You will not forget them, for they are from life; you have known them, all save Francey, if you have known Scotchmen who are Lowlanders and Presbyterians, or such North of Ireland men as are unalterably opposed to Home Rule. They are very like the Orangemen of the novels of Mr. Shan Bullock, very like the peasants the English-speaking world outside of Scotland first met in the verse of Burns; harsher than the Baillie Nicol Jarvies and Dugald Dalgettys of the kindly Sir Walter, but akin to them and to his Davie Deans and Dumbiedikeses.
We are in a more familiar world in the plays of Mr. Mayne than in those of most of the other writers in the movement—that is, I mean most American readers are—simply because of Burns and Scott. Had Ireland had a peer of either in his generation as satirist or romancer the Irish-Irish would to-day be as familiar to us as are the Scotch-Irish, who are, of course, transplanted Scotch. The women of this world are not, however, of types so well known to us as are the men, because the chivalry of Sir Walter prevented him from giving us his peasant Scotswomen in as full detail as he gave us his men; but it is not difficult for us to appreciate Mrs. Granahan and her daughter; Mrs. McKie, a "woman with a dead soul"; Mary Murray with her daftness over the boys; and even Sarah McMinn, so true in her managing and meanness, qualities necessary to the prosperity of her folk. Puritan America can understand these women and men because they are Puritan, too, with the ignoble that is in the Puritan as well as with the noble that is just as surely there.
