Poets and Dreamers Part 18

'So he hurried back home with the bottle, and set it on the table and drew the cork, and the children were waiting round the table for the good dinner they would have. But when the bottle was opened, two men came out with blackthorns in their hands, and they began to beat the farmer and his wife and all about them; and it was blows the poor children got in place of food.

'Well, as soon as the men went into the bottle again, the farmer put in the cork, and he went away to the landlord's house. And there was a great ball going on there; and the farmer asked could he see the landlord.

'So he came down to him, and the farmer said he had got a new bottle, and that maybe the ladies and gentlemen would like to see all it would do. So the landlord agreed, and brought him up to the ballroom, and he put down the bottle and opened the cork. And when it was open, the two men came out with their blackthorns, and they began to hit at the ladies and gentlemen near them, and to beat them, till they ran to hide in every corner. And the landlord called out for them to stop, but the farmer said they would not till he would get his own bottle again.

'So they gave it to him then, and he went home bringing the two bottles with him. And he lived in plenty ever after till he died.

'But someway at his wake, with all that was going on there, the two bottles got broken, or if they did not they were lost.'

Then another said: 'There was a servant-girl left to mind her master's house one time. And she heard a noise below the window, and she opened it to look out. And she saw the hand of a man on the window ledge, that was climbing up to rob the house. And when he put his hand up, she took a little hatchet she had and cut his hand off.

'The same thing happened with another man and another after him again, till she had killed six. But when she was striking at the seventh, he drew back, and all she cut off was his finger.

'When the master came back, she got great praise and great reward, so that she had plenty of money. And one day a man came to ask her in marriage; and she did not know him to be the robber that escaped, and she married him.

'But after a while he brought her out through the fields to where there was a little bridge over the river. And when they got to it, he told her he was the man she had cut the finger off, and that he had brought her there to kill her.

'"Give me time to say my prayers first," she said. So he gave her time for that, and she knelt down; and presently she turned round and he was on the bridge beside her, and she gave him a push into the water. And that was the end of the seventh of the robbers.

'And then she went home again. That's my story.'

And then the old man, whose brother has fought for the king, and hasn't sent him anything, said:

'Peace is made. That's my story. Will you give me tobacco for that?'

But this being the last day, they all had tobacco--story-tellers and all.

And here is the last story: 'There was a steward one time in the employment of a gentleman; and he was a good, honourable man. And he used to make the Sunday begin at twelve o'clock on Sat.u.r.day; and to ring the bell then for the workmen to go home.

'He got sick at last, and his death was drawing near; and he asked one request of his master, and that was, that after his death he would put his body on a car, but not direct it anywhere; but to let it go what way the horse would bring it.

'So the master did that; and they put the body on a car, and the carman went along with it; but he did not direct the horse, but let it go what way it liked.

'And it went on a long way; and then they came to a path that was all full of spearheads sticking up through the ground. But the horse went on; and wherever it went, the spearheads would sink away before it.

'They came at last to a house, and the horse stopped at the door; and the people of the house came out and brought in the body; and the carman went along with it, and he lay down and slept awhile.

'And when he rose up, he said he would go back to his friends. But the people of the house said: "You can go back if you like, but you will find none of your friends before you; for your sleep has lasted for seven hundred years."

'So he went back; and there was nothing but gra.s.s and bushes in the village he came from. And he knelt down and made his repentance; and he was let up to heaven for the sake of the steward that was so good, and that made the Sunday begin at noon on Sat.u.r.day.'

1902.

ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

Just where the road that runs by the bay turns northward to run by the Atlantic, a few white houses on either side turn it for a moment into a street. The grey road was not all grey yesterday, in spite of stones, and sea, and clouds, and a mist that blotted out the hills; for July had edged it with yellow rag-weed, the horses of the Sidhe, and with purple heather; and besides the tireless turf-laden donkeys, there were men in white and women in crimson flannel going towards the village. One woman sitting in a donkey-cart was chanting a song in Irish about a voyage across the sea; and when someone asked her if she was to try for a prize at the _Feis_, the Irish festival going on in the village, she only answered that she was 'lonesome after the old times.'

At the _Feis_, in the white schoolhouse, some boys and girls from schools and convents at the 'big town' many miles away were singing; and now and then a little bare-footed boy from close by would go up on the platform and sing the _Paistin Fionn_, or _Is truag gan Peata_. People from the scattered houses and villages about had gathered to listen; some had come in turf-boats from Aran, Irish-speakers, proud to show that the language that has been called dead has never died; and glad at the new life that is coming into it. Men in loose flannel-jackets sang old songs, many sad ones, but not all; for one that was addressed to a mother, who had broken off her daughter's marriage with the maker of the song, turned more to anger than to grief; and there was the love song, 'Courteous Bridget,' made perhaps a hundred years ago, by wandering Raftery.

A woman with madder-dyed petticoat sang the lament of an emigrant going across the great sea, telling how she got up at daybreak to look at the places she was going to leave, Ballinrobe and the rest; and how she envied the birds that were free of the air, and the beasts that were free of the mountain, and were not forced to go away. Another song that was sung was the Jacobite one, with the refrain that has been put into English--'Seaghan O'Dwyer a Gleanna, we're worsted in the game!'

Some poems were repeated also: Raftery's 'Argument with whiskey,' in which he puts the joys and sorrows of its lovers only too impartially.

Another 'Argument' was between two men, herds, I think; each counting up the virtues of his own province, Connaught or Munster. An old man gave a long poem, a recital of Bible history; but the judges rang their bell when he had got to the parable of the Prodigal Son, and was telling how 'the poor foolish boy went away from his home and from his father to some far country'; and he left the platform saying indignantly: 'You might have left me time to bring him back again.' And there was a poem on 'The rising again of Ireland,' telling how, when she has risen, 'ships will be coming to her from France and from Spain, and from all the countries; and there will be no rent on the land; and every poet will be given a fee of twenty-one pounds.'

In the evening there were people waiting round the door to hear the songs and the pipes again. An old man among them was speaking with many gestures, his voice rising, and a crowd gathering about him. '_Tha se beo, tha se beo_'--'he is living, he is living,' I heard him say over and over again. I asked what he was saying, and was told: 'He says that Parnell is alive yet.' I was pushed away from him by the crowd to where a policeman was looking on. 'He says that Parnell is alive still,' I said. 'There are many say that,' he answered. 'And, after all, no one ever saw the body that was buried.'

The rising again of Ireland, of her old speech, of her last leader, dreams all, as we are told. But here, on the edge of the world, dreams are real things, and every heart is watching for the opening of one or another grave.

_AN CRAOIBHIN'S_ PLAYS

I hold that the beginning of modern Irish drama was in the winter of 1898, at a school feast at Coole, when Douglas Hyde and Miss Norma Borthwick acted in Irish in a Punch and Judy show; and the delighted children went back to tell their parents what grand curses _An Craoibhin_ had put on the baby and the policeman.

A little time after that, when a play was wanted for our Literary Theatre, Dr. Hyde wrote, and then acted in, 'The Twisting of the Rope,'

the first Irish play ever given in a Dublin theatre.

It has been acted many times since then, in Dublin, in London, in Galway, in Galway Workhouse, in Cornamona, Ballaghaderreen, Ballymoe, and other places. It has always given great delight, and its success is very natural; for the Irish-speakers, who are its audience, have an inborn love of drama, as is shown by their handing down of such long dramatic dialogues as those between Oisin and St. Patrick, from century to century. At country gatherings, those old dialogues, and the newer ones between Death and Raftery, or between the farmers of two provinces, are followed with a patient joy; and the creation of acting plays is the natural outcome of this living tradition. And Douglas Hyde's dramas grow directly from the folk-memory. The tradition and the beautiful old air, and the song of 'The Twisting of the Rope,' are very well known:--

'What was the dead cat that put me in this place, And all the pretty young girls I left after me?

I came into the house where was the bright love of my heart, And the old hag put me out by the Twisting of the Rope.

'If you are mine, be mine by day and by night; If you are mine, be mine before the world; If you are mine, be mine with every inch of your heart; It is my grief you are not with me as a wife this evening.

'It is down in Sligo I got knowledge of my love; It is up in Galway I drank my fill with her.

By the strength of my hands, if they do not leave me as I am, I will do a trick will set these women walking.'

Mr. Yeats made Red Hanrahan the hero of this song in a story in 'The Secret Rose'; and it is Hanrahan Douglas Hyde has kept in the play, with his pa.s.sion, his exaggerations, his wheedling tongue, his roving heart, that all but coax the girl from her mother and her sweetheart; but that fail after all in their attack on the settled order of things, and leave their owner homeless and restless, and angry and chiding, like the stormy west wind outside the door.

'The Marriage' is founded on the story of Raftery at the poor wedding at Cappaghtagle. It was acted in Galway, at the _Feis_, last summer. There had been some delay or misunderstanding in the giving of parts; and on the morning of the _Feis_, it was announced that the play would not be given. But the disappointment was so great, that we all begged _An Craoibhin_ to take the chief part himself, as he had done in 'The Twisting of the Rope'; and when his kindness made him agree to this, we went in search of the other players. They were all at work in shops or stores, one wheeling sacks on a barrow; and it was a busy market-day, and it was hard for them to get away for a rehearsal. But, for all that, the play was given in the evening; in the very town where some still remember Raftery, and where he and Death had their first talk together.

It will be hard to forget the blind poet, as he was represented on the stage by the living poet, so full of kindly humour, of humorous malice, of dignity under his poor clothing, or the wistful, ghostly sigh with which he went out of the door at the end. 'Is fear marbh do bhi ann'--'It is a dead man was in it.'

It has been acted in Dublin since then; and many places are asking for the loan of the one ma.n.u.script in which it exists; but I am glad Connacht had it first.

'The Lost Saint' was written last summer. _An Craoibhin_ was staying with us at Coole; and one morning I went for a long drive to the sea, leaving him with a bundle of blank paper before him. When I came back at evening, I was told that Dr. Hyde had finished his play, and was out shooting wild duck. The hymn, however, was not quite ready, and was put into rhyme next day, while he was again watching for wild duck beside Inchy marsh.