by J. M. Synge
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 bloody knives 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 comer 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 the 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 dung-pit 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.
SHAWN. Didn’t I say it was Father Reilly ...
PEGEEN. Go on, then, to Father Reilly (in a jeering tone), and let him put you in the holy brotherhoods, and leave that lad to me.
SHAWN. If I meet the Widow Quin ...
PEGEEN. Go on, I’m saying, and don’t be waking this place with your noise. (She hustles him out and bolts the door.) That lad would wear the spirits from the saints of peace. (Bustles about, then takes off her apron and pins it up in the window as a blind. CHRISTY watching her timidly. Then she comes to him and speaks with bland good-humour.) Let you stretch out now by the fire, young fellow. You should be destroyed travelling.
CHRISTY (shyly again, drawing off his boots). I’m tired, surely, walking wild eleven days, and waking fearful in the night. (He holds up one of his feet, feeling his blisters, and looking at them with compassion.)
PEGEEN (standing beside him, watching him with delight). You should have had great people in your family, I’m thinking, with the little, small feet you have, and you with a kind of a quality name, the like of what you’d find on the great powers and potentates of France and Spain.
CHRISTY (with pride). We were great surely, with wide and windy acres of rich Munster land.
PEGEEN. Wasn’t I telling you, and you a fine, handsome young fellow with a noble brow?
CHRISTY (with a flash of delighted surprise). Is it me?
PEGEEN. Aye. Did you never hear that from the young girls where you come from in the west or south?
CHRISTY (with venom). I did not then. Oh, they’re bloddy liars in the naked parish where I grew a man.
PEGEEN. If they are itself, you’ve heard it these days, I’m thinking, and you walking the world telling out your story to young girls or old.
CHRISTY. I’ve told my story no place till this night, Pegeen Mike, and it’s foolish I was here, maybe, to be talking free, but you’re decent people, I’m thinking, and yourself a kindly woman, the way I wasn’t fearing you at all.
PEGEEN (filling a sack with straw). You’ve said the like of that, maybe, in every cot and cabin where you’ve met a young girl on your way.
CHRISTY (going over to her, gradually raising his voice). I’ve said it nowhere till this night, I’m telling you, for I’ve seen none the like of you the eleven long days I am walking the world, looking over a low ditch or a high ditch on my north or my south, into stony scattered fields, or scribes of bog, where you’d see young, limber girls, and fine prancing women making laughter with the men.
PEGEEN. If you weren’t destroyed travelling, you’d have as much talk and streeleen, I’m thinking, as Owen Roe O‘Sullivan or the poets of the Dingle Bay, and I’ve heard all times it’s the poets are your like, fine fiery fellows with great rages when their temper’s roused.
CHRISTY (drawing a little nearer to her). You’ve a power of rings, God bless you, and would there be any offence if I was asking are you single now?
PEGEEN. What would I want wedding so young?
CHRISTY (with relief). We’re alike, so.
PEGEEN (she puts sack on settle and beats it up). I never killed my father. I’d be afeard to do that, except I was the like of yourself with blind rages tearing me within, for I’m thinking you should have had great tussling w
hen the end was come.
CHRISTY (expanding with delight at the first confidential talk he has ever had with a woman). We had not then. It was a hard woman was come over the hill, and if he was always a crusty kind when he’d a hard woman setting him on, not the divil himself or his four fathers could put up with him at all.
PEGEEN (with curiosity). And isn’t it a great wonder that one wasn’t fearing you?
CHRISTY (very confidentially). Up to the day I killed my father, there wasn’t a person in Ireland knew the kind I was, and I there drinking, waking, eating, sleeping, a quiet, simple poor fellow with no man giving me heed.
PEGEEN (getting a quilt out of the cupboard and putting it on the sack). It was the girls were giving you heed maybe, and I’m thinking it’s most conceit you’d have to be gaming with their like.
CHRISTY (shaking his head, with simplicity). Not the girls itself, and I won’t tell you a lie. There wasn’t anyone heeding me in that place saving only the dumb beasts of the field. (He sits down at fire.)
PEGEEN (with disappointment). And I thinking you should have been living the like of a king of Norway or the Eastern world. (She comes and sits beside him after placing bread and mug ofmilk on the table.)
CHRISTY (laughing piteously). The like of a king, is it? And I after toiling, moiling, digging, dodging from the dawn till dusk with never a sight of joy or sport saving only when I’d be abroad in the dark night poaching rabbits on hills, for I was a divil to poach, God forgive me, (very naïvely) and I near got six months for going with a dung fork and stabbing a fish.
PEGEEN. And it’s that you’d call sport, is it, to be abroad in the darkness with yourself alone?
CHRISTY. I did, God help me, and there I’d be as happy as the sunshine of St. Martin’s Day, watching the light passing the north or the patches of fog, till I’d hear a rabbit starting to screech and I’d go running in the furze. Then when I’d my full share I’d come walking down where you’d see the ducks and geese stretched sleeping on the highway of the road, and before I’d pass the dunghill, I’d hear himself snoring out, a loud lonesome snore he’d be making all times, the while he was sleeping, and he a man’d be raging all times, the while he was waking, like a gaudy officer you’d hear cursing and damning and swearing oaths.
PEGEEN. Providence and Mercy, spare us all!
CHRISTY. It’s that you’d say surely if you seen him and he after drinking for weeks, rising up in the red dawn, or before it maybe, and going out into the yard as naked as an ash tree in the moon of May, and shying clods against the visage of the stars till he’d put the fear of death into the banbhs and the screeching sows.
PEGEEN. I’d be well-nigh afeard of that lad myself, I’m thinking. And there was no one in it but the two of you alone?
CHRISTY. The divil a one, though he’d sons and daughters walking all great states and territories of the world, and not a one of them, to this day, but would say their seven curses on him, and they rousing up to let a cough or sneeze, maybe, in the deadness of the night.
PEGEEN (nodding her head). Well, you should have been a queer lot. I never cursed my father the like of that, though I’m twenty and more years of age.
CHRISTY. Then you’d have cursed mine, I’m telling you, and he a man never gave peace to any, saving when he’d get two months or three, or be locked in the asylums for battering peelers or as saulting men (with depression) the way it was a bitter life he led me till I did up a Tuesday and halve his skull.
PEGEEN (putting her hand on his shoulder). Well, you’ll have peace in this place, Christy Mahon, and none to trouble you, and it’s near time a fine lad like you should have your good share of the earth.
CHRISTY. It’s time surely, and I a seemly fellow with great strength in me and bravery of ...
(Someone knocks.)
CHRISTY (clinging to PEGEEN). Oh, glory! it’s late for knocking, and this last while I’m in terror of the peelers, and the walking dead.
(Knocking again.)
PEGEEN. Who’s there?
VOICE (outside). Me.
PEGEEN. Who’s me?
VOICE. The Widow Quin.
PEGEEN (jumping up and giving him the bread and milk). Go on now with your supper, and let on to be sleepy, for if she found you were such a warrant to talk, she’d be stringing gabble till the dawn of day. (He takes bread and sits shyly with his back to the door.)
PEGEEN (opening door, with temper). What ails you, or what is it you’re wanting at this hour of the night?
WIDOW QUIN (coming in a step and peering at CHRISTY.) I’m after meeting Shawn Keogh and Father Reilly below, who told me of your curiosity man, and they fearing by this time he was maybe roaring, romping on your hands with drink.
PEGEEN (pointing to CHRISTY). Look now is he roaring, and he stretched away drowsy with his supper and his mug of milk. Walk down and tell that to Father Reilly and to Shaneen Keogh.
WIDOW QUIN (coming forward). I’ll not see them again, for I’ve their word to lead that lad forward for to lodge with me.
PEGEEN (in blank amazement). This night, is it?
WIDOW QUIN (going over). This night. “It isn’t fitting,” says the priesteen, “to have his likeness lodging with an orphaned girl.” (To CHRISTY) God save you, mister!
CHRISTY (shyly). God save you kindly.
WIDOW QUIN (looking at him with half-amazed curiosity). Well, aren’t you a little smiling fellow? It should have been great and bitter torments did rouse your spirits to a deed of blood.
CHRISTY (doubtfully). It should, maybe.
WIDOW QUIN. It’s more than “maybe” I’m saying, and it’d soften my heart to see you sitting so simple with your cup and cake, and you fitter to be saying your catechism than slaying your da.
PEGEEN (at counter, washing glasses). There’s talking when any’d see he’s fit to be holding his head high with the wonders of the world. Walk on from this, for I’ll not have him tormented and he destroyed travelling since Tuesday was a week.
WIDOW QUIN (peacefully). We’ll be walking surely when his supper’s done, and you’ll find we’re great company, young fellow, when it’s of the like of you and me you’d hear the penny poets singing in an August Fair.
CHRISTY (innocently). Did you kill your father?
PEGEEN (contemptuously). She did not. She hit himself with a worn pick, and the rusted poison did corrode his blood the way he never overed it, and died after. That was a sneaky kind of murder did win small glory with the boys itself. (She crosses to CHRISTY’S left.)
WIDOW QUIN (with good-humour). If it didn‘t, maybe all knows a widow woman has buried her children and destroyed her man is a wiser comrade for a young lad than a girl, the like of you, who’d go helter-skeltering after any man would let you a wink upon the road.
PEGEEN (breaking out into wild rage). And you’ll say that, Widow Quin, and you gasping with the rage you had racing the hill beyond to look on his face.
WIDOW QUIN (laughing derisively). Me, is it? Well, Father Reilly has cuteness to divide you now. (She pulls CHRISTY up.) There’s great temptation in a man did slay his da, and we’d best be going, young fellow; so rise up and come with me.
PEGEEN (seizing his arm). He’ll not stir. He’s pot-boy in this place, and I’ll not have him stolen off and kidnabbed while himself’s abroad.
WIDOW QUIN. It’d be a crazy pot-boy’d lodge him in the shebeen where he works by day, so you’d have a right to come on, young fellow, till you see my little houseen, a perch off on the rising hill.
PEGEEN. Wait till morning, Christy Mahon. Wait till you lay eyes on her leaky thatch is growing more pasture for her buck goat than her square of fields, and she without a tramp itself to keep in order her place at all.
WIDOW QUIN. When you see me contriving in my little gardens, Christy Mahon, you’ll swear the Lord God formed me to be living lone, and that there isn’t my match in Mayo for thatching, or mowing, or shearing a sheep.
PEGEEN (with noisy scorn). It’s true the Lord God formed
you to contrive indeed. Doesn’t the world know you reared a black lamb at your own breast, so that the Lord Bishop of Connaught felt the elements of a Christian, and he eating it after in a kidney stew? Doesn’t the world know you’ve been seen shaving the foxy skipper from France for a threepenny bit and a sop of grass tobacco would wring the liver from a mountain goat you’d meet leaping the hills?
WIDOW QUIN (with amusement). Do you hear her now, young fellow? Do you hear the way she’ll be rating at your own self when a week is by?
PEGEEN (to CHRISTY). Don’t heed her. Tell her to go into her pigsty and not plague us here.
WIDOW QUIN. I’m going; but he’ll come with me.
PEGEEN (shaking him). Are you dumb, young fellow?
CHRISTY (timidly, to WIDOW QUIN). God increase you; but I’m pot-boy in this place, and it’s here I’d liefer stay.
PEGEEN (triumphantly). Now you have heard him, and go on from this.
WIDOW QUIN (looking round the room). It’s lonesome this hour crossing the hill, and if he won’t come along with me, I’d have a right maybe to stop this night with yourselves. Let me stretch out on the settle, Pegeen Mike; and himself can lie by the hearth.
PEGEEN (short and fiercely). Faith, I won’t. Quit off or I will send you now.
WIDOW QUIN (gathering her shawl up). Well, it’s a terror to be aged a score. (To CHRISTY) God bless you now, young fellow, and let you be wary, or there’s right torment will await you here if you go romancing with her like, and she waiting only, as they bade me say, on a sheepskin parchment to be wed with Shawn Keogh of Killakeen.
CHRISTY (going to PEGEEN as she bolts the door). What’s that she’s after saying?
PEGEEN. Lies and blather, you’ve no call to mind. Well, isn’t Shawn Keogh an impudent fellow to send up spying on me? Wait till I lay hands on him. Let him wait, I’m saying.
CHRISTY. And you’re not wedding him at all?
PEGEEN. I wouldn’t wed him if a bishop came walking for to join us here.
CHRISTY. That God in glory may be thanked for that.