Act 2 — SCENE II

(The Winter Garden, evening. The Servant settling benches and a table.)

Guardian: (Coming in.) Are the Dowager Messengers come? They are late.

Servant: They are come. They are at the looking-glasses settling themselves.

Guardian: As soon as they are ready you will call in the Princes for their examination before them, and their tasks.

Servant: I will.

Guardian: The Messengers will have a good report to bring back of them. They have come to be good scholars, in poetry, in music, in languages, in history, in numbers and all sorts. The old Queen-Godmother will be well satisfied with their report.

Servant: She might and she might not.

Guardian: They would be hard to please if they are not well pleased with the lads, as to learning and as to manners and behaviour.

Servant: Maybe so. Maybe so. There are strange things in the world.

Guardian: You're in bad humour, my poor Gillie. Have you been quarrelling with the cook, or did you get up on the wrong side of your bed?

Servant: There is times when it is hard not to be in a bad humour.

Guardian: What are you grumbling and hinting at?

Servant: There's times when it's hard to believe that witchcraft is gone out of the world.

Guardian: That is a thing that has been done away with in this Island through my government, and through enlightenment and through learning.

Servant: Maybe so. Maybe so.

Guardian: I suppose a three-legged chicken has come out of the shell, or a magpie has come before you in your path? Or maybe some token in the stars?

Servant: It would take more than that to put me astray.

Guardian: Whatever it is you had best tell it out.

Servant: To see lads of princes, sons of kings, and the makings of kings, that were mannerly and well behaved and as civil as a child a few hours ago, to be sitting in a corner at one time as if in dread of the light, and tricking and fooling and grabbing at other times.

Guardian: Oh, is that all! The poor lads. They're out of their habits because of their Godmother's Messengers coming. They are making merry and funning, thinking there might be messages for them or presents.

Servant: Funning is natural. But blowing their nose with their fingers is not natural.

Guardian: High spirits. Just to torment you in their joy.

Servant: To get a bit of chalk, and to make marks in the Hall of dancing, and to go playing hop-scotch.

Guardian: High spirits, high spirits! I never saw boys better behaved or more gentle or with more sweetness of speech. I am thinking there is not one among them but will earn the name of Honey-mouth.

Servant: Have it your own way. But is it a natural thing, I am asking, for the finger nails to make great growth in one day?

Guardian: Stop, stop, be quiet. Here now are the Dowager Messengers. (Two old ladies in travelling costume appear; bowing low to them.) You are welcome for the sake of her that sent you, and for your own sakes.

1st Dowager Messenger: We are come from the Court of the Godmother Queen, for news of the Princes now in your charge;

She hopes they have manners, are minded well, and never let run at large;

For she never has yet got over the fret, of their five little cousins were swept away.

Guardian: Let your mind be at ease, for you'll be well pleased with the youngsters you're going to see to-day.

They're learning the laws to speak and to pause— may be orators then, or Parliament men.

2nd Dowager Messenger: Are they shielded from harm?

Guardian:

In my sheltering arm;

Do their work and their play in a mannerly way

And go holding their nose, and tipped on their

toes,

If they pass through a street, that they'll not soil

their feet.

2nd Dowager Messenger: And next to good manners and next to good looks ...

Guardian: I know what you'll say ...she asks news of the cooks; I'm with her in putting them equal to books; There's some rule by coaxing and some rule by beating, But my principle is, tempt them on with good eating. When everything's said, isn't Sparta as dead As many a place never heard of black bread? And as to a lad who a tartlet refuses,— If Cato stewed parsnips he hated the Muses!

1st Dowager Messenger: And at meals are they taught to behave as they ought?

Guardian: You'll be well satisfied and the Queen will have pride, You will see every Prince use a fork with his mince, And eating his peas like Alcibiades, Who would sooner go mute than play on the flute Lest it made him grimace and contorted his face.

1st Dowager Messenger: Oh, all that you say delights us to-day!

We'll have good news to bring of these sons of a king.

Servant: Here they are now coming.

(Wrenboys in Princes' clothes come in awkwardly.)

Guardian: Now put out a chair. Where these ladies may hear. Come over, my boys ...(Now what is that noise?) Come here, take your places, and show us your faces, And say out your task as these ladies will ask. I would wish them to know how you say Parlez-vous, And I'd like you to speak in original Greek And make numeration, and add up valuation; But to lead you with ease and on by degrees In case you are shy in the visitors' eye I will let you recite, as you easily might, The kings of that Island that no longer are silent But ask recognition and to take a position— (Though if stories are true they ran about blue, While we in Hy-Brasil wore our silks to a frazzle—) So the rhymes you may say that I heard you to-day; And the opening will fall on the youngest of all.

Servant: Let you stand up now and do as you are bid. (Touches 5th Wrenboy.)

Guardian: Go on, my child, say out your lesson. William the First as the Conqueror known.... (Boy puts finger in mouth and hangs his head.) Ah, he is shy. Don't be affrighted, go on now; don't you remember it?

5th Wrenboy: I do not.

Guardian: Try it again now. You said it off quite well this morning.

5th Wrenboy: It fails me.

Guardian: Now I will give you a start: "William the First as the Conqueror known, At the Battle of Hastings ascended the throne ..." Say that now.

5th Wrenboy: (Nudging 4th.) Let you word it.

4th Wrenboy: (To Guardian.) Let you word it again, sir.

Guardian: "William the First as the Conqueror known."

4th Wrenboy: William the First as the congereel known....

Guardian: What is that? You would not do it to vex me! Gillie is maybe right. There is something strange.... (To another.) You may try now. Go on to the next verse. "William called Rufus from having red hair." ...(He does not answer.) Say it anyone who knows....

3rd Wrenboy: (Putting up his hand.) I know a man that has red hair!

All the Wrenboys: (Cheerfully) So do I! So do I!

2nd Wrenboy: He lives in the wood beyond! He is no way good! He is an Ogre, a Grugach....

1st Wrenboy: He can turn himself into the shape of a beast, or he can change his face at any time; sometimes he'll be that wicked you would think he was a wolf; he would skin you with his cat-o'-nine-tails!

Guardian: What gibberish are you talking?

2nd Wrenboy: He goes working underground to get gold!

3rd Wrenboy: It is minded by enchanted cats!

4th Wrenboy: They would tear in bits anyone that would find it!

Guardian: Now take care, lads, this is carrying a joke too far. I was wrong to begin with that silly history. Tell me out now the parts of speech.

"A noun's the name of anything

As school or garden, hoop or swing."

5th Wrenboy: An owl's the name of anything....

Guardian: A noun.

5th Wrenboy: An owl.

Guardian: Don't pretend you don't know it.

5th Wrenboy: I do know it. I know an owl that sits in the cleft of the hollow sycamore and eats its fill of mice, till it can hardly put a stir out of itself.

Guardian: I do wish you would stop talking nonsense.

1st Wrenboy: It is not, but sense. It devoured ere yesterday a whole fleet of young rats.

2nd Wrenboy: It's as wise as King Solomon.

Guardian: Gillie was right. There is surely something gone wrong in their heads.

2nd Wrenboy: Go out yourself and you'll see are we wrong in the head! Inside in the old sycamore he is sitting through the daylight.

1st Dowager Messenger: There is something gone wrong in somebody's head.

2nd Dowager Messenger: (Tapping her forehead.) The poor Guardian; he is too long past his youth. It is well we came to look how things were going before it is too late.

1st Dowager Messenger: Ask them to say something they do know.

Guardian: Here, you're good at arithmetic, say now your numbers.

1st Wrenboy: Twelve coppers make a shilling. I never handled more than that.

Guardian: (Angrily.) Well, do as the lady said, tell us something you do know.

2nd Wrenboy: (Standing up, excited.) I know the way to make bird-lime, steeping willow rods in the stream....

3rd Wrenboy: I know how to use my fists; I knocked a tinker bigger than myself.

4th Wrenboy: I am the best at wrestling. I knocked himself. (Pointing at 3rd.)

5th Wrenboy: I that can skin a fawn after catching him running!

2nd Dowager Messenger. Where now did you get that learning?

5th Wrenboy: Here and there, rambling the woods, sleeping out at night. I would never starve in any place where grass grows!

1st Dowager Messenger: This is worse than neglect. The poor old Guardian the Queen put her trust in must be in his dotage.

Guardian: (Hastily.) Here, there is at least one thing you will not fail in. Take the harp (hands it to the 1st Wrenboy) and draw out of it sweet sounds, (To Dowager Messengers.) He can play a tune so sweet it has been known to send all the hearers into a sound sleep. Here now, touch the strings with all your skill.

(1st Wrenboy bangs harp, making a crash.)

2nd Dowager Messenger: (With hands to ears.) Mercy! Our poor ears!

1st Dowager Messenger: That is the poorest music we have ever heard.

2nd Dowager Messenger: That sound would send no one into their sleep. It would be more likely to send them into Bedlam.

1st Dowager Messenger: Whatever they knew last year, they have forgotten it all now.

Guardian: (Weeping into his handkerchief.) I don't know what has come upon them! At noon they were the most charming lads in the whole world. Their memory seems to have left them!

2nd Dowager Messenger: It is as if another memory had come to them. They did not learn those wild tricks shut up in the garden.

Servant: (To Boys.) Can't ye behave nice and not ugly? (To Guardian.) You would not believe me a while ago. I said and I say still there is enchantment on them, and spells.

Guardian: Oh, I would be sorry to think such a thing. But they never went on this way in their greenest youth.

2nd Dowager Messenger: If there is a spell upon them what way can it be taken off?

Servant: It is what I always heard, that to make a rod of iron red in the fire, and to burn the enchantment out of them is the only way.

Guardian: Oh, boys, do you hear that! You would not like to be burned with a red hot rod! Say out now what at all is the matter with you? What is it you feel within you that is putting you from your gentle ways?

1st Wrenboy: The thing that I feel in me is hunger. The thing I would wish to feel inside me is a good fistful of food.

1st Dowager Messenger: They have been starved and stinted! It would kill their Godmother on the moment if she was aware of that!

Guardian: It is a part of their playgame. They have everything they ask.

2nd Wrenboy: I did not eat a farthing's worth since yesterday.

3rd Wrenboy: My teeth are rusty with the want of food!

4th Wrenboy: I want some dinner!

5th Wrenboy: We want something to eat!

Guardian: Give them whatever you have ready for them, Gillie.

Servant: (Giving the plates.) Here is the supper ye gave orders for this morning.

1st Wrenboy: What is it at all?

Servant: It is your choice thing. Jellies and grapes from Spain.

2nd Wrenboy: (Pushing away grapes) Berries! I thought to get better than berries from the bush.

3rd Wrenboy: There's not much satisfaction in berries!

4th Wrenboy: If it was a pig's foot now; or as much as a potato with a bit of dripping.

5th Wrenboy: (Looking at jelly.) What now is this? It has like the appearance of frog spawn.

1st Wrenboy; Or the leavings of a fallen star.

5th Wrenboy: Shivering it is and shaking. It's not natural! (Drops his plate.)

4th Wrenboy: There is nothing here to satisfy our need.

2nd. Dowager Messenger: I am nearly sorry for them, poor youngsters. When they were but little toddlers they never behaved like that at home.

3rd Wrenboy: It's the starvingest place ever I was in!

1st Dowager Messenger: There must be something in what they say. They would not ask for food if they were not in need of it. And the Guardian making so much talk about his table and his cooks. We cannot go home and report that they have no learning and no food.

2nd Dowager Messenger: As to learning I don't mind. But as to food, I would not wish to leave them without it for the night. They might be as small as cats in the morning.

Guardian: They are dreaming when they say they are in want of food.

1st Dowager Messenger: It is a dream that will waken up their Godmother.

Servant: Look, ma'am, at the table behind you, and you will see is this a scarce house! That is what is set out for yourselves, ma'am, lobsters from Aughanish! A fat turkey from the barley gardens! A spiced and larded sucking pig! Cakes and sweets and all sorts! It is not the want of provision was ever brought against us up to this!

2nd Dowager Messenger: If all this is for us, we would sooner give it up to those poor children.

(To Wrenboys.) Here, my dears, we will not eat while you are in want of food. We will give it all to you.

1st Wrenboy: Is it that we can have what is on that table?

2nd Dowager Messenger: You may, and welcome.

1st Wrenboy: (With a shout.) Do you hear that news! Come on now. Take your chance! I'll have the first start! Skib scab! Hip, hip, hooray!

(They rush at table and upset it, flinging themselves on the food)

CURTAIN