SCENE: [Country public-house or shebeen, very rough and untidy. There
is a sort of counter on the right with shelves, holding many bottles and
jugs, just seen above it. Empty barrels stand near the counter. At back,
a little to left of counter, there is a door into the open air, then,
more to the left, there is a settle with shelves above it, with more
jugs, and a table beneath a window. At the left there is a large open
fire-place, with turf fire, and a small door into inner room. Pegeen, a
wild looking but fine girl, of about twenty, is writing at table. She is
dressed in the usual peasant dress.]

PEGEEN -- [slowly as she writes.] -- Six yards of stuff for to make a
yellow gown. A pair of lace boots with lengthy heels on them and brassy
eyes. A hat is suited for a wedding-day. A fine tooth comb. To be
sent with three barrels of porter in Jimmy Farrell's creel cart on the
evening of the coming Fair to Mister Michael James Flaherty. With the
best compliments of this season. Margaret Flaherty.

SHAWN KEOGH -- [a fat and fair young man comes in as she signs, looks
round awkwardly, when he sees she is alone.] -- Where's himself?

PEGEEN -- [without looking at him.] -- He's coming. (She directs the
letter.) To Mister Sheamus Mulroy, Wine and Spirit Dealer, Castlebar.

SHAWN -- [uneasily.] -- I didn't see him on the road.

PEGEEN. How would you see him (licks stamp and puts it on letter) and it
dark night this half hour gone by?

SHAWN -- [turning towards the door again.] -- I stood a while outside
wondering would I have a right to pass on or to walk in and see you,
Pegeen Mike (comes to fire), and I could hear the cows breathing, and
sighing in the stillness of the air, and not a step moving any place
from this gate to the bridge.

PEGEEN -- [putting letter in envelope.] -- It's above at the cross-roads
he is, meeting Philly Cullen; and a couple more are going along with him
to Kate Cassidy's wake.

SHAWN -- [looking at her blankly.] -- And he's going that length in the
dark night?

PEGEEN -- [impatiently.] He is surely, and leaving me lonesome on the
scruff of the hill. (She gets up and puts envelope on dresser, then
winds clock.) Isn't it long the nights are now, Shawn Keogh, to be
leaving a poor girl with her own self counting the hours to the dawn of
day?

SHAWN -- [with awkward humour.] -- If it is, when we're wedded in a
short while you'll have no call to complain, for I've little will to be
walking off to wakes or weddings in the darkness of the night.

PEGEEN -- [with rather scornful good humour.] -- You're making mighty
certain, Shaneen, that I'll wed you now.

SHAWN. Aren't we after making a good bargain, the way we're only waiting
these days on Father Reilly's dispensation from the bishops, or the
Court of Rome.

PEGEEN -- [looking at him teasingly, washing up at dresser.] -- It's a
wonder, Shaneen, the Holy Father'd be taking notice of the likes of you;
for if I was him I wouldn't bother with this place where you'll meet
none but Red Linahan, has a squint in his eye, and Patcheen is lame in
his heel, or the mad Mulrannies were driven from California and they
lost in their wits. We're a queer lot these times to go troubling the
Holy Father on his sacred seat.

SHAWN -- [scandalized.] If we are, we're as good this place as another,
maybe, and as good these times as we were for ever.

PEGEEN -- [with scorn.] -- As good, is it? Where now will you meet the
like of Daneen Sullivan knocked the eye from a peeler, or Marcus Quin,
God rest him, got six months for maiming ewes, and he a great warrant to
tell stories of holy Ireland till he'd have the old women shedding
down tears about their feet. Where will you find the like of them, I'm
saying?

SHAWN -- [timidly.] If you don't it's a good job, maybe; for (with
peculiar emphasis on the words) Father Reilly has small conceit to have
that kind walking around and talking to the girls.

PEGEEN -- [impatiently, throwing water from basin out of the door.] --
Stop tormenting me with Father Reilly (imitating his voice) when I'm
asking only what way I'll pass these twelve hours of dark, and not take
my death with the fear. [Looking out of door.]

SHAWN -- [timidly.] Would I fetch you the widow Quin, maybe?

PEGEEN. Is it the like of that murderer? You'll not, surely.

SHAWN -- [going to her, soothingly.] -- Then I'm thinking himself will
stop along with you when he sees you taking on, for it'll be a long
night-time with great darkness, and I'm after feeling a kind of fellow
above in the furzy ditch, groaning wicked like a maddening dog, the way
it's good cause you have, maybe, to be fearing now.

PEGEEN -- [turning on him sharply.] -- What's that? Is it a man you
seen?

SHAWN -- [retreating.] I couldn't see him at all; but I heard him
groaning out, and breaking his heart. It should have been a young man
from his words speaking.

PEGEEN -- [going after him.] -- And you never went near to see was he
hurted or what ailed him at all?

SHAWN. I did not, Pegeen Mike. It was a dark, lonesome place to be
hearing the like of him.

PEGEEN. Well, you're a daring fellow, and if they find his corpse
stretched above in the dews of dawn, what'll you say then to the
peelers, or the Justice of the Peace?

SHAWN -- [thunderstruck.] I wasn't thinking of that. For the love of
God, Pegeen Mike, don't let on I was speaking of him. Don't tell your
father and the men is coming above; for if they heard that story, they'd
have great blabbing this night at the wake.

PEGEEN. I'll maybe tell them, and I'll maybe not.

SHAWN. They are coming at the door, Will you whisht, I'm saying?

PEGEEN. Whisht yourself.

[She goes behind counter. Michael James, fat jovial publican, comes
in followed by Philly Cullen, who is thin and mistrusting, and Jimmy
Farrell, who is fat and amorous, about forty-five.]

MEN -- [together.] -- God bless you. The blessing of God on this place.

PEGEEN. God bless you kindly.

MICHAEL -- [to men who go to the counter.] -- Sit down now, and take
your rest. (Crosses to Shawn at the fire.) And how is it you are, Shawn
Keogh? Are you coming over the sands to Kate Cassidy's wake?

SHAWN. I am not, Michael James. I'm going home the short cut to my bed.

PEGEEN -- [speaking across the counter.] -- He's right too, and have
you no shame, Michael James, to be quitting off for the whole night, and
leaving myself lonesome in the shop?

MICHAEL -- [good-humouredly.] Isn't it the same whether I go for the
whole night or a part only? and I'm thinking it's a queer daughter you
are if you'd have me crossing backward through the Stooks of the Dead
Women, with a drop taken.

PEGEEN. If I am a queer daughter, it's a queer father'd be leaving me
lonesome these twelve hours of dark, and I piling the turf with the dogs
barking, and the calves mooing, and my own teeth rattling with the fear.

JIMMY -- [flatteringly.] -- What is there to hurt you, and you a fine,
hardy girl would knock the head of any two men in the place?

PEGEEN -- [working herself up.] -- Isn't there the harvest boys with
their tongues red for drink, and the ten tinkers is camped in the east
glen, and the thousand militia -- bad cess to them! -- walking idle
through the land. There's lots surely to hurt me, and I won't stop alone
in it, let himself do what he will.

MICHAEL. If you're that afeard, let Shawn Keogh stop along with you.
It's the will of God, I'm thinking, himself should be seeing to you now.
[They all turn on Shawn.]

SHAWN -- [in horrified confusion.] -- I would and welcome, Michael
James, but I'm afeard of Father Reilly; and what at all would the Holy
Father and the Cardinals of Rome be saying if they heard I did the like
of that?

MICHAEL -- [with contempt.] -- God help you! Can't you sit in by the
hearth with the light lit and herself beyond in the room? You'll do that
surely, for I've heard tell there's a queer fellow above, going mad or
getting his death, maybe, in the gripe of the ditch, so she'd be safer
this night with a person here.

SHAWN -- [with plaintive despair.] -- I'm afeard of Father Reilly, I'm
saying. Let you not be tempting me, and we near married itself.

PHILLY -- [with cold contempt.] -- Lock him in the west room. He'll stay
then and have no sin to be telling to the priest.

MICHAEL -- [to Shawn, getting between him and the door.] -- Go up now.

SHAWN -- [at the top of his voice.] -- Don't stop me, Michael James. Let
me out of the door, I'm saying, for the love of the Almighty God. Let me
out (trying to dodge past him). Let me out of it, and may God grant you
His indulgence in the hour of need.

MICHAEL -- [loudly.] Stop your noising, and sit down by the hearth.
[Gives him a push and goes to counter laughing.]

SHAWN -- [turning back, wringing his hands.] -- Oh, Father Reilly and
the saints of God, where will I hide myself to-day? Oh, St. Joseph and
St. Patrick and St. Brigid, and St. James, have mercy on me now! [Shawn
turns round, sees door clear, and makes a rush for it.]

MICHAEL -- [catching him by the coattail.] -- You'd be going, is it?

SHAWN -- [screaming.] Leave me go, Michael James, leave me go, you old
Pagan, leave me go, or I'll get the curse of the priests on you, and
of the scarlet-coated bishops of the courts of Rome. [With a sudden
movement he pulls himself out of his coat, and disappears out of the
door, leaving his coat in Michael's hands.]

MICHAEL -- [turning round, and holding up coat.] -- Well, there's the
coat of a Christian man. Oh, there's sainted glory this day in the
lonesome west; and by the will of God I've got you a decent man, Pegeen,
you'll have no call to be spying after if you've a score of young girls,
maybe, weeding in your fields.

PEGEEN [taking up the defence of her property.] -- What right have you
to be making game of a poor fellow for minding the priest, when it's
your own the fault is, not paying a penny pot-boy to stand along with
me and give me courage in the doing of my work? [She snaps the coat away
from him, and goes behind counter with it.]

MICHAEL -- [taken aback.] -- Where would I get a pot-boy? Would you have
me send the bell-man screaming in the streets of Castlebar?

SHAWN -- [opening the door a chink and putting in his head, in a small
voice.] -- Michael James!

MICHAEL -- [imitating him.] -- What ails you?

SHAWN. The queer dying fellow's beyond looking over the ditch. He's come
up, I'm thinking, stealing your hens. (Looks over his shoulder.) God
help me, he's following me now (he runs into room), and if he's heard
what I said, he'll be having my life, and I going home lonesome in the
darkness of the night. [For a perceptible moment they watch the door
with curiosity. Some one coughs outside. Then Christy Mahon, a slight
young man, comes in very tired and frightened and dirty.]

CHRISTY -- [in a small voice.] -- God save all here!

MEN. God save you kindly.

CHRISTY -- [going to the counter.] -- I'd trouble you for a glass of
porter, woman of the house. [He puts down coin.]

PEGEEN -- [serving him.] -- You're one of the tinkers, young fellow, is
beyond camped in the glen?

CHRISTY. I am not; but I'm destroyed walking.

MICHAEL -- [patronizingly.] Let you come up then to the fire. You're
looking famished with the cold.

CHRISTY. God reward you. (He takes up his glass and goes a little way
across to the left, then stops and looks about him.) Is it often the
police do be coming into this place, master of the house?

MICHAEL. If you'd come in better hours, you'd have seen "Licensed for
the sale of Beer and Spirits, to be consumed on the premises," written
in white letters above the door, and what would the polis want spying
on me, and not a decent house within four miles, the way every living
Christian is a bona fide, saving one widow alone?

CHRISTY -- [with relief.] -- It's a safe house, so. [He goes over to the
fire, sighing and moaning. Then he sits down, putting his glass beside
him and begins gnawing a turnip, too miserable to feel the others
staring at him with curiosity.]

MICHAEL -- [going after him.] -- Is it yourself fearing the polis?
You're wanting, maybe?

CHRISTY. There's many wanting.

MICHAEL. Many surely, with the broken harvest and the ended wars. (He
picks up some stockings, etc., that are near the fire, and carries them
away furtively.) It should be larceny, I'm thinking?

CHRISTY -- [dolefully.] I had it in my mind it was a different word and
a bigger.

PEGEEN. There's a queer lad. Were you never slapped in school, young
fellow, that you don't know the name of your deed?

CHRISTY -- [bashfully.] I'm slow at learning, a middling scholar only.

MICHAEL. If you're a dunce itself, you'd have a right to know that
larceny's robbing and stealing. Is it for the like of that you're
wanting?

CHRISTY -- [with a flash of family pride.] -- And I the son of a strong
farmer (with a sudden qualm), God rest his soul, could have bought
up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his
tailpocket, and not have missed the weight of it gone.

MICHAEL -- [impressed.] If it's not stealing, it's maybe something big.

CHRISTY -- [flattered.] Aye; it's maybe something big.

JIMMY. He's a wicked-looking young fellow. Maybe he followed after a
young woman on a lonesome night.

CHRISTY -- [shocked.] Oh, the saints forbid, mister; I was all times a
decent lad.

PHILLY -- [turning on Jimmy.] -- You're a silly man, Jimmy Farrell. He
said his father was a farmer a while since, and there's himself now in
a poor state. Maybe the land was grabbed from him, and he did what any
decent man would do.

MICHAEL -- [to Christy, mysteriously.] -- Was it bailiffs?

CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Agents?

CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Landlords?

CHRISTY -- [peevishly.] Ah, not at all, I'm saying. You'd see the like
of them stories on any little paper of a Munster town. But I'm not
calling to mind any person, gentle, simple, judge or jury, did the like
of me. [They all draw nearer with delighted curiosity.]

PHILLY. Well, that lad's a puzzle--the world.

JIMMY. He'd beat Dan Davies' circus, or the holy missioners making
sermons on the villainy of man. Try him again, Philly.

PHILLY. Did you strike golden guineas out of solder, young fellow, or
shilling coins itself?

CHRISTY. I did not, mister, not sixpence nor a farthing coin.

JIMMY. Did you marry three wives maybe? I'm told there's a sprinkling
have done that among the holy Luthers of the preaching north.

CHRISTY -- [shyly.] -- I never married with one, let alone with a couple
or three.

PHILLY. Maybe he went fighting for the Boers, the like of the man
beyond, was judged to be hanged, quartered and drawn. Were you off east,
young fellow, fighting bloody wars for Kruger and the freedom of the
Boers?

CHRISTY. I never left my own parish till Tuesday was a week.

PEGEEN -- [coming from counter.] -- He's done nothing, so. (To Christy.)
If you didn't commit murder or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining,
or robbery, or butchery, or the like of them, there isn't anything that
would be worth your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at
all.

CHRISTY -- [his feelings hurt.] -- That's an unkindly thing to be saying
to a poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, and hanging
before, and hell's gap gaping below.

PEGEEN [with a sign to the men to be quiet.] -- You're only saying it.
You did nothing at all. A soft lad the like of you wouldn't slit the
windpipe of a screeching sow.

CHRISTY -- [offended.] You're not speaking the truth.

PEGEEN -- [in mock rage.] -- Not speaking the truth, is it? Would you
have me knock the head of you with the butt of the broom?

CHRISTY -- [twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror.] -- Don't
strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the
like of that.

PEGEEN [with blank amazement.] -- Is it killed your father?

CHRISTY -- [subsiding.] With the help of God I did surely, and that the
Holy Immaculate Mother may intercede for his soul.

PHILLY -- [retreating with Jimmy.] -- There's a daring fellow.

JIMMY. Oh, glory be to God!

MICHAEL -- [with great respect.] -- That was a hanging crime, mister
honey. You should have had good reason for doing the like of that.

CHRISTY -- [in a very reasonable tone.] -- He was a dirty man, God
forgive him, and he getting old and crusty, the way I couldn't put up
with him at all.

PEGEEN. And you shot him dead?

CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- I never used weapons. I've no license,
and I'm a law-fearing man.

MICHAEL. It was with a hilted knife maybe? I'm told, in the big world
it's bloody knives they use.

CHRISTY -- [loudly, scandalized.] -- Do you take me for a slaughter-boy?

PEGEEN. You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from
the license, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt
of a string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers
swearing it had life?

CHRISTY. I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of
it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty
sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all.

MICHAEL -- [making a sign to Pegeen to fill Christy's glass.] -- And
what way weren't you hanged, mister? Did you bury him then?

CHRISTY -- [considering.] Aye. I buried him then. Wasn't I digging spuds
in the field?

MICHAEL. And the peelers never followed after you the eleven days that
you're out?

CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- Never a one of them, and I walking
forward facing hog, dog, or divil on the highway of the road.

PHILLY -- [nodding wisely.] -- It's only with a common week-day kind
of a murderer them lads would be trusting their carcase, and that man
should be a great terror when his temper's roused.

MICHAEL. He should then. (To Christy.) And where was it, mister honey,
that you did the deed?

CHRISTY -- [looking at him with suspicion.] -- Oh, a distant place,
master of the house, a windy corner of high, distant hills.

PHILLY -- [nodding with approval.] -- He's a close man, and he's right,
surely.

PEGEEN. That'd be a lad with the sense of Solomon to have for a pot-boy,
Michael James, if it's the truth you're seeking one at all.

PHILLY. The peelers is fearing him, and if you'd that lad in the house
there isn't one of them would come smelling around if the dogs itself
were lapping poteen from the dungpit of the yard.

JIMMY. Bravery's a treasure in a lonesome place, and a lad would kill
his father, I'm thinking, would face a foxy divil with a pitchpike on
the flags of hell.

PEGEEN. It's the truth they're saying, and if I'd that lad in the house,
I wouldn't be fearing the loosed kharki cut-throats, or the walking
dead.

CHRISTY -- [swelling with surprise and triumph.] -- Well, glory be to
God!

MICHAEL -- [with deference.] -- Would you think well to stop here and be
pot-boy, mister honey, if we gave you good wages, and didn't destroy you
with the weight of work?

SHAWN -- [coming forward uneasily.] -- That'd be a queer kind to bring
into a decent quiet household with the like of Pegeen Mike.

PEGEEN -- [very sharply.] -- Will you whisht? Who's speaking to you?

SHAWN -- [retreating.] A bloody-handed murderer the like of...

PEGEEN -- [snapping at him.] -- Whisht I am saying; we'll take no
fooling from your like at all. (To Christy with a honeyed voice.) And
you, young fellow, you'd have a right to stop, I'm thinking, for we'd do
our all and utmost to content your needs.

CHRISTY -- [overcome with wonder.] -- And I'd be safe in this place from
the searching law?

MICHAEL. You would, surely. If they're not fearing you, itself, the
peelers in this place is decent droughty poor fellows, wouldn't touch a
cur dog and not give warning in the dead of night.

PEGEEN -- [very kindly and persuasively.] -- Let you stop a short
while anyhow. Aren't you destroyed walking with your feet in bleeding
blisters, and your whole skin needing washing like a Wicklow sheep.

CHRISTY -- [looking round with satisfaction.] It's a nice room, and if
it's not humbugging me you are, I'm thinking that I'll surely stay.

JIMMY -- [jumps up.] -- Now, by the grace of God, herself will be safe
this night, with a man killed his father holding danger from the door,
and let you come on, Michael James, or they'll have the best stuff drunk
at the wake.

MICHAEL -- [going to the door with men.] And begging your pardon,
mister, what name will we call you, for we'd like to know?

CHRISTY. Christopher Mahon.

MICHAEL. Well, God bless you, Christy, and a good rest till we meet
again when the sun'll be rising to the noon of day.

CHRISTY. God bless you all.

MEN. God bless you. [They go out except Shawn, who lingers at door.]

SHAWN -- [to Pegeen.] -- Are you wanting me to stop along with you and
keep you from harm?

PEGEEN -- [gruffly.] Didn't you say you were fearing Father Reilly?

SHAWN. There'd be no harm staying now, I'm thinking, and himself in it
too.

PEGEEN. You wouldn't stay when there was need for you, and let you step
off nimble this time when there's none.

SHAWN. Didn't I say it was Father Reilly...

PEGEEN. Go on, then, to Father Reilly (in a jeering tone), and let him
put you in the holy brotherhoods, and leave that lad to me.

SHAWN. If I meet the Widow Quin...

PEGEEN. Go on, I'm saying, and don't be waking this place with your
noise. (She hustles him out and bolts the door.) That lad would wear
the spirits from the saints of peace. (Bustles about, then takes off
her apron and pins it up in the window as a blind. Christy watching her
timidly. Then she comes to him and speaks with bland good-humour.) Let
you stretch out now by the fire, young fellow. You should be destroyed
travelling.

CHRISTY -- [shyly again, drawing off his boots.] I'm tired, surely,
walking wild eleven days, and waking fearful in the night. [He holds
up one of his feet, feeling his blisters, and looking at them with
compassion.]

PEGEEN -- [standing beside him, watching him with delight.] -- You
should have had great people in your family, I'm thinking, with the
little, small feet you have, and you with a kind of a quality name, the
like of what you'd find on the great powers and potentates of France and
Spain.

CHRISTY -- [with pride.] -- We were great surely, with wide and windy
acres of rich Munster land.

PEGEEN. Wasn't I telling you, and you a fine, handsome young fellow with
a noble brow?

CHRISTY -- [with a flash of delighted surprise.] Is it me?

PEGEEN. Aye. Did you never hear that from the young girls where you come
from in the west or south?

CHRISTY -- [with venom.] -- I did not then. Oh, they're bloody liars in
the naked parish where I grew a man.

PEGEEN. If they are itself, you've heard it these days, I'm thinking,
and you walking the world telling out your story to young girls or old.

CHRISTY. I've told my story no place till this night, Pegeen Mike, and
it's foolish I was here, maybe, to be talking free, but you're decent
people, I'm thinking, and yourself a kindly woman, the way I wasn't
fearing you at all.

PEGEEN -- [filling a sack with straw.] -- You've said the like of that,
maybe, in every cot and cabin where you've met a young girl on your way.

CHRISTY -- [going over to her, gradually raising his voice.] -- I've
said it nowhere till this night, I'm telling you, for I've seen none the
like of you the eleven long days I am walking the world, looking over a
low ditch or a high ditch on my north or my south, into stony scattered
fields, or scribes of bog, where you'd see young, limber girls, and fine
prancing women making laughter with the men.

PEGEEN. If you weren't destroyed travelling, you'd have as much talk
and streeleen, I'm thinking, as Owen Roe O'Sullivan or the poets of the
Dingle Bay, and I've heard all times it's the poets are your like, fine
fiery fellows with great rages when their temper's roused.

CHRISTY -- [drawing a little nearer to her.] -- You've a power of rings,
God bless you, and would there be any offence if I was asking are you
single now?

PEGEEN. What would I want wedding so young?

CHRISTY -- [with relief.] -- We're alike, so.

PEGEEN -- [she puts sack on settle and beats it up.] -- I never killed
my father. I'd be afeard to do that, except I was the like of yourself
with blind rages tearing me within, for I'm thinking you should have had
great tussling when the end was come.

CHRISTY -- [expanding with delight at the first confidential talk he has
ever had with a woman.] -- We had not then. It was a hard woman was come
over the hill, and if he was always a crusty kind when he'd a hard woman
setting him on, not the divil himself or his four fathers could put up
with him at all.

PEGEEN -- [with curiosity.] -- And isn't it a great wonder that one
wasn't fearing you?

CHRISTY -- [very confidentially.] -- Up to the day I killed my father,
there wasn't a person in Ireland knew the kind I was, and I there
drinking, waking, eating, sleeping, a quiet, simple poor fellow with no
man giving me heed.

PEGEEN -- [getting a quilt out of the cupboard and putting it on the
sack.] -- It was the girls were giving you heed maybe, and I'm thinking
it's most conceit you'd have to be gaming with their like.

CHRISTY -- [shaking his head, with simplicity.] Not the girls itself,
and I won't tell you a lie. There wasn't anyone heeding me in that place
saving only the dumb beasts of the field. [He sits down at fire.]

PEGEEN -- [with disappointment.] -- And I thinking you should have been
living the like of a king of Norway or the Eastern world. [She comes and
sits beside him after placing bread and mug of milk on the table.]

CHRISTY -- [laughing piteously.] -- The like of a king, is it? And I
after toiling, moiling, digging, dodging from the dawn till dusk with
never a sight of joy or sport saving only when I'd be abroad in the dark
night poaching rabbits on hills, for I was a devil to poach, God forgive
me, (very naively) and I near got six months for going with a dung fork
and stabbing a fish.

PEGEEN. And it's that you'd call sport, is it, to be abroad in the
darkness with yourself alone?

CHRISTY. I did, God help me, and there I'd be as happy as the sunshine
of St. Martin's Day, watching the light passing the north or the patches
of fog, till I'd hear a rabbit starting to screech and I'd go running in
the furze. Then when I'd my full share I'd come walking down where you'd
see the ducks and geese stretched sleeping on the highway of the road,
and before I'd pass the dunghill, I'd hear himself snoring out, a loud
lonesome snore he'd be making all times, the while he was sleeping, and
he a man 'd be raging all times, the while he was waking, like a gaudy
officer you'd hear cursing and damning and swearing oaths.

PEGEEN. Providence and Mercy, spare us all!

CHRISTY. It's that you'd say surely if you seen him and he after
drinking for weeks, rising up in the red dawn, or before it maybe, and
going out into the yard as naked as an ash tree in the moon of May, and
shying clods against the visage of the stars till he'd put the fear of
death into the banbhs and the screeching sows.

PEGEEN. I'd be well-night afeard of that lad myself, I'm thinking. And
there was no one in it but the two of you alone?

CHRISTY. The divil a one, though he'd sons and daughters walking all
great states and territories of the world, and not a one of them, to
this day, but would say their seven curses on him, and they rousing up
to let a cough or sneeze, maybe, in the deadness of the night.

PEGEEN [nodding her head.] -- Well, you should have been a queer lot.
I never cursed my father the like of that, though I'm twenty and more
years of age.

CHRISTY. Then you'd have cursed mine, I'm telling you, and he a man
never gave peace to any, saving when he'd get two months or three, or
be locked in the asylums for battering peelers or assaulting men (with
depression) the way it was a bitter life he led me till I did up a
Tuesday and halve his skull.

PEGEEN -- [putting her hand on his shoulder.] -- Well, you'll have peace
in this place, Christy Mahon, and none to trouble you, and it's near
time a fine lad like you should have your good share of the earth.

CHRISTY. It's time surely, and I a seemly fellow with great strength in
me and bravery of... [Someone knocks.]

CHRISTY -- [clinging to Pegeen.] -- Oh, glory! it's late for knocking,
and this last while I'm in terror of the peelers, and the walking dead.
[Knocking again.]

PEGEEN. Who's there?

VOICE -- [outside.] Me.

PEGEEN. Who's me?

VOICE. The Widow Quin.

PEGEEN [jumping up and giving him the bread and milk.] -- Go on now with
your supper, and let on to be sleepy, for if she found you were such
a warrant to talk, she'd be stringing gabble till the dawn of day. (He
takes bread and sits shyly with his back to the door.)

PEGEEN [opening door, with temper.] -- What ails you, or what is it
you're wanting at this hour of the night?

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming in a step and peering at Christy.] -- I'm after
meeting Shawn Keogh and Father Reilly below, who told me of your
curiosity man, and they fearing by this time he was maybe roaring,
romping on your hands with drink.

PEGEEN [pointing to Christy.] -- Look now is he roaring, and he
stretched away drowsy with his supper and his mug of milk. Walk down and
tell that to Father Reilly and to Shaneen Keogh.

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming forward.] -- I'll not see them again, for I've
their word to lead that lad forward for to lodge with me.

PEGEEN -- [in blank amazement.] -- This night, is it?

WIDOW QUIN -- [going over.] -- This night. "It isn't fitting," says the
priesteen, "to have his likeness lodging with an orphaned girl." (To
Christy.) God save you, mister!

CHRISTY -- [shyly.] -- God save you kindly.

WIDOW QUIN -- [looking at him with half-amazed curiosity.] -- Well,
aren't you a little smiling fellow? It should have been great and bitter
torments did rouse your spirits to a deed of blood.

CHRISTY -- [doubtfully.] It should, maybe.

WIDOW QUIN. It's more than "maybe" I'm saying, and it'd soften my heart
to see you sitting so simple with your cup and cake, and you fitter to
be saying your catechism than slaying your da.

PEGEEN -- [at counter, washing glasses.] -- There's talking when any'd
see he's fit to be holding his head high with the wonders of the world.
Walk on from this, for I'll not have him tormented and he destroyed
travelling since Tuesday was a week.

WIDOW QUIN -- [peaceably.] We'll be walking surely when his supper's
done, and you'll find we're great company, young fellow, when it's of
the like of you and me you'd hear the penny poets singing in an August
Fair.

CHRISTY -- [innocently.] Did you kill your father?

PEGEEN -- [contemptuously.] She did not. She hit himself with a worn
pick, and the rusted poison did corrode his blood the way he never
overed it, and died after. That was a sneaky kind of murder did win
small glory with the boys itself. [She crosses to Christy's left.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [with good-humour.] -- If it didn't, maybe all knows a
widow woman has buried her children and destroyed her man is a
wiser comrade for a young lad than a girl, the like of you, who'd go
helter-skeltering after any man would let you a wink upon the road.

PEGEEN -- [breaking out into wild rage.] -- And you'll say that, Widow
Quin, and you gasping with the rage you had racing the hill beyond to
look on his face.

WIDOW QUIN -- [laughing derisively.] -- Me, is it? Well, Father Reilly
has cuteness to divide you now. (She pulls Christy up.) There's great
temptation in a man did slay his da, and we'd best be going, young
fellow; so rise up and come with me.

PEGEEN -- [seizing his arm.] -- He'll not stir. He's pot-boy in this
place, and I'll not have him stolen off and kidnabbed while himself's
abroad.

WIDOW QUIN. It'd be a crazy pot-boy'd lodge him in the shebeen where he
works by day, so you'd have a right to come on, young fellow, till you
see my little houseen, a perch off on the rising hill.

PEGEEN. Wait till morning, Christy Mahon. Wait till you lay eyes on her
leaky thatch is growing more pasture for her buck goat than her square
of fields, and she without a tramp itself to keep in order her place at
all.

WIDOW QUIN. When you see me contriving in my little gardens, Christy
Mahon, you'll swear the Lord God formed me to be living lone, and that
there isn't my match in Mayo for thatching, or mowing, or shearing a
sheep.

PEGEEN -- [with noisy scorn.] -- It's true the Lord God formed you to
contrive indeed. Doesn't the world know you reared a black lamb at your
own breast, so that the Lord Bishop of Connaught felt the elements of
a Christian, and he eating it after in a kidney stew? Doesn't the
world know you've been seen shaving the foxy skipper from France for a
threepenny bit and a sop of grass tobacco would wring the liver from a
mountain goat you'd meet leaping the hills?

WIDOW QUIN -- [with amusement.] -- Do you hear her now, young fellow? Do
you hear the way she'll be rating at your own self when a week is by?

PEGEEN -- [to Christy.] -- Don't heed her. Tell her to go into her
pigsty and not plague us here.

WIDOW QUIN. I'm going; but he'll come with me.

PEGEEN -- [shaking him.] -- Are you dumb, young fellow?

CHRISTY -- [timidly, to Widow Quin.] -- God increase you; but I'm
pot-boy in this place, and it's here I'd liefer stay.

PEGEEN -- [triumphantly.] Now you have heard him, and go on from this.

WIDOW QUIN -- [looking round the room.] -- It's lonesome this hour
crossing the hill, and if he won't come along with me, I'd have a right
maybe to stop this night with yourselves. Let me stretch out on the
settle, Pegeen Mike; and himself can lie by the hearth.

PEGEEN -- [short and fiercely.] -- Faith, I won't. Quit off or I will
send you now.

WIDOW QUIN -- [gathering her shawl up.] -- Well, it's a terror to be
aged a score. (To Christy.) God bless you now, young fellow, and let
you be wary, or there's right torment will await you here if you go
romancing with her like, and she waiting only, as they bade me say, on a
sheepskin parchment to be wed with Shawn Keogh of Killakeen.

CHRISTY -- [going to Pegeen as she bolts the door.] -- What's that she's
after saying?

PEGEEN. Lies and blather, you've no call to mind. Well, isn't Shawn
Keogh an impudent fellow to send up spying on me? Wait till I lay hands
on him. Let him wait, I'm saying.

CHRISTY. And you're not wedding him at all?

PEGEEN. I wouldn't wed him if a bishop came walking for to join us here.

CHRISTY. That God in glory may be thanked for that.

PEGEEN. There's your bed now. I've put a quilt upon you I'm after
quilting a while since with my own two hands, and you'd best stretch out
now for your sleep, and may God give you a good rest till I call you in
the morning when the cocks will crow.

CHRISTY -- [as she goes to inner room.] -- May God and Mary and St.
Patrick bless you and reward you, for your kindly talk. [She shuts
the door behind her. He settles his bed slowly, feeling the quilt with
immense satisfaction.] -- Well, it's a clean bed and soft with it, and
it's great luck and company I've won me in the end of time -- two fine
women fighting for the likes of me -- till I'm thinking this night
wasn't I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by.

CURTAIN


SCENE, [as before. Brilliant morning light. Christy, looking bright and
cheerful, is cleaning a girl's boots.]

CHRISTY -- [to himself, counting jugs on dresser.] -- Half a hundred
beyond. Ten there. A score that's above. Eighty jugs. Six cups and a
broken one. Two plates. A power of glasses. Bottles, a school-master'd
be hard set to count, and enough in them, I'm thinking, to drunken
all the wealth and wisdom of the County Clare. (He puts down the boot
carefully.) There's her boots now, nice and decent for her evening
use, and isn't it grand brushes she has? (He puts them down and goes
by degrees to the looking-glass.) Well, this'd be a fine place to be my
whole life talking out with swearing Christians, in place of my old dogs
and cat, and I stalking around, smoking my pipe and drinking my fill,
and never a day's work but drawing a cork an odd time, or wiping a
glass, or rinsing out a shiny tumbler for a decent man. (He takes the
looking-glass from the wall and puts it on the back of a chair; then
sits down in front of it and begins washing his face.) Didn't I know
rightly I was handsome, though it was the divil's own mirror we had
beyond, would twist a squint across an angel's brow; and I'll be growing
fine from this day, the way I'll have a soft lovely skin on me and won't
be the like of the clumsy young fellows do be ploughing all times in
the earth and dung. (He starts.) Is she coming again? (He looks out.)
Stranger girls. God help me, where'll I hide myself away and my long
neck nacked to the world? (He looks out.) I'd best go to the room maybe
till I'm dressed again. [He gathers up his coat and the looking-glass,
and runs into the inner room. The door is pushed open, and Susan Brady
looks in, and knocks on door.]

SUSAN. There's nobody in it. [Knocks again.]

NELLY -- [pushing her in and following her, with Honor Blake and Sara
Tansey.] It'd be early for them both to be out walking the hill.

SUSAN. I'm thinking Shawn Keogh was making game of us and there's no
such man in it at all.

HONOR -- [pointing to straw and quilt.] -- Look at that. He's been
sleeping there in the night. Well, it'll be a hard case if he's gone off
now, the way we'll never set our eyes on a man killed his father, and we
after rising early and destroying ourselves running fast on the hill.

NELLY. Are you thinking them's his boots?

SARA -- [taking them up.] -- If they are, there should be his father's
track on them. Did you never read in the papers the way murdered men do
bleed and drip?

SUSAN. Is that blood there, Sara Tansey?

SARAH -- [smelling it.] -- That's bog water, I'm thinking, but it's his
own they are surely, for I never seen the like of them for whity mud,
and red mud, and turf on them, and the fine sands of the sea. That man's
been walking, I'm telling you. [She goes down right, putting on one of
his boots.]

SUSAN -- [going to window.] -- Maybe he's stolen off to Belmullet with
the boots of Michael James, and you'd have a right so to follow after
him, Sara Tansey, and you the one yoked the ass cart and drove ten
miles to set your eyes on the man bit the yellow lady's nostril on the
northern shore. [She looks out.]

SARA -- [running to window with one boot on.] -- Don't be talking, and
we fooled to-day. (Putting on other boot.) There's a pair do fit me
well, and I'll be keeping them for walking to the priest, when you'd be
ashamed this place, going up winter and summer with nothing worth while
to confess at all.

HONOR -- [who has been listening at the door.] -- Whisht! there's
someone inside the room. (She pushes door a chink open.) It's a man.
[Sara kicks off boots and puts them where they were. They all stand in a
line looking through chink.]

SARA. I'll call him. Mister! Mister! (He puts in his head.) Is Pegeen
within?

CHRISTY -- [coming in as meek as a mouse, with the looking-glass held
behind his back.] -- She's above on the cnuceen, seeking the nanny
goats, the way she'd have a sup of goat's milk for to colour my tea.

SARA. And asking your pardon, is it you's the man killed his father?

CHRISTY -- [sidling toward the nail where the glass was hanging.] -- I
am, God help me!

SARA -- [taking eggs she has brought.] -- Then my thousand welcomes to
you, and I've run up with a brace of duck's eggs for your food today.
Pegeen's ducks is no use, but these are the real rich sort. Hold out
your hand and you'll see it's no lie I'm telling you.

CHRISTY -- [coming forward shyly, and holding out his left hand.] --
They're a great and weighty size.

SUSAN. And I run up with a pat of butter, for it'd be a poor thing to
have you eating your spuds dry, and you after running a great way since
you did destroy your da.

CHRISTY. Thank you kindly.

HONOR. And I brought you a little cut of cake, for you should have a
thin stomach on you, and you that length walking the world.

NELLY. And I brought you a little laying pullet -- boiled and all she is
-- was crushed at the fall of night by the curate's car. Feel the fat of
that breast, Mister.

CHRISTY. It's bursting, surely. [He feels it with the back of his
hand, in which he holds the presents.]

SARA. Will you pinch it? Is your right hand too sacred for to use at
all? (She slips round behind him.) It's a glass he has. Well, I never
seen to this day a man with a looking-glass held to his back. Them that
kills their fathers is a vain lot surely. [Girls giggle.]

CHRISTY -- [smiling innocently and piling presents on glass.] -- I'm
very thankful to you all to-day...

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming in quickly, at door.] -- Sara Tansey, Susan Brady,
Honor Blake! What in glory has you here at this hour of day?

GIRLS -- [giggling.] That's the man killed his father.

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming to them.] -- I know well it's the man; and
I'm after putting him down in the sports below for racing, leaping,
pitching, and the Lord knows what.

SARA -- [exuberantly.] That's right, Widow Quin. I'll bet my dowry that
he'll lick the world.

WIDOW QUIN. If you will, you'd have a right to have him fresh and
nourished in place of nursing a feast. (Taking presents.) Are you
fasting or fed, young fellow?

CHRISTY. Fasting, if you please.

WIDOW QUIN -- [loudly.] Well, you're the lot. Stir up now and give him
his breakfast. (To Christy.) Come here to me (she puts him on bench
beside her while the girls make tea and get his breakfast) and let you
tell us your story before Pegeen will come, in place of grinning your
ears off like the moon of May.

CHRISTY -- [beginning to be pleased.] -- It's a long story; you'd be
destroyed listening.

WIDOW QUIN. Don't be letting on to be shy, a fine, gamey, treacherous
lad the like of you. Was it in your house beyond you cracked his skull?

CHRISTY -- [shy but flattered.] -- It was not. We were digging spuds in
his cold, sloping, stony, divil's patch of a field.

WIDOW QUIN. And you went asking money of him, or making talk of getting
a wife would drive him from his farm?

CHRISTY. I did not, then; but there I was, digging and digging, and "You
squinting idiot," says he, "let you walk down now and tell the priest
you'll wed the Widow Casey in a score of days."

WIDOW QUIN. And what kind was she?

CHRISTY -- [with horror.] -- A walking terror from beyond the hills, and
she two score and five years, and two hundredweights and five pounds in
the weighing scales, with a limping leg on her, and a blinded eye, and
she a woman of noted misbehaviour with the old and young.

GIRLS -- [clustering round him, serving him.] -- Glory be.

WIDOW QUIN. And what did he want driving you to wed with her? [She takes
a bit of the chicken.]

CHRISTY -- [eating with growing satisfaction.] He was letting on I was
wanting a protector from the harshness of the world, and he without a
thought the whole while but how he'd have her hut to live in and her
gold to drink.

WIDOW QUIN. There's maybe worse than a dry hearth and a widow woman and
your glass at night. So you hit him then?

CHRISTY -- [getting almost excited.] -- I did not. "I won't wed her,"
says I, "when all know she did suckle me for six weeks when I came into
the world, and she a hag this day with a tongue on her has the crows and
seabirds scattered, the way they wouldn't cast a shadow on her garden
with the dread of her curse."

WIDOW QUIN -- [teasingly.] That one should be right company.

SARA -- [eagerly.] Don't mind her. Did you kill him then?

CHRISTY. "She's too good for the like of you," says he, "and go on now
or I'll flatten you out like a crawling beast has passed under a dray."
"You will not if I can help it," says I. "Go on," says he, "or I'll have
the divil making garters of your limbs tonight." "You will not if I can
help it," says I. [He sits up, brandishing his mug.]

SARA. You were right surely.

CHRISTY -- [impressively.] With that the sun came out between the cloud
and the hill, and it shining green in my face. "God have mercy on your
soul," says he, lifting a scythe; "or on your own," says I, raising the
loy. SUSAN. That's a grand story.

HONOR. He tells it lovely.

CHRISTY -- [flattered and confident, waving bone.] -- He gave a drive
with the scythe, and I gave a lep to the east. Then I turned around with
my back to the north, and I hit a blow on the ridge of his skull, laid
him stretched out, and he split to the knob of his gullet. [He raises
the chicken bone to his Adam's apple.]

GIRLS -- [together.] Well, you're a marvel! Oh, God bless you! You're
the lad surely!

SUSAN. I'm thinking the Lord God sent him this road to make a second
husband to the Widow Quin, and she with a great yearning to be wedded,
though all dread her here. Lift him on her knee, Sara Tansey.

WIDOW QUIN. Don't tease him.

SARA -- [going over to dresser and counter very quickly, and getting two
glasses and porter.] -- You're heroes surely, and let you drink a supeen
with your arms linked like the outlandish lovers in the sailor's song.
(She links their arms and gives them the glasses.) There now. Drink
a health to the wonders of the western world, the pirates, preachers,
poteen-makers, with the jobbing jockies; parching peelers, and the
juries fill their stomachs selling judgments of the English law.
[Brandishing the bottle.]

WIDOW QUIN. That's a right toast, Sara Tansey. Now Christy. [They drink
with their arms linked, he drinking with his left hand, she with her
right. As they are drinking, Pegeen Mike comes in with a milk can and
stands aghast. They all spring away from Christy. He goes down left.
Widow Quin remains seated.]

PEGEEN -- [angrily, to Sara.] -- What is it you're wanting?

SARA -- [twisting her apron.] -- An ounce of tobacco.

PEGEEN. Have you tuppence?

SARA. I've forgotten my purse.

PEGEEN. Then you'd best be getting it and not fooling us here. (To the
Widow Quin, with more elaborate scorn.) And what is it you're wanting,
Widow Quin?

WIDOW QUIN -- [insolently.] A penn'orth of starch.

PEGEEN -- [breaking out.] -- And you without a white shift or a shirt in
your whole family since the drying of the flood. I've no starch for the
like of you, and let you walk on now to Killamuck.

WIDOW QUIN -- [turning to Christy, as she goes out with the girls.] --
Well, you're mighty huffy this day, Pegeen Mike, and, you young fellow,
let you not forget the sports and racing when the noon is by. [They go
out.]

PEGEEN -- [imperiously.] Fling out that rubbish and put them cups away.
(Christy tidies away in great haste). Shove in the bench by the wall.
(He does so.) And hang that glass on the nail. What disturbed it at all?

CHRISTY -- [very meekly.] -- I was making myself decent only, and this a
fine country for young lovely girls.

PEGEEN -- [sharply.] Whisht your talking of girls. [Goes to counter
right.]

CHRISTY. Wouldn't any wish to be decent in a place...

PEGEEN. Whisht I'm saying.

CHRISTY -- [looks at her face for a moment with great misgivings, then
as a last effort, takes up a loy, and goes towards her, with feigned
assurance]. -- It was with a loy the like of that I killed my father.

PEGEEN -- [still sharply.] -- You've told me that story six times since
the dawn of day.

CHRISTY -- [reproachfully.] It's a queer thing you wouldn't care to be
hearing it and them girls after walking four miles to be listening to me
now.

PEGEEN -- [turning round astonished.] -- Four miles.

CHRISTY -- [apologetically.] Didn't himself say there were only four
bona fides living in the place?

PEGEEN. It's bona fides by the road they are, but that lot came over the
river lepping the stones. It's not three perches when you go like that,
and I was down this morning looking on the papers the post-boy does have
in his bag. (With meaning and emphasis.) For there was great news this
day, Christopher Mahon. [She goes into room left.]

CHRISTY -- [suspiciously.] Is it news of my murder?

PEGEEN -- [inside.] Murder, indeed.

CHRISTY -- [loudly.] A murdered da?

PEGEEN [coming in again and crossing right.] -- There was not, but a
story filled half a page of the hanging of a man. Ah, that should be a
fearful end, young fellow, and it worst of all for a man who destroyed
his da, for the like of him would get small mercies, and when it's dead
he is, they'd put him in a narrow grave, with cheap sacking wrapping him
round, and pour down quicklime on his head, the way you'd see a woman
pouring any frish-frash from a cup.

CHRISTY -- [very miserably.] -- Oh, God help me. Are you thinking I'm
safe? You were saying at the fall of night, I was shut of jeopardy and I
here with yourselves.

PEGEEN -- [severely.] You'll be shut of jeopardy no place if you go
talking with a pack of wild girls the like of them do be walking abroad
with the peelers, talking whispers at the fall of night.

CHRISTY -- [with terror.] -- And you're thinking they'd tell?

PEGEEN -- [with mock sympathy.] -- Who knows, God help you.

CHRISTY -- [loudly.] What joy would they have to bring hanging to the
likes of me?

PEGEEN. It's queer joys they have, and who knows the thing they'd do,
if it'd make the green stones cry itself to think of you swaying and
swiggling at the butt of a rope, and you with a fine, stout neck, God
bless you! the way you'd be a half an hour, in great anguish, getting
your death.

CHRISTY -- [getting his boots and putting them on.] -- If there's that
terror of them, it'd be best, maybe, I went on wandering like Esau or
Cain and Abel on the sides of Neifin or the Erris plain.

PEGEEN [beginning to play with him.] -- It would, maybe, for I've heard
the Circuit Judges this place is a heartless crew.

CHRISTY -- [bitterly.] It's more than Judges this place is a heartless
crew. (Looking up at her.) And isn't it a poor thing to be starting
again and I a lonesome fellow will be looking out on women and girls the
way the needy fallen spirits do be looking on the Lord?

PEGEEN. What call have you to be that lonesome when there's poor girls
walking Mayo in their thousands now?

CHRISTY -- [grimly.] It's well you know what call I have. It's well you
know it's a lonesome thing to be passing small towns with the lights
shining sideways when the night is down, or going in strange places with
a dog nosing before you and a dog nosing behind, or drawn to the cities
where you'd hear a voice kissing and talking deep love in every shadow
of the ditch, and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing
from your heart.

PEGEEN. I'm thinking you're an odd man, Christy Mahon. The oddest
walking fellow I ever set my eyes on to this hour to-day.

CHRISTY. What would any be but odd men and they living lonesome in the
world?

PEGEEN. I'm not odd, and I'm my whole life with my father only.

CHRISTY -- [with infinite admiration.] -- How would a lovely handsome
woman the like of you be lonesome when all men should be thronging
around to hear the sweetness of your voice, and the little infant
children should be pestering your steps I'm thinking, and you walking
the roads.

PEGEEN. I'm hard set to know what way a coaxing fellow the like of
yourself should be lonesome either.

CHRISTY. Coaxing?

PEGEEN. Would you have me think a man never talked with the girls would
have the words you've spoken to-day? It's only letting on you are to be
lonesome, the way you'd get around me now.

CHRISTY. I wish to God I was letting on; but I was lonesome all times,
and born lonesome, I'm thinking, as the moon of dawn. [Going to door.]

PEGEEN -- [puzzled by his talk.] -- Well, it's a story I'm not
understanding at all why you'd be worse than another, Christy Mahon, and
you a fine lad with the great savagery to destroy your da.

CHRISTY. It's little I'm understanding myself, saving only that my
heart's scalded this day, and I going off stretching out the earth
between us, the way I'll not be waking near you another dawn of the year
till the two of us do arise to hope or judgment with the saints of God,
and now I'd best be going with my wattle in my hand, for hanging is a
poor thing (turning to go), and it's little welcome only is left me in
this house to-day.

PEGEEN -- [sharply.] Christy! (He turns round.) Come here to me. (He
goes towards her.) Lay down that switch and throw some sods on the fire.
You're pot-boy in this place, and I'll not have you mitch off from us
now.

CHRISTY. You were saying I'd be hanged if I stay.

PEGEEN -- [quite kindly at last.] -- I'm after going down and reading
the fearful crimes of Ireland for two weeks or three, and there wasn't a
word of your murder. (Getting up and going over to the counter.) They've
likely not found the body. You're safe so with ourselves.

CHRISTY -- [astonished, slowly.] -- It's making game of me you were
(following her with fearful joy), and I can stay so, working at your
side, and I not lonesome from this mortal day.

PEGEEN. What's to hinder you from staying, except the widow woman or the
young girls would inveigle you off?

CHRISTY -- [with rapture.] -- And I'll have your words from this day
filling my ears, and that look is come upon you meeting my two eyes, and
I watching you loafing around in the warm sun, or rinsing your ankles
when the night is come.

PEGEEN -- [kindly, but a little embarrassed.] I'm thinking you'll be
a loyal young lad to have working around, and if you vexed me a while
since with your leaguing with the girls, I wouldn't give a thraneen for
a lad hadn't a mighty spirit in him and a gamey heart. [Shawn Keogh runs
in carrying a cleeve on his back, followed by the Widow Quin.]

SHAWN -- [to Pegeen.] -- I was passing below, and I seen your mountainy
sheep eating cabbages in Jimmy's field. Run up or they'll be bursting
surely.

PEGEEN. Oh, God mend them! [She puts a shawl over her head and runs
out.]

CHRISTY -- [looking from one to the other. Still in high spirits.] --
I'd best go to her aid maybe. I'm handy with ewes.

WIDOW QUIN -- [closing the door.] -- She can do that much, and there is
Shaneen has long speeches for to tell you now. [She sits down with an
amused smile.]

SHAWN -- [taking something from his pocket and offering it to Christy.]
-- Do you see that, mister?

CHRISTY -- [looking at it.] -- The half of a ticket to the Western
States!

SHAWN -- [trembling with anxiety.] -- I'll give it to you and my new
hat (pulling it out of hamper); and my breeches with the double seat
(pulling it off); and my new coat is woven from the blackest shearings
for three miles around (giving him the coat); I'll give you the whole of
them, and my blessing, and the blessing of Father Reilly itself, maybe,
if you'll quit from this and leave us in the peace we had till last
night at the fall of dark.

CHRISTY -- [with a new arrogance.] -- And for what is it you're wanting
to get shut of me?

SHAWN -- [looking to the Widow for help.] -- I'm a poor scholar with
middling faculties to coin a lie, so I'll tell you the truth, Christy
Mahon. I'm wedding with Pegeen beyond, and I don't think well of having
a clever fearless man the like of you dwelling in her house.

CHRISTY -- [almost pugnaciously.] -- And you'd be using bribery for to
banish me?

SHAWN -- [in an imploring voice.] -- Let you not take it badly, mister
honey, isn't beyond the best place for you where you'll have golden
chains and shiny coats and you riding upon hunters with the ladies of
the land. [He makes an eager sign to the Widow Quin to come to help
him.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming over.] -- It's true for him, and you'd best quit
off and not have that poor girl setting her mind on you, for there's
Shaneen thinks she wouldn't suit you though all is saying that she'll
wed you now. [Christy beams with delight.]

SHAWN -- [in terrified earnest.] -- She wouldn't suit you, and she with
the divil's own temper the way you'd be strangling one another in a
score of days. (He makes the movement of strangling with his hands.)
It's the like of me only that she's fit for, a quiet simple fellow
wouldn't raise a hand upon her if she scratched itself.

WIDOW QUIN -- [putting Shawn's hat on Christy.] -- Fit them clothes
on you anyhow, young fellow, and he'd maybe loan them to you for the
sports. (Pushing him towards inner door.) Fit them on and you can give
your answer when you have them tried.

CHRISTY -- [beaming, delighted with the clothes.] -- I will then. I'd
like herself to see me in them tweeds and hat. [He goes into room and
shuts the door.]

SHAWN -- [in great anxiety.] -- He'd like herself to see them. He'll not
leave us, Widow Quin. He's a score of divils in him the way it's well
nigh certain he will wed Pegeen.

WIDOW QUIN -- [jeeringly.] It's true all girls are fond of courage and
do hate the like of you.

SHAWN -- [walking about in desperation.] -- Oh, Widow Quin, what'll I be
doing now? I'd inform again him, but he'd burst from Kilmainham and he'd
be sure and certain to destroy me. If I wasn't so God-fearing, I'd near
have courage to come behind him and run a pike into his side. Oh, it's
a hard case to be an orphan and not to have your father that you're used
to, and you'd easy kill and make yourself a hero in the sight of all.
(Coming up to her.) Oh, Widow Quin, will you find me some contrivance
when I've promised you a ewe?

WIDOW QUIN. A ewe's a small thing, but what would you give me if I did
wed him and did save you so?

SHAWN -- [with astonishment.] You?

WIDOW QUIN. Aye. Would you give me the red cow you have and the
mountainy ram, and the right of way across your rye path, and a load of
dung at Michaelmas, and turbary upon the western hill?

SHAWN -- [radiant with hope.] -- I would surely, and I'd give you the
wedding-ring I have, and the loan of a new suit, the way you'd have him
decent on the wedding-day. I'd give you two kids for your dinner, and a
gallon of poteen, and I'd call the piper on the long car to your wedding
from Crossmolina or from Ballina. I'd give you...

WIDOW QUIN. That'll do so, and let you whisht, for he's coming now
again. [Christy comes in very natty in the new clothes. Widow Quin goes
to him admiringly.]

WIDOW QUIN. If you seen yourself now, I'm thinking you'd be too proud to
speak to us at all, and it'd be a pity surely to have your like sailing
from Mayo to the Western World.

CHRISTY -- [as proud as a peacock.] -- I'm not going. If this is a poor
place itself, I'll make myself contented to be lodging here. [Widow Quin
makes a sign to Shawn to leave them.]

SHAWN. Well, I'm going measuring the race-course while the tide is low,
so I'll leave you the garments and my blessing for the sports to-day.
God bless you! [He wriggles out.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [admiring Christy.] -- Well, you're mighty spruce, young
fellow. Sit down now while you're quiet till you talk with me.

CHRISTY -- [swaggering.] I'm going abroad on the hillside for to seek
Pegeen.

WIDOW QUIN. You'll have time and plenty for to seek Pegeen, and you
heard me saying at the fall of night the two of us should be great
company.

CHRISTY. From this out I'll have no want of company when all sorts is
bringing me their food and clothing (he swaggers to the door, tightening
his belt), the way they'd set their eyes upon a gallant orphan cleft his
father with one blow to the breeches belt. (He opens door, then staggers
back.) Saints of glory! Holy angels from the throne of light!

WIDOW QUIN -- [going over.] -- What ails you?

CHRISTY. It's the walking spirit of my murdered da?

WIDOW QUIN -- [looking out.] -- Is it that tramper?

CHRISTY -- [wildly.] Where'll I hide my poor body from that ghost of
hell? [The door is pushed open, and old Mahon appears on threshold.
Christy darts in behind door.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [in great amusement.] -- Cod save you, my poor man.

MAHON -- [gruffly.] Did you see a young lad passing this way in the
early morning or the fall of night?

WIDOW QUIN. You're a queer kind to walk in not saluting at all.

MAHON. Did you see the young lad?

WIDOW QUIN -- [stiffly.] What kind was he?

MAHON. An ugly young streeler with a murderous gob on him, and a little
switch in his hand. I met a tramper seen him coming this way at the fall
of night.

WIDOW QUIN. There's harvest hundreds do be passing these days for the
Sligo boat. For what is it you're wanting him, my poor man?

MAHON. I want to destroy him for breaking the head on me with the clout
of a loy. (He takes off a big hat, and shows his head in a mass of
bandages and plaster, with some pride.) It was he did that, and amn't
I a great wonder to think I've traced him ten days with that rent in my
crown?

WIDOW QUIN -- [taking his head in both hands and examining it with
extreme delight.] -- That was a great blow. And who hit you? A robber
maybe?

MAHON. It was my own son hit me, and he the divil a robber, or anything
else, but a dirty, stuttering lout.

WIDOW -- [letting go his skull and wiping her hands in her apron.] --
You'd best be wary of a mortified scalp, I think they call it, lepping
around with that wound in the splendour of the sun. It was a bad blow
surely, and you should have vexed him fearful to make him strike that
gash in his da.

MAHON. Is it me?

WIDOW QUIN -- [amusing herself.] -- Aye. And isn't it a great shame when
the old and hardened do torment the young?

MAHON -- [raging.] Torment him is it? And I after holding out with the
patience of a martyred saint till there's nothing but destruction on,
and I'm driven out in my old age with none to aid me.

WIDOW QUIN -- [greatly amused.] -- It's a sacred wonder the way that
wickedness will spoil a man.

MAHON. My wickedness, is it? Amn't I after saying it is himself has me
destroyed, and he a liar on walls, a talker of folly, a man you'd see
stretched the half of the day in the brown ferns with his belly to the
sun.

WIDOW QUIN. Not working at all?

MAHON. The divil a work, or if he did itself, you'd see him raising up a
haystack like the stalk of a rush, or driving our last cow till he broke
her leg at the hip, and when he wasn't at that he'd be fooling over
little birds he had -- finches and felts -- or making mugs at his own
self in the bit of glass we had hung on the wall.

WIDOW QUIN -- [looking at Christy.] -- What way was he so foolish? It
was running wild after the girls may be?

MAHON -- [with a shout of derision.] -- Running wild, is it? If he seen
a red petticoat coming swinging over the hill, he'd be off to hide in
the sticks, and you'd see him shooting out his sheep's eyes between the
little twigs and the leaves, and his two ears rising like a hare looking
out through a gap. Girls, indeed!

WIDOW QUIN. It was drink maybe?

MAHON. And he a poor fellow would get drunk on the smell of a pint. He'd
a queer rotten stomach, I'm telling you, and when I gave him three pulls
from my pipe a while since, he was taken with contortions till I had to
send him in the ass cart to the females' nurse.

WIDOW QUIN -- [clasping her hands.] -- Well, I never till this day heard
tell of a man the like of that!

MAHON. I'd take a mighty oath you didn't surely, and wasn't he the
laughing joke of every female woman where four baronies meet, the way
the girls would stop their weeding if they seen him coming the road to
let a roar at him, and call him the looney of Mahon's.

WIDOW QUIN. I'd give the world and all to see the like of him. What kind
was he?

MAHON. A small low fellow.

WIDOW QUIN. And dark?

MAHON. Dark and dirty.

WIDOW QUIN -- [considering.] I'm thinking I seen him.

MAHON -- [eagerly.] An ugly young blackguard.

WIDOW QUIN. A hideous, fearful villain, and the spit of you.

MAHON. What way is he fled?

WIDOW QUIN. Gone over the hills to catch a coasting steamer to the north
or south.

MAHON. Could I pull up on him now?

WIDOW QUIN. If you'll cross the sands below where the tide is out,
you'll be in it as soon as himself, for he had to go round ten miles by
the top of the bay. (She points to the door). Strike down by the head
beyond and then follow on the roadway to the north and east. [Mahon goes
abruptly.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [shouting after him.] -- Let you give him a good vengeance
when you come up with him, but don't put yourself in the power of the
law, for it'd be a poor thing to see a judge in his black cap reading
out his sentence on a civil warrior the like of you. [She swings the
door to and looks at Christy, who is cowering in terror, for a moment,
then she bursts into a laugh.]

WIDOW QUIN. Well, you're the walking Playboy of the Western World, and
that's the poor man you had divided to his breeches belt.

CHRISTY -- [looking out: then, to her.] -- What'll Pegeen say when she
hears that story? What'll she be saying to me now?

WIDOW QUIN. She'll knock the head of you, I'm thinking, and drive you
from the door. God help her to be taking you for a wonder, and you a
little schemer making up the story you destroyed your da.

CHRISTY -- [turning to the door, nearly speechless with rage, half to
himself.] -- To be letting on he was dead, and coming back to his life,
and following after me like an old weazel tracing a rat, and coming
in here laying desolation between my own self and the fine women of
Ireland, and he a kind of carcase that you'd fling upon the sea...

WIDOW QUIN -- [more soberly.] -- There's talking for a man's one only
son.

CHRISTY -- [breaking out.] -- His one son, is it? May I meet him with
one tooth and it aching, and one eye to be seeing seven and seventy
divils in the twists of the road, and one old timber leg on him to limp
into the scalding grave. (Looking out.) There he is now crossing the
strands, and that the Lord God would send a high wave to wash him from
the world.

WIDOW QUIN -- [scandalised.] Have you no shame? (putting her hand on his
shoulder and turning him round.) What ails you? Near crying, is it?

CHRISTY -- [in despair and grief.] -- Amn't I after seeing the
love-light of the star of knowledge shining from her brow, and hearing
words would put you thinking on the holy Brigid speaking to the infant
saints, and now she'll be turning again, and speaking hard words to me,
like an old woman with a spavindy ass she'd have, urging on a hill.

WIDOW QUIN. There's poetry talk for a girl you'd see itching and
scratching, and she with a stale stink of poteen on her from selling in
the shop.

CHRISTY -- [impatiently.] It's her like is fitted to be handling
merchandise in the heavens above, and what'll I be doing now, I ask
you, and I a kind of wonder was jilted by the heavens when a day was by.
[There is a distant noise of girls' voices. Widow Quin looks from window
and comes to him, hurriedly.]

WIDOW QUIN. You'll be doing like myself, I'm thinking, when I did
destroy my man, for I'm above many's the day, odd times in great
spirits, abroad in the sunshine, darning a stocking or stitching a
shift; and odd times again looking out on the schooners, hookers,
trawlers is sailing the sea, and I thinking on the gallant hairy fellows
are drifting beyond, and myself long years living alone.

CHRISTY -- [interested.] You're like me, so.

WIDOW QUIN. I am your like, and it's for that I'm taking a fancy to you,
and I with my little houseen above where there'd be myself to tend you,
and none to ask were you a murderer or what at all.

CHRISTY. And what would I be doing if I left Pegeen?

WIDOW QUIN. I've nice jobs you could be doing, gathering shells to make
a whitewash for our hut within, building up a little goose-house, or
stretching a new skin on an old curragh I have, and if my hut is far
from all sides, it's there you'll meet the wisest old men, I tell you,
at the corner of my wheel, and it's there yourself and me will have
great times whispering and hugging.. ..

VOICES -- [outside, calling far away.] -- Christy! Christy Mahon!
Christy!

CHRISTY. Is it Pegeen Mike?

WIDOW QUIN. It's the young girls, I'm thinking, coming to bring you to
the sports below, and what is it you'll have me to tell them now?

CHRISTY. Aid me for to win Pegeen. It's herself only that I'm seeking
now. (Widow Quin gets up and goes to window.) Aid me for to win her, and
I'll be asking God to stretch a hand to you in the hour of death, and
lead you short cuts through the Meadows of Ease, and up the floor of
Heaven to the Footstool of the Virgin's Son.

WIDOW QUIN. There's praying.

VOICES -- [nearer.] Christy! Christy Mahon!

CHRISTY -- [with agitation.] -- They're coming. Will you swear to aid
and save me for the love of Christ?

WIDOW QUIN -- [looks at him for a moment.] -- If I aid you, will you
swear to give me a right of way I want, and a mountainy ram, and a load
of dung at Michaelmas, the time that you'll be master here?

CHRISTY. I will, by the elements and stars of night.

WIDOW QUIN. Then we'll not say a word of the old fellow, the way Pegeen
won't know your story till the end of time.

CHRISTY. And if he chances to return again?

WIDOW QUIN. We'll swear he's a maniac and not your da. I could take an
oath I seen him raving on the sands to-day. [Girls run in.]

SUSAN. Come on to the sports below. Pegeen says you're to come.

SARA TANSEY. The lepping's beginning, and we've a jockey's suit to fit
upon you for the mule race on the sands below.

HONOR. Come on, will you?

CHRISTY. I will then if Pegeen's beyond.

SARA. She's in the boreen making game of Shaneen Keogh.

CHRISTY. Then I'll be going to her now. [He runs out followed by the
girls.]

WIDOW QUIN. Well, if the worst comes in the end of all, it'll be great
game to see there's none to pity him but a widow woman, the like of me,
has buried her children and destroyed her man. [She goes out.]

CURTAIN


SCENE, [as before. Later in the day. Jimmy comes in, slightly drunk.]

JIMMY -- [calls.] Pegeen! (Crosses to inner door.) Pegeen Mike! (Comes
back again into the room.) Pegeen! (Philly comes in in the same state.)
(To Philly.) Did you see herself?

PHILLY. I did not; but I sent Shawn Keogh with the ass cart for to bear
him home. (Trying cupboards which are locked.) Well, isn't he a nasty
man to get into such staggers at a morning wake? and isn't herself the
divil's daughter for locking, and she so fussy after that young gaffer,
you might take your death with drought and none to heed you?

JIMMY. It's little wonder she'd be fussy, and he after bringing bankrupt
ruin on the roulette man, and the trick-o'-the-loop man, and breaking
the nose of the cockshot-man, and winning all in the sports below,
racing, lepping, dancing, and the Lord knows what! He's right luck, I'm
telling you.

PHILLY. If he has, he'll be rightly hobbled yet, and he not able to say
ten words without making a brag of the way he killed his father, and the
great blow he hit with the loy.

JIMMY. A man can't hang by his own informing, and his father should be
rotten by now. [Old Mahon passes window slowly.]

PHILLY. Supposing a man's digging spuds in that field with a long spade,
and supposing he flings up the two halves of that skull, what'll be said
then in the papers and the courts of law?

JIMMY. They'd say it was an old Dane, maybe, was drowned in the flood.
(Old Mahon comes in and sits down near door listening.) Did you never
hear tell of the skulls they have in the city of Dublin, ranged out like
blue jugs in a cabin of Connaught?

PHILLY. And you believe that?

JIMMY -- [pugnaciously.] Didn't a lad see them and he after coming
from harvesting in the Liverpool boat? "They have them there," says he,
"making a show of the great people there was one time walking the world.
White skulls and black skulls and yellow skulls, and some with full
teeth, and some haven't only but one."

PHILLY. It was no lie, maybe, for when I was a young lad there was a
graveyard beyond the house with the remnants of a man who had thighs as
long as your arm. He was a horrid man, I'm telling you, and there was
many a fine Sunday I'd put him together for fun, and he with shiny
bones, you wouldn't meet the like of these days in the cities of the
world.

MAHON -- [getting up.] -- You wouldn't is it? Lay your eyes on that
skull, and tell me where and when there was another the like of it, is
splintered only from the blow of a loy.

PHILLY. Glory be to God! And who hit you at all?

MAHON -- [triumphantly.] It was my own son hit me. Would you believe
that?

JIMMY. Well, there's wonders hidden in the heart of man!

PHILLY -- [suspiciously.] And what way was it done?

MAHON -- [wandering about the room.] -- I'm after walking hundreds and
long scores of miles, winning clean beds and the fill of my belly four
times in the day, and I doing nothing but telling stories of that naked
truth. (He comes to them a little aggressively.) Give me a supeen and
I'll tell you now. [Widow Quin comes in and stands aghast behind him. He
is facing Jimmy and Philly, who are on the left.]

JIMMY. Ask herself beyond. She's the stuff hidden in her shawl.

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming to Mahon quickly.] -- you here, is it? You didn't
go far at all?

MAHON. I seen the coasting steamer passing, and I got a drought upon me
and a cramping leg, so I said, "The divil go along with him," and turned
again. (Looking under her shawl.) And let you give me a supeen, for I'm
destroyed travelling since Tuesday was a week.

WIDOW QUIN -- [getting a glass, in a cajoling tone.] -- Sit down then by
the fire and take your ease for a space. You've a right to be destroyed
indeed, with your walking, and fighting, and facing the sun (giving him
poteen from a stone jar she has brought in.) There now is a drink for
you, and may it be to your happiness and length of life.

MAHON -- [taking glass greedily and sitting down by fire.] -- God
increase you!

WIDOW QUIN -- [taking men to the right stealthily.] -- Do you know what?
That man's raving from his wound to-day, for I met him a while since
telling a rambling tale of a tinker had him destroyed. Then he heard of
Christy's deed, and he up and says it was his son had cracked his skull.
O isn't madness a fright, for he'll go killing someone yet, and he
thinking it's the man has struck him so?

JIMMY -- [entirely convinced.] It's a fright, surely. I knew a party
was kicked in the head by a red mare, and he went killing horses a great
while, till he eat the insides of a clock and died after.

PHILLY -- [with suspicion.] -- Did he see Christy?

WIDOW QUIN. He didn't. (With a warning gesture.) Let you not be putting
him in mind of him, or you'll be likely summoned if there's murder done.
(Looking round at Mahon.) Whisht! He's listening. Wait now till you hear
me taking him easy and unravelling all. (She goes to Mahon.) And what
way are you feeling, mister? Are you in contentment now?

MAHON -- [slightly emotional from his drink.] -- I'm poorly only, for
it's a hard story the way I'm left to-day, when it was I did tend him
from his hour of birth, and he a dunce never reached his second book,
the way he'd come from school, many's the day, with his legs lamed under
him, and he blackened with his beatings like a tinker's ass. It's a hard
story, I'm saying, the way some do have their next and nighest raising
up a hand of murder on them, and some is lonesome getting their death
with lamentation in the dead of night.

WIDOW QUIN -- [not knowing what to say.] -- To hear you talking so
quiet, who'd know you were the same fellow we seen pass to-day?

MAHON. I'm the same surely. The wrack and ruin of three score years;
and it's a terror to live that length, I tell you, and to have your
sons going to the dogs against you, and you wore out scolding them, and
skelping them, and God knows what.

PHILLY -- [to Jimmy.] -- He's not raving. (To Widow Quin.) Will you ask
him what kind was his son?

WIDOW QUIN -- [to Mahon, with a peculiar look.] -- Was your son that
hit you a lad of one year and a score maybe, a great hand at racing and
lepping and licking the world?

MAHON -- [turning on her with a roar of rage.] -- Didn't you hear me say
he was the fool of men, the way from this out he'll know the orphan's
lot with old and young making game of him and they swearing, raging,
kicking at him like a mangy cur. [A great burst of cheering outside,
someway off.]

MAHON -- [putting his hands to his ears.] -- What in the name of God do
they want roaring below?

WIDOW QUIN -- [with the shade of a smile.] -- They're cheering a young
lad, the champion Playboy of the Western World. [More cheering.]

MAHON -- [going to window.] It'd split my heart to hear them, and I with
pulses in my brain-pan for a week gone by. Is it racing they are?

JIMMY -- [looking from door.] -- It is then. They are mounting him for
the mule race will be run upon the sands. That's the playboy on the
winkered mule.

MAHON [puzzled.] That lad, is it? If you said it was a fool he was,
I'd have laid a mighty oath he was the likeness of my wandering son
(uneasily, putting his hand to his head.) Faith, I'm thinking I'll go
walking for to view the race.

WIDOW QUIN -- [stopping him, sharply.] -- You will not. You'd best take
the road to Belmullet, and not be dilly-dallying in this place where
there isn't a spot you could sleep.

PHILLY -- [coming forward.] -- Don't mind her. Mount there on the bench
and you'll have a view of the whole. They're hurrying before the tide
will rise, and it'd be near over if you went down the pathway through
the crags below.

MAHON [mounts on bench, Widow Quin beside him.] -- That's a right view
again the edge of the sea. They're coming now from the point. He's
leading. Who is he at all?

WIDOW QUIN. He's the champion of the world, I tell you, and there isn't
a hop'orth isn't falling lucky to his hands to-day.

PHILLY -- [looking out, interested in the race.] -- Look at that.
They're pressing him now.

JIMMY. He'll win it yet.

PHILLY. Take your time, Jimmy Farrell. It's too soon to say.

WIDOW QUIN -- [shouting.] Watch him taking the gate. There's riding.

JIMMY -- [cheering.] More power to the young lad!

MAHON. He's passing the third.

JIMMY. He'll lick them yet!

WIDOW QUIN. He'd lick them if he was running races with a score itself.

MAHON. Look at the mule he has, kicking the stars.

WIDOW QUIN. There was a lep! (catching hold of Mahon in her excitement.)
He's fallen! He's mounted again! Faith, he's passing them all!

JIMMY. Look at him skelping her!

PHILLY. And the mountain girls hooshing him on!

JIMMY. It's the last turn! The post's cleared for them now!

MAHON. Look at the narrow place. He'll be into the bogs! (With a yell.)
Good rider! He's through it again!

JIMMY. He neck and neck!

MAHON. Good boy to him! Flames, but he's in! [Great cheering, in which
all join.]

MAHON [with hesitation.] What's that? They're raising him up. They're
coming this way. (With a roar of rage and astonishment.) It's Christy!
by the stars of God! I'd know his way of spitting and he astride the
moon. [He jumps down and makes for the door, but Widow Quin catches him
and pulls him back.]

WIDOW QUIN. Stay quiet, will you. That's not your son. (To Jimmy.) Stop
him, or you'll get a month for the abetting of manslaughter and be fined
as well.

JIMMY. I'll hold him.

MAHON [struggling.] Let me out! Let me out, the lot of you! till I have
my vengeance on his head to-day.

WIDOW QUIN -- [shaking him, vehemently.] -- That's not your son. That's
a man is going to make a marriage with the daughter of this house, a
place with fine trade, with a license, and with poteen too.

MAHON -- [amazed.] That man marrying a decent and a moneyed girl! Is it
mad yous are? Is it in a crazy-house for females that I'm landed now?

WIDOW QUIN. It's mad yourself is with the blow upon your head. That lad
is the wonder of the Western World.

MAHON. I seen it's my son.

WIDOW QUIN. You seen that you're mad. (Cheering outside.) Do you hear
them cheering him in the zig-zags of the road? Aren't you after saying
that your son's a fool, and how would they be cheering a true idiot
born?

MAHON -- [getting distressed.] -- It's maybe out of reason that that
man's himself. (Cheering again.) There's none surely will go cheering
him. Oh, I'm raving with a madness that would fright the world! (He sits
down with his hand to his head.) There was one time I seen ten scarlet
divils letting on they'd cork my spirit in a gallon can; and one time I
seen rats as big as badgers sucking the life blood from the butt of
my lug; but I never till this day confused that dribbling idiot with a
likely man. I'm destroyed surely.

WIDOW QUIN. And who'd wonder when it's your brain-pan that is gaping
now?

MAHON. Then the blight of the sacred drought upon myself and him, for
I never went mad to this day, and I not three weeks with the Limerick
girls drinking myself silly, and parlatic from the dusk to dawn. (To
Widow Quin, suddenly.) Is my visage astray?

WIDOW QUIN. It is then. You're a sniggering maniac, a child could see.

MAHON -- [getting up more cheerfully.] -- Then I'd best be going to
the union beyond, and there'll be a welcome before me, I tell you (with
great pride), and I a terrible and fearful case, the way that there I
was one time, screeching in a straightened waistcoat, with seven doctors
writing out my sayings in a printed book. Would you believe that?

WIDOW QUIN. If you're a wonder itself, you'd best be hasty, for them
lads caught a maniac one time and pelted the poor creature till he ran
out, raving and foaming, and was drowned in the sea.

MAHON -- [with philosophy.] -- It's true mankind is the divil when your
head's astray. Let me out now and I'll slip down the boreen, and not see
them so.

WIDOW QUIN -- [showing him out.] -- That's it. Run to the right, and not
a one will see. [He runs off.]

PHILLY -- [wisely.] You're at some gaming, Widow Quin; but I'll walk
after him and give him his dinner and a time to rest, and I'll see then
if he's raving or as sane as you.

WIDOW QUIN -- [annoyed.] If you go near that lad, let you be wary of
your head, I'm saying. Didn't you hear him telling he was crazed at
times?

PHILLY. I heard him telling a power; and I'm thinking we'll have right
sport, before night will fall. [He goes out.]

JIMMY. Well, Philly's a conceited and foolish man. How could that madman
have his senses and his brain-pan slit? I'll go after them and see him
turn on Philly now. [He goes; Widow Quin hides poteen behind counter.
Then hubbub outside.]

VOICES. There you are! Good jumper! Grand lepper! Darlint boy! He's the
racer! Bear him on, will you! [Christy comes in, in Jockey's dress, with
Pegeen Mike, Sara, and other girls, and men.]

PEGEEN -- [to crowd.] -- Go on now and don't destroy him and he
drenching with sweat. Go along, I'm saying, and have your tug-of-warring
till he's dried his skin.

CROWD. Here's his prizes! A bagpipes! A fiddle was played by a poet in
the years gone by! A flat and three-thorned blackthorn would lick the
scholars out of Dublin town!

CHRISTY -- [taking prizes from the men.] -- Thank you kindly, the lot of
you. But you'd say it was little only I did this day if you'd seen me a
while since striking my one single blow.

TOWN CRIER -- [outside, ringing a bell.] -- Take notice, last event of
this day! Tug-of-warring on the green below! Come on, the lot of you!
Great achievements for all Mayo men!

PEGEEN. Go on, and leave him for to rest and dry. Go on, I tell you, for
he'll do no more. (She hustles crowd out; Widow Quin following them.)

MEN -- [going.] -- Come on then. Good luck for the while!

PEGEEN -- [radiantly, wiping his face with her shawl.] -- Well, you're
the lad, and you'll have great times from this out when you could win
that wealth of prizes, and you sweating in the heat of noon!

CHRISTY -- [looking at her with delight.] -- I'll have great times if
I win the crowning prize I'm seeking now, and that's your promise that
you'll wed me in a fortnight, when our banns is called.

PEGEEN -- [backing away from him.] -- You've right daring to go ask
me that, when all knows you'll be starting to some girl in your own
townland, when your father's rotten in four months, or five.

CHRISTY -- [indignantly.] Starting from you, is it? (He follows her.)
I will not, then, and when the airs is warming in four months, or five,
it's then yourself and me should be pacing Neifin in the dews of night,
the times sweet smells do be rising, and you'd see a little shiny new
moon, maybe, sinking on the hills.

PEGEEN [looking at him playfully.] -- And it's that kind of a poacher's
love you'd make, Christy Mahon, on the sides of Neifin, when the night
is down?

CHRISTY. It's little you'll think if my love's a poacher's, or an
earl's itself, when you'll feel my two hands stretched around you, and I
squeezing kisses on your puckered lips, till I'd feel a kind of pity for
the Lord God is all ages sitting lonesome in his golden chair.

PEGEEN. That'll be right fun, Christy Mahon, and any girl would walk her
heart out before she'd meet a young man was your like for eloquence, or
talk, at all.

CHRISTY -- [encouraged.] Let you wait, to hear me talking, till we're
astray in Erris, when Good Friday's by, drinking a sup from a well,
and making mighty kisses with our wetted mouths, or gaming in a gap
or sunshine, with yourself stretched back unto your necklace, in the
flowers of the earth.

PEGEEN -- [in a lower voice, moved by his tone.] -- I'd be nice so, is
it?

CHRISTY -- [with rapture.] -- If the mitred bishops seen you that time,
they'd be the like of the holy prophets, I'm thinking, do be straining
the bars of Paradise to lay eyes on the Lady Helen of Troy, and she
abroad, pacing back and forward, with a nosegay in her golden shawl.

PEGEEN -- [with real tenderness.] -- And what is it I have, Christy
Mahon, to make me fitting entertainment for the like of you, that has
such poet's talking, and such bravery of heart?

CHRISTY -- [in a low voice.] -- Isn't there the light of seven heavens
in your heart alone, the way you'll be an angel's lamp to me from this
out, and I abroad in the darkness, spearing salmons in the Owen, or the
Carrowmore?

PEGEEN. If I was your wife, I'd be along with you those nights, Christy
Mahon, the way you'd see I was a great hand at coaxing bailiffs, or
coining funny nick-names for the stars of night.

CHRISTY. You, is it? Taking your death in the hailstones, or in the fogs
of dawn.

PEGEEN. Yourself and me would shelter easy in a narrow bush, (with a
qualm of dread) but we're only talking, maybe, for this would be a poor,
thatched place to hold a fine lad is the like of you.

CHRISTY -- [putting his arm round her.] -- If I wasn't a good Christian,
it's on my naked knees I'd be saying my prayers and paters to every
jackstraw you have roofing your head, and every stony pebble is paving
the laneway to your door.

PEGEEN -- [radiantly.] If that's the truth, I'll be burning candles from
this out to the miracles of God that have brought you from the south
to-day, and I, with my gowns bought ready, the way that I can wed you,
and not wait at all.

CHRISTY. It's miracles, and that's the truth. Me there toiling a long
while, and walking a long while, not knowing at all I was drawing all
times nearer to this holy day.

PEGEEN. And myself, a girl, was tempted often to go sailing the seas
till I'd marry a Jew-man, with ten kegs of gold, and I not knowing at
all there was the like of you drawing nearer, like the stars of God.

CHRISTY. And to think I'm long years hearing women talking that talk,
to all bloody fools, and this the first time I've heard the like of your
voice talking sweetly for my own delight.

PEGEEN. And to think it's me is talking sweetly, Christy Mahon, and I
the fright of seven townlands for my biting tongue. Well, the heart's a
wonder; and, I'm thinking, there won't be our like in Mayo, for gallant
lovers, from this hour, to-day. (Drunken singing is heard outside.)
There's my father coming from the wake, and when he's had his sleep
we'll tell him, for he's peaceful then. [They separate.]

MICHAEL -- [singing outside] -- The jailor and the turnkey They quickly
ran us down, And brought us back as prisoners Once more to Cavan town.
[He comes in supported by Shawn.] There we lay bewailing All in a prison
bound.... [He sees Christy. Goes and shakes him drunkenly by the hand,
while Pegeen and Shawn talk on the left.]

MICHAEL -- [to Christy.] -- The blessing of God and the holy angels on
your head, young fellow. I hear tell you're after winning all in the
sports below; and wasn't it a shame I didn't bear you along with me to
Kate Cassidy's wake, a fine, stout lad, the like of you, for you'd never
see the match of it for flows of drink, the way when we sunk her bones
at noonday in her narrow grave, there were five men, aye, and six men,
stretched out retching speechless on the holy stones.

CHRISTY -- [uneasily, watching Pegeen.] -- Is that the truth?

MICHAEL. It is then, and aren't you a louty schemer to go burying your
poor father unbeknownst when you'd a right to throw him on the crupper
of a Kerry mule and drive him westwards, like holy Joseph in the days
gone by, the way we could have given him a decent burial, and not have
him rotting beyond, and not a Christian drinking a smart drop to the
glory of his soul?

CHRISTY -- [gruffly.] It's well enough he's lying, for the likes of him.

MICHAEL -- [slapping him on the back.] -- Well, aren't you a hardened
slayer? It'll be a poor thing for the household man where you go
sniffing for a female wife; and (pointing to Shawn) look beyond at that
shy and decent Christian I have chosen for my daughter's hand, and I
after getting the gilded dispensation this day for to wed them now.

CHRISTY. And you'll be wedding them this day, is it?

MICHAEL -- [drawing himself up.] -- Aye. Are you thinking, if I'm drunk
itself, I'd leave my daughter living single with a little frisky rascal
is the like of you?

PEGEEN -- [breaking away from Shawn.] -- Is it the truth the
dispensation's come?

MICHAEL -- [triumphantly.] Father Reilly's after reading it in gallous
Latin, and "It's come in the nick of time," says he; "so I'll wed them
in a hurry, dreading that young gaffer who'd capsize the stars."

PEGEEN -- [fiercely.] He's missed his nick of time, for it's that lad,
Christy Mahon, that I'm wedding now.

MICHAEL -- [loudly with horror.] -- You'd be making him a son to me, and
he wet and crusted with his father's blood?

PEGEEN. Aye. Wouldn't it be a bitter thing for a girl to go marrying the
like of Shaneen, and he a middling kind of a scarecrow, with no savagery
or fine words in him at all?

MICHAEL -- [gasping and sinking on a chair.] -- Oh, aren't you a heathen
daughter to go shaking the fat of my heart, and I swamped and drownded
with the weight of drink? Would you have them turning on me the way that
I'd be roaring to the dawn of day with the wind upon my heart? Have you
not a word to aid me, Shaneen? Are you not jealous at all?

SHANEEN -- [In great misery.] -- I'd be afeard to be jealous of a man
did slay his da.

PEGEEN. Well, it'd be a poor thing to go marrying your like. I'm seeing
there's a world of peril for an orphan girl, and isn't it a great
blessing I didn't wed you, before himself came walking from the west or
south?

SHAWN. It's a queer story you'd go picking a dirty tramp up from the
highways of the world.

PEGEEN -- [playfully.] And you think you're a likely beau to go straying
along with, the shiny Sundays of the opening year, when it's sooner on
a bullock's liver you'd put a poor girl thinking than on the lily or the
rose?

SHAWN. And have you no mind of my weight of passion, and the holy
dispensation, and the drift of heifers I am giving, and the golden ring?

PEGEEN. I'm thinking you're too fine for the like of me, Shawn Keogh of
Killakeen, and let you go off till you'd find a radiant lady with droves
of bullocks on the plains of Meath, and herself bedizened in the diamond
jewelleries of Pharaoh's ma. That'd be your match, Shaneen. So God save
you now! [She retreats behind Christy.]

SHAWN. Won't you hear me telling you...?

CHRISTY -- [with ferocity.] -- Take yourself from this, young fellow, or
I'll maybe add a murder to my deeds to-day.

MICHAEL -- [springing up with a shriek.] -- Murder is it? Is it mad yous
are? Would you go making murder in this place, and it piled with poteen
for our drink to-night? Go on to the foreshore if it's fighting you
want, where the rising tide will wash all traces from the memory of man.
[Pushing Shawn towards Christy.]

SHAWN -- [shaking himself free, and getting behind Michael.] -- I'll
not fight him, Michael James. I'd liefer live a bachelor, simmering in
passions to the end of time, than face a lepping savage the like of him
has descended from the Lord knows where. Strike him yourself, Michael
James, or you'll lose my drift of heifers and my blue bull from Sneem.

MICHAEL. Is it me fight him, when it's father-slaying he's bred to now?
(Pushing Shawn.) Go on you fool and fight him now.

SHAWN -- [coming forward a little.] -- Will I strike him with my hand?

MICHAEL. Take the loy is on your western side.

SHAWN. I'd be afeard of the gallows if I struck him with that.

CHRISTY -- [taking up the loy.] -- Then I'll make you face the gallows
or quit off from this. [Shawn flies out of the door.]

CHRISTY. Well, fine weather be after him, (going to Michael, coaxingly)
and I'm thinking you wouldn't wish to have that quaking blackguard in
your house at all. Let you give us your blessing and hear her swear her
faith to me, for I'm mounted on the spring-tide of the stars of luck,
the way it'll be good for any to have me in the house.

PEGEEN [at the other side of Michael.] -- Bless us now, for I swear to
God I'll wed him, and I'll not renege.

MICHAEL -- [standing up in the centre, holding on to both of them.] --
It's the will of God, I'm thinking, that all should win an easy or a
cruel end, and it's the will of God that all should rear up lengthy
families for the nurture of the earth. What's a single man, I ask you,
eating a bit in one house and drinking a sup in another, and he with no
place of his own, like an old braying jackass strayed upon the rocks?
(To Christy.) It's many would be in dread to bring your like into their
house for to end them, maybe, with a sudden end; but I'm a decent man
of Ireland, and I liefer face the grave untimely and I seeing a score of
grandsons growing up little gallant swearers by the name of God, than
go peopling my bedside with puny weeds the like of what you'd breed, I'm
thinking, out of Shaneen Keogh. (He joins their hands.) A daring fellow
is the jewel of the world, and a man did split his father's middle with
a single clout, should have the bravery of ten, so may God and Mary and
St. Patrick bless you, and increase you from this mortal day.

CHRISTY AND PEGEEN. Amen, O Lord!

[Hubbub outside.]

[Old Mahon rushes in, followed by all the crowd, and Widow Quin. He
makes a rush at Christy, knocks him down, and begins to beat him.]

PEGEEN -- [dragging back his arm.] -- Stop that, will you. Who are you
at all?

MAHON. His father, God forgive me!

PEGEEN -- [drawing back.] -- Is it rose from the dead?

MAHON. Do you think I look so easy quenched with the tap of a loy?
[Beats Christy again.]

PEGEEN -- [glaring at Christy.] -- And it's lies you told, letting on
you had him slitted, and you nothing at all.

CHRISTY -- [clutching Mahon's stick.] -- He's not my father. He's a
raving maniac would scare the world. (Pointing to Widow Quin.) Herself
knows it is true.

CROWD. You're fooling Pegeen! The Widow Quin seen him this day, and you
likely knew! You're a liar!

CHRISTY -- [dumbfounded.] It's himself was a liar, lying stretched out
with an open head on him, letting on he was dead.

MAHON. Weren't you off racing the hills before I got my breath with the
start I had seeing you turn on me at all?

PEGEEN. And to think of the coaxing glory we had given him, and he after
doing nothing but hitting a soft blow and chasing northward in a sweat
of fear. Quit off from this.

CHRISTY -- [piteously.] You've seen my doings this day, and let you save
me from the old man; for why would you be in such a scorch of haste to
spur me to destruction now?

PEGEEN. It's there your treachery is spurring me, till I'm hard set to
think you're the one I'm after lacing in my heart-strings half-an-hour
gone by. (To Mahon.) Take him on from this, for I think bad the world
should see me raging for a Munster liar, and the fool of men.

MAHON. Rise up now to retribution, and come on with me.

CROWD -- [jeeringly.] There's the playboy! There's the lad thought he'd
rule the roost in Mayo. Slate him now, mister.

CHRISTY -- [getting up in shy terror.] -- What is it drives you to
torment me here, when I'd asked the thunders of the might of God to
blast me if I ever did hurt to any saving only that one single blow.

MAHON -- [loudly.] If you didn't, you're a poor good-for-nothing, and
isn't it by the like of you the sins of the whole world are committed?

CHRISTY -- [raising his hands.] -- In the name of the Almighty God....

MAHON. Leave troubling the Lord God. Would you have him sending down
droughts, and fevers, and the old hen and the cholera morbus?

CHRISTY -- [to Widow Quin.] -- Will you come between us and protect me
now?

WIDOW QUIN. I've tried a lot, God help me, and my share is done.

CHRISTY -- [looking round in desperation.] -- And I must go back into
my torment is it, or run off like a vagabond straying through the Unions
with the dusts of August making mudstains in the gullet of my throat,
or the winds of March blowing on me till I'd take an oath I felt them
making whistles of my ribs within?

SARA. Ask Pegeen to aid you. Her like does often change.

CHRISTY. I will not then, for there's torment in the splendour of her
like, and she a girl any moon of midnight would take pride to meet,
facing southwards on the heaths of Keel. But what did I want crawling
forward to scorch my understanding at her flaming brow?

PEGEEN -- [to Mahon, vehemently, fearing she will break into tears.] --
Take him on from this or I'll set the young lads to destroy him here.

MAHON -- [going to him, shaking his stick.] -- Come on now if you
wouldn't have the company to see you skelped.

PEGEEN -- [half laughing, through her tears.] -- That's it, now the
world will see him pandied, and he an ugly liar was playing off the
hero, and the fright of men.

CHRISTY -- [to Mahon, very sharply.] -- Leave me go!

CROWD. That's it. Now Christy. If them two set fighting, it will lick
the world.

MAHON -- [making a grab at Christy.] -- Come here to me.

CHRISTY -- [more threateningly.] -- Leave me go, I'm saying.

MAHON. I will maybe, when your legs is limping, and your back is blue.

CROWD. Keep it up, the two of you. I'll back the old one. Now the
playboy.

CHRISTY -- [in low and intense voice.] -- Shut your yelling, for if
you're after making a mighty man of me this day by the power of a lie,
you're setting me now to think if it's a poor thing to be lonesome,
it's worse maybe to go mixing with the fools of earth. [Mahon makes a
movement towards him.]

CHRISTY -- [almost shouting.] -- Keep off... lest I do show a blow
unto the lot of you would set the guardian angels winking in the clouds
above. [He swings round with a sudden rapid movement and picks up a
loy.]

CROWD -- [half frightened, half amused.] -- He's going mad! Mind
yourselves! Run from the idiot!

CHRISTY. If I am an idiot, I'm after hearing my voice this day saying
words would raise the topknot on a poet in a merchant's town. I've won
your racing, and your lepping, and...

MAHON. Shut your gullet and come on with me.

CHRISTY. I'm going, but I'll stretch you first. [He runs at old Mahon
with the loy, chases him out of the door, followed by crowd and Widow
Quin. There is a great noise outside, then a yell, and dead silence for
a moment. Christy comes in, half dazed, and goes to fire.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming in, hurriedly, and going to him.] -- They're
turning again you. Come on, or you'll be hanged, indeed.

CHRISTY. I'm thinking, from this out, Pegeen'll be giving me praises the
same as in the hours gone by.

WIDOW QUIN -- [impatiently.] Come by the back-door. I'd think bad to
have you stifled on the gallows tree.

CHRISTY -- [indignantly.] I will not, then. What good'd be my life-time,
if I left Pegeen?

WIDOW QUIN. Come on, and you'll be no worse than you were last night;
and you with a double murder this time to be telling to the girls.

CHRISTY. I'll not leave Pegeen Mike.

WIDOW QUIN -- [impatiently.] Isn't there the match of her in every
parish public, from Binghamstown unto the plain of Meath? Come on, I
tell you, and I'll find you finer sweethearts at each waning moon.

CHRISTY. It's Pegeen I'm seeking only, and what'd I care if you brought
me a drift of chosen females, standing in their shifts itself, maybe,
from this place to the Eastern World?

SARA -- [runs in, pulling off one of her petticoats.] -- They're going
to hang him. (Holding out petticoat and shawl.) Fit these upon him, and
let him run off to the east.

WIDOW QUIN. He's raving now; but we'll fit them on him, and I'll take
him, in the ferry, to the Achill boat.

CHRISTY -- [struggling feebly.] -- Leave me go, will you? when I'm
thinking of my luck to-day, for she will wed me surely, and I a proven
hero in the end of all. [They try to fasten petticoat round him.]

WIDOW QUIN. Take his left hand, and we'll pull him now. Come on, young
fellow.

CHRISTY -- [suddenly starting up.] -- You'll be taking me from her?
You're jealous, is it, of her wedding me? Go on from this. [He snatches
up a stool, and threatens them with it.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [going.] -- It's in the mad-house they should put him,
not in jail, at all. We'll go by the back-door, to call the doctor, and
we'll save him so. [She goes out, with Sara, through inner room. Men
crowd in the doorway. Christy sits down again by the fire.]

MICHAEL -- [in a terrified whisper.] -- Is the old lad killed surely?

PHILLY. I'm after feeling the last gasps quitting his heart. [They peer
in at Christy.]

MICHAEL -- [with a rope.] -- Look at the way he is. Twist a hangman's
knot on it, and slip it over his head, while he's not minding at all.

PHILLY. Let you take it, Shaneen. You're the soberest of all that's
here.

SHAWN. Is it me to go near him, and he the wickedest and worst with me?
Let you take it, Pegeen Mike.

PEGEEN. Come on, so. [She goes forward with the others, and they drop
the double hitch over his head.]

CHRISTY. What ails you?

SHAWN -- [triumphantly, as they pull the rope tight on his arms.] --
Come on to the peelers, till they stretch you now.

CHRISTY. Me!

MICHAEL. If we took pity on you, the Lord God would, maybe, bring us
ruin from the law to-day, so you'd best come easy, for hanging is an
easy and a speedy end.

CHRISTY. I'll not stir. (To Pegeen.) And what is it you'll say to me,
and I after doing it this time in the face of all?

PEGEEN. I'll say, a strange man is a marvel, with his mighty talk; but
what's a squabble in your back-yard, and the blow of a loy, have taught
me that there's a great gap between a gallous story and a dirty deed.
(To Men.) Take him on from this, or the lot of us will be likely put on
trial for his deed to-day.

CHRISTY -- [with horror in his voice.] -- And it's yourself will send me
off, to have a horny-fingered hangman hitching his bloody slip-knots at
the butt of my ear.

MEN -- [pulling rope.] -- Come on, will you? [He is pulled down on the
floor.]

CHRISTY -- [twisting his legs round the table.] -- Cut the rope, Pegeen,
and I'll quit the lot of you, and live from this out, like the madmen of
Keel, eating muck and green weeds, on the faces of the cliffs.

PEGEEN. And leave us to hang, is it, for a saucy liar, the like of you?
(To men.) Take him on, out from this.

SHAWN. Pull a twist on his neck, and squeeze him so.

PHILLY. Twist yourself. Sure he cannot hurt you, if you keep your
distance from his teeth alone.

SHAWN. I'm afeard of him. (To Pegeen.) Lift a lighted sod, will you, and
scorch his leg.

PEGEEN -- [blowing the fire, with a bellows.] Leave go now, young
fellow, or I'll scorch your shins.

CHRISTY. You're blowing for to torture me (His voice rising and growing
stronger.) That's your kind, is it? Then let the lot of you be wary,
for, if I've to face the gallows, I'll have a gay march down, I tell
you, and shed the blood of some of you before I die.

SHAWN -- [in terror.] -- Keep a good hold, Philly. Be wary, for the love
of God. For I'm thinking he would liefest wreak his pains on me.

CHRISTY -- [almost gaily.] -- If I do lay my hands on you, it's the way
you'll be at the fall of night, hanging as a scarecrow for the fowls of
hell. Ah, you'll have a gallous jaunt I'm saying, coaching out through
Limbo with my father's ghost.

SHAWN -- [to Pegeen.] -- Make haste, will you? Oh, isn't he a holy
terror, and isn't it true for Father Reilly, that all drink's a curse
that has the lot of you so shaky and uncertain now?

CHRISTY. If I can wring a neck among you, I'll have a royal judgment
looking on the trembling jury in the courts of law. And won't there be
crying out in Mayo the day I'm stretched upon the rope with ladies in
their silks and satins snivelling in their lacy kerchiefs, and they
rhyming songs and ballads on the terror of my fate? [He squirms round on
the floor and bites Shawn's leg.]

SHAWN -- [shrieking.] My leg's bit on me. He's the like of a mad dog,
I'm thinking, the way that I will surely die.

CHRISTY -- [delighted with himself.] -- You will then, the way you can
shake out hell's flags of welcome for my coming in two weeks or three,
for I'm thinking Satan hasn't many have killed their da in Kerry, and
in Mayo too. [Old Mahon comes in behind on all fours and looks on
unnoticed.]

MEN -- [to Pegeen.] -- Bring the sod, will you?

PEGEEN [coming over.] -- God help him so. (Burns his leg.)

CHRISTY -- [kicking and screaming.] -- O, glory be to God! [He kicks
loose from the table, and they all drag him towards the door.]

JIMMY -- [seeing old Mahon.] -- Will you look what's come in? [They all
drop Christy and run left.]

CHRISTY -- [scrambling on his knees face to face with old Mahon.] -- Are
you coming to be killed a third time, or what ails you now?

MAHON. For what is it they have you tied?

CHRISTY. They're taking me to the peelers to have me hanged for slaying
you.

MICHAEL -- [apologetically.] It is the will of God that all should
guard their little cabins from the treachery of law, and what would my
daughter be doing if I was ruined or was hanged itself?

MAHON -- [grimly, loosening Christy.] -- It's little I care if you put a
bag on her back, and went picking cockles till the hour of death; but
my son and myself will be going our own way, and we'll have great times
from this out telling stories of the villainy of Mayo, and the fools is
here. (To Christy, who is freed.) Come on now.

CHRISTY. Go with you, is it? I will then, like a gallant captain with
his heathen slave. Go on now and I'll see you from this day stewing my
oatmeal and washing my spuds, for I'm master of all fights from now.
(Pushing Mahon.) Go on, I'm saying.

MAHON. Is it me?

CHRISTY. Not a word out of you. Go on from this.

MAHON [walking out and looking back at Christy over his shoulder.] --
Glory be to God! (With a broad smile.) I am crazy again! [Goes.]

CHRISTY. Ten thousand blessings upon all that's here, for you've turned
me a likely gaffer in the end of all, the way I'll go romancing through
a romping lifetime from this hour to the dawning of the judgment day.
[He goes out.]

MICHAEL. By the will of God, we'll have peace now for our drinks. Will
you draw the porter, Pegeen?

SHAWN -- [going up to her.] -- It's a miracle Father Reilly can wed us
in the end of all, and we'll have none to trouble us when his vicious
bite is healed.

PEGEEN -- [hitting him a box on the ear.] -- Quit my sight. (Putting
her shawl over her head and breaking out into wild lamentations.) Oh my
grief, I've lost him surely. I've lost the only Playboy of the Western
World.



gradesaver
In a short preface to his play, Synge emphasizes a link between the imagination of the Irish country people and their speech itself, which is "rich and living." He credits the Irish people for having such a "fiery," "magnificent" language, and further credits himself for having both the presence of mind and poetic vision to recognize those virtues. The entire play is set in a public house "on the wild coast of Mayo," outside a village in Northwestern Ireland, circa 1907 . Pegeen Mike, daughter to the alehouse owner, sits alone in the pub, writing a letter to order supplies for her upcoming wedding to Shawn Keogh. Her father, Michael James, has left her for the evening, while he attends a wake. Shawn Keogh enters, remarking upon the frightening darkness outside. Pegeen asks him to stay with her, since the night makes her nervous as well. Shawn refuses, claiming it would be improper for him to be alone with her until they are wed. However, he offers to send the Widow Quin to stay with her. Shawn then reveals that he heard a man outside, wailing from a ditch. Michael James enters, along with his friends Philly and Jimmy. They are drunk, and have not yet left for the wake. Michael James demands Shawn stay with Pegeen, but Shawn refuses, fearing the disapproval of the parish priest. Shawn flees before the men can trap him, but quickly returns to tell them that he saw a face looking up out of the ditch. Christy Mahon, frightened and dirty, enters the pub. A shy young man, he simply wishes to warm himself by the fire, but soon enough reveals that he is on the run from the police. He tries to avoid talking about it, but the men pester him until he admits that he killed his father. The group is greatly impressed by this news, and to meet a man who could kill his own father. Michael James offers him a job on the spot, noting that Christy could keep Pegeen company this evening. Michael, Philly and Jimmy then leave for their wake, and a very-intrigued Pegeen chases Shawn away. Pegeen admires Christy, complimenting him on his physique, his face, his speech and his courage. Christy swells with unfamiliar pride. Widow Quin appears, having heard about Christy from Shawn. The widow tries to seduce him, but Pegeen insults and sends her off. As she leaves, however, the widow refers to Pegeen's impending nuptials with Shawn. This news devastates Christy, since he has fallen for her. However, she assures him she would never marry a coward like Shawn, and then heads off to bed. Before he falls asleep, Christy muses to himself that he would have killed his father much sooner if he had known it would bring him such respect and fortune. Three village girls arrive the next morning to see the man they have heard gossip about. They giggle and flirt with him until Widow Quin arrives, announcing that she has registered Christy for a sports competition being held later on the beach. The girls joke that the widow and Christy would make a fine match. As they eat breakfast, Christy tells more about the murder, about how he rebelled when his father promised him to a widow whom he did not want to marry. When his father lifted a scythe as their argument grew vicious, Christy struck back with a spade, hitting the old man on the head and killing him. Pegeen enters, and chases the women out. Jealous, she accuses Christy of flirting, which he denies. The two exchange kind, tender words. They're falling in love. Shawn and Widow Quin re-enter, and alert Pegeen that her sheep have wandered off. Pegeen rushes out, leaving them alone. Shawn offers Christy a one-way ticket to America and all his fine clothes if he promises to leave the village. Christy rejects his offer, but the widow encourages him to try on Shawn's clothes anyway. Christy agrees, and leaves the room to change. Once Christy is gone, Shawn promises to give the widow animals and wealth if she can find a way to interfere with Christy and Pegeen's affair. The widow strikes a deal with Shawn, promising to lure Christy into marrying her, not Pegeen. Content, Shawn leaves. Christy struts back in wearing Shawn's clothes, but staggers back when he sees the spirit of his "murdered da" outside the window . He hides just as Old Mahon, his father, enters. Old Mahon, a bandage round his bloodied head, describes Christy and then asks whether the widow has seen someone matching that description. The widow sends Mahon off to the docks, claiming she saw the boy waiting to board a steamer. Mahon exits. Christy panics over his father's "resurrection" . Knowing that Pegeen loves him for his murderous heroism, he worries she will leave him. He begs the widow to help him, which she agrees to do in exchange for privileges once he becomes master of the pub. The girls who visited earlier arrive to lead Christy down to the beach for the sports competition. Alone, the widow admits that Christy will eventually turn to her once the truth comes out and Pegeen drops him. Jimmy and Philly enter the empty pub, discussing how Christy has dominated the competition. They also admit that his constant boasting about his patricide annoys them. Old Mahon re-enters the pub. Showing the men his wound, he asks again after his son. Right as the men begin to grow suspicious, Widow Quin enters and confides to Jimmy and Philly that Mahon is crazy, and has co-opted Christy's story for attention. When the men try to interrogate Mahon further, the widow interjects to distract them. When the cheering from the beach reaches the pub, Mahon looks out to widow to see the competition's champion: Christy. The widow convinces him that he is seeing things because of his head injury, and he anxiously leaves to admit himself to an insane asylum. Jimmy and Philly leave with him. Christy and Pegeen enter with the crowd, who celebrate Christy and then leave to watch the final competition on the beach. Alone now with Pegeen, Christy proposes marriage, and she accepts. Michael James, still drunk from the wake, enters with Shawn. Now perturbed about Christy's influence on his daughter, Michael insists she will marry Shawn. Pegeen defies her father and announces her intention to marry Christy, and Michael encourages Shawn to fight Christy for her. When Shawn cowardly refuses, Michael decides to bless Christy and Pegeen's match. Outside, a cry goes up as Old Mahon bursts into the pub, rushing at Christy and knocking him down. When the older man reveals the truth, Pegeen repudiates Christy. He then begs mercy from her and the crowd, but they will not grant it. Pegeen urges Mahon to take his son away, but Christy resists Mahon. The crowd eggs on the fight between father and son until Christy turns on them with a spade. He then chases his father from the pub, the spade held high. Everyone rushes out to watch. Offstage, there is a loud cry and then silence. Christy stumbles back in, dazed. Widow Quin follows, urging Christy to run, since the crowd has turned against him. But Christy believes that Pegeen will take him back now that he has actually killed his father. He is wrong. From the doorway, Michael, Philly and Pegeen throw a loop of rope around Christy, confining his arms and torso. Christy asks Pegeen whether she will take him back, but she asserts there is a difference between a "gallous story" and a "dirty deed" . Writhing on the floor, Christy threatens to kill them and bites Shawn in the leg. Pegeen burns Christy with a hot poker. Worked up, Christy conjures the welcome he shall receive from Satan once he has been hanged. But then Mahon crawls back in, demanding to know why his son is bound. He releases Christy, who then asks whether the man has returned to be killed a third time. Old Mahon tells the group that he and Christy will talk of County Mayo's villainy for years to come. However, Christy will not leave peacefully with Mahon, whom he pushes roughly, declaring that his departure is that of a "gallant captain with his heathen slave" . Old Mahon is amazed and delighted by this change in his son. They then leave together. Shawn approaches Pegeen to remind her of their wedding engagement. She boxes Shawn's ear and sends him out. Crying wildly, she laments that she has "lost the only Playboy of the Western World" .