrifice. And yet it must be 
 
 FIN. Poor Hugh. At all events he is unchanged. 
 
 MA. I too am unchanged, Finola. Don't you see it 
 after what I have told you? 
 
 FIN. I suppose so. But have you always disliked him ? 
 You do not hate him ? 
 
 MA. Oh, but if you were to see him, Finola, in the 
 light he appears to me 
 
 FIN. How does he appear to you, dear ? 
 
 MA. (with sudden vehemence). A bandit a plunderer ! 
 
 FIN. Maeve, what are you saying ? 
 
 MA. Yes, I say a bandit, like his English predecessors 
 who ruined every beautiful thing we ever had. 
 
 FIN. (frightened). Sister, how can you accuse him of 
 that ? 
 
 MA. (bitterly). Yes, he has come finally to ruin every 
 beautiful thing. 
 
 FIN. He, who is so generous? Why, instead of 
 destroying, is he not restoring the dignity of our ancient 
 Celtic house ? 
 
 MA. (scornfully). Yes, I know what such restoration 
 -iieans. It is bought at too great a price, I can tell you. 
 It is like that great restoration of a family's pride by 
 Strongbow, who first brought our humiliation upon us. 
 
 FIN. No I cannot see the likeness, Maeve. 
 
 MA. Don't you remember the conditions of the English 
 noble whom the Irish king Diarmid called to his aid ? 
 
 FIN. Was it not, if Strongbow regained for Diarmid 
 his kingdom he was to marry the king's daughter Eva ? 
 H 113
 
 MAEVE ACT ii. 
 
 MA. Yes, and then become heir to Diarmid. He 
 succeeded in regaining the kingdom and the conditions 
 were fulfilled, weren't they ? 
 
 FIN. They were. 
 
 MA. And thus with the power that was given him he 
 subdued and ruined the ancient splendour of Erin. The 
 old, old story ! Poor Eva, you were sacrificed a sweet 
 symbol of your country in her subjection. 
 
 FIN. That may be, but still I can't understand in what 
 way Hugh is to injure our country. 
 
 MA. By killing the last flame of her life. 
 
 FIN. The last flame of our country's life ? How is that ? 
 
 MA. Yes, the last light of her life. 
 
 FIN. What is this last light ? 
 
 MA. (with a child's smile and as if forgetful of all 
 sorrows). The fairy lamp of Celtic Beauty ! 
 
 FIN. (after a moment, in a very gentle voice). Dearest, 
 it is impossible he ever could do this thing. 
 
 MA. Is he not destroying my chosen way of life that 
 life which alone may keep the flame alight ? Am I not 
 the last? 
 
 FIN. The last ? Why should you think that you are the 
 last? 
 
 MA. Listen and I will tell you, Finola. You have 
 heard Peg Inerny speak of her other life, and of having 
 dwelt in the palace of Queen Maeve ? 
 
 FIN. (nervously.) Yes, what of her ? 
 
 MA. This very night after I had left her upon the moun- 
 tain I thought I saw her beckoning to me in the abbey. 
 I followed her while she went past the round tower to 
 the cairn which now was glowing against a sky that had 
 turned crimson. With a gesture the old woman seemed 
 
 114
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 to open the cairn, and then stood transformed in a curious 
 region of fresh green suffused with saffron light, so that 
 I saw her tall, and beautiful, and marvellously pale of 
 face, and crowned with a golden diadem not so golden as 
 her hair. And I heard her say these words in ancient 
 Gaelic : " Last Princess of Erin, thou art a lonely dweller 
 among strange peoples ; but I the great Queen Maeve 
 have watched thee from thy birth, for thou wert to be the 
 vestal of our country's last beauty. Behold whom thy 
 love hath called to life. Mark him well, for already his 
 hour of dissolution hath come." And I looked and saw 
 him who was beauty standing by the round tower. 
 With a feeling of nothingness, I fell upon my knees and 
 bent down to the earth. When I looked again he was not 
 there. Then a company of ancient Celts bore a covered 
 form upon their shoulders ; while a choir of rose-crowned 
 boys sang dirges with violet voices of frail, lace-like 
 beauty. And they buried their dead one by the round 
 tower, and over his grave they raised a great ogham stone. 
 And again I heard the voice of the Queen : " They have 
 buried thy dead beauty, Princess. Thou hast killed him 
 by deserting thy chosen way of life ; for there are no more 
 who live for beauty." Then in my desolation I seemed to 
 lose consciousness of all save these last words of the 
 queen: "Yet, princess, I will come and comfort thee again 
 to-night." And with a start I discovered that I was sit- 
 ting alone in the moonlight by the round tower. And 
 I looked, and I could not find the great ogham stone that 
 they had raised over my beloved. 
 
 FIN. And so you were only dreaming after all ? 
 
 MA. Yes, it must have only been a dream for my 
 beloved is not dead. 
 
 115
 
 MAEVE ACT ii. 
 
 FIN. Nor will Queen Maeve come to you again to- 
 night. 
 
 MA. Do not be so sure of that, Finola. 
 
 FIN. (in a frightened voice). Oh heavens ! there she is. 
 
 MA. (starting). Who? 
 
 FIN. Peg Inerny. 
 
 PEG INERNY enters from the right. 
 
 PEG. My noble ladies. 
 
 FIN. (angrily). What do you want ? 
 
 PEG. Oh, I never thought you could be so sharp, Lady 
 Finola. 
 
 FIN. (with the desperation of terror). Go you are here 
 for no good purpose. 
 
 MA. (deprecatingly). Finola. 
 
 PEG (to FINOLA). Won't you give me the liberty of 
 a wild beast to walk about at night, my dear ? 
 
 FIN. (shrieking). Go, I say, or I will let loose the dogs 
 of the castle upon you. 
 
 MA. Finola, for goodness sake, what are you saying? 
 What wrong has she ever done to any of us ? 
 
 FIN. Oh yes, don't I know her evil intentions towards 
 you? 
 
 MA. I feel sure she has never done me harm. 
 
 PEG (to MAEVE). Sweet Princess, you'll rejoice for the 
 gentleness you have shown me. 
 
 FIN. (to PEG INERNY). I will call my father up if you 
 don't leave at once. Come, sister, come into the castle. 
 
 PEG. Good-night, sweet Maeve sleep sleep and 
 dream. [Exit at right. 
 
 MA. (yearningly). And dream Oh that I could dream 
 again to-night, that dream ! 
 
 116
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 FIN. Don't think of it any more, dearest. Come in to 
 rest. 
 
 MA. No let me stay a while longer here. 
 
 FIN. But you will be frozen, Maeve. I wonder you 
 ever awoke again after falling asleep in the abbey. 
 
 MA. Let me stay, Finola, I do not feel the cold. 
 
 FIN. It is because you are already so cold. 
 
 MA. My love is so divinely cold. 
 
 FIN. Ah, that is a strange sort of love. 
 
 MA. (wistfully). He is the only one I have ever loved. 
 Let me stay. I hear him coming. 
 
 FIN. (frightened). You hear him ? 
 
 MA. (pointing towards the abbey). Yes, there far away 
 coming on the wings of the March wind. Don't you 
 hear? 
 
 FIN. I hear the bitter wind, Maeve, through our old 
 ash trees. 
 
 MA. (smiling in reverie). The fairy March wind which 
 races at twilight over our fields, turning them to that 
 strange pale beauty, like the beauty of a fairy's face. Oh, 
 it is fit that my beloved should ride on such a steed. 
 
 FIN. Dearest, you must go to rest. He will never 
 come. He is dead. 
 
 MA. He is not dead. He will come. I know he will. 
 But the way is long. A long long way. 
 
 FIN. A long way, indeed, without beginning and 
 without end. 
 
 MA. It began from the land of everlasting youth. 
 
 FIN. You have often told me of that land, Tir-nan-ogue, 
 is it not ? 
 
 MA. The Celtic dream-land of ideal beauty. There he 
 lives in never-fading freshness of youth. ( With a steadfast 
 
 117
 
 MAEVE ACT ii. 
 
 visionary look) I am haunted by a boyish face close hooded 
 with short gold hair and every movement of his slender 
 faultless body goes straight to my heart like a fairy 
 melody. Oh, he has a long way to journey: for that 
 land of beauty was never so far away as it is to-night. 
 
 FIN. (sadly). It never was nearer, my poor sister. 
 Come, I will see you to your rest. 
 
 MA. I must rest alone, Finola, You must not follow 
 me to my room. 
 
 FIN. Why not, dear ? 
 
 MA. Oh, do not. Leave me to myself. 
 
 FIN. (with a sigh). Very well, if you wish it. 
 
 MA. (going). Good-night. 
 
 FIN. Good-night, dear. 
 
 MA. (quickly turning and throwing her arms around 
 FINOLA). Good-night good-bye Oh my darling, good- 
 bye. 
 
 FIN. (consolingly). My poor Maeve, it is not yet the 
 time for parting. 
 
 MA. Who knows where I must go, when my beloved 
 shall come. 
 
 [Exit hurriedly by door leading into the Castle. 
 
 FIN. (wonderingly). What does she mean by those 
 words? (With a reassured air) Oh, she is tired, poor 
 sister. That is what it is. And I suppose her mind is 
 confused with her imaginary difficulties. But all will 
 come well in good time. 
 
 [Exit by door leading into the Castle. (Pause.) 
 
 MAEVE O'HEYNES appears at the window of the castle, 
 above the hall-window facing the right, and slowly 
 opens the casement. 
 
 118
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 MA. (leaning out). Oh, the beautiful frosty night ! I 
 cannot keep it from me. The greatest beauty like the 
 old Greek sculpture is always cold ! My Prince of the 
 hoar dew ! My golden love, let me see you once more 
 in that aureole of crimson sky ! ( With an infinite longing) 
 Oh that the beauty I saw in my dream could return 
 to me now. ( With sudden terror) But to-morrow, how 
 shall I face the misery of to-morrow ? Oh pity me, pity 
 me (Calmer) And yet I have always known that 
 my beloved would deliver me from bondage. (With a 
 gradually weaker voice as she sinks upon a chair) But 
 I am weary of waiting weary weary it is hard to 
 resist the longing for sleep. (She sighs as she reclines 
 back out of sight in an angle of the window.) (Pause.) 
 
 [There is a soft music of harps, while the aurora 
 borealis arises and glows in the sky. Soon a 
 ghostly procession is seen to emerge like vapour 
 from the neighbourhood of the cairn. Presently as 
 it advances it grows more distinct and then is dis- 
 covered to consist of QUEEN MAEVE, tall, pale 
 faced and fair haired, in a golden crown and gold 
 embroidered robes ; of BOY PAGES in garlanded 
 tunics and wearing wreaths of roses upon their 
 heads ; of ancient Irish harpers with their harps ; 
 of chieftains and warriors in conical caps; of 
 people, etc. 
 
 As they approach near to the castle, MAEVE O'HEYNES 
 enters from the door at its front, and stands looking 
 on in wonder. They halt; and the harpers cease 
 playing on their harps. 
 
 119
 
 MAEVE ACT ii. 
 
 CHORUS OF BOY PAGES. 
 
 (Singing in broad solemn unison.) 
 
 Every hill which is at this Oenach 
 Hath under it heroes and Queens, 
 And poets and distributors, 
 And fair fierce women. 
 
 (The harpers recommence their music.} 
 MA. (with a thrill of happiness). Ah, that song of 
 Dorban I know so well. And this is Queen Maeve again. 
 
 (The harpers cease their music.) 
 
 CHORUS OF BOY PAGES. 
 
 Hast seen our warriors ? In their hands are white shields 
 Ornamented with white silver signs 
 They wield blue flaming swords 
 And carry red horns with metal mountings. 
 
 MA. (listening). Now they are chanting the lay of 
 Fiachna son of Reta. 
 
 A BOY PAGE (singing alone). 
 Obedient to the settled order of the battle, 
 Preceding their prince of gracious mien 
 They march across blue lances 
 Those troops of white warriors with knotted hair. 
 
 CHORUS OF BOY PAGES. 
 They march across blue lances 
 Those troops of white warriors with knotted hair. 
 
 (The harpers recommence their music.) 
 
 Q. MA. Princess I come, as I have promised. 
 MA. (approaching and falling on her knees). My Queen 
 Oh save me, my queen. 
 
 120
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 Q. MA. last of my daughters in the land, what help 
 can I give you ? 
 
 MA. My beloved where is he ? 
 
 Q. MA. He is coming over the mountains. He is 
 coming to you over the mountains. 
 
 MA. (rising). Yes, I knew he was coming on the fairy 
 March wind. 
 
 Q. MA. Your love is so great that you divine hi 
 coming? and yet you can suffer bondage? 
 
 MA. How shall I escape the stranger's bondage ? 
 
 Q. MA. I will take you to the land of joy. 
 
 MA. To Tir-nan-ogue ? Queen, do you rule in Tir- 
 nan-ogue ? 
 
 Q. MA. The empire of the Gael is in Tir-nan-ogue. 
 There during life he is at peace in the building of beauty 
 from the past. 
 
 MA. And so the land you reign in is the home of 
 living men. 
 
 Q. MA. Each man who comes to his ideal has come to 
 Tir-nan-ogue. 
 
 MA. And thus we see you so young and so beautiful 
 after all those two thousand years ! 
 
 Q. MA. Your fame also shall remain beautiful and 
 young. 
 
 MA. Of what kind is the happiness that makes Tir- 
 nan-ogue happy ? 
 
 Q. MA. Happiness in the present as sweet as the 
 remembrance of happiness. 
 
 MA. Then shall my happiness be great indeed. 
 
 Q. MA. You remember much happiness ? 
 
 MA. I remember beauty. 
 
 Q. MA. Those who love beauty shall see beauty. 
 121
 
 MAEVE ACT ii. 
 
 MA. The immortal beauty of form ! 
 Q. MA. Form that will awaken genius ! 
 MA. Form is my beauty and my love ! 
 
 ( The harpers cease their music.) 
 
 CHORUS OF BOY PAGES. 
 Their strength, great as it is, can not be less, 
 They are sons of queens and kings, 
 On the heads of all a comely 
 Growth of hair yellow like gold. 
 
 A BOY PAGE. 
 
 Their bodies are graceful and majestic, 
 
 Their eyes with a look of power have the eye-ball blue. 
 
 Their teeth are brilliant like glass, 
 
 Their lips are red and thin. 
 
 CHORUS OF BOY PAGES. 
 
 Their bodies are graceful and majestic, 
 These sons of queens and kings. 
 
 (The harpers recommence their music.) 
 MA. So Fiachna is made to sing when the poet tells 
 how the hero came from the land of the gods. I love 
 that poem ! 
 
 Q. MA. I have all the poems the greatest those 
 that are lost. Come into my land ; and they that made 
 them shall sing them, and their music shall turn all 
 things to beauty. 
 
 MA. Queen, I have seen that land afar. 
 Q. MA. You also have seen Tir-nan-ogue ? 
 MA. In my dreams, in my day-dreams. 
 Q. MA. Daughter, it is passing sweet when our day- 
 dreams come true. 
 
 122
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 MA. Oh let me see the beloved of my day-dreams. 
 
 Q. MA. Your Prince of the hoar dew, when he comes, 
 will give you rest. 
 
 MA. Rest without pain or fear of bondage ? 
 
 Q. MA. Rest in beauty a beauty which is transcend- 
 ently cold. 
 
 MA. Oh let me see that beauty. I have sought it in 
 vain on earth. 
 
 Q. MA. He is coming, he is coming over the mountains. 
 You shall speak to him when he is come. 
 
 MA. (with a sudden disconsolate look}. I will never 
 speak to him. 
 
 Q. MA. Why, wayward child ? 
 
 MA. Queen, I cannot. The sight of such beauty will 
 make me speechless. 
 
 Q. MA. Then shall you find peace in his beauty. 
 
 MA. But oh, my queen, let me see him. 
 
 Q. MA. You shall see him in the Northern lights of 
 Tir-nan-ogue. 
 
 MA. And his beauty shall be my joy in an ideal land. 
 
 Q. MA. Beauty in the midst of all beautiful things. 
 
 MA. Oh take me to that land. 
 
 Q. MA. I am waiting for you, poor weary child. 
 
 MA. The land where my day-dreams will come true ! 
 
 Q. MA. See, the Northern lights are passing before the 
 dawn. We must not tarry. 
 
 MA. I am ready, my beautiful queen. 
 
 Q. MA. Then come with the Northern lights, beautiful 
 ice maiden ! 
 
 MA. I shall see my beauty my love ! 
 (Half swooning she falls on the neck of QUEEN MAEVE.) 
 (The harpers cease their music.) 
 123
 
 MAEVE ACT ii. 
 
 CHORUS OF BOY PAGES. 
 Noble and melodious music thou dost hear ; 
 Thou goest from kingdom to kingdom 
 Drinking from goblets of massy gold, 
 Thou wilt discourse with thy beloved. 
 
 A BOY PAGE. 
 
 We have carried from the plain Mag Mell 
 Thirty caldrons, thirty horns for drinking 
 We have carried from it the lamentation sung by Mear, 
 Daughter of Eochaid the Dumb. 
 
 {The harpers re-commence their music.} 
 
 CHORUS OF BOY PAGES. 
 What a marvel in Tir-nan-ogue 
 That mead should fall with each shower, 
 Drinking from goblets of massy gold, 
 Thou wilt discourse with thy beloved. 
 
 [During this song all, including MAEVE O'HEYNES, 
 have gradually moved off towards the cairn and 
 faded away with the aurora borealis, so that, when 
 the music ceases, no trace of them remains. A faint 
 grey light of dawn now prevails; and then the whole 
 scene, at the approach of sunrise, is discovered to be 
 completely white with a thick coating of hoar frost. 
 
 After a while HUGH FITZ WALTER, muffled and carrying 
 a large bunch of flowers, enters from the left. 
 
 HUGH. I can wait no longer. I must come to her 
 castle with the first light. How fine it looks decked 
 out with the hoar frost ! Oh, I hope she is safe and well ; 
 let these be my morning offering before she awakes. (He 
 lays the flowers by the doorway of the castle.) 
 
 124
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 i 
 The O'HEYNES, also muffled, enters from the left. 
 
 THE O'H. (looking in the direction of HUGH). Ah! 
 you too, are out early this morning. 
 
 HUGH. Yes. Somehow I felt I had to come. 
 
 THE O'H. What a blessing you are here at last, Hugh. 
 (He grasps him by the hand.} 
 
 HUGH. I wish I could have returned sooner. 
 
 THE O'H. I wish you could have. Well, let that be. 
 
 HUGH. But why are you also about at this hour of the 
 morning ? I did not expect to see any one stirring. 
 
 THE O'H. (peevishly). I could not sleep these hours 
 past with thinking and thinking. Then something made 
 me get up, and see what would happen. 
 
 HUGH, (anxiously). What would happen? Heavens! 
 what do you expect to happen ? 
 
 THE O'H. Oh nothing, nothing, I suppose. Only my 
 mind will not let me rest. 
 
 HUGH. Do you know I too was very uneasy about 
 things last night. 
 
 THE O'H. (suspiciously). You, why? What reason 
 could you have had ? 
 
 HUGH, (with rather a forced laugh). Oh, none of 
 course. How could I ? 
 
 THE O'H. Of course not of course not. But come in 
 to the fire, Hugh, and warm yourself. There has been a 
 great frost last night. 
 
 HUGH. Yes, the whole country is white, as if it were 
 covered with snow. 
 
 THE O'H. A March frost soon melts before the sun. 
 See, it is already rising. The day is going to be a 
 glorious one. 
 
 125
 
 MAEVE ACT ii. 
 
 HUGH. There is an old saying "Happy is the bride 
 the sun shines on." 
 
 As they go towards the door of the castle, 
 FINOLA O'HEYNES enters from it. 
 
 FIN. Oh, what lovely flowers ! 
 
 HUGH. I brought them for Maeve. She is not yet awake ? 
 
 FIN. No. I gave orders she was not to be disturbed. 
 It was very late last night when she went to rest ; and 
 she seemed so tired. 
 
 HUGH. Then I would not have her disturbed for worlds. 
 Will you bring her these flowers, Finola, when she awakes ? 
 
 PEG INERNY enters from the right. 
 
 PEG. When she awakes ? Ah, my Princess Maeve 
 do you think she will care for such flowers now ? 
 
 HUGH (in a subdued voice). W T hy not ? Why do you 
 say she would not? 
 
 PEG. Oh, it's a cold morning, a cruel cold morning. 
 
 FIN. Go away from this place. Let me never see you 
 again. 
 
 PEG. I have never before been refused the shelter 
 of O'Heynes Castle. 
 
 HUGH. O'Heynes Castle is never the better for your 
 presence. I understand you are always importuning Miss 
 O'Heynes. 
 
 THE O'H. Come, we must not be hard to the old 
 woman on such a day as this. Go round to the kitchen, 
 Peg, and get something to eat. 
 
 PEG. Yes, some food. I want some food and warmth, 
 Prince I have been out all night, and I am famished. 
 
 THE O'H. Well, then, get all you wish. The Castle 
 
 126
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 hall is open to everyone in honour of my daughters' 
 wedding to-day. 
 
 HUGH. Yes, we must try to make everyone happy 
 to-day even this wicked old woman. 
 
 PEG (with a sinister look). I suppose you also, my 
 brave Englishman, think you ought to be happy. 
 
 HUGH. Why of course. Don't you know I am to 
 be married to-day? 
 
 PEG (almost contemptuously). You married to the 
 Princess Maeve ? 
 
 HUGH (bridling up). Yes. 
 
 PEG (mockingly). Well, well, how queer that you 
 should think so! 
 
 FIN. (with a scared expression). There is misfortune in 
 those words. 
 
 THE O'H. Peg Inerny, you are awakening my fore- 
 bodings again. 
 
 PEG (humbly). Oh, Prince, I can't say otherwise. 
 
 HUGH (indignantly). What old woman's talk is this ? 
 
 PEG (with a quiet prophetic triumph). You think I am 
 only an old woman ; but I tell you that Erin can never be 
 subdued. 
 
 HUGH. I should like to know what that has to do with 
 the matter ? 
 
 PEG (smiling insidiously). Perhaps the Englishman 
 may think that he already holds her? Ah, she will 
 slip like a fairy from his grasp. (She laughs low and 
 sardonically.) 
 
 FIN. (excitedly to PEG INERNY). Leave the place at 
 once, you wicked woman. Oh, drive her away, Hugh, 
 before she says any more. 
 
 HUGH (advances to PEG INERNY, who draws herself 
 127
 
 MAEVE ACT n. 
 
 up defiantly. He then steps back, saying, with a forced 
 laugh) What do I care for her. I shall soon be married 
 and far away ! 
 
 PEG. Take care, my fine Englishman, if your Irish 
 Princess hasn't already slipped from you like a fairy. 
 
 THE O'H. (nervously). What do you mean, Peg Inerny ? 
 
 PEG. Oh, my Prince, just before dawn upon the moun- 
 tains I saw her. 
 
 HUGH (with a look of terror). You saw her ? 
 
 PEG (with a smile of ecstacy). Yes, I saw my Princess 
 Maeve ! 
 
 HUGH (turning perplexed to THE O'HEYNES and to 
 FINOLA). But but didn't you say she was there in the 
 castle ? 
 
 THE O'H. (with a helpless look). I thought so. I am 
 sure I thought so. Didn't you say she was here, Finola ? 
 
 FIN. (in a hollow voice). Yes, father. (As if petrified 
 she now slowly retreats towards the castle door, keeping 
 her eyes always fixed on PEG INERNY.) 
 
 HUGH. Oh that Maeve should be wandering over the 
 mountains on such a night as this. 
 
 THE O'H. (confusedly). I knew some misfortune was 
 coming. What has happened ? 
 
 PEG (with increasing ecstacy). If you had only seen 
 her, as I saw her upon the mountain she was so beauti- 
 ful so happy. You would have died at the sight of 
 such beauty, my Englishman. 
 
 HUGH (with a look of bitterness and despair). As if 
 I required to be persuaded of her beauty ! 
 
 PEG (quietly). And you will never see it again. 
 
 [Exit FINOLA O'HEYNES by door leading into 
 
 the castle. 
 128
 
 ACT ii. MAEVE 
 
 HUGH (suddenly subdued). Never again why never 
 again? 
 
 PEG. It has gone to where he is. 
 
 HUGH (ivildly). He he who is he ? Speak at once. 
 Don't you see you torture me ? 
 
 PEG. The beauty that she loves. 
 
 HUGH (growing quieter). Ah, I understand only that. 
 
 PEG (calmly triumphant and ecstatic). Like the glory 
 of the Northern lights was his face upon the mountains. 
 And when she saw him, her own face shone like a star. 
 
 HUGH (as if transfixed). Oh what does all this mean ? 
 (Recovering himself) Ha ha it is nothing. Of course 
 you are only raving. That's what it is. Anyone can 
 see that. 
 
 THE O'H. (with an agonised look). She has given 
 utterance to my worst forebodings. Tell what you saw 
 next, Peg Inerny. 
 
 PEG. The dawn came then ; and Princess Maeve went 
 out from my sight with the stars ! 
 (Short pause.) 
 
 (Cries of (( help" are heard within the Castle. Then 
 FINOLA O'HEYNES, with a scared face, appears at the 
 window over the entrance door, and throws the casement 
 open violently). 
 
 FIN. (wailing). Oh heavens, oh, my heavens oh 
 (looks across the room towards the window facing the 
 abbey at right, and after a moment's awful silence says in 
 a voice of terror) Maeve she is sitting there at the 
 open window dead. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 129
 
 PRIXTED BT 
 
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 MODERN PLAYS. 
 
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 EARLY VOLUMES. 
 
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 " Les Aubes " (" The Dawn "). ARTHUR SYMONS. 
 
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 "Love's Comedy" (Kjarlighedens Komtdie). Prof. C. H. 
 HERFORD. 
 
 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM 
 
 " La Revoke." ^ 
 
 \ THERESA BARCLAY. 
 " L Evasion. J 
 
 SERGIUS STEPNIAK 
 
 "The Convert." CONSTANCE GARNETT. 
 
 AUGUST STRINDBERG 
 
 "The Father" (Fadren).N. ERICHSEN. 
 
 BRIEUX 
 
 " Les Bienfaiteurs." LUCAS MALET. 
 
 HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 
 
 "On a Single Card." E. L. VOYNICH. 
 
 Arrangements are also in progress with representative dramatists of 
 Germany, Spain, Italy, and other countries. Further translations have 
 been promised by Dr GARNETT, Messrs WALTER LEAF, JUSTIN HUNTLY 
 MACCARTHY, G. A. GREENE, &c.
 
 
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