FOREWORD

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION IN READING THE PLAYS

SCENE: CAPTAIN KEENEY'S cabin on board the steam whaling ship Atlantic Queen—a small, square compartment, about eight feet high, with a skylight in the centre looking out on the poop deck. On the left (the stern of the ship) a long bench with rough cushions is built in against the wall. In front of the bench, a table. Over the bench, several curtained portholes.

SCENE: A GIRL sits crouched over her knees on a stile close to a river. A MAN with a silver badge stands beside her clutching the worn top plank. THE GIRL'S level brows are drawn together; her eyes see her memories. THE MAN'S eyes see THE GIRL; he has a dark, twisted face. The bright sun shines; the quiet river flows; the cuckoo is calling; the mayflower is in bloom along the hedge that ends in the stile on the towing-path.

SCENE: In the cheerless hour before the dawn of a wet spring morning five gentlemen-troopers of the broken Royalist army, fagged and outworn with three long days of siege, are holding, with what strength and courage are left them, the Gatehouse of the Bridge of Cashala, which is the key to the road that leads into Connaught. The upper chamber of the Gatehouse, in which they make their stand, is a narrow, dim-lit apartment, built of stone. At one side is a small fireplace, and beside it a narrow, barred door, which leads to the stairhead. At the end of the room, gained by a single raised step, are three slit-like windows, breast-high, designed, as now used, for defense in time of war. The room is meagrely furnished, with a table on which are powder-flask, touch-box, etc., for charging guns, a stool or two, and an open keg of powder. The whole look of the place, bare and martial, but depressed, bespeaks a losing fight. On the hearth the ashes of a fire are white, and on the chimneypiece a brace of candles are guttering out.

SCENE: A woodshed, in the ell of a farm-house.

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