New Irish Comedies | Page 8

knowing what we know.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I have no business only to be showing respect to

him.
_Shawn Early:_ His good word he will give to Mr. Halvey at the Board,
where it is likely he will be made Clerk of the Union next week.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ His good word he will give to another thing besides
that, I am thinking.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I don't know what you are talking about.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ Didn't you hear the news, Peter Tannian, that Mr.
Halvey is apt to be linked and joined in marriage with Miss Joyce, the
priest's housekeeper?
_Peter Tannian:_ I to believe all the lies I'd hear, I'd be a racked man by
this.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ What I say now is as true as if you were on the other
side of me. I suppose now the priest is come home there'll be no delay
getting the license.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It is not so settled as that.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ Why wouldn't it be settled and it being told at Mrs.
Delane's and through the whole world?
_Peter Tannian:_ She should be a steady wife for him--a fortied girl.
_Shawn Early:_ A very good fortune in the bank they are saying she
has, and she having crossed the ocean twice to America.
_Hartley Fallen:_ It's as good for him to have a woman will keep the
door open before him and his victuals ready and a quiet tongue in her
head. Not like that little Tartar of my own.
_Mrs. Broderick_. And an educated woman along with that. A man of
his sort, going to be Clerk of the Union and to be taken up with books
and papers, it's likely he'd die in a week, he to marry a dunce.
_Bartley Fallon:_ So it's likely he would.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ A little shop they are saying she will take, for to
open a flour store, and you to be keeping the accounts, the way you
would not spend any waste time.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I have no mind to be settling myself down yet a
while. I might maybe take a ramble here or there. There's many of my
comrades in the States.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ To go away from Cloon, is it? And why would you
think to do that, and the whole town the same as a father and mother to
you? Sure, the sergeant would live and die with you, and there are no
two from this to Galway as great as yourself and the priest. To see you

coming up the street, and your Dublin top-coat around you, there are
some would give you a salute the same nearly as the Bishop.
_Peter Tannian:_ They wouldn't do that maybe and they hearing things
as I heard them.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What things?
_Peter Tannian:_ There was a herd passing through from Carrow. It is
what I heard him saying------
_Mrs. Broderick:_ You heard nothing of Mr. Halvey, but what is
worthy of him. But that's the way always. The most thing a man does,
the less he will get for it after.
_Peter Tannian:_ A grand place in Carrow I suppose you had?
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I had plenty of places. Giving out
proclamations--attending waterworks----.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ It is well fitted for any place he is, and all that was
written around him and he coming into Cloon.
_Peter Tannian:_ Writing is easy.
_Mrs. Broderick:_ Look at him since he was here, this twelvemonth
back, that he never went into a dance-house or stood at a cross-road,
and never lost a half-an-hour with drink. Made no blunder, made no
rumours. Whatever could be said of his worth, it could not be too well
said.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Do you think now, ma'am, would it be any harm I
to go spend a day or maybe two days out of this--I to go on the
train----.
_Miss Joyce: (At door, coming in backwards.)_ Go back now, go back!
Don't be following after me in through the door! Is Mr. Halvey there?
Don't let her come following me, Mr. Halvey!
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Who is it is in it?
_(Sound of discordant singing outside.)_
_Miss Joyce:_ Cracked Mary it is, that is after coming back this day
from the asylum.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I never saw her, I think.
_Shawn Early:_ The creature, she was light this long while and not
good in the head, and at the last lunacy came on her and she was tied
and bound. Sometimes singing and dancing she does be, and sometimes
troublesome.
_Miss Joyce:_ They had a right to keep her spancelled in the asylum.

She would begrudge any respectable person to be walking the street.
She'd hoot you, she'd shout you, she'd clap her hands at you. She is a
blight in the town.
_Hyacinth Halvey:_ There is a lad