FIRST MERCHANT
Our faces go unscratched,
Wring the neck o' that fowl, scatter the flour
And look if there is bread upon the shelves.
We'll turn the fowl upon the spit and roast it,
And eat the supper we were bidden to,
Now that the house is quiet, praise our Master,
And stretch and warm our heels among the ashes.
END OF SCENE I.
SCENE II
FRONT SCENE.—A wood with perhaps distant view of turreted house at one side, but all in flat colour, without light and shade and against a diapered or gold background.
COUNTESS CATHLEEN comes in leaning upon ALEEL'S arm. OONA follows them.
CATHLEEN (stopping)
Surely this leafy corner, where one smells
The wild bee's honey, has a story too?
OONA
There is the house at last.
ALEEL
A man, they say,
Loved Maeve the Queen of all the invisible host,
And died of his love nine centuries ago.
And now, when the moon's riding at the full,
She leaves her dancers lonely and lies there
Upon that level place, and for three days
Stretches and sighs and wets her long pale cheeks.
CATHLEEN
So she loves truly.
ALEEL
No, but wets her cheeks,
Lady, because she has forgot his name.
CATHLEEN
She'd sleep that trouble away—though it must be
A heavy trouble to forget his name—
If she had better sense.
OONA
Your own house, lady.
ALEEL
She sleeps high up on wintry Knock-na-rea
In an old cairn of stones; while her poor women
Must lie and jog in the wave if they would sleep—
Being water born—yet if she cry their names
They run up on the land and dance in the moon
Till they are giddy and would love as men do,
And be as patient and as pitiful.
But there is nothing that will stop in their heads
They've such poor memories, though they weep for it.
Oh, yes, they weep; that's when the moon is full.
CATHLEEN
Is it because they have short memories
They live so long?
ALEEL
What's memory but the ash
That chokes our fires that have begun to sink?
And they've a dizzy, everlasting fire.
OONA
There is your own house, lady.
CATHLEEN
Why, that's true,
And we'd have passed it without noticing.
ALEEL
A curse upon it for a meddlesome house!
Had it but stayed away I would have known
What Queen Maeve thinks on when the moon is pinched;
And whether now—as in the old days—the dancers
Set their brief love on men.
OONA
Rest on my arm.
These are no thoughts for any Christian ear.
ALEEL
I am younger, she would be too heavy for you.
(He begins taking his lute out of the bag, CATHLEEN, who has turned towards OONA, turns back to him.)
This hollow box remembers every foot
That danced upon the level grass of the world,
And will tell secrets if I whisper to it.
(Sings.)
Lift up the white knee;
Hear what they sing,
Those young dancers
That in a ring
Raved but now
Of the hearts that brake
Long, long ago
For their sake.
OONA
New friends are sweet.
ALEEL
"But the dance changes.
Lift up the gown,
All that sorrow
Is trodden down."
OONA
The empty rattle-pate! Lean on this arm,
That I can tell you is a christened arm,
And not like some, if we are to judge by speech.
But as you please. It is time I was forgot.
Maybe it is not on this arm you slumbered
When you were as helpless as a worm.
ALEEL
Stay with me till we come to your own house.
CATHLEEN (sitting down)
When I am rested I will need no help.
ALEEL
I thought to have kept her from remembering
The evil of the times for full ten minutes;
But now when seven are out you come between.
OONA
Talk on; what does it matter what you say,
For you have not been christened?
ALEEL
Old woman, old woman,
You robbed her of three minutes peace of mind,
And though you live unto a hundred years,
And wash the feet of beggars and give alms,
And climb Croaghpatrick, you shall not be pardoned.
OONA
How does a man who never was baptized
Know what Heaven pardons?
ALEEL
You are a sinful woman.
OONA
I care no more than if a pig had grunted.
(Enter CATHLEEN'S Steward.)
STEWARD
I am not to blame, for I had locked the gate,
The forester's to blame. The men climbed in
At the east corner where the elm-tree is.
CATHLEEN
I do not understand you, who has climbed?
STEWARD
Then God be thanked, I am the first to tell you.
I was afraid some other of the servants—
Though I've been on the watch—had been the first,
And mixed up truth and lies, your ladyship.
CATHLEEN (rising)
Has some misfortune happened?
STEWARD
Yes, indeed.
The forester that let the branches lie
Against the wall's to blame for everything,
For that is how the rogues got into the garden.
CATHLEEN
I thought to have escaped misfortune here.
Has any one been killed?
STEWARD
Oh, no, not killed.
They have stolen half a cart-load of green cabbage.
CATHLEEN
But maybe they were starving.
STEWARD
That is certain.
To rob or starve, that was the choice they had.
CATHLEEN
A learned theologian has laid down
That starving men may take what's necessary,
And yet be sinless.
OONA
Sinless and a thief!
There should be broken bottles on the wall.
CATHLEEN
And if it be a sin, while faith's unbroken
God cannot help but pardon. There is no soul
But it's unlike all others in the world,
Nor one but lifts a strangeness to God's love
Till that's grown infinite, and therefore none
Whose loss were less than irremediable