New Comedies Part 6

_Bartley Fallen_. Take care would the madness catch on to ourselves the same as the chin-cough or the pock.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah, that's not the way it goes travelling from one to another, but some that are naturally cracked and inherit it.

_Shawn Early:_ It is a family failing with her tribe. The most of them get giddy in their latter end.

_Miss Joyce:_ It might be it was sent as a punishment before birth, for to show the power of G.o.d.

_Peter Tannian:_ It is tea-drinking does it, and that is the reason it is on the wife it is apt to fall for the most part.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah, there's some does be thinking their wives isn't right, and there's others think they are too right. There to be any fear of me going astray, I give you my word I'd lose my wits on the moment.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ There are some say it is the moon.

_Shawn Early:_ So it is too. The time the moon is going back, the blood that is in a person does be weakening, but when the moon is strong, the blood that moves strong in the same way. And it to be at the full, it drags the wits along with it, the same as it drags the tide.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Those that are light show off more and have the talk of twenty the time it is at the full, that is sure enough. And to hold up a silk handkerchief and to look through it, you would see the four quarters of the moon; I was often told that.

_Miss Joyce:_ It is not you, Mr. Halvey, will give in to an unruly thing like the moon, that is under no authority, and cannot be put back, the same as a fast day that would chance to fall upon a feast.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It is likely it is put in the sky the same as a clock for our use, the way you would pick knowledge of the weather, the time the stars would be wild about it.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ That is very nice now. The thing you'd know, you'd like to go on, and to hear more or less about it.

_Miss Joyce: (To H.H.)_ It is a lantern for your own use it will be to-night, and his Reverence coming home through the street, and yourself coming along with him to the house.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ That's right, Miss Joyce. Keep a good grip of him.

What do you say to him talking a while ago as if his mind was running on some thought to leave Cloon?

_Miss Joyce:_ What way could he leave it?

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ No way at all, I'm thinking, unless there would be a miracle worked by the moon.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Ah, miracles is gone out of the world this long time, with education, unless that they might happen in your own inside.

_Miss Joyce:_ I'll go set the table and kindle the fire, and I'll come back to meet the train with you myself.

_(She goes. A noise heard outside.)_

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What is that now?

_Shawn Early: (At door.)_ Some noise as of running.

_Hartley Fallon: (Going to door.)_ It might chance to be some prisoner they would be bringing to the train.

_Peter Tannian:_ No, but some lads that are running.

_(They go out. H.H. is going too, but Mrs. Broderick goes before him and turns him round in doorway.)_

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Don't be coming out now in the dust that was formed by the heat is in the breeze. It would be a pity to spoil your Dublin coat, or your s.h.i.+rt that is that white you would nearly take it to be blue.

_(She goes out, pus.h.i.+ng him in and shutting door after her.)_

_Cracked Mary:_ Ha! ha! ha!

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What is it you are laughing at?

_Cracked Mary:_ Ha! ha! ha! It is a very laughable thing now, the third most laughable thing I ever met with in my lifetime.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What is that?

_Cracked Mary:_ A fine young man to be shut up and bound in a narrow little shed, and the full moon rising, and I knowing what I know!

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ It's little you are likely to know about me.

_Cracked Mary:_ Tambourines and fiddles and pipes--melodeons and the whistling of drums.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I suppose it is the Carrow fair you are talking about.

_Cracked Mary:_ Sitting within walls, and a top-coat wrapped around him, and mirth and music and frolic being in the place we know, and some dancing sets on the floor.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ I wish I wasn't in this place tonight. I would like well to be going on the train, if it wasn't for the talk the neighbours would be making. I would like well to slip away. It is a long time I am going without any sort of funny comrades.

_(Goes to door. The others enter quickly, pus.h.i.+ng him back.)_

_Bartley Fallon:_ Nothing at all to see. It would be best for us to have stopped where we were.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Running like foals to see it, and nothing to be in it worth while.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ What was it was in it?

_Shawn Early:_ Nothing at all but some lads that were running in pursuit of a dog.

_Bartley Fallon:_ Near knocked us they did, and they coming round the corner of the wall.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Is it that it was a mad dog?

_Peter Tannian:_ Ah, what mad? Mad dogs are done away with now by the head Government and muzzles and the police.

_Bartley Fallon:_ They are more watchful over them than they used.

But all the same, you to see a strange dog afar off, you would be uneasy, thinking it might be yourself he would be searching out as his prey.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Sure, there did a dog go mad through Galway, and the whole town rose against him, and flocked him into a corner, and shot him there. He did no harm after, he being made an end of at the first.

_Shawn Early:_ It might be that dog they were pursuing after was mad, on the head of being under the full moon.

_Cracked Mary: (Jumping up excitedly.)_ That mad dog, he is a Dublin dog; he is betune you and Belfast--he is running ahead--you couldn't keep up with him.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ There is one, so, mad upon the road.