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belt), the way they'd set their eyes upon a gallantorphan 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.] -- Cod 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 -- [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 a 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

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 may be?
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 rottenstomach, 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, fearfulvillain, 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 weazel 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 -- [scandalised.] 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 love-light 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, and I a kind 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 story 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. 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.]

CURTAIN
ACT III.

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.
PHILLY. If he has, he'll be rightly hobbled yet, and he not able to say ten

words without making a brag of the way he killed his father, and the great
blow he hit with the loy.

JIMMY. A man can't hang by his own informing, and his father should be rotten
by now. [Old Mahon passes window slowly.]

PHILLY. Supposing a man's digging spuds in that field with a long spade, and
supposing he flings up the two halves of that skull, what'll be said then in

the papers and the courts of law?
JIMMY. They'd say it was an old Dane, maybe, was drowned in the flood. (Old

Mahon comes in and sits down near door listening.) Did you never hear tell of
the skulls they have in the city of Dublin, ranged out like blue jugs in a

cabin of Connaught?
PHILLY. And you believe that?

JIMMY -- [pugnaciously.] Didn't a lad see them and he after coming from
harvesting in the Liverpool boat? "They have them there," says he, "making a

show of the great people there was one time walking the world. White skulls
and black skulls and yellow skulls, and some with full teeth, and some haven't

only but one."


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