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MICHAEL -- [catching him by the coattail.] -- You'd be going, is it?
SHAWN -- [screaming.] Leave me go, Michael James, leave me go, you old Pagan,

leave me go, or I'll get the curse of the priests on you, and of the
scarlet-coated bishops of the courts of Rome. [With a sudden movement he pulls

himself out of his coat, and disappears out of the door, leaving his coat in
Michael's hands.]

MICHAEL -- [turning round, and holding up coat.] -- Well, there's the coat of
a Christian man. Oh, there's sainted glory this day in the lonesome west; and

by the will of God I've got you a decent man, Pegeen, you'll have no call to
be spying after if you've a score of young girls, maybe, weeding in your

fields.
PEGEEN [taking up the defence of her property.] -- What right have you to be

making game of a poor fellow for minding the priest, when it's your own the
fault is, not paying a penny pot-boy to stand along with me and give me

courage in the doing of my work? [She snaps the coat away from him, and goes
behind counter with it.]

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

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

MICHAEL -- [imitating him.] -- What ails you?
SHAWN. The queer dying fellow's beyond looking over the ditch. He's come up,

I'm thinking, stealing your hens. (Looks over his shoulder.) God help me,
he's following me now (he runs into room), and if he's heard what I said,

he'll be having my life, and I going home lonesome in the darkness of the
night. [For a perceptible moment they watch the door with curiosity. Some one

coughs outside. Then Christy Mahon, a slight young man, comes in very tired
and frightened and dirty.]

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

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

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

CHRISTY. I am not; but I'm destroyed walking.
MICHAEL -- [patronizingly.] Let you come up then to the fire. You're looking

famished with the cold.
CHRISTY. God reward you. (He takes up his glass and goes a little way across

to the left, then stops and looks about him.) Is it often the police do be
coming into this place, master of the house?

MICHAEL. If you'd come in better hours, you'd have seen "Licensed for the
sale of Beer and Spirits, to be consumed on the premises," written in white

letters above the door, and what would the polis want spying on me, and not a
decent house within four miles, the way every living Christian is a bona fide,

saving one widow alone?
CHRISTY -- [with relief.] -- It's a safe house, so. [He goes over to the fire,

sighing and moaning. Then he sits down, putting his glass beside him and
begins gnawing a turnip, too miserable to feel the others staring at him with

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

wanting, maybe?
CHRISTY. There's many wanting.

MICHAEL. Many surely, with the broken harvest and the ended wars. (He picks
up some stockings, etc., that are near the fire, and carries them away

furtively.) It should be larceny, I'm thinking?
CHRISTY -- [dolefully.] I had it in my mind it was a different word and a

bigger.
PEGEEN. There's a queer lad. Were you never slapped in school, young fellow,

that you don't know the name of your deed?
CHRISTY -- [bashfully.] I'm slow at learning, a middling scholar only.

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

CHRISTY -- [with a flash of family pride.] -- And I the son of a strong farmer
(with a sudden qualm), God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of

your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have
missed the weight of it gone.

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

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

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

PHILLY -- [turning on Jimmy.] -- You're a silly man, Jimmy Farrell. He said
his father was a farmer a while since, and there's himself now in a poor

state. Maybe the land was grabbed from him, and he did what any decent man
would do.

MICHAEL -- [to Christy, mysteriously.] -- Was it bailiffs?
CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Agents?
CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Landlords?
CHRISTY -- [peevishly.] Ah, not at all, I'm saying. You'd see the like of

them stories on any little paper of a Munster town. But I'm not calling to
mind any person, gentle, simple, judge or jury, did the like of me. [They all

draw nearer with 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.


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