Civil engineers -- Drama; English drama (Comedy); Ireland -- Drama; Real estate development -- Drama
LARRY [looking up from his paper]. Take care, Tom! In Rosscullen
a yeoman means a sort of Orange Bashi-Bazouk. In England, Mat,
they call a freehold farmer a yeoman.
MATTHEW [huffily]. I don't need to be insthructed be you, Larry
Doyle. Some people think no one knows anythin but dhemselves. [To
Broadbent, deferentially] Of course I know a gentleman like you
would not compare me to the yeomanry. Me own granfather was
flogged in the sthreets of Athenmullet be them when they put a
gun in the thatch of his house an then went and found it there,
bad cess to them!
BROADBENT [with sympathetic interest]. Then you are not the first
martyr of your family, Mr Haffigan?
MATTHEW. They turned me out o the farm I made out of the stones o
Little Rosscullen hill wid me own hans.
BROADBENT. I have heard about it; and my blood still boils at the
thought. [Calling] Hodson--
HODSON [behind the corner of the house] Yes, sir. [He hurries
forward].
BROADBENT. Hodson: this gentleman's sufferings should make every
Englishman think. It is want of thought rather than want of heart
that allows such iniquities to disgrace society.
HODSON [prosaically]. Yes sir.
MATTHEW. Well, I'll be goin. Good mornin to you kindly, sir.
BROADBENT. You have some distance to go, Mr Haffigan: will you
allow me to drive you home?
MATTHEW. Oh sure it'd be throublin your honor.
BROADBENT. I insist: it will give me the greatest pleasure, I
assure you. My car is in the stable: I can get it round in five
minutes.
MATTHEW. Well, sir, if you wouldn't mind, we could bring the pig
I've just bought from Corny.
BROADBENT [with enthusiasm]. Certainly, Mr Haffigan: it will be
quite delightful to drive with a pig in the car: I shall feel
quite like an Irishman. Hodson: stay with Mr Haffigan; and give
him a hand with the pig if necessary. Come, Larry; and help me.
[He rushes away through the shrubbery].
LARRY [throwing the paper ill-humoredly on the chair]. Look here,
Tom! here, I say! confound it! [he runs after him].
MATTHEW [glowering disdainfully at Hodson, and sitting down on
Cornelius's chair as an act of social self-assertion] N are you
the valley?
HODSON. The valley? Oh, I follow you: yes: I'm Mr Broadbent's
valet.
MATTHEW. Ye have an aisy time of it: you look purty sleek. [With
suppressed ferocity] Look at me! Do I look sleek?
HODSON [sadly]. I wish I ad your ealth: you look as hard as
nails. I suffer from an excess of uric acid.
MATTHEW. Musha what sort o disease is zhouragassid? Didjever
suffer from injustice and starvation? Dhat's the Irish disease.
It's aisy for you to talk o sufferin, an you livin on the fat o
the land wid money wrung from us.
HODSON [Coolly]. Wots wrong with you, old chap? Has ennybody been
doin ennything to you?
MATTHEW. Anythin timme! Didn't your English masther say that the
blood biled in him to hear the way they put a rint on me for the
farm I made wid me own hans, and turned me out of it to give it
to Billy Byrne?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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