The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge (best value ebook reader txt) 📖

we’ll have right sport, before night will fall. [He goes out.]

JIMMY. Well, Philly’s a conceited and foolish man. How could that madman have his senses and his brain-pan slit? I’ll go after them and see him turn on Philly now. [He goes; Widow Quin hides poteen behind counter. Then hubbub outside.]

VOICES. There you are! Good jumper! Grand lepper! Darlint boy! He’s the racer! Bear him on, will you! [Christy comes in, in Jockey’s dress, with Pegeen Mike, Sara, and other girls, and men.]

PEGEEN — [to crowd.] — Go on now and don’t destroy him and he drenching with sweat. Go along, I’m saying, and have your tug-of-warring till he’s dried his skin.

CROWD. Here’s his prizes! A bagpipes! A fiddle was played by a poet in the years gone by! A flat and three-thorned blackthorn would lick the scholars out of Dublin town!

CHRISTY — [taking prizes from the men.] — Thank you kindly, the lot of you. But you’d say it was little only I did this day if you’d seen me a while since striking my one single blow.

TOWN CRIER — [outside, ringing a bell.] — Take notice, last event of this day! Tug-of-warring on the green below! Come on, the lot of you! Great achievements for all Mayo men!

PEGEEN. Go on, and leave him for to rest and dry. Go on, I tell you, for he’ll do no more. (She hustles crowd out; Widow Quin following them.)

MEN — [going.] — Come on then. Good luck for the while!

PEGEEN — [radiantly, wiping his face with her shawl.] — Well, you’re the lad, and you’ll have great times from this out when you could win that wealth of prizes, and you sweating in the heat of noon!

CHRISTY — [looking at her with delight.] — I’ll have great times if I win the crowning prize I’m seeking now, and that’s your promise that you’ll wed me in a fortnight, when our banns is called.

PEGEEN — [backing away from him.] — You’ve right daring to go ask me that, when all knows you’ll be starting to some girl in your own townland, when your father’s rotten in four months, or five.

CHRISTY — [indignantly.] Starting from you, is it? (He follows her.) I will not, then, and when the airs is warming in four months, or five, it’s then yourself and me should be pacing Neifin in the dews of night, the times sweet smells do be rising, and you’d see a little shiny new moon, maybe, sinking on the hills.

PEGEEN [looking at him playfully.] — And it’s that kind of a poacher’s love you’d make, Christy Mahon, on the sides of Neifin, when the night is down?

CHRISTY. It’s little you’ll think if my love’s a poacher’s, or an earl’s itself, when you’ll feel my two hands stretched around you, and I squeezing kisses on your puckered lips, till I’d feel a kind of pity for the Lord God is all ages sitting lonesome in his golden chair.

PEGEEN. That’ll be right fun, Christy Mahon, and any girl would walk her heart out before she’d meet a young man was your like for eloquence, or talk, at all.

CHRISTY — [encouraged.] Let you wait, to hear me talking, till we’re astray in Erris, when Good Friday’s by, drinking a sup from a well, and making mighty kisses with our wetted mouths, or gaming in a gap or sunshine, with yourself stretched back unto your necklace, in the flowers of the earth.

PEGEEN — [in a lower voice, moved by his tone.] — I’d be nice so, is it?

CHRISTY — [with rapture.] — If the mitred bishops seen you that time, they’d be the like of the holy prophets, I’m thinking, do be straining the bars of Paradise to lay eyes on the Lady Helen of Troy, and she abroad, pacing back and forward, with a nosegay in her golden shawl.

PEGEEN — [with real tenderness.] — And what is it I have, Christy Mahon, to make me fitting entertainment for the like of you, that has such poet’s talking, and such bravery of heart?

CHRISTY — [in a low voice.] — Isn’t there the light of seven heavens in your heart alone, the way you’ll be an angel’s lamp to me from this out, and I abroad in the darkness, spearing salmons in the Owen, or the Carrowmore?

PEGEEN. If I was your wife, I’d be along with you those nights, Christy Mahon, the way you’d see I was a great hand at coaxing bailiffs, or coining funny nick-names for the stars of night.

CHRISTY. You, is it? Taking your death in the hailstones, or in the fogs of dawn.

PEGEEN. Yourself and me would shelter easy in a narrow bush, (with a qualm of dread) but we’re only talking, maybe, for this would be a poor, thatched place to hold a fine lad is the like of you.

CHRISTY — [putting his arm round her.] — If I wasn’t a good Christian, it’s on my naked knees I’d be saying my prayers and paters to every jackstraw you have roofing your head, and every stony pebble is paving the laneway to your door.

PEGEEN — [radiantly.] If that’s the truth, I’ll be burning candles from this out to the miracles of God that have brought you from the south to-day, and I, with my gowns bought ready, the way that I can wed you, and not wait at all.

CHRISTY. It’s miracles, and that’s the truth. Me there toiling a long while, and walking a long while, not knowing at all I was drawing all times nearer to this holy day.

PEGEEN. And myself, a girl, was tempted often to go sailing the seas till I’d marry a Jew-man, with ten kegs of gold, and I not knowing at all there was the like of you drawing nearer, like the stars of God.

CHRISTY. And to think I’m long years hearing women talking that talk, to all bloody fools, and this the first time I’ve heard the like of your voice talking sweetly for my own delight.

PEGEEN. And to think it’s me is talking sweetly, Christy Mahon, and I the fright of seven townlands for my biting tongue. Well, the heart’s a wonder; and, I’m thinking, there won’t be our like in Mayo, for gallant lovers, from this hour, to-day. (Drunken singing is heard outside.) There’s my father coming from the wake, and when he’s had his sleep we’ll tell him, for he’s peaceful then. [They separate.]

MICHAEL — [singing outside] — The jailor and the turnkey They quickly ran us down, And brought us back as prisoners Once more to Cavan town. [He comes in supported by Shawn.] There we lay bewailing All in a prison bound… . [He sees Christy. Goes and shakes him drunkenly by the hand, while Pegeen and Shawn talk on the left.]

MICHAEL — [to Christy.] — The blessing of God and the holy angels on your head, young fellow. I hear tell you’re after winning all in the sports below; and wasn’t it a shame I didn’t bear you along with me to Kate Cassidy’s wake, a fine, stout lad, the like of you, for you’d never see the match of it for flows of drink, the way when we sunk her bones at noonday in her narrow grave, there were five men, aye, and six men, stretched out retching speechless on the holy stones.

CHRISTY — [uneasily, watching Pegeen.] — Is that the truth?

MICHAEL. It is then, and aren’t you a louty schemer to go burying your poor father unbeknownst when you’d a right to throw him on the crupper of a Kerry mule and drive him westwards, like holy Joseph in the days gone by, the way we could have given him a decent burial, and not have him rotting beyond, and not a Christian drinking a smart drop to the glory of his soul?

CHRISTY — [gruffly.] It’s well enough he’s lying, for the likes of him.

MICHAEL — [slapping him on the back.] — Well, aren’t you a hardened slayer? It’ll be a poor thing for the household man where you go sniffing for a female wife; and (pointing to Shawn) look beyond at that shy and decent Christian I have chosen for my daughter’s hand, and I after getting the gilded dispensation this day for to wed them now.

CHRISTY. And you’ll be wedding them this day, is it?

MICHAEL — [drawing himself up.] — Aye. Are you thinking, if I’m drunk itself, I’d leave my daughter living single with a little frisky rascal is the like of you?

PEGEEN — [breaking away from Shawn.] — Is it the truth the dispensation’s come?

MICHAEL — [triumphantly.] Father Reilly’s after reading it in gallous Latin, and “It’s come in the nick of time,” says he; “so I’ll wed them in a hurry, dreading that young gaffer who’d capsize the stars.”

PEGEEN — [fiercely.] He’s missed his nick of time, for it’s that lad, Christy Mahon, that I’m wedding now.

MICHAEL — [loudly with horror.] — You’d be making him a son to me, and he wet and crusted with his father’s blood?

PEGEEN. Aye. Wouldn’t it be a bitter thing for a girl to go marrying the like of Shaneen, and he a middling kind of a scarecrow, with no savagery or fine words in him at all?

MICHAEL — [gasping and sinking on a chair.] — Oh, aren’t you a heathen daughter to go shaking the fat of my heart, and I swamped and drownded with the weight of drink? Would you have them turning on me the way that I’d be roaring to the dawn of day with the wind upon my heart? Have you not a word to aid me, Shaneen? Are you not jealous at all?

SHANEEN — [In great misery.] — I’d be afeard to be jealous of a man did slay his da.

PEGEEN. Well, it’d be a poor thing to go marrying your like. I’m seeing there’s a world of peril for an orphan girl, and isn’t it a great blessing I didn’t wed you, before himself came walking from the west or south?

SHAWN. It’s a queer story you’d go picking a dirty tramp up from the highways of the world.

PEGEEN — [playfully.] And you think you’re a likely beau to go straying along with, the shiny Sundays of the opening year, when it’s sooner on a bullock’s liver you’d put a poor girl thinking than on the lily or the rose?

SHAWN. And have you no mind of my weight of passion, and the holy dispensation, and the drift of heifers I am giving, and the golden ring?

PEGEEN. I’m thinking you’re too fine for the like of me, Shawn Keogh of Killakeen, and let you go off till you’d find a radiant lady with droves of bullocks on the plains of Meath, and herself bedizened in the diamond jewelleries of Pharaoh’s ma. That’d be your match, Shaneen. So God save you now! [She retreats behind Christy.]

SHAWN. Won’t you hear me telling you… ?

CHRISTY — [with ferocity.] — Take yourself from this, young fellow, or I’ll maybe add a murder to my deeds to-day.

MICHAEL — [springing up with a shriek.] — Murder is it? Is it mad yous are? Would you go making murder in this place, and it piled with poteen for our drink tonight? Go on to the foreshore if it’s fighting you want, where the rising tide will wash all traces from the memory of man. [Pushing Shawn towards Christy.]

SHAWN — [shaking himself free, and getting behind Michael.] — I’ll not fight him, Michael James. I’d liefer live a bachelor, simmering in passions to the end of time, than face a lepping savage the like of him has descended from the Lord knows where. Strike him yourself, Michael