by J. M. Synge
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 you off?
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 ankles when the night is come.
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 leagu ing 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, followed by the WIDOW QUIN.)
SHAWN (to PEGEEN). I was passing below, and I seen your mountainy sheep eating cabbages in Jimmy’s field. Run up or they’ll be bursting surely.
PEGEEN. Oh, God mend them! (She puts a shawl over her head and runs out.)
CHRISTY (looking from one to the other. Still in high spirits). I’d best go to her aid maybe. I’m handy with ewes.
WIDOW QUIN (closing the door). She can do that much, and there is Shaneen has long speeches for to tell you now. (She sits down with an amused smile.)
SHAWN (taking something from his pocket and offering it to CHRISTY). Do you see that, mister?
CHRISTY (looking at it). The half of a ticket to the Western States!
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 dark.
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 clever fearless man the like of you dwelling in her house.
CHRISTY (almost pugnaciously). And you’d be using bribery for to banish me?
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 land. (He makes an eager sign to the WIDOW QUIN to come to help him.)
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 you now.
(CHRISTY beams with delight.)
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 movements 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 itself.
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 your answer when you have them tried.
CHRISTY (beaming, delighted with the clothes). I will then. I’d like herself to see me in them tweeds and hat. (He goes into room and shuts the door.)
SHAWN (in great anxiety). He’d like herself to see them. He’ll not leave us, Widow Quin. He’s a score of divils in him the way it’s well nigh certain he will wed Pegeen.
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 God-fearing, 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?
SHAWN (with astonishment). You?
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 wedding-ring I have, and the loan of a new suit, the way you’d have him decent on the wedding-day. 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. I’d give you ...
WIDOW QUIN. That’ll do so, and let you whisht, for he’s coming now again.
(CHRISTY comes in very natty in the new clothes. WIDOW QUIN goes to him admiringly.)
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 pity surely to have your like sailing from Mayo to the Western World.
CHRISTY (as proud as a peacock). I’m not going. If this is a poor place itself, I’ll make myself contented to be lodging here.
(WIDOW QUIN makes a sign to SHAWN to leave them.)
SHAWN. Well, I’m going measuring the race-course while the tide is low, so I’ll leave you the garments and my blessing for the sports to-day. God bless you! (He wriggles out.)
WIDOW QUIN (admiring CHRISTY). Well, you’re mighty spruce, young fellow. Sit down now while you’re quiet till you talk with me.
CHRISTY (swaggering). I’m going abroad on the hillside for to seek Pegeen.
WIDOW QUIN. You’ll have time and plenty for to seek Pegeen, and you heard me saying at the fall of night the two of us should be great company.
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 from the throne of light!
WIDOW QUIN (going over). What ails you?
CHRISTY. It’s the walking spirit of my murdered da?
WIDOW QUIN (looking out). Is it that tramper?
CHRISTY (wildly). Where’ll I hide my poor body from that ghost of hell?
(The door is pushed open, and old MAHON appears on threshold. CHRISTY darts in behind door.)
WIDOW QUIN (in great amusement). God save you, my poor man.
MAHON (gruffly). Did you see a young lad passing this way in the early morning or the fall of night?
WIDOW QUIN. You’re a queer kind to walk in not saluting at all.
MAHON. Did you see the young lad?
WIDOW QUIN (stiffly). What kind was he?
MAHON. An ugly young streeler with a murderous gob on him, and a little switch in his hand. I met a tramper seen him coming this way at the fall of night.
WIDOW QUIN. There’s harvest hundreds do be passing these days for the Sligo boat. For what is it you’re wanting him, my poor man?
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 wonder to think I’ve traced him ten days with that rent in my crown?
WIDOW QUIN (taking his head in both hands and examining it with extreme delight). That was a great blow. And who hit you? A robber maybe?
MAHON. It was my own son hit me, and he the divil a robber, or anything
else, but a dirty, stuttering lout.
WIDOW QUIN (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.
MAHON. Is it me?
WIDOW QUIN (amusing herself). Aye. And isn’t it great shame when the old and hardened do torment the young?
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.
WIDOW QUIN. Not working at all?
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 a 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 maybe?
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!
WIDOW QUIN. It was drink maybe?
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 had to send him in the ass cart to the females’ nurse.
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 a roar at him, and call him the looney of Mahon’s.
WIDOW QUIN. I’d give the world and all to see the like of him. What kind was he?
MAHON. A small low fellow.
WIDOW QUIN. And dark?
MAHON. Dark and dirty.
WIDOW QUIN (considering). I’m thinking I seen him.
MAHON (eagerly). An ugly young blackguard.
WIDOW QUIN. A hideous, fearful villain, and the spit of you.
MAHON. What way is he fled?
WIDOW QUIN. Gone over the hills to catch a coasting steamer to the north or south.
MAHON. Could I pull up on him now?
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 then follow on the roadway to the north and east.
(MAHON goes abruptly.)
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 is cowering in terror, for a moment, then she bursts into a laugh.)
WIDOW QUIN. Well, you’re the walking Playboy of the Western World, and that’s the poor man you had divided to his breeches belt.
CHRISTY (looking out: then, to her). What’ll Pegeen say when she hears that story? What’ll she be saying to me now?
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 weasel 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 fling upon the sea ...
WIDOW QUIN (more soberly). There’s talking for a man’s one only son.
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 high wave to wash him from the world.
WIDOW QUIN (scandalized). Have you no shame? (Putting her hand on his shoulder and turning him round) What ails you? Near crying, is it?
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 have, urging on a hill.
WIDOW QUIN. There’s poetry talk for a girl you’d see itching and scratching, and she with a stale stink of poteen on her from selling in the shop.
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, andIakind 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 hairy fellows are drifting beyond, and myself long years living alone.
CHRISTY (interested). You’re like me, so.
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.
CHRISTY. And what would I be doing if I left Pegeen?
WIDOW QUIN. I’ve nice jobs you could be doing, gathering shells to make a whitewash for our hut within, building up a little goose-house, 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 and me will have great times whispering and hugging....
VOICES (outside, calling far away). Christy! Christy Mahon! Christy!
CHRISTY. Is it Pegeen Mike?
WIDOW QUIN. It’s the young girls, I’m thinking, coming to bring you to the sports below, and what is it you’ll have me to tell them now?
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 Son.
WIDOW QUIN. There’s praying.
VOICES (nearer). Christy! Christy Mahon!
Christy (with agitation). They’re coming. Will you swear to aid and save me for the love of Christ?
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?
CHRISTY. I will, by the elements and stars of night.
WIDOW QUIN. Then we’ll not say a word of the old fellow, the way Pegeen won’t know your sto
ry till the end of time.
CHRISTY. And if he chances to return again?
WIDOW QUIN. We’ll swear he’s a maniac and not your da. I could take an oath I seen him raving on the sands to-day.
(Girls run in.)
SUSAN. Come on to the sports below. Pegeen says you’re to come.
SARA TANSEY. The lepping’s beginning, and we’ve a jockey’s suit to fit upon you for the mule race on the sands below.
HONOR. Come on, will you?
CHRISTY. I will then if Pegeen’s beyond.
SARA TANSEY. She’s in the boreen making game of Shaneen Keogh.
CHRISTY. Then I’ll be going to her now. (He runs out followed by the girls.)
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.)
ACT THREE
SCENE, as before. Later in the day. JIMMY comes in, slightly drunk.
JIMMY (calls). Pegeen! (Crosses to inner door) Pegeen Mike! (Comes back again into the room) Pegeen! (PHILLY comes in in the same state.) (To PHILLY) Did you see herself?
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 none to heed you?
JIMMY. It’s little wonder she’d be fussy, and he after bringing bankrupt ruin on the roulette man, and the trick-o‘-the-loop man, and breaking the nose of the cockshot-man, and winning all in the sports below, racing, lepping, dancing, and the Lord knows what! He’s right luck, I’m telling you.