JACK SMITH. If it didn't itself, Bartley, it is my belief you
would carry a leaky pail on your head in place of a hat, the way
you'd not be without some cause of complaining.
(_A voice heard: "Go on, now, go on out o' that. Go on, I say."_)
JACK SMITH. Look at that young mare of Pat Ryan's that is backing
into Shaughnessy's bullocks with the dint of the crowd! Don't be
daunted, Pat, I'll give you a hand with her. (_He goes out,
leaving his hayfork._)
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 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 anyone
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 commincement of the fight!
Wait till I tell James Ryan that I see below; he is a neighbor of
Bartley's; it would be a pity if he wouldn't hear the news!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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