No More Learning

You may come, Maurteen.

[_The GARDENER, an old man, comes in from the R. , and
the SERVANT goes out. _

GARDENER.

Forgive my working clothes and the dirt on me.
I bring ill words, your ladyship,--too bad
To send with any other.

CATHLEEN.

These bad times,
Can any news be bad or any good?

GARDENER.

A crowd of ugly lean-faced rogues last night--
And may God curse them! --climbed the garden wall.
There is scarce an apple now on twenty trees,
And my asparagus and strawberry beds
Are trampled into clauber, and the boughs
Of peach and plum-trees broken and torn down
For some last fruit that hung there. My dog, too,
My old blind Simon, him who had no tail,
They murdered--God's red anger seize them!

CATHLEEN.

I know how pears and all the tribe of apples
Are daily in your love--how this ill chance
Is sudden doomsday fallen on your year;
So do not say no matter.
I but say
I blame the famished season, and not you.
Then be not troubled.

GARDENER.

I thank your ladyship.

CATHLEEN.

What rumours and what portents of the famine?

GARDENER.

The yellow vapour, in whose folds it came,
That creeps along the hedges at nightfall,
Rots all the heart out of my cabbages.
I pray against it.

[_He goes towards the door, then pauses. _

If her ladyship
Would give me an old crossbow, I would watch
Behind a bush and guard the pears of nights
And make a hole in somebody I know of.

CATHLEEN.

They will give you a long draught of ale below.

[_The GARDENER goes out. _

OONA.

What did he say?