Three Plays: The Fiddler's House, The Land, Thomas Muskerry Part 14

CONN Ah, Maire, there are some that would keep you here.

MAIRE Do you know who would keep me here?

CONN Brian MacConnell is very fond of you.

MAIRE Do you know that, father?

CONN And I know that you are fond of Brian. _(There is no answer)_ That my jewel may have luck and prosperity. _(Goes towards room door, leaving Maire standing there)_ I'll be taking this fiddle, Maire.

MAIRE Oh, are we going on the roads?

CONN To Ardagh, Maire.

MAIRE To Ardagh.

CONN I'll go up now, and make ready.

_He takes candle off table, and goes back towards room door._

MAIRE Oh, what do I know about Brian MacConnell, after all?

CONN Brian is wild, but he is free-handed.

MAIRE Wild and free-handed! Are all men like that? Wild and free-handed! But that's not the sort of man I want to look to now.

CONN That's nothing to Brian's discredit. MAIRE Ah, what do I know about Brian MacConnell, except that he's a man of quarrels and broken words?

_Conn holds up his hand warningly. Brian MacConnell comes to door_.

CONN _(opening half-door)_ You're welcome, Brian.

BRIAN Thank you for the good word, Conn.

_He comes in_.

MAIRE You're welcome, Brian MacConnell.

CONN _(taking candle off dresser)_ I was going up to the room to make ready, but Maire will be glad to speak to you. I knew you wouldn't let us go without wishing us the luck of the road.

_Goes up to room. Maire goes and sits on settle_.

MAIRE Brian MacConnell has come to us again.

BRIAN I'm before you again. Let me tell you what I was doing since I was here last.

MAIRE What were you doing, Brian? Making quarrels, may be?

BRIAN _(startled)_ Why do you say that?

MAIRE I'm thinking that you were doing what would become you, Brian MacConnell, with the free hand and the wild heart.

BRIAN They were telling you about me?

MAIRE I know you, Brian MacConnell.

BRIAN You don't know how I care for you, or you couldn't talk to me like that. Many's the time I left the spade in the ground, and went across the bogs and the rushes, to think of you. You come between me and the work I'd be doing. Ay, and if Heaven opened out before me, you would come between me and Heaven itself.

MAIRE It's easy taking a girl's heart.

BRIAN And I long to have more than walls and a roof to offer you.

I'd have jewels and gold for you. I'd have ships on the sea for you.

MAIRE It's easy to take a girl's heart with the words of a song.

BRIAN I'm building a house for you, Maire. I'm raising it day by day.

MAIRE You left me long by myself.

BRIAN It's often I came to see the light in the window.

MAIRE Brian, my father wants to go back to the roads.

_Brian goes and sits by her_.

BRIAN I know that Conn would like to go back.

MAIRE He wants to go on the roads, to go by himself from place to place.

BRIAN Maybe he has the right to go.

MAIRE He has the right to go. It's the life of a fiddler to be on the roads.

BRIAN But you won't go on the roads.

MAIRE Oh, what am I to do, Brian?

BRIAN Do you think of me at all, Maire?

MAIRE Indeed I think of you. Until to-day I'd neither laugh nor cry but on account of you.

BRIAN I'm building a house, and it will be white and fine, and it's for you that I'm building the house.

MAIRE You're going to ask for my promise.

BRIAN Give me your promise before you go to Ardagh.

_Maire rises_.