er? and God help
the girl that gets him, say I! So the back of my hand to you, Mrs
O'Flaherty; and that the cat may tear your ugly old face!

SIR PEARCE. Silence. Tessie, did you hear me ordering you to go into the
house? Mrs O'Flaherty! [Louder.] Mrs O'Flaherty!! Will you just listen
to me one moment? Please. [Furiously.] Do you hear me speaking to you,
woman? Are you human beings or are you wild beasts? Stop that noise
immediately: do you hear? [Yelling.] Are you going to do what I order
you, or are you not? Scandalous! Disgraceful! This comes of being too
familiar with you. O'Flaherty, shove them into the house. Out with the
whole damned pack of you.

O'FLAHERTY [to the women]. Here now: none of that, none of that. Go
easy, I tell you. Hold your whisht, mother, will you, or you'll be sorry
for it after. [To Teresa.] Is that the way for a decent young girl to
speak? [Despairingly.] Oh, for the Lord's sake, shut up, will yous? Have
you no respect for yourselves or your betters? [Peremptorily.] Let me
have no more of it, I tell you. Och! the divil's in the whole crew of
you. In with you into the house this very minute and tear one another's
eyes out in the kitchen if you like. In with you.

The two men seize the two women, and push them, still violently abusing
one another, into the house. Sir Pearce slams the door upon them
savagely. Immediately a heavenly silence falls on the summer afternoon.
The two sit down out of breath: and for a long time nothing is said. Sir
Pearce sits on an iron chair. O'Flaherty sits on the garden seat. The
thrush begins to sing melodiously. O'Flaherty cocks his ears, and looks
up at it. A smile spreads over his troubled features. Sir Pearce, with a
long sigh, takes out his pipe and begins to fill it.

O'FLAHERTY [idyllically]. What a discontented sort of an animal a man
is, sir! Only a month ago, I was in the quiet of the country out at the
front, with not a sound except the birds and the bellow of a cow in the
distance as it might be, and the shrapnel making little clouds in the
heavens, and the shells whistling, and maybe a yell or two when one of
us was hit; and would you believe it, sir, I complained of the noise and
wanted to have a peaceful hour at home. Well: them two has taught me a
lesson. This morning, sir, when I was telling the boys here how I was
longing to be back taking my part for king and country with the others,
I was lying, as you well knew, sir. Now I can go and say i