Three Wonder Plays

ACT III Scene: The Same. Princess and Nurse . Nurse : Cheer up now, my honey bird, and don't be fretting. Princess : It is not easy to quit fretting, and the terrible story you are after telling me of all that is before and all that is behind me. Nurse : They had no right at all to go make you aware of it. The Queen has too much talk. An unlucky stepmother she is to you! Princess : It is well for me she is here. It is well I am told the truth, where the whole of you were treating me like a child without sense, so giddy I was and contrary, and petted and humoured by the whole of you. What memory would there be left of me and my little life gone by, but of a headstrong, unruly child with no thought but for myself. Nurse : No, but the best in the world, you are; there is no one seeing you pass by but would love you. Princess : That is not so. I was wild and taking my own way, mocking and humbugging. Nurse : I never will give in that there is no way to save you from that Dragon that is foretold to be your destruction. I would give the four divisions of the world, and Ireland along with them, if I could see you pelting your ball in at the window the same as an hour ago! Princess : Maybe you will, so long as it will hurt nobody. Nurse : Ah, sure it's no wonder there to be the tracks of tears upon your face, and that great terror before you. Princess : I will wipe them away! I will not give in to danger or to dragons! No one will see a dark face on me. I am a king's daughter of Ireland, I did not come out of a herd's hut like Deirdre that went sighing and lamenting till she was put to death, the world being sick and tired of her complaints, and her finger at her eye dripping tears! Nurse : That's right, now. You had always great courage. Princess : There is like a change within me. You never will hear a cross word from me again. I would wish to be pleasant and peaceable until such time ... (Puts handkerchief to eyes and goes.) Dall Glic: (Coming in.) The King is greatly put out with all he went through, and the way the passion rose in him a while ago. Nurse : That he may be twenty times worse before he is better! Showing such fury towards the innocent child the way he did! Dall Glic : The Queen has brought him to the grass plot for to give him his exercise, walking his seven steps east and west. Nurse : Hasn't she great power over him to make him to that much? Dall Glic : I tell you I am in dread of her myself. Some plan she has for making my two eyes equal. I vexed her someway, and she got queer and humpy, and put a lip on herself, and said she would take me in hand. I declare I never will have a minute's ease thinking of it. Nurse : The King should have done his seven steps, for I hear her coming. (Dall Glic goes to recess of window.) Queen: (Coming in.) Did you, Nurse, ever at any time turn and dress a dinner? Nurse: (Very stiff.) Indeed I never did. Any house I ever was in there was a good kitchen and well attended, the Lord be praised! Queen : Ah, but just to be kind and to oblige the King. Nurse : Troth, the same King will wait long till he'll see any dish I will ready for him! I am not one that was reared between the flags and the oven in the corner of the one room! To be a nurse to King's children is my trade, and not to go stirring mashes, for hens or for humans! Queen : I heard a crafty woman lay down one time there was no way to hold a man, only by food and flattery. Nurse : Sure any mother of children walking the road could tell you that much. Queen : I went maybe too far urging him not to lessen so much food the way he did. I only thought to befriend him. But now he is someway upset and nothing will rightly smooth him but to be thinking upon his next meal; and what it will be I don't know, unless the berries of the bush. Dall Glic: (Leaning out of the window.) Here! Hi! Come this way! Queen : Who are you calling to? Dall Glic : It is someone with the appearance of a cook. Queen : Are you saying it is a cook? That now will put the King in great humour! (Manus appears at the window.) Nurse: (Looking at him.) I wouldn't hardly think he'd suit. He has a sort of innocent look. I wouldn't say him to be a country lad. I don't know is he fitted to go readying meals for a royal family, and the King so wrathful if they do not please him as he is. And as to the Princess Nu! There to be the size of a hayseed of fat overhead on her broth, she'd fall in a dead faint. Manus : I'll go on so. Queen : No, no. Bring him in till I'll take a look at him! Manus: (Coming inside.) I am a lad in search of a master. Manus: (Inside.) I am a lad in search of a master. Queen : And I myself that am wanting a cook. Manus : I got word of that and I going the road. Queen : You would seem to be but a young lad. Manus : I am not very far in age to-day. But I'll be a day older to-morrow. Queen : In what country were you born and reared? Manus : I came from over, and I am coming hither. Queen : What wages now would you be asking? Manus : Nothing at all unless what you think I will have earned at the time I will be leaving your service. Queen : That is very right and fair. I hope you will not be asking too much help. The last cook had a whole fleet of scullions that were no use but to chatter and consume. Manus : I am asking no help at all but the help of the ten I bring with me. (Holds up fingers.) Queen : That will be a great saving in the house! Can I depend upon you now not to be turning to your own use the King's ale and his wine? Manus : If you take me to be a thief I will go upon my road. It was no easier for me to come than to go out again. Queen: (Holding him.) No, now, don't be so proud and thinking so much of yourself. If I give you trial here I would wish you to be ready to turn your hand to this and that, and not be saying it is or is not your business. Manus : My business is to do as the King wishes. Queen : That's right. That is the way the servants were in the palace of the King of Alban. Manus : That's the way I was myself in the King's house of Sorcha. Queen : Are you saying it is from that place you are come? Sure that should be a great household! The King of Sorcha, they were telling me, has seven castles on land and seven on the sea, and provision for a year and a day in every one of them. Manus : That might be. I never was in more than one of them at the one time. Queen : Anyone that has been in that place would surely be fitting here. Keep him, Nurse! Don't let him make away from us till I will go call the King! (Goes out.) Nurse : Sure it was I myself that fostered the young King of Sorcha and reared him in my lap! What way is he at all? My lovely child! Give me news of him! Manus : I will do that.... Nurse : To hear of him would delight me! Manus : It is I that can tell you.... Nurse : It is himself should be a grand king! Manus : Listen till you hear!... Nurse : His father was good and his mother was good, and it's likely, himself will be the best of all! Manus : Be quiet now and hearken!... Nurse : I remember well the first day I saw him in the cradle, two and a score of years back! Oh, it is glad, and very glad, I'll be to get word of him! Manus : He is come to sensible years.... Nurse : A golden cradle it was and it standing on four golden balls the very round of the sun! Manus : He is out of his cradle now. (Shakes her shoulder.) Let you hearken! He is in need of your help. Nurse : He'll get it, he'll get it. I doted down on that child! The best to laugh and to roar! Manus: (Putting hand on her mouth.) Will you be silent, you hag of a nurse? Can't you see that I myself am Manus, the new King of Sorcha? Nurse: (Starting back.) Do you say that? And how's every bit of you? Sure I'd know you in any place. Stand back till I'll get the full of my eyes of you! Like the father you are, and you need never be sorry to be that! Well, I said to myself and you looking in at the window, I would not believe but there's some drop of king's blood in that lad! Manus : That was not what you said to me! Nurse : And wasn't the journey long on you from Sorcha, that is at the rising of the sun? Is it your foot-soldiers and your bullies you brought with you, or did you come with your hound and your deer-hound and with your horn? Manus : There was no one knew of my journey. I came bare alone. I threw a shell in the sea and made a boat of it, and took the track of the wild duck across the mountains of the waves. Nurse : And where in the world wide did you get that dress of a cook? Manus : It was at a tailor's place near Oughtmana. There was no one in the house but the mother. I left my own clothes in her charge and my purse of gold; I brought nothing but my own blue sword. (Throws open blouse and shows it.) She gave me this suit, where a cook from this house had thrown it down in payment for a drink of milk. I have no mind any person should know I am a king. I am letting on to be a cook. Nurse : I would sooner you to come as a champion seeking battle, or a horseman that had gone astray, or so far as a poet making praises or curses according to his treatment on the road. It would be a bad day I would see your father's son taken for a kitchen boy. Manus : I was through the world last night in a dream. It was dreamed to me that the King's daughter in this house is in a great danger. Nurse : So she is, at the end of a twelvemonth. Manus : My warning was for this day. Seeing her under trouble in my dream, my heart was hot to come to her help. I am here to save her, to meet every troublesome thing that will come at her. Nurse : Oh, my heavy blessing on you doing that! Manus : I was not willing to come as a king, that she would feel tied and bound to live for if I live, or to die with if I should die. I am come as a poor unknown man, that may slip away after the fight, to my own kingdom or across the borders of the world, and no thanks given him and no more about him, but a memory of the shadow of a cook! Nurse : I would not think that to be right, and you the last of your race. It is best for you to tell the King. Manus : I lay my orders on you to tell no one at all. Nurse : Give me leave but to whisper it to the Princess Nu. It's ye would be the finest two the world ever saw. You will not find her equal in all Ireland! Manus : I lay it as crosses and as spells on you to say no word to her or to any other that will make known my race or my name. Give me now your oath. Nurse: (Kneeling.) I do, I do. But they will know you by your high looks. Manus : Did you yourself know me a while ago? Nurse: (Getting up.) Oh, they're coming! Oh, my poor child, what way will you that never handled a spit be able to make out a dinner for the King? Manus : This silver whistle, that was her pipe of music, was given to me by a queen among the Sidhe that is my godmother. At the sound of it that will come through the air any earthly thing I wish for, at my command. Nurse : Let it be a dinner so. Manus : So it will come, on a green tablecloth carried by four swans as white as snow. The freshest of every meat, the oldest of every drink, nuts from the trees in Adam's Paradise! (King, Queen, Princess, Dall Glic come in. Princess sits on window sill.) Queen: (To King.) Here now, my dear. Wasn't I telling you I would take all trouble from your mind, and that I would not be without finding a cook for you? King : He came in a good hour. The want of a right dinner has downed kingdoms before this. Queen : Travelling he is in search of service from the kings of the earth. His wages are in no way out of measure. King : Is he a good hand at his trade? Queen : Honest he is, I believe, and ready to give a hand here and there. King : What way does he handle flesh, I'd wish to know? And all that comes up from the tide? Bream, now; that is a fish is very pleasant to me— stewed or fried with butter till the bones of it melt in your mouth. There is nothing in sea or strand but is the better of a quality cook—only oysters, that are best left alone, being as they are all gravy and fat. Queen : I didn't question him yet about cookery. King : It's seldom I met a woman with right respect for food, but for show and silly dishes and trash that would leave you in the finish as dwindled as a badger on St. Bridget's day. Queen : If this youth of a young man was able to give satisfaction at the King of Sorcha's Court, I am sure that he will make a dinner to please yourself. Manus : I will do more than that. I will dress a dinner that will please my self. Princess: (Clapping hands.) Very well said! King : Sound out now some good dishes such as you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the Queen will put them down in a line of writing, that I can be thinking about them till such time as you will have them readied. Queen : There are sheeps' trotters below; you might know some tasty way to dress them. Manus : I do surely. I'll put the trotters within a fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and the goose in a suckling pig, and the suckling pig in a fat lamb, and the lamb in a calf, and the calf in a Maderalla ... King : What now is a Maderalla? Manus : He is a beast that saves the cook trouble, swallowing all those meats one after another—in Sorcha. King : That should be a very pretty dish. Let you go make a start with it the way we will not be famished before nightfall. Bring him, Dall Glic, to the larder. Dall Glic : I'm in dread it's as good for him to stop where he is. King : What are you saying? Dall Glic : Those lads of apprentices that left nothing in it only bare hooks. Nurse : It is the Queen would give no leave for more provision to come in, saying there was no one to prepare it. Manus : If that is so, I will be forced to lay my orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and the Brown Otter of the Stream to bring in meat at my bidding. King : Hurry on so. Queen : I myself will go and give you instructions what way to use the kitchen. Manus : Not at all! What I do I'd as lief do in your own royal parlour! (Blows whistle; two dark-skinned men come in with vessels.) Give me here those pots and pans! Queen : What now is about to take place? Dall Glic : I not to be blind, I would say those to be very foreign-looking men. King : It would seem as if the world was grown to be very queer. Queen : So it is, and the mastery being given to a cook. Manus : So it should be too! It is the King of Shades and Shadows would have rule over the world if it wasn't for the cooks! King : There's some sense in that now. (Strange men are moving and arranging baskets and vessels.) Manus : There was respect for cooks in the early days of the world. What way did the Sons of Tuireann get their death but going questing after a cooking spit at the bidding of Lugh of the Long Hand! And if a spit was worthy of the death of heroes, what should the man be worth that is skilled in turning it? What is the difference between man and beast? Beast and bird devour what they find and have no power to change it. But we are Druids of those mysteries, having magic and virtue to turn hard grain to tender cakes, and the very skin of a grunting pig to crackling causing quarrels among champions, and it singing upon the coals. A cook! If I am I am not without good generations before me! Who was the first old father of us, roasting and reddening the fruits of the earth from hard to soft, from bitter to kind, till they are fit for a lady's platter? What is it leaves us in the hard cold of Christmas but the robbery from earth of warmth for the kitchen fire of (takes off cap) the first and foremost of all master cooks—the Sun! Princess : You are surely not ashamed of your trade! Manus : To work now, to work. I'll engage to turn out a dinner fit for Pharaoh of Egypt or Pharamond King of the Franks! Here, Queen, is a silver-breast phoenix—draw out the feathers— they are pure silver—fair and clean. (Queen plucks eagerly.) King, take your golden sceptre and stir this pot. (Gives him one.) King: (Interested.) What now is in it? Manus : A broth that will rise over the side and be consumed and split if you stop stirring it for one minute only! (King stirs furiously.) Princess (She is looking on and he goes over to her) , there are honey cakes to roll out, but I will not ask you to do it in dread that you might spoil the whiteness ... Princess : I have no mind to do it. Manus : Of the flour! Princess : Give them here. (Rolls them out indignantly.) Manus : That is right. Take care, King, would the froth swell over the brim. Princess : It seems to me you are doing but little yourself. Manus : I will turn now and ... boil these eggs. (Takes some on a plate; they roll off.) Princess : You have broken them. Manus: (Disconcerted.) It was to show you a good trick, how to make them sit up on the narrow end. Princess : That is an old trick in the world. Manus : Every trick is an old one, but with a change of players, a change of dress, it comes out as new as before. Princess (speaks low) , I have a message to give you and a pardon to ask. Princess : Give me out the message. Manus : Take courage and keep courage through this day. Do not let your heart fail. There is help beside you. Princess : It has been a troublesome day indeed. But there is a worse one and a great danger before me in the far away. Manus : That danger will come to-day, the message said in the dream. Princess, I have a pardon to ask you. I have been playing vanities. I think I have wronged you doing this. It was surely through no want of respect. Gatekeeper: (Coming in.) There is word come from Ballyvelehan there is a coach and horses facing for this place over from Oughtmana. Queen : Who would that be? Gatekeeper : Up on the hill a woman was, brought word it must be some high gentleman. She could see all colours in the coach, and flowers on the horse's heads. Goes out .) Dall Glic : That is good hearing. I was in dread some man we would have no welcome for would be the first to come in this day. Queen : Not a fear of it. I had orders given to the Gateman who he would and would not keep out. I did that the very minute after the King making his proclamation and his law. King : Pup, pup. You need not be drawing that down. Queen : It is well you have myself to care you and to turn all to good. I gave orders to the Gateman, I say, no one to be let in to the door unless carriage company, no other ones, even if they should wipe their feet upon the mat. I notched that in his mind, telling him the King was after promising the Princess Nu in marriage to the first man that would come into the house. Manus : The King gave out that word? Queen : I am after saying that he did. Dall Glic : Come along, lad. Don't be putting ears on yourself. Manus : I ask the King did he give out that promise as the Queen says? King : I have but a poor memory. Nurse : The King did say it within the hour, and swore to it by the oath of his people, taking contracts of the sun and moon of the air! Dall Glic : What is it to you if he did? Come on, now. Manus : No. This is a matter that concerns myself. Queen : How do you make that out? Manus : You, that called me in, know well that I was the first to come into the house. Queen : Ha, ha! You have the impudence! It is a man the King said. He was not talking about cooks. Manus: (To the King.) I am before you as a serving lad, and you are a King in Ireland. Because you are a King and I your hired servant you will not refuse me justice. You gave your word. King : If I did it was in haste and in vexation, and striving to save her from destruction. Manus : I call you to keep to your word and to give your daughter to no other one. Queen : Speak out now, Dall Glic, and give your opinion and your advice. Dall Glic : I would say that this lad going away would be no great loss. Manus : I did not ask such a thing, but as it has come to me I will hold to my right. Queen : It would be right to throw him to the hounds in the kennel! Manus: (To King.) I leave it to the judgment of your blind wise man. Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Take care would you offend myself or the King! Manus : I put it on you to split justice as it is measured outside the world. Dall Glic : It is hard for me to speak. He has laid it hard on me. My good eye may go asleep, but my blind eye never sleeps. In the place where it is waking, an honourable man, king or beggar, is held to his word. King : Is it that I must give my daughter to a lad that owns neither clod nor furrow? Whose estate is but a shovel for the ashes and a tongs for the red coals. Queen : It is likely he is urged by the sting of greed—it is but riches he is looking for. King : I will not begrudge him his own asking of silver and of gold! Manus : Throw it out to the beggars on the road! I would not take a copper half-penny! I'll take nothing but what has come to me from your own word! (King bows his head.) Princess: (Coming forward.) Then this battle is not between you and an old king that is feeble, but between yourself and myself. Manus : I am sorry, Princess, if it must be a battle. Princess : You can never bring me away against my will. Manus : I said no word of doing that. Princess : You think, so, I will go with you of myself? The day I will do that will be the day you empty the ocean! Manus : I will not wait longer than to-day. Princess : Many a man waited seven years for a king's daughter! Manus : And another seven—and seven generations of hags. But that is not my nature. I will not kneel to any woman, high or low, or crave kindness that she cannot give. Princess : Then I can go free! Manus : For this day I take you in my charge. I cross and claim you to myself, unless a better man will come. Princess : I would think it easier to find a better man than one that would be worse to me! Manus : If one should come that you think to be a better man, I will give you your own way. Princess : It is you being in the world at all that is my grief. Manus : Time makes all things clear. You did not go far out in the world yet, my poor little Princess. Princess : I would be well pleased to drive you out through the same world! Manus : With or without your goodwill, I will not go out of this place till I have carried out the business I came to do. Dall Glic : Is it the falling of hailstones I hear or the rumbling of thunder, or is it the trots of horses upon the road? Queen: (Looking out.) It is the big man that is coming—Prince or Lord or whoever he may be. (To Dall Glic.) Go now to the door to welcome him. This is some man worth while. (To Manus.) Let you get out of this. Manus : No, whoever he is I'll stop and face him. Let him know we are players in the one game! King : And what sort of a fool will you make of me, to have given in to take the like of you for a son-in-law? They will be putting ridicule on me in the songs. Queen : If he must stop here we might put some face on him.... If I had but a decent suit.... Give me your cloak, Dall Glic. (He gives it.) Here now ... (To Manus.) Put this around you.... (Manus takes it awkwardly.) It will cover up your kitchen suit. Manus : Is it this way? Queen : You have no right handling of it— stupid clown! This way! Manus: (Flinging it off.) No, I'll change no more suits! It is time for me to stop fooling and give you what you did not ask yet, my name. I will tell out all the truth. Gatekeeper: (At door.) The King of Sorcha! (Taig comes in.) King and Queen : The King of Sorcha! (They rush forward to greet him.) Nurse: (To Manus.) Did ever anyone hear the like! Manus : It seems as if there will be a judgment between the man and the clothes! Queen: (To Taig.) There is someone here that you know, King. This young man is giving out that he was your cook. Taig : He was not. I never laid an eye on him till this minute. Queen : I was sure he was nothing but a liar when he said he would tell the truth! Now, King, will you turn him out the door? King : And what about the great dinner he has me promised? Manus : Be easy King. Whether or no you keep your word to me I'll hold to mine! (Blows whistle.) In with the dishes! Take your places! Let the music play out! (Music plays, the strange men wheel in tables and dishes.) CURTAIN ACT III ACT III Scene: Same. Table cleared of all but vessels of fruit, cocoa-nuts, etc. Queen and Taig sitting in front, Nurse and Dall Glic standing in background . Queen : Now, King, the dinner being at an end, and the music, we have time and quiet to be talking. Taig : It is with the King's daughter I am come to talk. Queen : Go, Dall Glic, call the Princess. She will be here on the minute, but it is best for you to tell me out if it is to ask her in marriage you are come. Taig : It is so, where I was after being told she would be given as a wife to the first man that would come into the house. Queen : And who in the world wide gave that out? Taig : It was the Gateman said it to a hawker bringing lobsters from the strand, and that got no leave to cross the threshold by reason of the oath given out by the King. The half of the kingdom she will get, they were telling me, and the king living, and the whole of it after he will be dead. Nurse : There did another come in before you. Let me tell you that much! Taig : There did not. The lobster man that set a watch upon the door. Queen : A great honour you did us coming asking for her, and you being King of Sorcha! Taig : Look at my ring and my crown. They will bear witness that I am. And my kind coat of cotton and my golden shirt! And under that again there's a stiff pocket. (Slaps it.) Is there e'er a looking-glass in any place? (Gets up.) Dall Glic : There is the shining silver basin of the swans in the garden without. Taig : That will do. I would wish to look tasty when I come looking for a lady of a wife. (He and Dall Glic go outside window but in sight.) (Princess comes in very proud and sad.) Queen : You should be proud this day, Nuala, and so grand a man coming asking you in marriage as the King of Sorcha. Nurse : Grand, indeed! As grand as hands and pins can make him. Princess : Are you not satisfied to have urged me to one man and promised me to another since sunrise? Queen : What way could I know there was this match on the way, and a better match beyond measure? This is no black stranger going the road, but a man having a copper crown over his gateway and a silver crown over his palace door! I tell you he has means to hang a pearl of gold upon every rib of your hair! There is no one ahead of him in all Ireland, with his chain and his ring and his suit of the dearest silk! Princess : If it was a suit I was to wed with he might do well enough. Queen : Equal in blood to ourselves! Brought up to good behaviour and courage and mannerly ways. Princess : In my opinion he is not. Queen : You are talking foolishness. A King of Sorcha must be mannerly, seeing it is he himself sets the tune for manners. Princess : He gave out a laugh when old Michelin slipped on the threshold. He kicked at the dog under the table that came looking for bones. Queen : I tell you what might be ugly behaviour in a common man is suitable and right in a king. But you are so hard to please and so pettish, I am seven times tired of yourself and your ways. Princess : If no one could force me to give in to the man that made a claim to me to-day, according to my father's bond, that bond is there yet to protect me from any other one. Queen : Leave me alone! Myself and the Dall Glic will take means to rid you of that lad from the oven. I'll send in now to you the King of Sorcha. Let you show civility to him, and the wedding day will be to-morrow. Princess : I will not see him, I will have nothing to do with him; I tell you if he had the rents of the whole world I would not go with him by day or by night, on foot or on horseback, in light or in darkness, in company or alone! (Queen has gone while she cries this out.) Nurse : The luck of the seven Saturdays on himself and on the Queen! Princess : Oh, Muime, do not let him come near me! Have you no way to help me? Nurse : It's myself that could help you if I was not under bonds not to speak! Princess : What is it you know? Why won't you say one word? Nurse : He put me under spells.... There now, my tongue turned with the word to be dumb. Taig: (At the window.) Not a fear of me, Queen. It won't be long till I bring the Princess around. Princess : I will not stay! Keep him here till I will hide myself out of sight! (Goes.) Taig: (Coming in.) They told me the Princess was in it. Nurse : She has good sense, she is in some other place. Taig: (Sitting down.) Go call her to me. Nurse : Who is it I will call her for? Taig : For myself. You know who I am. Nurse : My grief that I do not! Taig : I am the King of Sorcha. Nurse : If you say that lie again there will blisters rise up on your face. Taig : Take care what you are saying, you hag! Nurse : I know well what I am saying. I have good judgment between the noble and the mean blood of the world. Taig : The Kings of Sorcha have high, noble blood. Nurse : If they have, there is not so much of it in you as would redden a rib of scutch-grass. Taig : You are crazed with folly and age. Nurse : No, but I have my wits good enough. You ought to be as slippery as a living eel, I'll get satisfaction on you yet! I'll show out who you are! Taig : Who am I so? Nurse : That is what I have to get knowledge of, if I must ask it at the mouth of cold hell! Taig : Do your best! I dare you! Nurse : I will save my darling from you as sure as there's rocks on the strand! A girl that refused sons of the kings of the world! Taig : And I will drag your darling from you as sure as there's foxes in Oughtmana! Nurse : Oughtmana ...Is that now your living place? Taig : It is not.... I told you I came from the far-off kingdom of Sorcha. Look at my cloak that has on it the sign of the risen sun! Nurse : Cloaks and suits and fringes. You have a great deal of talk of them.... Have you e'er a needle around you, or a shears? Taig: (His hand goes to breast of coat, but he withdraws it quickly.) Here ...no ...What are you talking about? I know nothing at all of such things. Nurse : In my opinion you do. Hearken now. I know where is the real King of Sorcha! Taig : Bring him before me now till I'll down him! Nurse : Say that the time you will come face to face with him! Well, I'm under bonds to tell out nothing about him, but I have liberty to make known all I will find out about yourself. Taig : Hurry on so. Little I care when once I'm wed with the King's daughter! Nurse : That will never be! Taig : The Queen is befriending me and in dread of losing me. I will threaten her if there is any delay I'll go look for another girl of a wife. Nurse : I will make no delay. I'll have my story and my testimony before the white dawn of the morrow. Taig : Do so and welcome! Before the yellow light of this evening I'll be the King's son-in-law! Bring your news, then, and little thanks you'll get for it! The King and Queen must keep up my name then for their own credit's sake. (Makes a face at her as King comes in with Dall Glic, and servants with cushions. Nurse goes out, shaking her fist.) (Rises.) I was just asking to see you, King, to say there is a hurry on me.... King: (Sitting down on window seat while Servant arranges cushions about him.) Keep your business a while. It's a poor thing to be going through business the very minute the dinner is ended. Taig : I wouldn't but that it is pressing. King : Go now to the Queen, in her parlour, and be chatting and whistling to the birds. I give you my word since I rose up from the table I am going here and there, up and down, craving and striving to find a place where I'll get leave to lay my head on the cushions for one little minute. (Taig goes reluctantly.) Dall Glic: (Taking cushions from servants.) Let you go now and leave the King to his rest. (They go out.) King : I don't know in the world why anyone would consent to be a king, and never to be left to himself, but to be worried and wearied and interfered with from dark to daybreak and from morning to the fall of night. Dall Glic : I will be going out now. I have but one word only to say.... King : Let it be a short word! I would be better pleased to hear the sound of breezes in the sycamores, and the humming of bees in the hive and the crooning and sleepy sounds of the sea! Dall Glic : There is one thing only could cause me to annoy you. King : It should be a queer big thing that wouldn't wait till I have my rest taken. Dall Glic : So it is a big matter, and a weighty one. King : Not to be left in quiet and all I am after using! Food that was easy to eat! Drink that was easy to drink! That's the dinner that was a dinner. That cook now is a wonder! Dall Glic : That is now the very one I am wishful to speak about. King : I give you my word, I'd sooner have one goose dressed by him than seven dressed by any other one! Dall Glic : The Queen that was urging me for to put my mind to make out some way to get quit of him. King : Isn't it a hard thing the very minute I find a lad can dress a dinner to my liking, I must be made an attack on to get quit of him? Dall Glic : It is on the head of the Princess Nu. King : Tell me this, Dall Glic. Supposing, now, he was ...in spite of me ...to wed with her ...against my will ...and it might be unknownst to me. Dall Glic : Such a thing must not happen. King : To be sure, it must not happen. Why would it happen? But supposing—I only said supposing it did. Would you say would that lad grow too high in himself to go into the kitchen ...it might be only an odd time ...to oblige me ...and dress a dinner the same as he did to-day? Dall Glic : I am sure and certain that he would not. It is the way, it is, with the common sort, the lower orders. He'd be wishful to sit on a chair at his ease and to leave his hand idle till he'd grow to be bulky and wishful for sleep. King : That is a pity, a great pity, and a great loss to the world. A big misfortune he to have got it in his head to take a liking to the girl. I tell you he was a great lad behind the saucepans! Dall Glic : Since he did get it in his head, it is what we have to do now, to make an end of him. King : To gaol him now, and settle up ovens and spits and all sorts in the cell, wouldn't he, to shorten the day, be apt to start cooking? Dall Glic : In my belief he will do nothing at all, but to hold you to the promise you made, and to force you to send away the King of Sorcha. King : To have the misfortune of a cook for a son-in-law, and without the good luck of profiting by what he can do in his trade! That is a hard thing for a father to put up with, let alone a king! Dall Glic : If you will but listen to the advice I have to give.... King : I know it without you telling me. You are asking me to make away with the lad! And who knows but the girl might turn on me after, women are so queer, and say I had a right to have asked leave from herself? Dall Glic : There will no one suspect you of doing it, and you to take my plan. Bid them heat the big oven outside on the lawn that is for roasting a bullock in its full bulk. King : Don't be talking of roasted meat! I think I can eat no more for a twelvemonth! Dall Glic : There will be nothing roasted that any person will have occasion to eat. When the oven door will be open, give orders to your bullies and your foot-soldiers to give a tip to him that will push him in. When evening comes, news will go out that he left the meat to burn and made off on his rambles, and no more about him. King : What way can I send orders when I'm near crazed in my wits with the want of rest. A little minute of sleep might soothe and settle my brain. (Lies down.) Dall Glic : The least little word to give leave ...or a sign ...such as to nod the head. King : I give you my word, my head is tired nodding! Be off now and close the door after you and give out that anyone that comes to this side of the house at all in the next half-hour, his neck will be on the block before morning! Dall Glic: (Hurriedly.) I'm going! I'm going. (Goes.) King: (Locking door and drawing window curtains.) That you may never come back till I ask you! (Lies down and settles himself on pillows.) I'll be lying here in my lone listening to the pigeons seeking their meal. "Coo-coo," they're saying, "Coo-coo." (Closes eyes.) Nurse: (At door.) Who is it locked the door? (Shakes it.) Who is it is in it? What is going on within? Is it that some bad work is after being done in this place? Hi! Hi! Hi! King: (Sitting up.) Get away out of that, you torment of a nurse! Be off before I'll have the life of you! Nurse : The Lord be praised, it is the King's own voice! There's time yet! King : There's time, is there? There's time for everyone to give out their chat and their gab, and to do their business and take their ease and have a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green grass in the heat of the day, without being pestered and plagued and tormented and called to and wakened and worried, till a man is no less than wore out! Nurse : Up or down, I'll say what I have to say, if it cost me my life. It is that I have to tell you of a plot that is made and a plan! King : I won't listen! I heard enough of plots and plans within the last three minutes! Nurse : You didn't hear this one. No one knows of it only myself. King : I was told it by the Dall Glic. Nurse : You were not! I am only after making it out on the moment! King : A plot against the lad of the saucepans? Nurse : That's it! That's it! Open now the door! King: (Putting a cushion over each ear and settling himself to sleep.) Tell away and welcome! (Shuts eyes.) Nurse : That's right! You're listening. Give heed now. That schemer came a while ago letting on to be the King of Sorcha is no such thing! What do you say?...Maybe you knew it before? I wonder the Dall Glic not to have seen that for himself with his one eye.... Maybe you don't believe it? Well, I'll tell it out and prove it. I have got sure word by running messenger that came cross-cutting over the ridge of the hill.... That carrion that came in a coach, pressing to bring away the Princess before nightfall, giving himself out to be some great one, is no other than Taig the Tailor, that should be called Taig the Twister, down from his mother's house from Oughtmana, that stole grand clothes which were left in the mother's charge, he being out at the time cutting cloth and shaping lies, and has himself dressed out in them the way you'd take him to be King! (King has slumbered peacefully all through.) Now, what do you say? Now, will you open the door? Queen: (Outside.) What call have you to shouting and disturbing the King? Nurse : I have good right and good reason to disturb him! Queen : Go away and let me open the door. Nurse : I will go and welcome now; I have told out my whole story to the King. Queen: (Shaking door.) Open the door, my dear! It is I myself that is here! (King looks up, listens, shakes his head and sinks back.) Are you there at all, or what is it ails you? Nurse : He is there, and is after conversing with myself. Queen: (Shaking again.) Let me in, my dear King! Open! Open! Open! unless that the falling sickness is come upon you, or that you are maybe lying dead upon the floor! Nurse : Not a dead in the world. Queen : Go, Nurse, I tell you, bring the smith from the anvil till he will break asunder the lock of the door! (King annoyed, waddles to door and opens it suddenly. Queen stumbles in.) King : What at all has taken place that you come bawling and calling and disturbing my rest? Queen : Oh! Are you sound and well? I was in dread there did something come upon you, when you gave no answer at all. King : Am I bound to answer every call and clamour the same as a hall-porter at the door? Queen : It is business that cannot wait. Here now is a request I have written to the bully of the King of Alban, bidding him to strike the head off whatever man will put the letter in his hand. Write your name and sign to it, in three royal words. King : I wouldn't sign a letter out of my right hour if it was to make the rivers run gold. There is nothing comes of signing letters but more trouble in the end. Queen : Give me, so, to bind it a drop of your own blood as a token and a seal. You will not refuse, and I telling you the messenger will go with it, and that will lose his head through it, is no less than that troublesome cook! King: (With a roar.) Anyone to say that word again I will not leave a head on any neck in the kingdom! I declare on my oath it would be best for me to take the world for my pillow and put that lad upon the throne! (Queen goes back frightened to door.) Gateman: (Coming in.) There is a man coming in that will take no denial. It is Fintan the Astrologer. (Fintan enters with Dall Glic, Nurse, Princess, Taig, Manus and Prince of the Marshes crowding after him.) King : Another disturbance! The whole world would seem to be on the move! Queen : Fintan! What brings him here again? Fintan : A great deceit? A terrible deception! King : What at all is it? Fintan : Long and all as I'm in the world, such a thing never happened in my lifetime! Queen : What is it has happened? Fintan : It is not any fault of myself or any miscounting of my own! I am certain sure of that much. Is it that the stars of heaven are gone astray, they that are all one with a clock— unless it might be on a stormy night when they are wild-looking around the moon. King : Go on with your story and stop your raving. Fintan : The first time ever I came to this place I made a prophecy. Dall Glic : You did, about the child was in the cradle. Fintan : And that was but new in the world. It is what I said, that she was born under a certain star, and that in a score of years all but two, whatever acting was going on in that star at the time she was born, she would get her crosses in the same way. Dall Glic : The cross you foretold to her was to be ate by a Dragon. You laid down it would come upon a twelvemonth from this very day. Fintan : That's it. That was according to my reckoning. There was no mistake in that. And I thought better of the Seven Stars than they to make a fool of me, after all the respect I had showed them, giving my life to watching themselves and the plans they have laid down for men and for mortals. King : It seems as if I myself was the best prophet and that there is no Dragon at all. Fintan : What a bad opinion you have of me that I would be so far out as that! It would be a deception and a disappointment out of measure, there to come no Dragon, and I after foretelling and prophesying him. King : Troth, it would be no disappointment at all to ourselves. Fintan : It would be better, I tell you, a score of king's daughters to be ate and devoured, than the high stars in their courses to be proved wrong. But it must be right, it surely must be right. I gave the prophecy according to her birth hour, that was one hour before the falling back of the sun. Dall Glic : It was not, but an hour before the rising of the sun. Fintan : Not at all! It was the Nurse herself told me it was at evening she was born. Queen : There is the Nurse now. Let you ask her account. Fintan: (To Nurse.) It was yourself laid down it was evening! Nurse : Sure I wasn't in the place at all till Samhuin time, when she was near three months in the world. Fintan : Then it was some other hag the very spit of you! I wish she didn't tell a lie. Nurse : Sure that one was banished out of this on the head of telling lies. An hour ere sunrise, and before the crowing of the cocks. The Dall Glic will tell you that much. Dall Glic : That is so. I have it marked upon the genealogies in the chest. Fintan : That is great news! It was a heavy wrong was done me! It had me greatly upset. Twelve hours out in laying down the birth-time! That clears the character of myself and of the carwheel of the stars. I knew I could make no mistake in my office and in my billet! King : Will you stop praising yourself and give out some sense? Fintan : Knowledge is surely the greatest thing in the world! And truth! Twelve hours with the planets is equal to twelve months on earth. I am well satisfied now. Queen : So the Dragon is not coming, and the girl is in no danger at all? Fintan : Not coming! Heaven help your poor head! Didn't I get word within the last half-hour he is after leaving his den in the Kingdoms of the Cold, and is at this minute ploughing his way to Ireland, the same as I foretold him, but that I made a miscount of a year? Nurse: (Putting her arm round Princess.) Och! do not listen or give heed to him at all! Queen : When is he coming so? Fintan : Amn't I tired telling you this day in the place of this day twelvemonth. But as to the minute, there's too much lies in this place for me to be rightly sure. King : The curse of the seven elements upon him! Fintan : Little he'll care for your cursing. The whole world wouldn't stop him coming to your own grand gate. Princess: (Coming forward.) Then I am to die to-night? Fintan : You are, without he will be turned back by someone having a stronger star than your own, and I know of no star is better, unless it might be the sun. Queen : If you had minded me, and given in to ring the wedding bells, you would be safe out of this before now. Fintan : That Dragon not to find her before him, he will ravage and destroy the whole district with the poisonous spittle of his jaw, till the want will be so great the father will disown his son and will not let him in the door. Well, good-bye to ye! Ye'll maybe believe me to have foreknowledge another time, and I proved to be right. I have knocked great comfort out of that! (Goes.) King : Oh, my poor child! My poor little Nu! I thought it never would come to pass, I to be sending you to the slaughter. And I too bulky to go out and face him, having led an easy life! Princess : Do not be fretting. King : The world is gone to and fro! I'll never ask satisfaction again either in bed or board, but to be wasting away with watercresses and rising up of a morning before the sun rises in Babylon! (Weeps.) Oh, we might make out a way to baffle him yet! Is there no meal will serve him only flesh and blood? Try him with Grecian wine, and with what was left of the big dinner a while ago! Gateman: (Coming in.) There is some strange thing in the ocean from Aran out. At first it was but like a bird's shadow on the sea, and now you would nearly say it to be the big island would have left its moorings, and it steering its course towards Aughanish! Dall Glic : I'm in dread it should be the Dragon that has cleared the ocean at a leap! King: (Holding Princess.) I will not give you up! Let him devour myself along with you! Dull Glic: (To Princess.) It is best for me to put you in a hiding-hole under the ground, that has seven locked doors and seven locks on the farthest door. It might fail him to make you out. Nurse : Oh, it would be hard for her to go where she cannot hear the voice of a friend or see the light of day! Princess : Would you wish me to save myself and let all the district perish? You heard what Fintan said. It is not right for destruction to be put on a whole province, and the women and the children that I know. Queen : There is maybe time yet for you to wed. Princess : So long as I am living I have a choice. I will not be saved in that way. It is alone I will be in my death. Manus: (Coming to King.) I am going out from you, King. I might not be coming in to you again. I would wish to set you free from the promise you made me a while ago, and the bond. King : What does it signify now? What does anything signify, and the world turning here and there! Manus : And another thing. I would wish to ask pardon of the King's daughter. I ought not to have laid any claim to her, being a stranger in this place and without treasure or attendance. And yet ...and yet ... (stoops and kisses hem of her dress) , she was dear to me. It is a man who never may look on her again is saying that. (Turns to door.) Taig : He is going to run from the Dragon! It is kind father for a scullion to be timid! Queen : It is in his blood. He is maybe not to blame for what is according to his nature. Manus : That is so. I am doing what is according to my nature. (Goes, Nurse goes after him.) Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Go throw a dishcloth after him that the little lads may be mocking him along the road! Dall Glic : I will not. I have meddled enough at your bidding. I am done with living under dread. Let you blind me entirely! I am free of you. It might be best for me the two eyes to be withered, and I seeing nothing but the ever-living laws! Prince of Marshes: (Coming to Princess.) It is my grief that with all the teachers I had there was not one to learn me the handling of weapons or of arms. But for all that I will not run away, but will strive to strike one blow in your defence against that wicked beast. Princess : It is a good friend that would rid us of him. But it grieves me that you should go into such danger. Prince of Marshes: (To Dall Glic.) Give me some sword or casting spears. (Dall Glic gives him spears.) Princess : I am sorry I made fun of you a while ago. I think you are a good kind man. Prince of Marshes; (Kissing her hand.) Having that word of praise I will bring a good heart into the fight. (Goes.) (Taig is slipping out after him.) Queen : See now the King of Sorcha slipping away into the fight. Stop here now! (Pulls him back.) You have a life that is precious to many besides yourself. Do not go without being well armed—and with a troop of good fighting men at your back. Taig : I am greatly obliged to you. I think I'll be best with myself. Queen : You have no suit or armour upon you. Taig : That is what I was thinking. Queen : Here anyway is a sword. Taig: (Taking it.) That's a nice belt now. Well worked, silver thread and gold.

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