Next morning Broadbent and Larry are sitting at the ends of a breakfast table in the middle of a small grass plot before Cornelius Doyle's house. They have finished their meal, and are buried in newspapers. Most of the crockery is crowded upon a large square black tray of japanned metal. The teapot is of brown delft ware. There is no silver; and the butter, on a dinner plate, is en bloc. The background to this breakfast is the house, a small white slated building, accessible by a half-glazed door. A person coming out into the garden by this door would find the table straight in front of him, and a gate leading to the road half way down the garden on his right; or, if he turned sharp to his left, he could pass round the end of the house through an unkempt shrubbery. The mutilated remnant of a huge planter statue, nearly dissolved by the rains of a century, and vaguely resembling a majestic female in Roman draperies, with a wreath in her hand, stands neglected amid the laurels. Such statues, though apparently works of art, grow naturally in Irish gardens. Their germination is a mystery to the oldest inhabitants, to whose means and taste they are totally foreign.
There is a rustic bench, much roiled by the birds, and decorticated and split by the weather, near the little gate. At the opposite side, a basket lies unmolested because it might as well be there as anywhere else. An empty chair at the table was lately occupied by Cornelius, who has finished his breakfast and gone in to the room in which he receives rents and keeps his books and cash, known in the household as "the office." This chair, like the two occupied by Larry and Broadbent, has a mahogany frame and is upholstered in black horsehair.
Larry rises and goes off through the shrubbery with his newspaper. Hodson comes in through the garden gate, disconsolate. Broadbent, who sits facing the gate, augurs the worst from his expression.
BROADBENT. Have you been to the village?
HODSON. No use, sir. We'll have to get everything from London by parcel post.
BROADBENT. I hope they made you comfortable last night.
HODSON. I was no worse than you were on that sofa, sir. One expects to rough it here, sir.
BROADBENT. We shall have to look out for some other arrangement. [Cheering up irrepressibly] Still, it's no end of a joke. How do you like the Irish, Hodson?
HODSON. Well, sir, they're all right anywhere but in their own country. I've known lots of em in England, and generally liked em. But here, sir, I seem simply to hate em. The feeling come over me the moment we landed at Cork, sir. It's no use my pretendin, sir: I can't bear em. My mind rises up agin their ways, somehow: they rub me the wrong way all over.
BROADBENT. Oh, their faults are on the surface: at heart they are one of the finest races on earth. [Hodson turns away, without affecting to respond to his enthusiasm]. By the way, Hodson—
HODSON [turning]. Yes, sir.
BROADBENT. Did you notice anything about me last night when I came in with that lady?
HODSON [surprised]. No, sir.
BROADBENT. Not any—er—? You may speak frankly.
HODSON. I didn't notice nothing, sir. What sort of thing ded you mean, sir?
BROADBENT. Well—er—er—well, to put it plainly, was I drunk?
HODSON [amazed]. No, sir.
BROADBENT. Quite sure?
HODSON. Well, I should a said rather the opposite, sir. Usually when you've been enjoying yourself, you're a bit hearty like. Last night you seemed rather low, if anything.
BROADBENT. I certainly have no headache. Did you try the pottine, Hodson?
HODSON. I just took a mouthful, sir. It tasted of peat: oh! something horrid, sir. The people here call peat turf. Potcheen and strong porter is what they like, sir. I'm sure I don't know how they can stand it. Give me beer, I say.
BROADBENT. By the way, you told me I couldn't have porridge for breakfast; but Mr Doyle had some.
HODSON. Yes, sir. Very sorry, sir. They call it stirabout, sir: that's how it was. They know no better, sir.
BROADBENT. All right: I'll have some tomorrow.
Hodson goes to the house. When he opens the door he finds Nora and Aunt Judy on the threshold. He stands aside to let them pass, with the air of a well trained servant oppressed by heavy trials. Then he goes in. Broadbent rises. Aunt Judy goes to the table and collects the plates and cups on the tray. Nora goes to the back of the rustic seat and looks out at the gate with the air of a woman accustomed to have nothing to do. Larry returns from the shrubbery.
BROADBENT. Good morning, Miss Doyle.
AUNT JUDY [thinking it absurdly late in the day for such a salutation]. Oh, good morning. [Before moving his plate] Have you done?
BROADBENT. Quite, thank you. You must excuse us for not waiting for you. The country air tempted us to get up early.
AUNT JUDY. N d'ye call this airly, God help you?
LARRY. Aunt Judy probably breakfasted about half past six.
AUNT JUDY. Whisht, you!—draggin the parlor chairs out into the gardn n givin Mr Broadbent his death over his meals out here in the cold air. [To Broadbent] Why d'ye put up with his foolishness, Mr Broadbent?
BROADBENT. I assure you I like the open air.
AUNT JUDY. Ah galong! How can you like what's not natural? I hope you slept well.
NORA. Did anything wake yup with a thump at three o'clock? I thought the house was falling. But then I'm a very light sleeper.
LARRY. I seem to recollect that one of the legs of the sofa in the parlor had a way of coming out unexpectedly eighteen years ago. Was that it, Tom?
BROADBENT [hastily]. Oh, it doesn't matter: I was not hurt—at least—er—
AUNT JUDY. Oh now what a shame! An I told Patsy Farrll to put a nail in it.
BROADBENT. He did, Miss Doyle. There was a nail, certainly.
AUNT JUDY. Dear oh dear!
An oldish peasant farmer, small, leathery, peat faced, with a deep voice and a surliness that is meant to be aggressive, and is in effect pathetic—the voice of a man of hard life and many sorrows—comes in at the gate. He is old enough to have perhaps worn a long tailed frieze coat and knee breeches in his time; but now he is dressed respectably in a black frock coat, tall hat, and pollard colored trousers; and his face is as clean as washing can make it, though that is not saying much, as the habit is recently acquired and not yet congenial.
THE NEW-COMER [at the gate]. God save all here! [He comes a little way into the garden].
LARRY [patronizingly, speaking across the garden to him]. Is that yourself, Mat Haffigan? Do you remember me?
MATTHEW [intentionally rude and blunt]. No. Who are you?
NORA. Oh, I'm sure you remember him, Mr Haffigan.
MATTHEW [grudgingly admitting it]. I suppose he'll be young Larry Doyle that was.
LARRY. Yes.
MATTHEW [to Larry]. I hear you done well in America.
LARRY. Fairly well.
MATTHEW. I suppose you saw me brother Andy out dhere.
LARRY. No. It's such a big place that looking for a man there is like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. They tell me he's a great man out there.
MATTHEW. So he is, God be praised. Where's your father?
AUNT JUDY. He's inside, in the office, Mr Haffigan, with Barney Doarn n Father Dempsey.
Matthew, without wasting further words on the company, goes curtly into the house.
LARRY [staring after him]. Is anything wrong with old Mat?
NORA. No. He's the same as ever. Why?
LARRY. He's not the same to me. He used to be very civil to Master Larry: a deal too civil, I used to think. Now he's as surly and stand-off as a bear.
AUNT JUDY. Oh sure he's bought his farm in the Land Purchase. He's independent now.
NORA. It's made a great change, Larry. You'd harly know the old tenants now. You'd think it was a liberty to speak t'dhem—some o dhem. [She goes to the table, and helps to take off the cloth, which she and Aunt Judy fold up between them].
AUNT JUDY. I wonder what he wants to see Corny for. He hasn't been here since he paid the last of his old rent; and then he as good as threw it in Corny's face, I thought.
LARRY. No wonder! Of course they all hated us like the devil. Ugh! [Moodily] I've seen them in that office, telling my father what a fine boy I was, and plastering him with compliments, with your honor here and your honor there, when all the time their fingers were itching to beat his throat.
AUNT JUDY. Deedn why should they want to hurt poor Corny? It was he that got Mat the lease of his farm, and stood up for him as an industrious decent man.
BROADBENT. Was he industrious? That's remarkable, you know, in an Irishman.
LARRY. Industrious! That man's industry used to make me sick, even as a boy. I tell you, an Irish peasant's industry is not human: it's worse than the industry of a coral insect. An Englishman has some sense about working: he never does more than he can help—and hard enough to get him to do that without scamping it; but an Irishman will work as if he'd die the moment he stopped. That man Matthew Haffigan and his brother Andy made a farm out of a patch of stones on the hillside—cleared it and dug it with their own naked hands and bought their first spade out of their first crop of potatoes. Talk of making two blades of wheat grow where one grew before! those two men made a whole field of wheat grow where not even a furze bush had ever got its head up between the stones.
BROADBENT. That was magnificent, you know. Only a great race is capable of producing such men.
LARRY. Such fools, you mean! What good was it to them? The moment they'd done it, the landlord put a rent of 5 pounds a year on them, and turned them out because they couldn't pay it.
AUNT JUDY. Why couldn't they pay as well as Billy Byrne that took it after them?
LARRY [angrily]. You know very well that Billy Byrne never paid it. He only offered it to get possession. He never paid it.
AUNT JUDY. That was because Andy Haffigan hurt him with a brick so that he was never the same again. Andy had to run away to America for it.
BROADBENT [glowing with indignation]. Who can blame him, Miss Doyle? Who can blame him?
LARRY [impatiently]. Oh, rubbish! What's the good of the man that's starved out of a farm murdering the man that's starved into it? Would you have done such a thing?
BROADBENT. Yes. I—I—I—I—[stammering with fury] I should have shot the confounded landlord, and wrung the neck of the damned agent, and blown the farm up with dynamite, and Dublin Castle along with it.
LARRY. Oh yes: you'd have done great things; and a fat lot of good you'd have got out of it, too! That's an Englishman all over! make bad laws and give away all the land, and then, when your economic incompetence produces its natural and inevitable results, get virtuously indignant and kill the people that carry out your laws.
AUNT JUDY. Sure never mind him, Mr Broadbent. It doesn't matter, anyhow, because there's harly any landlords left; and ther'll soon be none at all.
LARRY. On the contrary, ther'll soon be nothing else; and the Lord help Ireland then!
AUNT JUDY. Ah, you're never satisfied, Larry. [To Nora] Come on, alanna, an make the paste for the pie. We can leave them to their talk. They don't want us [she takes up the tray and goes into the house].
BROADBENT [rising and gallantly protesting] Oh, Miss Doyle! Really, really—
Nora, following Aunt Judy with the rolled-up cloth in her hands, looks at him and strikes him dumb. He watches her until she disappears; then comes to Larry and addresses him with sudden intensity.
BROADBENT. Larry.
LARRY. What is it?
BROADBENT. I got drunk last night, and proposed to Miss Reilly.
LARRY. You HWAT??? [He screams with laughter in the falsetto Irish register unused for that purpose in England].
BROADBENT. What are you laughing at?
LARRY [stopping dead]. I don't know. That's the sort of thing an Irishman laughs at. Has she accepted you?
BROADBENT. I shall never forget that with the chivalry of her nation, though I was utterly at her mercy, she refused me.
LARRY. That was extremely improvident of her. [Beginning to reflect] But look here: when were you drunk? You were sober enough when you came back from the Round Tower with her.
BROADBENT. No, Larry, I was drunk, I am sorry to say. I had two tumblers of punch. She had to lead me home. You must have noticed it.
LARRY. I did not.
BROADBENT. She did.
LARRY. May I ask how long it took you to come to business? You can hardly have known her for more than a couple of hours.
BROADBENT. I am afraid it was hardly a couple of minutes. She was not here when I arrived; and I saw her for the first time at the tower.
LARRY. Well, you are a nice infant to be let loose in this country! Fancy the potcheen going to your head like that!
BROADBENT. Not to my head, I think. I have no headache; and I could speak distinctly. No: potcheen goes to the heart, not to the head. What ought I to do?
LARRY. Nothing. What need you do?
BROADBENT. There is rather a delicate moral question involved. The point is, was I drunk enough not to be morally responsible for my proposal? Or was I sober enough to be bound to repeat it now that I am undoubtedly sober?
LARRY. I should see a little more of her before deciding.
BROADBENT. No, no. That would not be right. That would not be fair. I am either under a moral obligation or I am not. I wish I knew how drunk I was.
LARRY. Well, you were evidently in a state of blithering sentimentality, anyhow.
BROADBENT. That is true, Larry: I admit it. Her voice has a most extraordinary effect on me. That Irish voice!
LARRY [sympathetically]. Yes, I know. When I first went to London I very nearly proposed to walk out with a waitress in an Aerated Bread shop because her Whitechapel accent was so distinguished, so quaintly touching, so pretty—
BROADBENT [angrily]. Miss Reilly is not a waitress, is she?
LARRY. Oh, come! The waitress was a very nice girl.
BROADBENT. You think every Englishwoman an angel. You really have coarse tastes in that way, Larry. Miss Reilly is one of the finer types: a type rare in England, except perhaps in the best of the aristocracy.
LARRY. Aristocracy be blowed! Do you know what Nora eats?
BROADBENT. Eats! what do you mean?
LARRY. Breakfast: tea and bread-and-butter, with an occasional rasher, and an egg on special occasions: say on her birthday. Dinner in the middle of the day, one course and nothing else. In the evening, tea and bread-and-butter again. You compare her with your Englishwomen who wolf down from three to five meat meals a day; and naturally you find her a sylph. The difference is not a difference of type: it's the difference between the woman who eats not wisely but too well, and the woman who eats not wisely but too little.
BROADBENT [furious]. Larry: you—you—you disgust me. You are a damned fool. [He sits down angrily on the rustic seat, which sustains the shock with difficulty].
LARRY. Steady! stead-eee! [He laughs and seats himself on the table].
Cornelius Doyle, Father Dempsey, Barney Doran, and Matthew Haffigan come from the house. Doran is a stout bodied, short armed, roundheaded, red-haired man on the verge of middle age, of sanguine temperament, with an enormous capacity for derisive, obscene, blasphemous, or merely cruel and senseless fun, and a violent and impetuous intolerance of other temperaments and other opinions, all this representing energy and capacity wasted and demoralized by want of sufficient training and social pressure to force it into beneficent activity and build a character with it; for Barney is by no means either stupid or weak. He is recklessly untidy as to his person; but the worst effects of his neglect are mitigated by a powdering of flour and mill dust; and his unbrushed clothes, made of a fashionable tailor's sackcloth, were evidently chosen regardless of expense for the sake of their appearance.
Matthew Haffigan, ill at ease, coasts the garden shyly on the shrubbery side until he anchors near the basket, where he feels least in the way. The priest comes to the table and slaps Larry on the shoulder. Larry, turning quickly, and recognizing Father Dempsey, alights from the table and shakes the priest's hand warmly. Doran comes down the garden between Father Dempsey and Matt; and Cornelius, on the other side of the table, turns to Broadbent, who rises genially.
CORNELIUS. I think we all met las night.
DORAN. I hadn't that pleasure.
CORNELIUS. To be sure, Barney: I forgot. [To Broadbent, introducing Barney] Mr Doran. He owns that fine mill you noticed from the car.
BROADBENT [delighted with them all]. Most happy, Mr Doran. Very pleased indeed.
Doran, not quite sure whether he is being courted or patronized, nods independently.
DORAN. How's yourself, Larry?
LARRY. Finely, thank you. No need to ask you. [Doran grins; and they shake hands].
CORNELIUS. Give Father Dempsey a chair, Larry.
Matthew Haffigan runs to the nearest end of the table and takes the chair from it, placing it near the basket; but Larry has already taken the chair from the other end and placed it in front of the table. Father Dempsey accepts that more central position.
CORNELIUS. Sit down, Barney, will you; and you, Mat.
Doran takes the chair Mat is still offering to the priest; and poor Matthew, outfaced by the miller, humbly turns the basket upside down and sits on it. Cornelius brings his own breakfast chair from the table and sits down on Father Dempsey's right. Broadbent resumes his seat on the rustic bench. Larry crosses to the bench and is about to sit down beside him when Broadbent holds him off nervously.
BROADBENT. Do you think it will bear two, Larry?
LARRY. Perhaps not. Don't move. I'll stand. [He posts himself behind the bench].
They are all now seated, except Larry; and the session assumes a portentous air, as if something important were coming.
CORNELIUS. Props you'll explain, Father Dempsey.
FATHER DEMPSEY. No, no: go on, you: the Church has no politics.
CORNELIUS. Were yever thinkin o goin into parliament at all, Larry?
LARRY. Me!
FATHER DEMPSEY [encouragingly] Yes, you. Hwy not?
LARRY. I'm afraid my ideas would not be popular enough.
CORNELIUS. I don't know that. Do you, Barney?
DORAN. There's too much blatherumskite in Irish politics a dale too much.
LARRY. But what about your present member? Is he going to retire?
CORNELIUS. No: I don't know that he is.
LARRY [interrogatively]. Well? then?
MATTHEW [breaking out with surly bitterness]. We've had enough of his foolish talk agen lanlords. Hwat call has he to talk about the lan, that never was outside of a city office in his life?
CORNELIUS. We're tired of him. He doesn't know hwere to stop. Every man can't own land; and some men must own it to employ them. It was all very well when solid men like Doran and me and Mat were kep from ownin land. But hwat man in his senses ever wanted to give land to Patsy Farrll an dhe like o him?
BROADBENT. But surely Irish landlordism was accountable for what Mr Haffigan suffered.
MATTHEW. Never mind hwat I suffered. I know what I suffered adhout you tellin me. But did I ever ask for more dhan the farm I made wid me own hans: tell me that, Corny Doyle, and you that knows. Was I fit for the responsibility or was I not? [Snarling angrily at Cornelius] Am I to be compared to Patsy Farrll, that doesn't harly know his right hand from his left? What did he ever suffer, I'd like to know?
CORNELIUS. That's just what I say. I wasn't comparin you to your disadvantage.
MATTHEW [implacable]. Then hwat did you mane be talkin about givin him lan?
DORAN. Aisy, Mat, aisy. You're like a bear with a sore back.
MATTHEW [trembling with rage]. An who are you, to offer to taitch me manners?
FATHER DEMPSEY [admonitorily]. Now, now, now, Mat none o dhat. How often have I told you you're too ready to take offence where none is meant? You don't understand: Corny Doyle is saying just what you want to have said. [To Cornelius] Go on, Mr Doyle; and never mind him.
MATTHEW [rising]. Well, if me lan is to be given to Patsy and his like, I'm goin oura dhis. I—
DORAN [with violent impatience] Arra who's goin to give your lan to Patsy, yowl fool ye?
FATHER DEMPSEY. Aisy, Barney, aisy. [Sternly, to Mat] I told you, Matthew Haffigan, that Corny Doyle was sayin nothin against you. I'm sorry your priest's word is not good enough for you. I'll go, sooner than stay to make you commit a sin against the Church. Good morning, gentlemen. [He rises. They all rise, except Broadbent].
DORAN [to Mat]. There! Sarve you dam well right, you cantankerous oul noodle.
MATTHEW [appalled]. Don't say dhat, Fadher Dempsey. I never had a thought agen you or the Holy Church. I know I'm a bit hasty when I think about the lan. I ax your pardn for it.
FATHER DEMPSEY [resuming his seat with dignified reserve]. Very well: I'll overlook it this time. [He sits down. The others sit down, except Matthew. Father Dempsey, about to ask Corny to proceed, remembers Matthew and turns to him, giving him just a crumb of graciousness]. Sit down, Mat. [Matthew, crushed, sits down in disgrace, and is silent, his eyes shifting piteously from one speaker to another in an intensely mistrustful effort to understand them]. Go on, Mr Doyle. We can make allowances. Go on.
CORNELIUS. Well, you see how it is, Larry. Round about here, we've got the land at last; and we want no more Goverment meddlin. We want a new class o man in parliament: one dhat knows dhat the farmer's the real backbone o the country, n doesn't care a snap of his fingers for the shoutn o the riff-raff in the towns, or for the foolishness of the laborers.
DORAN. Aye; an dhat can afford to live in London and pay his own way until Home Rule comes, instead o wantin subscriptions and the like.
FATHER DEMPSEY. Yes: that's a good point, Barney. When too much money goes to politics, it's the Church that has to starve for it. A member of parliament ought to be a help to the Church instead of a burden on it.
LARRY. Here's a chance for you, Tom. What do you say?
BROADBENT [deprecatory, but important and smiling]. Oh, I have no claim whatever to the seat. Besides, I'm a Saxon.
DORAN. A hwat?
BROADBENT. A Saxon. An Englishman.
DORAN. An Englishman. Bedad I never heard it called dhat before.
MATTHEW [cunningly]. If I might make so bould, Fadher, I wouldn't say but an English Prodestn mightn't have a more indepindent mind about the lan, an be less afeerd to spake out about it, dhan an Irish Catholic.
CORNELIUS. But sure Larry's as good as English: aren't you, Larry?
LARRY. You may put me out of your head, father, once for all.
CORNELIUS. Arra why?
LARRY. I have strong opinions which wouldn't suit you.
DORAN [rallying him blatantly]. Is it still Larry the bould Fenian?
LARRY. No: the bold Fenian is now an older and possibly foolisher man.
CORNELIUS. Hwat does it matter to us hwat your opinions are? You know that your father's bought his farm, just the same as Mat here n Barney's mill. All we ask now is to be let alone. You've nothin against that, have you?
LARRY. Certainly I have. I don't believe in letting anybody or anything alone.
CORNELIUS [losing his temper]. Arra what d'ye mean, you young fool? Here I've got you the offer of a good seat in parliament; n you think yourself mighty smart to stand there and talk foolishness to me. Will you take it or leave it?
LARRY. Very well: I'll take it with pleasure if you'll give it to me.
CORNELIUS [subsiding sulkily]. Well, why couldn't you say so at once? It's a good job you've made up your mind at last.
DORAN [suspiciously]. Stop a bit, stop a bit.
MATTHEW [writhing between his dissatisfaction and his fear of the priest]. It's not because he's your son that he's to get the sate. Fadher Dempsey: wouldn't you think well to ask him what he manes about the lan?
LARRY [coming down on Mat promptly]. I'll tell you, Mat. I always thought it was a stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing sort of thing to leave the land in the hands of the old landlords without calling them to a strict account for the use they made of it, and the condition of the people on it. I could see for myself that they thought of nothing but what they could get out of it to spend in England; and that they mortgaged and mortgaged until hardly one of them owned his own property or could have afforded to keep it up decently if he'd wanted to. But I tell you plump and plain, Mat, that if anybody thinks things will be any better now that the land is handed over to a lot of little men like you, without calling you to account either, they're mistaken.
MATTHEW [sullenly]. What call have you to look down on me? I suppose you think you're everybody because your father was a land agent.
LARRY. What call have you to look down on Patsy Farrell? I suppose you think you're everybody because you own a few fields.
MATTHEW. Was Patsy Farrll ever ill used as I was ill used? tell me dhat.
LARRY. He will be, if ever he gets into your power as you were in the power of your old landlord. Do you think, because you're poor and ignorant and half-crazy with toiling and moiling morning noon and night, that you'll be any less greedy and oppressive to them that have no land at all than old Nick Lestrange, who was an educated travelled gentleman that would not have been tempted as hard by a hundred pounds as you'd be by five shillings? Nick was too high above Patsy Farrell to be jealous of him; but you, that are only one little step above him, would die sooner than let him come up that step; and well you know it.
MATTHEW [black with rage, in a low growl]. Lemme oura this. [He tries to rise; but Doran catches his coat and drags him down again] I'm goin, I say. [Raising his voice] Leggo me coat, Barney Doran.
DORAN. Sit down, yowl omadhaun, you. [Whispering] Don't you want to stay an vote against him?
FATHER DEMPSEY [holding up his finger] Mat! [Mat subsides]. Now, now, now! come, come! Hwats all dhis about Patsy Farrll? Hwy need you fall out about HIM?
LARRY. Because it was by using Patsy's poverty to undersell England in the markets of the world that we drove England to ruin Ireland. And she'll ruin us again the moment we lift our heads from the dust if we trade in cheap labor; and serve us right too! If I get into parliament, I'll try to get an Act to prevent any of you from giving Patsy less than a pound a week [they all start, hardly able to believe their ears] or working him harder than you'd work a horse that cost you fifty guineas.
DORAN. Hwat!!!
CORNELIUS [aghast]. A pound a—God save us! the boy's mad.
Matthew, feeling that here is something quite beyond his powers, turns openmouthed to the priest, as if looking for nothing less than the summary excommunication of Larry.
LARRY. How is the man to marry and live a decent life on less?
FATHER DEMPSEY. Man alive, hwere have you been living all these years? and hwat have you been dreaming of? Why, some o dhese honest men here can't make that much out o the land for themselves, much less give it to a laborer.
LARRY [now thoroughly roused]. Then let them make room for those who can. Is Ireland never to have a chance? First she was given to the rich; and now that they have gorged on her flesh, her bones are to be flung to the poor, that can do nothing but suck the marrow out of her. If we can't have men of honor own the land, lets have men of ability. If we can't have men with ability, let us at least have men with capital. Anybody's better than Mat, who has neither honor, nor ability, nor capital, nor anything but mere brute labor and greed in him, Heaven help him!
DORAN. Well, we're not all foostherin oul doddherers like Mat. [Pleasantly, to the subject of this description] Are we, Mat?
LARRY. For modern industrial purposes you might just as well be, Barney. You're all children: the big world that I belong to has gone past you and left you. Anyhow, we Irishmen were never made to be farmers; and we'll never do any good at it. We're like the Jews: the Almighty gave us brains, and bid us farm them, and leave the clay and the worms alone.
FATHER DEMPSEY [with gentle irony]. Oh! is it Jews you want to make of us? I must catechize you a bit meself, I think. The next thing you'll be proposing is to repeal the disestablishment of the so-called Irish Church.
LARRY. Yes: why not? [Sensation].
MATTHEW [rancorously]. He's a turncoat.
LARRY. St Peter, the rock on which our Church was built, was crucified head downwards for being a turncoat.
FATHER DEMPSEY [with a quiet authoritative dignity which checks Doran, who is on the point of breaking out]. That's true. You hold your tongue as befits your ignorance, Matthew Haffigan; and trust your priest to deal with this young man. Now, Larry Doyle, whatever the blessed St Peter was crucified for, it was not for being a Prodestan. Are you one?
LARRY. No. I am a Catholic intelligent enough to see that the Protestants are never more dangerous to us than when they are free from all alliances with the State. The so-called Irish Church is stronger today than ever it was.
MATTHEW. Fadher Dempsey: will you tell him dhat me mother's ant was shot and kilt dead in the sthreet o Rosscullen be a soljer in the tithe war? [Frantically] He wants to put the tithes on us again. He—
LARRY [interrupting him with overbearing contempt]. Put the tithes on you again! Did the tithes ever come off you? Was your land any dearer when you paid the tithe to the parson than it was when you paid the same money to Nick Lestrange as rent, and he handed it over to the Church Sustentation Fund? Will you always be duped by Acts of Parliament that change nothing but the necktie of the man that picks your pocket? I'll tell you what I'd do with you, Mat Haffigan: I'd make you pay tithes to your own Church. I want the Catholic Church established in Ireland: that's what I want. Do you think that I, brought up to regard myself as the son of a great and holy Church, can bear to see her begging her bread from the ignorance and superstition of men like you? I would have her as high above worldly want as I would have her above worldly pride or ambition. Aye; and I would have Ireland compete with Rome itself for the chair of St Peter and the citadel of the Church; for Rome, in spite of all the blood of the martyrs, is pagan at heart to this day, while in Ireland the people is the Church and the Church the people.
FATHER DEMPSEY [startled, but not at all displeased]. Whisht, man! You're worse than mad Pether Keegan himself.
BROADBENT [who has listened in the greatest astonishment]. You amaze me, Larry. Who would have thought of your coming out like this! [Solemnly] But much as I appreciate your really brilliant eloquence, I implore you not to desert the great Liberal principle of Disestablishment.
LARRY. I am not a Liberal: Heaven forbid! A disestablished Church is the worst tyranny a nation can groan under.
BROADBENT [making a wry face]. DON'T be paradoxical, Larry. It really gives me a pain in my stomach.
LARRY. You'll soon find out the truth of it here. Look at Father Dempsey! he is disestablished: he has nothing to hope or fear from the State; and the result is that he's the most powerful man in Rosscullen. The member for Rosscullen would shake in his shoes if Father Dempsey looked crooked at him. [Father Dempsey smiles, by no means averse to this acknowledgment of his authority]. Look at yourself! you would defy the established Archbishop of Canterbury ten times a day; but catch you daring to say a word that would shock a Nonconformist! not you. The Conservative party today is the only one that's not priestridden—excuse the expression, Father [Father Dempsey nods tolerantly]—cause it's the only one that has established its Church and can prevent a clergyman becoming a bishop if he's not a Statesman as well as a Churchman.
He stops. They stare at him dumbfounded, and leave it to the priest to answer him.
FATHER DEMPSEY [judicially]. Young man: you'll not be the member for Rosscullen; but there's more in your head than the comb will take out.
LARRY. I'm sorry to disappoint you, father; but I told you it would be no use. And now I think the candidate had better retire and leave you to discuss his successor. [He takes a newspaper from the table and goes away through the shrubbery amid dead silence, all turning to watch him until he passes out of sight round the corner of the house].
DORAN [dazed]. Hwat sort of a fella is he at all at all?
FATHER DEMPSEY. He's a clever lad: there's the making of a man in him yet.
MATTHEW [in consternation]. D'ye mane to say dhat yll put him into parliament to bring back Nick Lesthrange on me, and to put tithes on me, and to rob me for the like o Patsy Farrll, because he's Corny Doyle's only son?
DORAN [brutally]. Arra hould your whisht: who's goin to send him into parliament? Maybe you'd like us to send you dhere to thrate them to a little o your anxiety about dhat dirty little podato patch o yours.
MATTHEW [plaintively]. Am I to be towld dhis afther all me sufferins?
DORAN. Och, I'm tired o your sufferins. We've been hearin nothin else ever since we was childher but sufferins. Haven it wasn't yours it was somebody else's; and haven it was nobody else's it was ould Irelan's. How the divil are we to live on wan anodher's sufferins?
FATHER DEMPSEY. That's a thrue word, Barney Doarn; only your tongue's a little too familiar wi dhe devil. [To Mat] If you'd think a little more o the sufferins of the blessed saints, Mat, an a little less o your own, you'd find the way shorter from your farm to heaven. [Mat is about to reply] Dhere now! Dhat's enough! we know you mean well; an I'm not angry with you.
BROADBENT. Surely, Mr Haffigan, you can see the simple explanation of all this. My friend Larry Doyle is a most brilliant speaker; but he's a Tory: an ingrained oldfashioned Tory.
CORNELIUS. N how d'ye make dhat out, if I might ask you, Mr Broadbent?
BROADBENT [collecting himself for a political deliverance]. Well, you know, Mr Doyle, there's a strong dash of Toryism in the Irish character. Larry himself says that the great Duke of Wellington was the most typical Irishman that ever lived. Of course that's an absurd paradox; but still there's a great deal of truth in it. Now I am a Liberal. You know the great principles of the Liberal party. Peace—
FATHER DEMPSEY [piously]. Hear! hear!
BROADBENT [encouraged]. Thank you. Retrenchment—[he waits for further applause].
MATTHEW [timidly]. What might rethrenchment mane now?
BROADBENT. It means an immense reduction in the burden of the rates and taxes.
MATTHEW [respectfully approving]. Dhats right. Dhats right, sir.
BROADBENT [perfunctorily]. And, of course, Reform.
CORNELIUS }
FATHER DEMPSEY} [conventionally]. Of course.
DORAN }
MATTHEW [still suspicious]. Hwat does Reform mane, sir? Does it mane altherin annythin dhats as it is now?
BROADBENT [impressively]. It means, Mr Haffigan, maintaining those reforms which have already been conferred on humanity by the Liberal Party, and trusting for future developments to the free activity of a free people on the basis of those reforms.
DORAN. Dhat's right. No more meddlin. We're all right now: all we want is to be let alone.
CORNELIUS. Hwat about Home Rule?
BROADBENT [rising so as to address them more imposingly]. I really cannot tell you what I feel about Home Rule without using the language of hyperbole.
DORAN. Savin Fadher Dempsey's presence, eh?
BROADBENT [not understanding him] Quite so—er—oh yes. All I can say is that as an Englishman I blush for the Union. It is the blackest stain on our national history. I look forward to the time-and it cannot be far distant, gentlemen, because Humanity is looking forward to it too, and insisting on it with no uncertain voice—I look forward to the time when an Irish legislature shall arise once more on the emerald pasture of College Green, and the Union Jack—that detestable symbol of a decadent Imperialism—be replaced by a flag as green as the island over which it waves—a flag on which we shall ask for England only a modest quartering in memory of our great party and of the immortal name of our grand old leader.
DORAN [enthusiastically]. Dhat's the style, begob! [He smites his knee, and winks at Mat].
MATTHEW. More power to you, Sir!
BROADBENT. I shall leave you now, gentlemen, to your deliberations. I should like to have enlarged on the services rendered by the Liberal Party to the religious faith of the great majority of the people of Ireland; but I shall content myself with saying that in my opinion you should choose no representative who—no matter what his personal creed may be—is not an ardent supporter of freedom of conscience, and is not prepared to prove it by contributions, as lavish as his means will allow, to the great and beneficent work which you, Father Dempsey [Father Dempsey bows], are doing for the people of Rosscullen. Nor should the lighter, but still most important question of the sports of the people be forgotten. The local cricket club—
CORNELIUS. The hwat!
DORAN. Nobody plays bats ball here, if dhat's what you mean.
BROADBENT. Well, let us say quoits. I saw two men, I think, last night—but after all, these are questions of detail. The main thing is that your candidate, whoever he may be, shall be a man of some means, able to help the locality instead of burdening it. And if he were a countryman of my own, the moral effect on the House of Commons would be immense! tremendous! Pardon my saying these few words: nobody feels their impertinence more than I do. Good morning, gentlemen.
He turns impressively to the gate, and trots away, congratulating himself, with a little twist of his head and cock of his eye, on having done a good stroke of political business.
HAFFIGAN [awestruck]. Good morning, sir.
THE REST. Good morning. [They watch him vacantly until he is out of earshot].
CORNELIUS. Hwat d'ye think, Father Dempsey?
FATHER DEMPSEY [indulgently] Well, he hasn't much sense, God help him; but for the matter o that, neither has our present member.
DORAN. Arra musha he's good enough for parliament what is there to do there but gas a bit, an chivy the Goverment, an vote wi dh Irish party?
CORNELIUS [ruminatively]. He's the queerest Englishman I ever met. When he opened the paper dhis mornin the first thing he saw was that an English expedition had been bet in a battle in Inja somewhere; an he was as pleased as Punch! Larry told him that if he'd been alive when the news o Waterloo came, he'd a died o grief over it. Bedad I don't think he's quite right in his head.
DORAN. Divil a matther if he has plenty o money. He'll do for us right enough.
MATTHEW [deeply impressed by Broadbent, and unable to understand their levity concerning him]. Did you mind what he said about rethrenchment? That was very good, I thought.
FATHER DEMPSEY. You might find out from Larry, Corny, what his means are. God forgive us all! it's poor work spoiling the Egyptians, though we have good warrant for it; so I'd like to know how much spoil there is before I commit meself. [He rises. They all rise respectfully].
CORNELIUS [ruefully]. I'd set me mind on Larry himself for the seat; but I suppose it can't be helped.
FATHER DEMPSEY [consoling him]. Well, the boy's young yet; an he has a head on him. Goodbye, all. [He goes out through the gate].
DORAN. I must be goin, too. [He directs Cornelius's attention to what is passing in the road]. Look at me bould Englishman shakin hans wid Fadher Dempsey for all the world like a candidate on election day. And look at Fadher Dempsey givin him a squeeze an a wink as much as to say It's all right, me boy. You watch him shakin hans with me too: he's waitn for me. I'll tell him he's as good as elected. [He goes, chuckling mischievously].
CORNELIUS. Come in with me, Mat. I think I'll sell you the pig after all. Come in an wet the bargain.
MATTHEW [instantly dropping into the old whine of the tenant]. I'm afeerd I can't afford the price, sir. [He follows Cornelius into the house].
Larry, newspaper still in hand, comes back through the shrubbery. Broadbent returns through the gate.
LARRY. Well? What has happened.
BROADBENT [hugely self-satisfied]. I think I've done the trick this time. I just gave them a bit of straight talk; and it went home. They were greatly impressed: everyone of those men believes in me and will vote for me when the question of selecting a candidate comes up. After all, whatever you say, Larry, they like an Englishman. They feel they can trust him, I suppose.
LARRY. Oh! they've transferred the honor to you, have they?
BROADBENT [complacently]. Well, it was a pretty obvious move, I should think. You know, these fellows have plenty of shrewdness in spite of their Irish oddity. [Hodson comes from the house. Larry sits in Doran's chair and reads]. Oh, by the way, Hodson—
HODSON [coming between Broadbent and Larry]. Yes, sir?
BROADBENT. I want you to be rather particular as to how you treat the people here.
HODSON. I haven't treated any of em yet, sir. If I was to accept all the treats they offer me I shouldn't be able to stand at this present moment, sir.
BROADBENT. Oh well, don't be too stand-offish, you know, Hodson. I should like you to be popular. If it costs anything I'll make it up to you. It doesn't matter if you get a bit upset at first: they'll like you all the better for it.
HODSON. I'm sure you're very kind, sir; but it don't seem to matter to me whether they like me or not. I'm not going to stand for parliament here, sir.
BROADBENT. Well, I am. Now do you understand?
HODSON [waking up at once]. Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure. I understand, sir.
CORNELIUS [appearing at the house door with Mat]. Patsy'll drive the pig over this evenin, Mat. Goodbye. [He goes back into the house. Mat makes for the gate. Broadbent stops him. Hodson, pained by the derelict basket, picks it up and carries it away behind the house].
BROADBENT [beaming candidatorially]. I must thank you very particularly, Mr Haffigan, for your support this morning. I value it because I know that the real heart of a nation is the class you represent, the yeomanry.
MATTHEW [aghast] The yeomanry!!!
LARRY [looking up from his paper]. Take care, Tom! In Rosscullen a yeoman means a sort of Orange Bashi-Bazouk. In England, Mat, they call a freehold farmer a yeoman.
MATTHEW [huffily]. I don't need to be insthructed be you, Larry Doyle. Some people think no one knows anythin but dhemselves. [To Broadbent, deferentially] Of course I know a gentleman like you would not compare me to the yeomanry. Me own granfather was flogged in the sthreets of Athenmullet be them when they put a gun in the thatch of his house an then went and found it there, bad cess to them!
BROADBENT [with sympathetic interest]. Then you are not the first martyr of your family, Mr Haffigan?
MATTHEW. They turned me out o the farm I made out of the stones o Little Rosscullen hill wid me own hans.
BROADBENT. I have heard about it; and my blood still boils at the thought. [Calling] Hodson—
HODSON [behind the corner of the house] Yes, sir. [He hurries forward].
BROADBENT. Hodson: this gentleman's sufferings should make every Englishman think. It is want of thought rather than want of heart that allows such iniquities to disgrace society.
HODSON [prosaically]. Yes sir.
MATTHEW. Well, I'll be goin. Good mornin to you kindly, sir.
BROADBENT. You have some distance to go, Mr Haffigan: will you allow me to drive you home?
MATTHEW. Oh sure it'd be throublin your honor.
BROADBENT. I insist: it will give me the greatest pleasure, I assure you. My car is in the stable: I can get it round in five minutes.
MATTHEW. Well, sir, if you wouldn't mind, we could bring the pig I've just bought from Corny.
BROADBENT [with enthusiasm]. Certainly, Mr Haffigan: it will be quite delightful to drive with a pig in the car: I shall feel quite like an Irishman. Hodson: stay with Mr Haffigan; and give him a hand with the pig if necessary. Come, Larry; and help me. [He rushes away through the shrubbery].
LARRY [throwing the paper ill-humoredly on the chair]. Look here, Tom! here, I say! confound it! [he runs after him].
MATTHEW [glowering disdainfully at Hodson, and sitting down on Cornelius's chair as an act of social self-assertion] N are you the valley?
HODSON. The valley? Oh, I follow you: yes: I'm Mr Broadbent's valet.
MATTHEW. Ye have an aisy time of it: you look purty sleek. [With suppressed ferocity] Look at me! Do I look sleek?
HODSON [sadly]. I wish I ad your ealth: you look as hard as nails. I suffer from an excess of uric acid.
MATTHEW. Musha what sort o disease is zhouragassid? Didjever suffer from injustice and starvation? Dhat's the Irish disease. It's aisy for you to talk o sufferin, an you livin on the fat o the land wid money wrung from us.
HODSON [Coolly]. Wots wrong with you, old chap? Has ennybody been doin ennything to you?
MATTHEW. Anythin timme! Didn't your English masther say that the blood biled in him to hear the way they put a rint on me for the farm I made wid me own hans, and turned me out of it to give it to Billy Byrne?
HODSON. Ow, Tom Broadbent's blood boils pretty easy over ennything that appens out of his own country. Don't you be taken in by my ole man, Paddy.
MATTHEW [indignantly]. Paddy yourself! How dar you call me Paddy?
HODSON [unmoved]. You just keep your hair on and listen to me. You Irish people are too well off: that's what's the matter with you. [With sudden passion] You talk of your rotten little farm because you made it by chuckin a few stownes dahn a hill! Well, wot price my grenfawther, I should like to know, that fitted up a fuss clawss shop and built up a fuss clawss drapery business in London by sixty years work, and then was chucked aht of it on is ed at the end of is lease withaht a penny for his goodwill. You talk of evictions! you that cawn't be moved until you've run up eighteen months rent. I once ran up four weeks in Lambeth when I was aht of a job in winter. They took the door off its inges and the winder aht of its sashes on me, and gave my wife pnoomownia. I'm a widower now. [Between his teeth] Gawd! when I think of the things we Englishmen av to put up with, and hear you Irish hahlin abaht your silly little grievances, and see the way you makes it worse for us by the rotten wages you'll come over and take and the rotten places you'll sleep in, I jast feel that I could take the oul bloomin British awland and make you a present of it, jast to let you find out wot real ardship's like.
MATTHEW [starting up, more in scandalized incredulity than in anger]. D'ye have the face to set up England agen Ireland for injustices an wrongs an disthress an sufferin?
HODSON [with intense disgust and contempt, but with Cockney coolness]. Ow, chuck it, Paddy. Cheese it. You danno wot ardship is over ere: all you know is ah to ahl abaht it. You take the biscuit at that, you do. I'm a Owm Ruler, I am. Do you know why?
MATTHEW [equally contemptuous]. D'ye know, yourself?
HODSON. Yes I do. It's because I want a little attention paid to my own country; and thet'll never be as long as your chaps are ollerin at Wesminister as if nowbody mettered but your own bloomin selves. Send em back to hell or C'naught, as good oul English Cromwell said. I'm jast sick of Ireland. Let it gow. Cut the cable. Make it a present to Germany to keep the oul Kyzer busy for a while; and give poor owld England a chawnce: thets wot I say.
MATTHEW [full of scorn for a man so ignorant as to be unable to pronounce the word Connaught, which practically rhymes with bonnet in Ireland, though in Hodson's dialect it rhymes with untaught]. Take care we don't cut the cable ourselves some day, bad scran to you! An tell me dhis: have yanny Coercion Acs in England? Have yanny removables? Have you Dublin Castle to suppress every newspaper dhat takes the part o your own counthry?
HODSON. We can beyave ahrselves withaht sich things.
MATTHEW. Bedad you're right. It'd only be waste o time to muzzle a sheep. Here! where's me pig? God forgimme for talkin to a poor ignorant craycher like you.
HODSON [grinning with good-humored malice, too convinced of his own superiority to feel his withers wrung]. Your pig'll ave a rare doin in that car, Paddy. Forty miles an ahr dahn that rocky lane will strike it pretty pink, you bet.
MATTHEW [scornfully]. Hwy can't you tell a raisonable lie when you're about it? What horse can go forty mile an hour?
HODSON. Orse! Wy, you silly oul rotten it's not a orse it's a mowtor. Do you suppose Tom Broadbent would gow off himself to arness a orse?
MATTHEW [in consternation]. Holy Moses! Don't tell me it's the ingine he wants to take me on.
HODSON. Wot else?
MATTHEW. Your sowl to Morris Kelly! why didn't you tell me that before? The divil an ingine he'll get me on this day. [His ear catches an approaching teuf-teuf] Oh murdher! it's comin afther me: I hear the puff puff of it. [He runs away through the gate, much to Hodson's amusement. The noise of the motor ceases; and Hodson, anticipating Broadbent's return, throws off the politician and recomposes himself as a valet. Broadbent and Larry come through the shrubbery. Hodson moves aside to the gate].
BROADBENT. Where is Mr Haffigan? Has he gone for the pig?
HODSON. Bolted, sir! Afraid of the motor, sir.
BROADBENT [much disappointed]. Oh, that's very tiresome. Did he leave any message?
HODSON. He was in too great a hurry, sir. Started to run home, sir, and left his pig behind him.
BROADBENT [eagerly]. Left the pig! Then it's all right. The pig's the thing: the pig will win over every Irish heart to me. We'll take the pig home to Haffigan's farm in the motor: it will have a tremendous effect. Hodson!
HODSON. Yes sir?
BROADBENT. Do you think you could collect a crowd to see the motor?
HODSON. Well, I'll try, sir.
BROADBENT. Thank you, Hodson: do.
Hodson goes out through the gate.
LARRY [desperately]. Once more, Tom, will you listen to me?
BROADBENT. Rubbish! I tell you it will be all right.
LARRY. Only this morning you confessed how surprised you were to find that the people here showed no sense of humor.
BROADBENT [suddenly very solemn]. Yes: their sense of humor is in abeyance: I noticed it the moment we landed. Think of that in a country where every man is a born humorist! Think of what it means! [Impressively] Larry we are in the presence of a great national grief.
LARRY. What's to grieve them?
BROADBENT. I divined it, Larry: I saw it in their faces. Ireland has never smiled since her hopes were buried in the grave of Gladstone.
LARRY. Oh, what's the use of talking to such a man? Now look here, Tom. Be serious for a moment if you can.
BROADBENT [stupent] Serious! I!!!
LARRY. Yes, you. You say the Irish sense of humor is in abeyance. Well, if you drive through Rosscullen in a motor car with Haffigan's pig, it won't stay in abeyance. Now I warn you.
BROADBENT [breezily]. Why, so much the better! I shall enjoy the joke myself more than any of them. [Shouting] Hallo, Patsy Farrell, where are you?
PATSY [appearing in the shrubbery]. Here I am, your honor.
BROADBENT. Go and catch the pig and put it into the car—we're going to take it to Mr Haffigan's. [He gives Larry a slap on the shoulders that sends him staggering off through the gate, and follows him buoyantly, exclaiming] Come on, you old croaker! I'll show you how to win an Irish seat.
PATSY [meditatively]. Bedad, if dhat pig gets a howlt o the handle o the machine— [He shakes his head ominously and drifts away to the pigsty].
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