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

beyond in the room? You’ll do that surely, for I’ve heard tell there’s a queer fellow above, going mad or getting his death, maybe, in the gripe of the ditch, so she’d be safer this night with a person here.

SHAWN — [with plaintive despair.] — I’m afeard of Father Reilly, I’m saying. Let you not be tempting me, and we near married itself.

PHILLY — [with cold contempt.] — Lock him in the west room. He’ll stay then and have no sin to be telling to the priest.

MICHAEL — [to Shawn, getting between him and the door.] — Go up now.

SHAWN — [at the top of his voice.] — Don’t stop me, Michael James. Let me out of the door, I’m saying, for the love of the Almighty God. Let me out (trying to dodge past him). Let me out of it, and may God grant you His indulgence in the hour of need.

MICHAEL — [loudly.] Stop your noising, and sit down by the hearth. [Gives him a push and goes to counter laughing.]

SHAWN — [turning back, wringing his hands.] — Oh, Father Reilly and the saints of God, where will I hide myself to-day? Oh, St. Joseph and St. Patrick and St. Brigid, and St. James, have mercy on me now! [Shawn turns round, sees door clear, and makes a rush for it.]

MICHAEL — [catching him by the coattail.] — You’d be going, is it?

SHAWN — [screaming.] Leave me go, Michael James, leave me go, you old Pagan, leave me go, or I’ll get the curse of the priests on you, and of the scarlet-coated bishops of the courts of Rome. [With a sudden movement he pulls himself out of his coat, and disappears out of the door, leaving his coat in Michael’s hands.]

MICHAEL — [turning round, and holding up coat.] — Well, there’s the coat of a Christian man. Oh, there’s sainted glory this day in the lonesome west; and by the will of God I’ve got you a decent man, Pegeen, you’ll have no call to be spying after if you’ve a score of young girls, maybe, weeding in your fields.

PEGEEN [taking up the defence of her property.] — What right have you to be making game of a poor fellow for minding the priest, when it’s your own the fault is, not paying a penny pot-boy to stand along with me and give me courage in the doing of my work? [She snaps the coat away from him, and goes behind counter with it.]

MICHAEL — [taken aback.] — Where would I get a pot-boy? Would you have me send the bell-man screaming in the streets of Castlebar?

SHAWN — [opening the door a chink and putting in his head, in a small voice.] — Michael James!

MICHAEL — [imitating him.] — What ails you?

SHAWN. The queer dying fellow’s beyond looking over the ditch. He’s come up, I’m thinking, stealing your hens. (Looks over his shoulder.) God help me, he’s following me now (he runs into room), and if he’s heard what I said, he’ll be having my life, and I going home lonesome in the darkness of the night. [For a perceptible moment they watch the door with curiosity. Some one coughs outside. Then Christy Mahon, a slight young man, comes in very tired and frightened and dirty.]

CHRISTY — [in a small voice.] — God save all here!

MEN. God save you kindly.

CHRISTY — [going to the counter.] — I’d trouble you for a glass of porter, woman of the house. [He puts down coin.]

PEGEEN — [serving him.] — You’re one of the tinkers, young fellow, is beyond camped in the glen?

CHRISTY. I am not; but I’m destroyed walking.

MICHAEL — [patronizingly.] Let you come up then to the fire. You’re looking famished with the cold.

CHRISTY. God reward you. (He takes up his glass and goes a little way across to the left, then stops and looks about him.) Is it often the police do be coming into this place, master of the house?

MICHAEL. If you’d come in better hours, you’d have seen “Licensed for the sale of Beer and Spirits, to be consumed on the premises,” written in white letters above the door, and what would the polis want spying on me, and not a decent house within four miles, the way every living Christian is a bona fide, saving one widow alone?

CHRISTY — [with relief.] — It’s a safe house, so. [He goes over to the fire, sighing and moaning. Then he sits down, putting his glass beside him and begins gnawing a turnip, too miserable to feel the others staring at him with curiosity.]

MICHAEL — [going after him.] — Is it yourself fearing the polis? You’re wanting, maybe?

CHRISTY. There’s many wanting.

MICHAEL. Many surely, with the broken harvest and the ended wars. (He picks up some stockings, etc., that are near the fire, and carries them away furtively.) It should be larceny, I’m thinking?

CHRISTY — [dolefully.] I had it in my mind it was a different word and a bigger.

PEGEEN. There’s a queer lad. Were you never slapped in school, young fellow, that you don’t know the name of your deed?

CHRISTY — [bashfully.] I’m slow at learning, a middling scholar only.

MICHAEL. If you’re a dunce itself, you’d have a right to know that larceny’s robbing and stealing. Is it for the like of that you’re wanting?

CHRISTY — [with a flash of family pride.] — And I the son of a strong farmer (with a sudden qualm), God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have missed the weight of it gone.

MICHAEL — [impressed.] If it’s not stealing, it’s maybe something big.

CHRISTY — [flattered.] Aye; it’s maybe something big.

JIMMY. He’s a wicked-looking young fellow. Maybe he followed after a young woman on a lonesome night.

CHRISTY — [shocked.] Oh, the saints forbid, mister; I was all times a decent lad.

PHILLY — [turning on Jimmy.] — You’re a silly man, Jimmy Farrell. He said his father was a farmer a while since, and there’s himself now in a poor state. Maybe the land was grabbed from him, and he did what any decent man would do.

MICHAEL — [to Christy, mysteriously.] — Was it bailiffs?

CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Agents?

CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Landlords?

CHRISTY — [peevishly.] Ah, not at all, I’m saying. You’d see the like of them stories on any little paper of a Munster town. But I’m not calling to mind any person, gentle, simple, judge or jury, did the like of me. [They all draw nearer with delighted curiosity.]

PHILLY. Well, that lad’s a puzzle—the world.

JIMMY. He’d beat Dan Davies’ circus, or the holy missioners making sermons on the villainy of man. Try him again, Philly.

PHILLY. Did you strike golden guineas out of solder, young fellow, or shilling coins itself?

CHRISTY. I did not, mister, not sixpence nor a farthing coin.

JIMMY. Did you marry three wives maybe? I’m told there’s a sprinkling have done that among the holy Luthers of the preaching north.

CHRISTY — [shyly.] — I never married with one, let alone with a couple or three.

PHILLY. Maybe he went fighting for the Boers, the like of the man beyond, was judged to be hanged, quartered and drawn. Were you off east, young fellow, fighting bloody wars for Kruger and the freedom of the Boers?

CHRISTY. I never left my own parish till Tuesday was a week.

PEGEEN — [coming from counter.] — He’s done nothing, so. (To Christy.) If you didn’t commit murder or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining, or robbery, or butchery, or the like of them, there isn’t anything that would be worth your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at all.

CHRISTY — [his feelings hurt.] — That’s an unkindly thing to be saying to a poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, and hanging before, and hell’s gap gaping below.

PEGEEN [with a sign to the men to be quiet.] — You’re only saying it. You did nothing at all. A soft lad the like of you wouldn’t slit the windpipe of a screeching sow.

CHRISTY — [offended.] You’re not speaking the truth.

PEGEEN — [in mock rage.] — Not speaking the truth, is it? Would you have me knock the head of you with the butt of the broom?

CHRISTY — [twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror.] — Don’t strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.

PEGEEN [with blank amazement.] — Is it killed your father?

CHRISTY — [subsiding.] With the help of God I did surely, and that the Holy Immaculate Mother may intercede for his soul.

PHILLY — [retreating with Jimmy.] — There’s a daring fellow.

JIMMY. Oh, glory be to God!

MICHAEL — [with great respect.] — That was a hanging crime, mister honey. You should have had good reason for doing the like of that.

CHRISTY — [in a very reasonable tone.] — He was a dirty man, God forgive him, and he getting old and crusty, the way I couldn’t put up with him at all.

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 corner 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 a 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 dungpit 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