ace?

SHAWN EARLY. I did. At her own house she was, drying clothes on
the hedge as I passed.

MRS. TARPEY. What did you say she was doing?

SHAWN EARLY (_breaking away_). Laying out a sheet on the hedge.

(_He goes._)

MRS. TARPEY. Laying out a sheet for the dead! The Lord have mercy
on us! Jack Smith dead, and his wife laying out a sheet for his
burying! (_Calls out_) Why didn't you tell me that before, Shawn
Early? Isn't the deafness the great hardship? Half the world
might be dead without me knowing of it or getting word of it at
all! (_She sits down and rocks herself._) O my poor Jack Smith! To
be going to his work so nice and so hearty, and to be left
stretched on the ground in the full light of the day!

(_Enter_ TIM CASEY.)

TIM CASEY. What is it, Mrs. Tarpey? What happened since?

MRS. TARPEY. O my poor Jack Smith!

TIM CASEY. Did Bartley overtake him?

MRS. TARPEY. O the poor man!

TIM CASEY. Is it killed he is?

MRS. TARPEY. Stretched in the Five-Acre Meadow!

TIM CASEY. The Lord have mercy on us! Is that a fact?

MRS. TARPEY. Without the rites of the Church or a ha'porth!

TIM CASEY. Who was telling you?

MRS. TARPEY. And the wife laying out a sheet for his corpse.
(_Sits up and wipes her eyes._) I suppose they'll wake him the same
as another?

(_Enter_ MRS. TULLY, SHAWN EARLY, _and_ JAMES RYAN.)

MRS. TULLY. There is great talk about this work in every quarter
of the fair.

MRS. TARPEY. Ochone! cold and dead. And myself maybe the last he
was speaking to!

JAMES RYAN. The Lord save us! Is it dead he is?

TIM CASEY. Dead surely, and the wife getting provision for the
wake.

SHAWN EARLY. Well, now, hadn't Bartley Fallon great venom in him?

MRS. TULLY. You may be sure he had some cause. Why would he have
made an end of him if he had not? (_To MRS. TARPEY, raising her
voice_) What was it rose the dispute at all, Mrs. Tarpey?

MRS. TARPEY. Not a one of me knows. The last I saw of them, Jack
Smith was standing there, and Bartley Fallon was standing there,
quiet and easy, and he listening to "The Red-haired Man's Wife."

MRS. TULLY. Do you hear that, Tim Casey? Do you hear that, Shawn
Early and James Ryan? Bartley Fallon was here this morning
listening to red Jack Smith's wife, Kitty Keary that was!
Listening to her and whispering with her! It was she started the
fight so!

SHAWN EARLY. She must have followed him from her own house. It is
likely some person roused him.

TIM CA