BARTLEY.  Kitty Keary, his wife! (Sits down bewildered.)

MRS. TULLY.  And what have you to say now, Bartley Fallon?

BARTLEY (crossing himself).  I to bring that fork here, and to find that news before me!  It is much if I can ever stir from this place at all, or reach as far as the road!

TIM CASEY.  Look, boys, at the new magistrate, and Jo Muldoon along with him!  It’s best for us to quit this.

SHAWN EARLY.  That is so.  It is best not to be mixed in this business at all.

JAMES RYAN.  Bad as he is, I wouldn’t like to be an informer against any man.

(All hurry away except MRS. TARPEY, who remains behind her stall.  Enter MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN.)

MAGISTRATE.  I knew the district was in a bad state, but I did not expect to be confronted with a murder at the first fair I came to.

POLICEMAN.  I am sure you did not, indeed.

MAGISTRATE.  It was well I had not gone home.  I caught a few words here and there that roused my suspicions.

POLICEMAN.  So they would, too.

MAGISTRATE.  You heard the same story from everyone you asked?

POLICEMAN.  The same story—­or if it was not altogether the same, anyway it was no less than the first story.

MAGISTRATE.  What is that man doing?  He is sitting alone with a hayfork.  He has a guilty look.  The murder was done with a hayfork!

POLICEMAN (in a whisper).  That’s the very man they say did the act, Bartley Fallon himself!

MAGISTRATE.  He must have found escape difficult—­he is trying to brazen it out.  A convict in the Andaman Islands tried the same game, but he could not escape my system!  Stand aside—­Don’t go far—­Have the handcuffs ready. (He walks up to BARTLEY, folds his arms, and stands before him.) Here, my man, do you know anything of John Smith?

BARTLEY.  Of John Smith!  Who is he, now?

POLICEMAN.  Jack Smith, sir—­Red Jack Smith!

MAGISTRATE (coming a step nearer and tapping him on the shoulder).  Where is Jack Smith?

BARTLEY (with a deep sigh, and shaking his head slowly).  Where is he, indeed?

MAGISTRATE.  What have you to tell?

BARTLEY.  It is where he was this morning, standing in this spot, singing his share of songs—­no, but lighting his pipe—­scraping a match on the sole of his shoe—­

MAGISTRATE.  I ask you, for the third time, where is he?

BARTLEY.  I wouldn’t like to say that.  It is a great mystery, and it is hard to say of any man, did he earn hatred or love.

MAGISTRATE.  Tell me all you know.

BARTLEY.  All that I know—­Well, there are the three estates; there is Limbo, and there is Purgatory, and there is—­

MAGISTRATE.  Nonsense!  This is trifling!  Get to the point.

BARTLEY.  Maybe you don’t hold with the clergy so?  That is the teaching of the clergy.  Maybe you hold with the old people.  It is what they do be saying, that the shadow goes wandering, and the soul is tired, and the body is taking a rest—­The shadow! (Starts up.) I was nearly sure I saw Jack Smith not ten minutes ago at the corner of the forge, and I lost him again—­Was it his ghost I saw, do you think?