The Drone.

by Rutherford Mayne.

ACT I.

SCENE: _The farm kitchen of John Murray. It is large and s.p.a.cious, with a wide open fire-place to the right. At the back is one door leading to the parlour and other rooms in the house, also a large window overlooking the yard outside. To the left of this window is the door leading into the yard, and near the door an old-fashioned grandfather's clock. Opposite to the fire-place on the left side is another door leading into Daniel Murray's workshop, and beside this door is a large dresser with crockery, &c. At the back beneath the window is a table near which_ KATE, _the servant, a slatternly dressed girl of some thirty years of age or more, is seated. She is carefully examining some cakes of soda bread, and has a bucket beside her into which she throws the rejected pieces._

KATE. That one's stale. It would break your teeth to eat it. (_She throws the cake into the bucket._) And the mice have nibbled that one.

And there's another as bad. (_She throws both pieces into the bucket._)

(BROWN, _the servant man, opens the door from yard and enters. He is elderly, and with a pessimistic expression of face, relieved somewhat by the sly humour that is in his eyes. He walks slowly to the centre of the kitchen, looks at_ KATE, _and then turns his eyes, with a disgusted shake of the head, towards the dresser as if searching for something._)

BROWN. Well! Well! Pigs get fat and men get lean in this house.

KATE. It's you again, is it? And what are you looking now?

BROWN. I'm looking a spanner for the boss. The feedboard to the threshing machine got jammed just when halfway through the first stack, and he is in a lamentable temper.

KATE (_uneasily_). Is he? (_She starts hurriedly to clear up the table._)

BROWN (_watching her slyly to see what effect his words have_). And he's been grumbling all morning about the way things is going on in this house. Bread and things wasted and destroyed altogether.

KATE. Well, it's all Miss Mary's fault. I told her about this bread yesterday forenoon, and she never took any heed to me.

BROWN. Miss Mary? (_With a deprecatory shake of his head._) What does a slip of a girl like that know about housekeeping and her not home a half-year yet from the boarding-school in the big town, and with no mother nor n.o.body to train her. (_He stares in a puzzled way at the dresser._) I don't see that spanner at all. Did you see it, Kate?

KATE. No. I've more to do than look for spanners.

BROWN (_gazing reproachfully at her and then shaking his head_). It's a nice house, right enough. (_Lowering his voice._) And I suppose old Mr. Dan is never up yet. I was told by Johnny McAndless, he was terribly full last night at McArn's publichouse and talking--ach--the greatest blethers about this new invention of his.

KATE. Do you say so?

BROWN. Aye. No wonder he's taking a lie this morning. (_He peeps into the door of the workshop._) He's not in his wee workshop?

KATE. No. Miss Mary is just after taking up his breakfast to him.

BROWN. Some people get living easy in this world. (_He gives a last look at the dresser._) Well divil a spanner can I see. I'll tell the master that. (_He goes out again through the yard door, and as he does so,_ MARY MURRAY _comes through the door from the inner rooms, carrying a tray with teacups, &c., on it. She is a pretty, vivacious girl about eighteen years of age._)

MARY. Who was that?

KATE. It's the servant man looking for a spanner for your father, Miss Mary. There's something gone wrong with the threshing machine.

MARY (_taking the tray to the table and starting to get ready to wash up the cups_). I do believe sometimes that Uncle Dan's a lazy man.

KATE (_a.s.sisting her at the washing and stopping as if astonished at the statement_). And is it only now you're after finding that out!

Sure the whole countryside knowed it this years and years.

MARY (_sharply_). The whole countryside has no business to talk about what doesn't concern it.

KATE. Oh, well, people are bound to talk, Miss.

MARY. But then Uncle Dan is awfully clever. He's got the whole brains of the Murrays, so father says, and then, besides that, he is a grand talker.

KATE. Aye. He can talk plenty. Sure Sarah McMinn, that lives up the Cut, says its a shame the way he's going on this twenty years and more, never doing a hand's turn from morning to night, and she says she wonders your poor father stands him and his nonsense.

MARY. Who said that?

KATE. Sarah McMinn told Johnny McAndless that yesterday.

MARY. Sarah McMinn? Pooh! That hard, mean, old thing. No. I believe in Uncle Dan and so does father. He'll make a name for himself yet.

KATE. Well, it's getting near time he done it.

MARY. And that Sarah McMinn they say just keeps her brother in starvation, and she just says nasty things like that about Uncle Dan because he doesn't like her.

KATE. Aye. He never did like people as seen through him, not but she is a mean old skin-a-louse. (_The voice of_ DANIEL MURRAY _is heard calling from within._) He's up, Miss.

MARY. Are you up, uncle?

(DAN MURRAY _opens the door from the inner apartments and comes into the kitchen. He is carelessly dressed and sleepy-looking as if just out of bed, wears a m.u.f.fler and gla.s.ses, and appears to be some fifty years of age._)

DANIEL. Yes. Did the _Whig_ come yet?

MARY. Yes. I put it in your workshop.

DANIEL (_glancing at the clock_). Bless my heart, it's half-past one!

MARY (_reproachfully_). It is, indeed, uncle.

DANIEL. Well! Well! Time goes round, Mary. Time goes round. (_Kate picks up the bucket and goes out by the yard door._) Where's your father? (_He crosses over to the workshop door._)

MARY. He's out working with Sam Brown at the threshing all morning since seven o'clock.

DANIEL. Well! Well! A very industrious man is John Murray. Very. But lacking in brains, my dear--lacking in brains. Kind, good-hearted, easy-going, but--ah! well, one can't help these things. (_He goes towards the workshop._) Where did you say the _Whig_ was, Mary?

MARY. It's in your workshop. (_He crosses over to go there._)

MARY. You were very late coming in last night, uncle.

DANIEL. Eh? (_He goes in, gets the paper, comes out again._)

MARY. I heard you coming in, and the clock was just after striking two. (_He sits down and opens paper._)

DANIEL. Well--I met a few friends last night. Appreciative friends I could talk to, and I was explaining that new idea of mine that I've been working at so long--that new idea for a fan-bellows. It's a great thing. Oh yes. It should be. I sat up quite a while last night, thinking it over, and I believe I've got more ideas about it--better ones.