SCENE: _The same. Early morning. Sarah is washing her face in an old
bucket; then plaits her hair. Michael is tidying himself also. Mary
Byrne is asleep against the ditch._
SARAH
_to Michael, with pleased excitement._—Go over, now, to the bundle
beyond, and you’ll find a kind of a red handkerchief to put upon your
neck, and a green one for myself.
MICHAEL
_getting them._—You’re after spending more money on the like of them.
Well, it’s a power we’re losing this time, and we not gaining a thing
at all. _(With the handkerchief.)_ Is it them two?
SARAH
It is, Michael. _(She takes one of them.)_ Let you tackle that one
round under your chin; and let you not forget to take your hat from
your head when we go up into the church. I asked Biddy Flynn below,
that’s after marrying her second man, and she told me it’s the like of
that they do.
[_Mary yawns, and turns over in her sleep._
SARAH
_with anxiety._—There she is waking up on us, and I thinking we’d have
the job done before she’d know of it at all.
MICHAEL
She’ll be crying out now, and making game of us, and saying it’s fools
we are surely.
SARAH
I’ll send her to sleep again, or get her out of it one way or another;
for it’d be a bad case to have a divil’s scholar the like of her
turning the priest against us maybe with her godless talk.
MARY
_waking up, and looking at them with curiosity, blandly._—That’s fine
things you have on you, Sarah Casey; and it’s a great stir you’re
making this day, washing your face. I’m that used to the hammer, I
wouldn’t hear it at all, but washing is a rare thing, and you’re after
waking me up, and I having a great sleep in the sun.
[_She looks around cautiously at the bundle in which she has hidden the
bottles._
SARAH
_coaxingly._—Let you stretch out again for a sleep, Mary Byrne, for
it’ll be a middling time yet before we go to the fair.
MARY
_with suspicion._—That’s a sweet tongue you have, Sarah Casey; but if
sleep’s a grand thing, it’s a grand thing to be waking up a day the
like of this, when there’s a warm sun in it, and a kind air, and you’ll
hear the cuckoos singing and crying out on the top of the hills.
SARAH
If it’s that gay you are, you’d have a right to walk down and see would
you get a few halfpence from the rich men do be driving early to the
fair.
MARY
When rich men do be driving early, it’s queer tempers they have, the
Lord forgive them; the way it’s little but bad words and swearing out
you’d get from them all.
SARAH
_losing her temper and breaking out fiercely._—Then if you’ll neither
beg nor sleep, let you walk off from this place where you’re not
wanted, and not have us waiting for you maybe at the turn of day.
MARY
_rather uneasy, turning to Michael._—God help our spirits, Michael;
there she is again rousing cranky from the break of dawn. Oh! isn’t she
a terror since the moon did change? _(She gets up slowly.)_ And I’d
best be going forward to sell the gallon can.
[_She goes over and takes up the bundle._
SARAH
_crying out angrily._—Leave that down, Mary Byrne. Oh! aren’t you the
scorn of women to think that you’d have that drouth and roguery on you
that you’d go drinking the can and the dew not dried from the grass?
MARY
_in a feigned tone of pacification, with the bundle still in her
hand._—It’s not a drouth but a heartburn I have this day, Sarah Casey,
so I’m going down to cool my gullet at the blessed well; and I’ll sell
the can to the parson’s daughter below, a harmless poor creature would
fill your hand with shillings for a brace of lies.
SARAH
Leave down the tin can, Mary Byrne, for I hear the drouth upon your
tongue to-day.
MARY
There’s not a drink-house from this place to the fair, Sarah Casey; the
way you’ll find me below with the full price, and not a farthing gone.
_[She turns to go off left._
SARAH
_jumping up, and picking up the hammer threateningly._—Put down that
can, I’m saying.
MARY
_looking at her for a moment in terror, and putting down the bundle in
the ditch._—Is it raving mad you’re going, Sarah Casey, and you the
pride of women to destroy the world?
SARAH
_going up to her, and giving her a push off left._—I’ll show you if
it’s raving mad I am. Go on from this place, I’m saying, and be wary
now.
MARY
_turning back after her._—If I go, I’ll be telling old and young you’re
a weathered heathen savage, Sarah Casey, the one did put down a head of
the parson’s cabbage to boil in the pot with your clothes _(the Priest
comes in behind her, on the left, and listens)_, and quenched the
flaming candles on the throne of God the time your shadow fell within
the pillars of the chapel door.
[_Sarah turns on her, and she springs round nearly into the Priest’s
arms. When she sees him, she claps her shawl over her mouth, and goes
up towards the ditch, laughing to herself._
PRIEST
_going to Sarah, half terrified at the language that he has
heard._—Well, aren’t you a fearful lot? I’m thinking it’s only humbug
you were making at the fall of night, and you won’t need me at all.
SARAH
_with anger still in her voice._—Humbug is it! Would you be turning
back upon your spoken promise in the face of God?
PRIEST
_dubiously._—I’m thinking you were never christened, Sarah Casey; and
it would be a queer job to go dealing Christian sacraments unto the
like of you. _(Persuasively feeling in his pocket.)_ So it would be
best, maybe, I’d give you a shilling for to drink my health, and let
you walk on, and not trouble me at all.
SARAH
That’s your talking, is it? If you don’t stand to your spoken word,
holy father, I’ll make my own complaint to the mitred bishop in the
face of all.
PRIEST
You’d do that!
SARAH
I would surely, holy father, if I walked to the city of Dublin with
blood and blisters on my naked feet.
PRIEST
_uneasily scratching his ear._—I wish this day was done, Sarah Casey;
for I’m thinking it’s a risky thing getting mixed up in any matters
with the like of you.
SARAH
Be hasty then, and you’ll have us done with before you’d think at all.
PRIEST
_giving in._—Well, maybe it’s right you are, and let you come up to the
chapel when you see me looking from the door.
[_He goes up into the chapel._
SARAH
_calling after him._—We will, and God preserve you, holy father.
MARY
_coming down to them, speaking with amazement and consternation, but
without anger._—Going to the chapel! It’s at marriage you’re fooling
again, maybe? _(Sarah turns her back on her.)_ It was for that you were
washing your face, and you after sending me for porter at the fall of
night the way I’d drink a good half from the jug? _(Going round in
front of Sarah.)_ Is it at marriage you’re fooling again?
SARAH
_triumphantly._—It is, Mary Byrne. I’ll be married now in a short
while; and from this day there will no one have a right to call me a
dirty name and I selling cans in Wicklow or Wexford or the city of
Dublin itself.
MARY
_turning to Michael._—And it’s yourself is wedding her, Michael Byrne?
MICHAEL
_gloomily._—It is, God spare us.
MARY
_looks at Sarah for a moment, and then bursts out into a laugh of
derision._—Well, she’s a tight, hardy girl, and it’s no lie; but I
never knew till this day it was a black born fool I had for a son.
You’ll breed asses, I’ve heard them say, and poaching dogs, and
horses’d go licking the wind, but it’s a hard thing, God help me, to
breed sense in a son.
MICHAEL
_gloomily._—If I didn’t marry her, she’d be walking off to Jaunting Jim
maybe at the fall of night; and it’s well yourself knows there isn’t
the like of her for getting money and selling songs to the men.
MARY
And you’re thinking it’s paying gold to his reverence would make a
woman stop when she’s a mind to go?
SARAH
_angrily._—Let you not be destroying us with your talk when I’ve as
good a right to a decent marriage as any speckled female does be
sleeping in the black hovels above, would choke a mule.
MARY
_soothingly._—It’s as good a right you have surely, Sarah Casey, but
what good will it do? Is it putting that ring on your finger will keep
you from getting an aged woman and losing the fine face you have, or be
easing your pains, when it’s the grand ladies do be married in silk
dresses, with rings of gold, that do pass any woman with their share of
torment in the hour of birth, and do be paying the doctors in the city
of Dublin a great price at that time, the like of what you’d pay for a
good ass and a cart?
[_She sits down._
SARAH
_puzzled._—Is that the truth?
MARY
_pleased with the point she has made._—Wouldn’t any know it’s the
truth? Ah, it’s a few short years you are yet in the world, Sarah
Casey, and it’s little or nothing at all maybe you know about it.
SARAH
_vehement but uneasy._—What is it yourself knows of the fine ladies
when they wouldn’t let the like of you go near them at all?
MARY
If you do be drinking a little sup in one town and another town, it’s
soon you get great knowledge and a great sight into the world. You’ll
see men there, and women there, sitting up on the ends of barrels in
the dark night, and they making great talk would soon have the like of
you, Sarah Casey, as wise as a March hare.
MICHAEL
_to Sarah._—That’s the truth she’s saying, and maybe if you’ve sense in
you at all, you’d have a right still to leave your fooling, and not be
wasting our gold.
SARAH
_decisively._—If it’s wise or fool I am, I’ve made a good bargain and
I’ll stand to it now.
MARY
What is it he’s making you give?
MICHAEL
The ten shillings in gold, and the tin can is above tied in the sack.
MARY
_looking at the bundle with surprise and dread._—The bit of gold and
the tin can, is it?
MICHAEL
The half a sovereign, and the gallon can.
MARY
_scrambling to her feet quickly._—Well, I think I’ll be walking off the
road to the fair the way you won’t be destroying me going too fast on
the hills. _(She goes a few steps towards the left, then turns and
speaks to Sarah very persuasively._) Let you not take the can from the
sack, Sarah Casey; for the people is coming above would be making game
of you, and pointing their fingers if they seen you do the like of
that. Let you leave it safe in the bag, I’m saying, Sarah darling. It’s
that way will be best.
[_She goes towards left, and pauses for a moment, looking about her
with embarrassment._
MICHAEL
_in a low voice._—What ails her at all?
SARAH
_anxiously._—It’s real wicked she does be when you hear her speaking as
easy as that.
MARY
_to herself._—I’d be safer in the chapel, I’m thinking; for if she
caught me after on the road, maybe she would kill me then.
[_She comes hobbling back towards the right._
SARAH
Where is it you’re going? It isn’t that way we’ll be walking to the
fair.
MARY
I’m going up into the chapel to give you my blessing and hear the
priest saying his prayers. It’s a lonesome road is running below to
Greenane, and a woman would never know the things might happen her and
she walking single in a lonesome place.
[_As she reaches the chapel-gate, the Priest comes to it in his
surplice._
PRIEST
_crying out._—Come along now. It is the whole day you’d keep me here
saying my prayers, and I getting my death with not a bit in my stomach,
and my breakfast in ruins, and the Lord Bishop maybe driving on the
road to-day?
SARAH
We’re coming now, holy father.
PRIEST
Give me the bit of gold into my hand.
SARAH
It’s here, holy father.
[_She gives it to him. Michael takes the bundle from the ditch and
brings it over, standing a little behind Sarah. He feels the bundle,
and looks at Mary with a meaning look._
PRIEST
_looking at the gold._—It’s a good one, I’m thinking, wherever you got
it. And where is the can?
SARAH
_taking the bundle._—We have it here in a bit of clean sack, your
reverence. We tied it up in the inside of that to keep it from rusting
in the dews of night, and let you not open it now or you’ll have the
people making game of us and telling the story on us, east and west to
the butt of the hills.
PRIEST
_taking the bundle._—Give it here into my hand, Sarah Casey. What is it
any person would think of a tinker making a can.
[_He begins opening the bundle._
SARAH
It’s a fine can, your reverence. for if it’s poor simple people we are,
it’s fine cans we can make, and himself, God help him, is a great man
surely at the trade.
[_Priest opens the bundle; the three empty bottles fall out._
SARAH
Glory to the saints of joy!
PRIEST
Did ever any man see the like of that? To think you’d be putting deceit
on me, and telling lies to me, and I going to marry you for a little
sum wouldn’t marry a child.
SARAH
_crestfallen and astonished._—It’s the divil did it, your reverence,
and I wouldn’t tell you a lie. _(Raising her hands.)_ May the Lord
Almighty strike me dead if the divil isn’t after hooshing the tin can
from the bag.
PRIEST
_vehemently._—Go along now, and don’t be swearing your lies. Go along
now, and let you not be thinking I’m big fool enough to believe the
like of that, when it’s after selling it you are or making a swap for
drink of it, maybe, in the darkness of the night.
MARY
_in a peacemaking voice, putting her hand on the Priest’s left
arm._—She wouldn’t do the like of that, your reverence, when she hasn’t
a decent standing drouth on her at all; and she’s setting great store
on her marriage the way you’d have a right to be taking her easy, and
not minding the can. What differ would an empty can make with a fine,
rich, hardy man the like of you?
SARAH
_imploringly._—Marry us, your reverence, for the ten shillings in gold,
and we’ll make you a grand can in the evening—a can would be fit to
carry water for the holy man of God. Marry us now and I’ll be saying
fine prayers for you, morning and night, if it’d be raining itself, and
it’d be in two black pools I’d be setting my knees.
PRIEST
_loudly._—It’s a wicked, thieving, lying, scheming lot you are, the
pack of you. Let you walk off now and take every stinking rag you have
there from the ditch.
MARY
_putting her shawl over her head._—Marry her, your reverence, for the
love of God, for there’ll be queer doings below if you send her off the
like of that and she swearing crazy on the road.
SARAH
_angrily._—It’s the truth she’s saying; for it’s herself, I’m thinking,
is after swapping the tin can for a pint, the time she was raging mad
with the drouth, and ourselves above walking the hill.
MARY
_crying out with indignation._—Have you no shame, Sarah Casey, to tell
lies unto a holy man?
SARAH
_to Mary, working herself into a rage._—It’s making game of me you’d
be, and putting a fool’s head on me in the face of the world; but if
you were thinking to be mighty cute walking off, or going up to hide in
the church, I’ve got you this time, and you’ll not run from me now.
_She seizes up one of the bottles._
MARY
_hiding behind the priest._—Keep her off, your reverence, keep her off
for the love of the Almighty God. What at all would the Lord Bishop say
if he found me here lying with my head broken across, or the two of
yous maybe digging a bloody grave for me at the door of the church?
PRIEST
_waving Sarah off._—Go along, Sarah Casey. Would you be doing murder at
my feet? Go along from me now, and wasn’t I a big fool to have to do
with you when it’s nothing but distraction and torment I get from the
kindness of my heart?
SARAH
_shouting._—I’ve bet a power of strong lads east and west through the
world, and are you thinking I’d turn back from a priest? Leave the road
now, or maybe I would strike yourself.
PRIEST
You would not, Sarah Casey. I’ve no fear for the lot of you; but let
you walk off, I’m saying, and not be coming where you’ve no business,
and screeching tumult and murder at the doorway of the church.
SARAH
I’ll not go a step till I have her head broke, or till I’m wed with
himself. If you want to get shut of us, let you marry us now, for I’m
thinking the ten shillings in gold is a good price for the like of you,
and you near burst with the fat.
PRIEST
I wouldn’t have you coming in on me and soiling my church; for there’s
nothing at all, I’m thinking, would keep the like of you from hell.
_(He throws down the ten shillings on the ground.)_ Gather up your gold
now, and begone from my sight, for if ever I set an eye on you again
you’ll hear me telling the peelers who it was stole the black ass
belonging to Philly O’Cullen, and whose hay it is the grey ass does be
eating.
SARAH
You’d do that?
PRIEST
I would, surely.
SARAH
If you do, you’ll be getting all the tinkers from Wicklow and Wexford,
and the County Meath, to put up block tin in the place of glass to
shield your windows where you do be looking out and blinking at the
girls. It’s hard set you’ll be that time, I’m telling you, to fill the
depth of your belly the long days of Lent; for we wouldn’t leave a
laying pullet in your yard at all.
PRIEST
_losing his temper finally._—Go on, now, or I’ll send the Lords of
Justice a dated story of your villainies—burning, stealing, robbing,
raping to this mortal day. Go on now, I’m saying, if you’d run from
Kilmainham or the rope itself.
MICHAEL
_taking off his coat._—Is it run from the like of you, holy father? Go
up to your own shanty, or I’ll beat you with the ass’s reins till the
world would hear you roaring from this place to the coast of Clare.
PRIEST
Is it lift your hand upon myself when the Lord would blight your
members if you’d touch me now? Go on from this.
[_He gives him a shove._
MICHAEL
Blight me is it? Take it then, your reverence, and God help you so.
[_He runs at him with the reins._
PRIEST
_runs up to ditch crying out._—There are the peelers passing by the
grace of God—hey, below!
MARY
_clapping her hand over his mouth._—Knock him down on the road; they
didn’t hear him at all.
[_Michael pulls him down._
SARAH
Gag his jaws.
MARY
Stuff the sacking in his teeth.
[_They gag him with the sack that had the can in it._
SARAH
Tie the bag around his head, and if the peelers come, we’ll put him
head-first in the boghole is beyond the ditch.
[_They tie him up in some sacking._
MICHAEL
_to Mary._—Keep him quiet, and the rags tight on him for fear he’d
screech. _(He goes back to their camp.)_ Hurry with the things, Sarah
Casey. The peelers aren’t coming this way, and maybe we’ll get off from
them now.
[_They bundle the things together in wild haste, the priest wriggling
and struggling about on the ground, with old Mary trying to keep him
quiet._
MARY
_patting his head._—Be quiet, your reverence. What is it ails you, with
your wrigglings now? Is it choking maybe? _(She puts her hand under the
sack, and feels his mouth, patting him on the back.)_ It’s only letting
on you are, holy father, for your nose is blowing back and forward as
easy as an east wind on an April day. _(In a soothing voice.)_ There
now, holy father, let you stay easy, I’m telling you, and learn a
little sense and patience, the way you’ll not be so airy again going to
rob poor sinners of their scraps of gold. _(He gets quieter.)_ That’s a
good boy you are now, your reverence, and let you not be uneasy, for we
wouldn’t hurt you at all. It’s sick and sorry we are to tease you; but
what did you want meddling with the like of us, when it’s a long time
we are going our own ways—father and son, and his son after him, or
mother and daughter, and her own daughter again—and it’s little need we
ever had of going up into a church and swearing—I’m told there’s
swearing with it—a word no man would believe, or with drawing rings on
our fingers, would be cutting our skins maybe when we’d be taking the
ass from the shafts, and pulling the straps the time they’d be slippy
with going around beneath the heavens in rains falling.
MICHAEL
_who has finished bundling up the things, comes over to Sarah._—We’re
fixed now; and I have a mind to run him in a boghole the way he’ll not
be tattling to the peelers of our games to-day.
SARAH
You’d have a right too, I’m thinking.
MARY
_soothingly._—Let you not be rough with him, Sarah Casey, and he after
drinking his sup of porter with us at the fall of night. Maybe he’d
swear a mighty oath he wouldn’t harm us, and then we’d safer loose him;
for if we went to drown him, they’d maybe hang the batch of us, man and
child and woman, and the ass itself.
MICHAEL
What would he care for an oath?
MARY
Don’t you know his like do live in terror of the wrath of God?
_(Putting her mouth to the Priest’s ear in the sacking.)_ Would you
swear an oath, holy father, to leave us in our freedom, and not talk at
all? _(Priest nods in sacking.)_ Didn’t I tell you? Look at the poor
fellow nodding his head off in the bias of the sacks. Strip them off
from him, and he’ll be easy now.
MICHAEL
_as if speaking to a horse._—Hold up, holy father.
[_He pulls the sacking off, and shows the priest with his hair on end.
They free his mouth._
MARY
Hold him till he swears.
PRIEST
_in a faint voice._—I swear surely. If you let me go in peace, I’ll not
inform against you or say a thing at all, and may God forgive me for
giving heed unto your like to-day.
SARAH
_puts the ring on his finger._—There’s the ring, holy father, to keep
you minding of your oath until the end of time; for my heart’s scalded
with your fooling; and it’ll be a long day till I go making talk of
marriage or the like of that.
MARY
_complacently, standing up slowly._—She’s vexed now, your reverence;
and let you not mind her at all, for she’s right surely, and it’s
little need we ever had of the like of you to get us our bit to eat,
and our bit to drink, and our time of love when we were young men and
women, and were fine to look at.
MICHAEL
Hurry on now. He’s a great man to have kept us from fooling our gold;
and we’ll have a great time drinking that bit with the trampers on the
green of Clash.
[_They gather up their things. The priest stands up._
PRIEST
_lifting up his hand._—I’ve sworn not to call the hand of man upon your
crimes to-day; but I haven’t sworn I wouldn’t call the fire of heaven
from the hand of the Almighty God.
[_He begins saying a Latin malediction in a loud ecclesiastical voice._
MARY
There’s an old villain.
ALL
_together._—Run, run. Run for your lives.
[_They rush out, leaving the Priest master of the situation._
CURTAIN