Page:Irish plays and playwrights (IA irishplaysplaywr00weygrich).pdf/261

 Rh or a Tess is now a drudge, almost a slattern, gray-haired, hopeless, almost hated by a brutal husband. The loveless marriage has proved a curse. Upon the woman of his dreams so dethroned comes Brian Connor, now a successful novelist, and, finding how things are, falls, for all his intended restraint, into a fight with Tom, whom but for Ellen he would have choked to death. Brian urges Ellen to go away with him, but, after a moment's faltering, she refuses to go. This is the last scene. Tom, who has heard Brian's proposal and his wife's rejection of it, comes slowly down the room.

Tom. Was it me you saved or was it the young man? When you pulled him off me, did you save me, or was it him you saved from being hung? Tell me that, Ellen McCarthy.

[Silence.

Ah! 't is aisy seen.

[Puts his hat on, and goes to the door, and takes the key out of the lock.

Ellen (looking round). What are you doing? (Frightened.) What are you doing?

Tom. I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm locking the door the way you won't go after that young man; an' I'm going to step down to the village now for a sup of drink. An' then—I'm coming back; an', by God, I'll make you pay for this night's work, Ellen McCarthy, till you'd wish you were dead—for the black curse you brought on this farm, an' for the liking you have to the young man.

[Goes out. Ellen remains sitting at the table, staring in front of her with sad, hopeless eyes.

The turning of the key in the lock ends the play, leaving brutality unimaginable as the fate of Ellen.

It is a severe reading of the Irish peasant, this of Tom