J. M. Synge..............................................................................................................................................1

PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................1

ACT I.......................................................................................................................................................2

ACT II. ...................................................................................................................................................15

ACT III. ..................................................................................................................................................27

In writing THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, as in my other plays, I have used one or two

words only that I have not heard among the country people of Ireland, or spoken in my own nursery before I

could read the newspapers. A certain number of the phrases I employ I have heard also from herds and

fishermen along the coast from Kerry to Mayo, or from beggarwomen and balladsingers nearer Dublin; and

I am glad to acknowledge how much I owe to the folk imagination of these fine people. Anyone who has

lived in real intimacy with the Irish peasantry will know that the wildest sayings and ideas in this play are

tame indeed, compared with the fancies one may hear in any little hillside cabin in Geesala, or Carraroe, or

Dingle Bay. All art is a collaboration; and there is little doubt that in the happy ages of literature, striking and

beautiful phrases were as ready to the storyteller's or the playwright's hand, as the rich cloaks and dresses of

his time. It is probable that when the Elizabethan dramatist took his inkhorn and sat down to his work he

used many phrases that he had just heard, as he sat at dinner, from his mother or his children. In Ireland, those

of us who know the people have the same privilege. When I was writing "The Shadow of the Glen," some

years ago, I got more aid than any learning could have given me from a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow

house where I was staying, that let me hear what was being said by the servant girls in the kitchen. This

matter, I think, is of importance, for in countries where the imagination of the people, and the language they

use, is rich and living, it is possible for a writer to be rich and copious in his words, and at the same time to

give the reality, which is the root of all poetry, in a comprehensive and natural form. In the modern literature

of towns, however, richness is found only in sonnets, or prose poems, or in one or two elaborate books that

are far away from the profound and common interests of life. One has, on one side, Mallarme and Huysmans

producing this literature; and on the other, Ibsen and Zola dealing with the reality of life in joyless and pallid

words. On the stage one must have reality, and one must have joy; and that is why the intellectual modern

drama has failed, and people have grown sick of the false joy of the musical comedy, that has been given

them in place of the rich joy found only in what is superb and wild in reality. In a good play every speech

should be as fully flavoured as a nut or apple, and such speeches cannot be written by anyone who works

among people who have shut their lips on poetry. In Ireland, for a few years more, we have a popular

imagination that is fiery and magnificent, and tender; so that those of us who wish to write start with a chance

that is not given to writers in places where the springtime of the local life has been forgotten, and the harvest

is a memory only, and the straw has been turned into bricks. J. M. S. January 21st, 1907.

The action takes place near a village, on a wild coast of Mayo. The first Act passes on an evening of autumn,

SCENE: [Country publichouse 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 fireplace,

with turf fire, and a small door into inner room. Pegeen, a wild looking but fine girl, of about twenty, is

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 weddingday. 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

SHAWN KEOGH [a fat and fair young man comes in as she signs, looks round awkwardly, when he

PEGEEN [without looking at him.] He's coming. (She directs the letter.) To Mister Sheamus Mulroy,

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

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 crossroads he is, meeting Philly Cullen; and a

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

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

SHAWN. Aren't we after making a good bargain, the way we're only waiting these days on Father Reilly's

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

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

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.

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

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 nighttime 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

SHAWN [retreating.] I couldn't see him at all; but I heard him groaning out, and breaking his heart. It

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,

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

[She goes behind counter. Michael James, fat jovial publican, comes in followed by Philly Cullen, who is thin

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?

PEGEEN [speaking across the counter.] He's right too, and have you no shame, Michael James, to be

MICHAEL [goodhumouredly.] 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

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

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,

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

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,

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

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

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

SHAWN [turning back, wringing his hands.] Oh, Father Reilly and the saints of God, where will I

hide myself today? Oh, St. Joseph and St. Patrick and St. Brigid, and St. James, have mercy on me now!

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 scarletcoated 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

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 potboy 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

MICHAEL [taken aback.] Where would I get a potboy? Would you have me send the bellman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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,

JIMMY. He's a wickedlooking young fellow. Maybe he followed after a young woman on a lonesome

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

CHRISTY [his feelings hurt.] That's an unkindly thing to be saying to a poor orphaned traveller, has a

PEGEEN [with a sign to the men to be quiet.] You're only saying it. You did nothing at all. A soft lad the

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

CHRISTY [twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror.] Don't strike me. I killed my poor

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

MICHAEL [with great respect.] That was a hanging crime, mister honey. You should have had good

CHRISTY [in a very reasonable tone.] He was a dirty man, God forgive him, and he getting old and

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

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

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

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,

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

PHILLY [nodding wisely.] It's only with a common weekday 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

PEGEEN. That'd be a lad with the sense of Solomon to have for a potboy, MICHAEL James, if it's the

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

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

MICHAEL [with deference.] Would you think well to stop here and be potboy, mister honey, if we

SHAWN [coming forward uneasily.] That'd be a queer kind to bring into a decent quiet household

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

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

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

MICHAEL [going to the door with men.] And begging your pardon, mister, what name will we call you,

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

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

PEGEEN. You wouldn't stay when there was need for you, and let you step off nimble this time when there's

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

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 goodhumour.) 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

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?

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

PEGEEN. If they are itself, you've heard it these days, I'm thinking, and you walking the world telling out

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

PEGEEN [filling a sack with straw.] You've said the like of that, maybe, in every cot and cabin where

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

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

CHRISTY [drawing a little nearer to her.] You've a power of rings, God bless you, and would there

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

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

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

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

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.

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 wellnight afeard of that lad myself, I'm thinking. And there was no one in it but the two of

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

PEGEEN [nodding her head.] Well, you should have been a queer lot. I never cursed my father the like

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

CHRISTY [clinging to Pegeen.] Oh, glory! it's late for knocking, and this last while I'm in terror of

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

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

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,

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

WIDOW QUIN [going over.] This night. "It isn't fitting," says the priesteen, "to have his likeness

WIDOW QUIN [looking at him with halfamazed 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.

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

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

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

WIDOW QUIN [with goodhumour.] 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

PEGEEN [breaking out into wild rage.] And you'll say that, Widow Quin, and you gasping with the

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

PEGEEN [seizing his arm.] He'll not stir. He's potboy in this place, and I'll not have him stolen off

WIDOW QUIN. It'd be a crazy potboy'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

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

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

WIDOW QUIN [with amusement.] Do you hear her now, young fellow? Do you hear the way she'll

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 schoolmaster'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 lookingglass.) 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 lookingglass 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 lookingglass, and runs into the inner room. The door is pushed open, and Susan Brady looks

NELLY [pushing her in and following her, with Honor Blake and Sara Tansey.] It'd be early for them

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

SARA [taking them up.] If they are, there should be his father's track on them. Did you never read in

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

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 today. (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

CHRISTY [coming in as meek as a mouse, with the lookingglass 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.

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

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

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

NELLY. And I brought you a little laying pullet boiled and all she is was crushed at the fall of night

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 lookingglass held to his back. Them that kills their

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

WIDOW QUIN [coming in quickly, at door.] Sara Tansey, Susan Brady, Honor Blake! What in glory

WIDOW QUIN [coming to them.] I know well it's the man; and I'm after putting him down in the

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.

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

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

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

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."

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,

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

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

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."

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

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.

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.

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, poteenmakers, with the jobbing jockies; parching peelers, and the juries fill

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. Then you'd best be getting it and not fooling us here. (To the Widow Quin, with more elaborate

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

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

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

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 postboy does

have in his bag. (With meaning and emphasis.) For there was great news this day, Christopher Mahon. [She

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

CHRISTY [very miserably.] Oh, God help me. Are you thinking I'm safe? You were saying at the fall

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

PEGEEN. Would you have me think a man never talked with the girls would have the words you've spoken

today? 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

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 today.

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 potboy in this place, and I'll not have you mitch off from us

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

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

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

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,

SHAWN [to Pegeen.] I was passing below, and I seen your mountainy sheep eating cabbages in

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

WIDOW QUIN [closing the door.] She can do that much, and there is Shaneen has long speeches for

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHRISTY [beaming, delighted with the clothes.] I will then. I'd like herself to see me in them tweeds

SHAWN [in great anxiety.] He'd like herself to see them. He'll not leave us, Widow Quin. He's a

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 Godfearing,

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?

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 weddingring I have, and the loan

of a new suit, the way you'd have him decent on the weddingday. 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.

WIDOW QUIN. That'll do so, and let you whisht, for he's coming now again. [Christy comes in very natty in

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

CHRISTY [as proud as a peacock.] I'm not going. If this is a poor place itself, I'll make myself

SHAWN. Well, I'm going measuring the racecourse while the tide is low, so I'll leave you the garments and

WIDOW QUIN [admiring Christy.] Well, you're mighty spruce, young fellow. Sit down now while

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

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

CHRISTY [wildly.] Where'll I hide my poor body from that ghost of hell? [The door is pushed open, and

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

MAHON. An ugly young streeler with a murderous gob on him, and a little switch in his hand. I met a

WIDOW QUIN. There's harvest hundreds do be passing these days for the Sligo boat. For what is it you're

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

WIDOW QUIN [taking his head in both hands and examining it with extreme delight.] That was a

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WIDOW QUIN [scandalised.] Have you no shame? (putting her hand on his shoulder and turning him

CHRISTY [in despair and grief.] Amn't I after seeing the lovelight 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

WIDOW QUIN. There's poetry talk for a girl you'd see itching and scratching, and she with a stale stink of

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

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.

WIDOW QUIN. I've nice jobs you could be doing, gathering shells to make a whitewash for our hut within,

building up a little goosehouse, 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

WIDOW QUIN. It's the young girls, I'm thinking, coming to bring you to the sports below, and what is it

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

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

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?

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

WIDOW QUIN. We'll swear he's a maniac and not your da. I could take an oath I seen him raving on the

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

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.]

JIMMY [calls.] Pegeen! (Crosses to inner door.) Pegeen Mike! (Comes back again into the room.)

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

JIMMY. It's little wonder she'd be fussy, and he after bringing bankrupt ruin on the roulette man, and the

tricko'theloop man, and breaking the nose of the cockshotman, 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

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

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

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

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

MAHON [getting up.] You wouldn't is it? Lay your eyes on that skull, and tell me where and when

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.]

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,

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

WIDOW QUIN [taking men to the right stealthily.] Do you know what? That man's raving from his

wound today, 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

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.

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,

MAHON [slightly emotional from his drink.] I'm poorly only, for it's a hard story the way I'm left

today, 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

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

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

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

MAHON [going to window.] It'd split my heart to hear them, and I with pulses in my brainpan for a

JIMMY [looking from door.] It is then. They are mounting him for the mule race will be run upon the

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

WIDOW QUIN [stopping him, sharply.] You will not. You'd best take the road to Belmullet, and not

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

MAHON [mounts on bench, Widow Quin beside him.] That's a right view again the edge of the sea.

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

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

WIDOW QUIN. There was a lep! (catching hold of Mahon in her excitement.) He's fallen! He's mounted

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

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

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

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

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

WIDOW QUIN. You seen that you're mad. (Cheering outside.) Do you hear them cheering him in the

zigzags of the road? Aren't you after saying that your son's a fool, and how would they be cheering a true

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.

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

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.

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

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

WIDOW QUIN [annoyed.] If you go near that lad, let you be wary of your head, I'm saying. Didn't you

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

JIMMY. Well, Philly's a conceited and foolish man. How could that madman have his senses and his

brainpan slit? I'll go after them and see him turn on Philly now. [He goes; Widow Quin hides poteen behind

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

CROWD. Here's his prizes! A bagpipes! A fiddle was played by a poet in the years gone by! A flat and

CHRISTY [taking prizes from the men.] Thank you kindly, the lot of you. But you'd say it was little

TOWN CRIER [outside, ringing a bell.] Take notice, last event of this day! Tugofwarring on the

PEGEEN. Go on, and leave him for to rest and dry. Go on, I tell you, for he'll do no more. (She hustles

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,

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

PEGEEN. That'll be right fun, Christy Mahon, and any girl would walk her heart out before she'd meet a

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.

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

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

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 nicknames 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

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 today, and I, with my gowns bought ready, the way that I can wed you,

CHRISTY. It's miracles, and that's the truth. Me there toiling a long while, and walking a long while, not

PEGEEN. And myself, a girl, was tempted often to go sailing the seas till I'd marry a Jewman, 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

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, today. (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

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,

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

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

MICHAEL [drawing himself up.] Aye. Are you thinking, if I'm drunk itself, I'd leave my daughter

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

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

PEGEEN. Aye. Wouldn't it be a bitter thing for a girl to go marrying the like of Shaneen, and he a middling

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 [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

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

SHAWN. And have you no mind of my weight of passion, and the holy dispensation, and the drift of heifers

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

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

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 tonight? 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

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

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

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 springtide of the stars of luck, the way it'll be good for any to have

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

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

[Old Mahon rushes in, followed by all the crowd, and Widow Quin. He makesa rush at Christy, knocks him

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

CHRISTY [clutching Mahon's stick.] He's not my father. He's a raving maniac would scare the world.

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

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

PEGEEN. And to think of the coaxing glory we had given him, and he after doing nothing but hitting a soft

CHRISTY [piteously.] You've seen my doings this day, and let you save me from the old man; for why

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 heartstrings halfanhour gone by. (To MAHON.) Take him on from this, for I think bad the world

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

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 goodfornothing, and isn't it by the like of you the sins of

MAHON. Leave troubling the Lord God. Would you have him sending down droughts, and fevers, and the

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?

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

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

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

PEGEEN [half laughing, through her tears.] That's it, now the world will see him pandied, and he an

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

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

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

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

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

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 backdoor. I'd think bad to have you stifled on the gallows

CHRISTY [indignantly.] I will not, then. What good'd be my lifetime, 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

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,

SARA [runs in, pulling off one of her petticoats.] They're going to hang him. (Holding out petticoat

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 today, for she

will wed me surely, and I a proven hero in the end of all. [They try to fasten petticoat round him.]

CHRISTY [suddenly starting up.] You'll be taking me from her? You're jealous, is it, of her wedding

WIDOW QUIN [going.] It's in the madhouse they should put him, not in jail, at all. We'll go by the

backdoor, to call the doctor, and we'll save him so. [She goes out, with Sara, through inner room. Men

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

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.]

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

MICHAEL. If we took pity on you, the Lord God would, maybe, bring us ruin from the law today, so you'd

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

PEGEEN. I'll say, a strange man is a marvel, with his mighty talk; but what's a squabble in your backyard,

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 today.

CHRISTY [with horror in his voice.] And it's yourself will send me off, to have a hornyfingered

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

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

SHAWN [in terror.] Keep a good hold, Philly. Be wary, for the love of God. For I'm thinking he

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

MAHON [walking out and looking back at Christy over his shoulder.] Glory be to God! (With a broad

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

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

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