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].



ACT IV

The parlor in Cornelius Doyle's house. It communicates with the
garden by a half glazed door. The fireplace is at the other side
of the room, opposite the door and windows, the architect not
having been sensitive to draughts. The table, rescued from the
garden, is in the middle; and at it sits Keegan, the central
figure in a rather crowded apartment.

Nora, sitting with her back to the fire at the end of the table,
is playing backgammon across its corner with him, on his left
hand. Aunt Judy, a little further back, sits facing the fire
knitting, with her feet on the fender. A little to Keegan's
right, in front of the table, and almost sitting on it, is Barney
Doran. Half a dozen friends of his, all men, are between him and
the open door, supported by others outside. In the corner behind
them is the sofa, of mahogany and horsehair, made up as a bed for
Broadbent. Against the wall behind Keegan stands a mahogany
sideboard. A door leading to the interior of the house is near
the fireplace, behind Aunt Judy. There are chairs against the
wall, one at each end of the sideboard. Keegan's hat is on the
one nearest the inner door; and his stick is leaning against it.
A third chair, also against the wall, is near the garden door.

There is a strong contrast of emotional atmosphere between the
two sides of the room. Keegan is extraordinarily stern: no game
of backgammon could possibly make a man's face so grim. Aunt Judy
is quietly busy. Nora it trying to ignore Doran and attend to her
game.

On the other hand Doran is reeling in an ecstasy of mischievous
mirth which has infected all his friends. They are screaming with
laughter, doubled up, leaning on the furniture and against the
walls, shouting, screeching, crying.

AUNT JUDY [as the noise lulls for a moment]. Arra hold your
noise, Barney. What is there to laugh at?

DORAN. It got its fut into the little hweel--[he is overcome
afresh; and the rest collapse again].

AUNT JUDY. Ah, have some sense: you're like a parcel o childher.
Nora, hit him a thump on the back: he'll have a fit.

DORAN [with squeezed eyes, exsuflicate with cachinnation] Frens,
he sez to dhem outside Doolan's: I'm takin the gintleman that
pays the rint for a dhrive.

AUNT JUDY. Who did he mean be that?

DORAN. They call a pig that in England. That's their notion of a
joke.

AUNT JUDY. Musha God help them if they can joke no better than
that!

DORAN [with renewed symptoms]. Thin--

AUNT JUDY. Ah now don't be tellin it all over and settin yourself
off again, Barney.

NORA. You've told us three times, Mr Doran.

DORAN. Well but whin I think of it--!

AUNT JUDY. Then don't think of it, alanna.

DORAN. There was Patsy Farrll in the back sate wi dhe pig between
his knees, n me bould English boyoh in front at the machinery, n
Larry Doyle in the road startin the injine wid a bed winch. At
the first puff of it the pig lep out of its skin and bled Patsy's
nose wi dhe ring in its snout. [Roars of laughter: Keegan glares
at them]. Before Broadbint knew hwere he was, the pig was up his
back and over into his lap; and bedad the poor baste did credit
to Corny's thrainin of it; for it put in the fourth speed wid its
right crubeen as if it was enthered for the Gordn Bennett.

NORA [reproachfully]. And Larry in front of it and all! It's
nothn to laugh at, Mr Doran.

DORAN. Bedad, Miss Reilly, Larry cleared six yards backwards at
wan jump if he cleared an inch; and he'd a cleared seven if
Doolan's granmother hadn't cotch him in her apern widhout
intindin to. [Immense merriment].

AUNT JUDY, Ah, for shame, Barney! the poor old woman! An she was
hurt before, too, when she slipped on the stairs.

DORAN. Bedad, ma'am, she's hurt behind now; for Larry bouled her
over like a skittle. [General delight at this typical stroke of
Irish Rabelaisianism].

NORA. It's well the lad wasn't killed.

DORAN. Faith it wasn't o Larry we were thinkin jus dhen, wi dhe
pig takin the main sthreet o Rosscullen on market day at a mile a
minnit. Dh ony thing Broadbint could get at wi dhe pig in front
of him was a fut brake; n the pig's tail was undher dhat; so that
whin he thought he was putn non the brake he was ony squeezin the
life out o the pig's tail. The more he put the brake on the more
the pig squealed n the fasther he dhruv.

AUNT JUDY. Why couldn't he throw the pig out into the road?

DORAN. Sure he couldn't stand up to it, because he was
spanchelled-like between his seat and dhat thing like a wheel on
top of a stick between his knees.

AUNT JUDY. Lord have mercy on us!

NORA. I don't know how you can laugh. Do you, Mr Keegan?

KEEGAN [grimly]. Why not? There is danger, destruction, torment!
What more do we want to make us merry? Go on, Barney: the last
drops of joy are not squeezed from the story yet. Tell us again
how our brother was torn asunder.

DORAN [puzzled]. Whose bruddher?

KEEGAN. Mine.

NORA. He means the pig, Mr Doran. You know his way.

DORAN [rising gallantly to the occasion]. Bedad I'm sorry for
your poor bruddher, Misther Keegan; but I recommend you to thry
him wid a couple o fried eggs for your breakfast tomorrow. It was
a case of Excelsior wi dhat ambitious baste; for not content wid
jumpin from the back seat into the front wan, he jumped from the
front wan into the road in front of the car. And--

KEEGAN. And everybody laughed!

NORA. Don't go over that again, please, Mr Doran.

DORAN. Faith be the time the car went over the poor pig dhere was
little left for me or anywan else to go over except wid a knife
an fork.

AUNT JUDY. Why didn't Mr Broadbent stop the car when the pig was
gone?

DORAN. Stop the car! He might as well ha thried to stop a mad
bull. First it went wan way an made fireworks o Molly Ryan's
crockery stall; an dhen it slewed round an ripped ten fut o wall
out o the corner o the pound. [With enormous enjoyment] Begob, it
just tore the town in two and sent the whole dam market to
blazes. [Nora offended, rises].

KEEGAN [indignantly]. Sir!

DORAN [quickly]. Savin your presence, Miss Reilly, and Misther
Keegan's. Dhere! I won't say anuddher word.

NORA. I'm surprised at you, Mr Doran. [She sits down again].

DORAN [refectively]. He has the divil's own luck, that
Englishman, annyway; for when they picked him up he hadn't a
scratch on him, barrn hwat the pig did to his cloes. Patsy had
two fingers out o jynt; but the smith pulled them sthraight for
him. Oh, you never heard such a hullaballoo as there was. There
was Molly, cryin Me chaney, me beautyful chaney! n oul Mat
shoutin Me pig, me pig! n the polus takin the number o the car, n
not a man in the town able to speak for laughin--

KEEGAN [with intense emphasis]. It is hell: it is hell. Nowhere
else could such a scene be a burst of happiness for the people.

Cornelius comes in hastily from the garden, pushing his way
through the little crowd.

CORNELIUS. Whisht your laughin, boys! Here he is. [He puts his
hat on the sideboard, and goes to the fireplace, where he posts
himself with his back to the chimneypiece].

AUNT JUDY. Remember your behavior, now.

Everybody becomes silent, solemn, concerned, sympathetic.
Broadbent enters, roiled and disordered as to his motoring coat:
immensely important and serious as to himself. He makes his way
to the end of the table nearest the garden door, whilst Larry,
who accompanies him, throws his motoring coat on the sofa bed,
and sits down, watching the proceedings.

BROADBENT [taking off his leather cap with dignity and placing it
on the table]. I hope you have not been anxious about me.

AUNT JUDY. Deedn we have, Mr Broadbent. It's a mercy you weren't
killed.

DORAN. Kilt! It's a mercy dheres two bones of you left houldin
together. How dijjescape at all at all? Well, I never thought I'd
be so glad to see you safe and sound again. Not a man in the town
would say less [murmurs of kindly assent]. Won't you come down to
Doolan's and have a dhrop o brandy to take the shock off?

BROADBENT. You're all really too kind; but the shock has quite
passed off.

DORAN [jovially]. Never mind. Come along all the same and tell us
about it over a frenly glass.

BROADBENT. May I say how deeply I feel the kindness with which I
have been overwhelmed since my accident? I can truthfully declare
that I am glad it happened, because it has brought out the
kindness and sympathy of the Irish character to an extent I had
no conception of.

 SEVERAL  {Oh, sure you're welcome!
 PRESENT. {Sure it's only natural.
          {Sure you might have been kilt.

A young man, on the point of bursting, hurries out. Barney puts
an iron constraint on his features.

BROADBENT. All I can say is that I wish I could drink the health
of everyone of you.

DORAN. Dhen come an do it.

BROADBENT [very solemnly]. No: I am a teetotaller.

AUNT JUDY [incredulously]. Arra since when?

BROADBENT. Since this morning, Miss Doyle. I have had a lesson
[he looks at Nora significantly] that I shall not forget. It may
be that total abstinence has already saved my life; for I was
astonished at the steadiness of my nerves when death stared me in
the face today. So I will ask you to excuse me. [He collects
himself for a speech]. Gentlemen: I hope the gravity of the peril
through which we have all passed--for I know that the danger to
the bystanders was as great as to the occupants of the car--will
prove an earnest of closer and more serious relations between us
in the future. We have had a somewhat agitating day: a valuable
and innocent animal has lost its life: a public building has been
wrecked: an aged and infirm lady has suffered an impact for which
I feel personally responsible, though my old friend Mr Laurence
Doyle unfortunately incurred the first effects of her very
natural resentment. I greatly regret the damage to Mr Patrick
Farrell's fingers; and I have of course taken care that he shall
not suffer pecuniarily by his mishap. [Murmurs of admiration at
his magnanimity, and A Voice "You're a gentleman, sir"]. I am
glad to say that Patsy took it like an Irishman, and, far from
expressing any vindictive feeling, declared his willingness to
break all his fingers and toes for me on the same terms [subdued
applause, and "More power to Patsy!"]. Gentlemen: I felt at home
in Ireland from the first [rising excitement among his hearers].
In every Irish breast I have found that spirit of liberty [A
cheery voice "Hear Hear"], that instinctive mistrust of the
Government [A small pious voice, with intense expression, "God
bless you, sir!"], that love of independence [A defiant voice,
"That's it! Independence!"], that indignant sympathy with the
cause of oppressed nationalities abroad [A threatening growl from
all: the ground-swell of patriotic passion], and with the
resolute assertion of personal rights at home, which is all but
extinct in my own country. If it were legally possible I should
become a naturalized Irishman; and if ever it be my good fortune
to represent an Irish constituency in parliament, it shall be my
first care to introduce a Bill legalizing such an operation. I
believe a large section of the Liberal party would avail
themselves of it. [Momentary scepticism]. I do. [Convulsive
cheering]. Gentlemen: I have said enough. [Cries of "Go on"]. No:
I have as yet no right to address you at all on political
subjects; and we must not abuse the warmhearted Irish hospitality
of Miss Doyle by turning her sittingroom into a public meeting.

DORAN [energetically]. Three cheers for Tom Broadbent, the future
member for Rosscullen!

AUNT JUDY [waving a half knitted sock]. Hip hip hurray!

The cheers are given with great heartiness, as it is by this
time, for the more humorous spirits present, a question of
vociferation or internal rupture.

BROADBENT. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, friends.

NORA [whispering to Doran]. Take them away, Mr Doran [Doran
nods].

DORAN. Well, good evenin, Mr Broadbent; an may you never regret
the day you wint dhrivin wid Halligan's pig! [They shake hands].
Good evenin, Miss Doyle.

General handshaking, Broadbent shaking hands with everybody
effusively. He accompanies them to the garden and can be heard
outside saying Goodnight in every inflexion known to
parliamentary candidates. Nora, Aunt Judy, Keegan, Larry, and
Cornelius are left in the parlor. Larry goes to the threshold and
watches the scene in the garden.

NORA. It's a shame to make game of him like that. He's a gradle
more good in him than Barney Doran.

CORNELIUS. It's all up with his candidature. He'll be laughed out
o the town.

LARRY [turning quickly from the doorway]. Oh no he won't: he's
not an Irishman. He'll never know they're laughing at him; and
while they're laughing he'll win the seat.

CORNELIUS. But he can't prevent the story getting about.

LARRY. He won't want to. He'll tell it himself as one of the most
providential episodes in the history of England and Ireland.

AUNT JUDY. Sure he wouldn't make a fool of himself like that.

LARRY. Are you sure he's such a fool after all, Aunt Judy?
Suppose you had a vote! which would you rather give it to? the
man that told the story of Haffigan's pig Barney Doran's way or
Broadbent's way?

AUNT JUDY. Faith I wouldn't give it to a man at all. It's a few
women they want in parliament to stop their foolish blather.

BROADBENT [bustling into the room, and taking off his damaged
motoring overcoat, which he put down on the sofa]. Well, that's
over. I must apologize for making that speech, Miss Doyle; but
they like it, you know. Everything helps in electioneering.

Larry takes the chair near the door; draws it near the table; and
sits astride it, with his elbows folded on the back.

AUNT JUDY. I'd no notion you were such an orator, Mr Broadbent.

BROADBENT. Oh, it's only a knack. One picks it up on the
platform. It stokes up their enthusiasm.

AUNT JUDY. Oh, I forgot. You've not met Mr Keegan. Let me
introjooce you.

BROADBENT [shaking hands effusively]. Most happy to meet you, Mr
Keegan. I have heard of you, though I have not had the pleasure
of shaking your hand before. And now may I ask you--for I value
no man's opinion more--what you think of my chances here.

KEEGAN [coldly]. Your chances, sir, are excellent. You will get
into parliament.

BROADBENT [delighted]. I hope so. I think so. [Fluctuating] You
really think so? You are sure you are not allowing your
enthusiasm for our principles to get the better of your judgment?

KEEGAN. I have no enthusiasm for your principles, sir. You will
get into parliament because you want to get into it badly enough
to be prepared to take the necessary steps to induce the people
to vote for you. That is how people usually get into that
fantastic assembly.

BROADBENT [puzzled]. Of course. [Pause]. Quite so. [Pause]. Er--
yes. [Buoyant again] I think they will vote for me. Eh? Yes?