Original subtitles

God bless all here, even the barkeep. Top of the morning.

Top of me head.

With a sense there's a blacksmith at work.

Small wonder. You had that devil's own robe when you left the two this morning.

Yeah, I must have. I don't remember leaving.

You're taking it easy.

Well, let's now trade this time of the day. It was a great temptation when I

saw no one in the bar to make off with a bottle.

Here are the dogs, what I'm needing.

That devil appending the pantaloons.

I want to know how. Thank you, kind man.

Sure, the good Samaritan was a cruel haven beside you. It's the same he was

drinking last night.

His private duke. He keeps it in there for a margin fee. Leave it to Khan,

never to be caught dry.

Your health and inclinations.

If they're virtue.

Khan's not down yet for his morning's morning. No, he won't be till later.

It's a miracle, me meeting him again.

I come to these parts looking for work. Only by accident I heard tell of a Khan,

Melody. I come see what's at him.

Until that night, I not seen hiding or hear of him since the war with the

French in Spain in 12.

I was corporal in the 7th Dragoons. He was major.

I got this cut at Talavera.

Bad luck to it. Serving under him. He was captain then. So you told me last

night.

Did I now?

Oh, yeah. I must have said more than me prayers for the lashings of whiskey.

More than your prayers, it's the truth.

Take another taste.

Oh, I don't like sponging.

Sure, my credit ought to be good in this, Shabine.

Ain't I his cousin? Ah, you're forgetting what himself told you last

night as he went upstairs to beg.

He said you could have all the whiskey you could pour down you, but not a

penny's worth of credit. This house, he asks you to remember, only gives credit

to gentlemen.

Gentlemen. You get thinking about his insults after he's gone out, getting

madder and madder.

God, but that's like him. He hasn't changed much.

If I was mad at Con and me blind drunk, I must have told you a power of lies.

Maybe they wasn't lies.

Tell me what I said. I'll tell you if it was, Lord. You said... You said his

father wasn't of the quality of Galway, like he makes out, but only a thieving

shebeen keeper who got rich by moneylending and squeezing tenants in

every manner of trick.

And when he's enough, he married and bought on his stage with a pack of

hounds and set up as one of the gentry.

He'd hardly got settled when his wife died, give him birth to come. There's no

lie there.

You said none of the gentry would speak to old Melody.

Yes, but he had a tough hide and he didn't heed them. He made up his mind.

He'd bring Con up to be a true gentleman's son.

And so he packed him off to Dublin to school. And then to the college with

slews of money to prove himself the equal of any gentleman's son. But Con

soon found that there was plenty to drink on him and borrow money.

There was few didn't sneer behind his back at his pretensions.

And that's the truth too. But Con soon wiped the sneers off their mouths when

he called one of them out and put a bullet in his hip.

That was his first duel.

And it gave his pride a taste for revenge, so that after that, he was

always looking for an excuse to challenge someone. He's done a power of

both and about it. I thought he was lying. There's no lying in it.

It was that brought disgrace on him in the end, right after he'd been promoted

to major.

He was caught by a Spanish noble making love to his wife, and there was a duel

that killed him.

The scandal was hushed up, but...

Conan had to resign from the army.

If it wasn't for his fine record for bravery in battle, they'd have court

-martialed him.

Well, then, I'm saying more and more of my prayers again. There's no news about

his women.

You'd think to hear him when he's drunk, there wasn't one who could resist him in

Portugal and Spain.

Oh, if you'd seen him then, you wouldn't wonder.

He was strong as an ox.

On a thoroughbred horse in his fine uniform, there wasn't a handsomer man in

the army.

And he had the chance he wanted in Portugal and Spain, where a British

officer was welcome in the gentry's houses. At home, the only women he'd

ever known was whores.

Except Nora, of course. Speaking of Nora, death night, when he's madder

drunk than most, when he throws it in her face, he had to marry her because...

Oh, now, mind you, I'm not saying anything against poor Nora. No, a

sweeter woman never lived. But he tells her that it was the priests.

tricked him into marrying her. He hates priests.

He's a liar, Dan.

He may like to blame it on them, but his little con Melody cared what they said.

He married Nora because he was in love with her.

He was ashamed of her at the same time in his pride because her folks was only

ignorant peasants on his estate.

It's poor, it's poor.

Oh, Nora, no. She was pretty a girl he should meet in a year's travel.

And he'd grown bitter lonely with no woman's company but the whores was

helping him ruin his estate.

Well, anyways.

He married her.

And then he went off to the war.

He left her alone in the castle to have her child.

He never laid eyes on him again until he was sent home from Spain.

And then he raised what little money he was able and brought her and Sarah here

to America, where no one would know him.

Well, thank you for telling me.

And I take my oath. I never breathe a word of it.

For Nora's sake, not his.

You better keep quiet for fear of him, too.

He's half the man he was.

He could beat the lights out of both of us.

Drink, Artie. Long life.

Oh, that's Sarah, isn't it?

I'd better be going.

She'd likely blame me for getting Constable drunk last night.

I'll come back when Con is down.

I'd be damned if I'd run from her.

I'm sorry to interrupt you when you're so busy, but have you your bar book

ready for me to look over? I have.

I left it on your desk.

Thank you.

If it's profit you're looking for, you won't find them.

Not with all the drinks himself's been treating to.

Well, you've your airs of a grand lady this morning, I see.

There's no talking to you ever since you betrayed your nursemaid, the young

Yankee, upstairs.

Well, you've had your cap set for him ever since he come to live, by the way.

And how's your chance when he's here sick and too weak to defend himself?

I warn you, Mickey, to mind your own business or I'll tell my father of your

impudence. He'll teach you to keep your place and God help you. Mara, don't try

to scare me. I know you've never carried heads to him.

Well, can you take a bit of teasing, Sarah?

Leave Simon out of your teasing. Oh, he's Simon to you now, is he? Well,

well.

Maybe if you'd come down from your high horse, I could tell you some news.

You're working an old woman for gossip.

I don't want to hear it. Well, you was upstairs at the back taking him his

breakfast. There was a grand carriage with a coachman stopped at the corner.

And the Yankee lady got out and come in here.

I was there sweeping. Nora was scrubbing in the kitchen.

She asked me... What road would take her to the lake?

Hmm? So I told her, but she didn't go.

She kept looking around, said she'd like a cup of tea. And where was the

waitress? I knew she must be connected somehow with Harford, for why would she

want to go near the lake where nobody's ever lived but him?

So she asked for the waitress, did she?

Well, I hope you told her I'm the owner's daughter too.

I did.

I don't like Yankee Heirs any more than you do. I was short with her. I said you

was out for a walk.

And the tavern wasn't open yet anyway, so she went off and drove away.

What did she look like, Mickey?

Pretty.

If you like that sort, a pale, delicate wisp of a thing with big eyes.

That fits what he said of his mother.

Maybe he ought to have told her he's here sick to save her the drive and the

hot sun and the walk in the woods for nothing. Why would I tell her when she

never mentioned him?

Yeah, it's her own fault.

But...

Well, there's no use bothering my head about her anyway, whoever she was.

Ah, God bless you, Nora. You're the one I've been waiting to see. Would you keep

an eye on the bar for me while I go to the store for a bit of backing? Don't do

it, Mother.

Why wouldn't I?

Thank you, Nora.

And the back of me hand to you, young ladyship.

I shouldn't encourage his laziness. Oh, never mind, Tammy, the good lad.

That says to the rheumatism.

Has me destroyed, I'm sorry.

Told you a hundred times to see the doctor.

We've no money for doctors.

What bad luck, anyway.

I bring death with them.

Your father will be down soon.

I got some fine fresh eggs for his breakfast.

He won't want them.

You mean he'd have dropped too much taking last night?

Last night? What night hasn't he?

Ah, don't beat so hard on him.

Uh, Neelan sent round a note to me about his bill.

He says we're going to have to sit with him by the end of the week or we'll get

no more groceries.

I can't blame him.

But how we'll manage, I don't know.

There's the interest and the mortgage do the first. But that I've saved, God be

thanked. If only you'd let me take charge of the money.

I won't. You and himself would beat each other's trots from dawn till dark. It's

bad enough between yous, it is. Well, why didn't you pay the bill last week?

You told me you had the money put aside.

Well, so I did, but... Dickinson was tormenting your father

with his fee bill for the mayor.

I might have known. The mayor comes first if she takes the bread out of our

mouths. Don't you be talking like that. He has great love for you, even though

you don't be provoking him all the time. Great love for me?

I'd have God pity you, Mother.

And don't you be putting on the brogue now.

You know how he hates to hear you.

And so do I. There's no excuse for you not to cure yourself.

But didn't he send you to school so you could talk like a gentleman's daughter?

He did, and I wasn't there long.

It was you who insisted on leaving.

Because if he hadn't the pride and love for you not to live on, you're slaving

your heart out. I had that pride and love.

I know, Cush. I know.

We can't afford a waitress, but he can afford to keep a thoroughbred mare to

prance around on and show himself off. And he can afford a barkeep.

And if he had any decency, he'd do his part and tend the bar himself.

Him? A gentleman?

Tend bar?

Gentleman?

Mother, it's all right for the two of us, out of our own pride, to pretend to

the world that we believe that lie, but it's crazy for you to pretend to me.

It's no lie.

He is the gentleman.

Mother, you can humor his craziness if you want.

You'll never get me to pretend to him that I don't know the truth.

Don't! Talk as if you hated him. You ought to be ashamed.

I do hate him for the way he treats you.

I heard him again last night raking up the past, blaming his ruin on his having

to marry you. That's right talking, not him.

It's you ought to be ashamed for not having more pride.

You keep slaving when it's that that's made you old before your time.

Well, you can't do it much longer, I tell you. He's getting worse. You'll

have to leave him.

I will not hold your pride.

You'd leave him today if you had any pride.

I've pride in me love for him.

I've loved him since the first day I set eyes on him, and I'll love him till the

day I die.

Little you know of love, and you never will, for there's the same devil of

pride in you that's in him, and it'll keep you from giving all of yourself,

and that's what love is. I could give all of myself if I wanted to, but I...

If wanted to.

Fakes, that proves how little of love you know when you prate about ifs and

wantos.

It's when you haven't a thought for all the ifs and wantos in the world.

It's when if all the fires of hell was burning between you, you'd go through

them gladly to be by his side.

And you'd sing with joy at your own burning if only his kiss was on your

mouth.

That's love.

And I'm proud to have felt the great sorrow and joy of it.

You're a strange woman, Mother.

And a grand one.

I love.

But I love where it'll gain me freedom and not put me in slavery for life.

There's no slavery in it when you love.

Oh, for the love of God, Sarah, don't take the pride of me love from me.

For without it, what am I at all but an ugly woman, grown old and sick? Oh,

hush, Mother.

Don't mind me.

I have to go finish the bar book.

Mickey can't add two and two together without making five.

I'm very devout, your father.

Father Flynn stopped me on the road yesterday.

Told me I'd better warn him not to sneer at the Irish around here and call them

scum or he's going to get himself into trouble.

Most of them were in a rage at him because he's come out against Andrew

Jackson and the Democrats and says he's going to vote with the Yankees for

Quincy Adams.

At least they can't say a joke then.

It's a great joke to hear him shout against mob rule like one of the Yankee

gentry. You know what he came from.

After the Yanks swindled him into getting him to buy this place, telling

him a new coach line was going to stop here.

Easiest fool ever came to America.

That I hold against him as much as anything.

When he came here, the chance was before him to make himself all his life

pretended to be.

He had education above most yanks and money enough to start him.

This is a country where you can rise as high as you like.

No one but the fools who envy you care what you came from.

A bunch of the money and the power goes with it.

Oh, if I was a man with the chance he had, there wouldn't be a dream I'd not

make come true.

You're a fine one to talk to, Mother.

Wake up.

What's worrying you now?

Oh, Father Flynn told me again I was going to be damned in hell for letting

your father make a heathen of me and bring you up a heathen too.

Not to tell the good father we aren't the ignorant shanty scum he's used to

dealing with.

There.

That's done.

Take a walk to the store and have a talk with Neil and maybe I can blarney him

into giving us another month's credit.

Oh, you can.

Sure, you could charm a bird out of a tree if you wanted to.

But I don't like you begging to a Yankee. It's all right for me, but I

know how you hate it. Oh, I don't mind.

As long as it saves you a little of the worry that's killing you.

I'll go change into my Sunday best to make a good impression.

I'm thinking it's not on kneeling alone you want to make an impression.

You changed your Sunday best of luck lately.

Aren't you the sly one?

Well, maybe you're right. How was he when you took him to breakfast?

Hungry. And that's a good sign.

He had no fever last night, all.

He's on the road to recovery.

It won't be long before he's back in his cabin by the lake.

Look, I declare in my head what he's been doing out there the past year,

living like a tramp or a tinker, and him a rich gentleman's son. Oh, he's not

like his kind.

Or like anyone else, for that matter. He's a born dreamer with a great raft of

dreams.

I told you before, he wanted to get away from his father's business because he

didn't like being in trade.

Even if it is a great company that trades with the whole world in its own

ship. That's the way a true gentleman would feel. He wanted to prove his

independence by living alone in the wild and build his own cabin and support

himself simply and live at one with nature and think great thoughts about

what life means.

Write a book about how the world can be changed so people will be able

to not be greedy and...

and live in peace together and freedom and not want money.

I can't remember at all.

Seems crazy to me when I think what people are like.

He hasn't written any of it anyway, only the notes for it.

All he's written the last few months are love poems.

Well, it's clear to me young Master Harford has the touch of the poet in

him, same as your father.

Oh, Mother, God help you. Do you think Father's a poet because he shows off

reciting Lord Byron?

No.

I'm safe to be down any moment.

But I can tell young Harford he's falling in love with you.

Falling? He's falling head over heels.

But he's so timid he hasn't told me yet. But I'll get him to soon.

And I know you're in love with him.

I am, Mother.

Not too much, though.

I won't let love make me any man's slave.

I want to love him just enough to marry him without cheating him, or myself.

For I'm going to marry him, Mother.

It's my chance to rise in the world, and nothing will keep me from it. Moshe, but

you boastful talk.

What about his fine Yankee family? His father likely cut him off without a

penny if he marries a girl who's poor and Irish. He may at first, but...

Once I've proven what a good wife I'll be.

Oh, he can't stop me from marrying Simon, I know that.

It's only his mother I'm afraid of.

She's had great influence over him, I can tell.

She must be a strange creature from all he's told me. She never goes out at all,

but stays in her mansion reading books all day, or in her garden.

Did you see a carriage stop here, Mother, this morning? Oh, don't count

your chickens before they've hatched.

Young Harford seems a decent lad, but maybe it's not marriage that he's up to.

Oh, well, I suppose you're bound to suspect.

Forgive me, Mother, but it's wrong of you to think badly of Simon.

Faith, if it came to seducing, it would be me that would have to do it. Yeah.

It's only in his poems and in the diary he keeps.

I had a peek at it one day when I was over tidying up his cabin for him.

He's very ashamed of his sinful inclination.

And of the insult they are to my purity. Don't talk so bold.

I'm not sure it's good you to be in his room so much. Even if he is sick.

There's a power of talk about the two of you already.

Oh, let there be for all I care.

Or for all Simon cares either. When it comes to not letting others rule him,

he's got a will of his own behind his gentleness.

Just as behind his poetry and dreams.

I feel he has it in him to do anything he wants.

So, even if his father cuts him off, with me to help him, we'll get on in the

world, for I'm no fool either.

Glory be to God, you have a fine opinion of yourself.

Haven't I, though?

Well, I'd need to have slaving as a chambermaid and waitress so my father

can get drunk every night in the bar like a gentleman.

Morning, Sarah.

Morning.

I'm going to get my dress on, Mother.

Good morning, Nora.

Good morning, Con.

I'll get you breakfast.

No.

I want nothing.

Thank you.

You look pale.

Come on,

sit down.

I'll wet a cloth with cold water. Put it round your head. No, thank you. I want

nothing except a little piece in which to read the news.

I'll leave him, Kate.

Oh, Kate, stop your tearing!

I was thinking maybe about who would make you pick them. I told you once, I'm

not hungry.

Laura.

Well, maybe it's the hair of the dog you're needing.

No, damn the liquor.

In my conscience, I've about made up my mind I'll have no more of it.

Besides, it's a bit early in the day. Well, it will give you an appetite.

To tell the truth, my stomach is out of sorts. Perhaps the drop will become a

missile.

Oh, well, I know what you're thinking. Why haven't you the courage to say it

for once?

For God, I'd have more respect for you.

I hate the damn meek of this earth.

At the Rock of Cashel, I sometimes believe you've always deliberately

encouraged me to. It's the one point of superiority you can lay claim to, isn't

it?

I don't. It's your comfort. I can't bear it. Oh, forgive me, Nora. That was

unpardonable.

I confess I needed that as medicine.

I begin to feel more myself.

I'm by the immortal.

I may have sunk to keeping a tavern, but at least I have a conscience in my

trade. I keep liquor a gentleman can drink.

There shall he rot, ambition's dishonored fool.

That was full of the latest swindling lies of that idol of the riffraff,

Andrew Jackson.

Contemptible, drunken scoundrel.

But he'll be the next president, I predict, for all we others can do to

prevent.

It's a cursed destiny in these decadent times. Everywhere the cum rises to the

top.

The day of the 27th.

My God, I would have forgotten.

Forgot what?

The anniversary of Talavera.

Oh, ain't I stupid not to remember?

Oh, I would have forgotten myself.

And no wonder.

It's a far cry from this dunghill in which I rot to that glorious day when

the Duke of Wellington, then Lord Wellesley, did me the honor before all

the army to commend my bravery.

I'll cry indeed.

It would be better to forget.

No, no, you mustn't. You'll never miss celebrating it, and you won't today.

I'll have a special dinner for you like I've always had. Good, Nora.

I'll invite Jamie Cregan.

It's a stroke of fortune he's here. He served under me at Talavera, as you

know. A brave soldier, if he isn't a gentleman.

If I see him on my right hand, I will have Pats Riley for music and Poudown

and Roche if they're rabble there, full of droll humor at times.

But put them over there.

I tolerate their presence out of charity, but I won't stoop to dining at

the same table with them. Get your uniform out of the trunk and you'll wear

it tonight as you have each year. Yes.

I must confess I still welcome an excuse to wear it.

Makes me feel at least the ghost of the man I was then.

Sure, you were that handsome. No woman could take her eyes off you and your

stare. I'm afraid you got blarney on your tongue this morning, Nora.

But it's true in those days in Portugal and Spain.

Ah.

You're the kindest heart in the world, Nora.

And I... Oh, one can't, darling. When... I'll go to the store. I'll get you

something tasty.

Oh, God, help me. Where's the money?

Money?

Since when has my credit not been good? Don't you fret. I'll manage.

Work on the railroad is progressing at Baltimore.

By the eternal, if I had not been a credulous gull and let the thieving

Yankees swindle me of all I had when we came here, that's how I would invest my

funds and we'd become rich.

This country with its immense territory cannot depend solely on creeping canal

boats. We need railroads.

Then you'll see how quickly this country will become rich and great.

Great enough to crush the English and the next war between them, which I know

is inevitable.

I could live here and celebrate that victory.

If I have one regret for the past, it is that I shed my blood for a country that

thanked me with disgrace.

But I'll be avenged. This country, my country now, will sweep the English from

the face of the earth. Glory be to God for that, and we'll free Ireland.

Ireland.

What benefit would freedom be to her that she could be freed from the Irish?

Oh, why do I bother to discuss such things with you?

I know.

I'm ignorant.

And I tried my best to educate you after we came to America.

But I thought it was hopeless.

Oh, you did surely, and I tried to. You won't even cure yourself of that damn

peasant's brogue. And your daughter's becoming as bad. Oh, if she only puts on

the brogue to please you, sure she can talk as fine as any lady in the land

when she wants. Why, in God's name, do I reproach anyone with anything?

Why don't you tell me to examine my own conduct?

You know I never... No.

No, you would not, Nora.

I owe you an apology for what happened last night. Oh, think about it. But you

understand it was the liquor talking if I said anything to wound you. I know.

Ah, you're a sweet, kind woman, Nora.

Too kind.

Oh, come, darling.

What do I care what you say when the black thoughts are on you?

Sure, don't you know I love you?

For God's sake, why don't you ever wash your hair?

It turns my stomach with its stink of onions and garlic.

Well, I do be washing it often to please you.

But when you're standing over a stove all day, you can't help it.

Forget what I said.

My nerves were on edge.

Maybe you'd better leave me alone.

Will you eat some breakfast now? Yes, yes, in a while.

Fifteen minutes, say, but leave me alone now.

still bear the unmistakable stamp of an officer and a gentleman.

So I will remain to the end, spite of all fate can do to crush my spirit.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me.

I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed to its idolatries a patient

knee, nor coined my cheek to smile, nor cried aloud in worship of an echo.

In the crowd they could not deem me one of such.

I stood among them, but not of them.

By the eternal, that expresses it. Thank God for you, Lord Byron, poet and

nobleman, who made of your disdain immortal music.

Oh,

it's you, my dear.

You going for a morning stroll?

I leave a beautiful day for it. It will bring fresh roses to your cheeks.

Well, I don't know about your roses, but it will bring a blush of shame to my

cheeks.

I have to beg Nealon for another month's credit because you made poor mother pay

the feed bill for your fine, thoroughbred mare.

I hope you see something in that mirror you admire.

I suppose I must have looked a vain peacock preening myself.

You can blame the bad light in my room. One cannot make a decent toilet in that

dindry hole in the wall.

You have the best room in the house, the one we ought to rent together.

I have no complaints. I was merely explaining my seeming vanity.

Seeming?

Hey, Sarah.

Must have written the wrong side of the bed this morning.

But it takes two to make a quarrel, and I don't feel quarrelsome.

On the contrary, I was about to tell you how exceedingly charming and pretty you

look. Oh, thank you, Your Honor.

Every day you resemble your mother more as she looked when I first saw her. Oh,

Moshe, but it's you who have the blind end. Oh, God, forgive you. Be quiet,

damn you. How dare you talk like a common ignorant?

You're my daughter, damn you.

A fair hit.

You're a great tease, aren't you, sir?

and drink. Surely you're not ashamed before me after all these years.

Ashamed? A gentleman drinks as he pleases.

A gentleman?

I hesitated because I've made a good resolve to be abstemious today.

But if you insist, my dear.

To your happiness.

Won't you do me the favor to sit down?

I wanted a quiet chat with you for some time.

What is it you want?

Your happiness, my dear.

How is our patient, young Simon Harford, this morning?

He's fine. Better. I'm delighted to hear it.

Let's be frank.

Young Simon is in love with you. I can see that with half an eye.

And of course you know it.

You return his love, I surmise?

Surmise whatever you please.

Meaning you do love him?

I'm glad, Sarah.

Requited love is the greatest blessing life can bestow on us poor mortals.

And first love is the most blessed of all.

As Lord Byron has it, sweeter than this and these and all is first and

passionate love. It stands alone like... Adam's recollection of his fall. I

wanted to listen to you recite Lord Byron, but I... No, no, no, no, no. What

I was leading up to is that you have my blessing.

If that means anything at all to you.

Young Simon is, I believe, estimable youth.

It's been a privilege to converse with a cultured gentleman again.

True, he's a bit on the sober side for one so young, but by way of

compensation, there's a romantic touch of the poet about him. Behind that

Yankee phlegm. It's fine you approve of him.

In your interest, I have had some inquiries made about his family.

Oh, have you indeed?

Oh, mushy, but that's cute of you.

Was it old Pat Riley the piper that made them, or Dan Roche, or Paddy O'Dowd, or

some other drunken sponge?

I find his people will pass muster. Oh, do you? That's nice. Apparently the

father is a gentleman.

That is by Yankee standards, insofar as one in trade can lay claim to that

title. But if I had become an American citizen myself, I suppose it would be

downright snobbery of me to hold to old world standards.

Though it is difficult at times for my pride to remember that I am no longer

the master of Melody Castle, an estate of 3,000 acres of the finest pasture and

woodlands to be found in the whole of the United Kingdom.

My stable of hunters. Well, you've a beautiful thoroughbred mare now to prove

you're still a gentleman. Yes, I'm the mare. And by God, I'll keep her if I

have to starve myself so she may eat.

But where was I?

Ah, yes, yes.

It's about young Simon's family.

The...

Father will pass muster, but I believe it's through his mother that he comes by

his really good blood. My understanding is that she springs from generations of

well-bred gentlefolk. Well, I'm sure it would be a great pride to her to know

that you found her suitable.

I suppose I may expect the young man to request an interview with me as soon as

he's up and about again?

To declare his honorable intention and ask for my hand. Is that what you mean?

Yes, naturally. He's a man of honor.

There are certain financial arrangements his father or his legal representative

will want to discuss with me. There's the amount of your settlement.

My settlement?

Oh, famous father.

Oh, God help me. Yes, naturally, your settlement.

You didn't think I hoped I would give you away without a penny, like a poverty

-stricken peasant's daughter.

Please remember, I have my own position to maintain.

Of course, it is a bit difficult at the moment.

I thought perhaps mortgage on the inn. It's mortgage to the hilt already, as

you very well know.

If nothing else, I can always give my note at hand for whatever amount is

necessary. Sure, you can give it, but who'll take it? Between gentlemen, these

things are always possible.

Oh, God help you.

Must be a wonderful thing to live in a fairy tale where only dreams are real to

you.

You needn't waste your dreams worrying about my affairs.

I'll thank you not to interfere. Attend to your drinking and leave me alone.

Father, will you not let yourself wake up, not even now when you're sober or

nearly?

Is it stark mad you've gone that you don't know what's dead and a lie and

what's the living truth?

Sarah, be quiet, damn you. How dare you talk to me that way?

I said it's Andy Jackson with you and you're crazy.

And I'll just take your damn...

Good morning, Your Honor. How dare you come in here in this manner?

You mistake this inn for the sort of dirty chabine you were used to in the

old world with pigs running in and out the door?

And you, Dan, didn't I forbid you ever to mention that scoundrel Jackson's name

in my inn or I'd horsewhip the hide off you? Perhaps you think I can't carry out

that... No, no, no, no, Major. I forgot. I forgot.

Good morning, Miss. Good morning, Miss.

Where's your witch, Patch?

Did you hear it, Honor?

Sure, it's you. God bless you.

Looks like a fairy princess as beautiful as a rose in the morning dew.

I'll raise a tune for you. I want none of your tunes.

That's very sweet of you, Patch. I know you'd raise a beautiful tune, but I have

to go out. Into the bar, all of you, where I belong.

I told you not to come in here.

I suppose it's a free drink hereafter.

No one can say I ever turned away anyone thirsty from my door, I knew.

Oh, I thank your honor.

Now, now, come on, then. Come along, Patch.

Containers of your American estate.

Don't let me keep you from the gentlemen.

Sarah. Have I kept you waiting?

The jibber was in the toast. The first batch burned black as cake, so my back

was turned.

But the bacon's crisp, and the eggs not too soft, just the way you like them.

Come sit down now.

Mickey won't believe you said we could have a drink, Your Honor, unless you

come and tell him so.

I'm coming. Oh, come on. I'm coming.

Find I'm not in the least hungry, Nora.

I regret having caused you so much trouble.

What are you talking about? For Christ's sake!

Rolling up, rolling!

I used to be alone for a while, quiet with my memories.

Corporal Began returns, Vicki. Send him in to me. Right, Major.

He at least knows Talavera isn't the name of a new brand of whiskey.

What is it, Father? Are you really sick?

Oh, I beg your pardon, my dear.

Didn't hear you come in.

Faith, I was far away in spirit.

Lost to memories of a glorious battle in Spain 19 years ago today.

Oh, the anniversary of Talavera, is it?

Well, I know what that means. A great day for the spongers and a bad day for

this inn.

I suppose you've given poor Mother orders, as usual, to cook a grand feast

for you.

And you'll wear your beautiful uniform, and I'll have the honor of waiting on

table.

Well, I'll do it just this once.

Or else Mother would have to, but it'll be the last time.

You'll be pleased to know your daughter had almost to beg on her knees before

Neelan, before he'd give us another month's credit.

He let it be known that it was to Mother he gave it, because he pities her for

the husband she's got.

Here's the milk the doctor ordered for the young gentleman. It's time for it. I

knew you'd be going upstairs.

Thank you, Mother.

I've just been telling him. I begged another month's credit from Nealon, so

he needn't worry. My dear, turn the feed refuse.

Let me detain you, my dear. Take his milk to our Yankee guests, as your

mother suggests.

The poor young devil hasn't a chance of you two scheming peasants laying traps

to snare him. That's a lie, and leave Mother out of your insult.

And if all other tricks fail, there's always one last trick to get him through

his honour.

What trick do you mean? Hold your freight now.

It's your fault for provoking him.

All right, Mother.

I'll leave him to look in the mirror like he loves to and remember what he

said and be proud of himself.

I, uh... She may have dropped my meaning.

It's as you say, she should... She goads me into losing my temper and I say

things. I know what made you say it. You think maybe she's like I was and you

can't help remembering my time with you. No, no, no. I tell you she mistook my

meaning. And now you damn, you're creating about your sin, your shame.

There was no shame in you then.

You were the prettiest girl in all Ireland.

It was love and joy.

There's glory in you then, and you were proud.

I'm proud still, and I will be till the day I die.

Now, why do you bring up the past? I don't want to discuss it.

Well, all the same, you shouldn't talk to Sarah as if you thought she was up to

anything to catch young Harper. I didn't say that.

She's my daughter. She is, surely, and he's a decent lad.

Sure, from all she's told me.

He's that shy.

He hasn't dared even to kiss her hand.

I can well believe it.

When it comes to lovemaking, the Yankees are clumsy, fish-blooded louts.

I was his age.

Not that I disapprove of young Hartford, mind you. He's a gentleman. When he asks

me for Sarah's hand, I'll gladly give my consent.

Provided his father and I can agree on the terms of his settlement.

Oh, there's no need to think of that yet.

Yes, she'll be happy because she loves him dearly, a lot more than she'll

admit.

And it'll give her a chance to rise in the world.

Oh, we'll live to see the day when she'll live in a grand mansion, wearing

silks and satins and riding in a carriage with a coachman on her foot. I

desire that as much as you do, Nora.

I'm done, finished.

No future but the past. But my daughter has the...

Looks, the brains, ambition, youth.

She can go far.

You should just remember she's a gentlewoman. Stop acting like a bog

-trotting peasant wench.

Ah,

I'm back.

The sight of me seems to irritate her. I'll go in the bar for a while.

Let my fill of her insults for one morning.

And say, went into the bar to be out of reaching your tongue.

Aren't you ashamed you haven't fed him enough not to torment him when you know

it's the anniversary?

All right, Mother.

Let him take whatever joy he can out of the day.

I'll even help you get his uniform out of the trunk and brush it and clean it

for you. Oh, God bless you.

That's the... Glory be, you've changed all of a sudden.

What's come over you?

Simon kissed me. Oh, oh, oh.

But it was me who made him do it.

I was freshening up his pillows and leaning over him and he couldn't help it

if he was human.

And then you'd have laughed to see him.

He began apologising as if I'd be so insulted I'd never speak to him again.

And what did you do? I'll wade your warts as bright as you pretend.

True, Mother.

He made me as bashful as he was.

What is that all?

Sure, kissing is easy.

Didn't he ask you if you'd marry?

No.

But it was my fault he didn't.

All he needed was a word of encouragement. But I stood there, dumb

as a calf.

And the end was I ran from the room, blushing as red as a beet.

Oh, Mother, ain't it crazy to be such a fool? Well, when you're in love, that's

just it.

I'm too much in love, and I don't want to be.

I won't let my heart rule my head, make a slave of me.

Oh. Well, he loves me as much, I know that, and more.

And the next time I'll keep my wits about me.

You can consider it as good as done, Mother.

I'm Mrs.

Simon Harford, at your pleasure. Ah, none of your airs and graces with me.

Come on now, help me like you promised.

We'll get your father's uniform out of the trunk.

Oh, won't break your back in the attic like it does mine. All right, come along

then. I don't remember which trunk, and you're going to have to help me find the

key.

Cursed, ignorant cattle.

I wish Jamie Cregan would come.

Driven pillars of post in my own home.

Everywhere ignorant, a corn of my own daughter.

But by the eternal God, no power on earth nor in hell itself will ever break

me.

I have not loved the world nor the world me.

I have not flattered its rank breast nor bowed to its idolatry, a patient knee.

nor coined my cheek to smile, nor cried aloud in worship of an echo.

In a crowd they could not deem me one of such. I stood among them, but not of

them.

I beg your pardon.

Good morning, mademoiselle.

If I may presume.

I find it comfortable away from the glare of the street.

Thank you. Mademoiselle.

Pray forgive me, I see it is Madame.

Permit me to say again how great an honour I shall esteem it to be of any

service.

I beg your pardon, Madame.

I'm afraid my manners have grown roughly with diffuse, and it's not often a lady

comes here now.

This inn, like myself, has fallen upon unlucky days.

You are, I presume, the innkeeper, Melody. I am Major Cornelius Melody, one

time of His Majesty's Seventh Dragoons, at your service.

Well, then it is I who owe you an apology, Major Melody. Oh, no, no, no,

no, dear lady. The fault is mine. I should not have taken offence.

I may as well confess that my besetting weakness is that of all gentlemen who

have known better days.

I have a pride unduly sensitive to any fancied slight.

Well, I assure you, sir, there was no intention on my part to slight you.

You're as gracious as you are beautiful, madame.

I'm a poor fool, madame.

I would be both wiser and happier if I could reconcile myself to being a

proprietor of a tawdry tavern.

If I could abjure pride and forget the past.

Today, of all days, it is difficult to forget, for it is the anniversary of the

Battle of Talavera.

It was on that glorious day that I had the honor to be commended for my bravery

by the great Duke of Wellington himself.

So I'm sure you can find it in your heart to forgive one so.

Beautiful. Must understand the hearts of men full well, since so many must have

given their hearts to you.

Ah, yes.

I'll wager my all against a penny that even among the fish-blooded Yankees

there's not a man whose heart doesn't catch flame from your beauty, as mine

does now.

You're drunk, sir.

You reek of whiskey.

You are both insolent and disgusting. I don't wonder your inn enjoys such meagre

patronage if you regale all of your guests with my sex with this absurd

performance.

God help us. What is it, Father?

What does the lady wish?

I've come here to see you, Miss Melody, hoping you might have some information

about the whereabouts of my son.

Son, you are his mother? Madam, with God's name, why didn't you say so? I've

been to the cabin to find the hermit who's flown.

He's here, Mrs. Harford.

He's been sick.

Sick? Well, not seriously. Oh, he's over it now, or almost.

It was only a spell of chills and fever he caught from the damp of the lake.

I had him come here where there's a doctor handy and someone to nurse him.

That someone being you, Miss Mallory? Yes, me and my mother and I.

Well. I'm very grateful to you and to your mother for your kindness. Oh, don't

you be thanking us, ma'am. Sure, your son is a fine, decent lad, and we've all

great fondness for him. Oh, he'd be welcome here if he hadn't paid a penny.

This is my mother, Mrs. Harford. Well, how do you do?

Nora, for the love of God, stop it. I'm sure Mrs. Harford is willing to be taken

to her son. Am I not right, mother? That is true.

If you would be so kind, Miss Melody, I've only time for a very short visit.

Please follow me, Mrs. Harford.

What a pleasant surprise for Simon.

He didn't pretend he was sick, only he didn't want to worry you.

Damn fool of a woman.

But she didn't fool me with her insulted airs. I've known too many women.

Absurd performance, was it? Goddamn her. Don't be coarse in her and tormenting

yourself. Sure, she seems a kind lady.

She won't hurl it against you. Once she stops to think, no, you didn't know who

she was. Be quiet.

Forget it now, do you?

For Sarah's sake.

Sure you wouldn't want anything to come between her and the lad.

You can go on up to your room.

You'll find something to take your mind off.

Sarah and I have your uniform brushed and laid out on the... Put it back in

the trunk. I don't want it to remind me.

By the eternal I'll wager she believed what I told her of Talavera and the

great duke honoring me was a drunken liar's boast.

She never can. She couldn't.

Seeing would be believing, wouldn't it, my fine lady?

Thank you for reminding me of my duties to Sarah. You are right. I owe it to her

interest to forget my anger and make a formal apology to Diamond's mother for

our little misunderstanding.

The lady should come back. Kindly keep her here on some pretense till I come

back.

Oh, well.

That's all right.

He'd have been his best behaviour now.

And you'd feel proud to get in his uniform.

What's the father doing?

Oh, we got him to go upstairs and try on his uniform. It'll console him.

Console him?

It's me ought to be consoled for having such a great fall for a father. Yes, no.

How could he know?

Yes.

Serves her right.

And she didn't act as insulted as she might.

Maybe she liked it for all her pretenses.

As crazy as he is, him and his drunken lovemaking, well, he won't forget in a

hurry how she snubbed him and treated him as if he was no better than dirt

under her feet. She did not.

She had the sense to see that he'd been drinking and not to mind him.

Maybe.

But isn't that bad enough?

What woman would want her son to marry the daughter of a man like... Oh,

Mother.

Why did she have to come today?

If she'd waited till tomorrow even, I'd have got him to ask me to marry him.

Once he's done that, no power on earth can stop him.

If he really loves you, no power on earth can change him anyway.

Don't I know?

She's his mother, and she loves him.

And she'll want him to be happy, and she'll see that he loves you.

What makes you think she'll try to change him?

Because she hates me, Mother, for one reason. She doesn't. She couldn't. She

does. Oh, she acted as nice as nice, but she didn't fool me.

It isn't just to see Simon that she's come here.

It's because Simon's father got a letter from him. Someone telling him.

About us, and he showed it to her. Oh, did a dirty trick like that.

It wasn't signed, she said.

I suppose someone around here who hates father and who doesn't. I'd look to the

black art whoever it is.

She said Simon's father's wild with anger and he's gone to his lawyer.

But that doesn't worry me.

It's only her influence that I'm afraid of.

How do you know about the letter?

I sneaked back to the door and listened outside.

Shame on you. You should have more pride.

I was ashamed, Mother, after a moment or two, and then I came away.

No, I'm not ashamed.

I wanted to learn what tricks she might be up to, so I'll know how to fight

them.

Don't look for trouble before it comes.

Wait and see now. Maybe you'll find it. I'll find what I said, Mother, that she

hates me.

Even if she'd come here with good intentions.

She wouldn't have them now after our great gentleman has insulted her.

Thank God he's putting on his uniform.

He'll be hours before the mirror and she'll be gone before he can make a fool

of himself again.

But I'd like her to see him in his uniform if he were sober.

She'll find she couldn't look down on him.

I'm as crazy as he is.

As if she wouldn't have the brains to see through him.

Leave him be for the love of God. Well, let her try whatever game she likes.

She'll find I have brains too. Only, like Simon says, I feel she's strange

and queer behind her ladylike airs. And it'll be hard to know what she's really

up to.

That's her now.

She didn't waste much time.

Go into the kitchen, Mother.

I want to give her a chance to have it out with me alone.

Didn't you hear me, Mother?

Hurry!

Well, I'm glad to see you again, Miss Melody.

It gives me another opportunity to express my gratitude.

For your kindness to my son.

Thank you, Mrs. Harford.

My mother and I have been only too happy to do what we could.

We're very fond of Simon. Yes.

Yes, I believe you are.

And Simon's told me how fond he is of you.

This is the first time I've seen Simon since he left home to seek self

-emancipation at the breast of nature.

I find him not so greatly changed as his letters have led me to believe.

I would have thought the discovery that the poetry he hoped the freedom of

nature would inspire him to write is after all but a bad imitation of Lord

Byron's would have more bitterly depressed his spirit.

But it seems he found a new romantic dream by way of recompense, as I might

have known he would.

Simon is an inveterate dreamer.

It's a quality he inherited from me, I'm afraid.

Although the Harfords have been great dreamers, too, in their way.

Even my husband has a dream.

Oh, it's a conservative material dream, naturally.

I've just been reminding Simon that his... father is rigidly unforgiving

when his dream is flouted.

And very practical in his methods of defending it. I don't think Simon

imitates Lord Byron.

I hate Lord Byron's poetry.

And I think there's a true poet in Simon.

Oh, in feeling, of course.

It's only natural that you should admire that in him now.

But I warn you, it's a quality very difficult for a woman to go on admiring

in a Harford, judging from what I know of the family history.

Simon's grandfather had the same quality, a fanatic in the cause of

freedom.

He went to France and became a rabid Jacobin, a follower of Robespierre.

He would have liked to have gone to the guillotine with his incorruptible

redeemer, but he was just too unimportant.

They simply forgot to kill him.

I remember him very well.

A cruel, gentle, futile old idealist who used to often dress in his old uniform

of the French Republican National Guard.

He died wearing it.

But the point is, you see, you have no idea of the revengeful

hate this harford passion for freedom has imposed upon the women who've shared

their lives.

Simon's great aunts, the sisters, as everyone called them, were actually

driven to make a large fortune in the slave trade.

It's a sort of triumphant climax, I imagine, of their long battle to escape

the enslavement of freedom by enslaving it themselves.

I'm sorry they're dead and can't know you.

They would approve of you, I think.

They would see that you are young and ambitious and determined to take

what you want.

They would have smiled like hungry serpents and welcomed you into their

coils.

Evil old witches.

Quite detestable.

But I... I couldn't help admiring them.

Pitying them, too, in the end.

You see, we had a bond in common.

They idolized Napoleon.

And I used to dream that I was Josephine.

Even after my marriage, I'm afraid.

I've always admired him, too.

It's one of the things I've held against my father, that he fought against him

and not for him. Well, Miss Melody, it's very tiresome of me to stand here giving

you a discourse on Harford family history.

But no doubt Simon has told you I am a little eccentric at times.

I really don't know what's inspired me, except that I wish to be fair and warn

you.

Warn me about what, Mrs. Harford?

Why, that the Harfords never part with their dreams, even when they deny them.

They cannot.

That's the family curse.

Well...

I began to resemble Cassandra with all my warnings, and I continued to stand

here boring you with words.

Goodbye, Miss Melody.

Goodbye, Mrs. Harford.

Oh, Mrs. Harford, I... Yes, Miss Melody.

Isn't there some sort of cooling drink I can get you?

You must be parched after your long walk in the woods. No.

No, thank you.

Yes, I did find my walk in the woods a strangely overpowering experience.

I shall never venture forth again to do my duty.

A noble occupation, no doubt, for those who can presume to know what their duty

to others is.

This time I really am going.

God forgive you, sir, for letting her go.

Your father told me. Oh, she hates me.

I can feel it, but you can't tell.

She's crazy, I think.

She may be daft, but she's no fool.

Oh, no.

I know she never let Simon guess she'd rather have him dead than married to me.

No, she'd... she'd say... she'd say he ought to wait to prove he's sure,

anything to give her time.

I'm said to be down any moment.

I'm going out into the garden. Oh, come along with me.

Give him a chance to get over his rage. Leave me alone, Mother.

I have to plan the best way to act when I see Simon.

I won't go to him again today.

You can take his meals and his milk to him if you will, Mother.

I want him to be anxious and afraid that maybe he's done something wrong.

If he once gets the idea that maybe he's lost me, that ought to help, don't you

think, Mother?

Oh, God, help me.

happened to go to my room and I found your mother and you had laid out my

uniform so invitingly I couldn't resist the temptation to put it on at once

instead of waiting till tonight.

I see you did.

You look grand and handsome, Father.

It's very kind of you to say that, my dear Sarah.

I flatter myself I don't look too unlike the man I was when I wore this uniform

with honor.

Father, why can't you ever be the thing you seem to be? The man you were.

I wish I knew that soldier.

I think he was the only man who wasn't just a dream.

I don't understand you.

I suspect you're still holding against me my unfortunate blunder with your

future mother-in-law.

I did put my foot into it, didn't I?

Devil of it is, I can never make up these Yankee ladies.

Do them the honor of complimenting them with a... Harmless bit of flattery, and

lo and behold, suddenly the lady behaves as if I'd insulted her.

But what I wanted to tell you was, I'm sorry it happened, Sarah, and I shall do

my best to make an honorable amends for the sake of your interests.

I shall do the lady the honor of tendering her my humble apologies when

she comes downstairs.

You'll get no chance to make bad worse by trying to fascinate her with your

beautiful uniform.

She's gone.

You're lying, damn you. I'm not. She's been gone ten minutes or more.

I told you, Mother.

Oh, that's why Mother was so frightened.

Well, I was the one who let her go, so you needn't take your rage out on poor

Mother. Rage?

My dear Sarah, all I feel is relief.

Surely you can't believe that I could have looked forward to humbling my

pride, even though it would have furthered your interest.

Furthered my interest by giving her another chance to laugh up her sleeve at

your pretenses?

Ara, God pity you.

Here's Cregan back to see you, Major.

Cregan?

Oh, Jamie.

My old comrade in arms.

By the powers, I'm glad to see you, Jamie. Come on in. You'll join me in a

drink? I know.

Be gone, it's the old uniform, Norris.

And just look as fine a figure in it as ever you did in Spain.

Hardly, Jamie.

Not a total ruin yet, I hope.

Put it on in honour of the day.

Shame you dog not to remember Talavera.

Talavera? Where I got my shaver cut, be the mortal, I remember that.

And you have a cause to celebrate.

You was worth only ten men in the army that day. You think I may say I did

acquit myself with honour?

So for that matter, did you?

To the day and your good health, Corporal Cregan. To the day and

yourself. God bless you, Con.

I said to the day and your good health, Corporal Cregan.

Oh, thank God.

As you can beat the world and never let it change you.

To the day and yourself.

Major Melody.

Drink hearty, Corporal.

Now here, here is the river Tagus.

And here, Palavera.

This one, on the rise of ground with the plane, between our lines and theirs.

And over here, in the little valley to our left, is our brigade.

Do you remember it, your corporal? Remember it? I see it as clear as

yesterday.

That's enough of your loud blathering. We can't hear each other. Oh, quiet it

is, Major. Be quiet, Potch. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, yes.

We were waiting in the valley, and we heard a French trumpet. from behind the

line, and we saw them forming for the attack.

Never forget the blast of death from the French squares.

I'll have your plate of your plays, Major, before your gallant dragoons

charge over it and break it.

Wet your lip, Corporal.

W-30, Talavera, as you remember.

It was that.

That's good wine, good wine, Corporal, good wine. Thank God I still have wine

in my cellar fit for a gentleman.

Are you going to let me have your plate? Oh, no, no, no. I have no need to

apologize for the wine or for the dinner, for that matter. But I do owe

you an apology for the quality of the service.

I'll try to teach the waitress not to snap plates from the table as if she

were feeding dogs in a kennel, but she cannot learn. There, now.

Let's see you take it properly.

It was where the French artillery opened up on us, Major.

Yes.

We charged a column here that was pushing back the guards.

I'll never forget the blast of death.

Never forget that blast of death from the French guards.

You escaped with only a bullet through your coat.

I have this token on me cheek to remember a French sabre. Brave days,

corporal brave days. By the eternal then one lived.

Then one forgot.

Little did I dream then the disgrace that was to be my reward later on. Oh,

well, that's the bad luck of things.

You'd have been made colonel soon if you'd left that Spanish woman alone and

not fought that duel.

You're presuming to judge my conduct in that affair?

Sorry, I bet not. Don't mind me now.

Except what your apology go for.

He's a lunatic, though. I mean, standing there in his red coat like a play actor

lying about his battles with the French.

He ought to be ashamed he ever wore the bloody red of England. God's curse on

him, anyway. Don't wish him harm, for it's thirsty we'd be without him.

Drink long life to him, and may he always be the fool he is tonight.

I'll toast him on that.

A toast to you, Major.

To the finest gentleman that ever came from the shores of Ireland.

Long life to you, Major.

For all.

Long life to your honour.

And to all that belong to you. Long life to you, Major.

Thank you for your toast.

shock of men to hear to see to feel and to possess

roam along the world's tired denizen of none who bless us none whom we can

bless minions of splendor shrinking from distress none

that with kindred consciousness endued if we were not would seem to smile the

less of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued.

This is to be alone.

This, this is solitude.

Not that you don't understand me, lads.

Well, all the better for you.

So you may go on fooling yourselves that I am fooling you.

Give us a hunting song, Pats. You've not forgotten Motherina Roo, I'll be bound.

Does the duck forget water? I'll show ye.

I hate Motherina Roo. Motherina Roo.

Boy.

Oh, the fox sat him down and looked about.

Many were feared to follow.

Maybe I'm wrong to see, but I doubt that you'll be as gay tomorrow.

For loud as you cry and high as you ride, just a little yell will heal my

sorrow. I'll be free on the mountainside when you lie low to me.

Mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a

row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother

in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row,

mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a

row, mother in a row, mother in a row, mother in a row,

and a true Irish hunter under me that knows and loves me and would raise to a

jump over hell if I gave the word.

The hell with men, I say. Give me a horse to love and I'll cry quits to men.

And then away with the hounds in full cry and after them, off with devil a

care for your neck over ditches and streams and stone walls and fences, the

fox doubling up the mountain sides of the falls and the heather.

Well, what is it? What do you want? What are you waiting for?

What would I be waiting for but for you to finish your blather about loving

horses and give me a chance to get on with my work?

Can you and the other gentleman finish getting drunk in the bar and leave me to

clear the dishes?

No, Sarah, be easy.

I beg your pardon, my dear, if I have interfered with your duties.

Into the bar, you louts.

Right. Come on. Come on.

Wake up. Go along, Copper Creek, and I'll join you later.

I won't. I have no time for a mother who's half dead in her feet.

I want to help her.

Won't fit the time, my dear.

You never dared face the truth about yourself.

You'd hate and despise yourself.

All I pray to God is that one day when you're admiring yourself in the mirror,

something will make you see what you really are.

Sit down, my dear. I won't detain you long.

I think you'll find what I have to tell you a very great interest.

You better think well before you speak, Father.

I know well the devil that's in you when you're quiet like this and your brain

mad with drink.

And what you mean by that?

All I wish is to relate something that happened this afternoon.

Oh, when you were out riding your beautiful thoroughbred mare, sure.

Hope you didn't jump your proud beauty over a fence into somebody's garden like

you've done before.

Damn Yankee yokels.

should feel flattered that she deigns to set her dainty hooves in their paltry

gardens. She's a truer, born-well-bred lady than any other airwomen, and the

one who paid us a visit this morning, for example. Mrs. Harford was enough of

a lady to make a fool out of you and put you in your place. You are very simple

-minded, my dear, to let yourself be taken in by such an obvious bit of

clever acting.

Naturally, the lady was a bit discomposed when she heard you and your

mother coming after she just allowed me to kiss her.

So she had to pretend, of course. He let you kiss her.

It's a lie.

But I don't doubt you've made yourself believe it's the truth. I'm going.

Why are you so jealous of the mayor, I wonder?

Is it because of his slender ankles and dainty feet?

Keep your ugly, rich, filthy peasant paws off the table in my presence, if

you please. They turn my stomach.

I advise you never to let Simon Harper get a good look at them.

Oh, devil!

I knew you... Oh, God, I'm sorry, Sarah. I didn't mean that. It was the whiskey

talking. I'm sorry.

Are you going, my dear? I was about to tell you of the talk I had with young

Harford this afternoon.

It was after I returned for my ride.

I cantered the mare by the river, but she pulled up lame, so I dismounted and

led her back.

No one noticed when I returned.

When I went upstairs, it occurred to me I would not again find such an

opportunity to have a frank chat with young Harford, free from interruption.

I didn't beat about the bush. I told him.

He must appreciate it was my duty as a gentleman and as your father to demand

that he lay his cards on the table.

He said he must realize that even before you began nursing him here and going

alone to his bedroom, there was a deal of gossip about your visits in his cabin

and your walks through the woods with him.

I put it to him that such an intimacy could not continue without gravely

compromising your reputation.

God help you.

What did he say?

What could he say? He's a man of honor.

He looked damn embarrassed and guilty for a minute.

When he found his tongue, he admitted that I was right most partly.

He said his mother had told him the same thing.

Oh, did she?

Well, I suppose she did that to find out by watching him how far he... Well,

naturally.

It was his mother. It was her duty as his mother to discover all she could

about you.

She's the woman of the world. She was bound to suspect you might be his

mistress. Oh, would she? Now, now, that's beside the point.

The point is...

My bashful young gentleman finally blurted out that he wanted to marry

you.

He told you that? Yes, yes.

He said he told his mother, too.

She had said all she wanted was his happiness.

She felt in fairness to you and to himself he should test his love by

letting a decent interval of time elapse before the marriage she mentioned a

year, I believe.

Oh, didn't I think that would be her trick?

Trick?

Mother, the reason she gave a sound, they show a consideration for your good

name. She warned him a sudden wedding would look damnably suspicious, start a

lot of evil-minded gossip.

She's clever, all right, but I'll beat her.

I told him I agreed with his mother.

Tell me this.

Did she get him to promise her he'd wait?

I told him I appreciated the honor he did me by asking for your hand, but I

could not commit myself till I had spoken to his father and was assured the

necessary financial arrangements could be concluded to our mutual satisfaction

as the amount of your settlement to be agreed upon, for example. Dream again.

I suppose it never occurred to you that old Harford might not consider it an

honour to have his son marry your daughter.

No, it has never occurred to me.

And if it had ever occurred to him, I'd damn soon disabuse his mind. Who is he

but a money-grubbing trader?

I would remind him that I was born in a castle. There was a time when I

possessed wealth and position and an estate compared to which any Yankee

upstarts home in this country is a hovel stuck up in a cabbage patch. I'd remind

him that you, my daughter, were born in a castle.

Well, that's no more than the truth.

Yeah.

Oh, what crazy blather. I've had enough of your... Wait a minute. Just a minute.

There was another reason why I told Hofford I couldn't make a final

decision.

Well, I have been reflecting.

I've been watching you, examining your conduct, without prejudice to you,

trying to be fair to you. Well, to be brutally frank with you, my dear, all I

can see in you is a common, greedy, scheming, cunning little peasant wench

who's only thought his money and who has shamelessly thrown himself at a young

man's head because his family happens to possess a little wealth and position.

It's a lie.

I have about made up my mind to decline for you, Simon Hartford.

Request for your hand. Oh, you have, have you?

As if I cared a damn what you... As a gentleman, I feel I have a duty and

honor to Simon.

Such a marriage would be a tragic misalliance for him, and God knows I

know the sordid tragedy of such a union.

It's Mother that's had the tragedy. The man who would be the ideal husband for

you from the standpoint of conduct and character would be Mickey Malloy, my

bartender, and I would be very happy to give him my parental blessing. Let you

stop now, Father. You and he would be congenial together. You can match

tongues, you and he.

He's a healthy animal. He'll give you a raft of peasant brats to squeal and

fight with on the pigs and the dirty hovel of the floor. It's the hut in

which your father was raised and born you're remembering, isn't it? Of course.

If you trick Harper into getting you with child, I couldn't refuse my

consent. Oh, my God, even then.

If I remember my own experience, I'll be damned if I could advise you to... You

drunken devil!

Well, I want to thank you for your kind, fatherly advice on how to trick Simon.

I don't think I'll need it, but if the worst ever comes to the worst, I promise

you I'll remember that my... That's all I care to say to you.

Excuse me, I will join Corporal Cregan.

Sarah, there are things I said which I regret even now.

That's what you can overlook.

Your mother knows it's the liquor talking, not...

I must confess that owing to celebrating the anniversary, my brains are somewhat

addled.

To the bitter end.

No weakening, so help me, God.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me.

I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed to its idolatry as a patient

knee. Come in, dammit!

When I called, I thought it was one of the damn rip-raps mistaking a bar and

bar. Pray be seated, sir.

Pardon again, sir.

We've been feasting late, which accounts for the disarray. I will summon a

servant to apply your pleasure. Thank you, but I want nothing, sir.

I came here to seek a private interview with the proprietor of this tavern by

name Melody.

Are you by any chance he? No, I am not.

You wish to see Major Cornelius Melody, one time of his majesty's seventh

dragoons, who served with honor under the Duke of Wellington in Spain? I am

he. Very well, sir.

Major Melody. Who will I be honor of addressing?

Pretty young woman.

Is he your daughter, sir? I seem to detect a resemblance. No, do I look...

like the man who would permit his daughter to work as a waitress.

I'm still waiting for you to inform me who you are and why you should wish to

see me.

My card, sir.

Nicholas Gadsby.

Attorney, hmm?

I have small liking for your profession, sir.

I cannot imagine what business you can have with me. The damn thieves of the

law did their worst to me in Ireland many years ago, so I really...

That is,

do you happen by any chance to represent the father of young Simon Harford?

Then you were expecting.

That makes things easier. We need not beat about the bush.

I do represent Mr. Henry Harford, sir.

Then accept my apologies, sir, for my animadversions against your profession.

I'm afraid I may be prejudiced.

In the army, were you... We suffered more casualties from your attacks at

home than the French ever inflicted. Indeed, sir. But I must tell you, my

time is short.

With your permission, we will proceed at once to the matter in hand.

I think I can hazard a guess as to what that matter is. You've come about the

settlement. Exactly, sir. Mr. Harford was of the opinion, and I agreed with

him, that a settlement would be foremost in your mind. It does me honor, sir,

that Mr. Harford appreciates his dealing with a gentleman, and he knows how these

matters can be properly arranged. He has that kind of breeding.

I will be quite frank with you, sir. The devil of it is, it comes at a very

difficult time for me.

Temporary, of course, but I cannot deny that I'm pinched at the moment.

Definitely pinched.

No matter. But my only child's happiness is at stake. I'm prepared to do every

possible, every possible step. I will sign my note at hand, no matter how

ruinous the interest demanded by the scoundrelly moneylender.

By the way, what amount does Mr. Harford think proper? Anything in reason?

I do not know what you are talking about, sir.

Unless you think to make a fool of me, if this is what is known as Irish wit...

I care not, sir. What's your word?

Since I'm making a fool of you, sir, I would be the fool if I attempted to

improve on God's handiwork. I wish no quarrel with you, sir.

I cannot for the life of me see... I fear we're dealing at gross purposes.

Will you tell me plainly what you mean by your talk of settlement?

Obviously, I mean the settlement I'm prepared to make on my daughter.

Isn't your purpose in coming here to arrange on Mr. Harford's behalf for the

marriage of his son with my daughter?

Marriage? Good God, no, nothing of the kind.

Well, what have you come for, then? To inform you, sir, that Mr. Henry Harford

is unalterably opposed to any further relationship between his son and your

daughter, whatever the nature of that relationship in the past.

If you dare to insinuate... I insinuate nothing, sir.

I am here on Mr. Harford's behalf to make you an offer.

Mr. Harford is prepared to pay you the sum of $3,000, provided, mark you,

that you and your daughter sign an agreement which specifies that you

relinquish all further claims of whatever nature.

And provided also that you agree to leave this part of the country at once

with your family, Mr. Harford suggests that it would be advisable that you go

west to Ohio, say?

So, Henry Harford.

It does me the honor to suggest that, does it? Well, Charlie, you could not

have spoken seriously when you talked of marriage.

There's such a different sensation.

But the idea's preposterous. If you knew Mr. Hoffman, you would realize that he

would never... Know him by the immortal. I'll know him soon, and he'll know me.

But first, you Yankee. What?

No! Just give me a bank card!

You're surprised that you're dirty or not?

You're right, sir. You're right.

It would be beneath me to soil my hands on this vile lickspittle.

But you won't get away scot-free here, Roshan. Get over here.

Here, you stunkard scoundrel. Take your hands off me. You may tell the swindling

traitor Harford who employs you that he will hear from me. Throw this thing out.

down the street. It's with his master I have to deal and by the powers I'll deal

with him. You come with me, Jamie. I want you for a witness.

He'll apologize to me.

More than that, he will come back here this very minute and publicly apologize

to my daughter or he will meet me in the morning. By God, I'll face him at

ten paces or across a handkerchief.

I'll put a bullet through his head. Shut up, woman.

I didn't say that, Father.

But you're not in Ireland now.

You'll never be let see him. Old Harford will never fight. Oh, he won't, won't

he? Well, by God, I'll make him.

I'll take a whip and drag him out of his house. I'll lash him down the street for

all his neighbors to see. He'll apologize or he'll fight.

Father, you'll never be let see him. His servants will keep you out.

He'll have the police arrest you and it'll be in the paper about another

drunken mick causing a crazy row. Tell him. Tell him I'm telling the truth,

Jamie. Well, maybe Sarah is right, Major.

Of course, if you become such a coward, you're afraid to go.

Coward, is it?

I'll go be damned to you. Jamie, you fool.

Oh, it's like talking to two crazy men.

Father, for the love of God, don't do it. Have I ever asked you for anything

before? Well, you can ask me now. I'll beg you on my knees. Anything you want.

Why, you've paid that lawyer for...

Please, why can't you please? You talk like a scheming peasant.

It's a question of my honour.

No, it's a question of my happiness.

And I won't have your marriage appearing.

Listen, father.

If you'll keep out of this, I'll show you how I'll make a fool of old

Hartford.

Simon won't let anything his father does keep him from marrying me. It's only his

mother who might have the influence over him to come between us.

He's just waiting for an excuse to turn... Simon against marrying me.

Can't you see what an excuse, what a chance that will give me if you go

making a public row?

Insolent, insolent Yankee bitch. She's all the more reason.

Marrying, you say. You dare think that there can be any question now of

marrying the son of a man who has insulted my honor and yours? Yes, I dare

to think it.

I love Simon and I'm going to marry him. I say you're not.

I forbid you ever to see him again.

If you, if you defy me. Yes. For the sake of that dirty money.

I defy you. Or anyone who tries to come between us. You filthy peasant slut, you

whore. I'll kill you first.

I've got to kill you. I've got to kill you.

We're going after Harford, Major. We'd better go.

That thief and the lawyer will warn him.

Yes.

Let's go, Jamie. Let's go.

We'll start a cup and we'll be off.

If the mayor wasn't lame, I'd ride alone.

We can pick up a rigger that's stable.

Don't let me forget to stop at the barn for a whip.

Father, you'll force me to go to Simon and do what you said.

The army is back, Major, with the foe flying in retreat.

Works himself.

I'll let her be. He'll be in the back. Come on.

You should have seen the Yankee. The coachman had to help him up into the rig

at the corner. And Roach gave the coachman a clout on the head for good

measure.

Sarah?

Is Sarah worth himself?

I couldn't stop him.

Oh, it's like the old times come again.

in the chloro.

Even in them days before I'd done more than speak a word to him or made

him a bow as he'd ride by in his hunter.

I used to lie awake at night and pray for him when I'd hear he was fighting a

jolt in the morning.

I was in love with him even then.

But I'll not worry this time, and let you not either.

There wasn't a man in gangway with Ezekiel with a pistol.

And what chance did this old stick of a Yankee have with him?

That's him! Leave him! Go on! Die! Don't!

What's that, God?

No good.

Well, let him go his way and I'll go mine.

I won't let his madness destroy my life, not after the dreams I've dreamed,

plans I've made.

I'll show him I can play at the game of gentleman's honor, too.

I'm going upstairs to bed, Mother.

To bed, it is.

I didn't say sleep, but I can try and rest. I'm dead tired, Mother.

Oh, you must be, Darren.

It's been the devil's own day for you, though.

Oh, forgive me, Darren. I was forgetting about you and young Hartford.

Oh, God, help us.

Never mind.

If it's true love between you, you'll not let a duel or anything else keep you

from each other, whatever the cost.

Don't I know?

You'll stay down here and wait up, Mother?

I'd be destroyed with worry lying down in the dark.

The noise of them in the bar keeps something spiraling away.

Yes.

You'd better wait down here.

Good night, Mother.

Good night, John.

Sure a bit.

Oh, don't be worrying now.

Sure, it's not so late yet.

I come in to see how you are, and bring a taste to put heart in you.

Oh, I know, I know you don't indulge, but I've known you once in a while, and

you need it this night.

Now, come now, don't be stubborn.

I'm the doctor, and I highly recommend a drop to drive out black thoughts and

rheumatism.

A taste only.

That's the talk.

Now drink, Artie.

Oh, I've no taste for anything.

But I thank you for the thought.

You're a good lad, Mickey.

Here's news to cheer you.

The word got round among the boy. And they've all come in to wait for Craig

and himself.

There'll be more money taken over the bar than any night since this has been

started.

Ah, if they do hate Conmelody, he's Irish.

And I hate the Yanks worse.

They're all hoping he's paid the living lights of the Harford. So they have, I

know. Ah, that's the thought.

I'm glad to see you roused from your worrying.

Well, I... I'd better get back.

I left O'Dowd to ten bar.

And I'll wager he's three drinks stolen already.

Sarah's not been down?

No. Well, you'd think she'd have more talk for you than leave you to sit up

alone. I made her go to bed.

She was destroyed with tiredness and sick with worry.

She must have fallen asleep like the young calf. And none of your talk

against Sarah now. The devil take her.

There's no baiting you, Nora.

Sure, it'd be the joy of me life to have a mother like you to fight for me.

Or better still.

A wife like you.

Oh, thank you, darling, for the young girl. The devil take the young girls.

You're worth a hundred of them. Get along with you.

Oh, darling, it's you.

Proud of me of coming last there.

Sick of worry I got to the point where I can't stand waiting alone.

Just under drugs, dancing, celebrating.

It's cruel, it is.

There's no heart or thought for himself and devil or one of them. And don't tell

me not to worry.

You're as bad as Mickey.

I think he didn't apologise. Your father'd have been back here long since.

It's a duel for certain.

He must have taken a room in the city to be near the ground. I hope he'll sleep.

But I'm afraid he'll stay up drinking and at dawn he'll have had too much to

shoot his best maybe.

Will you let go of me?

You've hardened yourself not to care.

I'd rather stay alone.

Oh, no, no, excuse me.

Sit down, darling.

Oh, if he didn't, Betty, why hasn't he sent Jamie Craig or someone back with

word from me?

He knows well I'd be tormented with waiting.

Oh, don't talk like a loon.

I'm going to say I've required for anyone but himself and his pride.

He never stopped to think of me. The grand gentleman and his red livery of

bloody England.

His pride indeed.

What is it? But a lie.

What's in his veins? God pity him. But the blood of thieving old Ned Melody who

kept a dirty shebane.

Oh no.

I won't say it. I'll never.

Break his heart if he heard me.

All the same, I won't stay here, worrying me heart out about a man who...

Oh, it isn't only fear over the jewel.

It's because I'm afraid of God's punishment and

all the sorrow and trouble that's come on us.

I got the black torment in me mind.

And it's the fault of my mortal sin I did with him unmarried.

And the promise he made me make to leave the church, it's kept me from ever

confessing to the priest.

Go to a doctor, you say, to cure rheumatism.

It's the pain of guilt in me soul.

Can a doctor's medicine cure that?

No.

Only a priest to God Almighty.

Joseph Conrad, if I took a chance now, broke my promise and woke the priest to

hear my confession, hopefully I had the courage.

I'll do it.

No, I wouldn't.

I'll call the police, then.

Well, why don't you go, Mother?

Ain't I gone?

God forgive me, I can't.

What's the use of pretending?

No use.

I've learned about that.

He'd feel I'd betrayed him, and my word and my love for him.

He knows well, for all his scorn, that my love is all he has in the world to

comfort him.

And it's my honour, too. It's not for his sake, it's all.

Devourment him.

You always preach as if he had all the honour there is.

But I've mine too, as proud as his.

Yes.

The honor of her love to a woman.

I've learned about that too, Mother.

Oh, you've found your tongue, have you?

Thank God.

The cold comfort of sitting here silent like a statue and me talking to myself.

Moshe, but it's pleased and pretty you look.

If you hadn't a care in the world for your poor father... Oh, Mother, I know

it's no use telling you that there won't be any duel, but maybe you'll take

Simon's word for it if you won't take mine.

He said his father would be paralysed with indignation at the thought he'd

fight a duel. It's against the law.

Well, if the young lad said that, maybe it's true.

Of course it's true, Mother.

Your father'd be satisfied with half his apology and that's ended.

And you think what's kept him out is he and Jamie had a pour of drinks to

celebrate? Oh, well, they'd drink for sure, whatever happened.

All that doesn't matter now, Mother.

Gee, what a queer way of talking, as if you'd been asleep and were still having

a dream.

It's a dream that's true, Mother, and always will be till the end of life, and

I'll never wake from it. Sure, what's come over you, Tor?

Joy.

That's what's come over me. I'm happy.

I'm happy because I know now Simon is mine and no one can take him from me.

Oh, God, I'm afraid.

The great sorrow tormenting me that the steward would come between us. I was a

great fool to think that Simon's mother could turn him against me.

Have you had a talk with her?

I have.

That's where I've been.

But then there's rumor that she went home.

Almost.

Took me a little while to get up my courage after I got upstairs.

Time the dead a night.

And it's nice, don't I? I have a right.

Oh, excuse me.

Were you the way you are? You're only your nightgown and wrapper. I was.

And Simon likes my costume, if you don't.

Although he got as red as a beet when I came in. Small wonder he did.

Shame on you.

He was trying to read a book of poetry and he couldn't.

He was that worried.

Hoping I'd come to say goodnight and being afraid I wouldn't. Oh, Mother, it

was the cutest thing I've ever done.

Not to see him since his mother left.

He kept worrying and hoping I'd come. And when I didn't, he got scared to

death that his kissing me this morning had made me angry.

So he was wild with joy to see me. In your bare legs with only your nightgown

and wrapper to cover your nakedness. Where's your modesty?

I had it with me.

Although I tried hard to leave it behind, I got as red as he was.

Isn't that a great joke on me, Mother? Here I've gone to his room with my mind

made up to be as bold as any street woman and tempt him because I knew his

honour would make him marry me right away if... And all I could do was stand

and gape at him and blush.

Oh, well, I'm glad you had the decency to push.

Simon spoke first.

And once he'd started, everything he'd been holding back came out.

The waiting for me and the fear made him forget his shyness.

And he said he loved me.

And he asked me to marry him as soon as I could.

Without knowing how it happened there, I was with my arms around

him and his around me and my lips on his.

And it was heaven, Mother.

Then I was crying, telling him how scared I was his mother hated me.

And the father's madness with the duel would give her a chance to come between

us. And he said no one could ever come between us.

And that I was foolish to think his mother wouldn't be anything but amused.

That it would be a great joke on his father after he'd been so sure he could

buy us off.

If he had to call the police to save him. The police?

Yes, sir. The dirty coward.

I've gone melody curse for police and I'm in a rage.

And Simon told me how scared he'd been.

That I didn't love him.

And that I wouldn't marry him and that he was a failure because he... He

couldn't be what he wanted to be, a poet.

So I kissed him, and I said he was to a poet, and that he always would be, and

it was what I loved most about him. Just let one of them put his dirty on and con

melody. He'll knock him senseless with one blow.

And Simon told me how poor he was, and that he'd never accept a penny from his

father, even if he offered it, and I told him, never mind.

But if we had to live in a hut, or sleep in the grass of a field without a roof

to our head, and work our fingers to the bone...

or starve itself, I'd be in heaven and sing with the joy of our love. And I

meant it, Mother. I meant every word of it from the bottom of my heart.

Torshita, darling, isn't that a great joke on me?

All my crazy dreams of riches and a grand estate.

You were right, Mother.

I know nothing of love and the pride a woman can take in giving everything.

Pride in her own love.

Oh, I'm sure you do, darling.

You just let the police try it.

We'll whoop them back to their kennels, that dirty curse.

And then we put out the light.

And Simon forgot whatever shyness he had left in the dark.

And he said he meant all the bold things he'd written in the poems I'd read.

I confessed to him that I was up to every scheme to get him.

And all the time we were kissing each other, wild with happiness, and then...

I know, Jordan.

You know, Mother?

I know what?

What are you saying?

Look up at me.

I can see.

You let him. You let him. There was no letting about it. Only love making

the two of us. Ain't you ashamed to boast?

No. Well, you know I'm not.

Ashamed? There was no shame in it. Haven't you told me of the pride you had

in your love? Were you ashamed?

I was. I was dead ashamed. You were not. You were proud like me. I'm a mortal.

And God will punish you. Oh, let him.

If he were to say to me, for every time you kiss Simon, you'll spend a thousand

years in hell, I wouldn't care. I'd wear out my lips kissing him. But no, he may

hear you. Wouldn't you have said the same?

Oh, don't be, don't, don't make me with your simple questions. I won't answer.

Oh, all right. All right, Mother. All right.

All right.

Forgive me.

who was guilty and repentant.

If he'd had his way, we'd be up out of bed now, and the two of us walking

around in the dead of night trying to wake up someone who could marry us.

But I was so mad with love, I'd lost all care or thought of marriage.

It got to the point where all you know or think about is that you belong to

love.

You were right, Mother.

I always knew you were the sweetest woman in the world.

But I never suspected you were a wise woman, too, until I knew the truth of

what you said tonight.

That a woman can forgive whatever the man she loves could do and love him

still.

Because it's through him she found the love in herself.

It's love, slaves, we are.

Not men's.

Wouldn't it shame their boasting and vanity?

We let them know our secret.

I'm glad Simon can't hear me.

I can even understand now, a little anyway, how you can still love father

and be proud of it. Gosh. Oh,

for the love of God, Sarah, where is he?

Why doesn't he come? What's happened to him? Mother, don't be a fool. Nothing's

happened to him.

Except he's made a mass of himself for Simon's mother to sneer at. Oh, he'll

come home as drunk as two lords, boasting of his glorious victory over

old Tarthas, no matter what the truth is.

Jamie!

Please be to the sense you're back.

Jamie,

where's your sense?

I got him in a rig outside.

I had to make sure no one was here. I'll bring him in.

Did you see Jamie's face?

They've been fighting terribly.

Oh, sir, I'm afraid.

Afraid of what? Well, I told you, a crazy row, and now he's paralysed. Oh,

come on, darling.

Are you hurt or sad?

Come on, don't you know me?

Oh, God help us!

Look at his head! Mama, be quiet. Do you want them in the bar to know he's come

home this way? Oh, that's it, Sarah. We've got to rouse him first.

His pride will never forgive us if we let them see him.

Dead beat like this. He's drunk. That's all it is, isn't it, Jamie? No, he is

not. He's not taken a drop since we left here.

It's them clouts on the head he got. That's what ails him.

Taste of the whiskey would bring him back if only he'd take it, but he won't.

He won't? Yeah, try and wake him.

Yeah.

Here now, Major, drink this.

You'll be right as rain.

He won't, see?

That's the way he's been all the way back when I tried to persuade him.

Well, if he won't, I will by your leave. I'm needing it bad.

It's the devil's own rampage we have.

From your looks, it must have been. You're taking it cool enough. And you've

seen the marks of the beating we got.

If we're marked, there's others is marked worse.

And some of them is the police. God be praised, the dirty coward. Be quiet.

Tell us what happened, Jamie.

Fakes what didn't happen.

We're the Rocket Castle.

I've never engaged in a livelier shimmy.

We had no trouble finding where Harford lived. That's a grand mansion with a big

walled garden behind.

And we went to the front door.

Flunky and livery answered.

With two others behind. Big black nigger was one.

That pig of a lawyer.

He must have warned Harford to expect us.

Anyway, calm.

We spoke with the ears of a lord.

Kindly inform your master, says he, that Major Cornelius Melody, late of His

Majesty's Seventh Dragoons, respectfully requests a word with him.

The flunky. He puts an insolent sneer on him.

Mr. Harford won't see you, says he.

I could see Con's rage rising, but he kept polite.

You tell him, says he, if he knows what's good for him. You see me.

If he don't... I'll come in and see him. Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Oh, you will, says the flunky.

I'll have you know, Mr.

Harford don't allow drunken mix to come around here disturbing him. Anyway, says

he, the police has been informed. If there's any trouble, you'll be arrested.

And anyway, says he, you've come to the wrong door. The place for the likes of

you... It's the servants' entrance. You let old Harford's servants insult you.

Well, I warned you. Let them be down. You keep your mouth shut now and let me

tell it. You'll see if we let them.

Now, when he says that, Flunky, he tried to slam the door in our face, but Con

was too quick. He pushed it back on him, leapt into the hall, roaring mad, and

hit that Flunky, cut with his whip across his ugly mouth, sent him

screaming like a stuck pig. God for you, Condor. Mother, hush.

The famous duelist in a drunken brawl with butlers and coachmen.

Now, shut your mouth, Sarah, and don't be trying to plague him. And don't you

be putting on fine airs about fighting. And use the whole cause of it. That's a

lie. I... Wait till you hear, Nora.

The nigger, he took me a clout, had me head dizzy. He had me down on a con.

Broke the butt of his whip across his black skull, sent him to his knees.

The third man...

He punches Con. I give him a kick where I do him the least good. He goes rolling

on the floor, grabbing his guts. Be the saints.

We had the three of them licked, and we'd have dragged old Harford from his

den and tanned his Yankee hide if the police hadn't caught him. Out of the

dirty cowards. I was hiding against the rich, with the rich shags against the

poor Irish. Can't you be still, Mother? Four of them, with clubs, come behind

us. And before we knew it, they grabbed us and dragged us in the street.

Khan broke away, hit the one that held him. I gave another a knee in the belly,

and then, big glory, there was a fight.

Oh, it would have done your heart good to see himself.

He was worth any two men, letting out left and right, roaring with rage,

cursing like a trooper. Bravely done, Major Melody. A commander of the forces

commends your exceptional gallantry.

Like the field of Talavera, like the charge on the French square.

Cursing like a drunken foul-mouthed son of a thieving

Shabine keeper.

I sprang from the filth of a peasant hubble with pigs on the floor.

That pale Yankee bitch watching from a window.

Sneering of disgust.

Can't preserve us. It's crazy as... He's not crazed, Mother. He's come to his

senses at last.

So, she was sneering, was she? Well, I'm glad you've been taught a lesson.

Shut your gap, sir.

Leave him be. Take no heed.

That's the same crazy blather he's talked every once in a while since we

brought him to. About that Harford woman.

And talking of his father and pigs one minute and his honour and pride and his

mayor the next.

Well, anyways, that was too much for us. Four of them with clubs.

But be the mortal, we went down fighting to the last for the glory of all

Ireland. Like a rum-soaked trooper brawling before a brothel on a Saturday

night puking in the gutter.

We wasn't in condition if we had been.

But they knocked us senseless and they rode us to the station and locked us up.

And we'd have been there yet if old Harford hadn't made them turn us loose.

He's rich and has influence.

Small thanks to him. He was afraid the row would get in the papers and put

shame on him.

How are you going?

Don't cross him out, Nora. He don't know you.

Sure, he's only going upstairs to bed.

You know what's best for you, don't you, Major?

Jamie's right, Mother.

The best thing will be if he falls asleep.

Oh, my God.

What if he takes revenge on Simon?

No, he's... He's gone into a throma.

I'm a fool. He'd never hurt a sick man. I've never heard him talk like that in

all the years.

That crazy dead look in his eyes.

Oh, my third.

Leave me be. I want to make sure he's gone to bed.

Stay where you are unless you're a fool, Sarah.

He might come to all of a sudden and give you a hell of a thrashing.

Troth, you deserve one. Ain't you to blame for what happened? Wasn't he

fighting to revenge insults on you?

Oh, thank you to mind your own business, Jamie Cregan.

Just because you're a relation... Off to hell with your heirs.

I can revenge my own insults, and I have.

He's only made a fool of himself.

For Simon's mother to sneer at.

And I've beaten her.

And I'll sneer last.

Oh, merciful God, what a... What a way to think of... I

must be crazy, too.

Oh, don't be.

Didn't the two of us lick them all? And Khan's all right. He's all right, I'm

saying. Just the club on the head, he took the hasn't queer a while.

All the same, it's no fun listening to his mad blather about the pale bitches,

he calls her.

Like she was some ghost haunting and scorning him. And his mad gab about his

mare is madder still.

What a grand, beautiful lady she is with her slender ankles and dainty feet and

sobbing, begging her forgiveness.

Talking of dishonour and death.

To hell with this night.

He's come down.

He's come down.

He's gone out to the barn.

Go after him.

Go after him. I will not. He's all right. Leave him alone. He's only gone

to call on his sweetheart. Will you shut up? I told you.

I heard him open the closet in his room.

where he keeps his set of old Jordan pistols, and he was carrying that box

when he come down. Oh, the lunatic. He's going to ride that mare over to

Hanford's and going to murder somebody for the love of God, Jim. Hey, Christ,

I'll stop him for you, Nora.

Pistols are no pistols.

And he must be... Oh, God.

As if he hadn't done enough to destroy my... Oh, the mad fool I was. He was...

I didn't mean it, Mother.

I didn't mean it.

Mother, you know I didn't mean it.

No, no, not Jamie.

Oh, I can't bear waiting.

I'm afraid to know.

I'm afraid to know.

I found him in the stable with that pistol in his hand and made to it on the

floor beside the mayor.

He's mad. He's grown entirely.

Now, you take care of him now, wife and daughter. I've had enough. I'm no damn

keeper of lunatics.

Jamie, Jamie, we heard a shot. What was it?

You ask him, not me.

It killed the poor mayor, the mad fool.

I found him on the floor with her head in his lap and her dead and he's sobbing

like a soul in hell.

Let me get out of the sight of him.

To where there's men in their right senses laughing and singing. And don't

be afeard, Sarah, that I'll tell the boys a word of this. It's our fight in

the city I'll talk of only. That's all I want to remember.

since time began.

You call killing the mayor a joke?

Look at the dead face on him. He's like a corpse. Come, darling, don't. I should

not worry, Alana, sure.

I'm no corpse. And with a few drinks in me, I'll soon be lively enough to

torture.

This is true.

Put him on the boat of torment. He no heed.

He's playing.

acting to amuse himself. No, no, no. It's from the blow he got on her head.

Let her blow me. My foot. Blather.

That Jamie Cregan blather. Sure, it'll take more than a few clubs on the head

to darken my witch's slug.

Me brains, if I have any, is clear as a bell.

And I'm not putting on broke to torment you, my darling.

Play Acton, Sarah. That was the Major's game.

Sure. It's queer, surely, for the two of you to object when I talk in me natural

tongue and yours and not be putting on airs like the late lamented old liar and

lunatic Major Cornelius Melody of his majesty's seven dragoons used to do. Oh,

God help us, pal, our little... You've fought his death now, and his last

prison line's pride is murdered and taken.

So let you be easy, darling. He'll never again hurt you with his...

and his pretending he's a gentleman blathering about pride and honor and

boasting of jewels in the days thus gone and showing off before the Yankees and

them laughing at him, prancing around drunk on his beautiful thoroughbred

mare.

But she's dead now.

Poor beast.

Why? Why did you kill her?

Well, it's a major, you mean.

Right. I thought if you can't see that, wasn't she the living reminder, so to

speak, of all his lying boasts and dreams?

He meant to kill her first with one pistol and then himself with the other.

But, fake, he thought the shot that killed her had finished him too.

There wasn't much pride left in the old lunatic anyway, and seeing her die made

an end of him.

So he didn't bother shooting himself because that would be a mad thing to

waste a good bullet on a corpse. Don't, Father.

I tell you, there was a great joke in it. Well, that's the joke.

Sweet Christ.

The look in her eyes by the lantern light.

The life ebbing out of them, wondering and sad.

Still trustful, not reproaching me with no fear in me.

Proud, understanding, pride.

She saw I was dying with her. She understood. She forgave me.

He can't live. That wasn't the bad major. Go speak to him.

But be damned to him.

He'll not haunt me long if I know it.

I intend to live at my ease for the rest of me life and not let the dead bother

me, but enjoy life in me proper station as old Nick Melody's son.

I'll bury his nature's temperate livery of bloody England

deep in the ground, and he can haunt its grave if he likes.

boasted the lonely knight of Talavera and the ladies of Spain and fight in the

French. I think the boys is right when they say he stole the uniform and he

never fought under Wellington at all. He was a terrible liar and I remember him.

Oh, darling, don't be crazy. I'm about to marry you. Shall you come get him?

Mother has fathered. When you stop this mad game you're playing. A game? Is

that? Oh, you'll find us no game.

As the Major played a game all his life, the crazy old loon, and cheated only

himself, but I'll be content to stay meself in me proper station as old Nick

Melody's son for the rest of my life.

And it's meself that feels it's my duty to give you a bit of fatherly

advice. Well, my mind is on it, Sarah, darling. I know you have great ambition,

so remember it to hell with honour if you want to rise in this world.

Remember the blood in your veins and be your grandfather's true descendant.

There was an able man for you. But Jesus, he never felt anything beneath

him that could gain him something.

And for lying tricks and swindling the bloody fools of Gentry, there wasn't his

match in Ireland. And he ended up with a grand estate and a castle and a pile of

gold in the bank. I hate you.

I know that he'd advise that to give you a first step up, darling, you know what

I mean.

He'd tell you to have the young Yankee gentleman in your bed. Make him have

you, see? And after he's had you, weep great tears and appeal to his honour to

marry you and save yours.

Oh, shut...

He'll never resist that. I know him for his young fool.

He's full of decency and dreams and loony, too, with a touch of the poet in

the war. It'll be easy for you, darling. I'll make you stop your dirty brogue and

your play-acting.

Thank you kindly for your wise advice, Father, but I've already made him have

me in his bed while you were out drunk fighting with the police. Hold your

brazen tongue!

Now, God bless you.

I might have known you'd not take any chance. The old fool of a major going

out to revenge an insult to you would spoil your schemes.

Be the living God, it's me you should be proud this night.

One of the Yankee gentry has hoped to be seduced by mine.

Slut of a daughter.

Oh, for the love of God, Conn, will you be mother and son?

Mother and son, is it?

Is it that?

All I want to do is congratulate her.

Oh, it's all right, Conn. It's all right. The young lad wants to marry her

as soon as he can. She told me that, and he did before.

Oh, worship this kind of a...

Be sure to be proud of our daughter, Nora.

Leave it to her to get what she wants by hook or crook.

Oh, we'll be proud of her, watching her rise in the world like a grand lady. Oh,

yes, surely.

Father. She'll have to root out his dreams, though. She'll have some trouble

doing that.

He's set in his proud noble ways, you know.

But she'll find the way. She'll find it.

Me God, what am I doing with a major's pistol?

I don't need pistols. Me fists are a club of his hand ain't enough.

And me and Jamie lick a whole regiment of police this night. You're dead

enough. There haven't been so many of them.

That's the talk.

Ah, so there's devil a more loyal wife in this whole world.

I love you.

Go on. I wanted to tell you that so often.

Only the Major, damn him, had me under his proud thumb.

Oh, they cut my hair. It is, it is. Why wouldn't I be?

You have beautiful hair. God bless you.

And don't you be remembering anything the Major told you.

A gentleman sneers that he put on his buried with him.

I'll be a real husband to you now.

And I'll help you run the Chabin.

And I'll fire Mickey Malloy and tend the bar, mister, like my father's son ought

to do. I'll never. I'll not let you.

But I offered, remember, as you refused.

Jeez.

Maybe you're right not to trust me too near the whiskey, eh?

Jesus, that reminds me.

I've not had a taste for hours. I'm dying at first.

I'll get you. No, you won't do that.

I want company.

I want singing and dancing and that. I'll join the boys in the bar and help

Cousin Jamie celebrate the wonderful Sydney with the police. You ought to go

to Bad Con, darling, with your head hurt. I'm fresh as a man newborn.

I'll see you goodnight, darling.

You go to bed too, Sarah.

You deserve a long, dreamless sleep after all you've accomplished this day.

Father, please.

Won't you be yourself again?

You keep your mouth closed, you slut.

And not talk like you was ashamed of me, your father.

Jesus, I'm not the major. It was too much of a gentleman to lay a hand on

your face. I'll give you such a box on the nose.

I'll teach you to raise the dead.

Father, don't go in with those drunken scum.

Jamie will come here.

He'll keep you company. He'll laugh and sing and help you celebrate Taliban.

Help with Taliban!

Oh, be Jesus, if it ain't them there, the old rule who's always admiring is

mogging while he's spouting by and pretending himself was a great lord with

a touch for the poet.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me.

I have not flappered at, shrank, pressed, nor bowed to at idolatries,

a patient me, nor coined me cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud in worship of an

echo. In the crowd they could not deem me one of such. I stood among them, but

not of them.

Oh, be Christ.

He was the joke of the world, the major. He should have been a clown in a circus.

God rest his soul in the flames of torment.

That's the hell with the dead.

Be God, I'm alive.

And I am one of the crowd.

Be God, I'll be among them and of them too.

I'll make up for the lonely dog's life, the major. Let me... Father, please

don't put this final shame on yourself.

You're not drunk now. You have no excuse. You'll be as dead to yourself

after as if you were shot yourself along with the mayor.

Listen to the little one reproaching me because I'm not drunk. Oh, that's a

condition soon mended.

Leave him alone, Sarge.

Oh, I'm missing a lot of fun out there.

God, I've a bit of news to tell the boys that'll make them roar the house down.

The Major's passing to his eternal rest has set me free to join the Democrats.

And I vote for Andy Jackson, the friend of the common man, like me.

God bless him. No,

I won't let you. It's my pride, too.

Listen, Father, forgive me. I know it's my fault.

For always sneering at you and insulting you. But it was only the lies I meant.

The truth.

Talavera. The buke praising your bravery.

Even the ladies in Spain. Deep down, that was my pride, too. That I was your

daughter.

Please forgive me.

I'll do anything you want. I'll even tell Simon that after his father's

insult to you...

I'm too proud to marry the son of a Yankee coward.

Sarah, let me go. For the love of God, stop and let me go.

Leave your poor father alone at best.

Why couldn't you be still? Why can't you, you mean?

I warned you what you'd get if you kept on interfering and trying to raise the

dirt.

Pity you, Con. Will you be heading for Sarah now?

I tell you, I'll put up with enough. Are you shut up, darling?

I won't have to again.

I'll teach you, me proud Sarah.

I know you won't try to raise in the dead anymore.

And let me hear no more gabber to you about not marrying the young lad

upstairs. But Jesus, haven't you any honor, any shame?

You seduce him and you'll make an honest gentleman of him if I have to march you

both by the scruff of the neck to the nearest church.

Forgive me.

Both?

I'll join my good friends in the bar.

Don't mind his giving you a slap.

He's still corning his head.

But he'll drink and sing and laugh and have a power of whiskey and sleep

sound after. And pimp himself again tomorrow.

Maybe.

He's beaten.

And he wants to stay beaten.

Well, I did my best.

Though why, I don't know.

I must have a crazy pride in me.

I mean the late Major Mulledy's pride.

I mean... I did.

Now it's dead.

Thank God.

And I'll make a better wife to Simon for her. This is the next president, Andy

Jackson. Hello, Paul.

Hi,

Peter Codd.

June, for Andy Jackson. Did you hear him, sir?

I heard someone.

But with no one I know or want to know.

Well, that's good.

They won't all be hating him now.

And did you hear him?

Telling me he loved me.

Did you see him kiss me on the mouth?

And then he kissed my hair.

Sure, he must have gone mad, don't you think?

No.

He meant it, Mother.

And he'll go on meaning it. He's free to go.

Oh, if he wants to go on.

Making games with everyone, putting on the brogue and acting like he's one of

them in there.

Why shouldn't he if it brings him peace and company in his loneliness?

I'd pity him.

He's had to live his whole life alone in the hell of pride.

He can play any game he likes and I'll give him love in it.

Sure haven't I, August?

There's no pride at all except that.

You're a strange, noble woman, Mother.

I'll try to be like you.

Regis Simon never heard the shot or anything.

He was sleeping like a baby when I left him.

A cannon wouldn't wake him.

That's right, you don't know it, but he's playing a requiem for the dead.

May the hero of Tenevara rest in peace.

Why do I cry, mother?

Why should I mourn for him? Come on, darling.

You're destroyed with tiredness, that's all.

Come on, I've fucked that.

I'll help you undress.

I'm not talking.

Shame on you.

when you have to laugh?

What would the young laugh think of me?