wo boys
by fever; she has failed in her work on her own farm, though she has
brought untold blessings of progressiveness to the other farms around
Ballygurteen; she has lost the appreciation of her husband. She whom we
loved for a personality as winning as that of an Emma or a Tess is now
a drudge, almost a slattern, gray-haired, hopeless, almost hated by a
brutal husband. The loveless marriage has proved a curse. Upon the woman
of his dreams so dethroned comes Brian Connor, now a successful
novelist, and, finding how things are, falls, for all his intended
restraint, into a fight with Tom, whom but for Ellen he would have
choked to death. Brian urges Ellen to go away with him, but, after a
moment's faltering, she refuses to go. This is the last scene. Tom, who
has heard Brian's proposal and his wife's rejection of it, comes slowly
down the room.

_Tom_. Was it me you saved or was it the young man? When you
pulled him off me, did you save me, or was it him you saved
from being hung? Tell me that, Ellen McCarthy.

[_Silence._

Ah! 't is aisy seen.

[_Puts his hat on, and goes to the door, and takes the key out
of the lock_.

_Ellen_ (_looking round_). What are you doing? (_Frightened._)
What are you doing?

_Tom_. I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm locking the door the
way you won't go after that young man; an' I'm going to step
down to the village now for a sup of drink. An' then--I'm
coming back; an', by God, I'll make you pay for this night's
work, Ellen McCarthy, till you'd wish you were dead--for the
black curse you brought on this farm, an' for the liking you
have to the young man.

[_Goes out. Ellen remains sitting at the table, staring in
front of her with sad, hopeless eyes_.

The turning of the key in the lock ends the play, leaving brutality
unimaginable as the fate of Ellen.

It is a severe reading of the Irish peasant, this of Tom Dempsey.
Murder may come of his blackness of heart. He is a far worse man, of
course, than poor John Clancy, who killed a man in an unpremeditated
fight, sure murderer though Clancy be. Yet despite such heroes or at
least such characters in his plays, no one would say that in either "The
Clancy Name" or "The Crossroads" Mr. Robinson held a brief against the
Irish peasant. He most certainly does not. He likes the Irish peasant.
His plays are "stories of mine own people" faithfully t