The Woods of the Whispering, M.J. Molloy

Act One

THE SCENE is outside the old Main Entrance to Castle D'Arcy.
In a little clearing, on the left-hand side of the gate, and well out from the demesne wall, lies the camp of Sanbatch Daly.
Sanbatch, the lord of all this wealth, is sitting on the long box. ... He is delousing.
SANBATCH. 'Tis me that'd be rich, Leggy, if there was any kind of middling price going for them at all.
And another thing: according as we're getting more starved in the blood and in the body these divils'll have less to get, till at last they might resign from us altogether...
SANBATCH. Well, more bad luck to you, as the goat said to his legs!
(He draws out 'Leggy,' a philosophical old sheep-dog, by his tether, and throws him a leg of rabbit.)
SANBATCH. Put up your hands, or I'll fire. I have you marked as dead as a pointer. (CON puts up his hands, the cigarette falling out of his mouth with surprise.)
After my house fell last month, ye sent notice to say ye'd take me to the County Home if I hadn't a house got within a month.
CON (munching a sandwich). How was it you could never get a wife?
SANBATCH (solemnly). The best man is the man that can do without them, and I was sure as the day I was a man that could do without them.
SANBATCH (putting a spoonful of tea in the jam-jar). The night my house fell I understood at last that I wasn't a man that could do without them. For, if I had a wife, she'd keep me well fed and well scolded, and then I never would let the farm go to waste and the roof drop in. The very minute I'd have each meal finished she'd say to me: 'What in the hell are you doing in here? Go out and find some work to do.' Twas for our good God made them such divils with the tongue.
CON. And now you're too old to get a wife?
SANBATCH (excited and dismayed). Well, cut my head off if that's so! Markey'll leave only stumps of the last fine woods in this barony, and Kenworthy'll knock the castle and sell every slate and stick and stone, the same way he did to Browne Hall and Castle Martin.
SANBATCH. The time she was in her bloom th'oul' Depression was on, and no farmer around could afford to marry a girl that had no fortune. So she had to stop with the father and mother till they died, and then she was left alone and the lonesomeness and the darkness and the trees defeated her at last. 'Tis two years now since she spoke to anywan or went out amongst the neighbours. She spends the day and the night within there thinking and ever thinking about how she lost herself.
SANBATCH. ... If he does turn you out, you'll have to go to the County Home amongst the paupers... (Still no reaction.)... My reckoning is that'd be the best thing that could happen for you now, for in the County Home you'd be swarmed about with paupers all day, and you'd have to alter your habits and start talking again.
SANBATCH (solemnly). Only last night, Stephen, I was dreaming again about your wife, and how she used to sit on my knee long ago.
STEPHEN (smiling). And she had a wish for you evermore, even after I married her.
SANBATCH. ... If some wan doesn't marry here soon, the village'll be in an awful way with no child swelling up into a man for the days when ourselves'll be without the help of hand or foot.
CON. You could tell from his eyes that he got a punishing from the world.
STEPHEN. Yes, till my cure is landed: the only cure that never failed -- death.
MARK. By the living! She's not here yet. (He turns, sees CON and advances on him with frantic urgency.) Who are you? You must quit this place directly. 'Tis here Stephen's daughter is to meet me. In a small while we'll push ahead to the Tomb Plantation. Then you can come back here. (Frantically.) Quick, man, before she comes!
MARK. ... Maybe she never told the Post Boy she'd meet me here! He brought me false messages from girls before. He's playing that trick on me till he has old shoes made of it.
MARK. She was a servant girl in our house above a hundred years ago, and the people in it betrayed her hiding-place to Major D'Arcy that was landlord then and the worst bastard maker of all the D'Arcys. She was never seen alive after, and 'twas common report that she ran down to the lake and drowned herself and put a curse on our home.
MARK. 'You're the last that'll live here,' she said, 'and the sooner you quit the longer you'll live, and the longer you stop here the sooner you'll die. And,' she said, 'as soon as you're dead or gone from this house, the rats'll eat it.'
CON. Well, that's your ghost for you. Your health got broken down with bad eating, and then you got out of your nerves at last. In this country your case is as common as grass.
PADDY. She sent word with the Postboy that she'd meet me here.
PADDY. 'Twas you he was fooling, not me. First she thought I was seventy-seven years, and said 'twas too long since I was born. But the minute she heard I was only seventy-two years, she said she'd wed no wan but myself. (To CON.) How are you?
JIMMY. Well, beware of that oak-tree; that's oul' Major D'Arcy's tree. In my grandfather's time some went cutting it, but th' oul' Major's voice was heard from within: 'Be off, and leave me alone or you'll arms'll wither.' He's within in it, a prisoner till Judgment Day, on account he used to set five or six cradles working every year.
PADDY. I never made a day's work this many and many a year. I was the eldest and the house and farm was left to me, so I could do what I liked in it. What I liked to do was no work, and let that lad do it all. Wasn't I clever to think of that?
PADDY. Some must work right enough. All can't be clever.
CON. Your brother'll have to work double any more on account he'll have two of ye to earn for.
CON. Still, some say, 'tis better to be fighting than to be lonesome.
SHEILA. What message?
SHEILA (decisively). That's what I'll never do while my toes are looking down.
SHEILA. 'Tisn't as bad here for a man. ... But what can a girl do, or who can she talk to? There isn't a man keeping a house in this village but is part crazy.
SHEILA. Mark, I'm very sorry for your trouble, but what can I do? I'm marrying a fellow in England shortly.
CON. They say it isn't lucky to desert your father or mother.
CON. You mean the fairies took her, and left wan of their own kind in her place?
KITTY (chuckling). The Wood of the Whispering they do call this wood on account of all the courting couples that used to be in it some years ago before all the lads and girls went foreign.
CON (grimly). Like all the Irish, I got great sense at last -- when 'twas too late to do me any good.
CON. I couldn't bring myself to settle down in England I was so lonesome for Ireland, and I couldn't bring myself to leave England and face poverty and bad wages of Ireland. So English landladies got my earnings and I remained a tramp navvy. Any road I go, I'm going home, because I have no home.
KITTY. He's giving me strong advice to go foreign and not waste my time here.
SANBATCH (jumping up in a fury). He's sending you foreign! The last bright little face that's left in our country? (He runs for the gun.)
SANBATCH (furious again). D'ye hear what she said? He was talking sense to her! The rottenest action in the world wide that a man could do.
SANBATCH. I haven't the breath for diddling now, but wan time I could keep a score of couples dancing half a night.
For the oul' people had a saying: 'Leig an oidhche leis féin' ['Leave the night to itself'] and 'tis true: the night never likes any wan to interfere with it.
SANBATCH. You drew me away, Leggy, before I could tell her the best news: that there were prospects of a marriage in the village again. If there was only wan child in the village itself, he'd keep us smiling half a score years more, and then he'd be hardy enough to run for the priest when we'd be suffering death. (Suddenly gleeful and triumphant.) For we won't always be miserable, Leggy. We'll die at last. (Chuckling cheerfully.) That much is sure. God never refused Death to any wan!

Act Two

KITTY. God save all here, except the dog!
KITTY (mischievously). If I can't get another fellow, I'll miss you; but if I can, I won't!
KITTY (laughing). They're gone up! Quick, while we're safe! (They kiss.)
KITTY (cheerfully incredulous). So you'd reckon we should finish up now?
CON (rising). I'm sure of it, but I haven't the sense to do it.
KITTY (cheerfully). Sure I know he'd be all right for any wan that'd like him good enough.
CON (grimly). Sheila won't marry him! Like myself and like all the born old maids and old bachelors, she wants to marry some wan she can't marry, or some wan that doesn't want to marry her.
SANBATCH (running to the upper roots of a tree). Out here I have had the first makings of a secret invention and, if I can finish it right, it'll make us as rich as factory masters, and you'll have no more need to go foreign in search of a house or good pay. So, till the invention is made, let ye not go foreign.
STEPHEN (puffing resignedly). 'Tis no loss at all to be leaving Ireland now. Anymore 'twill be a miserable bare country with all its fine mansions and woods destroyed.
HOTHA. Here you are! Sign there! Be watching this, Sunbatch.
SANBATCH. This will is the lowest and the saddest ever I seen. If you're leaving Sheila your house and farm you shouldn't give her power to sell them. Because she'll sell them directly you're gone, and give herself and the money away to that wastrel in London.
SANBATCH. Put a clause in that'll forbid her to sell it; then we might convert her to stand loyal to her own village. Which is worse, that she should have to live in her own village, and marry a farmer like her mother before her, or that us, your oul' neighbours that drank with you forty years, should be left to die on the ground, like dogs? I'll not witness such a will. (He walks away.)
HOTHA. Tonight I'm going telling Sheila and Kitty about the £700 I have in the bank and my two thousand pounds' worth of land and stock. They have heads like feet if they don't understand such a man'd be better for them than young fellows that have nothing but clothes on their backs.
SANBATCH. And when they refuse you, will you agree then to wed Sadie?
SANBATCH (reflecting). ... Still I'd be better pleased than five pounds not to have to do what I have to do now -- challenge poor Sadie that never took a bite out of any wan. But 'tis a thing must be done, because Hotha is the only wan that can mind and save her any more, on account that secret invention'll keep myself working far away and night and day from the Wood of the Whispering. And if I can contrive to get herself and Hotha wedded, they'll be using only wan of their houses anymore, and then, maybe in God, Kitty and Con could marry into the idle house and bring back children to the village once more.
SANBATCH. What did ye do with our Sadie? Where did ye put her? Bring back our Sadie this minute, or I'll kill you against the ground.
SANBATCH. 'Tis no good at all for you to be looking so innocent. ... You're not our Sadie at all!
'Tis shaking. 'Tis shaking and breaking, so they're coming. (To SADIE.) Bring back our Sadie this minute and I can still save you...
SANBATCH. Sadie, 'tis yourself is in it for certain! If you were wan of them you wouldn't trust Our Savior or His Mother.
KITTY (full of mischief). Which of them will I propose to?
SHEILA. Either of them will do.
KITTY. Paddy, d'ye mind if I deprive you of Jimmy, and wed him?
PADDY (jumping up likewise). You hanging blackguard! How can I wed Sheila if you won't stay and work the farm for us? I don't know how to put wan stone over another to make a wall.
PADDY (spitting on his palm like a jobber at a fair). Well, here! No woman'll ever hang up her coat in my house, if you'll come back and do all work for me the same as before.
MARK (vigorously). How can you alter your mind when you won't give me chance to court you the same as you gave him? Sure, ye should give every man a fair trial.
CON. The reason for that is, she's a born old maid the same as I'm a born old bachelor. Unknown to ourselves, Sheila, we're afeard of marriage, and that fear won't let us want to marry any wan that could, or would, marry us.
CON. I'll wait another while, too. There's no use in talking sense to us, Mark. We're fools and cowards and that's what we'll remain. Trip to England where you'll get plenty that aren't born old maids.
HOTHA (raising in anger). Sanbatch, you know as much about marriage as my coachman that never cracked a whip, and you're after giving them girls advice that'd ruin them. They're good-looking and Mark and Con are good-looking, and 'tis the wrongest and the unluckiest thing in the world for wan good-looking person to marry another good-looking person. Ye should marry plain-looking persons such as me, and give your children their fair chance to be good-looking.
HOTHA. Sanbatch, she's on the mending hand surely, and very near improved enough for marriage. But maybe she hates the living sight of me on account I let her down?
SANBATCH. ... Himself and his music is all the company you'll have soon on account myself I'll be away in a secret place making an invention that'll bring back riches and young marriages and children to the village... But if the invention fails, a marriage between yourself and Hotha is the last chance to save the village. Wan of yeer two houses'd be idle then for Kitty and Con to wed into; and wan marriage encourages another.
HOTHA (entering with violin and case). Did she ask for me surely and truly?
HOTHA. I'll wait only wan week or two, and I'll play every night for her, and coax her by degrees like the lawyer goes to Heaven.
SADIE. Leggy... Leggy... listen a while... I... must... learn... conversation again.

Act Three

JIMMY (after deep thought). Well, I will sanction you to wed Kitty instead of me -- if you sign over your farm to me.
SANBATCH. ... Hi for Sanbatch, that has invented the only thing in the world that's before love or gold!... I'm after succeeding in the invention of drink!
JIMMY. With Stephen so lonesome, 'twould be safer to resign from this. (He puts the bottle on the ground.)
PADDY. Well take notice of this! Your girl is my girl anymore and I'm a very jealous-minded man, so don't let me catch you talking to her.
KITTY. But would you ever forgive me for parting you from the only country you ever felt contented in?
CON. I would -- if you made a very good wife. And would you be able to forgive me for dragging you down to a back-street back-room with nothing in it, or around it, but dust and darkness and noise and poverty and petrol smoke.
MARK (fiercely). Irish women could have saved my farm and home, but they wouldn't. The last breed I want to meet is an Irishwoman. I wouldn't marry one if they were hanging over each other in hundreds.
SHEILA. I wrote and told him all, the day after the funeral, and when he didn't answer before now he can save his ink. All is over between us.
CON. 'Twas the country she turned down and the want of cinemas and baths and high wages. When you taste a good thing you want a good thing, and she couldn't help that.
CON. 'Tis true, but that isn't the biggest difference ye'll find. Around here the people don't think enough about this world: in England they don't think at all about the next world.
CON. A taste of anything never killed anybody. (Tastes.) By the book! 'Tis equal to the best Connemara potion. What would you say, Mark? (Gives him bottle.)
SANBATCH (to the girls). Let ye cast out of yeer heads every notion of going foreign. Around here anymore we'll be shovelling the gold the same as the D'Arcys were long ago. Con can be selling potion in the county above, and Mark in the county below and Hotha in the county over.
SANBATCH (taking the bottle and setting out for the wicket-gate). Hotha, this is the invention that'll man and wife of yourself and Sadie. Half-a-pint of this and you'll have courage to face her, and a half-a-pint in her'll loosen her tongue. Clear out, the lot of ye, for a small while.
PADDY. 'Tisn't poaching anything. I was in the drink shop and I heard wan say: 'Why are we spending good money here, when the finest of whiskey poteen is waiting for us at Tomb Plantation?' Ses th' other blackguard: 'If we go now we might catch and arrest the gang that made it -- whoever they are!' And with that, off they set at a good hand trot for the Tomb Plantation.
CON. The Guards are making off with the invention for drink and all the potion.
HOTHA. Sanbatch, don't do it!
SANBATCH. Leave this country, Kitty, before you lose yourself too. Soon the crows'll be flying between every two rafters in this village; then the drink-shop'll fall like a rotten egg, and you'll be flung out without a trade or riches on the waves of the world.
SANBATCH. Take a last look at oul' Sanbatch... The invention for drink got arrested, and my last shilling was gone, and I couldn't disgrace my decent people by going to the poorhouse. That's why I made prices of your window, and in a few minutes, when the guards come, I'll behave foaming mad, and they'll dispatch me to the asylum.
HOTHA (to SADIE). The way it is, Sadie, the young people are going foreign; Sanbatch is going, and this winter Stephen'll bring Jimmy and Paddy. Only ourselves two'll be left in the village and, if we don't join each other now, the lonesome'll destroy us both.
PADDY (hurrying in from right). Sanbatch, start raving! They're coming!
SANBATCH. After her quick, before she loses herself again.
SANBATCH. Too many months and years I'll have for practising... Let me go out now till I have a lost look at the Pleasure Ground of the D'Arcys.
CON (hanging kettle on fire and getting some sandwiches and tea out of his bundle). By hard work, in my spare time, I could make land out of Sanbatch's farm again, if he'd let us marry into it and look after him. But what can we do when there's no house or stick of furniture, or the price of either?
HOTHA. She declares she'll wed me, if I save Sanbatch from going to the mental hospital. I must tell him. (He runs to the other wicket-gate.)
CON. If you wed Sadie, ye'll have two houses ye'll want only one. Let us wed into the other house, and we'll look after Sanbatch and the land. They'll be no charity or disgrace for him in that. He can leave us the land when he is dying.
KITTY. The tinkers are raggedy and poor, too; still there's no class so happy as them.
CON (coming to her). When you say that, you're saving Sanbatch and saving me and saving yourself, too. Like Sheila and most of the Irish girls in England you'd soon turn English and too stern and serious and sad, and then you wouldn't be Kitty any more.
KITTY. Give Mark your ring finger, and you'll save Sanbatch. Wance he sees two young couples here and the village coming to life again, Con's lorry and ropes won't be strong enough to drag him from it.
PADDY (furious). Thirty-two years! I'd burn my house before I'd take such an aged woman into it!
KITTY (coming to him). Sure, Sanbatch, 'tis Con and myself that are asking a charity from you. We're asking you to take us in and adopt us, on account our own people have no place for us.
KITTY. Your heart's wish was to save the village, and at last 'tis in your power to do it. If you'll adopt us, we can wed, and Sadie can wed Hotha, and Mark and Sheila can marry.
SANBATCH. Two young couples in the village again! Paddy, untie the rope!
SADIE (earnestly). Is it the truth, that you'll never go to the asylum if I wed Hotha?
SADIE (smiling). ...I will. (She sits beside him.)
SANBATCH. In the English army as soon as wan man is killed they enlist another, and that's God's plan, too; for each person that dies, a child to be sent into the world. But around here we reckoned we were men of brains, as good as God, and we reckoned we could do without ye, and God never said wan word only let us go ahead and ruin ourselves: and then Himself scattered all women and girls away from us to the ends of the world... But maybe now He thinks we have good enough sense got again, and maybe soon He'll bestow children on the village again. If He does, we'll have nothing more to want or to do, only wait for death and then die happy because we will be leaving room for more.