New Irish Comedies | Page 7

heart. Faith, it's well you have myself to
mind you. Gather up now your brush and your bag.
_(They go to the door holding each other's hands and singing: "All in
my hat I will cock a blue feather," etc.)_
Curtain

THE FULL MOON TO ALL SANE PEOPLE IN OR OUT OF
CLOON WHO KNOW THEIR NEIGHBOURS TO BE

NATURALLY CRACKED OR SOMEWAY QUEER OR TO HAVE
GONE WRONG IN THE HEAD.
PERSONS [Sidenote: ALL SANE] Shawn Early Bartley Fallon Peter
Tannian Hyacinth Halvey _Mrs. Broderick_ Miss Joyce Cracked Mary
_Davideen,_ HER BROTHER, AN INNOCENT
THE FULL MOON
_Scene: A shed close to Cloon Station; Bartley Fallon is sitting
gloomily on a box; Hyacinth Halvey and Shawn Early are coming in at
door_.
_Shawn Early:_ It is likely the train will not be up to its time, and cattle
being on it for the fair. It's best wait in the shed. Is that Bartley Fallon?
What way are you, Bartley?
_Bartley Fallon:_ Faith, no way at all. On the drag, on the drag; striving
to put the bad times over me.
_Shawn Early:_ Is it business with the nine o'clock you have?
_Bartley Fallon:_ The wife that is gone visiting to Tubber, and that has
the door locked till such time as she will come back on the train. And I
thought this shed a place where no bad thing would be apt to happen
me, and not to be going through the streets, and the darkness falling.
_Shawn Early:_ It is not long till the full moon will be rising.
_Bartley Fallon:_ Everything that is bad, the falling sickness--God save
the mark--or the like, should be at its worst at the full moon. I suppose
because it is the leader of the stars.
_Shawn Early:_ Ah, what could happen any person in the street of
Cloon?
_Bartley Fallon:_ There might. Look at Matt Finn, the coffin-maker,
put his hand on a cage the circus brought, and the lion took and tore it
till they stuck him with a fork you'd rise dung with, and at that he let it
drop. And that was a man had never quitted Cloon.
_Shawn Early:_ I thought you might be sending something to the fair.
_Bartley Fallon:_ It isn't to the train I would be trusting anything I
would have to sell, where it might be thrown off the track. And where
would be the use sending the couple of little lambs I have? It is likely
there is no one would ask me where was I going. When the weight is
not in them, they won't carry the price. Sure, the grass I have is no good,
but seven times worse than the road.
_Shawn Early:_ They are saying there'll be good demand at the fair of

Carrow to-morrow.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ To-morrow the fair day of Carrow? I was not
remembering that.
_Bartley Fallon:_ Ah, there won't be many in it, I'm thinking. There
isn't a hungrier village in Connacht, they were telling me, and it's poor
the look of it as well.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ To-morrow the fair day. There will be all sorts in
the streets to-night.
_Bartley Fallon:_ The sort that will be in it will be a bad
sort--sievemakers and tramps and neuks.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ The tents on the fair green; there will be music in
it; there was a fiddler having no legs would set men of threescore years
and of fourscore years dancing. I can nearly hear his tune.
_(He whistles_ "The Heather Broom.")
_Bartley Fallon:_ You are apt to be going there on the train, I suppose?
It is well to be you, Mr. Halvey, having a good place in the town, and
the price of your fare, and maybe six times the price of it, in your
pocket.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I didn't think of that. I wonder could I go--for one
night only--and see what the lads are doing.
_Shawn Early:_ Are you forgetting, Mr. Halvey, that you are to meet
his Reverence on the platform that is coming home from drinking water
at the Spa?
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ So I can meet him, and get in the train after him
getting out.
_(Mrs. Broderick and Peter Tannian come in.)_
_Mrs. Broderick:_ Is that Mr. Halvey is in it? I was looking for you at
the chapel as I passed, and the Angelus bell after ringing.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Business I have here, ma'am. I was in dread I
might not be here before the train.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ So you might not, indeed. That nine o'clock train
you can never trust it to be late.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ To meet Father Gregan I am come, and maybe to
go on myself.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ Sure, I knew well you would be in haste to be before
Father Gregan, and we