_Mrs. Fallon:_ It’s time for ourselves to be going home. I have all I
bought put in the basket. Look at there, Jack Smith’s hayfork he left
after him! He’ll be wanting it. (_Calls._) Jack Smith! Jack
Smith!—He’s gone through the crowd—hurry after him, Bartley, he’ll be
wanting it.
_Bartley:_ I’ll do that. This is no safe place to be leaving it. (_He
takes up fork awkwardly and upsets the basket._) Look at that now! If
there is any basket in the fair upset, it must be our own basket! (_He
goes out to right._)
_Mrs. Fallon:_ Get out of that! It is your own fault, it is. Talk of
misfortunes and misfortunes will come. Glory be! Look at my new
egg-cups rolling in every part—and my two pound of sugar with the
paper broke——
_Mrs. Tarpey:_ (_Turning from stall._) God help us, Mrs. Fallon, what
happened to your basket?
_Mrs. Fallon:_ It’s himself that knocked it down, bad manners to him.
(_Putting things up._) My grand sugar that’s destroyed, and he’ll not
drink his tea without it. I had best go back to the shop for more,
much good may it do him!
(_Enter Tim Casey._)
_Tim Casey:_ Where is Bartley Fallon, Mrs. Fallon? I want a word with
him before he’ll leave the fair. I was afraid he might have gone home
by this, for he’s a temperate man.
_Mrs. Fallon:_ I wish he did go home! It’d be best for me if he went
home straight from the fair green, or if he never came with me at all!
Where is he, is it? He’s gone up the road (_jerks elbow_) following
Jack Smith with a hayfork.
(_She goes out to left._)
_Tim Casey:_ Following Jack Smith with a hayfork! Did ever any one
hear the like of that. (_Shouts._) Did you hear that news, Mrs.
Tarpey?
_Mrs. Tarpey:_ I heard no news at all.
_Tim Casey:_ Some dispute I suppose it was that rose between Jack
Smith and Bartley Fallon, and it seems Jack made off, and Bartley is
following him with a hayfork!
_Mrs. Tarpey:_ Is he now? Well, that was quick work! It’s not ten
minutes since the two of them were here, Bartley going home and Jack
going to the Five Acre Meadow; and I had my apples to settle up, that
Jo Muldoon of the police had scattered, and when I looked round again
Jack Smith was gone, and Bartley Fallon was gone, and Mrs. Fallon’s
basket upset, and all in it strewed upon the ground—the tea here—the
two pound of sugar there—the egg-cups there—Look, now, what a great
hardship the deafness puts upon me, that I didn’t hear the
commencement of the fight! Wait till I tell James Ryan that I see
below; he is a neighbour of Bartley’s, it would be a pity if he
wouldn’t hear the news!
(_She goes out. Enter Shawn Early and Mrs. Tully._)
_Tim Casey:_ Listen, Shawn Early! Listen, Mrs. Tully, to the news!
Jack Smith and Bartley Fallon had a falling out, and Jack knocked Mrs.
Fallon’s basket into the road, and Bartley made an attack on him with
a hayfork, and away with Jack, and Bartley after him. Look at the
sugar here yet on the road!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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