Part 17

Isabella Augusta Persse, later Lady Gregory, was born at Roxborough, County Galway, Ireland, in 1859. One who saw her in the early years of her married life describes her thus: "She was then a young woman, very earnest, who divided her hair in the middle and wore it smooth on either side of a broad and handsome brow. Her eyes were always full of questions. ... In her drawing-room were to be met men of assured reputation in literature and politics and there was always the best reading of the times upon her tables."

Two closely related interests have always divided Lady Gregory's attention. Her occupation with the Irish Players has been constant, and she has from the beginning been a director of the Abbey Theatre, where _Spreading the News_ was first performed on December 27, 1904. This play was also included in the American repertory of the Players, whom Lady Gregory accompanied on their visit to the United States in 1911. The spirit that she puts into her work with them is well illustrated by those lines of Blake which she quoted in a speech made at a dinner given her by _The Outlook_ when she was in New York. Her hard work having been commented on, she replied:

"I will not cease from mental strife Or let the sword fall from my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In--Ireland's--fair and lovely land."

In her book on _Our Irish Theatre, A Chapter of Autobiography_, she relates the story of how one day when she assembled the company for rehearsal in Washington, D. C., she invited them to leave their work and come with her to Mount Vernon for a holiday and picnic. "I told them," she writes, "the holiday was not a precedent, for we might go to a great many countries before finding so great a man to honor." Washington, it seems, had been a friend of her grandfather's who had been in America with his regiment.

Her other great interest has been the folklore of Ireland. She has been called the Irish Malory, because through her retelling of the Irish sagas, she has popularized and made accessible the great cycles of heroic legends. She has employed for the vernacular of these romances and folk tales what she calls Kiltartan English, Kiltartan being the village near her home, the dialect of which she has assimilated and utilized. Lady Gregory has also used her historical and legendary knowledge for the background of some of her plays.

It is said that the original impulse that influenced Lady Gregory to interest herself in these old Irish stories came from Yeats, her friend and associate in the project of the Irish National Theatre. It was his suggestion in the first place that led to her writing _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_. "He could not have been long at Coole," writes George Moore of Yeats, "before he began to draw her attention to the beauty of the literature that rises among the hills and bubbles irresponsibly, and set her going from cabin to cabin taking down stories, and encouraging her to learn the original language of the country, so that they might add to the Irish idiom which the peasant had already translated into English, making in this way a language for themselves." The influence continues, for her latest book, _Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland_, contains two essays and notes from the pen of Yeats.

The literary association of Yeats and Lady Gregory has been a fruitful one for Ireland. Not only has Yeats encouraged Lady Gregory's researches into the past, but she has been of the greatest assistance to him in his work. When he is at Coole, she writes from his dictation, arranges his manuscript, reads to him and serves him as literary counselor.

Lady Gregory's life touches the life of Ireland at many points. In addition to her literary occupations, she lectures and co-operates actively with a number of societies that have as their aim social or political betterment.

SPREADING THE NEWS

CHARACTERS

BARTLEY FALLON. MRS. FALLON. JACK SMITH. SHAWN EARLY. TIM CASEY. JAMES RYAN. MRS. TARPEY. MRS. TULLY. JO MULDOON, _a policeman_. A REMOVABLE MAGISTRATE.

_SCENE._--_The outskirts of a Fair. An Apple Stall. MRS. TARPEY sitting at it. MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN enter._

MAGISTRATE. So that is the Fair Green. Cattle and sheep and mud. No system. What a repulsive sight!

POLICEMAN. That is so, indeed.

MAGISTRATE. I suppose there is a good deal of disorder in this place?

POLICEMAN. There is.

MAGISTRATE. Common assault?

POLICEMAN. It's common enough.

MAGISTRATE. Agrarian crime, no doubt?

POLICEMAN. That is so.

MAGISTRATE. Boycotting? Maiming of cattle? Firing into houses?

POLICEMAN. There was one time, and there might be again.

MAGISTRATE. That is bad. Does it go any farther than that?

POLICEMAN. Far enough, indeed.

MAGISTRATE. Homicide, then! This district has been shamefully neglected! I will change all that. When I was in the Andaman Islands, my system never failed. Yes, yes, I will change all that. What has that woman on her stall?

POLICEMAN. Apples mostly--and sweets.

MAGISTRATE. Just see if there are any unlicensed goods underneath--spirits or the like. We had evasions of the salt tax in the Andaman Islands.

POLICEMAN [_sniffing cautiously and upsetting a heap of apples_]. I see no spirits here--or salt.

MAGISTRATE [_to MRS. TARPEY_]. Do you know this town well, my good woman?

MRS. TARPEY [_holding out some apples_]. A penny the half-dozen, your honor.

POLICEMAN [_shouting_]. The gentleman is asking do you know the town! He's the new magistrate!

MRS. TARPEY [_rising and ducking_]. Do I know the town? I do, to be sure.

MAGISTRATE [_shouting_]. What is its chief business?

MRS. TARPEY. Business, is it? What business would the people here have but to be minding one another's business?

MAGISTRATE. I mean what trade have they?

MRS. TARPEY. Not a trade. No trade at all but to be talking.

MAGISTRATE. I shall learn nothing here. [_JAMES RYAN comes in, pipe in mouth. Seeing MAGISTRATE he retreats quickly, taking pipe from mouth._]

MAGISTRATE. The smoke from that man's pipe had a greenish look; he may be growing unlicensed tobacco at home. I wish I had brought my telescope to this district. Come to the post-office, I will telegraph for it. I found it very useful in the Andaman Islands. [_MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN go out left._]

MRS. TARPEY. Bad luck to Jo Muldoon, knocking my apples this way and that way. [_Begins arranging them._] Showing off he was to the new magistrate. [_Enter BARTLEY FALLON and MRS. FALLON._]

BARTLEY. Indeed it's a poor country and a scarce country to be living in. But I'm thinking if I went to America it's long ago the day I'd be dead!

MRS. FALLON. So you might, indeed. [_She puts her basket on a barrel and begins putting parcels in it, taking them from under her cloak._]

BARTLEY. And it's a great expense for a poor man to be buried in America.

MRS. FALLON. Never fear, Bartley Fallon, but I'll give you a good burying the day you'll die.

BARTLEY. Maybe it's yourself will be buried in the graveyard of Cloonmara before me, Mary Fallon, and I myself that will be dying unbeknownst some night, and no one a-near me. And the cat itself may be gone straying through the country, and the mice squealing over the quilt.

MRS. FALLON. Leave off talking of dying. It might be twenty years you'll be living yet.

BARTLEY [_with a deep sigh_]. I'm thinking if I'll be living at the end of twenty years, it's a very old man I'll be then!

MRS. TARPEY [_turns and sees them_]. Good morrow, Bartley Fallon; good morrow, Mrs. Fallon. Well, Bartley, you'll find no cause for complaining to-day; they are all saying it was a good fair.

BARTLEY [_raising his voice_]. It was not a good fair, Mrs. Tarpey. It was a scattered sort of a fair. If we didn't expect more, we got less. That's the way with me always; whatever I have to sell goes down and whatever I have to buy goes up. If there's ever any misfortune coming to this world, it's on myself it pitches, like a flock of crows on seed potatoes.

MRS. FALLON. Leave off talking of misfortunes, and listen to Jack Smith that is coming the way, and he singing. [_Voice of JACK SMITH heard singing:_]

I thought, my first love, There'd be but one house between you and me, And I thought I would find Yourself coaxing my child on your knee. Over the tide I would leap with the leap of a swan, Till I came to the side Of the wife of the red-haired man!

[_JACK SMITH comes in; he is a red-haired man, and is carrying a hayfork._]

MRS. TARPEY. That should be a good song if I had my hearing.

MRS. FALLON [_shouting_]. It's "The Red-haired Man's Wife."

MRS. TARPEY. I know it well. That's the song that has a skin on it! [_She turns her back to them and goes on arranging her apples._]

MRS. FALLON. Where's herself, Jack Smith?

JACK SMITH. She was delayed with her washing; bleaching the clothes on the hedge she is, and she daren't leave them, with all the tinkers that do be passing to the fair. It isn't to the fair I came myself, but up to the Five Acre Meadow I'm going, where I have a contract for the hay. We'll get a share of it into tramps to-day. [_He lays down hayfork and lights his pipe._]

BARTLEY. You will not get it into tramps to-day. The rain will be down on it by evening, and on myself too. It's seldom I ever started on a journey but the rain would come down on me before I'd find any place of shelter.

JACK SMITH. If it didn't itself, Bartley, it is my belief you would carry a leaky pail on your head in place of a hat, the way you'd not be without some cause of complaining. [_A voice heard, "Go on, now, go on out o' that. Go on I say."_]

JACK SMITH. Look at that young mare of Pat Ryan's that is backing into Shaughnessy's bullocks with the dint of the crowd! Don't be daunted, Pat, I'll give you a hand with her. [_He goes out, leaving his hayfork._]

MRS. FALLON. It's time for ourselves to be going home. I have all I bought put in the basket. Look at there, Jack Smith's hayfork he left after him! He'll be wanting it. [_Calls._] Jack Smith! Jack Smith!--He's gone through the crowd--hurry after him, Bartley, he'll be wanting it.

BARTLEY. I'll do that. This is no safe place to be leaving it. [_He takes up fork awkwardly and upsets the basket._] Look at that now! If there is any basket in the fair upset, it must be our own basket! [_He goes out to right._]

MRS. FALLON. Get out of that! It is your own fault, it is. Talk of misfortunes and misfortunes will come. Glory be! Look at my new egg-cups rolling in every part--and my two pound of sugar with the paper broke--

MRS. TARPEY [_turning from stall_]. God help us, Mrs. Fallon, what happened your basket?

MRS. FALLON. It's himself that knocked it down, bad manners to him. [_Putting things up._] My grand sugar that's destroyed, and he'll not drink his tea without it. I had best go back to the shop for more, much good may it do him! [_Enter TIM CASEY._]

TIM CASEY. Where is Bartley Fallon, Mrs. Fallon? I want a word with him before he'll leave the fair. I was afraid he might have gone home by this, for he's a temperate man.

MRS. FALLON. I wish he did go home! It'd be best for me if he went home straight from the fair green, or if he never came with me at all! Where is he, is it? He's gone up the road [_jerks elbow_] following Jack Smith with a hayfork. [_She goes out to left._]

TIM CASEY. Following Jack Smith with a hayfork! Did ever anyone hear the like of that. [_Shouts._] Did you hear that news, Mrs. Tarpey?

MRS. TARPEY. I heard no news at all.

TIM CASEY. Some dispute I suppose it was that rose between Jack Smith and Bartley Fallon, and it seems Jack made off, and Bartley is following him with a hayfork!

MRS. TARPEY. Is he now? Well, that was quick work! It's not ten minutes since the two of them were here, Bartley going home and Jack going to the Five Acre Meadow; and I had my apples to settle up, that Jo Muldoon of the police had scattered, and when I looked round again Jack Smith was gone, and Bartley Fallon was gone, and Mrs. Fallon's basket upset, and all in it strewed upon the ground--the tea here--the two pound of sugar there--the egg-cups there--Look, now, what a great hardship the deafness puts upon me, that I didn't hear the commincement of the fight! Wait till I tell James Ryan that I see below; he is a neighbor of Bartley's, it would be a pity if he wouldn't hear the news! [_She goes out. Enter SHAWN EARLY and MRS. TULLY._]

TIM CASEY. Listen, Shawn Early! Listen, Mrs. Tully, to the news! Jack Smith and Bartley Fallon had a falling out, and Jack knocked Mrs. Fallon's basket into the road, and Bartley made an attack on him with a hayfork, and away with Jack, and Bartley after him. Look at the sugar here yet on the road!

SHAWN EARLY. Do you tell me so? Well, that's a queer thing, and Bartley Fallon so quiet a man!

MRS. TULLY. I wouldn't wonder at all. I would never think well of a man that would have that sort of a moldering look. It's likely he has overtaken Jack by this. [_Enter JAMES RYAN and MRS. TARPEY._]

JAMES RYAN. That is great news Mrs. Tarpey was telling me! I suppose that's what brought the police and the magistrate up this way. I was wondering to see them in it a while ago.

SHAWN EARLY. The police after them? Bartley Fallon must have injured Jack so. They wouldn't meddle in a fight that was only for show!

MRS. TULLY. Why wouldn't he injure him? There was many a man killed with no more of a weapon than a hayfork.

JAMES RYAN. Wait till I run north as far as Kelly's bar to spread the news! [_He goes out._]

TIM CASEY. I'll go tell Jack Smith's first cousin that is standing there south of the church after selling his lambs. [_Goes out._]

MRS. TULLY. I'll go telling a few of the neighbors I see beyond to the west. [_Goes out._]

SHAWN EARLY. I'll give word of it beyond at the east of the green. [_Is going out when MRS. TARPEY seizes hold of him._]

MRS. TARPEY. Stop a minute, Shawn Early, and tell me did you see red Jack Smith's wife, Kitty Keary, in any place?

SHAWN EARLY. I did. At her own house she was, drying clothes on the hedge as I passed.

MRS. TARPEY. What did you say she was doing?

SHAWN EARLY [_breaking away._] Laying out a sheet on the hedge. [_He goes._]

MRS. TARPEY. Laying out a sheet for the dead! The Lord have mercy on us! Jack Smith dead, and his wife laying out a sheet for his burying! [_Calls out._] Why didn't you tell me that before, Shawn Early? Isn't the deafness the great hardship? Half the world might be dead without me knowing of it or getting word of it at all! [_She sits down and rocks herself._] Oh, my poor Jack Smith! To be going to his work so nice and so hearty, and to be left stretched on the ground in the full light of the day! [_Enter TIM CASEY._]

TIM CASEY. What is it, Mrs. Tarpey? What happened since?

MRS. TARPEY. Oh, my poor Jack Smith!

TIM CASEY. Did Bartley overtake him?

MRS. TARPEY. Oh, the poor man!

TIM CASEY. Is it killed he is?

MRS. TARPEY. Stretched in the Five Acre Meadow!

TIM CASEY. The Lord have mercy on us! Is that a fact?

MRS. TARPEY. Without the rites of the Church or a ha'porth!

TIM CASEY. Who was telling you?

MRS. TARPEY. And the wife laying out a sheet for his corpse. [_Sits up and wipes her eyes._] I suppose they'll wake him the same as another? [_Enter MRS. TULLY, SHAWN EARLY, and JAMES RYAN._]

MRS. TULLY. There is great talk about this work in every quarter of the fair.

MRS. TARPEY. Ochone! cold and dead. And myself maybe the last he was speaking to!

JAMES RYAN. The Lord save us! Is it dead he is?

TIM CASEY. Dead surely, and the wife getting provision for the wake.

SHAWN EARLY. Well, now, hadn't Bartley Fallon great venom in him?

MRS. TULLY. You may be sure he had some cause. Why would he have made an end of him if he had not? [_To MRS. TARPEY, raising her voice._] What was it rose the dispute at all, Mrs. Tarpey?

MRS. TARPEY. Not a one of me knows. The last I saw of them, Jack Smith was standing there, and Bartley Fallon was standing there, quiet and easy, and he listening to "The Red-haired Man's Wife."

MRS. TULLY. Do you hear that, Tim Casey? Do you hear that, Shawn Early and James Ryan? Bartley Fallon was here this morning listening to red Jack Smith's wife, Kitty Keary that was! Listening to her and whispering with her! It was she started the fight so!

SHAWN EARLY. She must have followed him from her own house. It is likely some person roused him.

TIM CASEY. I never knew, before, Bartley Fallon was great with Jack Smith's wife.

MRS. TULLY. How would you know it? Sure it's not in the streets they would be calling it. If Mrs. Fallon didn't know of it, and if I that have the next house to them didn't know of it, and if Jack Smith himself didn't know of it, it is not likely you would know of it, Tim Casey.

SHAWN EARLY. Let Bartley Fallon take charge of her from this out so, and let him provide for her. It is little pity she will get from any person in this parish.

TIM CASEY. How can he take charge of her? Sure he has a wife of his own. Sure you don't think he'd turn souper and marry her in a Protestant church?

JAMES RYAN. It would be easy for him to marry her if he brought her to America.

SHAWN EARLY. With or without Kitty Keary, believe me it is for America he's making at this minute. I saw the new magistrate and Jo Muldoon of the police going into the post-office as I came up--there was hurry on them--you may be sure it was to telegraph they went, the way he'll be stopped in the docks at Queenstown!

MRS. TULLY. It's likely Kitty Keary is gone with him, and not minding a sheet or a wake at all. The poor man, to be deserted by his own wife, and the breath hardly gone out yet from his body that is lying bloody in the field! [_Enter MRS. FALLON._]

MRS. FALLON. What is it the whole of the town is talking about? And what is it you yourselves are talking about? Is it about my man Bartley Fallon you are talking? Is it lies about him you are telling, saying that he went killing Jack Smith? My grief that ever he came into this place at all!

JAMES RYAN. Be easy now, Mrs. Fallon. Sure there is no one at all in the whole fair but is sorry for you!

MRS. FALLON. Sorry for me, is it? Why would anyone be sorry for me? Let you be sorry for yourselves, and that there may be shame on you forever and at the day of judgment, for the words you are saying and the lies you are telling to take away the character of my poor man, and to take the good name off of him, and to drive him to destruction! That is what you are doing!

SHAWN EARLY. Take comfort now, Mrs. Fallon. The police are not so smart as they think. Sure he might give them the slip yet, the same as Lynchehaun.

MRS. TULLY. If they do get him, and if they do put a rope around his neck, there is no one can say he does not deserve it!

MRS. FALLON. Is that what you are saying, Bridget Tully, and is that what you think? I tell you it's too much talk you have, making yourself out to be such a great one, and to be running down every respectable person! A rope, is it? It isn't much of a rope was needed to tie up your own furniture the day you came into Martin Tully's house, and you never bringing as much as a blanket, or a penny, or a suit of clothes with you and I myself bringing seventy pounds and two feather beds. And now you are stiffer than a woman would have a hundred pounds! It is too much talk the whole of you have. A rope is it? I tell you the whole of this town is full of liars and schemers that would hang you up for half a glass of whisky. [_Turning to go._] People they are you wouldn't believe as much as daylight from without you'd get up to have a look at it yourself. Killing Jack Smith indeed! Where are you at all, Bartley, till I bring you out of this? My nice quiet little man! My decent comrade! He that is as kind and as harmless as an innocent beast of the field! He'll be doing no harm at all if he'll shed the blood of some of you after this day's work! That much would be no harm at all. [_Calls out._] Bartley! Bartley Fallon! Where are you? [_Going out._] Did anyone see Bartley Fallon? [_All turn to look after her._]

JAMES RYAN. It is hard for her to believe any such a thing, God help her! [_Enter BARTLEY FALLON from right, carrying hayfork._]

BARTLEY. It is what I often said to myself, if there is ever any misfortune coming to this world it is on myself it is sure to come! [_All turn round and face him._]

BARTLEY. To be going about with this fork and to find no one to take it, and no place to leave it down, and I wanting to be gone out of this--Is that you, Shawn Early? [_Holds out fork._] It's well I met you. You have no call to be leaving the fair for a while the way I have, and how can I go till I'm rid of this fork? Will you take it and keep it until such time as Jack Smith--

SHAWN EARLY [_backing_]. I will not take it, Bartley Fallon, I'm very thankful to you!

BARTLEY [_turning to apple stall_]. Look at it now, Mrs. Tarpey, it was here I got it; let me thrust it in under the stall. It will lie there safe enough, and no one will take notice of it until such time as Jack Smith--

MRS. TARPEY. Take your fork out of that! Is it to put trouble on me and to destroy me you want? putting it there for the police to be rooting it out maybe. [_Thrusts him back._]

BARTLEY. That is a very unneighborly thing for you to do, Mrs. Tarpey. Hadn't I enough care on me with that fork before this, running up and down with it like the swinging of a clock, and afeard to lay it down in any place! I wish I never touched it or meddled with it at all!

JAMES RYAN. It is a pity, indeed, you ever did.

BARTLEY. Will you yourself take it, James Ryan? You were always a neighborly man.

JAMES RYAN [_backing_]. There is many a thing I would do for you, Bartley Fallon, but I won't do that!

SHAWN EARLY. I tell you there is no man will give you any help or any encouragement for this day's work. If it was something agrarian now--

BARTLEY. If no one at all will take it, maybe it's best to give it up to the police.

TIM CASEY. There'd be a welcome for it with them surely! [_Laughter._]

MRS. TULLY. And it is to the police Kitty Keary herself will be brought.

MRS. TARPEY [_rocking to and fro_]. I wonder now who will take the expense of the wake for poor Jack Smith?

BARTLEY. The wake for Jack Smith!

TIM CASEY. Why wouldn't he get a wake as well as another? Would you begrudge him that much?

BARTLEY. Red Jack Smith dead! Who was telling you?

SHAWN EARLY. The whole town knows of it by this.

BARTLEY. Do they say what way did he die?

JAMES RYAN. You don't know that yourself, I suppose, Bartley Fallon? You don't know he was followed and that he was laid dead with the stab of a hayfork?

BARTLEY. The stab of a hayfork!

SHAWN EARLY. You don't know, I suppose, that the body was found in the Five Acre Meadow?

BARTLEY. The Five Acre Meadow!

TIM CASEY. It is likely you don't know that the police are after the man that did it?

BARTLEY. The man that did it!

MRS. TULLY. You don't know, maybe, that he was made away with for the sake of Kitty Keary, his wife?

BARTLEY. Kitty Keary, his wife! [_Sits down bewildered._]

MRS. TULLY. And what have you to say now, Bartley Fallon?

BARTLEY [_crossing himself_]. I to bring that fork here, and to find that news before me! It is much if I can ever stir from this place at all, or reach as far as the road!

TIM CASEY. Look, boys, at the new magistrate, and Jo Muldoon along with him! It's best for us to quit this.

SHAWN EARLY. That is so. It is best not to be mixed in this business at all.

JAMES RYAN. Bad as he is, I wouldn't like to be an informer against any man. [_All hurry away except MRS. TARPEY, who remains behind her stall. Enter MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN._]

MAGISTRATE. I knew the district was in a bad state, but I did not expect to be confronted with a murder at the first fair I came to.

POLICEMAN. I am sure you did not, indeed.