Part 7

_Ward:_ I chanced on a starling. It was not with this I tempted him, but a little chap that had him in a crib. Would you say now, Mr. Nestor, would that do as well as a jackdaw? Look now, it's as handsome every bit as the other. And anyway it is likely they will both die before they will reach to their journey's end.

_Nestor:_ (_Lifting up his hands._) Of all the foolishness that ever came upon the world!

_Ward:_ Hurry on now, Mrs. Broderick, tell me where will I bring it to the buyer you were speaking of. He is fluttering that hard it is much if I can keep him in my hand. Is it at Noonan's Royal Hotel he is or is it at Mack's?

_Nestor:_ (_Shaking his head threateningly._) How can you tell that and you not knowing it yourself?

_Ward:_ Sure you have a right to know what way did he go, and he after going out of this.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ (_Her eyes apprehensively on Nestor._) Ah, sure, my mind was tattered on me. I couldn't know did he go east or west. Standing here in this place I was, like a ghost that got a knock upon its head.

_Ward:_ If he is coming back for the bird it is here he will be coming, and if it is to be sent after him it is likely you will have his address.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ So I should, too, I suppose. Where now did I put it? (_She looks to Nestor for orders, but cannot understand his signs, and turns out pocket._) That's my specs ... that's the key of the box ... that's a bit of root liquorice.... Where now at all could I have left down that address?

_Ward:_ There has no train left since he was here. Sure what does it matter so long as he did not go out of this. I'll bring this bird to the railway. Tell me what sort was he till I'll know him.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ (_Still looking at Nestor._) Well, he was middling tall ... not very gross ... about the figure now of Mr. Nestor.

_Ward:_ What aged man was he?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ I suppose up to sixty years. About the one age, you'd say, with Mr. Nestor.

_Ward:_ Give me some better account now; it is hardly I would make him out by that.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ A grey beard he has hanging down ... and a bald poll, and grey hair like a fringe around it ... just for all the world like Mr. Nestor!

_Nestor:_ (_Jumping up._) There is nothing so disagreeable in the whole world as a woman that has too much talk.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Well, let me alone. Where's the use of them all picking at me to say where did I get the money when I am under orders not to tell it?

_Ward:_ Under orders?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ I am, and strong orders.

_Ward:_ Whose orders are those?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ What's that to you, I ask you?

_Ward:_ Isn't it a pity now a woman to be so unneighbourly and she after getting profit for herself?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Look now, Mr. Nestor, the way they are going on at me, and you saying no word for me at all.

_Ward:_ How would he say any word when he hasn't it to say? The only word could be said by any one is that you are a mean grasping person, gathering what you can for your own profit and keeping yourself so close and so compact. It is back to the Court I am going, and it's no good friend I'll be to you from this out, Mrs. Broderick!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Amn't I telling you I was bidden not to tell?

_Sibby:_ You were. And is it likely it was you yourself bid yourself and gave you that advice, Mrs. Broderick? It is what I think the bird was never bought at all. It is in some other way she got the money. Maybe in a way she does not like to be talking of. Light weights, light fingers! Let us go away so and leave her, herself and her money and her orders! (_Timothy Ward goes out, but Sibby stops at door._) And much good may they do her.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Listen to that, Mr. Nestor! Will you be listening to that, when one word from yourself would clear my character! I leave it now between you and the hearers. Why would I be questioned this way and that way, the same as if I was on the green table before the judges? You have my heart broke between you. It's best for me to heat the kettle and wet a drop of tea.

(_Goes to inner room._)

_Sibby:_ Tell us the truth now, Mr. Nestor, if you know anything at all about it.

_Nestor:_ I know everything about it. It was to myself the notes were handed in the first place. I am willing to take my oath to you on that. It was a stranger, I said, came in.

_Sibby:_ I wish I could see him and know him if I did see him.

_Nestor:_ It is likely you would know a man of that sort if you did see him, Sibby Fahy. It is likely you never saw a man yet that owns riches would buy up the half of this town.

_Sibby:_ It is not always them that has the most that makes the most show. But it is likely he will have a good dark suit anyway, and shining boots, and a gold chain hanging over his chest.

_Nestor:_ (_Sarcastically._) He will, and gold rings and pins the same as the King of France or of Spain.

(_Enter Cooney, hatless, streaked with soot and lime, speechless but triumphant. He holds up a nest with nestlings._)

_Nestor:_ What has happened you, Mr. Cooney, at all?

_Cooney:_ Look now, what I have got!

_Nestor:_ A nest, is it?

_Cooney:_ Three young ones in it!

_Nestor:_ (_Faintly._) Is it what you are going to say they are jackdaws!

_Cooney:_ I followed your directions....

_Nestor:_ How do you make that out?

_Caoney:_ You said the mill chimneys were full of them....

_Nestor:_ What has that to do with it?

_Cooney:_ I left my rake after me broken in the loft ... my hat went away in the millrace ... I tore my coat on the stones ... there has mortar got into my eye....

_Nestor:_ The Lord bless and save us!

_Cooney:_ But there is no man can say I did not bring back the birds, sound and living and in good health. Look now, the open mouths of them! (_All gather round_.) Three of them safe and living.... I lost one climbing the wall. ... Where now is the man is going to buy them?

_Sibby:_ (_Pointing at Nestor._) It is he that can tell you that.

_Cooney:_ Make no delay bringing me to him. I'm in dread they might die on me first.

_Nestor:_ You should know well that no one is buying them.

_Sibby:_ No one! Sure it was you yourself told us that there was!

_Nestor:_ If I did itself there is no such a man.

_Sibby:_ It's not above two minutes he was telling of the rings and the pins he wore.

_Nestor:_ He never was in it at all.

_Cooney:_ What plan is he making up now to defraud me and to rob me?

_Sibby:_ Question him yourself, and you will see what will he say.

_Cooney:_ How can I ask questions of a man that is telling lies?

_Nestor:_ I am telling no lies. I am well able to answer you and to tell you the truth.

_Cooney:_ Tell me where is the man that will give me cash for these birds, the same as he gave it to the woman of this house?

_Sibby:_ That's it, that is it. Let him tell it out now.

_Cooney:_ Will you have me ask it as often as the hairs of my head? If I get vexed I will make you answer me.

_Nestor:_ It seems to me to have set fire to a rick, but I am well able to quench it after. There is no man in South Africa, or that came from South Africa, or that ever owned a mine there at all. Where is the man bought the bird, are you asking? There he is standing among us on this floor. (_Points to Cooney._) That is himself, the very man!

_Cooney:_ (_Advancing a step._) What is that you are saying?

_Nestor:_ I say that no one came in here but yourself.

_Cooney:_ Did he say or not say there was a rich man came in?

_Sibby:_ He did, surely.

_Nestor:_ To make up a plan....

_Cooney:_ I know well you have made up a plan.

_Nestor:_ To give it unknownst....

_Cooney:_ It is to keep it unknownst you are wanting!

_Nestor:_ The way she would not suspect....

_Cooney:_ It is I myself suspect and have cause to suspect! Give me back my own ten pounds and I'll be satisfied.

_Nestor:_ What way can I give it back?

_Cooney:_ The same way as you took it, in the palm of your hand.

_Nestor:_ Sure it is paid away and spent....

_Cooney:_ If it is you'll repay it! I know as well as if I was inside you you are striving to make me your prey! But I'll sober you! It is into the Court I will drag you, and as far as the gaol!

_Nestor:_ I tell you I gave it to the widow woman....

(_Mrs. Broderick comes in._)

_Cooney:_ Let her say now did you.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ What is it at all? What is happening? Joseph Nestor threatened by a tinker or a tramp!

_Nestor:_ I would think better of his behaviour if he was a tinker or a tramp.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ He has drink taken so. Isn't drink the terrible tempter, a man to see flames and punishment upon the one side and drink upon the other, and to turn his face towards the drink!

_Cooney:_ Will you stop your chat, Mary Broderick, till I will drag the truth out of this traitor?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Who is that calling me by my name? Och! Is it Michael Cooney is in it? Michael Cooney, my brother! O Michael, what will they think of you coming into the town and much like a rag on a stick would be scaring in the wheatfield through the day?

_Cooney:_ (_Pointing at Nestor._) It was going up in the mill I destroyed myself, following the directions of that ruffian!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ And what call has a man that has drink taken to go climbing up a loft in a mill? A crooked mind you had always, and that's a sort of person drink doesn't suit.

_Cooney:_ I tell you I didn't take a glass over a counter this ten year.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ You would do well to go learn behaviour from Mr. Nestor.

_Cooney:_ The man that has me plundered and robbed! Tell me this now, if you can tell it. Did you find any pound notes in "Old Moore's Almanac"?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ I did not to be sure, or in any other place.

_Nestor:_ She came in at the door and I striving to put them into the book.

_Cooney:_ Look are they in it now, and I will say he is not tricky, but honest.

_Nestor:_ You needn't be looking....

_Mrs. Broderick:_ (_Turning over the leaves._) Ne'er a thing at all in it but the things that will or will not happen, and the days of the changes of the moon.

_Cooney:_ (_Seizing and shaking it._) Look at that now! (_To Nestor._) Will you believe me now telling you that you are a rogue?

_Nestor:_ Will you listen to me, ma'am....

_Cooney:_ No, but listen to myself. I brought the money to you.

_Nestor:_ If he did he wouldn't trust you with it, ma'am.

_Cooney:_ I intended it for your relief.

_Nestor:_ In dread he was you would go follow him to Limerick.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ It is not likely I would be following the like of him to Limerick, a man that left me to the charity of strangers from Africa!

_Cooney:_ I gave the money to him....

_Nestor:_ And I gave it to yourself paying for the jackdaw. Are you satisfied now, Mary Broderick?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Satisfied, is it? It would be a queer thing indeed I to be satisfied. My brother to be spending money on birds, and his sister with a summons on her head. Michael Cooney to be passing himself off as a mine-owner, and I myself being the way I am!

_Cooney:_ What would I want doing that? I tell you I ask no birds, black, blue or white!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ I wonder at you now saying that, and you with that clutch on your arm! (_Cooney indignantly flings away nest._) Searching out jackdaws and his sister without the price of a needle in the house! I tell you, Michael Cooney, it is yourself will be wandering after your burying, naked and perishing, through winds and through frosts, in satisfaction for the way you went wasting your money and your means on such vanities, and she that was reared on the one floor with you going knocking at the Workhouse door! What good will jackdaws be to you that time?

_Cooney:_ It is what I would wish to know, what scheme are the whole of you at? It is long till I will trust any one but my own eyes again in the whole of the living world.

(_She wipes her eyes indignantly. Tommy Nally rushes in the bird and cage still in his hands._)

_Nally:_ Where is the bird buyer? It is here he is said to be. It is well for me get here the first. It is the whole of the town will be here within half an hour; they have put a great scatter on themselves hunting and searching in every place, but I am the first!

_Nestor:_ What is it you are talking about?

_Nally:_ Not a house in the whole street but is deserted. It is much if the Magistrates themselves didn't quit the bench for the pursuit, the way Tim Ward quitted the place he had a right to be!

_Nestor:_ It is some curse in the air, or some scourge?

_Nally:_ Birds they are getting by the score! Old and young! Where is the bird-buyer? Who is it now will give me my price?

(_He holds up the cage._)

_Cooney:_ There is surely some root for all this. There must be some buyer after all. It's to keep him to themselves they are wanting. (_Goes to door._) But I'll get my own profit in spite of them.

(_He goes outside door, looking up and down the street._)

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Look at what Tommy Nally has. That's my bird.

_Nally:_ It is not, it's my own!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ That is my cage!

_Nally:_ It is not, it is mine!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Wouldn't I know my own cage and my own bird? Don't be telling lies that way!

_Nally:_ It is no lie I am telling. The bird and the cage were made a present to me.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Who would make a present to you of the things that belong to myself?

_Nally:_ It was Mr. Nestor gave them to me.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Do you hear what he says, Joseph Nestor? What call have you to be giving a present of my bird?

_Nestor:_ And wasn't I after buying it from you?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ If you were it was not for yourself you bought it, but for the poor man in South Africa you bought it, and you defrauding him now, giving it away to a man has no claim to it at all. Well, now, isn't it hard for any man to find a person he can trust?

_Nestor:_ Didn't you hear me saying I bought it for no person at all?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Give it up now, Tommy Nally, or I'll have you in gaol on the head of it.

_Nally:_ Oh, you wouldn't do such a thing, ma'am, I am sure!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Indeed and I will, and have you on the treadmill for a thief.

_Nally:_ Oh, oh, oh, look now, Mr. Nestor, the way you have made me a thief and to be lodged in the gaol!

_Nestor:_ I wish to God you were lodged in it, and we would have less annoyance in this place!

_Nally:_ Oh, that is a terrible thing for you to be saying! Sure the poorhouse itself is better than the gaol! The nuns preparing you for heaven and the Mass every morning of your life....

_Nestor:_ If you go on with your talk and your arguments it's to gaol you will surely go.

_Nally:_ Milk of a Wednesday and a Friday, the potatoes steamed very good.... It's the skins of the potatoes they were telling me you do have to be eating in the gaol. It is what I am thinking, Mr. Nestor, that bird will lie heavy on you at the last!

_Nestor:_ (_Seizing cage and letting the bird out of the door._) Bad cess and a bad end to it, and that I may never see it or hear of it again!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Look what he is after doing! Get it back for me! Give it here into my hands I say! Why wouldn't I sell it secondly to the buyer and he to be coming to the door? It is in my own pocket I will keep the price of it that time!

_Nally:_ It would have been as good you to have left it with me as to be sending itself and the worth of it up into the skies!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ (_Taking Nestor's arm._) Get it back for me I tell you! There it is above in the ash tree, and it flapping its wings on a bough!

_Nestor:_ Give me the cage, if that will content you, and I will strive to entice it to come in.

_Cooney:_ (_Coming in._) Everyone running this way and that way. It is for birds they are looking sure enough. Why now would they go through such hardship if there was not a demand in some place?

_Nestor:_ (_Pushing him away._) Let me go now before that bird will quit the branch where it is.

_Cooney:_ (_Seizing hold of him._) Is it striving to catch a bird for yourself you are now?

_Nestor:_ Let me pass if you please. I have nothing to say to you at all.

_Cooney:_ Laying down to me they were worth nothing! I knew well you had made up some plan! The grand adviser is it! It is to yourself you gave good advice that time!

_Nestor:_ Let me out I tell you before that uproar you are making will drive it from its perch on the tree.

_Cooney:_ Is it to rob me of my own money you did and to be keeping me out of the money I earned along with it!

(_Threatens Nestor with "Moore's Almanac," which he has picked up._)

_Sibby:_ Take care would there be murder done in this place!

(_She seizes Nestor, Mrs. Broderick seizes Cooney. Tommy Nally wrings his hands._)

_Nestor:_ Tommy Nally, will you kindly go and call for the police.

_Cooney:_ Is it into a den of wild beasts I am come that must go calling out for the police?

_Nestor:_ A very unmannerly person indeed!

_Cooney:_ Everyone thinking to take advantage of me and to make their own trap for my ruin.

_Nestor:_ I don't know what cause has he at all to have taken any umbrage against me.

_Cooney:_ You that had your eye on my notes from the first like a goat in a cabbage garden!

_Nestor:_ Coming with a gift in the one hand and holding a dagger in the other!

_Cooney:_ If you say that again I will break your collar bone!

_Nestor:_ O, but you are the terrible wicked man!

_Cooney:_ I'll squeeze satisfaction out of you if I had to hang for it! I will be well satisfied if I'll kill you!

(_Flings "Moore's Almanac" at him._)

_Nestor:_ (_Throwing his bundle of newspapers._) Oh, good jewel!

_Ward:_ (_Coming in hastily._) Whist the whole of you, I tell you! The Magistrates are coming to the door! (_Comes in and shuts it after him._)

_Mrs. Broderick:_ The Lord be between us and harm! What made them go quit the Court?

_Ward:_ The whole of the witnesses and of the prosecution made off bird-catching. The Magistrates sent to invite the great mine-owner to go lunch at Noonan's with themselves.

_Cooney:_ Horses of their own to stick him with they have. I wouldn't doubt them at all.

_Ward:_ He could not be found in any place. They are informed he was never seen leaving this house. They are coming to make an investigation.

_Nestor:_ Don't be anyway uneasy. I will explain the whole case.

_Ward:_ The police along with them....

_Cooney:_ Is the whole of this district turned into a trap?

_Ward:_ It is what they are thinking, that the stranger was made away with for his gold!

_Cooney:_ And if he was, as sure as you are living, it was done by that blackguard there!

(_Points at Nestor._)

_Ward:_ If he is not found they will arrest all they see upon the premises....

_Cooney:_ It is best for me to quit this.

(_Goes to door._)

_Ward:_ Here they are at the door. Sergeant Carden along with them. Hide yourself, Mr. Nestor, if you've anyway to do it at all.

(_Sounds of feet and talking and knock at the door. Cooney hides under counter. Nestor lies down on top of bench, spreads his newspaper over him. Mrs. Broderick goes behind counter._)

_Nestor:_ (_Raising paper from his face and looking out._) Tommy Nally, I will give you five shillings if you will draw "Tit-Bits" over my feet.

_Curtain_

THE WORKHOUSE WARD

PERSONS

_Mike McInerney_ } PAUPERS _Michael Miskell_ } _Mrs. Donohoe_, A COUNTRYWOMAN

THE WORKHOUSE WARD

_Scene: A ward in Cloon Workhouse. The two old men in their beds._

_Michael Miskell:_ Isn't it a hard case, Mike McInerney, myself and yourself to be left here in the bed, and it the feast day of Saint Colman, and the rest of the ward attending on the Mass.

_Mike McInerney:_ Is it sitting up by the hearth you are wishful to be, Michael Miskell, with cold in the shoulders and with speckled shins? Let you rise up so, and you well able to do it, not like myself that has pains the same as tin-tacks within in my inside.

_Michael Miskell:_ If you have pains within in your inside there is no one can see it or know of it the way they can see my own knees that are swelled up with the rheumatism, and my hands that are twisted in ridges the same as an old cabbage stalk. It is easy to be talking about soreness and about pains, and they maybe not to be in it at all.

_Mike McInerney:_ To open me and to analyse me you would know what sort of a pain and a soreness I have in my heart and in my chest. But I'm not one like yourself to be cursing and praying and tormenting the time the nuns are at hand, thinking to get a bigger share than myself of the nourishment and of the milk.

_Michael Miskell:_ That's the way you do be picking at me and faulting me. I had a share and a good share in my early time, and it's well you know that, and the both of us reared in Skehanagh.