or there's right torment will await you here if you go romancing with her
like, and she waiting only, as they bade me say, on a sheepskin parchment to

be wed with Shawn Keogh of Killakeen.
CHRISTY -- [going to Pegeen as she bolts the door.] -- What's that she's after

saying?
PEGEEN. Lies and blather, you've no call to mind. Well, isn't Shawn Keogh an

impudent fellow to send up spying on me? Wait till I lay hands on him. Let
him wait, I'm saying.

CHRISTY. And you're not wedding him at all?
PEGEEN. I wouldn't wed him if a bishop came walking for to join us here.

CHRISTY. That God in glory may be thanked for that.
PEGEEN. There's your bed now. I've put a quilt upon you I'm after quilting a

while since with my own two hands, and you'd best stretch out now for your
sleep, and may God give you a good rest till I call you in the morning when

the cocks will crow.
CHRISTY -- [as she goes to inner room.] -- May God and Mary and St. Patrick

bless you and reward you, for your kindly talk. (She shuts the door behind
her. He settles his bed slowly, feeling the quilt with immense satisfaction.]

-- Well, it's a clean bed and soft with it, and it's great luck and company
I've won me in the end of time -- two fine women fighting for the likes of me

-- till I'm thinking this night wasn't I a foolish fellow not to kill my
father in the years gone by.

CURTAIN
ACT II.

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

CHRISTY -- [to himself, counting jugs on dresser.] -- Half a hundred beyond.
Ten there. A score that's above. Eighty jugs. Six cups and a broken one.

Two plates. A power of glasses. Bottles, a school-master'd be hard set to
count, and enough in them, I'm thinking, to drunken all the wealth and wisdom

of the County Clare. (He puts down the boot carefully.) There's her boots
now, nice and decent for her evening use, and isn't it grand brushes she has?

(He puts them down and goes by degrees to the looking-glass.) Well, this'd be
a fine place to be my whole life talking out with swearing Christians, in

place of my old dogs and cat, and I stalking around, smoking my pipe and
drinking my fill, and never a day's work but drawing a cork an odd time, or

wiping a glass, or rinsing out a shiny tumbler for a decent man. (He takes
the looking-glass from the wall and puts it on the back of a chair; then sits

down in front of it and begins washing his face.) Didn't I know rightly I was
handsome, though it was the divil's own mirror we had beyond, would twist a

squint across an angel's brow; and I'll be growing fine from this day, the way
I'll have a soft lovely skin on me and won't be the like of the clumsy young

fellows do be ploughing all times in the earth and dung. (He starts.) Is she
coming again? (He looks out.) Stranger girls. God help me, where'll I hide

myself away and my long neck nacked to the world? (He looks out.) I'd best
go to the room maybe till I'm dressed again. [He gathers up his coat and the

looking-glass, and runs into the inner room. The door is pushed open, and
Susan Brady looks in, and knocks on door.]

SUSAN. There's nobody in it. [Knocks again.]
NELLY -- [pushing her in and following her, with Honor Blake and Sara Tansey.]

It'd be early for them both to be out walking the hill.
SUSAN. I'm thinking Shawn Keogh was making game of us and there's no such man

in it at all.
HONOR -- [pointing to straw and quilt.] -- Look at that. He's been sleeping

there in the night. Well, it'll be a hard case if he's gone off now, the way
we'll never set our eyes on a man killed his father, and we after rising early

and destroying ourselves running fast on the hill.
NELLY. Are you thinking them's his boots?

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

drip?
SUSAN. Is that blood there, Sara Tansey?

SARAH -- [smelling it.] -- That's bog water, I'm thinking, but it's his own
they are surely, for I never seen the like of them for whity mud, and red mud,

and turf on them, and the fine sands of the sea. That man's been walking, I'm
telling you. [She goes down right, putting on one of his boots.]

SUSAN -- [going to window.] -- Maybe he's stolen off to Belmullet with the
boots of Michael James, and you'd have a right so to follow after him, Sara

Tansey, and you the one yoked the ass cart and drove ten miles to set your
eyes on the man bit the yellow lady's nostril on the northern shore. [She

looks out.]
SARA -- [running to window with one boot on.] -- Don't be talking, and we

fooled to-day. (Putting on other boot.) There's a pair do fit me well, and
I'll be keeping them for walking to the priest, when you'd be ashamed this

place, going up winter and summer with nothing worth while to confess at all.
HONOR -- [who has been listening at the door.] -- Whisht! there's someone

inside the room. (She pushes door a chink open.) It's a man. [Sara kicks off
boots and puts them where they were. They all stand in a line looking through

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

within?
CHRISTY -- [coming in as meek as a mouse, with the looking-glass held behind

his back.] -- She's above on the cnuceen, seeking the nanny goats, the way
she'd have a sup of goat's milk for to colour my tea.

SARA. And asking your pardon, is it you's the man killed his father?
CHRISTY -- [sidling toward the nail where the glass was hanging.] -- I am, God

help me!
SARA -- [taking eggs she has brought.] -- Then my thousand welcomes to you,

and I've run up with a brace of duck's eggs for your food today. Pegeen's
ducks is no use, but these are the real rich sort. Hold out your hand and

you'll see it's no lie I'm telling you.
CHRISTY -- [coming forward shyly, and holding out his left hand.] -- They're a

great and weighty size.
SUSAN. And I run up with a pat of butter, for it'd be a poor thing to have

you eating your spuds dry, and you after running a great way since you did
destroy your da.

CHRISTY. Thank you kindly.
HONOR. And I brought you a little cut of cake, for you should have a thin

stomach on you, and you that length walking the world.
NELLY. And I brought you a little laying pullet -- boiled and all she is --

was crushed at the fall of night by the curate's car. Feel the fat of that
breast, Mister.

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

SARA. Will you pinch it? Is your right hand too sacred for to use at all?
(She slips round behind him.) It's a glass he has. Well, I never seen to

this day a man with a looking-glass held to his back. Them that kills their
fathers is a vain lot surely. [Girls giggle.]

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

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

GIRLS -- [giggling.] That's the man killed his father.
WIDOW QUIN -- [coming to them.] -- I know well it's the man; and I'm after

putting him down in the sports below for racing, leaping, pitching, and the
Lord knows what.

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

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

fellow?
CHRISTY. Fasting, if you please.

WIDOW QUIN -- [loudly.] Well, you're the lot. Stir up now and give him his
breakfast. (To Christy.) Come here to me (she puts him on bench beside her

while the girls make tea and get his breakfast) and let you tell us your story
before Pegeen will come, in place of grinning your ears off like the moon of

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

listening.
WIDOW QUIN. Don't be letting on to be shy, a fine, gamey, treacherous lad the

like of you. Was it in your house beyond you cracked his skull?
CHRISTY -- [shy but flattered.] -- It was not. We were digging spuds in his

cold, sloping, stony, divil's patch of a field.
WIDOW QUIN. And you went asking money of him, or making talk of getting a

wife would drive him from his farm?
CHRISTY. I did not, then; but there I was, digging and digging, and "You

squinting idiot," says he, "let you walk down now and tell the priest you'll
wed the Widow Casey in a score of days."

WIDOW QUIN. And what kind was she?
CHRISTY -- [with horror.] -- A walking terror from beyond the hills, and she

two score and five years, and two hundredweights and five pounds in the
weighing scales, with a limping leg on her, and a blinded eye, and she a woman

of noted misbehaviour with the old and young.
GIRLS -- [clustering round him, serving him.] -- Glory be.

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

CHRISTY -- [eating with growing satisfaction.] He was letting on I was
wanting a protector from the harshness of the world, and he without a thought

the whole while but how he'd have her hut to live in and her gold to drink.
WIDOW QUIN. There's maybe worse than a dry hearth and a widow woman and your

glass at night. So you hit him then?
CHRISTY -- [getting almost excited.] -- I did not. "I won't wed her," says I,

"when all know she did suckle me for six weeks when I came into the world, and
she a hag this day with a tongue on her has the crows and seabirds scattered,

the way they wouldn't cast a shadow on her garden with the dread of her
curse."

WIDOW QUIN -- [teasingly.] That one should be right company.
SARA -- [eagerly.] Don't mind her. Did you kill him then?

CHRISTY. "She's too good for the like of you," says he, "and go on now or
I'll flatten you out like a crawling beast has passed under a dray." "You

will not if I can help it," says I. "Go on," says he, "or I'll have the divil
making garters of your limbs tonight." "You will not if I can help it," says

I. [He sits up, brandishing his mug.]
SARA. You were right surely.

CHRISTY -- [impressively.] With that the sun came out between the cloud and
the hill, and it shining green in my face. "God have mercy on your soul,"

says he, lifting a scythe; "or on your own," says I, raising the loy.
SUSAN. That's a grand story.

HONOR. He tells it lovely.
CHRISTY -- [flattered and confident, waving bone.] -- He gave a drive with the

scythe, and I gave a lep to the east. Then I turned around with my back to
the north, and I hit a blow on the ridge of his skull, laid him stretched out,

and he split to the knob of his gullet. [He raises the chicken bone to his
Adam'sapple.

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

SUSAN. I'm thinking the Lord God sent him this road to make a second husband
to the Widow Quin, and she with a great yearning to be wedded, though all

dread her here. Lift him on her knee, Sara Tansey.
WIDOW QUIN. Don't tease him.

SARA -- [going over to dresser and counter very quickly, and getting two
glasses and porter.] -- You're heroes surely, and let you drink a supeen with

your arms linked like the outlandish lovers in the sailor's song. (She links
their arms and gives them the glasses.) There now. Drink a health to the

wonders of the western world, the pirates, preachers, poteen-makers, with the
jobbing jockies; parching peelers, and the juries fill their stomachs selling

judgments of the English law. [Brandishing the bottle.]
WIDOW QUIN. That's a right toast, Sara Tansey. Now Christy. [They drink with

their arms linked, he drinking with his left hand, she with her right. As
they are drinking, Pegeen Mike comes in with a milk can and stands aghast.

They all spring away from Christy. He goes down left. Widow Quin remains
seated.]

PEGEEN -- [angrily, to Sara.] -- What is it you're wanting?
SARA -- [twisting her apron.] -- An ounce of tobacco.

PEGEEN. Have you tuppence?
SARA. I've forgotten my purse.

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

WIDOW QUIN -- [insolently.] A penn'orth of starch.
PEGEEN -- [breaking out.] -- And you without a white shift or a shirt in your

whole family since the drying of the flood. I've no starch for the like of

• waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
• wedding [´wediŋ] n.婚礼，结婚 (初中英语单词)
• bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
• reward [ri´wɔ:d] n.&v.报答；报酬；奖赏 (初中英语单词)
• immense [i´mens] a.广大的，无限的 (初中英语单词)
• brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
• drunken [´drʌŋkən] a.喝醉的；常醉的 (初中英语单词)
• wealth [welθ] n.财富，财产 (初中英语单词)
• running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
• stolen [´stəulən] steal 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• priest [pri:st] n.教士；牧师；神父 (初中英语单词)
• ashamed [ə´ʃeimd] a.惭愧；不好意思 (初中英语单词)
• confess [kən´fes] vt.供认；坦白；承认 (初中英语单词)
• pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
• sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
• terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
• western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
• elaborate [i´læbərət, -reit] a.精心设计的 (初中英语单词)
• torment [´tɔ:ment] vt.(使)痛苦，折磨 (高中英语单词)
• decent [´di:sənt] a.体面的，正派的 (高中英语单词)
• clumsy [´klʌmzi] a.笨拙的；粗俗的 (高中英语单词)
• nostril [´nɔstril] n.鼻孔 (高中英语单词)
• treacherous [´tretʃərəs] a.虚伪的；不忠的 (高中英语单词)
• hearth [hɑ:θ] n.炉边；家庭(生活) (高中英语单词)
• confident [´kɔnfidənt] a.有信心的，自信的 (高中英语单词)
• counter [´kauntə] n.计算者；柜台；计算机 (高中英语单词)
• starch [stɑ:tʃ] n.淀粉 vt.给...上浆 (高中英语单词)
• parchment [´pɑ:tʃmənt] n.羊皮纸(文稿) (英语四级单词)
• drawing [´drɔ:iŋ] n.画图；制图；图样 (英语四级单词)
• rightly [´raitli] ad.正义地；正确地 (英语四级单词)
• protector [prə´tektə] n.保护者；防御者 (英语四级单词)
• flatten [´flætn] v.把...弄平；击倒 (英语四级单词)
• wedded [´wedid] a.(已)结婚的；献身的 (英语四级单词)
• dresser [´dresə] n.(剧院)服装员；碗柜 (英语四级单词)
• tumbler [´tʌmblə] n.杂技演员；不倒翁 (英语六级单词)
• holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
• innocently [´inəsntli] ad.天真地，单纯地 (英语六级单词)
• cracked [krækt] a.有裂缝的；碎的；粗哑 (英语六级单词)
• scythe [saið] n.长柄大镰刀 (英语六级单词)
• wanting [´wɔntiŋ, wɑ:n-] a.短缺的；不足的 (英语六级单词)