MICHAEL -- [catching him by the coattail.] -- You'd be going, is it?
SHAWN -- [screaming.] Leave me go, Michael James, leave me go, you old Pagan,
leave me go, or I'll get the curse of the
priests on you, and of the
scarlet-coated bishops of the courts of Rome. [With a sudden
movement he pulls
himself out of his coat, and disappears out of the door, leaving his coat in
Michael's hands.]
MICHAEL -- [turning round, and
holding up coat.] -- Well, there's the coat of
a Christian man. Oh, there's sainted glory this day in the
lonesome west; and
by the will of God I've got you a
decent man, Pegeen, you'll have no call to
be spying after if you've a score of young girls, maybe, weeding in your
fields.
PEGEEN [taking up the defence of her property.] -- What right have you to be
making game of a poor fellow for minding the
priest, when it's your own the
fault is, not paying a penny pot-boy to stand along with me and give me
courage in the doing of my work? [She snaps the coat away from him, and goes
behind
counter with it.]
MICHAEL -- [taken aback.] -- Where would I get a pot-boy? Would you have me
send the bell-man screaming in the streets of Castlebar?
SHAWN -- [opening the door a chink and putting in his head, in a small voice.]
-- Michael James!
MICHAEL -- [imitating him.] -- What ails you?
SHAWN. The queer dying fellow's beyond looking over the ditch. He's come up,
I'm thinking, stealing your hens. (Looks over his shoulder.) God help me,
he's following me now (he runs into room), and if he's heard what I said,
he'll be having my life, and I going home
lonesome in the darkness of the
night. [For a
perceptible moment they watch the door with
curiosity. Some one
coughs outside. Then Christy Mahon, a slight young man, comes in very tired
and frightened and dirty.]
CHRISTY -- [in a small voice.] -- God save all here!
MEN. God save you kindly.
CHRISTY -- [going to the
counter.] -- I'd trouble you for a glass of porter,
woman of the house. [He puts down coin.]
PEGEEN -- [serving him.] -- You're one of the tinkers, young fellow, is beyond
camped in the glen?
CHRISTY. I am not; but I'm destroyed walking.
MICHAEL -- [patronizingly.] Let you come up then to the fire. You're looking
famished with the cold.
CHRISTY. God
reward you. (He takes up his glass and goes a little way across
to the left, then stops and looks about him.) Is it often the police do be
coming into this place, master of the house?
MICHAEL. If you'd come in better hours, you'd have seen "Licensed for the
sale of Beer and Spirits, to be consumed on the premises," written in white
letters above the door, and what would the polis want spying on me, and not a
decent house within four miles, the way every living Christian is a bona fide,
saving one widow alone?
CHRISTY -- [with relief.] -- It's a safe house, so. [He goes over to the fire,
sighing and moaning. Then he sits down, putting his glass beside him and
begins gnawing a
turnip, too
miserable to feel the others staring at him with
curiosity.]
MICHAEL -- [going after him.] -- Is it yourself fearing the polis? You're
wanting, maybe?
CHRISTY. There's many
wanting.
MICHAEL. Many surely, with the broken
harvest and the ended wars. (He picks
up some stockings, etc., that are near the fire, and carries them away
furtively.) It should be larceny, I'm thinking?
CHRISTY -- [dolefully.] I had it in my mind it was a different word and a
bigger.
PEGEEN. There's a queer lad. Were you never slapped in school, young fellow,
that you don't know the name of your deed?
CHRISTY -- [bashfully.] I'm slow at
learning, a middling
scholar only.
MICHAEL. If you're a dunce itself, you'd have a right to know that larceny's
robbing and stealing. Is it for the like of that you're
wanting?
CHRISTY -- [with a flash of family pride.] -- And I the son of a strong farmer
(with a sudden qualm), God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of
your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have
missed the weight of it gone.
MICHAEL -- [impressed.] If it's not stealing, it's maybe something big.
CHRISTY -- [flattered.] Aye; it's maybe something big.
JIMMY. He's a wicked-looking young fellow. Maybe he followed after a young
woman on a
lonesome night.
CHRISTY -- [shocked.] Oh, the saints
forbid,
mister; I was all times a
decentlad.
PHILLY -- [turning on Jimmy.] -- You're a silly man, Jimmy Farrell. He said
his father was a farmer a while since, and there's himself now in a poor
state. Maybe the land was grabbed from him, and he did what any
decent man
would do.
MICHAEL -- [to Christy, mysteriously.] -- Was it bailiffs?
CHRISTY. The divil a one.
MICHAEL. Agents?
CHRISTY. The divil a one.
MICHAEL. Landlords?
CHRISTY -- [peevishly.] Ah, not at all, I'm
saying. You'd see the like of
them stories on any little paper of a Munster town. But I'm not
calling to
mind any person, gentle, simple, judge or jury, did the like of me. [They all
draw nearer with
delightedcuriosity.]
PHILLY. Well, that lad's a puzzle--the world.
JIMMY. He'd beat Dan Davies'
circus, or the holy missioners making sermons on
the villainy of man. Try him again, Philly.
PHILLY. Did you strike golden guineas out of solder, young fellow, or
shilling coins itself?
CHRISTY. I did not,
mister, not
sixpence nor a
farthing coin.
JIMMY. Did you marry three wives maybe? I'm told there's a sprinkling have
done that among the holy Luthers of the
preaching north.
CHRISTY -- [shyly.] -- I never married with one, let alone with a couple or
three.
PHILLY. Maybe he went fighting for the Boers, the like of the man beyond, was
judged to be hanged, quartered and drawn. Were you off east, young fellow,
fighting
bloody wars for Kruger and the freedom of the Boers?
CHRISTY. I never left my own
parish till Tuesday was a week.
PEGEEN -- [coming from
counter.] -- He's done nothing, so. (To Christy.) If
you didn't
commit murder or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining, or robbery,
or butchery, or the like of them, there isn't anything that would be worth
your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at all.
CHRISTY -- [his feelings hurt.] -- That's an unkindly thing to be
saying to a
poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, and
hanging before, and
hell's gap gaping below.
PEGEEN [with a sign to the men to be quiet.] -- You're only
saying it. You
did nothing at all. A soft lad the like of you wouldn't slit the windpipe of
a screeching sow.
CHRISTY -- [offended.] You're not
speaking the truth.
PEGEEN -- [in mock rage.] -- Not
speaking the truth, is it? Would you have
me knock the head of you with the butt of the broom?
CHRISTY -- [twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror.] -- Don't strike
me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.
PEGEEN [with blank amazement.] -- Is it killed your father?
CHRISTY -- [subsiding.] With the help of God I did surely, and that the Holy
Immaculate Mother may intercede for his soul.
PHILLY -- [retreating with Jimmy.] -- There's a
daring fellow.
JIMMY. Oh, glory be to God!
MICHAEL -- [with great respect.] -- That was a
hanging crime,
mister honey.
You should have had good reason for doing the like of that.
CHRISTY -- [in a very
reasonable tone.] -- He was a dirty man, God forgive
him, and he getting old and crusty, the way I couldn't put up with him at all.
PEGEEN. And you shot him dead?
CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- I never used weapons. I've no license, and
I'm a law-fearing man.
MICHAEL. It was with a hilted knife maybe? I'm told, in the big world it's
bloodyknives they use.
CHRISTY -- [loudly, scandalized.] -- Do you take me for a slaughter-boy?
PEGEEN. You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from the
license, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt of a
string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers swearing it
had life?
CHRISTY. I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of it on
the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and
never let a grunt or groan from him at all.
MICHAEL -- [making a sign to Pegeen to fill Christy's glass.] -- And what way
weren't you hanged,
mister? Did you bury him then?
CHRISTY -- [considering.] Aye. I buried him then. Wasn't I digging spuds in
the field?
MICHAEL. And the peelers never followed after you the eleven days that you're
out?
CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- Never a one of them, and I walking forward
facing hog, dog, or divil on the
highway of the road.
PHILLY -- [nodding wisely.] -- It's only with a common week-day kind of a
murderer them lads would be
trusting their carcase, and that man should be a
great
terror when his temper's roused.
MICHAEL. He should then. (To Christy.) And where was it,
mister honey, that
you did the deed?
CHRISTY -- [looking at him with suspicion.] -- Oh, a distant place, master of
the house, a windy corner of high, distant hills.
PHILLY -- [nodding with approval.] -- He's a close man, and he's right,
surely.
PEGEEN. That'd be a lad with the sense of Solomon to have for a pot-boy,
Michael James, if it's the truth you're seeking one at all.
PHILLY. The peelers is fearing him, and if you'd that lad in the house there
isn't one of them would come smelling around if the dogs itself were lapping
poteen from the dungpit of the yard.
JIMMY. Bravery's a treasure in a
lonesome place, and a lad would kill his
father, I'm thinking, would face a foxy divil with a pitchpike on the flags of
hell.
PEGEEN. It's the truth they're
saying, and if I'd that lad in the house, I
wouldn't be fearing the loosed kharki cut-throats, or the walking dead.
CHRISTY -- [swelling with surprise and triumph.] -- Well, glory be to God!
MICHAEL -- [with deference.] -- Would you think well to stop here and be
pot-boy,
mister honey, if we gave you good wages, and didn't destroy you with
the weight of work?
SHAWN -- [coming forward uneasily.] -- That'd be a queer kind to bring into a
decent quiet household with the like of Pegeen Mike.
PEGEEN -- [very sharply.] -- Will you whisht? Who's
speaking to you?
SHAWN -- [retreating.] A
bloody-handed
murderer the like of . . .
PEGEEN -- [snapping at him.] -- Whisht I am
saying; we'll take no fooling from
your like at all. (To Christy with a honeyed voice.) And you, young fellow,
you'd have a right to stop, I'm thinking, for we'd do our all and
utmost to
content your needs.
CHRISTY -- [overcome with wonder.] -- And I'd be safe in this place from the
searching law?
MICHAEL. You would, surely. If they're not fearing you, itself, the peelers
in this place is
decent droughty poor fellows, wouldn't touch a cur dog and
not give
warning in the dead of night.
PEGEEN -- [very kindly and persuasively.] -- Let you stop a short while
anyhow. Aren't you destroyed walking with your feet in bleeding blisters, and
your whole skin needing washing like a Wicklow sheep.
CHRISTY -- [looking round with satisfaction.] It's a nice room, and if it's
not humbugging me you are, I'm thinking that I'll surely stay.
JIMMY -- [jumps up.] -- Now, by the grace of God, herself will be safe this
night, with a man killed his father
holding danger from the door, and let you
come on, Michael James, or they'll have the best stuff drunk at the wake.
MICHAEL -- [going to the door with men.] And begging your
pardon,
mister, what
name will we call you, for we'd like to know?
CHRISTY. Christopher Mahon.
MICHAEL. Well, God bless you, Christy, and a good rest till we meet again
when the sun'll be rising to the noon of day.
CHRISTY. God bless you all.
MEN. God bless you. [They go out except Shawn, who lingers at door.]
SHAWN -- [to Pegeen.] -- Are you
wanting me to stop along with you and keep
you from harm?
PEGEEN -- [gruffly.] Didn't you say you were fearing Father Reilly?
SHAWN. There'd be no harm staying now, I'm thinking, and himself in it too.
PEGEEN. You wouldn't stay when there was need for you, and let you step off
nimble this time when there's none.