Seven Short Plays Part 30

_Mike McInerney:_ (_Throwing pillow and seizing mug._) Take this so, you s...o...b..ng ruffian you!

(_They throw all within their reach at one another, mugs, prayer books, pipes, etc._)

_Curtain_

THE TRAVELLING MAN

PERSONS

_A Mother._ _A Child._ _A Travelling Man._

THE TRAVELLING MAN

A MIRACLE PLAY

_Scene: A cottage kitchen. A woman setting out a bowl and jug and board on the table for bread-making._

_Child:_ What is it you are going to make, mother?

_Mother:_ I am going to make a grand cake with white flour. Seeds I will put in it. Maybe I'll make a little cake for yourself too. You can be baking it in the little pot while the big one will be baking in the big pot.

_Child:_ It is a pity daddy to be away at the fair on a Samhain night.

_Mother:_ I must make my feast all the same, for Samhain night is more to me than to any other one. It was on this night seven years I first came into this house.

_Child:_ You will be taking down those plates from the dresser so, those plates with flowers on them, and be putting them on the table.

_Mother:_ I will. I will set out the house to-day, and bring down the best delf, and put whatever thing is best on the table, because of the great thing that happened me seven years ago.

_Child:_ What great thing was that?

_Mother:_ I was after being driven out of the house where I was a serving girl....

_Child:_ Where was that house? Tell me about it.

_Mother:_ (_Sitting down and pointing southward._) It is over there I was living, in a farmer's house up on Slieve Echtge, near to Slieve na n-Or, the Golden Mountain.

_Child:_ The Golden Mountain! That must be a grand place.

_Mother:_ Not very grand indeed, but bare and cold enough at that time of the year. Anyway, I was driven out a Samhain day like this, because of some things that were said against me.

_Child:_ What did you do then?

_Mother:_ What had I to do but to go walking the bare bog road through the rough hills where there was no shelter to find, and the sharp wind going through me, and the red mud heavy on my shoes. I came to Kilbecanty....

_Child:_ I know Kilbecanty. That is where the woman in the shop gave me sweets out of a bottle.

_Mother:_ So she might now, but that night her door was shut and all the doors were shut; and I saw through the windows the boys and the girls sitting round the hearth and playing their games, and I had no courage to ask for shelter. In dread I was they might think some shameful thing of me, and I going the road alone in the night-time.

_Child:_ Did you come here after that?

_Mother:_ I went on down the hill in the darkness, and with the dint of my trouble and the length of the road my strength failed me, and I had like to fall. So I did fall at the last, meeting with a heap of broken stones by the roadside.

_Child:_ I hurt my knee one time I fell on the stones.

_Mother:_ It was then the great thing happened. I saw a stranger coming towards me, a very tall man, the best I ever saw, bright and s.h.i.+ning that you could see him through the darkness; and I knew him to be no common man.

_Child:_ Who was he?

_Mother:_ It is what I thought, that he was the King of the World.

_Child:_ Had he a crown like a King?

_Mother:_ If he had, it was made of the twigs of a bare blackthorn; but in his hand he had a green branch, that never grew on a tree of this world. He took me by the hand, and he led me over the stepping-stones outside to this door, and he bade me to go in and I would find good shelter. I was kneeling down to thank him, but he raised me up and he said, "I will come to see you some other time.

And do not shut up your heart in the things I give you," he said, "but have a welcome before me."

_Child:_ Did he go away then?

_Mother:_ I saw him no more after that, but I did as he bade me. (_She stands up and goes to the door._) I came in like this, and your father was sitting there by the hearth, a lonely man that was after losing his wife. He was alone and I was alone, and we married one another; and I never wanted since for shelter or safety. And a good wife I made him, and a good housekeeper.

_Child:_ Will the King come again to the house?

_Mother:_ I have his word for it he will come, but he did not come yet; it is often your father and myself looked out the door of a Samhain night, thinking to see him.

_Child:_ I hope he won't come in the night time, and I asleep.

_Mother:_ It is of him I do be thinking every year, and I setting out the house, and making a cake for the supper.

_Child:_ What will he do when he comes in?

_Mother:_ He will sit over there in the chair, and maybe he will taste a bit of the cake. I will call in all the neighbours; I will tell them he is here. They will not be keeping it in their mind against me then that I brought nothing, coming to the house. They will know I am before any of them, the time they know who it is has come to visit me.

They will all kneel down and ask for his blessing. But the best blessing will be on the house he came to of himself.

_Child:_ And are you going to make the cake now?

_Mother:_ I must make it now indeed, or I will be late with it. I am late as it is; I was expecting one of the neighbours to bring me white flour from the town. I'll wait no longer, I'll go borrow it in some place. There will be a wedding in the stonecutter's house Thursday, it's likely there will be flour in the house.

_Child:_ Let me go along with you.

_Mother:_ It is best for you to stop here. Be a good child now, and don't be meddling with the things on the table. Sit down there by the hearth and break up those little sticks I am after bringing in. Make a little heap of them now before me, and we will make a good fire to bake the cake. See now how many will you break. Don't go out the door while I'm away, I would be in dread of you going near the river and it in flood. Behave yourself well now. Be counting the sticks as you break them.

(_She goes out._)