Short Plays

she’s going, and fill the whole parish with spite and envy. But sure, she shouldn’t keep you waiting, sir. Sir Pearce Oh, that’s all right: she must be indulged on an occasion like this. I’m sorry my wife is in London: she’d have been glad to welcome your mother. O’Flaherty Sure, I know she would, sir. She was always a kind friend to the poor. Little her ladyship knew, God help her, the depth of divilment that was in us: we were like a play to her. You see, sir, she was English: that was how it was. We was to her what the Pathans and Senegalese was to me when I first seen them: I couldn’t think, somehow, that they were liars, and thieves, and backbiters, and drunkards, just like ourselves or any other Christians. Oh, her ladyship never knew all that was going on behind her back: how would she? When I was a weeshy child, she gave me the first penny I ever had in my hand; and I wanted to pray for her conversion that night the same as my mother made me pray for yours; and⁠— Sir Pearce Scandalized. Do you mean to say that your mother made you pray for my conversion? O’Flaherty Sure and she wouldn’t want to see a gentleman like you going to hell after she nursing your own son and bringing up my sister Annie on the bottle. That was how it was, sir. She’d rob you; and she’d lie to you; and she’d call down all the blessings of God on your head when she was selling you your own three geese that you thought had been ate by the fox the day after you’d finished fattening them, sir; and all the time you were like a bit of her own flesh and blood to her. Often has she said she’d live to see you a good Catholic yet, leading victorious armies against the English and wearing the collar of gold that Malachi won from the proud invader. Oh, she’s the romantic woman is my mother, and no mistake. Sir Pearce In great perturbation. I really can’t believe this, O’Flaherty. I could have sworn your mother was as honest a woman as ever breathed. O’Flaherty And so she is, sir. She’s as honest as the day. Sir Pearce Do you call it honest to steal my geese? O’Flaherty She didn’t steal them, sir. It was me that stole them. Sir Pearce Oh! And why the devil did you steal them? O’Flaherty Sure we needed them, sir. Often and often we had to sell our own geese to pay you the rent to satisfy your needs; and why shouldn’t we sell your geese to satisfy ours? Sir Pearce Well, damn me! O’Flaherty Sweetly. Sure you had to get what you could out of us; and we had to get what we could out of you. God forgive us both! Sir Pearce Really, O’Flaherty, the war seems to have upset you a little. O’Flaherty It’s set me thinking, sir; and I’m not used to it. It’s like the patriotism of the English. They never thought of being patriotic until the war broke out; and now the patriotism has took them so sudden and come so strange to them that they run about like frightened chickens, uttering all manner of nonsense. But please God they’ll forget all about it when the war’s over. They’re getting tired of it already. Sir Pearce No, no: it has uplifted us all in a wonderful way. The world will never be the same again, O’Flaherty. Not after a war like this. O’Flaherty So they all say, sir. I see no great differ myself. It’s all the fright and the excitement; and when that quiets down they’ll go back to their natural divilment and be the same as ever. It’s like the vermin: it’ll wash off after a while. Sir Pearce Rising and planting himself firmly behind the garden seat. Well, the long and the short of it is, O’Flaherty, I must decline to be a party to any attempt to deceive your mother. I thoroughly disapprove of this feeling against the English, especially at a moment like the present. Even if your mother’s political sympathies are really what you represent them to be, I should think that her gratitude to Gladstone ought to cure her of such disloyal prejudices. O’Flaherty Over his shoulder. She says Gladstone was an Irishman, Sir. What call would he have to meddle with Ireland as he did if he wasn’t? Sir Pearce What nonsense! Does she suppose Mr. Asquith is an Irishman? O’Flaherty She won’t give him any credit for Home Rule, Sir. She says Redmond made him do it. She says you told her so. Sir Pearce Convicted out of his own mouth. Well, I never meant her to take it up in that ridiculous way. He moves to the end of the garden seat on O’Flaherty’s left. I’ll give her a good talking to when she comes. I’m not going to stand any of her nonsense. O’Flaherty It’s not a bit of use, sir. She says all the English generals is Irish. She says all the English poets and great men was Irish. She says the English never knew how to read their own books until we taught them. She says we’re the lost tribes of the house of Israel and the chosen people of God. She says that the goddess Venus, that was born out of the foam of the sea, came up out of the water in Killiney Bay off Bray Head. She says that Moses built the seven churches, and that Lazarus was buried in Glasnevin. Sir Pearce Bosh! How does she know he was? Did you ever ask her? O’Flaherty I did, sir, often. Sir Pearce And what did she say? O’Flaherty She asked me how did I know he wasn’t, and fetched me a clout on the side of my head. Sir Pearce But have you never mentioned any famous Englishman to her, and asked her what she had to say about him?