Part 2

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 divil to poach, God forgive me, (_very naïvely_) 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-nigh 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 kidnapped 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.

## ACT II.

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 naked 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.