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

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.”

PHILLY. It was no lie, maybe, for when I was a young lad there was a graveyard beyond the house with the remnants of a man who had thighs as long as your arm. He was a horrid man, I’m telling you, and there was many a fine Sunday I’d put him together for fun, and he with shiny bones, you wouldn’t meet the like of these days in the cities of the world.

MAHON — [getting up.] — You wouldn’t is it? Lay your eyes on that skull, and tell me where and when there was another the like of it, is splintered only from the blow of a loy.

PHILLY. Glory be to God! And who hit you at all?

MAHON — [triumphantly.] It was my own son hit me. Would you believe that?

JIMMY. Well, there’s wonders hidden in the heart of man!

PHILLY — [suspiciously.] And what way was it done?

MAHON — [wandering about the room.] — I’m after walking hundreds and long scores of miles, winning clean beds and the fill of my belly four times in the day, and I doing nothing but telling stories of that naked truth. (He comes to them a little aggressively.) Give me a supeen and I’ll tell you now. [Widow Quin comes in and stands aghast behind him. He is facing Jimmy and Philly, who are on the left.]

JIMMY. Ask herself beyond. She’s the stuff hidden in her shawl.

WIDOW QUIN — [coming to Mahon quickly.] — you here, is it? You didn’t go far at all?

MAHON. I seen the coasting steamer passing, and I got a drought upon me and a cramping leg, so I said, “The divil go along with him,” and turned again. (Looking under her shawl.) And let you give me a supeen, for I’m destroyed travelling since Tuesday was a week.

WIDOW QUIN — [getting a glass, in a cajoling tone.] — Sit down then by the fire and take your ease for a space. You’ve a right to be destroyed indeed, with your walking, and fighting, and facing the sun (giving him poteen from a stone jar she has brought in.) There now is a drink for you, and may it be to your happiness and length of life.

MAHON — [taking glass greedily and sitting down by fire.] — God increase you!

WIDOW QUIN — [taking men to the right stealthily.] — Do you know what? That man’s raving from his wound to-day, for I met him a while since telling a rambling tale of a tinker had him destroyed. Then he heard of Christy’s deed, and he up and says it was his son had cracked his skull. O isn’t madness a fright, for he’ll go killing someone yet, and he thinking it’s the man has struck him so?

JIMMY — [entirely convinced.] It’s a fright, surely. I knew a party was kicked in the head by a red mare, and he went killing horses a great while, till he eat the insides of a clock and died after.

PHILLY — [with suspicion.] — Did he see Christy?

WIDOW QUIN. He didn’t. (With a warning gesture.) Let you not be putting him in mind of him, or you’ll be likely summoned if there’s murder done. (Looking round at Mahon.) Whisht! He’s listening. Wait now till you hear me taking him easy and unravelling all. (She goes to Mahon.) And what way are you feeling, mister? Are you in contentment now?

MAHON — [slightly emotional from his drink.] — I’m poorly only, for it’s a hard story the way I’m left to-day, when it was I did tend him from his hour of birth, and he a dunce never reached his second book, the way he’d come from school, many’s the day, with his legs lamed under him, and he blackened with his beatings like a tinker’s ass. It’s a hard story, I’m saying, the way some do have their next and nighest raising up a hand of murder on them, and some is lonesome getting their death with lamentation in the dead of night.

WIDOW QUIN — [not knowing what to say.] — To hear you talking so quiet, who’d know you were the same fellow we seen pass to-day?

MAHON. I’m the same surely. The wrack and ruin of three score years; and it’s a terror to live that length, I tell you, and to have your sons going to the dogs against you, and you wore out scolding them, and skelping them, and God knows what.

PHILLY — [to Jimmy.] — He’s not raving. (To Widow Quin.) Will you ask him what kind was his son?

WIDOW QUIN — [to Mahon, with a peculiar look.] — Was your son that hit you a lad of one year and a score maybe, a great hand at racing and lepping and licking the world?

MAHON — [turning on her with a roar of rage.] — Didn’t you hear me say he was the fool of men, the way from this out he’ll know the orphan’s lot with old and young making game of him and they swearing, raging, kicking at him like a mangy cur. [A great burst of cheering outside, someway off.]

MAHON — [putting his hands to his ears.] — What in the name of God do they want roaring below?

WIDOW QUIN — [with the shade of a smile.] — They’re cheering a young lad, the champion Playboy of the Western World. [More cheering.]

MAHON — [going to window.] It’d split my heart to hear them, and I with pulses in my brain-pan for a week gone by. Is it racing they are?

JIMMY — [looking from door.] — It is then. They are mounting him for the mule race will be run upon the sands. That’s the playboy on the winkered mule.

MAHON [puzzled.] That lad, is it? If you said it was a fool he was, I’d have laid a mighty oath he was the likeness of my wandering son (uneasily, putting his hand to his head.) Faith, I’m thinking I’ll go walking for to view the race.

WIDOW QUIN — [stopping him, sharply.] — You will not. You’d best take the road to Belmullet, and not be dilly-dallying in this place where there isn’t a spot you could sleep.

PHILLY — [coming forward.] — Don’t mind her. Mount there on the bench and you’ll have a view of the whole. They’re hurrying before the tide will rise, and it’d be near over if you went down the pathway through the crags below.

MAHON [mounts on bench, Widow Quin beside him.] — That’s a right view again the edge of the sea. They’re coming now from the point. He’s leading. Who is he at all?

WIDOW QUIN. He’s the champion of the world, I tell you, and there isn’t a hop’orth isn’t falling lucky to his hands to-day.

PHILLY — [looking out, interested in the race.] — Look at that. They’re pressing him now.

JIMMY. He’ll win it yet.

PHILLY. Take your time, Jimmy Farrell. It’s too soon to say.

WIDOW QUIN — [shouting.] Watch him taking the gate. There’s riding.

JIMMY — [cheering.] More power to the young lad!

MAHON. He’s passing the third.

JIMMY. He’ll lick them yet!

WIDOW QUIN. He’d lick them if he was running races with a score itself.

MAHON. Look at the mule he has, kicking the stars.

WIDOW QUIN. There was a lep! (catching hold of Mahon in her excitement.) He’s fallen! He’s mounted again! Faith, he’s passing them all!

JIMMY. Look at him skelping her!

PHILLY. And the mountain girls hooshing him on!

JIMMY. It’s the last turn! The post’s cleared for them now!

MAHON. Look at the narrow place. He’ll be into the bogs! (With a yell.) Good rider! He’s through it again!

JIMMY. He neck and neck!

MAHON. Good boy to him! Flames, but he’s in! [Great cheering, in which all join.]

MAHON [with hesitation.] What’s that? They’re raising him up. They’re coming this way. (With a roar of rage and astonishment.) It’s Christy! by the stars of God! I’d know his way of spitting and he astride the moon. [He jumps down and makes for the door, but Widow Quin catches him and pulls him back.]

WIDOW QUIN. Stay quiet, will you. That’s not your son. (To Jimmy.) Stop him, or you’ll get a month for the abetting of manslaughter and be fined as well.

JIMMY. I’ll hold him.

MAHON [struggling.] Let me out! Let me out, the lot of you! till I have my vengeance on his head to-day.

WIDOW QUIN — [shaking him, vehemently.] — That’s not your son. That’s a man is going to make a marriage with the daughter of this house, a place with fine trade, with a license, and with poteen too.

MAHON — [amazed.] That man marrying a decent and a moneyed girl! Is it mad yous are? Is it in a crazy-house for females that I’m landed now?

WIDOW QUIN. It’s mad yourself is with the blow upon your head. That lad is the wonder of the Western World.

MAHON. I seen it’s my son.

WIDOW QUIN. You seen that you’re mad. (Cheering outside.) Do you hear them cheering him in the zig-zags of the road? Aren’t you after saying that your son’s a fool, and how would they be cheering a true idiot born?

MAHON — [getting distressed.] — It’s maybe out of reason that that man’s himself. (Cheering again.) There’s none surely will go cheering him. Oh, I’m raving with a madness that would fright the world! (He sits down with his hand to his head.) There was one time I seen ten scarlet divils letting on they’d cork my spirit in a gallon can; and one time I seen rats as big as badgers sucking the life blood from the butt of my lug; but I never till this day confused that dribbling idiot with a likely man. I’m destroyed surely.

WIDOW QUIN. And who’d wonder when it’s your brain-pan that is gaping now?

MAHON. Then the blight of the sacred drought upon myself and him, for I never went mad to this day, and I not three weeks with the Limerick girls drinking myself silly, and parlatic from the dusk to dawn. (To Widow Quin, suddenly.) Is my visage astray?

WIDOW QUIN. It is then. You’re a sniggering maniac, a child could see.

MAHON — [getting up more cheerfully.] — Then I’d best be going to the union beyond, and there’ll be a welcome before me, I tell you (with great pride), and I a terrible and fearful case, the way that there I was one time, screeching in a straightened waistcoat, with seven doctors writing out my sayings in a printed book. Would you believe that?

WIDOW QUIN. If you’re a wonder itself, you’d best be hasty, for them lads caught a maniac one time and pelted the poor creature till he ran out, raving and foaming, and was drowned in the sea.

MAHON — [with philosophy.] — It’s true mankind is the divil when your head’s astray. Let me out now and I’ll slip down the boreen, and not see them so.

WIDOW QUIN — [showing him out.] — That’s it. Run to the right, and not a one will see. [He runs off.]

PHILLY — [wisely.] You’re at some gaming, Widow Quin; but I’ll walk after him and give him his dinner and a time to rest, and I’ll see then if he’s raving or as sane as you.

WIDOW QUIN — [annoyed.] If you go near that lad, let you be wary of your head, I’m saying. Didn’t you hear him telling he was crazed at times?

PHILLY. I heard him telling a power; and I’m thinking