Act III - Page 2

cattle-sheds, fowl-pens, and a field of grain. It is a fine
summer evening.

Tweeny is sitting there, very busy plucking the feathers off a bird
and dropping them on a sheet placed for that purpose on the floor.
She is trilling to herself in the lightness of her heart. We may
remember that Tweeny, alone among the women, had dressed wisely for
an island when they fled the yacht, and her going-away gown still
adheres to her, though in fragments. A score of pieces have been
added here and there as necessity compelled, and these have been
patched and repatched in incongruous colours; but, when all is said
and done, it can still be maintained that Tweeny wears a skirt. She
is deservedly proud of her skirt, and sometimes lends it on
important occasions when approached in the proper spirit.

Some one outside has been whistling to Tweeny; the guarded whistle
which, on a less savage island, is sometimes assumed to be an
indication to cook that the constable is willing, if the coast be
clear. Tweeny, however, is engrossed, or perhaps she is not in the
mood for a follower, so he climbs in at the window undaunted, to
take her willy nilly. He is a jolly-looking labouring man, who
answers to the name of Daddy, and--But though that may be his island
name, we recognise him at once. He is Lord Loam, settled down to the
new conditions, and enjoying life heartily as handy-man about the
happy home. He is comfortably attired in skins. He is still stout,
but all the flabbiness has dropped from him; gone too is his
pomposity; his eye is clear, brown his skin; he could leap a gate.

In his hands he carries an island-made concertina, and such is the
exuberance of his spirits that, as he lights on the floor, he bursts
into music and song, something about his being a chickety chickety
chick chick, and will Tweeny please to tell him whose chickety chick
is she. Retribution follows sharp. We hear a whir, as if from
insufficiently oiled machinery, and over the passage door appears a
placard showing the one word 'Silence.' His lordship stops, and
steals to Tweeny on his tiptoes.

LORD LOAM. I thought the Gov. was out.

TWEENY. Well, you see he ain't. And if he were to catch you here
idling--

(LORD LOAM pales. He lays aside his musical instrument and hurriedly
dons an apron. TWEENY gives him the bird to pluck, and busies
herself laying the table for dinner.)

LORD LOAM (softly). What is he doing now?

TWEENY. I think he's working out that plan for laying on hot and
cold.

LORD LOAM (proud of his master). And he'll manage it too. The man
who could build a blacksmith's forge without tools--

TWEENY (not less proud). He made the tools.

LORD LOAM. Out of half a dozen rusty nails.