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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:54 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:54 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1328-0.txt b/1328-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca133b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/1328-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1295 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1328 *** + +This etext was prepared by Judy Boss + + + +cover + + + + The Tinker’s Wedding + + + +A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS + + + + by J. M. Synge + + + +Contents + + + PREFACE. + THE TINKER’S WEDDING + PERSONS. + ACT I. + ACT II. + + + +PREFACE. + +The drama is made serious—in the French sense of the word—not by the +degree in which it is taken up with problems that are serious in +themselves, but by the degree in which it gives the nourishment, not +very easy to define, on which our imaginations live. We should not go +to the theatre as we go to a chemist’s, or a dram-shop, but as we go to +a dinner, where the food we need is taken with pleasure and excitement. +This was nearly always so in Spain and England and France when the +drama was at its richest—the infancy and decay of the drama tend to be +didactic—but in these days the playhouse is too often stocked with the +drugs of many seedy problems, or with the absinthe or vermouth of the +last musical comedy. + +The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything. +Analysts with their problems, and teachers with their systems, are soon +as old-fashioned as the pharmacopœia of Galen,—look at Ibsen and the +Germans—but the best plays of Ben Jonson and Molière can no more go out +of fashion than the black-berries on the hedges. + +Of the things which nourish the imagination humour is one of the most +needful, and it is dangerous to limit or destroy it. Baudelaire calls +laughter the greatest sign of the Satanic element in man; and where a +country loses its humor, as some towns in Ireland are doing, there will +be morbidity of mind, as Baudelaire’s mind was morbid. + +In the greater part of Ireland, however, the whole people, from the +tinkers to the clergy, have still a life, and view of life, that are +rich and genial and humorous. I do not think that these country people, +who have so much humor themselves, will mind being laughed at without +malice, as the people in every country have been laughed at in their +own comedies. + +J. M. S. + +_December 2nd_, 1907. + + + +THE TINKER’S WEDDING + +PERSONS + +MICHAEL BYRNE, a tinker. +MARY BYRNE, an old woman, his mother. +SARAH CASEY, a young tinker woman. +A PRIEST. + + + +ACT I. + +SCENE: _A Village roadside after nightfall. A fire of sticks is burning +near the ditch a little to the right. Michael is working beside it. In +the background, on the left, a sort of tent and ragged clothes drying +on the hedge. On the right a chapel-gate._ + + +SARAH CASEY +_coming in on right, eagerly._—We’ll see his reverence this place, +Michael Byrne, and he passing backward to his house to-night. + +MICHAEL +_grimly._—That’ll be a sacred and a sainted joy! + +SARAH +_sharply._—It’ll be small joy for yourself if you aren’t ready with my +wedding ring. _(She goes over to him.)_ Is it near done this time, or +what way is it at all? + +MICHAEL +A poor way only, Sarah Casey, for it’s the divil’s job making a ring, +and you’ll be having my hands destroyed in a short while the way I’ll +not be able to make a tin can at all maybe at the dawn of day. + +SARAH +_sitting down beside him and throwing sticks on the fire._—If it’s the +divil’s job, let you mind it, and leave your speeches that would choke +a fool. + +MICHAEL +_slowly and glumly._—And it’s you’ll go talking of fools, Sarah Casey, +when no man did ever hear a lying story even of your like unto this +mortal day. You to be going beside me a great while, and rearing a lot +of them, and then to be setting off with your talk of getting married, +and your driving me to it, and I not asking it at all. + +[_Sarah turns her back to him and arranges something in the ditch._ + +MICHAEL +_angrily._—Can’t you speak a word when I’m asking what is it ails you +since the moon did change? + +SARAH +_musingly._—I’m thinking there isn’t anything ails me, Michael Byrne; +but the spring-time is a queer time, and it’s queer thoughts maybe I do +think at whiles. + +MICHAEL +It’s hard set you’d be to think queerer than welcome, Sarah Casey; but +what will you gain dragging me to the priest this night, I’m saying, +when it’s new thoughts you’ll be thinking at the dawn of day? + +SARAH +_teasingly._—It’s at the dawn of day I do be thinking I’d have a right +to be going off to the rich tinkers do be travelling from Tibradden to +the Tara Hill; for it’d be a fine life to be driving with young +Jaunting Jim, where there wouldn’t be any big hills to break the back +of you, with walking up and walking down. + +MICHAEL +_with dismay._—It’s the like of that you do be thinking! + +SARAH +The like of that, Michael Byrne, when there is a bit of sun in it, and +a kind air, and a great smell coming from the thorn-trees is above your +head. + +MICHAEL +_looks at her for a moment with horror, and then hands her the +ring._—Will that fit you now? + +SARAH +_trying it on._—It’s making it tight you are, and the edges sharp on +the tin. + +MICHAEL +_looking at it carefully._—It’s the fat of your own finger, Sarah +Casey; and isn’t it a mad thing I’m saying again that you’d be asking +marriage of me, or making a talk of going away from me, and you +thriving and getting your good health by the grace of the Almighty God? + +SARAH +_giving it back to him._—Fix it now, and it’ll do, if you’re wary you +don’t squeeze it again. + +MICHAEL +_moodily, working again._—It’s easy saying be wary; there’s many things +easy said, Sarah Casey, you’d wonder a fool even would be saying at +all. _(He starts violently.)_ The divil mend you, I’m scalded again! + +SARAH +_scornfully._—If you are, it’s a clumsy man you are this night, Michael +Byrne _(raising her voice)_; and let you make haste now, or herself +will be coming with the porter. + +MICHAEL +_defiantly, raising his voice._—Let me make haste? I’ll be making haste +maybe to hit you a great clout; for I’m thinking on the day I got you +above at Rathvanna, and the way you began crying out and saying, “I’ll +go back to my ma,” and I’m thinking on the way I came behind you that +time, and hit you a great clout in the lug, and how quiet and easy it +was you came along with me from that hour to this present day. + +SARAH +_standing up and throwing all her sticks into the fire._—And a big fool +I was too, maybe; but we’ll be seeing Jaunting Jim to-morrow in +Ballinaclash, and he after getting a great price for his white foal in +the horse-fair of Wicklow, the way it’ll be a great sight to see him +squandering his share of gold, and he with a grand eye for a fine +horse, and a grand eye for a woman. + +MICHAEL +_working again with impatience._—The divil do him good with the two of +them. + +SARAH +_kicking up the ashes with her foot._—Ah, he’s a great lad, I’m telling +you, and it’s proud and happy I’ll be to see him, and he the first one +called me the Beauty of Ballinacree, a fine name for a woman. + +MICHAEL +_with contempt._—It’s the like of that name they do be putting on the +horses they have below racing in Arklow. It’s easy pleased you are, +Sarah Casey, easy pleased with a big word, or the liar speaks it. + +SARAH +Liar! + +MICHAEL +Liar, surely. + +SARAH +_indignantly._—Liar, is it? Didn’t you ever hear tell of the peelers +followed me ten miles along the Glen Malure, and they talking love to +me in the dark night, or of the children you’ll meet coming from school +and they saying one to the other, “It’s this day we seen Sarah Casey, +the Beauty of Ballinacree, a great sight surely.” + +MICHAEL +God help the lot of them! + +SARAH +It’s yourself you’ll be calling God to help, in two weeks or three, +when you’ll be waking up in the dark night and thinking you see me +coming with the sun on me, and I driving a high cart with Jaunting Jim +going behind. It’s lonesome and cold you’ll be feeling the ditch where +you’ll be lying down that night, I’m telling you, and you hearing the +old woman making a great noise in her sleep, and the bats squeaking in +the trees. + +MICHAEL +Whist. I hear some one coming the road. + +SARAH +_looking out right._—It’s some one coming forward from the doctor’s +door. + +MICHAEL +It’s often his reverence does be in there playing cards, or drinking a +sup, or singing songs, until the dawn of day. + +SARAH +It’s a big boast of a man with a long step on him and a trumpeting +voice. It’s his reverence surely; and if you have the ring done, it’s a +great bargain we’ll make now and he after drinking his glass. + +MICHAEL +_going to her and giving her the ring._—There’s your ring, Sarah Casey; +but I’m thinking he’ll walk by and not stop to speak with the like of +us at all. + +SARAH +_tidying herself, in great excitement._—Let you be sitting here and +keeping a great blaze, the way he can look on my face; and let you seem +to be working, for it’s great love the like of him have to talk of +work. + +MICHAEL +_moodily, sitting down and_ _beginning to work at a tin can._—Great +love surely. + +SARAH +_eagerly._—Make a great blaze now, Michael Byrne. + +[_The priest comes in on right; she comes forward in front of him._ + +SARAH +_in a very plausible voice._—Good evening, your reverence. It’s a grand +fine night, by the grace of God. + +PRIEST +The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of a living woman is it that you +are at all? + +SARAH +It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and +it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch. + +PRIEST +A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way. + +[_He tries to pass by._ + +SARAH +_keeping in front of him._—We are wanting a little word with your +reverence. + +PRIEST +I haven’t a halfpenny at all. Leave the road I’m saying. + +SARAH +It isn’t a halfpenny we’re asking, holy father; but we were thinking +maybe we’d have a right to be getting married; and we were thinking +it’s yourself would marry us for not a halfpenny at all; for you’re a +kind man, your reverence, a kind man with the poor. + +PRIEST +_with astonishment._—Is it marry you for nothing at all? + +SARAH +It is, your reverence; and we were thinking maybe you’d give us a +little small bit of silver to pay for the ring. + +PRIEST +_loudly._—Let you hold your tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. I’ve +no silver at all for the like of you; and if you want to be married, +let you pay your pound. I’d do it for a pound only, and that’s making +it a sight cheaper than I’d make it for one of my own pairs is living +here in the place. + +SARAH +Where would the like of us get a pound, your reverence? + +PRIEST +Wouldn’t you easy get it with your selling asses, and making cans, and +your stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wexford and the county +Meath? _(He tries to pass her.)_ Let you leave the road, and not be +plaguing me more. + +SARAH +_pleadingly, taking money from her pocket._—Wouldn’t you have a little +mercy on us, your reverence? _(Holding out money.)_ Wouldn’t you marry +us for a half a sovereign, and it a nice shiny one with a view on it of +the living king’s mamma? + +PRIEST +If it’s ten shillings you have, let you get ten more the same way, and +I’ll marry you then. + +SARAH +_whining._—It’s two years we are getting that bit, your reverence, with +our pence and our halfpence and an odd three-penny bit; and if you +don’t marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great drouth, +will be drinking it to-morrow in the fair _(she puts her apron to her +eyes, half sobbing)_, and then I won’t be married any time, and I’ll be +saying till I’m an old woman: “It’s a cruel and a wicked thing to be +bred poor.” + +PRIEST +_turning up towards the fire._—Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. It’s +a queer woman you are to be crying at the like of that, and you your +whole life walking the roads. + +SARAH +_sobbing._—It’s two years we are getting the gold, your reverence, and +now you won’t marry us for that bit, and we hard-working poor people do +be making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the black +smoke from the bits of twigs we do be burning. + +[_An old woman is heard singing tipsily on the left._ + +PRIEST +_looking at the can Michael is making._—When will you have that can +done, Michael Byrne? + +MICHAEL +In a short space only, your reverence, for I’m putting the last dab of +solder on the rim. + +PRIEST +Let you get a crown along with the ten shillings and the gallon can, +Sarah Casey, and I will wed you so. + +MARY +_suddenly shouting behind, tipsily._—Larry was a fine lad, I’m saying; +Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey— + +MICHAEL +Whist, now, the two of you. There’s my mother coming, and she’d have us +destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she’s been +drinking her fill. + +MARY +_comes in singing_ + + And when we asked him what way he’d die, + And he hanging unrepented, + “Begob,” says Larry, “that’s all in my eye, + By the clergy first invented.” + +SARAH +Give me the jug now, or you’ll have it spilt in the ditch. + +MARY +_holding the jug with both her hands, in a stilted voice._—Let you +leave me easy, Sarah Casey. I won’t spill it, I’m saying. God help you; +are you thinking it’s frothing full to the brim it is at this hour of +the night, and I after carrying it in my two hands a long step from +Jemmy Neill’s? + +MICHAEL +_anxiously._—Is there a sup left at all? + +SARAH +_looking into the jug._—A little small sup only I’m thinking. + +MARY +_sees the priest, and holds out jug towards him._—God save your +reverence. I’m after bringing down a smart drop; and let you drink it +up now, for it’s a middling drouthy man you are at all times, God +forgive you, and this night is cruel dry. + +[_She tries to go towards him. Sarah holds her back._ + +PRIEST +_waving her away._—Let you not be falling to the flames. Keep off, I’m +saying. + +MARY +_persuasively._—Let you not be shy of us, your reverence. Aren’t we all +sinners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I’m telling you; and we won’t +let on a word about it till the Judgment Day. + +[_She takes up a tin mug, pours some porter into it, and gives it to +him._ + +MARY +_singing, and holding the jug in her hand._ + + A lonesome ditch in Ballygan + The day you’re beating a tenpenny can; + A lonesome bank in Ballyduff + The time . . . + +[_She breaks off._ It’s a bad, wicked song, Sarah Casey; and let you +put me down now in the ditch, and I won’t sing it till himself will be +gone; for it’s bad enough he is, I’m thinking, without ourselves making +him worse. + +SARAH +_putting her down, to the priest, half laughing._—Don’t mind her at +all, your reverence. She’s no shame the time she’s a drop taken; and if +it was the Holy Father from Rome was in it, she’d give him a little sup +out of her mug, and say the same as she’d say to yourself. + +MARY +_to the priest._—Let you drink it up, holy father. Let you drink it up, +I’m saying, and not be letting on you wouldn’t do the like of it, and +you with a stack of pint bottles above, reaching the sky. + +PRIEST +_with resignation._—Well, here’s to your good health, and God forgive +us all. + +[_He drinks._ + +MARY +That’s right now, your reverence, and the blessing of God be on you. +Isn’t it a grand thing to see you sitting down, with no pride in you, +and drinking a sup with the like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, +starving creatures you’d see any place on the earth? + +PRIEST +If it’s starving you are itself, I’m thinking it’s well for the like of +you that do be drinking when there’s drouth on you, and lying down to +sleep when your legs are stiff. _(He sighs gloomily.)_ What would you +do if it was the like of myself you were, saying Mass with your mouth +dry, and running east and west for a sick call maybe, and hearing the +rural people again and they saying their sins? + +MARY +_with compassion._—It’s destroyed you must be hearing the sins of the +rural people on a fine spring. + +PRIEST +_with despondency._—It’s a hard life, I’m telling you, a hard life, +Mary Byrne; and there’s the bishop coming in the morning, and he an old +man, would have you destroyed if he seen a thing at all. + +MARY +_with great sympathy._—It’d break my heart to hear you talking and +sighing the like of that, your reverence. _(She pats him on the knee.)_ +Let you rouse up, now, if it’s a poor, single man you are itself, and +I’ll be singing you songs unto the dawn of day. + +PRIEST +_interrupting her._—What is it I want with your songs when it’d be +better for the like of you, that’ll soon die, to be down on your two +knees saying prayers to the Almighty God? + +MARY +If it’s prayers I want, you’d have a right to say one yourself, holy +father; for we don’t have them at all, and I’ve heard tell a power of +times it’s that you’re for. Say one now, your reverence, for I’ve heard +a power of queer things and I walking the world, but there’s one thing +I never heard any time, and that’s a real priest saying a prayer. + +PRIEST +The Lord protect us! + +MARY +It’s no lie, holy father. I often heard the rural people making a queer +noise and they going to rest; but who’d mind the like of them? And I’m +thinking it should be great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, +speaking Latin to the saints above. + +PRIEST +_scandalized._—Stop your talking, Mary Byrne; you’re an old flagrant +heathen, and I’ll stay no more with the lot of you. + +[_He rises._ + +MARY +_catching hold of him._—Stop till you say a prayer, your reverence; +stop till you say a little prayer, I’m telling you, and I’ll give you +my blessing and the last sup from the jug. + +PRIEST +_breaking away._—Leave me go, Mary Byrne; for I have never met your +like for hard abominations the score and two years I’m living in the +place. + +MARY +_innocently._—Is that the truth? + +PRIEST +—It is, then, and God have mercy on your soul. + +[_The priest goes towards the left, and Sarah follows him._ + +SARAH +_in a low voice._—And what time will you do the thing I’m asking, holy +father? for I’m thinking you’ll do it surely, and not have me growing +into an old wicked heathen like herself. + +MARY +_calling out shrilly._—Let you be walking back here, Sarah Casey, and +not be talking whisper-talk with the like of him in the face of the +Almighty God. + +SARAH +_to the priest._—Do you hear her now, your reverence? Isn’t it true, +surely, she’s an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy the world? + +PRIEST +_to Sarah, moving off._—Well, I’ll be coming down early to the chapel, +and let you come to me a while after you see me passing, and bring the +bit of gold along with you, and the tin can. I’ll marry you for them +two, though it’s a pitiful small sum; for I wouldn’t be easy in my soul +if I left you growing into an old, wicked heathen the like of her. + +SARAH +_following him out._—The blessing of the Almighty God be on you, holy +father, and that He may reward and watch you from this present day. + +MARY +_nudging Michael._—Did you see that, Michael Byrne? Didn’t you hear me +telling you she’s flighty a while back since the change of the moon? +With her fussing for marriage, and she making whisper-talk with one man +or another man along by the road. + +MICHAEL +—Whist now, or she’ll knock the head of you the time she comes back. + +MARY +—Ah, it’s a bad, wicked way the world is this night, if there’s a fine +air in it itself. You’d never have seen me, and I a young woman, making +whisper-talk with the like of him, and he the fearfullest old fellow +you’d see any place walking the world. + +[_Sarah comes back quickly._ + +MARY +_calling out to her._—What is it you’re after whispering above with +himself? + +SARAH +_exultingly._—Lie down, and leave us in peace. _She whispers with +Michael._ + +MARY +_poking out her pipe with a straw, sings_— + + She’d whisper with one, and she’d whisper with two— + +_She breaks off coughing._—My singing voice is gone for this night, +Sarah Casey. _(She lights her pipe.)_ But if it’s flighty you are +itself, you’re a grand handsome woman, the glory of tinkers, the pride +of Wicklow, the Beauty of Ballinacree. I wouldn’t have you lying down +and you lonesome to sleep this night in a dark ditch when the spring is +coming in the trees; so let you sit down there by the big bough, and +I’ll be telling you the finest story you’d hear any place from Dundalk +to Ballinacree, with great queens in it, making themselves matches from +the start to the end, and they with shiny silks on them the length of +the day, and white shifts for the night. + +MICHAEL +_standing up with the tin can in his hand._—Let you go asleep, and not +have us destroyed. + +MARY +_lying back sleepily._—Don’t mind him, Sarah Casey. Sit down now, and +I’ll be telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman the like of +you in the springtime of the year. + +SARAH +_taking the can from Michael, and tying it up in a piece of +sacking._—That’ll not be rusting now in the dews of night. I’ll put it +up in the ditch the way it will be handy in the morning; and now we’ve +that done, Michael Byrne, I’ll go along with you and welcome for Tim +Flaherty’s hens. + +_[She puts the can in the ditch._ + +MARY +_sleepily._—I’ve a grand story of the great queens of Ireland with +white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey, and fine arms would hit +you a slap the way Sarah Casey would hit you. + +SARAH +_beckoning on the left._—Come along now, Michael, while she’s falling +asleep. + +[_He goes towards left. Mary sees that they are going, starts up +suddenly, and turns over on her hands and knees._ + +MARY +_piteously._—Where is it you’re going? Let you walk back here, and not +be leaving me lonesome when the night is fine. + +SARAH +Don’t be waking the world with your talk when we’re going up through +the back wood to get two of Tim Flaherty’s hens are roosting in the +ash-tree above at the well. + +MARY +And it’s leaving me lone you are? Come back here, Sarah Casey. Come +back here, I’m saying; or if it’s off you must go, leave me the two +little coppers you have, the way I can walk up in a short while, and +get another pint for my sleep. + +SARAH +It’s too much you have taken. Let you stretch yourself out and take a +long sleep; for isn’t that the best thing any woman can do, and she an +old drinking heathen like yourself. + +[_She and Michael go out left._ + +MARY +_standing up slowly._—It’s gone they are, and I with my feet that weak +under me you’d knock me down with a rush, and my head with a noise in +it the like of what you’d hear in a stream and it running between two +rocks and rain falling. _(She goes over to the ditch where the can is +tied in sacking, and takes it down.)_ What good am I this night, God +help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it’s few would +listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the +time her hour was come, or a little child wouldn’t be sleeping with the +hunger on a cold night? _(She takes the can from the sacking and fits +in three empty bottles and straw in its place, and ties them up.)_ +Maybe the two of them have a good right to be walking out the little +short while they’d be young; but if they have itself, they’ll not keep +Mary Byrne from her full pint when the night’s fine, and there’s a dry +moon in the sky. _(She takes up the can, and puts the package back in +the ditch.)_ Jemmy Neill’s a decent lad; and he’ll give me a good drop +for the can; and maybe if I keep near the peelers to-morrow for the +first bit of the fair, herself won’t strike me at all; and if she does +itself, what’s a little stroke on your head beside sitting lonesome on +a fine night, hearing the dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you +saying over, it’s a short while only till you die. + +[_She goes out singing “The night before Larry was stretched.”_ + +CURTAIN + + + +ACT II. + +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 + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tinker’s Wedding, by J. M. Synge + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1328 *** diff --git a/1328-h/1328-h.htm b/1328-h/1328-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c671eda --- /dev/null +++ b/1328-h/1328-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1912 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<title> The Tinker’s Wedding, by J. M. Synge </title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body {margin-right: 20%; + margin-left: 20%; + text-align: justify} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +hr.mid {width: 40%;} +hr.small {width: 25%;} +hr.micro {width: 10%;} + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; +font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: +.5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 200%;} +h2 {font-size: 175%;} +h3 {font-size: 150%;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 100%;} +h6 {font-size: 85%;} + +p {text-indent: 0%; + margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0em;} + +p.letter {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.right {text-align: right;} + +p.scenedesc {font-style: italic; + text-align: center; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-right: 1em;} + +p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0; } +span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: .8 } + +span.charname {font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal;} + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1328 ***</div> + +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> + + +<div class="fig" style="width:70%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" /><br /><br /> +</div> + +<h1> The Tinker’s Wedding </h1> + +<h5>A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS</h5> + +<p> +<br /> +</p> + +<h3> by J. M. Synge </h3> + +<p> +<br/> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br/> +</p> + +<h2> +Contents +</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">PREFACE.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE TINKER’S WEDDING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">PERSONS.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">ACT I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">ACT II.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap01"></a></p> <h2>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The drama is made serious—in the French sense of the word—not by +the degree in which it is taken up with problems that are serious in +themselves, but by the degree in which it gives the nourishment, not very easy +to define, on which our imaginations live. We should not go to the theatre as +we go to a chemist’s, or a dram-shop, but as we go to a dinner, where the +food we need is taken with pleasure and excitement. This was nearly always so +in Spain and England and France when the drama was at its richest—the +infancy and decay of the drama tend to be didactic—but in these days the +playhouse is too often stocked with the drugs of many seedy problems, or with +the absinthe or vermouth of the last musical comedy. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything. Analysts with +their problems, and teachers with their systems, are soon as old-fashioned as +the pharmacopœia of Galen,—look at Ibsen and the Germans—but the +best plays of Ben Jonson and Molière can no more go out of fashion than the +black-berries on the hedges. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Of the things which nourish the imagination humour is one of the most needful, +and it is dangerous to limit or destroy it. Baudelaire calls laughter the +greatest sign of the Satanic element in man; and where a country loses its +humor, as some towns in Ireland are doing, there will be morbidity of mind, as +Baudelaire’s mind was morbid. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +In the greater part of Ireland, however, the whole people, from the tinkers to +the clergy, have still a life, and view of life, that are rich and genial and +humorous. I do not think that these country people, who have so much humor +themselves, will mind being laughed at without malice, as the people in every +country have been laughed at in their own comedies. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +J. M. S. +</p> + +<p> +<i>December 2nd</i>, 1907. +</p> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap02"></a></p> <h2>THE TINKER’S WEDDING</h2> + +<p><a name="chap03"></a></p> <h2>PERSONS</h2> + +<p> +MICHAEL BYRNE, a tinker.<br/> +MARY BYRNE, an old woman, his mother.<br/> +SARAH CASEY, a young tinker woman.<br/> +A PRIEST.<br/> +</p> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap04"></a></p> <h2>ACT I.</h2> + +<p> +SCENE: <i>A Village roadside after nightfall. A fire of sticks is burning near +the ditch a little to the right. Michael is working beside it. In the +background, on the left, a sort of tent and ragged clothes drying on the hedge. +On the right a chapel-gate.</i><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH CASEY<br /> +<i>coming in on right, eagerly.</i>—We’ll see his reverence this +place, Michael Byrne, and he passing backward to his house to-night. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>grimly.</i>—That’ll be a sacred and a sainted joy! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sharply.</i>—It’ll be small joy for yourself if you aren’t +ready with my wedding ring. <i>(She goes over to him.)</i> Is it near done this +time, or what way is it at all? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +A poor way only, Sarah Casey, for it’s the divil’s job making a +ring, and you’ll be having my hands destroyed in a short while the way +I’ll not be able to make a tin can at all maybe at the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sitting down beside him and throwing sticks on the fire.</i>—If +it’s the divil’s job, let you mind it, and leave your speeches that +would choke a fool. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>slowly and glumly.</i>—And it’s you’ll go talking of +fools, Sarah Casey, when no man did ever hear a lying story even of your like +unto this mortal day. You to be going beside me a great while, and rearing a +lot of them, and then to be setting off with your talk of getting married, and +your driving me to it, and I not asking it at all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Sarah turns her back to him and arranges something in the ditch.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—Can’t you speak a word when I’m asking what +is it ails you since the moon did change? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>musingly.</i>—I’m thinking there isn’t anything ails me, +Michael Byrne; but the spring-time is a queer time, and it’s queer +thoughts maybe I do think at whiles. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +It’s hard set you’d be to think queerer than welcome, Sarah Casey; +but what will you gain dragging me to the priest this night, I’m saying, +when it’s new thoughts you’ll be thinking at the dawn of day? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>teasingly.</i>—It’s at the dawn of day I do be thinking +I’d have a right to be going off to the rich tinkers do be travelling +from Tibradden to the Tara Hill; for it’d be a fine life to be driving +with young Jaunting Jim, where there wouldn’t be any big hills to break +the back of you, with walking up and walking down. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>with dismay.</i>—It’s the like of that you do be thinking! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +The like of that, Michael Byrne, when there is a bit of sun in it, and a kind +air, and a great smell coming from the thorn-trees is above your head. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>looks at her for a moment with horror, and then hands her the +ring.</i>—Will that fit you now? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>trying it on.</i>—It’s making it tight you are, and the edges +sharp on the tin. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>looking at it carefully.</i>—It’s the fat of your own finger, +Sarah Casey; and isn’t it a mad thing I’m saying again that +you’d be asking marriage of me, or making a talk of going away from me, +and you thriving and getting your good health by the grace of the Almighty God? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>giving it back to him.</i>—Fix it now, and it’ll do, if +you’re wary you don’t squeeze it again. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>moodily, working again.</i>—It’s easy saying be wary; +there’s many things easy said, Sarah Casey, you’d wonder a fool +even would be saying at all. <i>(He starts violently.)</i> The divil mend you, +I’m scalded again! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>scornfully.</i>—If you are, it’s a clumsy man you are this +night, Michael Byrne <i>(raising her voice)</i>; and let you make haste now, or +herself will be coming with the porter. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>defiantly, raising his voice.</i>—Let me make haste? I’ll be +making haste maybe to hit you a great clout; for I’m thinking on the day +I got you above at Rathvanna, and the way you began crying out and saying, +“I’ll go back to my ma,” and I’m thinking on the way I +came behind you that time, and hit you a great clout in the lug, and how quiet +and easy it was you came along with me from that hour to this present day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>standing up and throwing all her sticks into the fire.</i>—And a big +fool I was too, maybe; but we’ll be seeing Jaunting Jim to-morrow in +Ballinaclash, and he after getting a great price for his white foal in the +horse-fair of Wicklow, the way it’ll be a great sight to see him +squandering his share of gold, and he with a grand eye for a fine horse, and a +grand eye for a woman. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>working again with impatience.</i>—The divil do him good with the two +of them. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>kicking up the ashes with her foot.</i>—Ah, he’s a great lad, +I’m telling you, and it’s proud and happy I’ll be to see him, +and he the first one called me the Beauty of Ballinacree, a fine name for a +woman. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>with contempt.</i>—It’s the like of that name they do be putting +on the horses they have below racing in Arklow. It’s easy pleased you +are, Sarah Casey, easy pleased with a big word, or the liar speaks it. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Liar! +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Liar, surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>indignantly.</i>—Liar, is it? Didn’t you ever hear tell of the +peelers followed me ten miles along the Glen Malure, and they talking love to +me in the dark night, or of the children you’ll meet coming from school +and they saying one to the other, “It’s this day we seen Sarah +Casey, the Beauty of Ballinacree, a great sight surely.” +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +God help the lot of them! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s yourself you’ll be calling God to help, in two weeks or three, +when you’ll be waking up in the dark night and thinking you see me coming +with the sun on me, and I driving a high cart with Jaunting Jim going behind. +It’s lonesome and cold you’ll be feeling the ditch where +you’ll be lying down that night, I’m telling you, and you hearing +the old woman making a great noise in her sleep, and the bats squeaking in the +trees. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Whist. I hear some one coming the road. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>looking out right.</i>—It’s some one coming forward from the +doctor’s door. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +It’s often his reverence does be in there playing cards, or drinking a +sup, or singing songs, until the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s a big boast of a man with a long step on him and a trumpeting voice. +It’s his reverence surely; and if you have the ring done, it’s a +great bargain we’ll make now and he after drinking his glass. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>going to her and giving her the ring.</i>—There’s your ring, +Sarah Casey; but I’m thinking he’ll walk by and not stop to speak +with the like of us at all. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>tidying herself, in great excitement.</i>—Let you be sitting here and +keeping a great blaze, the way he can look on my face; and let you seem to be +working, for it’s great love the like of him have to talk of work. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>moodily, sitting down and</i> <i>beginning to work at a tin +can.</i>—Great love surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>eagerly.</i>—Make a great blaze now, Michael Byrne. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>The priest comes in on right; she comes forward in front of him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>in a very plausible voice.</i>—Good evening, your reverence. +It’s a grand fine night, by the grace of God. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of a living woman is it that you are at +all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and +it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He tries to pass by.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>keeping in front of him.</i>—We are wanting a little word with your +reverence. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +I haven’t a halfpenny at all. Leave the road I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It isn’t a halfpenny we’re asking, holy father; but we were +thinking maybe we’d have a right to be getting married; and we were +thinking it’s yourself would marry us for not a halfpenny at all; for +you’re a kind man, your reverence, a kind man with the poor. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with astonishment.</i>—Is it marry you for nothing at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It is, your reverence; and we were thinking maybe you’d give us a little +small bit of silver to pay for the ring. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>loudly.</i>—Let you hold your tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. +I’ve no silver at all for the like of you; and if you want to be married, +let you pay your pound. I’d do it for a pound only, and that’s +making it a sight cheaper than I’d make it for one of my own pairs is +living here in the place. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Where would the like of us get a pound, your reverence? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Wouldn’t you easy get it with your selling asses, and making cans, and +your stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wexford and the county Meath? <i>(He +tries to pass her.)</i> Let you leave the road, and not be plaguing me more. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>pleadingly, taking money from her pocket.</i>—Wouldn’t you have +a little mercy on us, your reverence? <i>(Holding out money.)</i> +Wouldn’t you marry us for a half a sovereign, and it a nice shiny one +with a view on it of the living king’s mamma? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +If it’s ten shillings you have, let you get ten more the same way, and +I’ll marry you then. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>whining.</i>—It’s two years we are getting that bit, your +reverence, with our pence and our halfpence and an odd three-penny bit; and if +you don’t marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great +drouth, will be drinking it to-morrow in the fair <i>(she puts her apron to her +eyes, half sobbing)</i>, and then I won’t be married any time, and +I’ll be saying till I’m an old woman: “It’s a cruel and +a wicked thing to be bred poor.” +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>turning up towards the fire.</i>—Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. +It’s a queer woman you are to be crying at the like of that, and you your +whole life walking the roads. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sobbing.</i>—It’s two years we are getting the gold, your +reverence, and now you won’t marry us for that bit, and we hard-working +poor people do be making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the +black smoke from the bits of twigs we do be burning. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>An old woman is heard singing tipsily on the left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>looking at the can Michael is making.</i>—When will you have that can +done, Michael Byrne? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +In a short space only, your reverence, for I’m putting the last dab of +solder on the rim. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Let you get a crown along with the ten shillings and the gallon can, Sarah +Casey, and I will wed you so. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>suddenly shouting behind, tipsily.</i>—Larry was a fine lad, I’m +saying; Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey— +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Whist, now, the two of you. There’s my mother coming, and she’d +have us destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she’s been +drinking her fill. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>comes in singing</i><br /><br /> + And when we asked him what way he’d die,<br /> + And he hanging unrepented,<br /> + “Begob,” says Larry, “that’s all in my eye,<br /> + By the clergy first invented.” +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Give me the jug now, or you’ll have it spilt in the ditch. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>holding the jug with both her hands, in a stilted voice.</i>—Let you +leave me easy, Sarah Casey. I won’t spill it, I’m saying. God help +you; are you thinking it’s frothing full to the brim it is at this hour +of the night, and I after carrying it in my two hands a long step from Jemmy +Neill’s? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>anxiously.</i>—Is there a sup left at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>looking into the jug.</i>—A little small sup only I’m thinking. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>sees the priest, and holds out jug towards him.</i>—God save your +reverence. I’m after bringing down a smart drop; and let you drink it up +now, for it’s a middling drouthy man you are at all times, God forgive +you, and this night is cruel dry. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She tries to go towards him. Sarah holds her back.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>waving her away.</i>—Let you not be falling to the flames. Keep off, +I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>persuasively.</i>—Let you not be shy of us, your reverence. +Aren’t we all sinners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I’m telling +you; and we won’t let on a word about it till the Judgment Day. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She takes up a tin mug, pours some porter into it, and gives it to him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>singing, and holding the jug in her hand.</i><br /><br /> + A lonesome ditch in Ballygan<br /> + The day you’re beating a tenpenny can;<br /> + A lonesome bank in Ballyduff<br /> + The time . . .<br /><br /> + +[<i>She breaks off.</i> It’s a bad, wicked song, Sarah Casey; and let you +put me down now in the ditch, and I won’t sing it till himself will be +gone; for it’s bad enough he is, I’m thinking, without ourselves +making him worse. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>putting her down, to the priest, half laughing.</i>—Don’t mind +her at all, your reverence. She’s no shame the time she’s a drop +taken; and if it was the Holy Father from Rome was in it, she’d give him +a little sup out of her mug, and say the same as she’d say to yourself. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>to the priest.</i>—Let you drink it up, holy father. Let you drink it +up, I’m saying, and not be letting on you wouldn’t do the like of +it, and you with a stack of pint bottles above, reaching the sky. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with resignation.</i>—Well, here’s to your good health, and God +forgive us all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He drinks.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +That’s right now, your reverence, and the blessing of God be on you. +Isn’t it a grand thing to see you sitting down, with no pride in you, and +drinking a sup with the like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, starving +creatures you’d see any place on the earth? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +If it’s starving you are itself, I’m thinking it’s well for +the like of you that do be drinking when there’s drouth on you, and lying +down to sleep when your legs are stiff. <i>(He sighs gloomily.)</i> What would +you do if it was the like of myself you were, saying Mass with your mouth dry, +and running east and west for a sick call maybe, and hearing the rural people +again and they saying their sins? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with compassion.</i>—It’s destroyed you must be hearing the sins +of the rural people on a fine spring. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with despondency.</i>—It’s a hard life, I’m telling you, a +hard life, Mary Byrne; and there’s the bishop coming in the morning, and +he an old man, would have you destroyed if he seen a thing at all. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with great sympathy.</i>—It’d break my heart to hear you talking +and sighing the like of that, your reverence. <i>(She pats him on the +knee.)</i> Let you rouse up, now, if it’s a poor, single man you are +itself, and I’ll be singing you songs unto the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>interrupting her.</i>—What is it I want with your songs when +it’d be better for the like of you, that’ll soon die, to be down on +your two knees saying prayers to the Almighty God? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +If it’s prayers I want, you’d have a right to say one yourself, +holy father; for we don’t have them at all, and I’ve heard tell a +power of times it’s that you’re for. Say one now, your reverence, +for I’ve heard a power of queer things and I walking the world, but +there’s one thing I never heard any time, and that’s a real priest +saying a prayer. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +The Lord protect us! +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +It’s no lie, holy father. I often heard the rural people making a queer +noise and they going to rest; but who’d mind the like of them? And +I’m thinking it should be great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, +speaking Latin to the saints above. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>scandalized.</i>—Stop your talking, Mary Byrne; you’re an old +flagrant heathen, and I’ll stay no more with the lot of you. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He rises.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>catching hold of him.</i>—Stop till you say a prayer, your reverence; +stop till you say a little prayer, I’m telling you, and I’ll give +you my blessing and the last sup from the jug. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>breaking away.</i>—Leave me go, Mary Byrne; for I have never met your +like for hard abominations the score and two years I’m living in the +place. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>innocently.</i>—Is that the truth? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +—It is, then, and God have mercy on your soul. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>The priest goes towards the left, and Sarah follows him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>in a low voice.</i>—And what time will you do the thing I’m +asking, holy father? for I’m thinking you’ll do it surely, and not +have me growing into an old wicked heathen like herself. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>calling out shrilly.</i>—Let you be walking back here, Sarah Casey, +and not be talking whisper-talk with the like of him in the face of the +Almighty God. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to the priest.</i>—Do you hear her now, your reverence? Isn’t it +true, surely, she’s an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy the world? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>to Sarah, moving off.</i>—Well, I’ll be coming down early to the +chapel, and let you come to me a while after you see me passing, and bring the +bit of gold along with you, and the tin can. I’ll marry you for them two, +though it’s a pitiful small sum; for I wouldn’t be easy in my soul +if I left you growing into an old, wicked heathen the like of her. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>following him out.</i>—The blessing of the Almighty God be on you, +holy father, and that He may reward and watch you from this present day. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>nudging Michael.</i>—Did you see that, Michael Byrne? Didn’t you +hear me telling you she’s flighty a while back since the change of the +moon? With her fussing for marriage, and she making whisper-talk with one man +or another man along by the road. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +—Whist now, or she’ll knock the head of you the time she comes +back. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +—Ah, it’s a bad, wicked way the world is this night, if +there’s a fine air in it itself. You’d never have seen me, and I a +young woman, making whisper-talk with the like of him, and he the fearfullest +old fellow you’d see any place walking the world. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Sarah comes back quickly.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>calling out to her.</i>—What is it you’re after whispering above +with himself? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>exultingly.</i>—Lie down, and leave us in peace. <i>She whispers with +Michael.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>poking out her pipe with a straw, sings</i>—<br /><br /> + She’d whisper with one, and she’d whisper with two—<br /><br /> + +<i>She breaks off coughing.</i>—My singing voice is gone for this night, +Sarah Casey. <i>(She lights her pipe.)</i> But if it’s flighty you are +itself, you’re a grand handsome woman, the glory of tinkers, the pride of +Wicklow, the Beauty of Ballinacree. I wouldn’t have you lying down and +you lonesome to sleep this night in a dark ditch when the spring is coming in +the trees; so let you sit down there by the big bough, and I’ll be +telling you the finest story you’d hear any place from Dundalk to +Ballinacree, with great queens in it, making themselves matches from the start +to the end, and they with shiny silks on them the length of the day, and white +shifts for the night. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>standing up with the tin can in his hand.</i>—Let you go asleep, and +not have us destroyed. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>lying back sleepily.</i>—Don’t mind him, Sarah Casey. Sit down +now, and I’ll be telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman the +like of you in the springtime of the year. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>taking the can from Michael, and tying it up in a piece of +sacking.</i>—That’ll not be rusting now in the dews of night. +I’ll put it up in the ditch the way it will be handy in the morning; and +now we’ve that done, Michael Byrne, I’ll go along with you and +welcome for Tim Flaherty’s hens. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>[She puts the can in the ditch.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>sleepily.</i>—I’ve a grand story of the great queens of Ireland +with white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey, and fine arms would hit you a +slap the way Sarah Casey would hit you. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>beckoning on the left.</i>—Come along now, Michael, while she’s +falling asleep. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He goes towards left. Mary sees that they are going, starts up suddenly, +and turns over on her hands and knees.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>piteously.</i>—Where is it you’re going? Let you walk back here, +and not be leaving me lonesome when the night is fine. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Don’t be waking the world with your talk when we’re going up +through the back wood to get two of Tim Flaherty’s hens are roosting in +the ash-tree above at the well. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +And it’s leaving me lone you are? Come back here, Sarah Casey. Come back +here, I’m saying; or if it’s off you must go, leave me the two +little coppers you have, the way I can walk up in a short while, and get +another pint for my sleep. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s too much you have taken. Let you stretch yourself out and take a +long sleep; for isn’t that the best thing any woman can do, and she an +old drinking heathen like yourself. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She and Michael go out left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>standing up slowly.</i>—It’s gone they are, and I with my feet +that weak under me you’d knock me down with a rush, and my head with a +noise in it the like of what you’d hear in a stream and it running +between two rocks and rain falling. <i>(She goes over to the ditch where the +can is tied in sacking, and takes it down.)</i> What good am I this night, God +help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it’s few would +listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the time +her hour was come, or a little child wouldn’t be sleeping with the hunger +on a cold night? <i>(She takes the can from the sacking and fits in three empty +bottles and straw in its place, and ties them up.)</i> Maybe the two of them +have a good right to be walking out the little short while they’d be +young; but if they have itself, they’ll not keep Mary Byrne from her full +pint when the night’s fine, and there’s a dry moon in the sky. +<i>(She takes up the can, and puts the package back in the ditch.)</i> Jemmy +Neill’s a decent lad; and he’ll give me a good drop for the can; +and maybe if I keep near the peelers to-morrow for the first bit of the fair, +herself won’t strike me at all; and if she does itself, what’s a +little stroke on your head beside sitting lonesome on a fine night, hearing the +dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you saying over, it’s a short +while only till you die. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes out singing “The night before Larry was +stretched.”</i> +</p> + +<h5>CURTAIN</h5> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap05"></a></p> <h2>ACT II.</h2> + +<p> +SCENE: <i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to Michael, with pleased excitement.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>getting them.</i>—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. <i>(With the handkerchief.)</i> Is it them two? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It is, Michael. <i>(She takes one of them.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Mary yawns, and turns over in her sleep.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>with anxiety.</i>—There she is waking up on us, and I thinking +we’d have the job done before she’d know of it at all. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +She’ll be crying out now, and making game of us, and saying it’s +fools we are surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>waking up, and looking at them with curiosity, +blandly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She looks around cautiously at the bundle in which she has hidden the +bottles.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>coaxingly.</i>—Let you stretch out again for a sleep, Mary Byrne, for +it’ll be a middling time yet before we go to the fair. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with suspicion.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>losing her temper and breaking out fiercely.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>rather uneasy, turning to Michael.</i>—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? <i>(She gets up slowly.)</i> And I’d +best be going forward to sell the gallon can. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes over and takes up the bundle.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>crying out angrily.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>in a feigned tone of pacification, with the bundle still in her +hand.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Leave down the tin can, Mary Byrne, for I hear the drouth upon your tongue +to-day. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>[She turns to go off left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>jumping up, and picking up the hammer threateningly.</i>—Put down that +can, I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looking at her for a moment in terror, and putting down the bundle in the +ditch.</i>—Is it raving mad you’re going, Sarah Casey, and you the +pride of women to destroy the world? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>going up to her, and giving her a push off left.</i>—I’ll show +you if it’s raving mad I am. Go on from this place, I’m saying, and +be wary now. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>turning back after her.</i>—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 +<i>(the Priest comes in behind her, on the left, and listens)</i>, and quenched +the flaming candles on the throne of God the time your shadow fell within the +pillars of the chapel door. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>going to Sarah, half terrified at the language that he has +heard.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>with anger still in her voice.</i>—Humbug is it! Would you be turning +back upon your spoken promise in the face of God? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>dubiously.</i>—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. <i>(Persuasively feeling in his pocket.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +You’d do that! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +I would surely, holy father, if I walked to the city of Dublin with blood and +blisters on my naked feet. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>uneasily scratching his ear.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Be hasty then, and you’ll have us done with before you’d think at +all. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>giving in.</i>—Well, maybe it’s right you are, and let you come +up to the chapel when you see me looking from the door. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He goes up into the chapel.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>calling after him.</i>—We will, and God preserve you, holy father. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>coming down to them, speaking with amazement and consternation, but without +anger.</i>—Going to the chapel! It’s at marriage you’re +fooling again, maybe? <i>(Sarah turns her back on her.)</i> 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? <i>(Going round in +front of Sarah.)</i> Is it at marriage you’re fooling again? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>triumphantly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>turning to Michael.</i>—And it’s yourself is wedding her, +Michael Byrne? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>gloomily.</i>—It is, God spare us. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looks at Sarah for a moment, and then bursts out into a laugh of +derision.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>gloomily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +And you’re thinking it’s paying gold to his reverence would make a +woman stop when she’s a mind to go? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>soothingly.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She sits down.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>puzzled.</i>—Is that the truth? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>pleased with the point she has made.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>vehement but uneasy.</i>—What is it yourself knows of the fine ladies +when they wouldn’t let the like of you go near them at all? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>to Sarah.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>decisively.</i>—If it’s wise or fool I am, I’ve made a +good bargain and I’ll stand to it now. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +What is it he’s making you give? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +The ten shillings in gold, and the tin can is above tied in the sack. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looking at the bundle with surprise and dread.</i>—The bit of gold and +the tin can, is it? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +The half a sovereign, and the gallon can. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>scrambling to her feet quickly.</i>—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. <i>(She goes a few steps towards the left, then turns +and speaks to Sarah very persuasively.</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes towards left, and pauses for a moment, looking about her with +embarrassment.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>in a low voice.</i>—What ails her at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>anxiously.</i>—It’s real wicked she does be when you hear her +speaking as easy as that. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>to herself.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She comes hobbling back towards the right.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Where is it you’re going? It isn’t that way we’ll be walking +to the fair. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>As she reaches the chapel-gate, the Priest comes to it in his surplice.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>crying out.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +We’re coming now, holy father. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Give me the bit of gold into my hand. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s here, holy father. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>looking at the gold.</i>—It’s a good one, I’m thinking, +wherever you got it. And where is the can? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>taking the bundle.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>taking the bundle.</i>—Give it here into my hand, Sarah Casey. What is +it any person would think of a tinker making a can. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He begins opening the bundle.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Priest opens the bundle; the three empty bottles fall out.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Glory to the saints of joy! +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>crestfallen and astonished.</i>—It’s the divil did it, your +reverence, and I wouldn’t tell you a lie. <i>(Raising her hands.)</i> May +the Lord Almighty strike me dead if the divil isn’t after hooshing the +tin can from the bag. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>vehemently.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>in a peacemaking voice, putting her hand on the Priest’s left +arm.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>imploringly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>loudly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>putting her shawl over her head.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>crying out with indignation.</i>—Have you no shame, Sarah Casey, to +tell lies unto a holy man? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to Mary, working herself into a rage.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>She seizes up one of the bottles.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>hiding behind the priest.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>waving Sarah off.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>shouting.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. <i>(He throws down the ten shillings on the ground.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +You’d do that? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +I would, surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>losing his temper finally.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>taking off his coat.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Is it lift your hand upon myself when the Lord would blight your members if +you’d touch me now? Go on from this. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He gives him a shove.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Blight me is it? Take it then, your reverence, and God help you so. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He runs at him with the reins.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>runs up to ditch crying out.</i>—There are the peelers passing by the +grace of God—hey, below! +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>clapping her hand over his mouth.</i>—Knock him down on the road; they +didn’t hear him at all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Michael pulls him down.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Gag his jaws. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Stuff the sacking in his teeth. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They gag him with the sack that had the can in it.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Tie the bag around his head, and if the peelers come, we’ll put him +head-first in the boghole is beyond the ditch. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They tie him up in some sacking.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>to Mary.</i>—Keep him quiet, and the rags tight on him for fear +he’d screech. <i>(He goes back to their camp.)</i> Hurry with the things, +Sarah Casey. The peelers aren’t coming this way, and maybe we’ll +get off from them now. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>patting his head.</i>—Be quiet, your reverence. What is it ails you, +with your wrigglings now? Is it choking maybe? <i>(She puts her hand under the +sack, and feels his mouth, patting him on the back.)</i> 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. <i>(In a soothing voice.)</i> 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. <i>(He gets quieter.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>who has finished bundling up the things, comes over to +Sarah.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +You’d have a right too, I’m thinking. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>soothingly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +What would he care for an oath? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Don’t you know his like do live in terror of the wrath of God? +<i>(Putting her mouth to the Priest’s ear in the sacking.)</i> Would you +swear an oath, holy father, to leave us in our freedom, and not talk at all? +<i>(Priest nods in sacking.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>as if speaking to a horse.</i>—Hold up, holy father. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He pulls the sacking off, and shows the priest with his hair on end. They +free his mouth.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Hold him till he swears. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>in a faint voice.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>puts the ring on his finger.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>complacently, standing up slowly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They gather up their things. The priest stands up.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>lifting up his hand.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He begins saying a Latin malediction in a loud ecclesiastical voice.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +There’s an old villain. +</p> + +<p> +ALL<br /> +<i>together.</i>—Run, run. Run for your lives. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They rush out, leaving the Priest master of the situation.</i> +</p> + +<h5>CURTAIN</h5> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1328 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/1328-h/images/cover.jpg b/1328-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ffae90 --- /dev/null +++ b/1328-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b546ec --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1328 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1328) diff --git a/old/1328-0.txt b/old/1328-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3963d6c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1328-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1679 @@ + +Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tinker’s Wedding, by J. M. Synge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tinker’s Wedding + +Author: J. M. Synge + +Release Date: May 1998 [EBook #1328] +Last Updated: January 26, 2019 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TINKER’S WEDDING *** + + + + +This etext was prepared by Judy Boss + + + +cover + + + + The Tinker’s Wedding + + + +A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS + + + + by J. M. Synge + + + +Contents + + + PREFACE. + THE TINKER’S WEDDING + PERSONS. + ACT I. + ACT II. + + + +PREFACE. + +The drama is made serious—in the French sense of the word—not by the +degree in which it is taken up with problems that are serious in +themselves, but by the degree in which it gives the nourishment, not +very easy to define, on which our imaginations live. We should not go +to the theatre as we go to a chemist’s, or a dram-shop, but as we go to +a dinner, where the food we need is taken with pleasure and excitement. +This was nearly always so in Spain and England and France when the +drama was at its richest—the infancy and decay of the drama tend to be +didactic—but in these days the playhouse is too often stocked with the +drugs of many seedy problems, or with the absinthe or vermouth of the +last musical comedy. + +The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything. +Analysts with their problems, and teachers with their systems, are soon +as old-fashioned as the pharmacopœia of Galen,—look at Ibsen and the +Germans—but the best plays of Ben Jonson and Molière can no more go out +of fashion than the black-berries on the hedges. + +Of the things which nourish the imagination humour is one of the most +needful, and it is dangerous to limit or destroy it. Baudelaire calls +laughter the greatest sign of the Satanic element in man; and where a +country loses its humor, as some towns in Ireland are doing, there will +be morbidity of mind, as Baudelaire’s mind was morbid. + +In the greater part of Ireland, however, the whole people, from the +tinkers to the clergy, have still a life, and view of life, that are +rich and genial and humorous. I do not think that these country people, +who have so much humor themselves, will mind being laughed at without +malice, as the people in every country have been laughed at in their +own comedies. + +J. M. S. + +_December 2nd_, 1907. + + + +THE TINKER’S WEDDING + +PERSONS + +MICHAEL BYRNE, a tinker. +MARY BYRNE, an old woman, his mother. +SARAH CASEY, a young tinker woman. +A PRIEST. + + + +ACT I. + +SCENE: _A Village roadside after nightfall. A fire of sticks is burning +near the ditch a little to the right. Michael is working beside it. In +the background, on the left, a sort of tent and ragged clothes drying +on the hedge. On the right a chapel-gate._ + + +SARAH CASEY +_coming in on right, eagerly._—We’ll see his reverence this place, +Michael Byrne, and he passing backward to his house to-night. + +MICHAEL +_grimly._—That’ll be a sacred and a sainted joy! + +SARAH +_sharply._—It’ll be small joy for yourself if you aren’t ready with my +wedding ring. _(She goes over to him.)_ Is it near done this time, or +what way is it at all? + +MICHAEL +A poor way only, Sarah Casey, for it’s the divil’s job making a ring, +and you’ll be having my hands destroyed in a short while the way I’ll +not be able to make a tin can at all maybe at the dawn of day. + +SARAH +_sitting down beside him and throwing sticks on the fire._—If it’s the +divil’s job, let you mind it, and leave your speeches that would choke +a fool. + +MICHAEL +_slowly and glumly._—And it’s you’ll go talking of fools, Sarah Casey, +when no man did ever hear a lying story even of your like unto this +mortal day. You to be going beside me a great while, and rearing a lot +of them, and then to be setting off with your talk of getting married, +and your driving me to it, and I not asking it at all. + +[_Sarah turns her back to him and arranges something in the ditch._ + +MICHAEL +_angrily._—Can’t you speak a word when I’m asking what is it ails you +since the moon did change? + +SARAH +_musingly._—I’m thinking there isn’t anything ails me, Michael Byrne; +but the spring-time is a queer time, and it’s queer thoughts maybe I do +think at whiles. + +MICHAEL +It’s hard set you’d be to think queerer than welcome, Sarah Casey; but +what will you gain dragging me to the priest this night, I’m saying, +when it’s new thoughts you’ll be thinking at the dawn of day? + +SARAH +_teasingly._—It’s at the dawn of day I do be thinking I’d have a right +to be going off to the rich tinkers do be travelling from Tibradden to +the Tara Hill; for it’d be a fine life to be driving with young +Jaunting Jim, where there wouldn’t be any big hills to break the back +of you, with walking up and walking down. + +MICHAEL +_with dismay._—It’s the like of that you do be thinking! + +SARAH +The like of that, Michael Byrne, when there is a bit of sun in it, and +a kind air, and a great smell coming from the thorn-trees is above your +head. + +MICHAEL +_looks at her for a moment with horror, and then hands her the +ring._—Will that fit you now? + +SARAH +_trying it on._—It’s making it tight you are, and the edges sharp on +the tin. + +MICHAEL +_looking at it carefully._—It’s the fat of your own finger, Sarah +Casey; and isn’t it a mad thing I’m saying again that you’d be asking +marriage of me, or making a talk of going away from me, and you +thriving and getting your good health by the grace of the Almighty God? + +SARAH +_giving it back to him._—Fix it now, and it’ll do, if you’re wary you +don’t squeeze it again. + +MICHAEL +_moodily, working again._—It’s easy saying be wary; there’s many things +easy said, Sarah Casey, you’d wonder a fool even would be saying at +all. _(He starts violently.)_ The divil mend you, I’m scalded again! + +SARAH +_scornfully._—If you are, it’s a clumsy man you are this night, Michael +Byrne _(raising her voice)_; and let you make haste now, or herself +will be coming with the porter. + +MICHAEL +_defiantly, raising his voice._—Let me make haste? I’ll be making haste +maybe to hit you a great clout; for I’m thinking on the day I got you +above at Rathvanna, and the way you began crying out and saying, “I’ll +go back to my ma,” and I’m thinking on the way I came behind you that +time, and hit you a great clout in the lug, and how quiet and easy it +was you came along with me from that hour to this present day. + +SARAH +_standing up and throwing all her sticks into the fire._—And a big fool +I was too, maybe; but we’ll be seeing Jaunting Jim to-morrow in +Ballinaclash, and he after getting a great price for his white foal in +the horse-fair of Wicklow, the way it’ll be a great sight to see him +squandering his share of gold, and he with a grand eye for a fine +horse, and a grand eye for a woman. + +MICHAEL +_working again with impatience._—The divil do him good with the two of +them. + +SARAH +_kicking up the ashes with her foot._—Ah, he’s a great lad, I’m telling +you, and it’s proud and happy I’ll be to see him, and he the first one +called me the Beauty of Ballinacree, a fine name for a woman. + +MICHAEL +_with contempt._—It’s the like of that name they do be putting on the +horses they have below racing in Arklow. It’s easy pleased you are, +Sarah Casey, easy pleased with a big word, or the liar speaks it. + +SARAH +Liar! + +MICHAEL +Liar, surely. + +SARAH +_indignantly._—Liar, is it? Didn’t you ever hear tell of the peelers +followed me ten miles along the Glen Malure, and they talking love to +me in the dark night, or of the children you’ll meet coming from school +and they saying one to the other, “It’s this day we seen Sarah Casey, +the Beauty of Ballinacree, a great sight surely.” + +MICHAEL +God help the lot of them! + +SARAH +It’s yourself you’ll be calling God to help, in two weeks or three, +when you’ll be waking up in the dark night and thinking you see me +coming with the sun on me, and I driving a high cart with Jaunting Jim +going behind. It’s lonesome and cold you’ll be feeling the ditch where +you’ll be lying down that night, I’m telling you, and you hearing the +old woman making a great noise in her sleep, and the bats squeaking in +the trees. + +MICHAEL +Whist. I hear some one coming the road. + +SARAH +_looking out right._—It’s some one coming forward from the doctor’s +door. + +MICHAEL +It’s often his reverence does be in there playing cards, or drinking a +sup, or singing songs, until the dawn of day. + +SARAH +It’s a big boast of a man with a long step on him and a trumpeting +voice. It’s his reverence surely; and if you have the ring done, it’s a +great bargain we’ll make now and he after drinking his glass. + +MICHAEL +_going to her and giving her the ring._—There’s your ring, Sarah Casey; +but I’m thinking he’ll walk by and not stop to speak with the like of +us at all. + +SARAH +_tidying herself, in great excitement._—Let you be sitting here and +keeping a great blaze, the way he can look on my face; and let you seem +to be working, for it’s great love the like of him have to talk of +work. + +MICHAEL +_moodily, sitting down and_ _beginning to work at a tin can._—Great +love surely. + +SARAH +_eagerly._—Make a great blaze now, Michael Byrne. + +[_The priest comes in on right; she comes forward in front of him._ + +SARAH +_in a very plausible voice._—Good evening, your reverence. It’s a grand +fine night, by the grace of God. + +PRIEST +The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of a living woman is it that you +are at all? + +SARAH +It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and +it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch. + +PRIEST +A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way. + +[_He tries to pass by._ + +SARAH +_keeping in front of him._—We are wanting a little word with your +reverence. + +PRIEST +I haven’t a halfpenny at all. Leave the road I’m saying. + +SARAH +It isn’t a halfpenny we’re asking, holy father; but we were thinking +maybe we’d have a right to be getting married; and we were thinking +it’s yourself would marry us for not a halfpenny at all; for you’re a +kind man, your reverence, a kind man with the poor. + +PRIEST +_with astonishment._—Is it marry you for nothing at all? + +SARAH +It is, your reverence; and we were thinking maybe you’d give us a +little small bit of silver to pay for the ring. + +PRIEST +_loudly._—Let you hold your tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. I’ve +no silver at all for the like of you; and if you want to be married, +let you pay your pound. I’d do it for a pound only, and that’s making +it a sight cheaper than I’d make it for one of my own pairs is living +here in the place. + +SARAH +Where would the like of us get a pound, your reverence? + +PRIEST +Wouldn’t you easy get it with your selling asses, and making cans, and +your stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wexford and the county +Meath? _(He tries to pass her.)_ Let you leave the road, and not be +plaguing me more. + +SARAH +_pleadingly, taking money from her pocket._—Wouldn’t you have a little +mercy on us, your reverence? _(Holding out money.)_ Wouldn’t you marry +us for a half a sovereign, and it a nice shiny one with a view on it of +the living king’s mamma? + +PRIEST +If it’s ten shillings you have, let you get ten more the same way, and +I’ll marry you then. + +SARAH +_whining._—It’s two years we are getting that bit, your reverence, with +our pence and our halfpence and an odd three-penny bit; and if you +don’t marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great drouth, +will be drinking it to-morrow in the fair _(she puts her apron to her +eyes, half sobbing)_, and then I won’t be married any time, and I’ll be +saying till I’m an old woman: “It’s a cruel and a wicked thing to be +bred poor.” + +PRIEST +_turning up towards the fire._—Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. It’s +a queer woman you are to be crying at the like of that, and you your +whole life walking the roads. + +SARAH +_sobbing._—It’s two years we are getting the gold, your reverence, and +now you won’t marry us for that bit, and we hard-working poor people do +be making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the black +smoke from the bits of twigs we do be burning. + +[_An old woman is heard singing tipsily on the left._ + +PRIEST +_looking at the can Michael is making._—When will you have that can +done, Michael Byrne? + +MICHAEL +In a short space only, your reverence, for I’m putting the last dab of +solder on the rim. + +PRIEST +Let you get a crown along with the ten shillings and the gallon can, +Sarah Casey, and I will wed you so. + +MARY +_suddenly shouting behind, tipsily._—Larry was a fine lad, I’m saying; +Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey— + +MICHAEL +Whist, now, the two of you. There’s my mother coming, and she’d have us +destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she’s been +drinking her fill. + +MARY +_comes in singing_ + + And when we asked him what way he’d die, + And he hanging unrepented, + “Begob,” says Larry, “that’s all in my eye, + By the clergy first invented.” + +SARAH +Give me the jug now, or you’ll have it spilt in the ditch. + +MARY +_holding the jug with both her hands, in a stilted voice._—Let you +leave me easy, Sarah Casey. I won’t spill it, I’m saying. God help you; +are you thinking it’s frothing full to the brim it is at this hour of +the night, and I after carrying it in my two hands a long step from +Jemmy Neill’s? + +MICHAEL +_anxiously._—Is there a sup left at all? + +SARAH +_looking into the jug._—A little small sup only I’m thinking. + +MARY +_sees the priest, and holds out jug towards him._—God save your +reverence. I’m after bringing down a smart drop; and let you drink it +up now, for it’s a middling drouthy man you are at all times, God +forgive you, and this night is cruel dry. + +[_She tries to go towards him. Sarah holds her back._ + +PRIEST +_waving her away._—Let you not be falling to the flames. Keep off, I’m +saying. + +MARY +_persuasively._—Let you not be shy of us, your reverence. Aren’t we all +sinners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I’m telling you; and we won’t +let on a word about it till the Judgment Day. + +[_She takes up a tin mug, pours some porter into it, and gives it to +him._ + +MARY +_singing, and holding the jug in her hand._ + + A lonesome ditch in Ballygan + The day you’re beating a tenpenny can; + A lonesome bank in Ballyduff + The time . . . + +[_She breaks off._ It’s a bad, wicked song, Sarah Casey; and let you +put me down now in the ditch, and I won’t sing it till himself will be +gone; for it’s bad enough he is, I’m thinking, without ourselves making +him worse. + +SARAH +_putting her down, to the priest, half laughing._—Don’t mind her at +all, your reverence. She’s no shame the time she’s a drop taken; and if +it was the Holy Father from Rome was in it, she’d give him a little sup +out of her mug, and say the same as she’d say to yourself. + +MARY +_to the priest._—Let you drink it up, holy father. Let you drink it up, +I’m saying, and not be letting on you wouldn’t do the like of it, and +you with a stack of pint bottles above, reaching the sky. + +PRIEST +_with resignation._—Well, here’s to your good health, and God forgive +us all. + +[_He drinks._ + +MARY +That’s right now, your reverence, and the blessing of God be on you. +Isn’t it a grand thing to see you sitting down, with no pride in you, +and drinking a sup with the like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, +starving creatures you’d see any place on the earth? + +PRIEST +If it’s starving you are itself, I’m thinking it’s well for the like of +you that do be drinking when there’s drouth on you, and lying down to +sleep when your legs are stiff. _(He sighs gloomily.)_ What would you +do if it was the like of myself you were, saying Mass with your mouth +dry, and running east and west for a sick call maybe, and hearing the +rural people again and they saying their sins? + +MARY +_with compassion._—It’s destroyed you must be hearing the sins of the +rural people on a fine spring. + +PRIEST +_with despondency._—It’s a hard life, I’m telling you, a hard life, +Mary Byrne; and there’s the bishop coming in the morning, and he an old +man, would have you destroyed if he seen a thing at all. + +MARY +_with great sympathy._—It’d break my heart to hear you talking and +sighing the like of that, your reverence. _(She pats him on the knee.)_ +Let you rouse up, now, if it’s a poor, single man you are itself, and +I’ll be singing you songs unto the dawn of day. + +PRIEST +_interrupting her._—What is it I want with your songs when it’d be +better for the like of you, that’ll soon die, to be down on your two +knees saying prayers to the Almighty God? + +MARY +If it’s prayers I want, you’d have a right to say one yourself, holy +father; for we don’t have them at all, and I’ve heard tell a power of +times it’s that you’re for. Say one now, your reverence, for I’ve heard +a power of queer things and I walking the world, but there’s one thing +I never heard any time, and that’s a real priest saying a prayer. + +PRIEST +The Lord protect us! + +MARY +It’s no lie, holy father. I often heard the rural people making a queer +noise and they going to rest; but who’d mind the like of them? And I’m +thinking it should be great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, +speaking Latin to the saints above. + +PRIEST +_scandalized._—Stop your talking, Mary Byrne; you’re an old flagrant +heathen, and I’ll stay no more with the lot of you. + +[_He rises._ + +MARY +_catching hold of him._—Stop till you say a prayer, your reverence; +stop till you say a little prayer, I’m telling you, and I’ll give you +my blessing and the last sup from the jug. + +PRIEST +_breaking away._—Leave me go, Mary Byrne; for I have never met your +like for hard abominations the score and two years I’m living in the +place. + +MARY +_innocently._—Is that the truth? + +PRIEST +—It is, then, and God have mercy on your soul. + +[_The priest goes towards the left, and Sarah follows him._ + +SARAH +_in a low voice._—And what time will you do the thing I’m asking, holy +father? for I’m thinking you’ll do it surely, and not have me growing +into an old wicked heathen like herself. + +MARY +_calling out shrilly._—Let you be walking back here, Sarah Casey, and +not be talking whisper-talk with the like of him in the face of the +Almighty God. + +SARAH +_to the priest._—Do you hear her now, your reverence? Isn’t it true, +surely, she’s an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy the world? + +PRIEST +_to Sarah, moving off._—Well, I’ll be coming down early to the chapel, +and let you come to me a while after you see me passing, and bring the +bit of gold along with you, and the tin can. I’ll marry you for them +two, though it’s a pitiful small sum; for I wouldn’t be easy in my soul +if I left you growing into an old, wicked heathen the like of her. + +SARAH +_following him out._—The blessing of the Almighty God be on you, holy +father, and that He may reward and watch you from this present day. + +MARY +_nudging Michael._—Did you see that, Michael Byrne? Didn’t you hear me +telling you she’s flighty a while back since the change of the moon? +With her fussing for marriage, and she making whisper-talk with one man +or another man along by the road. + +MICHAEL +—Whist now, or she’ll knock the head of you the time she comes back. + +MARY +—Ah, it’s a bad, wicked way the world is this night, if there’s a fine +air in it itself. You’d never have seen me, and I a young woman, making +whisper-talk with the like of him, and he the fearfullest old fellow +you’d see any place walking the world. + +[_Sarah comes back quickly._ + +MARY +_calling out to her._—What is it you’re after whispering above with +himself? + +SARAH +_exultingly._—Lie down, and leave us in peace. _She whispers with +Michael._ + +MARY +_poking out her pipe with a straw, sings_— + + She’d whisper with one, and she’d whisper with two— + +_She breaks off coughing._—My singing voice is gone for this night, +Sarah Casey. _(She lights her pipe.)_ But if it’s flighty you are +itself, you’re a grand handsome woman, the glory of tinkers, the pride +of Wicklow, the Beauty of Ballinacree. I wouldn’t have you lying down +and you lonesome to sleep this night in a dark ditch when the spring is +coming in the trees; so let you sit down there by the big bough, and +I’ll be telling you the finest story you’d hear any place from Dundalk +to Ballinacree, with great queens in it, making themselves matches from +the start to the end, and they with shiny silks on them the length of +the day, and white shifts for the night. + +MICHAEL +_standing up with the tin can in his hand._—Let you go asleep, and not +have us destroyed. + +MARY +_lying back sleepily._—Don’t mind him, Sarah Casey. Sit down now, and +I’ll be telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman the like of +you in the springtime of the year. + +SARAH +_taking the can from Michael, and tying it up in a piece of +sacking._—That’ll not be rusting now in the dews of night. I’ll put it +up in the ditch the way it will be handy in the morning; and now we’ve +that done, Michael Byrne, I’ll go along with you and welcome for Tim +Flaherty’s hens. + +_[She puts the can in the ditch._ + +MARY +_sleepily._—I’ve a grand story of the great queens of Ireland with +white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey, and fine arms would hit +you a slap the way Sarah Casey would hit you. + +SARAH +_beckoning on the left._—Come along now, Michael, while she’s falling +asleep. + +[_He goes towards left. Mary sees that they are going, starts up +suddenly, and turns over on her hands and knees._ + +MARY +_piteously._—Where is it you’re going? Let you walk back here, and not +be leaving me lonesome when the night is fine. + +SARAH +Don’t be waking the world with your talk when we’re going up through +the back wood to get two of Tim Flaherty’s hens are roosting in the +ash-tree above at the well. + +MARY +And it’s leaving me lone you are? Come back here, Sarah Casey. Come +back here, I’m saying; or if it’s off you must go, leave me the two +little coppers you have, the way I can walk up in a short while, and +get another pint for my sleep. + +SARAH +It’s too much you have taken. Let you stretch yourself out and take a +long sleep; for isn’t that the best thing any woman can do, and she an +old drinking heathen like yourself. + +[_She and Michael go out left._ + +MARY +_standing up slowly._—It’s gone they are, and I with my feet that weak +under me you’d knock me down with a rush, and my head with a noise in +it the like of what you’d hear in a stream and it running between two +rocks and rain falling. _(She goes over to the ditch where the can is +tied in sacking, and takes it down.)_ What good am I this night, God +help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it’s few would +listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the +time her hour was come, or a little child wouldn’t be sleeping with the +hunger on a cold night? _(She takes the can from the sacking and fits +in three empty bottles and straw in its place, and ties them up.)_ +Maybe the two of them have a good right to be walking out the little +short while they’d be young; but if they have itself, they’ll not keep +Mary Byrne from her full pint when the night’s fine, and there’s a dry +moon in the sky. _(She takes up the can, and puts the package back in +the ditch.)_ Jemmy Neill’s a decent lad; and he’ll give me a good drop +for the can; and maybe if I keep near the peelers to-morrow for the +first bit of the fair, herself won’t strike me at all; and if she does +itself, what’s a little stroke on your head beside sitting lonesome on +a fine night, hearing the dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you +saying over, it’s a short while only till you die. + +[_She goes out singing “The night before Larry was stretched.”_ + +CURTAIN + + + +ACT II. + +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 + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tinker’s Wedding, by J. M. 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M. Synge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tinker’s Wedding + +Author: J. M. Synge + +Release Date: May 1998 [EBook #1328] +Last Updated: January 26, 2019 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TINKER’S WEDDING *** + + + + +This etext was prepared by Judy Boss +</pre> + +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> + + +<div class="fig" style="width:70%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" /><br /><br /> +</div> + +<h1> The Tinker’s Wedding </h1> + +<h5>A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS</h5> + +<p> +<br /> +</p> + +<h3> by J. M. Synge </h3> + +<p> +<br/> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br/> +</p> + +<h2> +Contents +</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">PREFACE.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE TINKER’S WEDDING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">PERSONS.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">ACT I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">ACT II.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap01"></a></p> <h2>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The drama is made serious—in the French sense of the word—not by +the degree in which it is taken up with problems that are serious in +themselves, but by the degree in which it gives the nourishment, not very easy +to define, on which our imaginations live. We should not go to the theatre as +we go to a chemist’s, or a dram-shop, but as we go to a dinner, where the +food we need is taken with pleasure and excitement. This was nearly always so +in Spain and England and France when the drama was at its richest—the +infancy and decay of the drama tend to be didactic—but in these days the +playhouse is too often stocked with the drugs of many seedy problems, or with +the absinthe or vermouth of the last musical comedy. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything. Analysts with +their problems, and teachers with their systems, are soon as old-fashioned as +the pharmacopœia of Galen,—look at Ibsen and the Germans—but the +best plays of Ben Jonson and Molière can no more go out of fashion than the +black-berries on the hedges. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Of the things which nourish the imagination humour is one of the most needful, +and it is dangerous to limit or destroy it. Baudelaire calls laughter the +greatest sign of the Satanic element in man; and where a country loses its +humor, as some towns in Ireland are doing, there will be morbidity of mind, as +Baudelaire’s mind was morbid. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +In the greater part of Ireland, however, the whole people, from the tinkers to +the clergy, have still a life, and view of life, that are rich and genial and +humorous. I do not think that these country people, who have so much humor +themselves, will mind being laughed at without malice, as the people in every +country have been laughed at in their own comedies. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +J. M. S. +</p> + +<p> +<i>December 2nd</i>, 1907. +</p> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap02"></a></p> <h2>THE TINKER’S WEDDING</h2> + +<p><a name="chap03"></a></p> <h2>PERSONS</h2> + +<p> +MICHAEL BYRNE, a tinker.<br/> +MARY BYRNE, an old woman, his mother.<br/> +SARAH CASEY, a young tinker woman.<br/> +A PRIEST.<br/> +</p> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap04"></a></p> <h2>ACT I.</h2> + +<p> +SCENE: <i>A Village roadside after nightfall. A fire of sticks is burning near +the ditch a little to the right. Michael is working beside it. In the +background, on the left, a sort of tent and ragged clothes drying on the hedge. +On the right a chapel-gate.</i><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH CASEY<br /> +<i>coming in on right, eagerly.</i>—We’ll see his reverence this +place, Michael Byrne, and he passing backward to his house to-night. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>grimly.</i>—That’ll be a sacred and a sainted joy! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sharply.</i>—It’ll be small joy for yourself if you aren’t +ready with my wedding ring. <i>(She goes over to him.)</i> Is it near done this +time, or what way is it at all? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +A poor way only, Sarah Casey, for it’s the divil’s job making a +ring, and you’ll be having my hands destroyed in a short while the way +I’ll not be able to make a tin can at all maybe at the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sitting down beside him and throwing sticks on the fire.</i>—If +it’s the divil’s job, let you mind it, and leave your speeches that +would choke a fool. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>slowly and glumly.</i>—And it’s you’ll go talking of +fools, Sarah Casey, when no man did ever hear a lying story even of your like +unto this mortal day. You to be going beside me a great while, and rearing a +lot of them, and then to be setting off with your talk of getting married, and +your driving me to it, and I not asking it at all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Sarah turns her back to him and arranges something in the ditch.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—Can’t you speak a word when I’m asking what +is it ails you since the moon did change? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>musingly.</i>—I’m thinking there isn’t anything ails me, +Michael Byrne; but the spring-time is a queer time, and it’s queer +thoughts maybe I do think at whiles. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +It’s hard set you’d be to think queerer than welcome, Sarah Casey; +but what will you gain dragging me to the priest this night, I’m saying, +when it’s new thoughts you’ll be thinking at the dawn of day? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>teasingly.</i>—It’s at the dawn of day I do be thinking +I’d have a right to be going off to the rich tinkers do be travelling +from Tibradden to the Tara Hill; for it’d be a fine life to be driving +with young Jaunting Jim, where there wouldn’t be any big hills to break +the back of you, with walking up and walking down. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>with dismay.</i>—It’s the like of that you do be thinking! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +The like of that, Michael Byrne, when there is a bit of sun in it, and a kind +air, and a great smell coming from the thorn-trees is above your head. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>looks at her for a moment with horror, and then hands her the +ring.</i>—Will that fit you now? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>trying it on.</i>—It’s making it tight you are, and the edges +sharp on the tin. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>looking at it carefully.</i>—It’s the fat of your own finger, +Sarah Casey; and isn’t it a mad thing I’m saying again that +you’d be asking marriage of me, or making a talk of going away from me, +and you thriving and getting your good health by the grace of the Almighty God? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>giving it back to him.</i>—Fix it now, and it’ll do, if +you’re wary you don’t squeeze it again. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>moodily, working again.</i>—It’s easy saying be wary; +there’s many things easy said, Sarah Casey, you’d wonder a fool +even would be saying at all. <i>(He starts violently.)</i> The divil mend you, +I’m scalded again! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>scornfully.</i>—If you are, it’s a clumsy man you are this +night, Michael Byrne <i>(raising her voice)</i>; and let you make haste now, or +herself will be coming with the porter. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>defiantly, raising his voice.</i>—Let me make haste? I’ll be +making haste maybe to hit you a great clout; for I’m thinking on the day +I got you above at Rathvanna, and the way you began crying out and saying, +“I’ll go back to my ma,” and I’m thinking on the way I +came behind you that time, and hit you a great clout in the lug, and how quiet +and easy it was you came along with me from that hour to this present day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>standing up and throwing all her sticks into the fire.</i>—And a big +fool I was too, maybe; but we’ll be seeing Jaunting Jim to-morrow in +Ballinaclash, and he after getting a great price for his white foal in the +horse-fair of Wicklow, the way it’ll be a great sight to see him +squandering his share of gold, and he with a grand eye for a fine horse, and a +grand eye for a woman. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>working again with impatience.</i>—The divil do him good with the two +of them. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>kicking up the ashes with her foot.</i>—Ah, he’s a great lad, +I’m telling you, and it’s proud and happy I’ll be to see him, +and he the first one called me the Beauty of Ballinacree, a fine name for a +woman. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>with contempt.</i>—It’s the like of that name they do be putting +on the horses they have below racing in Arklow. It’s easy pleased you +are, Sarah Casey, easy pleased with a big word, or the liar speaks it. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Liar! +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Liar, surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>indignantly.</i>—Liar, is it? Didn’t you ever hear tell of the +peelers followed me ten miles along the Glen Malure, and they talking love to +me in the dark night, or of the children you’ll meet coming from school +and they saying one to the other, “It’s this day we seen Sarah +Casey, the Beauty of Ballinacree, a great sight surely.” +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +God help the lot of them! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s yourself you’ll be calling God to help, in two weeks or three, +when you’ll be waking up in the dark night and thinking you see me coming +with the sun on me, and I driving a high cart with Jaunting Jim going behind. +It’s lonesome and cold you’ll be feeling the ditch where +you’ll be lying down that night, I’m telling you, and you hearing +the old woman making a great noise in her sleep, and the bats squeaking in the +trees. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Whist. I hear some one coming the road. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>looking out right.</i>—It’s some one coming forward from the +doctor’s door. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +It’s often his reverence does be in there playing cards, or drinking a +sup, or singing songs, until the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s a big boast of a man with a long step on him and a trumpeting voice. +It’s his reverence surely; and if you have the ring done, it’s a +great bargain we’ll make now and he after drinking his glass. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>going to her and giving her the ring.</i>—There’s your ring, +Sarah Casey; but I’m thinking he’ll walk by and not stop to speak +with the like of us at all. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>tidying herself, in great excitement.</i>—Let you be sitting here and +keeping a great blaze, the way he can look on my face; and let you seem to be +working, for it’s great love the like of him have to talk of work. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>moodily, sitting down and</i> <i>beginning to work at a tin +can.</i>—Great love surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>eagerly.</i>—Make a great blaze now, Michael Byrne. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>The priest comes in on right; she comes forward in front of him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>in a very plausible voice.</i>—Good evening, your reverence. +It’s a grand fine night, by the grace of God. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of a living woman is it that you are at +all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and +it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He tries to pass by.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>keeping in front of him.</i>—We are wanting a little word with your +reverence. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +I haven’t a halfpenny at all. Leave the road I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It isn’t a halfpenny we’re asking, holy father; but we were +thinking maybe we’d have a right to be getting married; and we were +thinking it’s yourself would marry us for not a halfpenny at all; for +you’re a kind man, your reverence, a kind man with the poor. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with astonishment.</i>—Is it marry you for nothing at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It is, your reverence; and we were thinking maybe you’d give us a little +small bit of silver to pay for the ring. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>loudly.</i>—Let you hold your tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. +I’ve no silver at all for the like of you; and if you want to be married, +let you pay your pound. I’d do it for a pound only, and that’s +making it a sight cheaper than I’d make it for one of my own pairs is +living here in the place. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Where would the like of us get a pound, your reverence? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Wouldn’t you easy get it with your selling asses, and making cans, and +your stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wexford and the county Meath? <i>(He +tries to pass her.)</i> Let you leave the road, and not be plaguing me more. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>pleadingly, taking money from her pocket.</i>—Wouldn’t you have +a little mercy on us, your reverence? <i>(Holding out money.)</i> +Wouldn’t you marry us for a half a sovereign, and it a nice shiny one +with a view on it of the living king’s mamma? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +If it’s ten shillings you have, let you get ten more the same way, and +I’ll marry you then. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>whining.</i>—It’s two years we are getting that bit, your +reverence, with our pence and our halfpence and an odd three-penny bit; and if +you don’t marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great +drouth, will be drinking it to-morrow in the fair <i>(she puts her apron to her +eyes, half sobbing)</i>, and then I won’t be married any time, and +I’ll be saying till I’m an old woman: “It’s a cruel and +a wicked thing to be bred poor.” +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>turning up towards the fire.</i>—Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. +It’s a queer woman you are to be crying at the like of that, and you your +whole life walking the roads. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sobbing.</i>—It’s two years we are getting the gold, your +reverence, and now you won’t marry us for that bit, and we hard-working +poor people do be making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the +black smoke from the bits of twigs we do be burning. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>An old woman is heard singing tipsily on the left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>looking at the can Michael is making.</i>—When will you have that can +done, Michael Byrne? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +In a short space only, your reverence, for I’m putting the last dab of +solder on the rim. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Let you get a crown along with the ten shillings and the gallon can, Sarah +Casey, and I will wed you so. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>suddenly shouting behind, tipsily.</i>—Larry was a fine lad, I’m +saying; Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey— +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Whist, now, the two of you. There’s my mother coming, and she’d +have us destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she’s been +drinking her fill. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>comes in singing</i><br /><br /> + And when we asked him what way he’d die,<br /> + And he hanging unrepented,<br /> + “Begob,” says Larry, “that’s all in my eye,<br /> + By the clergy first invented.” +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Give me the jug now, or you’ll have it spilt in the ditch. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>holding the jug with both her hands, in a stilted voice.</i>—Let you +leave me easy, Sarah Casey. I won’t spill it, I’m saying. God help +you; are you thinking it’s frothing full to the brim it is at this hour +of the night, and I after carrying it in my two hands a long step from Jemmy +Neill’s? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>anxiously.</i>—Is there a sup left at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>looking into the jug.</i>—A little small sup only I’m thinking. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>sees the priest, and holds out jug towards him.</i>—God save your +reverence. I’m after bringing down a smart drop; and let you drink it up +now, for it’s a middling drouthy man you are at all times, God forgive +you, and this night is cruel dry. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She tries to go towards him. Sarah holds her back.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>waving her away.</i>—Let you not be falling to the flames. Keep off, +I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>persuasively.</i>—Let you not be shy of us, your reverence. +Aren’t we all sinners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I’m telling +you; and we won’t let on a word about it till the Judgment Day. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She takes up a tin mug, pours some porter into it, and gives it to him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>singing, and holding the jug in her hand.</i><br /><br /> + A lonesome ditch in Ballygan<br /> + The day you’re beating a tenpenny can;<br /> + A lonesome bank in Ballyduff<br /> + The time . . .<br /><br /> + +[<i>She breaks off.</i> It’s a bad, wicked song, Sarah Casey; and let you +put me down now in the ditch, and I won’t sing it till himself will be +gone; for it’s bad enough he is, I’m thinking, without ourselves +making him worse. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>putting her down, to the priest, half laughing.</i>—Don’t mind +her at all, your reverence. She’s no shame the time she’s a drop +taken; and if it was the Holy Father from Rome was in it, she’d give him +a little sup out of her mug, and say the same as she’d say to yourself. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>to the priest.</i>—Let you drink it up, holy father. Let you drink it +up, I’m saying, and not be letting on you wouldn’t do the like of +it, and you with a stack of pint bottles above, reaching the sky. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with resignation.</i>—Well, here’s to your good health, and God +forgive us all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He drinks.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +That’s right now, your reverence, and the blessing of God be on you. +Isn’t it a grand thing to see you sitting down, with no pride in you, and +drinking a sup with the like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, starving +creatures you’d see any place on the earth? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +If it’s starving you are itself, I’m thinking it’s well for +the like of you that do be drinking when there’s drouth on you, and lying +down to sleep when your legs are stiff. <i>(He sighs gloomily.)</i> What would +you do if it was the like of myself you were, saying Mass with your mouth dry, +and running east and west for a sick call maybe, and hearing the rural people +again and they saying their sins? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with compassion.</i>—It’s destroyed you must be hearing the sins +of the rural people on a fine spring. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with despondency.</i>—It’s a hard life, I’m telling you, a +hard life, Mary Byrne; and there’s the bishop coming in the morning, and +he an old man, would have you destroyed if he seen a thing at all. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with great sympathy.</i>—It’d break my heart to hear you talking +and sighing the like of that, your reverence. <i>(She pats him on the +knee.)</i> Let you rouse up, now, if it’s a poor, single man you are +itself, and I’ll be singing you songs unto the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>interrupting her.</i>—What is it I want with your songs when +it’d be better for the like of you, that’ll soon die, to be down on +your two knees saying prayers to the Almighty God? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +If it’s prayers I want, you’d have a right to say one yourself, +holy father; for we don’t have them at all, and I’ve heard tell a +power of times it’s that you’re for. Say one now, your reverence, +for I’ve heard a power of queer things and I walking the world, but +there’s one thing I never heard any time, and that’s a real priest +saying a prayer. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +The Lord protect us! +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +It’s no lie, holy father. I often heard the rural people making a queer +noise and they going to rest; but who’d mind the like of them? And +I’m thinking it should be great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, +speaking Latin to the saints above. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>scandalized.</i>—Stop your talking, Mary Byrne; you’re an old +flagrant heathen, and I’ll stay no more with the lot of you. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He rises.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>catching hold of him.</i>—Stop till you say a prayer, your reverence; +stop till you say a little prayer, I’m telling you, and I’ll give +you my blessing and the last sup from the jug. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>breaking away.</i>—Leave me go, Mary Byrne; for I have never met your +like for hard abominations the score and two years I’m living in the +place. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>innocently.</i>—Is that the truth? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +—It is, then, and God have mercy on your soul. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>The priest goes towards the left, and Sarah follows him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>in a low voice.</i>—And what time will you do the thing I’m +asking, holy father? for I’m thinking you’ll do it surely, and not +have me growing into an old wicked heathen like herself. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>calling out shrilly.</i>—Let you be walking back here, Sarah Casey, +and not be talking whisper-talk with the like of him in the face of the +Almighty God. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to the priest.</i>—Do you hear her now, your reverence? Isn’t it +true, surely, she’s an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy the world? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>to Sarah, moving off.</i>—Well, I’ll be coming down early to the +chapel, and let you come to me a while after you see me passing, and bring the +bit of gold along with you, and the tin can. I’ll marry you for them two, +though it’s a pitiful small sum; for I wouldn’t be easy in my soul +if I left you growing into an old, wicked heathen the like of her. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>following him out.</i>—The blessing of the Almighty God be on you, +holy father, and that He may reward and watch you from this present day. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>nudging Michael.</i>—Did you see that, Michael Byrne? Didn’t you +hear me telling you she’s flighty a while back since the change of the +moon? With her fussing for marriage, and she making whisper-talk with one man +or another man along by the road. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +—Whist now, or she’ll knock the head of you the time she comes +back. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +—Ah, it’s a bad, wicked way the world is this night, if +there’s a fine air in it itself. You’d never have seen me, and I a +young woman, making whisper-talk with the like of him, and he the fearfullest +old fellow you’d see any place walking the world. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Sarah comes back quickly.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>calling out to her.</i>—What is it you’re after whispering above +with himself? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>exultingly.</i>—Lie down, and leave us in peace. <i>She whispers with +Michael.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>poking out her pipe with a straw, sings</i>—<br /><br /> + She’d whisper with one, and she’d whisper with two—<br /><br /> + +<i>She breaks off coughing.</i>—My singing voice is gone for this night, +Sarah Casey. <i>(She lights her pipe.)</i> But if it’s flighty you are +itself, you’re a grand handsome woman, the glory of tinkers, the pride of +Wicklow, the Beauty of Ballinacree. I wouldn’t have you lying down and +you lonesome to sleep this night in a dark ditch when the spring is coming in +the trees; so let you sit down there by the big bough, and I’ll be +telling you the finest story you’d hear any place from Dundalk to +Ballinacree, with great queens in it, making themselves matches from the start +to the end, and they with shiny silks on them the length of the day, and white +shifts for the night. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>standing up with the tin can in his hand.</i>—Let you go asleep, and +not have us destroyed. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>lying back sleepily.</i>—Don’t mind him, Sarah Casey. Sit down +now, and I’ll be telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman the +like of you in the springtime of the year. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>taking the can from Michael, and tying it up in a piece of +sacking.</i>—That’ll not be rusting now in the dews of night. +I’ll put it up in the ditch the way it will be handy in the morning; and +now we’ve that done, Michael Byrne, I’ll go along with you and +welcome for Tim Flaherty’s hens. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>[She puts the can in the ditch.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>sleepily.</i>—I’ve a grand story of the great queens of Ireland +with white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey, and fine arms would hit you a +slap the way Sarah Casey would hit you. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>beckoning on the left.</i>—Come along now, Michael, while she’s +falling asleep. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He goes towards left. Mary sees that they are going, starts up suddenly, +and turns over on her hands and knees.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>piteously.</i>—Where is it you’re going? Let you walk back here, +and not be leaving me lonesome when the night is fine. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Don’t be waking the world with your talk when we’re going up +through the back wood to get two of Tim Flaherty’s hens are roosting in +the ash-tree above at the well. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +And it’s leaving me lone you are? Come back here, Sarah Casey. Come back +here, I’m saying; or if it’s off you must go, leave me the two +little coppers you have, the way I can walk up in a short while, and get +another pint for my sleep. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s too much you have taken. Let you stretch yourself out and take a +long sleep; for isn’t that the best thing any woman can do, and she an +old drinking heathen like yourself. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She and Michael go out left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>standing up slowly.</i>—It’s gone they are, and I with my feet +that weak under me you’d knock me down with a rush, and my head with a +noise in it the like of what you’d hear in a stream and it running +between two rocks and rain falling. <i>(She goes over to the ditch where the +can is tied in sacking, and takes it down.)</i> What good am I this night, God +help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it’s few would +listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the time +her hour was come, or a little child wouldn’t be sleeping with the hunger +on a cold night? <i>(She takes the can from the sacking and fits in three empty +bottles and straw in its place, and ties them up.)</i> Maybe the two of them +have a good right to be walking out the little short while they’d be +young; but if they have itself, they’ll not keep Mary Byrne from her full +pint when the night’s fine, and there’s a dry moon in the sky. +<i>(She takes up the can, and puts the package back in the ditch.)</i> Jemmy +Neill’s a decent lad; and he’ll give me a good drop for the can; +and maybe if I keep near the peelers to-morrow for the first bit of the fair, +herself won’t strike me at all; and if she does itself, what’s a +little stroke on your head beside sitting lonesome on a fine night, hearing the +dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you saying over, it’s a short +while only till you die. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes out singing “The night before Larry was +stretched.”</i> +</p> + +<h5>CURTAIN</h5> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap05"></a></p> <h2>ACT II.</h2> + +<p> +SCENE: <i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to Michael, with pleased excitement.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>getting them.</i>—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. <i>(With the handkerchief.)</i> Is it them two? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It is, Michael. <i>(She takes one of them.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Mary yawns, and turns over in her sleep.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>with anxiety.</i>—There she is waking up on us, and I thinking +we’d have the job done before she’d know of it at all. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +She’ll be crying out now, and making game of us, and saying it’s +fools we are surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>waking up, and looking at them with curiosity, +blandly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She looks around cautiously at the bundle in which she has hidden the +bottles.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>coaxingly.</i>—Let you stretch out again for a sleep, Mary Byrne, for +it’ll be a middling time yet before we go to the fair. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with suspicion.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>losing her temper and breaking out fiercely.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>rather uneasy, turning to Michael.</i>—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? <i>(She gets up slowly.)</i> And I’d +best be going forward to sell the gallon can. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes over and takes up the bundle.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>crying out angrily.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>in a feigned tone of pacification, with the bundle still in her +hand.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Leave down the tin can, Mary Byrne, for I hear the drouth upon your tongue +to-day. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>[She turns to go off left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>jumping up, and picking up the hammer threateningly.</i>—Put down that +can, I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looking at her for a moment in terror, and putting down the bundle in the +ditch.</i>—Is it raving mad you’re going, Sarah Casey, and you the +pride of women to destroy the world? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>going up to her, and giving her a push off left.</i>—I’ll show +you if it’s raving mad I am. Go on from this place, I’m saying, and +be wary now. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>turning back after her.</i>—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 +<i>(the Priest comes in behind her, on the left, and listens)</i>, and quenched +the flaming candles on the throne of God the time your shadow fell within the +pillars of the chapel door. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>going to Sarah, half terrified at the language that he has +heard.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>with anger still in her voice.</i>—Humbug is it! Would you be turning +back upon your spoken promise in the face of God? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>dubiously.</i>—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. <i>(Persuasively feeling in his pocket.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +You’d do that! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +I would surely, holy father, if I walked to the city of Dublin with blood and +blisters on my naked feet. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>uneasily scratching his ear.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Be hasty then, and you’ll have us done with before you’d think at +all. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>giving in.</i>—Well, maybe it’s right you are, and let you come +up to the chapel when you see me looking from the door. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He goes up into the chapel.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>calling after him.</i>—We will, and God preserve you, holy father. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>coming down to them, speaking with amazement and consternation, but without +anger.</i>—Going to the chapel! It’s at marriage you’re +fooling again, maybe? <i>(Sarah turns her back on her.)</i> 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? <i>(Going round in +front of Sarah.)</i> Is it at marriage you’re fooling again? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>triumphantly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>turning to Michael.</i>—And it’s yourself is wedding her, +Michael Byrne? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>gloomily.</i>—It is, God spare us. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looks at Sarah for a moment, and then bursts out into a laugh of +derision.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>gloomily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +And you’re thinking it’s paying gold to his reverence would make a +woman stop when she’s a mind to go? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>soothingly.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She sits down.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>puzzled.</i>—Is that the truth? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>pleased with the point she has made.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>vehement but uneasy.</i>—What is it yourself knows of the fine ladies +when they wouldn’t let the like of you go near them at all? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>to Sarah.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>decisively.</i>—If it’s wise or fool I am, I’ve made a +good bargain and I’ll stand to it now. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +What is it he’s making you give? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +The ten shillings in gold, and the tin can is above tied in the sack. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looking at the bundle with surprise and dread.</i>—The bit of gold and +the tin can, is it? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +The half a sovereign, and the gallon can. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>scrambling to her feet quickly.</i>—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. <i>(She goes a few steps towards the left, then turns +and speaks to Sarah very persuasively.</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes towards left, and pauses for a moment, looking about her with +embarrassment.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>in a low voice.</i>—What ails her at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>anxiously.</i>—It’s real wicked she does be when you hear her +speaking as easy as that. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>to herself.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She comes hobbling back towards the right.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Where is it you’re going? It isn’t that way we’ll be walking +to the fair. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>As she reaches the chapel-gate, the Priest comes to it in his surplice.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>crying out.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +We’re coming now, holy father. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Give me the bit of gold into my hand. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s here, holy father. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>looking at the gold.</i>—It’s a good one, I’m thinking, +wherever you got it. And where is the can? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>taking the bundle.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>taking the bundle.</i>—Give it here into my hand, Sarah Casey. What is +it any person would think of a tinker making a can. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He begins opening the bundle.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Priest opens the bundle; the three empty bottles fall out.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Glory to the saints of joy! +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>crestfallen and astonished.</i>—It’s the divil did it, your +reverence, and I wouldn’t tell you a lie. <i>(Raising her hands.)</i> May +the Lord Almighty strike me dead if the divil isn’t after hooshing the +tin can from the bag. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>vehemently.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>in a peacemaking voice, putting her hand on the Priest’s left +arm.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>imploringly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>loudly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>putting her shawl over her head.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>crying out with indignation.</i>—Have you no shame, Sarah Casey, to +tell lies unto a holy man? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to Mary, working herself into a rage.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>She seizes up one of the bottles.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>hiding behind the priest.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>waving Sarah off.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>shouting.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. <i>(He throws down the ten shillings on the ground.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +You’d do that? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +I would, surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>losing his temper finally.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>taking off his coat.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Is it lift your hand upon myself when the Lord would blight your members if +you’d touch me now? Go on from this. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He gives him a shove.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Blight me is it? Take it then, your reverence, and God help you so. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He runs at him with the reins.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>runs up to ditch crying out.</i>—There are the peelers passing by the +grace of God—hey, below! +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>clapping her hand over his mouth.</i>—Knock him down on the road; they +didn’t hear him at all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Michael pulls him down.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Gag his jaws. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Stuff the sacking in his teeth. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They gag him with the sack that had the can in it.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Tie the bag around his head, and if the peelers come, we’ll put him +head-first in the boghole is beyond the ditch. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They tie him up in some sacking.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>to Mary.</i>—Keep him quiet, and the rags tight on him for fear +he’d screech. <i>(He goes back to their camp.)</i> Hurry with the things, +Sarah Casey. The peelers aren’t coming this way, and maybe we’ll +get off from them now. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>patting his head.</i>—Be quiet, your reverence. What is it ails you, +with your wrigglings now? Is it choking maybe? <i>(She puts her hand under the +sack, and feels his mouth, patting him on the back.)</i> 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. <i>(In a soothing voice.)</i> 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. <i>(He gets quieter.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>who has finished bundling up the things, comes over to +Sarah.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +You’d have a right too, I’m thinking. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>soothingly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +What would he care for an oath? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Don’t you know his like do live in terror of the wrath of God? +<i>(Putting her mouth to the Priest’s ear in the sacking.)</i> Would you +swear an oath, holy father, to leave us in our freedom, and not talk at all? +<i>(Priest nods in sacking.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>as if speaking to a horse.</i>—Hold up, holy father. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He pulls the sacking off, and shows the priest with his hair on end. They +free his mouth.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Hold him till he swears. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>in a faint voice.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>puts the ring on his finger.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>complacently, standing up slowly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They gather up their things. The priest stands up.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>lifting up his hand.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He begins saying a Latin malediction in a loud ecclesiastical voice.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +There’s an old villain. +</p> + +<p> +ALL<br /> +<i>together.</i>—Run, run. Run for your lives. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They rush out, leaving the Priest master of the situation.</i> +</p> + +<h5>CURTAIN</h5> + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tinker’s Wedding, by J. M. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +Note: I have omitted the running heads, and I have marked with * possible typos. + +<b>THE TINKER'S WEDDING</b> + +A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS + +BY J. M. SYNGE + + +JOHN W. LUCE AND COMPANY +BOSTON : : : : : : : : : 1911 + + + + + +Copyright 1904 +By J. M. Synge + + + + + +PREFACE. + +THE drama is made serious -- in the French +sense of the word -- not by the degree in +which it is taken up with problems that are +serious in themselves, but by the degree in +which it gives the nourishment, not very easy +to define, on which our imaginations live. We +should not go to the theatre as we go to a +chemist's, or a dram-shop, but as we go to +a dinner, where the food we need is taken +with pleasure and excitement. This was +nearly always so in Spain and England and +France when the drama was at its richest -- +the infancy and decay of the drama tend to +be didactic -- but in these days the playhouse +is too often stocked with the drugs of many + + +VI + +seedy problems, or with the absinthe or ver- +mouth of the last musical comedy. + The drama, like the symphony, does not +teach or prove anything. Analysts with their +problems, and teachers with their systems, are +soon as old-fashioned as the pharmacopœia of +Galen, -- look at Ibsen and the Germans -- but +the best plays of Ben Jonson and Molière can +no more go out of fashion than the black- +berries on the hedges. + Of the things which nourish the imagination +humour is one of the most needful, and it is +dangerous to limit or destroy it. Baudelaire +calls laughter the greatest sign of the Satanic +element in man; and where a country loses +its humor, as some towns in Ireland are doing, +there will be morbidity of mind, as Baude- +laire's mind was morbid. + In the greater part of Ireland, however, +the whole people, from the tinkers to the +clergy, have still a life, and view of life, that + + +VII + +are rich and genial and humorous. I do not +think that these country people, who have so +much humor themselves, will mind being +laughed at without malice, as the people in +every country have been laughed at in their +own comedies. + + J. M. S. + + <i>December 2nd</i>, 1907 + + +[page intentionally blank] + + +PERSONS + +MICHAEL BYRNE, a tinker. +MARY BYRNE, an old woman, his mother. +SARAH CASEY, a young tinker woman. +A PRIEST. + + +[page intentionally blank] + + +<b>THE TINKER'S WEDDING</b> + ----------- + +ACT I. + + SCENE: <i>A Village roadside after nightfall. +A fire of sticks is burning near the ditch a +little to the right. Michael is working beside +it. In the background, on the left, a sort of +tent and ragged clothes drying on the hedge. +On the right a chapel-gate.</i> + + SARAH CASEY -- <i>coming in on right, +eagerly.</i> -- We'll see his reverence this place, +Michael Byrne, and he passing backward to +his house to-night. + MICHAEL -- <i>grimly.</i> -- That'll be a sacred +and a sainted joy! + SARAH -- <i>sharply.</i> -- It'll be small joy for +yourself if you aren't ready with my wedding +ring. <i>(She goes over to him.)</i> Is it near +done this time, or what way is it at all? + MICHAEL. A poor way only, Sarah +Casey, for it's the divil's job making a ring, +and you'll be having my hands destroyed in +a short while the way I'll not be able to make +a tin can at all maybe at the dawn of day. + SARAH -- <i>sitting down beside him and +throwing sticks on the fire.</i> -- If it's the divil's + + +14 + +job, let you mind it, and leave your speeches +that would choke a fool. + MICHAEL -- <i>slowly and glumly.</i> -- And +it's you'll go talking of fools, Sarah Casey, +when no man did ever hear a lying story even +of your like unto this mortal day. You to +be going beside me a great while, and rearing +a lot of them, and then to be setting off with +your talk of getting married, and your driv- +ing me to it, and I not asking it at all. + [<i>Sarah turns her back to him and ar- + ranges something in the ditch.</i> + MICHAEL -- <i>angrily.</i> -- Can't you speak +a word when I'm asking what is it ails you +since the moon did change? + SARAH -- <i>musingly.</i> -- I'm thinking there +isn't anything ails me, Michael Byrne; but +the spring-time is a queer time, and its* queer +thoughts maybe I do think at whiles. + MICHAEL. It's hard set you'd be to think +queerer than welcome, Sarah Casey; but what +will you gain dragging me to the priest this +night, I'm saying, when it's new thoughts +you'll be thinking at the dawn of day? + SARAH -- <i>teasingly.</i> -- It's at the dawn of +day I do be thinking I'd have a right to be +going off to the rich tinker's do be travelling +from Tibradden to the Tara Hill; for it'd be +a fine life to be driving with young Jaunting + + +15 + +Jim, where there wouldn't be any big hills +to break the back of you, with walking up and +walking down. + MICHAEL -- <i>with dismay.</i> -- It's the like +of that you do be thinking! + SARAH. The like of that, Michael Byrne, +when there is a bit of sun in it, and a kind +air, and a great smell coming from the thorn +trees is above your head. + MICHAEL -- <i>looks at her for a moment +with horror, and then hands her the ring.</i> -- +Will that fit you now? + SARAH -- <i>trying it on.</i> -- It's making it +tight you are, and the edges sharp on the tin. + MICHAEL -- <i>looking at it carefully.</i> -- +It's the fat of your own finger, Sarah Casey; +and isn't it a mad thing I'm saying again +that you'd be asking marriage of me, or mak- +ing a talk of going away from me, and you +thriving and getting your good health by the +grace of the Almighty God? + SARAH -- <i>giving it back to him.</i> -- Fix it +now, and it'll do, if you're wary you don't +squeeze it again. + MICHAEL -- <i>moodily, working again.</i> -- +It's easy saying be wary; there's many things +easy said, Sarah Casey, you'd wonder a fool +even would be saying at all. <i>(He starts vio-</i> + + +16 + +<i>lently.)</i> The divil mend you, I'm scalded +again! + SARAH -- <i>scornfully.</i> -- If you are, it's a +clumsy man you are this night, Michael Byrne +<i>(raising her voice)</i>; and let you make haste +now, or herself will be coming with the porter. + MICHAEL -- <i>defiantly, raising his voice.</i>* +Let me make haste? I'll be making haste +maybe to hit you a great clout; for I'm think- +ing on the day I got you above at Rathvanna, +and the way you began crying out and say- +ing, "I'll go back to my ma," and I'm thinking +on the way I came behind you that time, and +hit you a great clout in the lug, and how quiet +and easy it was you came along with me from +that hour to this present day. + SARAH -- <i>standing up and throwing all +her sticks into the fire.</i> -- And a big fool I was +too, maybe; but we'll be seeing Jaunting Jim +to-morrow in Ballinaclash, and he after get- +ting a great price for his white foal in the +horse-fair of Wicklow, the way it'll be a great +sight to see him squandering his share of gold, +and he with a grand eye for a fine horse, and +a grand eye for a woman. + MICHAEL -- <i>working again with impa-</i> + + +17 + +<i>tience.</i> -- The divil do him good with the two +of them. + SARAH -- <i>kicking up the ashes with her +foot.</i> -- Ah, he's a great lad, I'm telling you, +and it's proud and happy I'll be to see him, +and he the first one called me the Beauty of +Ballinacree, a fine name for a woman. + MICHAEL -- <i>with contempt.</i> -- It's the +like of that name they do be putting on the +horses they have below racing in Arklow. It's +easy pleased you are, Sarah Casey, easy +pleased with a big word, or the liar speaks it. + SARAH. Liar! + MICHAEL. Liar, surely. + SARAH -- <i>indignantly.</i> -- Liar, is it? +Didn't you ever hear tell of the peelers fol- +lowed me ten miles along the Glen Malure, +and they talking love to me in the dark night, +or of the children you'll meet coming from +school and they saying one to the other, "It's +this day we seen Sarah Casey, the Beauty of +Ballinacree, a great sight surely." + MICHAEL. God help the lot of them! + SARAH. It's yourself you'll be calling +God to help, in two weeks or three, when +you'll be waking up in the dark night and +thinking you see me coming with the sun on +me, and I driving a high cart with Jaunting + + +18 + +Jim going behind. It's lonesome and cold +you'll be feeling the ditch where you'll be +lying down that night, I'm telling you, and +you hearing the old woman making a great +noise in her sleep, and the bats squeaking in +the trees. + MICHAEL. Whist. I hear some one +coming the road. + SARAH -- <i>looking out right.</i> -- It's some +one coming forward from the doctor's door. + MICHAEL. It's often his reverence does +be in there playing cards, or drinking a sup, or +singing songs, until the dawn of day. + SARAH. It's a big boast of a man with a +long step on him and a trumpeting voice. +It's his reverence surely; and if you have the +ring done, it's a great bargain we'll make now +and he after drinking his glass. + MICHAEL -- <i>going to her and giving her +the ring.</i> -- There's your ring, Sarah Casey; +but I'm thinking he'll walk by and not stop to +speak with the like of us at all. + SARAH -- <i>tidying herself, in great excite- +ment.</i> -- Let you be sitting here and keeping +a great blaze, the way he can look on my face; +and let you seem to be working, for it's great +love the like of him have to talk of work. + MICHAEL -- <i>moodily, sitting down and</i> + + +19 + +<i>beginning to work at a tin can.</i> -- Great love +surely. + SARAH -- <i>eagerly.</i> -- Make a great blaze +now, Michael Byrne. + [<i>The priest comes in on right; she comes + forward in front of him.</i> + SARAH -- <i>in a very plausible voice.</i> -- +Good evening, your reverence. It's a grand +fine night, by the grace of God. + PRIEST. The Lord have mercy on us! +What kind of a living woman is it that you +are at all? + SARAH. It's Sarah Casey I am, your +reverence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and it's +Michael Byrne is below in the ditch. + PRIEST. A holy pair, surely! Let you +get out of my way. [<i>He tries to pass by.</i> + SARAH -- <i>keeping in front of him.</i> -- We +are wanting a little word with your reverence. + PRIEST. I haven't a halfpenny at all. +Leave the road I'm saying. + SARAH. It isn't a halfpenny we're ask- +ing, holy father; but we were thinking maybe +we'd have a right to be getting married; and +we were thinking it's yourself would marry +us for not a halfpenny at all; for you're a +kind man, your reverence, a kind man with +the poor. + + +20 + + PRIEST -- <i>with astonishment.</i> -- Is it mar- +ry you for nothing at all? + SARAH. It is, your reverence; and we +were thinking maybe you'd give us a little +small bit of silver to pay for the ring. + PRIEST -- <i>loudly.</i> -- Let you hold your +tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. I've +no silver at all for the like of you; and if you +want to be married, let you pay your pound. +I'd do it for a pound only, and that's making +it a sight cheaper than I'd make it for one +of my own pairs is living here in the place. + SARAH. Where would the like of us get +a pound, your reverence? + PRIEST. Wouldn't you easy get it with +your selling asses, and making cans, and your +stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wex- +ford and the county Meath? <i>(He tries to +pass her.)</i> Let you leave the road, and not +be plaguing me more. + SARAH -- <i>pleadingly, taking money from +her pocket.</i> -- Wouldn't you have a little mercy +on us, your reverence? <i>(Holding out money.)</i> +Wouldn't you marry us for a half a sovereign, +and it a nice shiny one with a view on it of +the living king's mamma? + PRIEST. If it's ten shillings you have, +let you get ten more the same way, and I'll +marry you then. + + +21 + + SARAH -- <i>whining.</i> -- It's two years we +are getting that bit, your reverence, with our +pence and our halfpence and an odd three- +penny bit; and if you don't marry us now, +himself and the old woman, who has a great +drouth, will be drinking it to-morrow in the +fair <i>(she puts her apron to her eyes, half sob- +bing)</i>, and then I won't be married any time, +and I'll be saying till I'm an old woman: +"It's a cruel and a wicked thing to be bred +poor." + PRIEST -- <i>turning up towards the fire.</i> -- +Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. It's a +queer woman you are to be crying at the like +of that, and you your whole life walking the +roads. + SARAH -- <i>sobbing.</i> -- It's two years we +are getting the gold, your reverence, and now +you won't marry us for that bit, and we +hard-working poor people do be making cans +in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with +the black smoke from the bits of twigs we +do be burning. + [<i>An old woman is heard singing tipsily + on the left.</i> + PRIEST -- <i>looking at the can Michael is +making.</i> -- When will you have that can done, +Michael Byrne? + MICHAEL. In a short space only, your + + +22 + +reverence, for I'm putting the last dab of +solder on the rim. + PRIEST. Let you get a crown along with +the ten shillings and the gallon can, Sarah +Casey, and I will wed you so. + MARY -- <i>suddenly shouting behind, tip- +sily.</i> -- Larry was a fine lad, I'm saying; Larry +was a fine lad, Sarah Casey -- + MICHAEL. Whist, now, the two of you. +There's my mother coming, and she'd have us +destroyed if she heard the like of that talk +the time she's been drinking her fill. + MARY -- <i>comes in singing*</i> -- + And when we asked him what way he'd die, + And he hanging unrepented, + "Begob," says Larry, "that's all in my eye, + By the clergy first invented." + SARAH. Give me the jug now, or you'll +have it spilt in the ditch. + MARY -- <i>holding the jug with both her +hands, in a stilted voice.</i> -- Let you leave me +easy, Sarah Casey. I won't spill it, I'm saying. +God help you; are you thinking it's frothing +full to the brim it is at this hour of the night, +and I after carrying it in my two hands a long +step from Jemmy Neill's? + MICHAEL -- <i>anxiously.</i> -- Is there a sup +left at all? + + +23 + + SARAH -- <i>looking into the jug.</i> -- A little +small sup only I'm thinking. + MARY -- <i>sees the priest, and holds out jug +towards him.</i> -- God save your reverence. I'm +after bringing down a smart drop; and let +you drink it up now, for it's a middling +drouthy man you are at all times, God forgive +you, and this night is cruel dry. + [<i>She tries to go towards him. Sarah + holds her back.</i> + PRIEST -- <i>waving her away.</i> -- Let you +not be falling to the flames. Keep off, I'm +saying. + MARY -- <i>persuasively.</i> -- Let you not be +shy of us, your reverence. Aren't we all +sinners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I'm +telling you; and we won't let on a word about +it till the Judgment Day. + [<i>She takes up a tin mug, pours some + porter into it, and gives it to him.</i> + MARY -- <i>singing, and holding the jug in +her hand*</i> -- + A lonesome ditch in Ballygan + The day you're beating a tenpenny can; + A lonesome bank in Ballyduff + The time . . . [<i>She breaks off.</i> +It's a bad, wicked song, Sarah Casey; and +let you put me down now in the ditch, and I +won't sing it till himself will be gone; for + + +24 + +it's bad enough he is, I'm thinking, without +ourselves making him worse. + SARAH -- <i>putting her down, to the priest, +half laughing.</i> -- Don't mind her at all, your +reverence. She's no shame the time she's a +drop taken; and if it was the Holy Father +from Rome was in it, she'd give him a little +sup out of her mug, and say the same as she'd +say to yourself. + MARY -- <i>to the priest.</i> -- Let you drink it +up, holy father. Let you drink it up, I'm say- +ing, and not be letting on you wouldn't do +the like of it, and you with a stack of pint +bottles above, reaching the sky. + PRIEST -- <i>with resignation.</i> -- Well, here's +to your good health, and God forgive us all. + [<i>He drinks.</i> + MARY. That's right now, your reverence, +and the blessing of God be on you. Isn't it +a grand thing to see you sitting down, with +no pride in you, and drinking a sup with the +like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, +starving creatures you'd see any place on the +earth? + PRIEST. If it's starving you are itself, +I'm thinking it's well for the like of you that +do be drinking when there's drouth on you, +and lying down to sleep when your legs are +stiff. <i>(He sighs gloomily.)</i> What would + + +25 + +you do if it was the like of myself you were, +saying Mass with your mouth dry, and run- +ning east and west for a sick call maybe, and +hearing the rural people again and they saying +their sins? + MARY -- <i>with compassion.</i> -- It's destroy- +ed you must be hearing the sins of the rural +people on a fine spring. + PRIEST -- <i>with despondency.</i> -- It's a hard +life, I'm telling you, a hard life, Mary Byrne; +and there's the bishop coming in the morning, +and he an old man, would have you destroyed +if he seen a thing at all. + MARY -- <i>with great sympathy.</i> -- It'd +break my heart to hear you talking and sigh- +ing the like of that, your reverence. <i>(She +pats him on the knee.)</i> Let you rouse up, +now, if it's a poor, single man you are itself, +and I'll be singing you songs unto the dawn +of day. + PRIEST -- <i>interrupting her.</i> -- What is it +I want with your songs when it'd be better +for the like of you, that'll soon die, to be down +on your two knees saying prayers to the +Almighty God? + MARY. If it's prayers I want, you'd have +a right to say one yourself, holy father; for +we don't have them at all, and I've heard tell +a power of times it's that you're for. Say + + +26 + +one now, your reverence, for I've heard a +power of queer things and I walking the +world, but there's one thing I never heard any +time, and that's a real priest saying a prayer. + PRIEST. The Lord protect us! + MARY. It's no lie, holy father. I often +heard the rural people making a queer noise +and they going to rest; but who'd mind the +like of them? And I'm thinking it should be +great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, +speaking Latin to the saints above. + PRIEST -- <i>scandalized.</i> -- Stop your talk- +ing, Mary Byrne; you're an old flagrant +heathen, and I'll stay no more with the lot of + you. [<i>He rises.</i> + MARY -- <i>catching hold of him.</i> -- Stop till +you say a prayer, your reverence; stop till you +say a little prayer, I'm telling you, and I'll +give you my blessing and the last sup from the +jug. + PRIEST -- <i>breaking away.</i> -- Leave me go, +Mary Byrne; for I have never met your like +for hard abominations the score and two years +I'm living in the place. + MARY -- <i>innocently.</i> -- Is that the truth? + PRIEST. --* It is, then, and God have mercy +on your soul. + [<i>The priest goes towards the left, and + Sarah follows him.</i> + + +27 + + SARAH -- <i>in a low voice.</i> -- And what +time will you do the thing I'm asking, holy +father? for I'm thinking you'll do it surely, +and not have me growing into an old wicked +heathen like herself. + MARY -- <i>calling out shrilly.</i> -- Let you be +walking back here, Sarah Casey, and not be +talking whisper-talk with the like of him in the +face of the Almighty God. + SARAH -- <i>to the priest.</i> -- Do you hear her +now, your reverence? Isn't it true, surely, +she's an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy +the world? + PRIEST -- <i>to Sarah, moving off.</i> -- Well, +I'll be coming down early to the chapel, and let +you come to me a while after you see me pas- +sing, and bring the bit of gold along with you, +and the tin can. I'll marry you for them two, +though it's a pitiful small sum; for I wouldn't +be easy in my soul if I left you growing into +an old, wicked heathen the like of her. + SARAH -- <i>following him out.</i> -- The bles- +sing of the Almighty God be on you, holy +father, and that He may reward and watch +you from this present day. + MARY -- <i>nudging Michael.</i> -- Did you see +that, Michael Byrne? Didn't you hear me +telling you she's flighty a while back since the +change of the moon? With her fussing for + + +28 + +marriage, and she making whisper-talk with +one man or another man along by the road. + MICHAEL. --* Whist now, or she'll knock +the head of you the time she comes back. + MARY. --* Ah, it's a bad, wicked way the +world is this night, if there's a fine air in it +itself. You'd never have seen me, and I a +young woman, making whisper-talk with the +like of him, and he the fearfullest old fellow +you'd see any place walking the world. + [<i>Sarah comes back quickly.</i> + MARY -- <i>calling out to her.</i> -- What is it +you're after whispering above with himself? + SARAH -- <i>exultingly.</i> -- Lie down, and +leave us in peace. <i>She whispers with Michael.</i> + MARY -- <i>poking out her pipe with a straw, +sings</i> -- + She'd whisper with one, and she'd whisper + with two -- +<i>She breaks off coughing.</i> -- My singing voice +is gone for this night, Sarah Casey. <i>(She +lights her pipe.)</i> But if it's flighty you are +itself, you're a grand handsome woman, the +glory of tinkers, the pride of Wicklow, the +Beauty of Ballinacree. I wouldn't have you +lying down and you lonesome to sleep this +night in a dark ditch when the spring is coming +in the trees; so let you sit down there by the +big bough, and I'll be telling you the finest + + +29 + +story you'd hear any place from Dundalk to +Ballinacree, with great queens in it, making +themselves matches from the start to the end, +and they with shiny silks on them the length +of the day, and white shifts for the night. + MICHAEL -- <i>standing up with the tin can +in his hand.</i> -- Let you go asleep, and not have +us destroyed. + MARY -- <i>lying back sleepily.</i> -- Don't mind +him, Sarah Casey. Sit down now, and I'll be +telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman +the like of you in the springtime of the year. + SARAH -- <i>taking the can from Michael, +and tying it up in a piece of sacking.</i> -- That'll +not be rusting now in the dews of night. I'll +put it up in the ditch the way it will be handy +in the morning; and now we've that done, +Michael Byrne, I'll go along with you and +welcome for Tim Flaherty's hens. + [<i>She puts the can in the ditch.</i> + MARY -- <i>sleepily.</i> -- I've a grand story of +the great queens of Ireland with white necks +on them the like of Sarah Casey, and fine +arms would hit you a slap the way Sarah +Casey would hit you. + SARAH -- <i>beckoning on the left.</i> -- Come +along now, Michael, while she's falling asleep. + + +30 + + [<i>He goes towards left. Mary sees that + they are going, starts up suddenly, and + turns over on her hands and knees.</i> + MARY -- <i>piteously.</i> -- Where is it you're +going? Let you walk back here, and not be +leaving me lonesome when the night is fine. + SARAH. Don't be waking the world with +your talk when we're going up through the +back wood to get two of Tim Flaherty's hens +are roosting in the ash-tree above at the well. + MARY. And it's leaving me lone you are? +Come back here, Sarah Casey. Come back +here, I'm saying; or if it's off you must go, +leave me the two little coppers you have, the +way I can walk up in a short while, and get +another pint for my sleep. + SARAH. It's too much you have taken. +Let you stretch yourself out and take a long +sleep; for isn't that the best thing any woman +can do, and she an old drinking heathen like +yourself. + [<i>She and Michael go out left.</i> + MARY -- <i>standing up slowly.</i> -- It's gone +they are, and I with my feet that weak under +me you'd knock me down with a rush, and +my head with a noise in it the like of what + + +31 + +you'd hear in a stream and it running between +two rocks and rain falling. <i>(She goes over to +the ditch where the can is tied in sacking, and +takes it down.)</i> What good am I this night, +God help me? What good are the grand +stories I have when it's few would listen to +an old woman, few but a girl maybe would +be in great fear the time her hour was come, +or a little child wouldn't be sleeping with the +hunger on a cold night? <i>(She takes the can +from the sacking and fits in three empty bottles +and straw in its place, and ties them up.)</i> +Maybe the two of them have a good right to +be walking out the little short while they'd be +young; but if they have itself, they'll not +keep Mary Byrne from her full pint when +the night's fine, and there's a dry moon in the +sky. <i>(She takes up the can, and puts the +package back in the ditch.)</i> Jemmy Neill's a +decent lad; and he'll give me a good drop for +the can; and maybe if I keep near the peelers +to-morrow for the first bit of the fair, herself +won't strike me at all; and if she does itself, +what's a little stroke on your head beside +sitting lonesome on a fine night, hearing the + + +32 + +dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you +saying over, it's a short while only till you die. + [<i>She goes out singing "The night before + Larry was stretched."</i> + +CURTAIN + + +33 + +ACT II. + + SCENE: <i>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.</i> + + SARAH -- <i>to Michael, with pleased excite- +ment.</i> -- 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 -- <i>getting them.</i> -- 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. <i>(With the +handkerchief.)</i> Is it them two? + SARAH. It is, Michael. <i>(She takes one +of them.)</i> 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. + [<i>Mary yawns, and turns over in her + sleep.</i> + SARAH -- <i>with anxiety.</i> -- There she is +waking up on us, and I thinking we'd have the +job done before she'd know of it at all. + + +34 + + 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 -- <i>waking up, and looking at them +with curiosity, blandly.</i> -- 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. + [<i>She looks around cautiously at the + bundle in which she has hidden the + bottles.</i> + SARAH -- <i>coaxingly.</i> -- 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 -- <i>with suspicion.</i> -- 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 + + +35 + +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 -- <i>losing her temper and breaking +out fiercely.</i> -- 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 -- <i>rather uneasy, turning to Mi- +chael.</i> -- 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 <i>(she gets up slowly)</i>? And +I'd best be going forward to sell the gallon +can. + [<i>She goes over and takes up the bundle.</i> + SARAH -- <i>crying out angrily.</i> -- 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? + + +36 + + MARY -- <i>in a feigned tone of pacification, +with the bundle still in her hand.</i> -- 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. + [<i>She turns to go off left.</i> + SARAH -- <i>jumping up, and picking up the +hammer threateningly.</i> -- Put down that can, +I'm saying. + MARY -- <i>looking at her for a moment in +terror, and putting down the bundle in the +ditch.</i> -- Is it raving mad you're going, Sarah +Casey, and you the pride of women to destroy +the world? + SARAH -- <i>going up to her, and giving her +a push off left.</i> -- I'll show you if it's raving +mad I am. Go on from this place, I'm saying, +and be wary now. + MARY -- <i>turning back after her.</i> -- If I + + +37 + +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 cab- +bage to boil in the pot with your clothes <i>(the +priest comes in behind her, on the left, and +listens)</i>, and quenched the flaming candles on +the throne of God the time your shadow fell +within the pillars of the chapel door. + [<i>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.</i> + PRIEST -- <i>going to Sarah, half terrified +at the language that he has heard.</i> -- 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 -- <i>with anger still in her voice.</i> -- +Humbug is it! would you be turning back upon +your spoken promise in the face of God? + PRIEST -- <i>dubiously.</i> -- 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. <i>(Persuasive- +ly feeling in his pocket.)</i> 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. + + +38 + + 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 -- <i>uneasily scratching his ear.</i> -- +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 -- <i>giving in.</i> -- Well, maybe it's +right you are, and let you come up to the chapel +when you see me looking from the door. + [<i>He goes up into the chapel.</i> + SARAH -- <i>calling after him.</i> -- We will, +and God preserve you, holy father. + MARY -- <i>coming down to them, speaking +with amazement and consternation, but with- +out anger.</i> -- Going to the chapel! It's at mar- +riage you're fooling again, maybe? <i>(Sarah +turns her back on her.)</i> 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? <i>(Going</i> + + +39 + +<i>round in front of Sarah.)</i> Is it at marriage +you're fooling again? + SARAH -- <i>triumphantly.</i> -- 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 -- <i>turning to Michael.</i> -- And it's +yourself is wedding her, Michael Byrne? + MICHAEL -- <i>gloomily.</i> -- It is, God spare +us. + MARY -- <i>looks at Sarah for a moment, +and then bursts out into a laugh of derision.</i> -- +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 -- <i>gloomily.</i> -- If I didn't mar- +ry her, she'd be walking off to Jaunting Jim +maybe at the fall of night; and it's well your- +self 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 -- <i>angrily.</i> -- Let you not be de- + + +40 + +stroying 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 -- <i>soothingly.</i> -- 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? + [<i>She sits down.</i> + SARAH -- <i>puzzled.</i> -- Is that the truth? + MARY -- <i>pleased with the point she has +made.</i> -- 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 -- <i>vehement but uneasy.</i> -- 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 + + +41 + +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 -- <i>to Sarah.</i> -- 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 -- <i>decisively.</i> -- 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 -- <i>looking at the bundle with sur- +prise and dread.</i> -- The bit of gold and the +tin can, is it? + MICHAEL. The half a sovereign, and the +gallon can. + MARY -- <i>scrambling to her feet quickly.</i> -- +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. <i>(She goes a few +steps towards the left, then turns and speaks +to Sarah very persuasively.</i> -- Let you not take +the can from the sack, Sarah Casey; for the +people is coming above would be making game + + +42 + +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. + [<i>She goes towards left, and pauses for a + moment, looking about her with em- + barrassment.</i> + MICHAEL -- <i>in a low voice.</i> -- What ails +her at all? + SARAH -- <i>anxiously.</i> -- It's real wicked +she does be when you hear her speaking as +easy as that. + MARY -- <i>to herself.</i> -- 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. + [<i>She comes hobbling back towards the + right.</i> + 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. + [<i>As she reaches the chapel-gate, the + Priest comes to it in his surplice.</i> + PRIEST -- <i>crying out.</i> -- Come along now. + + +43 + +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. + [<i>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.</i> + PRIEST -- <i>looking at the gold.</i> -- It's a +good one, I'm thinking, wherever you got it. +And where is the can? + SARAH -- <i>taking the bundle.</i> -- 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 -- <i>taking the bundle.</i> -- Give it +here into my hand, Sarah Casey. What is it +any person would think of a tinker making a + can. [<i>He begins opening the bundle.</i> + SARAH. It's a fine can, your reverence. + + +44 + +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. + [<i>Priest opens the bundle; the three empty + bottles fall out.</i> + 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 -- <i>crestfallen and astonished.</i> -- +It's the divil did it, your reverence, and I +wouldn't tell you a lie. <i>(Raising her hands.)</i> +May the Lord Almighty strike me dead if the +divil isn't after hooshing the tin can from the +bag. + PRIEST -- <i>vehemently.</i> -- 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 -- <i>in a peacemaking voice, putting +her hand on the Priest's left arm.</i> -- 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 + + +45 + +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 -- <i>imploringly.</i> -- 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 -- <i>loudly.</i> -- It's a wicked, thiev- +ing, 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 -- <i>putting her shawl over her head.</i>* +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 -- <i>angrily.</i> -- 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 our- +selves above walking the hill. + MARY -- <i>crying out with indignation.</i> -- +Have you no shame, Sarah Casey, to tell lies +unto a holy man? + SARAH -- <i>to Mary, working herself into</i> + + +46 + +<i>a rage.</i> -- 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. + [<i>She seizes up one of the bottles.</i> + MARY -- <i>hiding behind the priest.</i> -- 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 -- <i>waving Sarah off.</i> -- 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 -- <i>shouting.</i> -- 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 + + +47 + +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. <i>(He throws down the +ten shillings on the ground.)</i> 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. + + +48 + + PRIEST -- <i>losing his temper finally.</i> -- 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 -- <i>taking off his coat.</i> -- 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 roar- +ing 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. + [<i>He gives him a shove.</i> + MICHAEL. Blight me is it? Take it +then, your reverence, and God help you so. + [<i>He runs at him with the reins.</i> + PRIEST -- <i>runs up to ditch crying out.</i> -- +There are the peelers passing by the grace of +God -- hey, below! + MARY -- <i>clapping her hand over his +mouth.</i> -- Knock him down on the road; they +didn't hear him at all. + [<i>Michael pulls him down.</i> + SARAH. Gag his jaws. + MARY. Stuff the sacking in his teeth. + [<i>They gag him with the sack that had + the can in it.</i> + + +49 + + 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. + [<i>They tie him up in some sacking.</i> + MICHAEL -- <i>to Mary.</i> -- Keep him quiet, +and the rags tight on him for fear he'd +screech. <i>(He goes back to their camp.)</i> +Hurry with the things, Sarah Casey. The +peelers aren't coming this way, and maybe +we'll get off from them now. + [<i>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.</i> + MARY -- <i>patting his head.</i> -- Be quiet, +your reverence. What is it ails you, with +your wrigglings now? Is it choking maybe? +<i>(She puts her hand under the sack, and feels +his mouth, patting him on the back.)</i> 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. <i>(In a soothing +voice.)</i> 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. <i>(He gets quieter.)</i> That's a good +boy you are now, your reverence, and let you +not be uneasy, for we wouldn't hurt you at + + +50 + +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 swear- +ing -- 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 -- <i>who has finished bundling +up the things, comes over to Sarah.</i> -- 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 -- <i>soothingly.</i> -- 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. + + +51 + + MICHAEL. What would he care for an +oath? + MARY. Don't you know his like do live +in terror of the wrath of God? <i>(Putting her +mouth to the Priest's ear in the sacking.)</i> +Would you swear an oath, holy father, to +leave us in our freedom, and not talk at all? +<i>(Priest nods in sacking.)</i> 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 -- <i>as if speaking to a horse.</i> -- +Hold up, holy father. + [<i>He pulls the sacking off, and shows the + priest with his hair on end. They free + his mouth.</i> + MARY. Hold him till he swears. + PRIEST -- <i>in a faint voice.</i> -- 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 -- <i>puts the ring on his finger.</i> -- +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 -- <i>complacently, standing up slow-</i> + + +52 + +<i>ly.</i> -- 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. + [<i>They gather up their things. The priest + stands up.</i> + PRIEST -- <i>lifting up his hand.</i> -- 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. + [<i>He begins saying a Latin malediction in + a loud ecclesiastical voice.</i> + MARY. There's an old villain. + All -- <i>together.</i> -- Run, run. Run for +your lives. + [<i>They rush out, leaving the Priest master + of the situation.</i> + +CURTAIN + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg' Etext of The Tinker's Wedding by J. M. Synge + diff --git a/old/1328.zip b/old/1328.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8273540 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1328.zip diff --git a/old/old/1328-h.htm.2021-01-27 b/old/old/1328-h.htm.2021-01-27 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5bf6cb7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/1328-h.htm.2021-01-27 @@ -0,0 +1,2311 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<title> The Tinker’s Wedding, by J. M. 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M. Synge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tinker’s Wedding + +Author: J. M. Synge + +Release Date: May 1998 [EBook #1328] +Last Updated: January 26, 2019 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TINKER’S WEDDING *** + + + + +This etext was prepared by Judy Boss +</pre> + +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> + + +<div class="fig" style="width:70%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" /><br /><br /> +</div> + +<h1> The Tinker’s Wedding </h1> + +<h5>A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS</h5> + +<p> +<br /> +</p> + +<h3> by J. M. Synge </h3> + +<p> +<br/> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br/> +</p> + +<h2> +Contents +</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">PREFACE.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE TINKER’S WEDDING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">PERSONS.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">ACT I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">ACT II.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap01"></a></p> <h2>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The drama is made serious—in the French sense of the word—not by +the degree in which it is taken up with problems that are serious in +themselves, but by the degree in which it gives the nourishment, not very easy +to define, on which our imaginations live. We should not go to the theatre as +we go to a chemist’s, or a dram-shop, but as we go to a dinner, where the +food we need is taken with pleasure and excitement. This was nearly always so +in Spain and England and France when the drama was at its richest—the +infancy and decay of the drama tend to be didactic—but in these days the +playhouse is too often stocked with the drugs of many seedy problems, or with +the absinthe or vermouth of the last musical comedy. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything. Analysts with +their problems, and teachers with their systems, are soon as old-fashioned as +the pharmacopœia of Galen,—look at Ibsen and the Germans—but the +best plays of Ben Jonson and Molière can no more go out of fashion than the +black-berries on the hedges. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Of the things which nourish the imagination humour is one of the most needful, +and it is dangerous to limit or destroy it. Baudelaire calls laughter the +greatest sign of the Satanic element in man; and where a country loses its +humor, as some towns in Ireland are doing, there will be morbidity of mind, as +Baudelaire’s mind was morbid. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +In the greater part of Ireland, however, the whole people, from the tinkers to +the clergy, have still a life, and view of life, that are rich and genial and +humorous. I do not think that these country people, who have so much humor +themselves, will mind being laughed at without malice, as the people in every +country have been laughed at in their own comedies. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +J. M. S. +</p> + +<p> +<i>December 2nd</i>, 1907. +</p> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap02"></a></p> <h2>THE TINKER’S WEDDING</h2> + +<p><a name="chap03"></a></p> <h2>PERSONS</h2> + +<p> +MICHAEL BYRNE, a tinker.<br/> +MARY BYRNE, an old woman, his mother.<br/> +SARAH CASEY, a young tinker woman.<br/> +A PRIEST.<br/> +</p> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap04"></a></p> <h2>ACT I.</h2> + +<p> +SCENE: <i>A Village roadside after nightfall. A fire of sticks is burning near +the ditch a little to the right. Michael is working beside it. In the +background, on the left, a sort of tent and ragged clothes drying on the hedge. +On the right a chapel-gate.</i><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH CASEY<br /> +<i>coming in on right, eagerly.</i>—We’ll see his reverence this +place, Michael Byrne, and he passing backward to his house to-night. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>grimly.</i>—That’ll be a sacred and a sainted joy! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sharply.</i>—It’ll be small joy for yourself if you aren’t +ready with my wedding ring. <i>(She goes over to him.)</i> Is it near done this +time, or what way is it at all? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +A poor way only, Sarah Casey, for it’s the divil’s job making a +ring, and you’ll be having my hands destroyed in a short while the way +I’ll not be able to make a tin can at all maybe at the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sitting down beside him and throwing sticks on the fire.</i>—If +it’s the divil’s job, let you mind it, and leave your speeches that +would choke a fool. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>slowly and glumly.</i>—And it’s you’ll go talking of +fools, Sarah Casey, when no man did ever hear a lying story even of your like +unto this mortal day. You to be going beside me a great while, and rearing a +lot of them, and then to be setting off with your talk of getting married, and +your driving me to it, and I not asking it at all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Sarah turns her back to him and arranges something in the ditch.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—Can’t you speak a word when I’m asking what +is it ails you since the moon did change? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>musingly.</i>—I’m thinking there isn’t anything ails me, +Michael Byrne; but the spring-time is a queer time, and it’s queer +thoughts maybe I do think at whiles. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +It’s hard set you’d be to think queerer than welcome, Sarah Casey; +but what will you gain dragging me to the priest this night, I’m saying, +when it’s new thoughts you’ll be thinking at the dawn of day? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>teasingly.</i>—It’s at the dawn of day I do be thinking +I’d have a right to be going off to the rich tinkers do be travelling +from Tibradden to the Tara Hill; for it’d be a fine life to be driving +with young Jaunting Jim, where there wouldn’t be any big hills to break +the back of you, with walking up and walking down. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>with dismay.</i>—It’s the like of that you do be thinking! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +The like of that, Michael Byrne, when there is a bit of sun in it, and a kind +air, and a great smell coming from the thorn-trees is above your head. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>looks at her for a moment with horror, and then hands her the +ring.</i>—Will that fit you now? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>trying it on.</i>—It’s making it tight you are, and the edges +sharp on the tin. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>looking at it carefully.</i>—It’s the fat of your own finger, +Sarah Casey; and isn’t it a mad thing I’m saying again that +you’d be asking marriage of me, or making a talk of going away from me, +and you thriving and getting your good health by the grace of the Almighty God? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>giving it back to him.</i>—Fix it now, and it’ll do, if +you’re wary you don’t squeeze it again. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>moodily, working again.</i>—It’s easy saying be wary; +there’s many things easy said, Sarah Casey, you’d wonder a fool +even would be saying at all. <i>(He starts violently.)</i> The divil mend you, +I’m scalded again! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>scornfully.</i>—If you are, it’s a clumsy man you are this +night, Michael Byrne <i>(raising her voice)</i>; and let you make haste now, or +herself will be coming with the porter. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>defiantly, raising his voice.</i>—Let me make haste? I’ll be +making haste maybe to hit you a great clout; for I’m thinking on the day +I got you above at Rathvanna, and the way you began crying out and saying, +“I’ll go back to my ma,” and I’m thinking on the way I +came behind you that time, and hit you a great clout in the lug, and how quiet +and easy it was you came along with me from that hour to this present day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>standing up and throwing all her sticks into the fire.</i>—And a big +fool I was too, maybe; but we’ll be seeing Jaunting Jim to-morrow in +Ballinaclash, and he after getting a great price for his white foal in the +horse-fair of Wicklow, the way it’ll be a great sight to see him +squandering his share of gold, and he with a grand eye for a fine horse, and a +grand eye for a woman. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>working again with impatience.</i>—The divil do him good with the two +of them. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>kicking up the ashes with her foot.</i>—Ah, he’s a great lad, +I’m telling you, and it’s proud and happy I’ll be to see him, +and he the first one called me the Beauty of Ballinacree, a fine name for a +woman. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>with contempt.</i>—It’s the like of that name they do be putting +on the horses they have below racing in Arklow. It’s easy pleased you +are, Sarah Casey, easy pleased with a big word, or the liar speaks it. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Liar! +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Liar, surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>indignantly.</i>—Liar, is it? Didn’t you ever hear tell of the +peelers followed me ten miles along the Glen Malure, and they talking love to +me in the dark night, or of the children you’ll meet coming from school +and they saying one to the other, “It’s this day we seen Sarah +Casey, the Beauty of Ballinacree, a great sight surely.” +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +God help the lot of them! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s yourself you’ll be calling God to help, in two weeks or three, +when you’ll be waking up in the dark night and thinking you see me coming +with the sun on me, and I driving a high cart with Jaunting Jim going behind. +It’s lonesome and cold you’ll be feeling the ditch where +you’ll be lying down that night, I’m telling you, and you hearing +the old woman making a great noise in her sleep, and the bats squeaking in the +trees. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Whist. I hear some one coming the road. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>looking out right.</i>—It’s some one coming forward from the +doctor’s door. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +It’s often his reverence does be in there playing cards, or drinking a +sup, or singing songs, until the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s a big boast of a man with a long step on him and a trumpeting voice. +It’s his reverence surely; and if you have the ring done, it’s a +great bargain we’ll make now and he after drinking his glass. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>going to her and giving her the ring.</i>—There’s your ring, +Sarah Casey; but I’m thinking he’ll walk by and not stop to speak +with the like of us at all. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>tidying herself, in great excitement.</i>—Let you be sitting here and +keeping a great blaze, the way he can look on my face; and let you seem to be +working, for it’s great love the like of him have to talk of work. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>moodily, sitting down and</i> <i>beginning to work at a tin +can.</i>—Great love surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>eagerly.</i>—Make a great blaze now, Michael Byrne. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>The priest comes in on right; she comes forward in front of him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>in a very plausible voice.</i>—Good evening, your reverence. +It’s a grand fine night, by the grace of God. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of a living woman is it that you are at +all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and +it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He tries to pass by.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>keeping in front of him.</i>—We are wanting a little word with your +reverence. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +I haven’t a halfpenny at all. Leave the road I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It isn’t a halfpenny we’re asking, holy father; but we were +thinking maybe we’d have a right to be getting married; and we were +thinking it’s yourself would marry us for not a halfpenny at all; for +you’re a kind man, your reverence, a kind man with the poor. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with astonishment.</i>—Is it marry you for nothing at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It is, your reverence; and we were thinking maybe you’d give us a little +small bit of silver to pay for the ring. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>loudly.</i>—Let you hold your tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. +I’ve no silver at all for the like of you; and if you want to be married, +let you pay your pound. I’d do it for a pound only, and that’s +making it a sight cheaper than I’d make it for one of my own pairs is +living here in the place. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Where would the like of us get a pound, your reverence? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Wouldn’t you easy get it with your selling asses, and making cans, and +your stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wexford and the county Meath? <i>(He +tries to pass her.)</i> Let you leave the road, and not be plaguing me more. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>pleadingly, taking money from her pocket.</i>—Wouldn’t you have +a little mercy on us, your reverence? <i>(Holding out money.)</i> +Wouldn’t you marry us for a half a sovereign, and it a nice shiny one +with a view on it of the living king’s mamma? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +If it’s ten shillings you have, let you get ten more the same way, and +I’ll marry you then. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>whining.</i>—It’s two years we are getting that bit, your +reverence, with our pence and our halfpence and an odd three-penny bit; and if +you don’t marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great +drouth, will be drinking it to-morrow in the fair <i>(she puts her apron to her +eyes, half sobbing)</i>, and then I won’t be married any time, and +I’ll be saying till I’m an old woman: “It’s a cruel and +a wicked thing to be bred poor.” +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>turning up towards the fire.</i>—Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. +It’s a queer woman you are to be crying at the like of that, and you your +whole life walking the roads. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>sobbing.</i>—It’s two years we are getting the gold, your +reverence, and now you won’t marry us for that bit, and we hard-working +poor people do be making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the +black smoke from the bits of twigs we do be burning. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>An old woman is heard singing tipsily on the left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>looking at the can Michael is making.</i>—When will you have that can +done, Michael Byrne? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +In a short space only, your reverence, for I’m putting the last dab of +solder on the rim. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Let you get a crown along with the ten shillings and the gallon can, Sarah +Casey, and I will wed you so. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>suddenly shouting behind, tipsily.</i>—Larry was a fine lad, I’m +saying; Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey— +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Whist, now, the two of you. There’s my mother coming, and she’d +have us destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she’s been +drinking her fill. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>comes in singing</i><br /><br /> + And when we asked him what way he’d die,<br /> + And he hanging unrepented,<br /> + “Begob,” says Larry, “that’s all in my eye,<br /> + By the clergy first invented.” +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Give me the jug now, or you’ll have it spilt in the ditch. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>holding the jug with both her hands, in a stilted voice.</i>—Let you +leave me easy, Sarah Casey. I won’t spill it, I’m saying. God help +you; are you thinking it’s frothing full to the brim it is at this hour +of the night, and I after carrying it in my two hands a long step from Jemmy +Neill’s? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>anxiously.</i>—Is there a sup left at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>looking into the jug.</i>—A little small sup only I’m thinking. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>sees the priest, and holds out jug towards him.</i>—God save your +reverence. I’m after bringing down a smart drop; and let you drink it up +now, for it’s a middling drouthy man you are at all times, God forgive +you, and this night is cruel dry. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She tries to go towards him. Sarah holds her back.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>waving her away.</i>—Let you not be falling to the flames. Keep off, +I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>persuasively.</i>—Let you not be shy of us, your reverence. +Aren’t we all sinners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I’m telling +you; and we won’t let on a word about it till the Judgment Day. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She takes up a tin mug, pours some porter into it, and gives it to him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>singing, and holding the jug in her hand.</i><br /><br /> + A lonesome ditch in Ballygan<br /> + The day you’re beating a tenpenny can;<br /> + A lonesome bank in Ballyduff<br /> + The time . . .<br /><br /> + +[<i>She breaks off.</i> It’s a bad, wicked song, Sarah Casey; and let you +put me down now in the ditch, and I won’t sing it till himself will be +gone; for it’s bad enough he is, I’m thinking, without ourselves +making him worse. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>putting her down, to the priest, half laughing.</i>—Don’t mind +her at all, your reverence. She’s no shame the time she’s a drop +taken; and if it was the Holy Father from Rome was in it, she’d give him +a little sup out of her mug, and say the same as she’d say to yourself. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>to the priest.</i>—Let you drink it up, holy father. Let you drink it +up, I’m saying, and not be letting on you wouldn’t do the like of +it, and you with a stack of pint bottles above, reaching the sky. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with resignation.</i>—Well, here’s to your good health, and God +forgive us all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He drinks.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +That’s right now, your reverence, and the blessing of God be on you. +Isn’t it a grand thing to see you sitting down, with no pride in you, and +drinking a sup with the like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, starving +creatures you’d see any place on the earth? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +If it’s starving you are itself, I’m thinking it’s well for +the like of you that do be drinking when there’s drouth on you, and lying +down to sleep when your legs are stiff. <i>(He sighs gloomily.)</i> What would +you do if it was the like of myself you were, saying Mass with your mouth dry, +and running east and west for a sick call maybe, and hearing the rural people +again and they saying their sins? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with compassion.</i>—It’s destroyed you must be hearing the sins +of the rural people on a fine spring. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>with despondency.</i>—It’s a hard life, I’m telling you, a +hard life, Mary Byrne; and there’s the bishop coming in the morning, and +he an old man, would have you destroyed if he seen a thing at all. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with great sympathy.</i>—It’d break my heart to hear you talking +and sighing the like of that, your reverence. <i>(She pats him on the +knee.)</i> Let you rouse up, now, if it’s a poor, single man you are +itself, and I’ll be singing you songs unto the dawn of day. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>interrupting her.</i>—What is it I want with your songs when +it’d be better for the like of you, that’ll soon die, to be down on +your two knees saying prayers to the Almighty God? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +If it’s prayers I want, you’d have a right to say one yourself, +holy father; for we don’t have them at all, and I’ve heard tell a +power of times it’s that you’re for. Say one now, your reverence, +for I’ve heard a power of queer things and I walking the world, but +there’s one thing I never heard any time, and that’s a real priest +saying a prayer. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +The Lord protect us! +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +It’s no lie, holy father. I often heard the rural people making a queer +noise and they going to rest; but who’d mind the like of them? And +I’m thinking it should be great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, +speaking Latin to the saints above. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>scandalized.</i>—Stop your talking, Mary Byrne; you’re an old +flagrant heathen, and I’ll stay no more with the lot of you. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He rises.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>catching hold of him.</i>—Stop till you say a prayer, your reverence; +stop till you say a little prayer, I’m telling you, and I’ll give +you my blessing and the last sup from the jug. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>breaking away.</i>—Leave me go, Mary Byrne; for I have never met your +like for hard abominations the score and two years I’m living in the +place. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>innocently.</i>—Is that the truth? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +—It is, then, and God have mercy on your soul. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>The priest goes towards the left, and Sarah follows him.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>in a low voice.</i>—And what time will you do the thing I’m +asking, holy father? for I’m thinking you’ll do it surely, and not +have me growing into an old wicked heathen like herself. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>calling out shrilly.</i>—Let you be walking back here, Sarah Casey, +and not be talking whisper-talk with the like of him in the face of the +Almighty God. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to the priest.</i>—Do you hear her now, your reverence? Isn’t it +true, surely, she’s an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy the world? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>to Sarah, moving off.</i>—Well, I’ll be coming down early to the +chapel, and let you come to me a while after you see me passing, and bring the +bit of gold along with you, and the tin can. I’ll marry you for them two, +though it’s a pitiful small sum; for I wouldn’t be easy in my soul +if I left you growing into an old, wicked heathen the like of her. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>following him out.</i>—The blessing of the Almighty God be on you, +holy father, and that He may reward and watch you from this present day. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>nudging Michael.</i>—Did you see that, Michael Byrne? Didn’t you +hear me telling you she’s flighty a while back since the change of the +moon? With her fussing for marriage, and she making whisper-talk with one man +or another man along by the road. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +—Whist now, or she’ll knock the head of you the time she comes +back. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +—Ah, it’s a bad, wicked way the world is this night, if +there’s a fine air in it itself. You’d never have seen me, and I a +young woman, making whisper-talk with the like of him, and he the fearfullest +old fellow you’d see any place walking the world. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Sarah comes back quickly.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>calling out to her.</i>—What is it you’re after whispering above +with himself? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>exultingly.</i>—Lie down, and leave us in peace. <i>She whispers with +Michael.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>poking out her pipe with a straw, sings</i>—<br /><br /> + She’d whisper with one, and she’d whisper with two—<br /><br /> + +<i>She breaks off coughing.</i>—My singing voice is gone for this night, +Sarah Casey. <i>(She lights her pipe.)</i> But if it’s flighty you are +itself, you’re a grand handsome woman, the glory of tinkers, the pride of +Wicklow, the Beauty of Ballinacree. I wouldn’t have you lying down and +you lonesome to sleep this night in a dark ditch when the spring is coming in +the trees; so let you sit down there by the big bough, and I’ll be +telling you the finest story you’d hear any place from Dundalk to +Ballinacree, with great queens in it, making themselves matches from the start +to the end, and they with shiny silks on them the length of the day, and white +shifts for the night. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>standing up with the tin can in his hand.</i>—Let you go asleep, and +not have us destroyed. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>lying back sleepily.</i>—Don’t mind him, Sarah Casey. Sit down +now, and I’ll be telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman the +like of you in the springtime of the year. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>taking the can from Michael, and tying it up in a piece of +sacking.</i>—That’ll not be rusting now in the dews of night. +I’ll put it up in the ditch the way it will be handy in the morning; and +now we’ve that done, Michael Byrne, I’ll go along with you and +welcome for Tim Flaherty’s hens. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>[She puts the can in the ditch.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>sleepily.</i>—I’ve a grand story of the great queens of Ireland +with white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey, and fine arms would hit you a +slap the way Sarah Casey would hit you. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>beckoning on the left.</i>—Come along now, Michael, while she’s +falling asleep. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He goes towards left. Mary sees that they are going, starts up suddenly, +and turns over on her hands and knees.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>piteously.</i>—Where is it you’re going? Let you walk back here, +and not be leaving me lonesome when the night is fine. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Don’t be waking the world with your talk when we’re going up +through the back wood to get two of Tim Flaherty’s hens are roosting in +the ash-tree above at the well. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +And it’s leaving me lone you are? Come back here, Sarah Casey. Come back +here, I’m saying; or if it’s off you must go, leave me the two +little coppers you have, the way I can walk up in a short while, and get +another pint for my sleep. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s too much you have taken. Let you stretch yourself out and take a +long sleep; for isn’t that the best thing any woman can do, and she an +old drinking heathen like yourself. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She and Michael go out left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>standing up slowly.</i>—It’s gone they are, and I with my feet +that weak under me you’d knock me down with a rush, and my head with a +noise in it the like of what you’d hear in a stream and it running +between two rocks and rain falling. <i>(She goes over to the ditch where the +can is tied in sacking, and takes it down.)</i> What good am I this night, God +help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it’s few would +listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the time +her hour was come, or a little child wouldn’t be sleeping with the hunger +on a cold night? <i>(She takes the can from the sacking and fits in three empty +bottles and straw in its place, and ties them up.)</i> Maybe the two of them +have a good right to be walking out the little short while they’d be +young; but if they have itself, they’ll not keep Mary Byrne from her full +pint when the night’s fine, and there’s a dry moon in the sky. +<i>(She takes up the can, and puts the package back in the ditch.)</i> Jemmy +Neill’s a decent lad; and he’ll give me a good drop for the can; +and maybe if I keep near the peelers to-morrow for the first bit of the fair, +herself won’t strike me at all; and if she does itself, what’s a +little stroke on your head beside sitting lonesome on a fine night, hearing the +dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you saying over, it’s a short +while only till you die. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes out singing “The night before Larry was +stretched.”</i> +</p> + +<h5>CURTAIN</h5> + +<p> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="chap05"></a></p> <h2>ACT II.</h2> + +<p> +SCENE: <i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to Michael, with pleased excitement.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>getting them.</i>—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. <i>(With the handkerchief.)</i> Is it them two? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It is, Michael. <i>(She takes one of them.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Mary yawns, and turns over in her sleep.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>with anxiety.</i>—There she is waking up on us, and I thinking +we’d have the job done before she’d know of it at all. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +She’ll be crying out now, and making game of us, and saying it’s +fools we are surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>waking up, and looking at them with curiosity, +blandly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She looks around cautiously at the bundle in which she has hidden the +bottles.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>coaxingly.</i>—Let you stretch out again for a sleep, Mary Byrne, for +it’ll be a middling time yet before we go to the fair. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>with suspicion.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>losing her temper and breaking out fiercely.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>rather uneasy, turning to Michael.</i>—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? <i>(She gets up slowly.)</i> And I’d +best be going forward to sell the gallon can. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes over and takes up the bundle.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>crying out angrily.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>in a feigned tone of pacification, with the bundle still in her +hand.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Leave down the tin can, Mary Byrne, for I hear the drouth upon your tongue +to-day. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>[She turns to go off left.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>jumping up, and picking up the hammer threateningly.</i>—Put down that +can, I’m saying. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looking at her for a moment in terror, and putting down the bundle in the +ditch.</i>—Is it raving mad you’re going, Sarah Casey, and you the +pride of women to destroy the world? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>going up to her, and giving her a push off left.</i>—I’ll show +you if it’s raving mad I am. Go on from this place, I’m saying, and +be wary now. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>turning back after her.</i>—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 +<i>(the Priest comes in behind her, on the left, and listens)</i>, and quenched +the flaming candles on the throne of God the time your shadow fell within the +pillars of the chapel door. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>going to Sarah, half terrified at the language that he has +heard.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>with anger still in her voice.</i>—Humbug is it! Would you be turning +back upon your spoken promise in the face of God? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>dubiously.</i>—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. <i>(Persuasively feeling in his pocket.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +You’d do that! +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +I would surely, holy father, if I walked to the city of Dublin with blood and +blisters on my naked feet. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>uneasily scratching his ear.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Be hasty then, and you’ll have us done with before you’d think at +all. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>giving in.</i>—Well, maybe it’s right you are, and let you come +up to the chapel when you see me looking from the door. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He goes up into the chapel.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>calling after him.</i>—We will, and God preserve you, holy father. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>coming down to them, speaking with amazement and consternation, but without +anger.</i>—Going to the chapel! It’s at marriage you’re +fooling again, maybe? <i>(Sarah turns her back on her.)</i> 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? <i>(Going round in +front of Sarah.)</i> Is it at marriage you’re fooling again? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>triumphantly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>turning to Michael.</i>—And it’s yourself is wedding her, +Michael Byrne? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>gloomily.</i>—It is, God spare us. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looks at Sarah for a moment, and then bursts out into a laugh of +derision.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>gloomily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +And you’re thinking it’s paying gold to his reverence would make a +woman stop when she’s a mind to go? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>soothingly.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She sits down.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>puzzled.</i>—Is that the truth? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>pleased with the point she has made.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>vehement but uneasy.</i>—What is it yourself knows of the fine ladies +when they wouldn’t let the like of you go near them at all? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>to Sarah.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>decisively.</i>—If it’s wise or fool I am, I’ve made a +good bargain and I’ll stand to it now. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +What is it he’s making you give? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +The ten shillings in gold, and the tin can is above tied in the sack. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>looking at the bundle with surprise and dread.</i>—The bit of gold and +the tin can, is it? +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +The half a sovereign, and the gallon can. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>scrambling to her feet quickly.</i>—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. <i>(She goes a few steps towards the left, then turns +and speaks to Sarah very persuasively.</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes towards left, and pauses for a moment, looking about her with +embarrassment.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>in a low voice.</i>—What ails her at all? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>anxiously.</i>—It’s real wicked she does be when you hear her +speaking as easy as that. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>to herself.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She comes hobbling back towards the right.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Where is it you’re going? It isn’t that way we’ll be walking +to the fair. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>As she reaches the chapel-gate, the Priest comes to it in his surplice.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>crying out.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +We’re coming now, holy father. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Give me the bit of gold into my hand. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +It’s here, holy father. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>looking at the gold.</i>—It’s a good one, I’m thinking, +wherever you got it. And where is the can? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>taking the bundle.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>taking the bundle.</i>—Give it here into my hand, Sarah Casey. What is +it any person would think of a tinker making a can. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He begins opening the bundle.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Priest opens the bundle; the three empty bottles fall out.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Glory to the saints of joy! +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>crestfallen and astonished.</i>—It’s the divil did it, your +reverence, and I wouldn’t tell you a lie. <i>(Raising her hands.)</i> May +the Lord Almighty strike me dead if the divil isn’t after hooshing the +tin can from the bag. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>vehemently.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>in a peacemaking voice, putting her hand on the Priest’s left +arm.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>imploringly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>loudly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>putting her shawl over her head.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>angrily.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>crying out with indignation.</i>—Have you no shame, Sarah Casey, to +tell lies unto a holy man? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>to Mary, working herself into a rage.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>She seizes up one of the bottles.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>hiding behind the priest.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>waving Sarah off.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>shouting.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +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. <i>(He throws down the ten shillings on the ground.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +You’d do that? +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +I would, surely. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>losing his temper finally.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>taking off his coat.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +Is it lift your hand upon myself when the Lord would blight your members if +you’d touch me now? Go on from this. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He gives him a shove.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +Blight me is it? Take it then, your reverence, and God help you so. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He runs at him with the reins.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>runs up to ditch crying out.</i>—There are the peelers passing by the +grace of God—hey, below! +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>clapping her hand over his mouth.</i>—Knock him down on the road; they +didn’t hear him at all. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Michael pulls him down.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Gag his jaws. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Stuff the sacking in his teeth. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They gag him with the sack that had the can in it.</i> +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +Tie the bag around his head, and if the peelers come, we’ll put him +head-first in the boghole is beyond the ditch. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They tie him up in some sacking.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>to Mary.</i>—Keep him quiet, and the rags tight on him for fear +he’d screech. <i>(He goes back to their camp.)</i> Hurry with the things, +Sarah Casey. The peelers aren’t coming this way, and maybe we’ll +get off from them now. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>patting his head.</i>—Be quiet, your reverence. What is it ails you, +with your wrigglings now? Is it choking maybe? <i>(She puts her hand under the +sack, and feels his mouth, patting him on the back.)</i> 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. <i>(In a soothing voice.)</i> 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. <i>(He gets quieter.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>who has finished bundling up the things, comes over to +Sarah.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +You’d have a right too, I’m thinking. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>soothingly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +What would he care for an oath? +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Don’t you know his like do live in terror of the wrath of God? +<i>(Putting her mouth to the Priest’s ear in the sacking.)</i> Would you +swear an oath, holy father, to leave us in our freedom, and not talk at all? +<i>(Priest nods in sacking.)</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +<i>as if speaking to a horse.</i>—Hold up, holy father. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He pulls the sacking off, and shows the priest with his hair on end. They +free his mouth.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +Hold him till he swears. +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>in a faint voice.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +SARAH<br /> +<i>puts the ring on his finger.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +<i>complacently, standing up slowly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MICHAEL<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They gather up their things. The priest stands up.</i> +</p> + +<p> +PRIEST<br /> +<i>lifting up his hand.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He begins saying a Latin malediction in a loud ecclesiastical voice.</i> +</p> + +<p> +MARY<br /> +There’s an old villain. +</p> + +<p> +ALL<br /> +<i>together.</i>—Run, run. Run for your lives. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They rush out, leaving the Priest master of the situation.</i> +</p> + +<h5>CURTAIN</h5> + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tinker’s Wedding, by J. M. 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