The O'Dowd, Boucicault

• Act I
• MIKE. How do I stand now, Talboys?
  TAL. (writing on a card) You owe the colonel six hundred and twenty-five; and you owe his lordship two hundred and ten.
• OSSI. (at door R.H.) Who is this fellow Michael O'Dowd, whose name figures here beside yours upon the door of these chambers? We have never seen him.
  MIKE. He is rarely in town.
  OSSI. He is Irish, of course?
  MIKE. I believe so.
• MIKE. Don't make my regret more painful. I assure you I have no choice; family affairs oblige me to go.
• MUL. I accept the amendment--at this earl hour I will be brief, but sincere, sir. London society will share our regret when it hears it is about to lose not only one of the most wealthy but most distinguished of its members.
• MUL. When Mr. Percy Walsingham appeared suddenly amongst us two years ago, it was not by his wealth that he gained admission to our exclusive clubs, it was not the splendor of his life that raised hum to a leading position in society--it was his brilliant wit, sir, in his charming address, sir, that we recognized the pedigree of the thoroughbred.
• MUL. The Irishman, sir, has an eye for a gentleman and an eye for a horse. The nobleman of nature is a humbug, but the gentleman of race is undeniable! We are sorry to lose you from the stud!
• MIKE. Do yo recollect one night, when you and I went to see a den of thieves under the guard of a police officer, he made us leave all our valuables at home? Well, when I entered London life I divested my breast of all its valuables. I left my heart at home in Ireland with one who takes care of all that is good and pure in my nature.
• ROM. (L.C.) Our house has lent you over twenty thousand pounds. Well, sir, you will excuse our anxiety, which made us send over to make henquiries as to what Walsingham you are. (MIKE comes down L.H. to fireplace) I sent over to Roscommon, where that family live, and the folks in that county says that the only Percy Walsingham they knowed died more than two year ago. You ain't that one, are you?
• MIKE. (speaking rapidly, bitterly, and despairingly) Two years ago I came to London from the West of Ireland, where I left in my humble home a father who adored me--my mother, who worshipped her only son--and a loving girl, whom I--had promised to make my wife. I was the idol of these simple, faithful hearts--the wonder of their little world. My father allowed me four hundred pounds a-year when I went as a student to Trinity College, Dublin, that his boy might make, as he fondly thought, a grand figure in the world. (gets to centre) It was there I met you Percy Walsingham--we roomed together--he was my college chum; a poor, ailing fellow, whom I nursed during his last illness--we were sincerely attached to each other, and it was by his bedside I wrote my first poems and signed them with his name. Thus I became known by it in London long before I arrived here. (crossing to R.H.)
• MIKE. (throwing open door and pointing to name on it) There you may read it. Percy Walsinghamd and Michael O'Dowd are one and the same person. I am the son of a fish salesman in the Claddagh, county Galway.
• MIKE. (gets to centre) Yes, in two years I have wasted in folly and vanity the inheritance my poor father has spent his life to acquire.
• MIKE. None. he is so proud of the name he bears, which I have been ashamed to own. (goes to fireplace, L.H.) The last of an old race, a poor fisher-boy, he plied his trade under the cliffs our family once owned. He saved and starved, until acre by acre he recovered the lands that once belonged to the O'Dowd; and stone by stone he bought back the old ruin where he fondly believes his forefathers lived.
• MIKE. Buried in the wilds of Connemara, he can never learn what happens here. When I disappear from London, who will care to trace my fate? If Ramsey Leake discovers the truth, he dares not reveal it, lest my father should disinherit me.
• MIKE. So. This will be the last day of my brief but happy career. (takes photograph) My father! What falsehood shall I tell him to account for my departure? (kisses portrait) Brave, noble old heart! Ah, who will take my place at the fireside at home, and wipe away my mother's tears, and join the old folks in their prayers for the absent boy? So--that is all I shall take! (puts photograph in his breast) Farewell, dear old rooms! Scene of my illusions--of my folly--of my sin!
• KITTY. Here's the place, Daddy.
• ROM. C. There's no Michael O'Dowd here.
• DAD. R.C. O'Dowd, sire, is my name, and I'm proud of it! The O'Dowd of Suil-a-more, at your service; once a Galway pilot and a fish salesman! (takes back letter) I am the father of my son, though you would not think it to look at me! D'ye know the boy, sir?
• ROM. That!--that is your son>?
  DAD> To be sure, my son Mike! (takes the book)
  ROM. (L.C. aside) Chalker, the young fellow is a fraud!
• ROM. (aside to CHALKER) His only son! (rubs his hands) I would not take fifteen shillings in the pound. (aloud) I know you Irish farmers are not to be judged by the coat on your backs. You make a poor show for fear the landlord should raise the rent on you. Eh?
  ROM. (L.C. aside) He's a landed proprietor, Chalker! I wouldn't take five per cent. off for cash.
• DAD. (R.C.) The Lord saved it, and we did as we were bid! But they paid me six thousand pounds salvage for the cargo, and that's how we started a fortune--that has roiled up into twenty thousand in ten years' time. (shakes hands with KITTY)
• DAD. Because I was my own master, working mid all my heart for my own flesh and blood, so I never measured my labour by the hour, but by my hopes. What I saw before me was a life--and not a week's wages.
• DAD. Jooks and ladies! Oh, Kitty, this is a great day for the O'Dowd!
• Act II
• ROSE. You are finding fault with me! I know what will be the end of it--you will drive me to do something desperate--take a header into matrimony, perhaps!
  TAL. Out of spite? (drinks)
  ROSE. Yes to get rid of you.
• ROSE. (C.) You men are never satisfied. If a girl loves you jealously, watchfully, you think it a bore. If we don't doubt you, you call us tepid. If we are miserable, you say, "Oh, Lord! is this the sort of life that woman is going to lead me?" If we enjoy it, you cry out, "Can't you be serious for five minutes?" Now, don't pull your mouth down because you have no answer ready. But, go on. What has happened to Percy? (goes to tree L.H.)
• TAL. (E.C.) To the end of the world!--and I have almost made up my mind to go with him.
• TAL. My self-respect. I am ashamed of the life I am leading in London. Penniless, hopeless, purposeless--what am I doing here? I am a fashionable tramp! That is all I am!
• TAL. I'll go where I shall not be ashamed to work and take off my coat to do it--if I have one.
• TAL. You are the impediment. (sits on stool at her feet) You are rich, I am poor. I will not be a pensioner on my wife. Why, our servants would regard me as one of themselves--on better wages! Our children, to whom your estates must descend, would soon learn that their father was a dependant with less right then they to your house, which would be my lodging rather than my home.
• TAL. Rose, be generous! Give a fellow a chance! Let me go for a year or two, to--to one of those places where chaps make fortunes. Let me, at least, try to be worthy of you. I am not so--now. You don't see it--but others do. Give me two years. We are both--very young!
• ROSE. No, quite the contrary. So I was thinking you might marry me--before you go--on the quiet.
• TAL. My darling! there is an obstacle you are not aware of. I am in debt!
• TAL. You paid my debts? Do you hear? Why don't you answer me?
• TAL. You have raised one, in doing what you have done. You have become my creditor, to whom I owe a debt of honour.
• MUL. (L.H.) My native borough, Bally-na-Cuish, has revolted. I expected to walk into the seat as usual, unopposed, but the agitators have started a rival candidate, and Her Majesty's Government suggest that I retire and make room for the only man that, in their opinion, can secure the vote, and that man is our friend, Percy Walsingham.
• MUL. (crosstown to C., back to the audience) The other side have unearthed an old Galway fisherman who cannot write his name, who made a fortune, I believe, by saving some vessel from wreck, and by selling haddock.
• MIKE. (aside) My father!
• MIKE. I must decline.
• MIKE. Too late! too late! (sitting L. of table R.H.) Fortune seems to taunt me with these honours I cannot accept, and shows me a future I cannot embrace!
• ROSE. (goes to him) Mrs. Dudley Fowler is your captive. She possesses an estate of twelve thousand a year. She would not be unwilling to exchange her name for yours.
• MIKE. My degradation is complete! (sits at table R.) To conceal my falsehood from my father, must I add to my imposture by deceiving this noble-hearted woman by accepting a love I cannot return? Must I sacrifice the girl I adore? Of, if the world could see me as I see myself!
• O'DOWD. Sure, my sowl is dry and me ould eyes wants a long dhrink.
• MIKE. (R.H., aside) What shall I do? How get them away before they are seen by the party here? They must return to town at once.
• O'DOWD. I came to fetch you home. The borough of Bally-na-Cuish wants a Member o' Parli'ment.
• O'DOWD. ... "Sure," says I, "there's one that wears my name betther than I ever did, or could, and that's my son. Tare alive! Such a shout as they gave! Didn't ye hear it over here?
• TAL (R.H., aside) The father of Percy! Oh, the devil!
• O'DOWD. Sure, them's the quality Mike spikes about; and, if they are proud of him, would not they be glad to know us?
• O'DOWD. The boy is proud of it: and small blame to him; for he knows how hard his mother and myself worked, strove, and slaved to put shillin' on shillin' for our only one, that he might rise to be the gentleman he is.
• OSSI. (aside) The old fishmonger is splendid! (seated under tree L.H.)
• OSSI. This is the Duchess of Piccadilly; and that lady is the Countess of Covent Garden.
• TAL. (to ROSE) For heaven's sake rescue this poor old fellow from this painful scene!
• MIKE. (advancing L.C. quickly, takes KITTY'S hand) This lady is my affianced wife, my lord.
• MIKE. No, Lady Rose; but I have forgotten myself until now. (down to L.; takes O'DOWD by the hand, and leads him up C.) Let me present you to my father.
• Act III
• OSSI. I beg to propose to you Colonel Manus Muldoon, of Ballyporeen, as a fit and proper burgess to represent this borough in Parliament.
• O'DOWD. Boys and fellow-countrymen, I offer yes my son, Michael O'Dowd, of Suil-a-more, to stand up for Ireland and Bally-na-cuish: and divil a better stander you'll find from Derry to Fastnet Rock! I know it, for I made him myself.
• MUL. Ireland, the land of my birth, is in trouble. My heart bleeds for my country!
• MIKE. You all know what I am. The only claim to your consideration I prefer, my only title to your notice, is that I am my father's son.
• MIKE. His hand has never been closed to the poor, nor his heart to the suffering. You hope I shall be like him? So do I. I will say no more.
• MIKE. My gallant opponent has told you Ireland cannot support her population. Fifty years ago she supported over eight million; now there are less than five--and where did they go? And where shall we all have to go? Why to America, where they were changed on their arrival on that shore into thrifty, hard-working, invaluable citizens, the life-blood of American labour, a source of American wealth and prosperity! (cheers)
• MIKE. A time there was ere Ireland's griefs began,
  When every rood of ground maintained its man;
  But times are changed! And now a sordid trade
  Usurps the soil and banishes the spade.
  The starving peasant leaves his cabin door
  And seeks with bleeding a heart a kinder shore.
  Unhappy land! to hastening ills a prey,
  Where few grow rich and mutitudes decay!
  So spoke the Irish prophet-bard a century ago.
• SCENE II.
• CHAL. Heverythink! Funk's the word, guv'nor! If the people here knew I carried in my pocket a warrant to arrest young O'Dowd----
• ROM. Don't be alarmed, gentlemen. I pledge myself not to spend one shilling in bribery. I shall simply oblige Mr. Michael O'Dowd to withdraw from the contest.
• MUL. I congratulate the gentleman. £20,000! Well, sir, he did you credit! I got some of it. He spent it like an Irish prince. Oh, Croesus! think of £20,000! Oh, if I had it!--why it would be £40,000 a year for six months!
• MUL. You half-bred son of a Mile-End costermonger, do you dare to bring such a proposition to Muldoon? (he throws the warrant at ROMSEY) See, now. If in one hour from this time you are found on the barony there won't be enough of aither of you left to hold an inquest over. Your errand here shall be known. So take on hour's start, and run for your dirty lives.
• SCENE III
• MIKE. (R.C.) Stay, father, and leave me to receive these visitors. They come on business that admits of no delay.
• ROM. I come to ask you to get your father to sign this deed, or put his mark, as he cannot write. (Hands a paper.)
• O'D. If there war five thousand round the house, their lives are safe under my roof. You hear me, Barney, Dan, Mat. These men are my guests, I promised them a welcome here, and they shall have it. Now, spake out, you are as safe as if you was in Dublin Castle.
• MUL. (R.H.) This man is a money-lender, and your son, it seems, is in his debt.
• ROM. (R.C.) Mr. Percy Walsingham as he called him self. He was ashamed of your name, so he tucked that in, and so he imposed on everybody; ask the colonel, there, if he didn't.
• MIKE. (looking up) Father, it--it is true.
• O'D. His mother! kape her back! lock the dure, give me the pen; (LEAKE gets pen and ink from desk behind him L.H.) don't let her see. Mother o' Heaven, it would kill her, if she knew. Where is the place?
• O'D. Burn, deshroy, bury them before the mother--the mother--lock the dure.
• MIKE. (falling at the feet of THE O'DOWD) Oh,. what have I done!
• O'D. Whist! Lock the dure! Not before the mother--don't let her see this--not before the mother--not before the mother! (speaking thickly and spasmodically; struggles to recover himself, but, struck down by paralysis, falls stark in his chair, murmuring inarticulately, "L--lock the d--dure!")
• Act IV
• SHEILA (C.) (turning) If ye made it five pounds a fish I would not sell you the tail of one.
• LEAKE (R.C.) They will neither buy from me, nor sell to me. The cabin doors are shut in my face as I go by. No man will work in my fields--no girl will serve in my house. I read curses on every face.
• CHAL. It is of no use. There is not a shop will take our money for a pound of meat or for a loaf of bread.
• ROSE. You must put down that load before I speak. Bertie is coming home from Arizona, he brings with him a fortune, one-half of which belongs to the O'Dowd.
• KITTY. And you came here to meet him? The fortune he brings comes too late. After Mike went away the O'Dowd recovered his senses and was getting to be himself again when the news of the boy's death came. The sowl of the father seemed to go away beyond the seas into the grave of his son. He lives, that is all--lives as a child, helpless, gentle. God is very good to him, for He lets him believe all the while that Mike is coming back.
• MIKE. My home! My home! so little changed. Am I so altered that old friends pass by me and do not know me? I wanted to ask them if my father lived, but the words stuck in my throat. I feared they would recognize and curse me. (sinks on knee R.H.) My poor mother and Kitty, too, what has become of them? (Enter two children R.H.U.E.) Come here, little ones; don't be afraid of me, I am only a poor sailor, and I would not harm you. Tell me, child, is there an old man in this place called O'Dowd?
• MIKE. Dear father, look in my face, listen to my voice. Am I so changed? You know me.
• O'DOWD. Know--know ye? No; wait till Biddy comes, she'll wait on you.
• MIKE. His poor brain is gone, wrecked, shattered, and by me, by me.
• MULDOON. An American ship is driving ashore on the rocks. (enter MAT and DAN R.H.U.E.) Are there no means of send out assistance to her?
• MIKE. Then I will! Farewell, mother! Farewell my love, my home. Father, dear father, I go to redeem my name or to bury my disgrace! (exit up rock centre and disappears behind; wind, thunder)
• O'DOWD. That boat carries a dead man, no one but Mike and me could find the way through Divil's jawbone on such a night, and in such a gale.
• O'DOWD. (staggers forward) My God! 'tis he--'tis Mike is there--none but himself could know--could do that work. 'Tis he--it is my son!
• BRIDGET. Would to heave it was he!
• O'DOWD I say 'tis he. You think I am mad. I have been; yes; I know it; but now I am sane. I have my senses, and I feel he is here, near me. No other could bring me back to life. No other could do what that man has done.
• O'DOWD. More, more than fortune, more than my senses, he brings back himself, he brings back my sowl, that has been dead without him (cheers outside). D'ye hear that's him! his foot is ashore! I feel it plant itself upon my heart. Mike! Mike!
• MIKE. (outside at back) Father! I am here.