Part 18

MAGISTRATE. It was well I had not gone home. I caught a few words here and there that roused my suspicions.

POLICEMAN. So they would, too.

MAGISTRATE. You heard the same story from everyone you asked?

POLICEMAN. The same story--or if it was not altogether the same, anyway it was no less than the first story.

MAGISTRATE. What is that man doing? He is sitting alone with a hayfork. He has a guilty look. The murder was done with a hayfork!

POLICEMAN [_in a whisper_]. That's the very man they say did the act; Bartley Fallon himself!

MAGISTRATE. He must have found escape difficult--he is trying to brazen it out. A convict in the Andaman Islands tried the same game, but he could not escape my system! Stand aside--Don't go far--have the handcuffs ready. [_He walks up to BARTLEY, folds his arms, and stands before him._] Here, my man, do you know anything of John Smith?

BARTLEY. Of John Smith! Who is he, now?

POLICEMAN. Jack Smith, sir--Red Jack Smith!

MAGISTRATE [_coming a step nearer and tapping him on the shoulder_]. Where is Jack Smith?

BARTLEY [_with a deep sigh, and shaking his head slowly_]. Where is he, indeed?

MAGISTRATE. What have you to tell?

BARTLEY. It is where he was this morning, standing in this spot, singing his share of songs--no, but lighting his pipe--scraping a match on the sole of his shoe--

MAGISTRATE. I ask you, for the third time, where is he?

BARTLEY. I wouldn't like to say that. It is a great mystery, and it is hard to say of any man, did he earn hatred or love.

MAGISTRATE. Tell me all you know.

BARTLEY. All that I know--Well, there are the three estates; there is Limbo, and there is Purgatory, and there is--

MAGISTRATE. Nonsense! This is trifling! Get to the point.

BARTLEY. Maybe you don't hold with the clergy so? That is the teaching of the clergy. Maybe you hold with the old people. It is what they do be saying, that the shadow goes wandering, and the soul is tired, and the body is taking a rest--The shadow! [_Starts up._] I was nearly sure I saw Jack Smith not ten minutes ago at the corner of the forge, and I lost him again--Was it his ghost I saw, do you think?

MAGISTRATE [_to POLICEMAN_]. Conscience-struck! He will confess all now!

BARTLEY. His ghost to come before me! It is likely it was on account of the fork! I to have it and he to have no way to defend himself the time he met with his death!

MAGISTRATE [_to POLICEMAN_]. I must note down his words. [_Takes out notebook._] [_To BARTLEY._] I warn you that your words are being noted.

BARTLEY. If I had ha' run faster in the beginning, this terror would not be on me at the latter end! Maybe he will cast it up against me at the day of judgment--I wouldn't wonder at all at that.

MAGISTRATE [_writing_]. At the day of judgment--

BARTLEY. It was soon for his ghost to appear to me--is it coming after me always by day it will be, and stripping the clothes off in the night time?--I wouldn't wonder at all at that, being as I am an unfortunate man!

MAGISTRATE [_sternly_]. Tell me this truly. What was the motive of this crime?

BARTLEY. The motive, is it?

MAGISTRATE. Yes; the motive; the cause.

BARTLEY. I'd sooner not say that.

MAGISTRATE. You had better tell me truly. Was it money?

BARTLEY. Not at all! What did poor Jack Smith ever have in his pockets unless it might be his hands that would be in them?

MAGISTRATE. Any dispute about land?

BARTLEY [_indignantly_]. Not at all! He never was a grabber or grabbed from anyone!

MAGISTRATE. You will find it better for you if you tell me at once.

BARTLEY. I tell you I wouldn't for the whole world wish to say what it was--it is a thing I would not like to be talking about.

MAGISTRATE. There is no use in hiding it. It will be discovered in the end.

BARTLEY. Well, I suppose it will, seeing that mostly everybody knows it before. Whisper here now. I will tell no lie; where would be the use? [_Puts his hand to his mouth, and MAGISTRATE stoops._] Don't be putting the blame on the parish, for such a thing was never done in the parish before--it was done for the sake of Kitty Keary, Jack Smith's wife.

MAGISTRATE [_to POLICEMAN_]. Put on the handcuffs. We have been saved some trouble. I knew he would confess if taken in the right way. [_POLICEMAN puts on handcuffs._]

BARTLEY. Handcuffs now! Glory be! I always said, if there was ever any misfortune coming to this place it was on myself it would fall. I to be in handcuffs! There's no wonder at all in that. [_Enter MRS. FALLON, followed by the rest. She is looking back at them as she speaks._]

MRS. FALLON. Telling lies the whole of the people of this town are; telling lies, telling lies as fast as a dog will trot! Speaking against my poor respectable man! Saying he made an end of Jack Smith! My decent comrade! There is no better man and no kinder man in the whole of the five parishes! It's little annoyance he ever gave to anyone! [_Turns and sees him._] What in the earthly world do I see before me? Bartley Fallon in charge of the police! Handcuffs on him! Oh, Bartley, what did you do at all at all?

BARTLEY. Oh, Mary, there has a great misfortune come upon me! It is what I always said, that if there is ever any misfortune--

MRS. FALLON. What did he do at all, or is it bewitched I am?

MAGISTRATE. This man has been arrested on a charge of murder.

MRS. FALLON. Whose charge is that? Don't believe them! They are all liars in this place! Give me back my man!

MAGISTRATE. It is natural you should take his part, but you have no cause of complaint against your neighbors. He has been arrested for the murder of John Smith, on his own confession.

MRS. FALLON. The saints of heaven protect us! And what did he want killing Jack Smith?

MAGISTRATE. It is best you should know all. He did it on account of a love affair with the murdered man's wife.

MRS. FALLON [_sitting down_]. With Jack Smith's wife! With Kitty Keary!--Ochone, the traitor!

THE CROWD. A great shame, indeed. He is a traitor, indeed.

MRS. TULLY. To America he was bringing her, Mrs. Fallon.

BARTLEY. What are you saying, Mary? I tell you--

MRS. FALLON. Don't say a word! I won't listen to any word you'll say! [_Stops her ears._] Oh, isn't he the treacherous villain? Ohone go deo!

BARTLEY. Be quiet till I speak! Listen to what I say!

MRS. FALLON. Sitting beside me on the ass car coming to the town, so quiet and so respectable, and treachery like that in his heart!

BARTLEY. Is it your wits you have lost or is it I myself that have lost my wits?

MRS. FALLON. And it's hard I earned you, slaving, slaving--and you grumbling, and sighing, and coughing, and discontented, and the priest wore out anointing you, with all the times you threatened to die!

BARTLEY. Let you be quiet till I tell you!

MRS. FALLON. You to bring such a disgrace into the parish. A thing that was never heard of before!

BARTLEY. Will you shut your mouth and hear me speaking?

MRS. FALLON. And if it was for any sort of a fine handsome woman, but for a little fistful of a woman like Kitty Keary, that's not four feet high hardly, and not three teeth in her head unless she got new ones! May God reward you, Bartley Fallon, for the black treachery in your heart and the wickedness in your mind, and the red blood of poor Jack Smith that is wet upon your hand! [_Voice of JACK SMITH heard singing._]

The sea shall be dry, The earth under mourning and ban! Then loud shall he cry For the wife of the red-haired man!

BARTLEY. It's Jack Smith's voice--I never knew a ghost to sing before--It is after myself and the fork he is coming! [_Goes back. Enter JACK SMITH._] Let one of you give him the fork and I will be clear of him now and for eternity!

MRS. TARPEY. The Lord have mercy on us! Red Jack Smith! The man that was going to be waked!

JAMES RYAN. Is it back from the grave you are come?

SHAWN EARLY. Is it alive you are, or is it dead you are?

TIM CASEY. Is it yourself at all that's in it?

MRS. TULLY. Is it letting on you were to be dead?

MRS. FALLON. Dead or alive, let you stop Kitty Keary, your wife, from bringing my man away with her to America!

JACK SMITH. It is what I think, the wits are gone astray on the whole of you. What would my wife want bringing Bartley Fallon to America?

MRS. FALLON. To leave yourself, and to get quit of you she wants, Jack Smith, and to bring him away from myself. That's what the two of them had settled together.

JACK SMITH. I'll break the head of any man that says that! Who is it says it? [_To TIM CASEY._] Was it you said it? [_To SHAWN EARLY._] Was it you?

ALL TOGETHER [_backing and shaking their heads_]. It wasn't I said it!

JACK SMITH. Tell me the name of any man that said it!

ALL TOGETHER [_pointing to BARTLEY_]. It was him that said it!

JACK SMITH. Let me at him till I break his head! [_BARTLEY backs in terror. Neighbors hold JACK SMITH back._]

JACK SMITH [_trying to free himself_]. Let me at him! Isn't he the pleasant sort of a scarecrow for any woman to be crossing the ocean with! It's back from the docks of New York he'd be turned [_trying to rush at him again_], with a lie in his mouth and treachery in his heart, and another man's wife by his side, and he passing her off as his own! Let me at him, can't you. [_Makes another rush, but is held back._]

MAGISTRATE [_pointing to JACK SMITH_]. Policeman, put the handcuffs on this man. I see it all now. A case of false impersonation, a conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice. There was a case in the Andaman Islands, a murderer of the Mopsa tribe, a religious enthusiast--

POLICEMAN. So he might be, too.

MAGISTRATE. We must take both these men to the scene of the murder. We must confront them with the body of the real Jack Smith.

JACK SMITH. I'll break the head of any man that will find my dead body!

MAGISTRATE. I'll call more help from the barracks. [_Blows POLICEMAN's whistle._]

BARTLEY. It is what I am thinking, if myself and Jack Smith are put together in the one cell for the night, the handcuffs will be taken off him, and his hands will be free, and murder will be done that time surely!

MAGISTRATE. Come on! [_They turn to the right._]

[THE CURTAIN.]

MUSIC FOR THE SONG IN THE PLAY

THE RED-HAIRED MAN'S WIFE

Spreading the News. I thought, my first love, there'd be but one house be-tween you and me, And I thought I would find your-self coax-ing my child on your knee. O-ver 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.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The idea of this play first came to me as a tragedy. I kept seeing as in a picture people sitting by the roadside, and a girl passing to the market, gay and fearless. And then I saw her passing by the same place at evening, her head hanging, the heads of others turned from her, because of some sudden story that had risen out of a chance word, and had snatched away her good name.

But comedy and not tragedy was wanted at our theatre to put beside the high poetic work, _The King's Threshold_, _The Shadowy Waters_, _On Baile's Strand_, _The Well of the Saints_; and I let laughter have its way with the little play. I was delayed in beginning it for a while, because I could only think of Bartley Fallon as dull-witted or silly or ignorant, and the handcuffs seemed too harsh a punishment. But one day by the seat at Duras a melancholy man who was telling me of the crosses he had gone through at home said--"But I'm thinking if I went to America, it's long ago to-day I'd be dead. And it's a great expense for a poor man to be buried in America." Bartley was born at that moment, and, far from harshness, I felt I was providing him with a happy old age in giving him the lasting glory of that great and crowning day of misfortune.

It has been acted very often by other companies as well as our own, and the Boers have done me the honor of translating and pirating it.

WELSH HONEYMOON[38]

By JEANNETTE MARKS

[Footnote 38: Copyright, 1912, 1916, 1917, by Jeannette Marks. The professional and amateur stage rights of this play are strictly reserved by the author. Application for permission to produce the play should be made to the author, who may be addressed in care of the publishers, Little, Brown and Company, Boston. All rights reserved.]

Jeannette Marks, playwright, poet, essayist, and writer of short stories, was born in 1875 at Chattanooga, Tennessee. She grew up in Philadelphia, however, where her father was a member of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. Her education in this country was supplemented by a sojourn at a school in Dresden. She took her first degree at Wellesley College in 1900, and her master's degree there in 1903. Her graduate studies were pursued at the Bodleian Library and at the British Museum. Since 1901 she has taught English literature at Mount Holyoke.

The play here reprinted, _Welsh Honeymoon_, was one of the two--the other was her _The Merry, Merry Cuckoo_--that won the Welsh National Theatre First Prize for the best Welsh plays in November, 1911, the year after Josephine Preston Peabody had carried off the palm at Stratford-on-Avon.

She writes in her preface to _Three Welsh Plays_, the collection from which _Welsh Honeymoon_ is drawn:

"'Poetry' and 'song' are words which convey, better than any other two words could, the priceless gifts of the Welsh people to the world. With their love for music, for beauty, for the significance of their land and its folklore, their inherent romance in the difficult art of living, they have transformed ugliness into beauty, turned loneliness into speech, and ever recalled life to its only permanent possessions in wonder and romance.

"Curiously enough, the Welsh, rich in poetry and music, have been almost altogether devoid of plays. But no one who has read those first Welsh tales in the 'Mabinogion' (c. 1260) could for an instant think the Cymru devoid of the dramatic instinct. The Welsh way of interpreting experience is essentially dramatic. _The Dream of Maxen Wledig_, _The Dream of Rhonabwy_, both from the 'Mabinogion,' are sharply dramatic, although then and later Welsh literature remained practically devoid of the play form. Experience dramatized is, too, that Pilgrim's Progress of Gwalia: 'Y Bardd Cwsg' (1703).

"Every gift of the Welsh would seem to promise the realization some day of a great national drama, for they have not only the gift of poetry and the power to seize the symbol--short cut through experience--which can, even as the crutch of Ibsen's Little Eyolf, lift a play into greatness; they have, also, natures profoundly emotional and yet intellectually critical. They are, humanly speaking, perfect tools for the achievement of great drama. But it is a drab journey from those 'Mabinogion' days of wonder, coarse and crude as they were in many ways, yet intensely vital, through the 'Bardd Cwsg' to Twm o'r Nant (1739-1810) the so-called 'Welsh Shakespeare,' whose Interludes might, with sufficient worrying, afford delectation to the rock-ribbed Puritanism which has stood, as much as any other oppression, in the way of Gwalia's full development of her genius for beauty.

"It was, then, a significant moment when 'The Welsh National Theatre' came into existence with so powerful a patron as Lord Howard de Walden, lessee of the Haymarket, and Owen Rhoscomyl (Captain Owen Vaughan) and other gifted Welsh literati for its sponsors. And it did not seem an insignificant moment to one person, the playwright of _The Merry Merry Cuckoo_ and _Welsh Honeymoon_, when she learned through her friendly agent, Curtis Brown of London, that she had received one of the Welsh National Theatre's first prizes (1911)."

Jeannette Marks's interest in Wales is the result of a number of holidays spent in wandering through its highways and byways. Books of hers like _Through Welsh Doorways_ and _Gallant Little Wales_ bespeak an affectionate intimacy with homes and inhabitants. In the last named, especially, the chapters called "Cambrian Cottages" and "Welsh Wales" contain material that is highly illuminating in connection with the interpretation of her plays. Edward Knobloch, the playwright, is said to have pointed out to the author the dramatic situations inherent in her short stories and sketches, a suggestion which bore fruit in _Three Welsh Plays_.

The first performance of _Welsh Honeymoon_ was given by the American Drama Society in Boston in February, 1916. It has also been produced by the Boston Women's City Club, the Vagabond Players in Baltimore, the Hull House Players in Chicago, and the Prince Street Players in Rochester.

WELSH HONEYMOON[39]

CHARACTERS

VAVASOUR JONES. CATHERINE JONES, _his wife_. EILIR MORRIS, _nephew of Vavasour Jones_. MRS. MORGAN, _the baker_. HOWELL HOWELL, _the milliner_.

[Footnote 39: PRONUNCIATION OF WELSH NAMES

1 _ch_ has, roughly, the same sound as in German or in the Scotch _loch_. 2 _dd_ = English _th_, roughly, in brea_th_e. 3 _e_ has, roughly, the sound of _ai_ in d_ai_ry. 4 _f_ = English _v_. 5 _ff_ = English sharp _f_. 6 _ll_ represents a sound intermediate between _the_ and _fl_. 7 _w_ as a consonant is pronounced as in English; as a vowel = _oo_. 8 _y_ is sometimes like _u_ in b_u_t, but sometimes like _ee_ in gr_ee_n.

NOTE: _The author will gladly answer questions about pronunciation, costuming, etc., etc._]

_PLACE._--_Beddgelert, a little village in North Wales._

_A Welsh kitchen. At back, in center, a deep ingle, with two hobs and fire bars fixed between, on either side settles. On the left-hand side near the fire a church; on the right, in a pile, some peat ready for use. Above the fireplace is a mantel on which are set some brass candlesticks, a deep copper cheese bowl, and two pewter plates. Near the left settle is a three-legged table set with teapot, cups and saucers for two, a plate of bread and butter, a plate of jam, and a creamer. At the right and to the right of the door, is a tall, highly polished, oaken grandfather's clock, with a shining brass face; to the left of the door is a tridarn. The tridarn dresser is lined with bright blue paper and filled with luster china. The floor is of beaten clay, whitewashed around the edges; from the rafters of the peaked ceiling hang flitches of bacon, hams, and bunches of onions and herbs. On the hearth is a copper kettle singing gaily; and on either side of the fireplace are latticed windows opening into the kitchen. Through the door to the right, when open, may be seen the flagstones and cottages of a Welsh village street; through latticed windows the twinkling of many village lights._

_It is about half after eleven on Allhallows' Eve in the village of Beddgelert._

_At rise of curtain, the windows of kitchen are closed; the fire is burning brightly, and two candles are lighted on the mantelpiece. VAVASOUR JONES, about thirty-five years old, dressed in a striped vest, a short, heavy blue coat, cut away in front, and with swallowtails behind, and trimmed with brass buttons, and somewhat tight trousers down to his boot tops, is standing by the open door at the right, looking out anxiously on to the glittering, rain-wet flagstone street and calling after someone._

VAVASOUR[40] [_calling_]. Kats, Kats, mind ye come home soon from Pally Hughes's!

[Footnote 40: The _a_'s are broad throughout, i. e., Kats is pronounced Kaats; Vavasour is Vavasoor: _ou_ is oo.]

CATHERINE [_from a distance_]. Aye, I'm no wantin' to go, but I must. Good-by!

VAVASOUR. Good-by! Kats, ye mind about comin' home? [_There is no reply, and VAVASOUR looks still further into the rain-wet street. He calls loudly and desperately._] Kats, Kats darlin', I cannot let you go without tellin' ye that--Kats, do ye hear? [_There is still no reply and after one more searching of the street, VAVASOUR closes the door and sits down on the end of the nearest settle._]

VAVASOUR. Dear, dear, she's gone, an' I may never see her again, an' I'm to blame, an' she didn't know whatever that in the night--[_Loud knocking on the closed door; VAVASOUR jumps and stands irresolute._] The devil, it can't be comin' for her already? [_The knocking grows louder._]

VOICE [_calling_]. Catherine, Vavasour, are ye in?

VAVASOUR [_opening the door_]. Aye, come in, whoever ye are. [_MRS. MORGAN, the Baker, dressed in a scarlet whittle and freshly starched white cap beneath her tall Welsh beaver hat, enters, shaking the rain from her cloak._]

MRS. MORGAN. Where's Catherine?

VAVASOUR. She's gone, Mrs. Morgan.

MRS. MORGAN. Gone? Are ye no goin'? Not goin' to Pally Hughes's on Allhallows' Eve?

VAVASOUR [_shaking his head and looking very white_]. Nay, I'm no feelin' well.

MRS. MORGAN. Aye, I see ye're ill?

VAVASOUR. Well, I'm not ill, but I'm not well. Not well at all, Mrs. Morgan.

MRS. MORGAN. We'll miss ye, but I must hurryin' on whatever; I'm late now. Good-night!

VAVASOUR [_speaking drearily_]. Good-night! [_He closes the door and returns to the settle, where he sits down by the pile of peat and drops his head in his hand. Then he starts up nervously for no apparent cause and opens one of the lattice windows. With an exclamation of fear, he slams it to and throws his weight against the door. Calling and holding hard to the door._] Ye've no cause to come here! Ye old death's head, get away! [_Outside there is loud pounding on the door and a voice shouting for admittance. VAVASOUR is obliged to fall back as the door is gradually forced open, and a head is thrust in, a white handkerchief tied over it._]

HOWELL HOWELL [_seeing the terror-stricken face of VAVASOUR_]. Well, man, what ails ye; did ye think I was a ghost? [_HOWELL HOWELL, the Milliner, in highlows and a plum-colored coat, a handkerchief on his hat, enters, stamping off the rain and closing the door. He carefully wipes off his plum-colored sleeves and speaks indignantly._] Well, man, are ye crazy, keepin' me out in the rain that way? Where's Catherine?

VAVASOUR [_stammering_]. She's at P-p-p-ally Hughes's.

HOWELL HOWELL. Are ye no goin'?

VAVASOUR. Nay, Howell Howell, I'm no goin'.

HOWELL HOWELL. An' dressed in your best? What's the matter? Have ye been drinkin' whatever?

VAVASOUR [_wrathfully_]. Drinkin'! I'd better be drinkin' when neighbors go walkin' round the village on Allhallows' Eve with their heads done up in white.

HOWELL HOWELL. Aye, well, I can't be spoilin' the new hat I have, that I cannot. A finer beaver there has never been in my shop. [_He takes off the handkerchief, hangs it where the heat of the fire will dry it a bit, and then, removing the beaver, shows it to VAVASOUR, turning it this way and that._]

VAVASOUR [_absent-mindedly_]. Aye, grand, grand, man!

HOWELL HOWELL. What are ye gazin' at the clock for?

VAVASOUR [_guiltily_]. I'm no lookin' at anything.

HOWELL HOWELL. Well, indeed, I must be goin', or I shall be late at Pally Hughes's. Good-night.

VAVASOUR. Good-night. [_He closes the door and stands before the clock, studying it. While he is studying its face the door opens slowly, and the tumbled, curly head of a lad about eighteen years of age peers in. The door continues slowly to open. VAVASOUR unconscious all the while._] 'Tis ten now. Ten, eleven, twelve; that's three hours left, 'tis; nay, nay, 'tis only two hours left, after all, an' then--

EILIR MORRIS [_bounding in and shutting the door behind him with a bang_]. Boo! Whoo--o--o!

VAVASOUR [_his face blanched, dropping limply on to the settle_]. The devil!

EILIR MORRIS [_troubled_]. Uch, the pity, Uncle! I didn't think, an' ye're ill!

VAVASOUR. Tut, tut, 'tis no matter, an' I'm not ill--not ill at all, but Eilir, lad, ye're kin, an'--could ye promise never to tell?