New Comedies Part 24

_Delia: (Going to it.)_ It is time for you, Patrick, come in.

_(Damer comes in dragging a sack.)_

_Ralph:_ You are after being robbed and left bare.

_Delia:_ Not a one penny left of all you have cast into its mouth.

_Ralph:_ Herself made a prophecy you would be robbed with the weakening of your wits, and sure enough it has come about.

_Delia:_ Not a tint of it left. What now do you say, hearing that?

_Damer: (Sitting down by the hearth and laying down sack.)_ If it should go it must go. That was allotted to me in the skies.

_Delia:_ Is it that you had knowledge ere this of it being swept and lost?

_Damer:_ If I had not, why would I have been setting my mind upon eternity and striving to bring to mind a few prayers? And to have parted with my wicked dog?

_Delia:_ Let you turn around till you will see before you the man that is the robber and the thief!

_Simon:_ Thief yourself! You that had a plan made up to bring it away.

_Damer:_ Delia, Delia, what was I laying down a while ago? It is the love of riches has twisted your heart and your mind.

_Delia:_ Is it that you are contented to be made this one's prey?

_Damer:_ It was foretold for me, I to go stint the body till I near put myself to death without the Lord calling on me, and to lose every whole pound after in one night's card playing.

_Delia:_ Is it at cards you lost it?

_Damer:_ With that same pack of cards you laid out under my hand, I lost all I had gathered to that one.

_Staffy:_ Well, there is nothing so certain in the world as the running of a fool to a fool.

_Delia:_ Is it taking that lad you are to be a fool? I thinking him to be as simple as you'd see in the world, and he putting bread upon his own b.u.t.ter as we slept!

_Ralph:_ We to have known all then we know now, we need not have wasted on him our advice.

_Damer:_ Give me, boy, one answer. What in the world wide put venture into you that made you go face the dog?

_Simon:_ Ah, what venture? And he being as he is without teeth?

_Damer:_ You know that, what no one in the parish or out of it ever found out till now! You should have put your hand in his jaw to know that much! A right lad you are and a lucky lad. I would nearly wish you of my own blood and of my race.

_Delia:_ Of your own blood is it?

_Damer:_ That is what I would wish.

_Delia:_ Is it that you are taking Simon Niland to be a stranger?

_Damer:_ What Simon Niland?

_Delia:_ Your own nephew and only son to your sister Sarah.

_Damer:_ Do you tell me so! What way did it fail me to recognise that, and he having daring and spirit the same as used to be rising up in myself in my early time?

_Delia:_ He was born the very year of you coming into possession of this place.

_Damer:_ The same year my luck turned against me, and every horse I would back would get the staggers on the course, or would fail to rise at the leaps. All the strength of fortune went from me at that time, it is into himself it flowed and ran. The dead spit and image of myself he is. Stop with me here through the winter season and through the summer season! You to be in the house it is not an unlucky house will be in it. The Royalty of England and of Spain cannot touch upon yourself. I am prouder of you than if you wrote the wars of Homer or put down Turgesius of the Danes! You are a lad that can't be beat. It is you are the Lamb of Luck!

_Staffy:_ What call has he or any of us to be stopping under Damer's roof and he owning but the four walls presently and a poor little valley of land?

_Ralph:_ There is nothing worth while in his keeping, and all he had gathered after being robbed.

_Damer:_ Is that what you are saying? Well, I am not so easy robbed as you think! _(Takes bag from the sack and shakes it.)_ Is that what you call being robbed?

_Simon:_ That is my treasure and my bag!

_Staffy:_ I thought it was after being brought away from the two of you.

_Damer:_ You are out of it! It is Jubair did that much for me.

Jubair, my darling, it is tonight I'll bring him back to the house!

It is not in the box he will be any more but alongside the warmth of the hearth. The time I went unloosing his chain, didn't he sc.r.a.pe with his paw till he showed me all I had lost hid in under the straw, and it in a spotted bag! _(Opens and pours out money.)_

_Simon:_ It is as well for you have it back where it stopped so short with myself.

_Damer:_ Is it that I would keep it from you where it was won fair?

It is a rogue of a man would do that. Where would be the use, and I knowing you could win it back from me at your will, and the five trumps coming into your hand? It is to share it we will and share alike, so long as it will not give out!

_Delia:_ A little handsel to myself would do the both of you no harm at all.

_Damer:_ Delia, my darling, I'll go as far as that on this day of wonders. I'll handsel you and welcome. I'll bestow on you the empty jar. _(Gives it to her.)_

_Delia:_ I'll take it. I'll let on it to be weighty and I facing back into Loughtysha.s.sy.

_Ralph:_ The neighbours seeing it and taking you to be his heir you might come to your goats yet.

_Delia:_ Ah, what's goats and what is guinea-hens? Did ever you see yoked horses in a coach, their skin s.h.i.+ning out like sh.e.l.ls, rising their steps in tune the same as a patrol of police? There are peac.o.c.ks on the lawns of Lough Cutra they were telling me, having each of them a hundred eyes. _(Goes to door.)_

_Simon: (Putting his hand on the jar.)_ I don't know. _(To Damer_) It might be a nice thing for the two of us to start gathering the full of it again.

_Damer:_ Not a fear of me. Where heaping and h.o.a.rding that much has my years withered and blighted up to this, it is not to storing treasure in any vessel at all I will give the latter end of my days, or to working the skin off my bones. Give me here that coat.

(_Puts it on.)_ If I was tossed and racked a while ago I'll show out good from this out. Come on now, out of this, till we'll face to the races of Loughrea and of Knockbarron. I was miserable and starved long enough. _(Puts on hat.)_ I'm thinking as long as I'll be living I'll take my view of the world, for it's long I'll be lying when my eyes are closed and seeing nothing at all!

_(He seizes a handful of gold and puts it in Simon's pocket and another in his own. They turn towards the door.)_

_Curtain_