_Mother:_ (_Taking the branch._) There are fruit and flowers on it. It is a branch that is not of any earthly tree. (_Falls on her knees._) He is gone, he is gone, and I never knew him! He was that stranger that gave me all! He is the King of the World! THE GAOL GATE PERSONS _Mary Cahel_ AN OLD WOMAN _Mary Cushin_ HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW _The Gatekeeper_ THE GAOL GATE _Scene: Outside the gate of Galway Gaol. Two countrywomen, one in a long dark cloak, the other with a shawl over her head, have just come in. It is just before dawn._ _Mary Cahel:_ I am thinking we are come to our journey’s end, and that this should be the gate of the gaol. _Mary Cushin:_ It is certain it could be no other place. There was surely never in the world such a terrible great height of a wall. _Mary Cahel:_ He that was used to the mountain to be closed up inside of that! What call had he to go moonlighting or to bring himself into danger at all? _Mary Cushin:_ It is no wonder a man to grow faint-hearted and he shut away from the light. I never would wonder at all at anything he might be driven to say. _Mary Cahel:_ There were good men were gaoled before him never gave in to anyone at all. It is what I am thinking, Mary, he might not have done what they say. _Mary Cushin:_ Sure you heard what the neighbours were calling the time their own boys were brought away. “It is Denis Cahel,” they were saying, “that informed against them in the gaol.” _Mary Cahel:_ There is nothing that is bad or is wicked but a woman will put it out of her mouth, and she seeing them that belong to her brought away from her sight and her home. _Mary Cushin:_ Terry Fury’s mother was saying it, and Pat Ruane’s mother and his wife. They came out calling it after me, “It was Denis swore against them in the gaol!” The sergeant was boasting, they were telling me, the day he came searching Daire-caol, it was he himself got his confession with drink he had brought him in the gaol. _Mary Cahel:_ They might have done that, the ruffians, and the boy have no blame on him at all. Why should it be cast up against him, and his wits being out of him with drink? _Mary Cushin:_ If he did give their names up itself, there was maybe no wrong in it at all. Sure it’s known to all the village it was Terry that fired the shot. _Mary Cahel:_ Stop your mouth now and don’t be talking. You haven’t any sense worth while. Let the sergeant do his own business with no help from the neighbours at all. _Mary Cushin:_ It was Pat Ruane that tempted them on account of some vengeance of his own. Every creature knows my poor Denis never handled a gun in his life. _Mary Cahel:_ (_Taking from under her cloak a long blue envelope._) I wish we could know what is in the letter they are after sending us through the post. Isn’t it a great pity for the two of us to be without learning at all?