Where There is Nothing

Paul Ruttledge. You are a smart lad, anyway. What do you say we should have for our wedding party?

Boy. Are you rich?

Paul Ruttledge. More or less.

Boy. I seen a whole truck full of cakes and bullseyes in the village below. Could you buy the whole of them?

Charlie Ward. Stop talking nonsense. What we want is porter.

Paul Ruttledge. All right. How many public-houses are there in the village?

Tommy the Song. Twenty-four.

Paul Ruttledge. Is there any place we can have barrels brought to?

Charlie Ward. There's a shed near seems to be empty. We might go there.

Paul Ruttledge. Then go and order as many barrels as we can make use of to be brought there.

Paddy Cockfight. We will; and we'll stop till we've drunk them out.

Paul Ruttledge. [Taking out money.] I have more money than will pay for that. Sabina, we'll treat the whole neighbourhood in honour of our wedding. I'll have all the public-houses thrown open, and free drinks going for a week!

Tinkers. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

Charlie Ward. Three cheers more, boys.

All. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

The Boys. Now here's the budget.

Paul Ruttledge. [Taking Sabina Silver'shand.] Now, Sabina, one, two, three!

Curtain.

ACT III

Scene: A large shed. Some sheepskins hanging up. Irons and pots for branding sheep, some pitchforks, etc. Tinkers playing cards, Paul Ruttledgesitting on an upturned basket.

Charlie Ward. Stop that melodeon, now will ye, and we'll have a taste of the cocks. Paul didn't see them yet what they can do. Where's Tommy? Where in the earthly world is Tommy the Song?

Paddy Cockfight. He's over there in the corner.

Charlie Ward. What are you doing there, Tommy?

Tommy the Song. Taking a mouthful of prayers, I am.

Charlie Ward. Praying! did anyone ever hear the like of that? Pull him out of the corner.

[Paddy Cockfightpulls Tommy the Songout of the corner.

Charlie Ward. What is it you were praying for, I would like to know?

Tommy the Song. I was praying that we might all soon die.

Paddy Cockfight. Die, is it?

Charlie Ward. Is it die and all that porter about? Well! you have done enough praying, go over there and look for the basket. Who was it set him praying, I wonder? I am thinking it is the first prayer he ever said in his life.

Sabina Silver. It's likely it was Paul. He's after talking to him through the length of an hour.

Paul Ruttledge. Maybe it was. Don't mind him. I said just now that when we were all dead and in heaven it would be a sort of drunkenness, a sort of ecstasy. There is a hymn about it, but it is in Latin. "Et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est." How splendid is the cup of my drunkenness!

Charlie Ward. Well, that is a great sort of a hymn. I never thought there was a hymn like that, I never did.

Paddy Cockfight. To think, now, there is a hymn like that. I mustn't let it slip out of my mind. How splendid is the cup of my drunkenness, that's it.

Charlie Ward. Have you found that old bird of mine?

Tommy the Song. [Who has been searching among the baskets.] Here he is, in the basket and a lot of things over it.

Charlie Ward. Get out that new speckled bird of yours, Paddy, I've been wanting to see how could he play for a week past.

Paul Ruttledge. Where do you get the cocks?

Paddy Cockfight. It was a man below Mullingar owned this one. The day I first seen him I fastened my two eyes on him, he preyed on my mind, and next night, if I didn't go back every foot of nine miles to put him in my bag.

Paul Ruttledge. Do you pay much for a good fighting cock?

Sabina Silver. [Laughs.] Do you pay much, Paddy?

Paul Ruttledge. Perhaps you don't pay anything.

Sabina Silver. I think Paddy gets them cheap.

Charlie Ward. He gets them cheaper than another man would, anyhow.

Paddy Cockfight. He's the best cock I ever saw before or since. Believe me, I made no mistake when I pitched on him.

Tommy the Song. I don't care what you think of him. I'll back the red; it's he has the lively eye.

Molly the Scold. Andy Farrell had an old cock, and it bent double like himself, and all the feathers flittered out of it, but I hold you he'd leather both your red and your speckled cock together. I tell ye, boys, that was the cock!

[Uproarious shouts and yells heard outside.

Charlie Ward. Those free drinks of yours, Paul, is playing the devil with them. Do you hear them now and every roar out of them? They're putting the cocks astray. [He takes out a cock.] Sure they think it's thunder.

Molly the Scold. There's not a man of them outside there now but would be ready to knock down his own brother.