SCENE: [Country public-house or shebeen, very rough and untidy. There
is a sort of counter on the right with shelves, holding many bottles and
jugs, just seen above it. Empty barrels stand near the counter. At back,
a little to left of counter, there is a door into the open air, then,
more to the left, there is a settle with shelves above it, with more
jugs, and a table beneath a window. At the left there is a large open
fire-place, with turf fire, and a small door into inner room. Pegeen, a
wild looking but fine girl, of about twenty, is writing at table. She is
dressed in the usual peasant dress.]

PEGEEN -- [slowly as she writes.] -- Six yards of stuff for to make a
yellow gown. A pair of lace boots with lengthy heels on them and brassy
eyes. A hat is suited for a wedding-day. A fine tooth comb. To be
sent with three barrels of porter in Jimmy Farrell's creel cart on the
evening of the coming Fair to Mister Michael James Flaherty. With the
best compliments of this season. Margaret Flaherty.

SHAWN KEOGH -- [a fat and fair young man comes in as she signs, looks
round awkwardly, when he sees she is alone.] -- Where's himself?

PEGEEN -- [without looking at him.] -- He's coming. (She directs the
letter.) To Mister Sheamus Mulroy, Wine and Spirit Dealer, Castlebar.

SHAWN -- [uneasily.] -- I didn't see him on the road.

PEGEEN. How would you see him (licks stamp and puts it on letter) and it
dark night this half hour gone by?

SHAWN -- [turning towards the door again.] -- I stood a while outside
wondering would I have a right to pass on or to walk in and see you,
Pegeen Mike (comes to fire), and I could hear the cows breathing, and
sighing in the stillness of the air, and not a step moving any place
from this gate to the bridge.

PEGEEN -- [putting letter in envelope.] -- It's above at the cross-roads
he is, meeting Philly Cullen; and a couple more are going along with him
to Kate Cassidy's wake.

SHAWN -- [looking at her blankly.] -- And he's going that length in the
dark night?

PEGEEN -- [impatiently.] He is surely, and leaving me lonesome on the
scruff of the hill. (She gets up and puts envelope on dresser, then
winds clock.) Isn't it long the nights are now, Shawn Keogh, to be
leaving a poor girl with her own self counting the hours to the dawn of
day?

SHAWN -- [with awkward humour.] -- If it is, when we're wedded in a
short while you'll have no call to complain, for I've little will to be
walking off to wakes or weddings in the darkness of the night.

PEGEEN -- [with rather scornful good humour.] -- You're making mighty
certain, Shaneen, that I'll wed you now.

SHAWN. Aren't we after making a good bargain, the way we're only waiting
these days on Father Reilly's dispensation from the bishops, or the
Court of Rome.

PEGEEN -- [looking at him teasingly, washing up at dresser.] -- It's a
wonder, Shaneen, the Holy Father'd be taking notice of the likes of you;
for if I was him I wouldn't bother with this place where you'll meet
none but Red Linahan, has a squint in his eye, and Patcheen is lame in
his heel, or the mad Mulrannies were driven from California and they
lost in their wits. We're a queer lot these times to go troubling the
Holy Father on his sacred seat.

SHAWN -- [scandalized.] If we are, we're as good this place as another,
maybe, and as good these times as we were for ever.

PEGEEN -- [with scorn.] -- As good, is it? Where now will you meet the
like of Daneen Sullivan knocked the eye from a peeler, or Marcus Quin,
God rest him, got six months for maiming ewes, and he a great warrant to
tell stories of holy Ireland till he'd have the old women shedding
down tears about their feet. Where will you find the like of them, I'm
saying?

SHAWN -- [timidly.] If you don't it's a good job, maybe; for (with
peculiar emphasis on the words) Father Reilly has small conceit to have
that kind walking around and talking to the girls.

PEGEEN -- [impatiently, throwing water from basin out of the door.] --
Stop tormenting me with Father Reilly (imitating his voice) when I'm
asking only what way I'll pass these twelve hours of dark, and not take
my death with the fear. [Looking out of door.]

SHAWN -- [timidly.] Would I fetch you the widow Quin, maybe?

PEGEEN. Is it the like of that murderer? You'll not, surely.

SHAWN -- [going to her, soothingly.] -- Then I'm thinking himself will
stop along with you when he sees you taking on, for it'll be a long
night-time with great darkness, and I'm after feeling a kind of fellow
above in the furzy ditch, groaning wicked like a maddening dog, the way
it's good cause you have, maybe, to be fearing now.

PEGEEN -- [turning on him sharply.] -- What's that? Is it a man you
seen?

SHAWN -- [retreating.] I couldn't see him at all; but I heard him
groaning out, and breaking his heart. It should have been a young man
from his words speaking.

PEGEEN -- [going after him.] -- And you never went near to see was he
hurted or what ailed him at all?

SHAWN. I did not, Pegeen Mike. It was a dark, lonesome place to be
hearing the like of him.

PEGEEN. Well, you're a daring fellow, and if they find his corpse
stretched above in the dews of dawn, what'll you say then to the
peelers, or the Justice of the Peace?

SHAWN -- [thunderstruck.] I wasn't thinking of that. For the love of
God, Pegeen Mike, don't let on I was speaking of him. Don't tell your
father and the men is coming above; for if they heard that story, they'd
have great blabbing this night at the wake.

PEGEEN. I'll maybe tell them, and I'll maybe not.

SHAWN. They are coming at the door, Will you whisht, I'm saying?

PEGEEN. Whisht yourself.

[She goes behind counter. Michael James, fat jovial publican, comes
in followed by Philly Cullen, who is thin and mistrusting, and Jimmy
Farrell, who is fat and amorous, about forty-five.]

MEN -- [together.] -- God bless you. The blessing of God on this place.

PEGEEN. God bless you kindly.

MICHAEL -- [to men who go to the counter.] -- Sit down now, and take
your rest. (Crosses to Shawn at the fire.) And how is it you are, Shawn
Keogh? Are you coming over the sands to Kate Cassidy's wake?

SHAWN. I am not, Michael James. I'm going home the short cut to my bed.

PEGEEN -- [speaking across the counter.] -- He's right too, and have
you no shame, Michael James, to be quitting off for the whole night, and
leaving myself lonesome in the shop?

MICHAEL -- [good-humouredly.] Isn't it the same whether I go for the
whole night or a part only? and I'm thinking it's a queer daughter you
are if you'd have me crossing backward through the Stooks of the Dead
Women, with a drop taken.

PEGEEN. If I am a queer daughter, it's a queer father'd be leaving me
lonesome these twelve hours of dark, and I piling the turf with the dogs
barking, and the calves mooing, and my own teeth rattling with the fear.

JIMMY -- [flatteringly.] -- What is there to hurt you, and you a fine,
hardy girl would knock the head of any two men in the place?

PEGEEN -- [working herself up.] -- Isn't there the harvest boys with
their tongues red for drink, and the ten tinkers is camped in the east
glen, and the thousand militia -- bad cess to them! -- walking idle
through the land. There's lots surely to hurt me, and I won't stop alone
in it, let himself do what he will.

MICHAEL. If you're that afeard, let Shawn Keogh stop along with you.
It's the will of God, I'm thinking, himself should be seeing to you now.
[They all turn on Shawn.]

SHAWN -- [in horrified confusion.] -- I would and welcome, Michael
James, but I'm afeard of Father Reilly; and what at all would the Holy
Father and the Cardinals of Rome be saying if they heard I did the like
of that?

MICHAEL -- [with contempt.] -- God help you! Can't you sit in by the
hearth with the light lit and herself beyond in the room? You'll do that
surely, for I've heard tell there's a queer fellow above, going mad or
getting his death, maybe, in the gripe of the ditch, so she'd be safer
this night with a person here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MEN. God save you kindly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHRISTY. There's many wanting.

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

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

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

CHRISTY -- [bashfully.] I'm slow at learning, a middling scholar only.

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

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

MICHAEL -- [impressed.] If it's not stealing, it's maybe something big.

CHRISTY -- [flattered.] Aye; it's maybe something big.

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

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

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

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

CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Agents?

CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Landlords?

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

PHILLY. Well, that lad's a puzzle--the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHRISTY -- [offended.] You're not speaking the truth.

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

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

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

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

PHILLY -- [retreating with Jimmy.] -- There's a daring fellow.

JIMMY. Oh, glory be to God!

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

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

PEGEEN. And you shot him dead?

CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- I never used weapons. I've no license,
and I'm a law-fearing man.

MICHAEL. It was with a hilted knife maybe? I'm told, in the big world
it's bloody knives they use.

CHRISTY -- [loudly, scandalized.] -- Do you take me for a slaughter-boy?

PEGEEN. You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from
the license, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt
of a string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers
swearing it had life?

CHRISTY. I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of
it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty
sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all.

MICHAEL -- [making a sign to Pegeen to fill Christy's glass.] -- And
what way weren't you hanged, mister? Did you bury him then?

CHRISTY -- [considering.] Aye. I buried him then. Wasn't I digging spuds
in the field?

MICHAEL. And the peelers never followed after you the eleven days that
you're out?

CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- Never a one of them, and I walking
forward facing hog, dog, or divil on the highway of the road.

PHILLY -- [nodding wisely.] -- It's only with a common week-day kind
of a murderer them lads would be trusting their carcase, and that man
should be a great terror when his temper's roused.

MICHAEL. He should then. (To Christy.) And where was it, mister honey,
that you did the deed?

CHRISTY -- [looking at him with suspicion.] -- Oh, a distant place,
master of the house, a windy corner of high, distant hills.

PHILLY -- [nodding with approval.] -- He's a close man, and he's right,
surely.

PEGEEN. That'd be a lad with the sense of Solomon to have for a pot-boy,
Michael James, if it's the truth you're seeking one at all.

PHILLY. The peelers is fearing him, and if you'd that lad in the house
there isn't one of them would come smelling around if the dogs itself
were lapping poteen from the dungpit of the yard.

JIMMY. Bravery's a treasure in a lonesome place, and a lad would kill
his father, I'm thinking, would face a foxy divil with a pitchpike on
the flags of hell.

PEGEEN. It's the truth they're saying, and if I'd that lad in the house,
I wouldn't be fearing the loosed kharki cut-throats, or the walking
dead.

CHRISTY -- [swelling with surprise and triumph.] -- Well, glory be to
God!

MICHAEL -- [with deference.] -- Would you think well to stop here and be
pot-boy, mister honey, if we gave you good wages, and didn't destroy you
with the weight of work?

SHAWN -- [coming forward uneasily.] -- That'd be a queer kind to bring
into a decent quiet household with the like of Pegeen Mike.

PEGEEN -- [very sharply.] -- Will you whisht? Who's speaking to you?

SHAWN -- [retreating.] A bloody-handed murderer the like of...

PEGEEN -- [snapping at him.] -- Whisht I am saying; we'll take no
fooling from your like at all. (To Christy with a honeyed voice.) And
you, young fellow, you'd have a right to stop, I'm thinking, for we'd do
our all and utmost to content your needs.

CHRISTY -- [overcome with wonder.] -- And I'd be safe in this place from
the searching law?

MICHAEL. You would, surely. If they're not fearing you, itself, the
peelers in this place is decent droughty poor fellows, wouldn't touch a
cur dog and not give warning in the dead of night.

PEGEEN -- [very kindly and persuasively.] -- Let you stop a short
while anyhow. Aren't you destroyed walking with your feet in bleeding
blisters, and your whole skin needing washing like a Wicklow sheep.

CHRISTY -- [looking round with satisfaction.] It's a nice room, and if
it's not humbugging me you are, I'm thinking that I'll surely stay.

JIMMY -- [jumps up.] -- Now, by the grace of God, herself will be safe
this night, with a man killed his father holding danger from the door,
and let you come on, Michael James, or they'll have the best stuff drunk
at the wake.

MICHAEL -- [going to the door with men.] And begging your pardon,
mister, what name will we call you, for we'd like to know?

CHRISTY. Christopher Mahon.

MICHAEL. Well, God bless you, Christy, and a good rest till we meet
again when the sun'll be rising to the noon of day.

CHRISTY. God bless you all.

MEN. God bless you. [They go out except Shawn, who lingers at door.]

SHAWN -- [to Pegeen.] -- Are you wanting me to stop along with you and
keep you from harm?

PEGEEN -- [gruffly.] Didn't you say you were fearing Father Reilly?

SHAWN. There'd be no harm staying now, I'm thinking, and himself in it
too.

PEGEEN. You wouldn't stay when there was need for you, and let you step
off nimble this time when there's none.

SHAWN. Didn't I say it was Father Reilly...

PEGEEN. Go on, then, to Father Reilly (in a jeering tone), and let him
put you in the holy brotherhoods, and leave that lad to me.

SHAWN. If I meet the Widow Quin...

PEGEEN. Go on, I'm saying, and don't be waking this place with your
noise. (She hustles him out and bolts the door.) That lad would wear
the spirits from the saints of peace. (Bustles about, then takes off
her apron and pins it up in the window as a blind. Christy watching her
timidly. Then she comes to him and speaks with bland good-humour.) Let
you stretch out now by the fire, young fellow. You should be destroyed
travelling.

CHRISTY -- [shyly again, drawing off his boots.] I'm tired, surely,
walking wild eleven days, and waking fearful in the night. [He holds
up one of his feet, feeling his blisters, and looking at them with
compassion.]

PEGEEN -- [standing beside him, watching him with delight.] -- You
should have had great people in your family, I'm thinking, with the
little, small feet you have, and you with a kind of a quality name, the
like of what you'd find on the great powers and potentates of France and
Spain.

CHRISTY -- [with pride.] -- We were great surely, with wide and windy
acres of rich Munster land.

PEGEEN. Wasn't I telling you, and you a fine, handsome young fellow with
a noble brow?

CHRISTY -- [with a flash of delighted surprise.] Is it me?

PEGEEN. Aye. Did you never hear that from the young girls where you come
from in the west or south?

CHRISTY -- [with venom.] -- I did not then. Oh, they're bloody liars in
the naked parish where I grew a man.

PEGEEN. If they are itself, you've heard it these days, I'm thinking,
and you walking the world telling out your story to young girls or old.

CHRISTY. I've told my story no place till this night, Pegeen Mike, and
it's foolish I was here, maybe, to be talking free, but you're decent
people, I'm thinking, and yourself a kindly woman, the way I wasn't
fearing you at all.

PEGEEN -- [filling a sack with straw.] -- You've said the like of that,
maybe, in every cot and cabin where you've met a young girl on your way.

CHRISTY -- [going over to her, gradually raising his voice.] -- I've
said it nowhere till this night, I'm telling you, for I've seen none the
like of you the eleven long days I am walking the world, looking over a
low ditch or a high ditch on my north or my south, into stony scattered
fields, or scribes of bog, where you'd see young, limber girls, and fine
prancing women making laughter with the men.

PEGEEN. If you weren't destroyed travelling, you'd have as much talk
and streeleen, I'm thinking, as Owen Roe O'Sullivan or the poets of the
Dingle Bay, and I've heard all times it's the poets are your like, fine
fiery fellows with great rages when their temper's roused.

CHRISTY -- [drawing a little nearer to her.] -- You've a power of rings,
God bless you, and would there be any offence if I was asking are you
single now?

PEGEEN. What would I want wedding so young?

CHRISTY -- [with relief.] -- We're alike, so.

PEGEEN -- [she puts sack on settle and beats it up.] -- I never killed
my father. I'd be afeard to do that, except I was the like of yourself
with blind rages tearing me within, for I'm thinking you should have had
great tussling when the end was come.

CHRISTY -- [expanding with delight at the first confidential talk he has
ever had with a woman.] -- We had not then. It was a hard woman was come
over the hill, and if he was always a crusty kind when he'd a hard woman
setting him on, not the divil himself or his four fathers could put up
with him at all.

PEGEEN -- [with curiosity.] -- And isn't it a great wonder that one
wasn't fearing you?

CHRISTY -- [very confidentially.] -- Up to the day I killed my father,
there wasn't a person in Ireland knew the kind I was, and I there
drinking, waking, eating, sleeping, a quiet, simple poor fellow with no
man giving me heed.

PEGEEN -- [getting a quilt out of the cupboard and putting it on the
sack.] -- It was the girls were giving you heed maybe, and I'm thinking
it's most conceit you'd have to be gaming with their like.

CHRISTY -- [shaking his head, with simplicity.] Not the girls itself,
and I won't tell you a lie. There wasn't anyone heeding me in that place
saving only the dumb beasts of the field. [He sits down at fire.]

PEGEEN -- [with disappointment.] -- And I thinking you should have been
living the like of a king of Norway or the Eastern world. [She comes and
sits beside him after placing bread and mug of milk on the table.]

CHRISTY -- [laughing piteously.] -- The like of a king, is it? And I
after toiling, moiling, digging, dodging from the dawn till dusk with
never a sight of joy or sport saving only when I'd be abroad in the dark
night poaching rabbits on hills, for I was a devil to poach, God forgive
me, (very naively) and I near got six months for going with a dung fork
and stabbing a fish.

PEGEEN. And it's that you'd call sport, is it, to be abroad in the
darkness with yourself alone?

CHRISTY. I did, God help me, and there I'd be as happy as the sunshine
of St. Martin's Day, watching the light passing the north or the patches
of fog, till I'd hear a rabbit starting to screech and I'd go running in
the furze. Then when I'd my full share I'd come walking down where you'd
see the ducks and geese stretched sleeping on the highway of the road,
and before I'd pass the dunghill, I'd hear himself snoring out, a loud
lonesome snore he'd be making all times, the while he was sleeping, and
he a man 'd be raging all times, the while he was waking, like a gaudy
officer you'd hear cursing and damning and swearing oaths.

PEGEEN. Providence and Mercy, spare us all!

CHRISTY. It's that you'd say surely if you seen him and he after
drinking for weeks, rising up in the red dawn, or before it maybe, and
going out into the yard as naked as an ash tree in the moon of May, and
shying clods against the visage of the stars till he'd put the fear of
death into the banbhs and the screeching sows.

PEGEEN. I'd be well-night afeard of that lad myself, I'm thinking. And
there was no one in it but the two of you alone?

CHRISTY. The divil a one, though he'd sons and daughters walking all
great states and territories of the world, and not a one of them, to
this day, but would say their seven curses on him, and they rousing up
to let a cough or sneeze, maybe, in the deadness of the night.

PEGEEN [nodding her head.] -- Well, you should have been a queer lot.
I never cursed my father the like of that, though I'm twenty and more
years of age.

CHRISTY. Then you'd have cursed mine, I'm telling you, and he a man
never gave peace to any, saving when he'd get two months or three, or
be locked in the asylums for battering peelers or assaulting men (with
depression) the way it was a bitter life he led me till I did up a
Tuesday and halve his skull.

PEGEEN -- [putting her hand on his shoulder.] -- Well, you'll have peace
in this place, Christy Mahon, and none to trouble you, and it's near
time a fine lad like you should have your good share of the earth.

CHRISTY. It's time surely, and I a seemly fellow with great strength in
me and bravery of... [Someone knocks.]

CHRISTY -- [clinging to Pegeen.] -- Oh, glory! it's late for knocking,
and this last while I'm in terror of the peelers, and the walking dead.
[Knocking again.]

PEGEEN. Who's there?

VOICE -- [outside.] Me.

PEGEEN. Who's me?

VOICE. The Widow Quin.

PEGEEN [jumping up and giving him the bread and milk.] -- Go on now with
your supper, and let on to be sleepy, for if she found you were such
a warrant to talk, she'd be stringing gabble till the dawn of day. (He
takes bread and sits shyly with his back to the door.)

PEGEEN [opening door, with temper.] -- What ails you, or what is it
you're wanting at this hour of the night?

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming in a step and peering at Christy.] -- I'm after
meeting Shawn Keogh and Father Reilly below, who told me of your
curiosity man, and they fearing by this time he was maybe roaring,
romping on your hands with drink.

PEGEEN [pointing to Christy.] -- Look now is he roaring, and he
stretched away drowsy with his supper and his mug of milk. Walk down and
tell that to Father Reilly and to Shaneen Keogh.

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming forward.] -- I'll not see them again, for I've
their word to lead that lad forward for to lodge with me.

PEGEEN -- [in blank amazement.] -- This night, is it?

WIDOW QUIN -- [going over.] -- This night. "It isn't fitting," says the
priesteen, "to have his likeness lodging with an orphaned girl." (To
Christy.) God save you, mister!

CHRISTY -- [shyly.] -- God save you kindly.

WIDOW QUIN -- [looking at him with half-amazed curiosity.] -- Well,
aren't you a little smiling fellow? It should have been great and bitter
torments did rouse your spirits to a deed of blood.

CHRISTY -- [doubtfully.] It should, maybe.

WIDOW QUIN. It's more than "maybe" I'm saying, and it'd soften my heart
to see you sitting so simple with your cup and cake, and you fitter to
be saying your catechism than slaying your da.

PEGEEN -- [at counter, washing glasses.] -- There's talking when any'd
see he's fit to be holding his head high with the wonders of the world.
Walk on from this, for I'll not have him tormented and he destroyed
travelling since Tuesday was a week.

WIDOW QUIN -- [peaceably.] We'll be walking surely when his supper's
done, and you'll find we're great company, young fellow, when it's of
the like of you and me you'd hear the penny poets singing in an August
Fair.

CHRISTY -- [innocently.] Did you kill your father?

PEGEEN -- [contemptuously.] She did not. She hit himself with a worn
pick, and the rusted poison did corrode his blood the way he never
overed it, and died after. That was a sneaky kind of murder did win
small glory with the boys itself. [She crosses to Christy's left.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [with good-humour.] -- If it didn't, maybe all knows a
widow woman has buried her children and destroyed her man is a
wiser comrade for a young lad than a girl, the like of you, who'd go
helter-skeltering after any man would let you a wink upon the road.

PEGEEN -- [breaking out into wild rage.] -- And you'll say that, Widow
Quin, and you gasping with the rage you had racing the hill beyond to
look on his face.

WIDOW QUIN -- [laughing derisively.] -- Me, is it? Well, Father Reilly
has cuteness to divide you now. (She pulls Christy up.) There's great
temptation in a man did slay his da, and we'd best be going, young
fellow; so rise up and come with me.

PEGEEN -- [seizing his arm.] -- He'll not stir. He's pot-boy in this
place, and I'll not have him stolen off and kidnabbed while himself's
abroad.

WIDOW QUIN. It'd be a crazy pot-boy'd lodge him in the shebeen where he
works by day, so you'd have a right to come on, young fellow, till you
see my little houseen, a perch off on the rising hill.

PEGEEN. Wait till morning, Christy Mahon. Wait till you lay eyes on her
leaky thatch is growing more pasture for her buck goat than her square
of fields, and she without a tramp itself to keep in order her place at
all.

WIDOW QUIN. When you see me contriving in my little gardens, Christy
Mahon, you'll swear the Lord God formed me to be living lone, and that
there isn't my match in Mayo for thatching, or mowing, or shearing a
sheep.

PEGEEN -- [with noisy scorn.] -- It's true the Lord God formed you to
contrive indeed. Doesn't the world know you reared a black lamb at your
own breast, so that the Lord Bishop of Connaught felt the elements of
a Christian, and he eating it after in a kidney stew? Doesn't the
world know you've been seen shaving the foxy skipper from France for a
threepenny bit and a sop of grass tobacco would wring the liver from a
mountain goat you'd meet leaping the hills?

WIDOW QUIN -- [with amusement.] -- Do you hear her now, young fellow? Do
you hear the way she'll be rating at your own self when a week is by?

PEGEEN -- [to Christy.] -- Don't heed her. Tell her to go into her
pigsty and not plague us here.

WIDOW QUIN. I'm going; but he'll come with me.

PEGEEN -- [shaking him.] -- Are you dumb, young fellow?

CHRISTY -- [timidly, to Widow Quin.] -- God increase you; but I'm
pot-boy in this place, and it's here I'd liefer stay.

PEGEEN -- [triumphantly.] Now you have heard him, and go on from this.

WIDOW QUIN -- [looking round the room.] -- It's lonesome this hour
crossing the hill, and if he won't come along with me, I'd have a right
maybe to stop this night with yourselves. Let me stretch out on the
settle, Pegeen Mike; and himself can lie by the hearth.

PEGEEN -- [short and fiercely.] -- Faith, I won't. Quit off or I will
send you now.

WIDOW QUIN -- [gathering her shawl up.] -- Well, it's a terror to be
aged a score. (To Christy.) God bless you now, young fellow, and let
you be wary, or there's right torment will await you here if you go
romancing with her like, and she waiting only, as they bade me say, on a
sheepskin parchment to be wed with Shawn Keogh of Killakeen.

CHRISTY -- [going to Pegeen as she bolts the door.] -- What's that she's
after saying?

PEGEEN. Lies and blather, you've no call to mind. Well, isn't Shawn
Keogh an impudent fellow to send up spying on me? Wait till I lay hands
on him. Let him wait, I'm saying.

CHRISTY. And you're not wedding him at all?

PEGEEN. I wouldn't wed him if a bishop came walking for to join us here.

CHRISTY. That God in glory may be thanked for that.

PEGEEN. There's your bed now. I've put a quilt upon you I'm after
quilting a while since with my own two hands, and you'd best stretch out
now for your sleep, and may God give you a good rest till I call you in
the morning when the cocks will crow.

CHRISTY -- [as she goes to inner room.] -- May God and Mary and St.
Patrick bless you and reward you, for your kindly talk. [She shuts
the door behind her. He settles his bed slowly, feeling the quilt with
immense satisfaction.] -- Well, it's a clean bed and soft with it, and
it's great luck and company I've won me in the end of time -- two fine
women fighting for the likes of me -- till I'm thinking this night
wasn't I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by.

CURTAIN

The entire play is set in a public house "on the wild coast of Mayo," outside a village in Northwestern Ireland, circa 1907 . The public house is simple and spare, containing only a counter, barrels, jugs, table, a bench, a large, open fire and a small interior room. A window and a door are located at the back, and give the room its only open air. It is a dark, autumn evening as Margaret Flaherty, known as Pegeen Mike, sits alone at a table, compiling a list of supplies to make a wedding dress. She intends to send to the next village for these supplies. Pegeen, age 20, is "a wild-looking but fine girl" . The pub owner's daughter, she runs the alehouse when her father is out. Shawn Keogh, "a fat and fair young man," enters the pub tentatively, unsure whether it is appropriate to visit Pegeen while her father is gone . He confesses that he was struck by the tavern's isolation when he saw it outside in the dark, and she tells him that her father and his friends have gone off to attend a wake. Shawn remarks on the courage it must take to travel such a distance in the dark. It is clear that Shawn himself lacks such courage. Shawn is flustered by the impropriety of speaking with Pegeen without a chaperone present, and Pegeen taunts him about being a poor girl alone in the scary night. Shawn then reveals that they will be married soon, by insisting he will protect her after the ceremony. They are waiting for Father Reilly to send his dispensation to approve the wedding. Pegeen doubts that Father Reilly will ever send the document, noting that all the men in the village are lame, stupid, and mad. She again teases that there is no man good enough to protect her, but Shawn is bothered by her implication of sexual impropriety, since it would offend the dictates of the Church. He offers to send the Widow Quin to keep her company if she is afraid, and notes that he had heard a terrible wailing outside, the voice of an unknown man lying in a ditch. Pegeen asks more about this man, but Shawn confesses he had been too scared to investigate. Disgusted by his cowardice, she mockingly threatens to report Shawn to the authorities if the man ends up dying. Thunderstruck, Shawn begs her not to betray him, just as her father , and his cohorts Philly Cullen and Jimmy Farrell enter. Michael, Philly and Jimmy are merely stopping by to warm themselves before completing their journey to the wake. Pegeen chides her father for leaving her alone all night, and he in turn chides her for suggesting he double-back in the dark after the wake. He suggests Shawn stay the night with her, which makes Shawn tremble with anxiety - what would Father Reilly think? Michael revels that he has also heard about a strange man in the area, and asks Shawn to stay the night in a different room. However, Shawn is too anxious about offending the church and losing the dispensation to consent. The men then contemptuously decide to lock Shawn in the west room, but Shawn runs for the door. Michael almost catches him, but Shawn eludes the older man's grasp and darts into the night. The men then continue to make fun of Shawn, but Pegeen defends him, noting that her father could have hired a pot-boy to keep her company. Unfortunately, he notes, there is no man available for such a job. Shawn then cracks the door open, and calls out to Michael that the "queer dying fellow's" crawled out of the ditch and is trying to steal the hens . Suddenly, Shawn rushes back in, afraid the stranger has heard him. They hear a cough from outside, and then watch as Christy Mahon, "a slight young man...tired, frightened and dirty," enters the pub . After sharing a greeting with the men, Christy shyly pays for a porter and then sits by the fire. He inquires whether the police ever stop by this place, and Michael defensively assures him they run a licensed pub, meaning the police have no reason to bother them. But why, asks Michael, does Christy fear the police? Without hesitation, Christy reveals that he is wanted for a crime. Michael asks whether the crime is larceny, a word Christy does not understand. He admits that he is mostly uneducated, but then proudly boasts that he and his father - a farmer - were rich enough at once time to have bought the pub. The men then assume the crime is bigger than larceny, and try to guess what it is. Jimmy suggests he "followed after" a young woman on a lonesome night, and Christy is shocked at the suggestion . They wonder whether he fought government officials who tried to usurp his land, and Christy dismisses the possibility as too common. They ask whether he killed a soldier, married three wives, or fought for the Boers, but Christy smugly insists he "never left parish til Tuesday was a week" . Fed up, Pegeen insultingly accuses him of lying for attention, but Christy counters that she herself lies. When she threatens to hit him with her broom, he recoils and cries out that he "killed poor father" a week earlier for having struck him in that way . The group is greatly impressed by this news, and they instantly address him with respect and affection. They press him for details about how he killed his father, but he dismisses all their guesses to explain that he brought a "loy" onto "the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all" . Michael inquires how Christy avoided hanging, and whether he buried the body to conceal the evidence. After a moment's consideration, Christy affirms that he buried his father in a potato field. Thus far, Christy seems to have eluded the authorities. When pressed for more details of the murder, Christy grows reserved, which the group admits is a wise approach for him to take. Pegeen then asks Michael to hire Christy, noting that she would have little to fear with such a man in the house. Michael agrees, and offers him the job. Shawn, heretofore silent, interrupts to suggest that hiring a murderer might pose a threat to Pegeen. She rudely shushes him. After securing Michael's promise that the pub will remain a safe haven from the police, Christy accepts the job. The men leave for the wake, but Shawn lingers, now offering to keep Pegeen company through the night. After all, he reasons, it would no longer be considered improper since a third person is there. Exasperated, Pegeen shoves Shawn out and locks the door. Alone now with Christy, Pegeen compliments the man's appearance, and asserts that all women must compliment him in that way. He correct her, noting that his village's women are despicable. As Pegeen prepares him a bed, Christy asks whether she is single, and she quickly denies it, asking, "What would I want wedding so young?" . Christy then describes his father's hardness and drunkenness, and the quiet life he led before the murder, noting in the process that this is the first time he has ever spoken intimately with a woman. Pegeen assures him that their village will afford him a quiet life, just like he deserves. Christy swells with this praise, then cowers terribly when there's a knock at the door, assuming it is the authorities. It's the Widow Quin, who has been sent to the pub by Shawn and Father Reilly to guard Pegeen. She describes herself as no stranger to foul deeds, and Pegeen tells how she once beat her husband so badly with a hoe that he then died of a blood infection. The widow is quite taken with Christy, openly complimenting and flirting with him. Noting the impropriety of Pegeen being alone with a man, she pulls Christy up to leave with her, describing how he will love her little home and garden. However, Pegeen pulls Christy back towards her, insulting the widow in the process. The conflict escalates until Christy finally speaks up for himself, siding with Pegeen. As the widow leaves, she chides Pegeen for her behavior, given the girl's betrothal to Shawn. A crestfallen Christy asks whether Pegeen is in fact engaged to Shawn. Pegeen asserts she would never marry someone like Shawn, and then leaves him to sleep. As he drifts off, Christy happily reflects to himself about how two decent woman have fought over him, and wonders whether he was "a foolish fellow not to kill father in the years gone by .

At the top of Act I, Synge presents a picture of a rural, coastal Ireland that aligns quite closely with a romantic, even pastoral notion of peasantry and village life. The first image on stage clearly reflects this pastoral ideal. In a roughshod village pub, notably separated from much 'civilization,' a "wild-looking but fine girl" reads through a list of wedding goods which she expects to receive via fish wagon. The rural remove of the setting is immediately beyond question, and indeed proves important towards understand the characters who inhabit it. The initial characterizations also conform to this pastoral ideal. Pegeen's sharp tongue and strong will fits well within the folkloric archetype of an earthy, no-nonsense peasant girl. Shawn, too, fits the role of her archetypal foil. A weak-willed but good-natured man, he is clearly not the best husband for her, precisely because he is so inoffensive. The sharpness and humor with which she taunts him establishes a natural, recognizable scene that the audience easily accepts. Similarly, Michael and his cohorts are recognizable as an assembly of colorful but simple, god-fearing folk. Overall, the play is firmly rooted in naturalism at first, mostly owing to Synge's extremely credible use of language, which seems singular and yet conforms to the audience's expectation of uneducated peasantry. However, there is an undercurrent of criticism and parody in the early scenes as well. Shawn's cowardice - which he defends as being based in fear of the Church and Father Reilly - hints at a greater cravenness that has been shaped by the Church. Shawn's fear of the dark is far less intense than his fear of navigating a moral choice: Should he stay the night at the shebeen in order to protect Pegeen from ne'er-do-wells, or should he unquestioningly follow the dictates of propriety laid out by parish clergymen? Shawn is a boy of slavish faith, lacking any subtly of thought. To recognize this is to recognize Synge's anticlerical, parodistic drive. For all the play's 'naturalness,' there is a stylized criticism at work as well. Though this drive towards parody is not the play's animating force, it does continue to manifest throughout the entire story. Regardless, the play remains naturalistic until Christy's entrance, at which point this naturalism is replaced by a pronounced theatricality. Here, the archetypal picture of the peasant - as stalwart, loyal, and virtuous - is turned on its head, as Pegeen and company do not chide Christy for his crime, but instead reward him with their deferential appreciation. Christy's seeming willingness to flaunt morality marks him as brave and wise, as an excellent guardian for hearth and home. Not only does Michael offer the boy a job, but he also leaves him alone with his daughter! Further, after they are alone, Pegeen refers to Christy in almost storybook heroic terms, complimenting his dainty feet, noble brow and royal-sounding name. We see that for the sake of a fine story - in this case, the story of Christy's deed - the characters suspend moral judgment. The link between words and action is of great importance in The Playboy, and Christy's own voice, his own powers of speech, grow increasingly confident and poetic as his own aspirations and poetic self-image blossoms in the face of such admiration. Consider his transformation even within this Act. When Christy first enters the shebeen, he is dirty, frightened and starved half to death. He seems particularly simple - he does not know the word "larceny" - and can hardly defend himself against the taunts of the locals. However, halfway through the act, his language and power of speech intensify as he describes his father: "he after drinking for weeks, rising up in the red dawn, or before it maybe, and going out into the yard as naked as an ash-tree in the moon of May, and shying clods against the visage of the stars till he'd put the fear of death into the banbhs and the screeching sows" . This passage exemplifies Christy's still-raw terror of his father, depicting "his da" in mythical terms, as an adversary of nature and the universe. It is a remarkable irony that Christy is empowered by confessing so poetically his fear. Part of what made the play so challenging in its own day - and what makes it so unique even now - is that Synge presents a world defined by Church morality, but then reveals himself far more interested in the power of myth and story than in the limitations of that morality. Most important to this intention are Pegeen's feelings for Christy. She notes the man's rhetorical skill even before he grows empowered, insinuating he must "have much talk and streeleen ...as Owen Roe O'Sullivan or the poets of Dingle Bay; and I've heard all times it's the poets are your like--fine, fiery fellows..." . In other words, Pegeen identifies Christy's penchant for aspirational "talk" even before he consciously attempts to evoke a mythical figure in the description of his father. And yet this fascination is hardly due simply to her love of language; instead, it is colored by her consideration of his parricide as valorous. Because he seems to have the courage to flaunt morality, she finds his self-expression through language to be remarkable. Most fascinating of all, as we later learn, the entire parricide exists only in language, since Old Mahon remains alive. In fact, this conflation of words with actions becomes one of the play's major themes. Because Christy comes to believe his own story, he refashions himself, nourishes his self-image until he is the great figure that the village believes him to be. Over and over again, he restates, reinterprets,  and revivifies the village's descriptions. In fact, these descriptions have a power in themselves, obvious when the Widow Quin arrives ready to snatch this boy up without even having laid eyes on him. The power of the story is far greater than the power of the particular individual, which Christy quickly recognizes as the ladies fight over him. They have both forgotten any sense of Catholic decorum, and are instead focused solely on having this vivacious storyteller for themselves. At the end of Act I, Christy revels in this newfound power: Speak it and it shall be. He drifts off to sleep "thinking this night wasn't I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by" . One can already recognize the play's unique power by the end of Act I. It is all the more confounding for the easy naturalism of its first few conversations, since that naturalism is so effectively transcended by the end of the Act. Synge's understanding of theatre, as a synthesis of "reality" and "joy," is wonderfully captured here. The world he creates - one limited by morality and geography, where folks are desperate for anything new to catch their attention - is recognizable, while the story he tells - where that morality is far less important than the mythic possibilities of self-definition - is full to the brim with poetic extravagance and theatrical possibility.


SCENE, [as before. Brilliant morning light. Christy, looking bright and
cheerful, is cleaning a girl's boots.]

CHRISTY -- [to himself, counting jugs on dresser.] -- Half a hundred
beyond. Ten there. A score that's above. Eighty jugs. Six cups and a
broken one. Two plates. A power of glasses. Bottles, a school-master'd
be hard set to count, and enough in them, I'm thinking, to drunken
all the wealth and wisdom of the County Clare. (He puts down the boot
carefully.) There's her boots now, nice and decent for her evening
use, and isn't it grand brushes she has? (He puts them down and goes
by degrees to the looking-glass.) Well, this'd be a fine place to be my
whole life talking out with swearing Christians, in place of my old dogs
and cat, and I stalking around, smoking my pipe and drinking my fill,
and never a day's work but drawing a cork an odd time, or wiping a
glass, or rinsing out a shiny tumbler for a decent man. (He takes the
looking-glass from the wall and puts it on the back of a chair; then
sits down in front of it and begins washing his face.) Didn't I know
rightly I was handsome, though it was the divil's own mirror we had
beyond, would twist a squint across an angel's brow; and I'll be growing
fine from this day, the way I'll have a soft lovely skin on me and won't
be the like of the clumsy young fellows do be ploughing all times in
the earth and dung. (He starts.) Is she coming again? (He looks out.)
Stranger girls. God help me, where'll I hide myself away and my long
neck nacked to the world? (He looks out.) I'd best go to the room maybe
till I'm dressed again. [He gathers up his coat and the looking-glass,
and runs into the inner room. The door is pushed open, and Susan Brady
looks in, and knocks on door.]

SUSAN. There's nobody in it. [Knocks again.]

NELLY -- [pushing her in and following her, with Honor Blake and Sara
Tansey.] It'd be early for them both to be out walking the hill.

SUSAN. I'm thinking Shawn Keogh was making game of us and there's no
such man in it at all.

HONOR -- [pointing to straw and quilt.] -- Look at that. He's been
sleeping there in the night. Well, it'll be a hard case if he's gone off
now, the way we'll never set our eyes on a man killed his father, and we
after rising early and destroying ourselves running fast on the hill.

NELLY. Are you thinking them's his boots?

SARA -- [taking them up.] -- If they are, there should be his father's
track on them. Did you never read in the papers the way murdered men do
bleed and drip?

SUSAN. Is that blood there, Sara Tansey?

SARAH -- [smelling it.] -- That's bog water, I'm thinking, but it's his
own they are surely, for I never seen the like of them for whity mud,
and red mud, and turf on them, and the fine sands of the sea. That man's
been walking, I'm telling you. [She goes down right, putting on one of
his boots.]

SUSAN -- [going to window.] -- Maybe he's stolen off to Belmullet with
the boots of Michael James, and you'd have a right so to follow after
him, Sara Tansey, and you the one yoked the ass cart and drove ten
miles to set your eyes on the man bit the yellow lady's nostril on the
northern shore. [She looks out.]

SARA -- [running to window with one boot on.] -- Don't be talking, and
we fooled to-day. (Putting on other boot.) There's a pair do fit me
well, and I'll be keeping them for walking to the priest, when you'd be
ashamed this place, going up winter and summer with nothing worth while
to confess at all.

HONOR -- [who has been listening at the door.] -- Whisht! there's
someone inside the room. (She pushes door a chink open.) It's a man.
[Sara kicks off boots and puts them where they were. They all stand in a
line looking through chink.]

SARA. I'll call him. Mister! Mister! (He puts in his head.) Is Pegeen
within?

CHRISTY -- [coming in as meek as a mouse, with the looking-glass held
behind his back.] -- She's above on the cnuceen, seeking the nanny
goats, the way she'd have a sup of goat's milk for to colour my tea.

SARA. And asking your pardon, is it you's the man killed his father?

CHRISTY -- [sidling toward the nail where the glass was hanging.] -- I
am, God help me!

SARA -- [taking eggs she has brought.] -- Then my thousand welcomes to
you, and I've run up with a brace of duck's eggs for your food today.
Pegeen's ducks is no use, but these are the real rich sort. Hold out
your hand and you'll see it's no lie I'm telling you.

CHRISTY -- [coming forward shyly, and holding out his left hand.] --
They're a great and weighty size.

SUSAN. And I run up with a pat of butter, for it'd be a poor thing to
have you eating your spuds dry, and you after running a great way since
you did destroy your da.

CHRISTY. Thank you kindly.

HONOR. And I brought you a little cut of cake, for you should have a
thin stomach on you, and you that length walking the world.

NELLY. And I brought you a little laying pullet -- boiled and all she is
-- was crushed at the fall of night by the curate's car. Feel the fat of
that breast, Mister.

CHRISTY. It's bursting, surely. [He feels it with the back of his
hand, in which he holds the presents.]

SARA. Will you pinch it? Is your right hand too sacred for to use at
all? (She slips round behind him.) It's a glass he has. Well, I never
seen to this day a man with a looking-glass held to his back. Them that
kills their fathers is a vain lot surely. [Girls giggle.]

CHRISTY -- [smiling innocently and piling presents on glass.] -- I'm
very thankful to you all to-day...

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming in quickly, at door.] -- Sara Tansey, Susan Brady,
Honor Blake! What in glory has you here at this hour of day?

GIRLS -- [giggling.] That's the man killed his father.

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming to them.] -- I know well it's the man; and
I'm after putting him down in the sports below for racing, leaping,
pitching, and the Lord knows what.

SARA -- [exuberantly.] That's right, Widow Quin. I'll bet my dowry that
he'll lick the world.

WIDOW QUIN. If you will, you'd have a right to have him fresh and
nourished in place of nursing a feast. (Taking presents.) Are you
fasting or fed, young fellow?

CHRISTY. Fasting, if you please.

WIDOW QUIN -- [loudly.] Well, you're the lot. Stir up now and give him
his breakfast. (To Christy.) Come here to me (she puts him on bench
beside her while the girls make tea and get his breakfast) and let you
tell us your story before Pegeen will come, in place of grinning your
ears off like the moon of May.

CHRISTY -- [beginning to be pleased.] -- It's a long story; you'd be
destroyed listening.

WIDOW QUIN. Don't be letting on to be shy, a fine, gamey, treacherous
lad the like of you. Was it in your house beyond you cracked his skull?

CHRISTY -- [shy but flattered.] -- It was not. We were digging spuds in
his cold, sloping, stony, divil's patch of a field.

WIDOW QUIN. And you went asking money of him, or making talk of getting
a wife would drive him from his farm?

CHRISTY. I did not, then; but there I was, digging and digging, and "You
squinting idiot," says he, "let you walk down now and tell the priest
you'll wed the Widow Casey in a score of days."

WIDOW QUIN. And what kind was she?

CHRISTY -- [with horror.] -- A walking terror from beyond the hills, and
she two score and five years, and two hundredweights and five pounds in
the weighing scales, with a limping leg on her, and a blinded eye, and
she a woman of noted misbehaviour with the old and young.

GIRLS -- [clustering round him, serving him.] -- Glory be.

WIDOW QUIN. And what did he want driving you to wed with her? [She takes
a bit of the chicken.]

CHRISTY -- [eating with growing satisfaction.] He was letting on I was
wanting a protector from the harshness of the world, and he without a
thought the whole while but how he'd have her hut to live in and her
gold to drink.

WIDOW QUIN. There's maybe worse than a dry hearth and a widow woman and
your glass at night. So you hit him then?

CHRISTY -- [getting almost excited.] -- I did not. "I won't wed her,"
says I, "when all know she did suckle me for six weeks when I came into
the world, and she a hag this day with a tongue on her has the crows and
seabirds scattered, the way they wouldn't cast a shadow on her garden
with the dread of her curse."

WIDOW QUIN -- [teasingly.] That one should be right company.

SARA -- [eagerly.] Don't mind her. Did you kill him then?

CHRISTY. "She's too good for the like of you," says he, "and go on now
or I'll flatten you out like a crawling beast has passed under a dray."
"You will not if I can help it," says I. "Go on," says he, "or I'll have
the divil making garters of your limbs tonight." "You will not if I can
help it," says I. [He sits up, brandishing his mug.]

SARA. You were right surely.

CHRISTY -- [impressively.] With that the sun came out between the cloud
and the hill, and it shining green in my face. "God have mercy on your
soul," says he, lifting a scythe; "or on your own," says I, raising the
loy. SUSAN. That's a grand story.

HONOR. He tells it lovely.

CHRISTY -- [flattered and confident, waving bone.] -- He gave a drive
with the scythe, and I gave a lep to the east. Then I turned around with
my back to the north, and I hit a blow on the ridge of his skull, laid
him stretched out, and he split to the knob of his gullet. [He raises
the chicken bone to his Adam's apple.]

GIRLS -- [together.] Well, you're a marvel! Oh, God bless you! You're
the lad surely!

SUSAN. I'm thinking the Lord God sent him this road to make a second
husband to the Widow Quin, and she with a great yearning to be wedded,
though all dread her here. Lift him on her knee, Sara Tansey.

WIDOW QUIN. Don't tease him.

SARA -- [going over to dresser and counter very quickly, and getting two
glasses and porter.] -- You're heroes surely, and let you drink a supeen
with your arms linked like the outlandish lovers in the sailor's song.
(She links their arms and gives them the glasses.) There now. Drink
a health to the wonders of the western world, the pirates, preachers,
poteen-makers, with the jobbing jockies; parching peelers, and the
juries fill their stomachs selling judgments of the English law.
[Brandishing the bottle.]

WIDOW QUIN. That's a right toast, Sara Tansey. Now Christy. [They drink
with their arms linked, he drinking with his left hand, she with her
right. As they are drinking, Pegeen Mike comes in with a milk can and
stands aghast. They all spring away from Christy. He goes down left.
Widow Quin remains seated.]

PEGEEN -- [angrily, to Sara.] -- What is it you're wanting?

SARA -- [twisting her apron.] -- An ounce of tobacco.

PEGEEN. Have you tuppence?

SARA. I've forgotten my purse.

PEGEEN. Then you'd best be getting it and not fooling us here. (To the
Widow Quin, with more elaborate scorn.) And what is it you're wanting,
Widow Quin?

WIDOW QUIN -- [insolently.] A penn'orth of starch.

PEGEEN -- [breaking out.] -- And you without a white shift or a shirt in
your whole family since the drying of the flood. I've no starch for the
like of you, and let you walk on now to Killamuck.

WIDOW QUIN -- [turning to Christy, as she goes out with the girls.] --
Well, you're mighty huffy this day, Pegeen Mike, and, you young fellow,
let you not forget the sports and racing when the noon is by. [They go
out.]

PEGEEN -- [imperiously.] Fling out that rubbish and put them cups away.
(Christy tidies away in great haste). Shove in the bench by the wall.
(He does so.) And hang that glass on the nail. What disturbed it at all?

CHRISTY -- [very meekly.] -- I was making myself decent only, and this a
fine country for young lovely girls.

PEGEEN -- [sharply.] Whisht your talking of girls. [Goes to counter
right.]

CHRISTY. Wouldn't any wish to be decent in a place...

PEGEEN. Whisht I'm saying.

CHRISTY -- [looks at her face for a moment with great misgivings, then
as a last effort, takes up a loy, and goes towards her, with feigned
assurance]. -- It was with a loy the like of that I killed my father.

PEGEEN -- [still sharply.] -- You've told me that story six times since
the dawn of day.

CHRISTY -- [reproachfully.] It's a queer thing you wouldn't care to be
hearing it and them girls after walking four miles to be listening to me
now.

PEGEEN -- [turning round astonished.] -- Four miles.

CHRISTY -- [apologetically.] Didn't himself say there were only four
bona fides living in the place?

PEGEEN. It's bona fides by the road they are, but that lot came over the
river lepping the stones. It's not three perches when you go like that,
and I was down this morning looking on the papers the post-boy does have
in his bag. (With meaning and emphasis.) For there was great news this
day, Christopher Mahon. [She goes into room left.]

CHRISTY -- [suspiciously.] Is it news of my murder?

PEGEEN -- [inside.] Murder, indeed.

CHRISTY -- [loudly.] A murdered da?

PEGEEN [coming in again and crossing right.] -- There was not, but a
story filled half a page of the hanging of a man. Ah, that should be a
fearful end, young fellow, and it worst of all for a man who destroyed
his da, for the like of him would get small mercies, and when it's dead
he is, they'd put him in a narrow grave, with cheap sacking wrapping him
round, and pour down quicklime on his head, the way you'd see a woman
pouring any frish-frash from a cup.

CHRISTY -- [very miserably.] -- Oh, God help me. Are you thinking I'm
safe? You were saying at the fall of night, I was shut of jeopardy and I
here with yourselves.

PEGEEN -- [severely.] You'll be shut of jeopardy no place if you go
talking with a pack of wild girls the like of them do be walking abroad
with the peelers, talking whispers at the fall of night.

CHRISTY -- [with terror.] -- And you're thinking they'd tell?

PEGEEN -- [with mock sympathy.] -- Who knows, God help you.

CHRISTY -- [loudly.] What joy would they have to bring hanging to the
likes of me?

PEGEEN. It's queer joys they have, and who knows the thing they'd do,
if it'd make the green stones cry itself to think of you swaying and
swiggling at the butt of a rope, and you with a fine, stout neck, God
bless you! the way you'd be a half an hour, in great anguish, getting
your death.

CHRISTY -- [getting his boots and putting them on.] -- If there's that
terror of them, it'd be best, maybe, I went on wandering like Esau or
Cain and Abel on the sides of Neifin or the Erris plain.

PEGEEN [beginning to play with him.] -- It would, maybe, for I've heard
the Circuit Judges this place is a heartless crew.

CHRISTY -- [bitterly.] It's more than Judges this place is a heartless
crew. (Looking up at her.) And isn't it a poor thing to be starting
again and I a lonesome fellow will be looking out on women and girls the
way the needy fallen spirits do be looking on the Lord?

PEGEEN. What call have you to be that lonesome when there's poor girls
walking Mayo in their thousands now?

CHRISTY -- [grimly.] It's well you know what call I have. It's well you
know it's a lonesome thing to be passing small towns with the lights
shining sideways when the night is down, or going in strange places with
a dog nosing before you and a dog nosing behind, or drawn to the cities
where you'd hear a voice kissing and talking deep love in every shadow
of the ditch, and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing
from your heart.

PEGEEN. I'm thinking you're an odd man, Christy Mahon. The oddest
walking fellow I ever set my eyes on to this hour to-day.

CHRISTY. What would any be but odd men and they living lonesome in the
world?

PEGEEN. I'm not odd, and I'm my whole life with my father only.

CHRISTY -- [with infinite admiration.] -- How would a lovely handsome
woman the like of you be lonesome when all men should be thronging
around to hear the sweetness of your voice, and the little infant
children should be pestering your steps I'm thinking, and you walking
the roads.

PEGEEN. I'm hard set to know what way a coaxing fellow the like of
yourself should be lonesome either.

CHRISTY. Coaxing?

PEGEEN. Would you have me think a man never talked with the girls would
have the words you've spoken to-day? It's only letting on you are to be
lonesome, the way you'd get around me now.

CHRISTY. I wish to God I was letting on; but I was lonesome all times,
and born lonesome, I'm thinking, as the moon of dawn. [Going to door.]

PEGEEN -- [puzzled by his talk.] -- Well, it's a story I'm not
understanding at all why you'd be worse than another, Christy Mahon, and
you a fine lad with the great savagery to destroy your da.

CHRISTY. It's little I'm understanding myself, saving only that my
heart's scalded this day, and I going off stretching out the earth
between us, the way I'll not be waking near you another dawn of the year
till the two of us do arise to hope or judgment with the saints of God,
and now I'd best be going with my wattle in my hand, for hanging is a
poor thing (turning to go), and it's little welcome only is left me in
this house to-day.

PEGEEN -- [sharply.] Christy! (He turns round.) Come here to me. (He
goes towards her.) Lay down that switch and throw some sods on the fire.
You're pot-boy in this place, and I'll not have you mitch off from us
now.

CHRISTY. You were saying I'd be hanged if I stay.

PEGEEN -- [quite kindly at last.] -- I'm after going down and reading
the fearful crimes of Ireland for two weeks or three, and there wasn't a
word of your murder. (Getting up and going over to the counter.) They've
likely not found the body. You're safe so with ourselves.

CHRISTY -- [astonished, slowly.] -- It's making game of me you were
(following her with fearful joy), and I can stay so, working at your
side, and I not lonesome from this mortal day.

PEGEEN. What's to hinder you from staying, except the widow woman or the
young girls would inveigle you off?

CHRISTY -- [with rapture.] -- And I'll have your words from this day
filling my ears, and that look is come upon you meeting my two eyes, and
I watching you loafing around in the warm sun, or rinsing your ankles
when the night is come.

PEGEEN -- [kindly, but a little embarrassed.] I'm thinking you'll be
a loyal young lad to have working around, and if you vexed me a while
since with your leaguing with the girls, I wouldn't give a thraneen for
a lad hadn't a mighty spirit in him and a gamey heart. [Shawn Keogh runs
in carrying a cleeve on his back, followed by the Widow Quin.]

SHAWN -- [to Pegeen.] -- I was passing below, and I seen your mountainy
sheep eating cabbages in Jimmy's field. Run up or they'll be bursting
surely.

PEGEEN. Oh, God mend them! [She puts a shawl over her head and runs
out.]

CHRISTY -- [looking from one to the other. Still in high spirits.] --
I'd best go to her aid maybe. I'm handy with ewes.

WIDOW QUIN -- [closing the door.] -- She can do that much, and there is
Shaneen has long speeches for to tell you now. [She sits down with an
amused smile.]

SHAWN -- [taking something from his pocket and offering it to Christy.]
-- Do you see that, mister?

CHRISTY -- [looking at it.] -- The half of a ticket to the Western
States!

SHAWN -- [trembling with anxiety.] -- I'll give it to you and my new
hat (pulling it out of hamper); and my breeches with the double seat
(pulling it off); and my new coat is woven from the blackest shearings
for three miles around (giving him the coat); I'll give you the whole of
them, and my blessing, and the blessing of Father Reilly itself, maybe,
if you'll quit from this and leave us in the peace we had till last
night at the fall of dark.

CHRISTY -- [with a new arrogance.] -- And for what is it you're wanting
to get shut of me?

SHAWN -- [looking to the Widow for help.] -- I'm a poor scholar with
middling faculties to coin a lie, so I'll tell you the truth, Christy
Mahon. I'm wedding with Pegeen beyond, and I don't think well of having
a clever fearless man the like of you dwelling in her house.

CHRISTY -- [almost pugnaciously.] -- And you'd be using bribery for to
banish me?

SHAWN -- [in an imploring voice.] -- Let you not take it badly, mister
honey, isn't beyond the best place for you where you'll have golden
chains and shiny coats and you riding upon hunters with the ladies of
the land. [He makes an eager sign to the Widow Quin to come to help
him.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming over.] -- It's true for him, and you'd best quit
off and not have that poor girl setting her mind on you, for there's
Shaneen thinks she wouldn't suit you though all is saying that she'll
wed you now. [Christy beams with delight.]

SHAWN -- [in terrified earnest.] -- She wouldn't suit you, and she with
the divil's own temper the way you'd be strangling one another in a
score of days. (He makes the movement of strangling with his hands.)
It's the like of me only that she's fit for, a quiet simple fellow
wouldn't raise a hand upon her if she scratched itself.

WIDOW QUIN -- [putting Shawn's hat on Christy.] -- Fit them clothes
on you anyhow, young fellow, and he'd maybe loan them to you for the
sports. (Pushing him towards inner door.) Fit them on and you can give
your answer when you have them tried.

CHRISTY -- [beaming, delighted with the clothes.] -- I will then. I'd
like herself to see me in them tweeds and hat. [He goes into room and
shuts the door.]

SHAWN -- [in great anxiety.] -- He'd like herself to see them. He'll not
leave us, Widow Quin. He's a score of divils in him the way it's well
nigh certain he will wed Pegeen.

WIDOW QUIN -- [jeeringly.] It's true all girls are fond of courage and
do hate the like of you.

SHAWN -- [walking about in desperation.] -- Oh, Widow Quin, what'll I be
doing now? I'd inform again him, but he'd burst from Kilmainham and he'd
be sure and certain to destroy me. If I wasn't so God-fearing, I'd near
have courage to come behind him and run a pike into his side. Oh, it's
a hard case to be an orphan and not to have your father that you're used
to, and you'd easy kill and make yourself a hero in the sight of all.
(Coming up to her.) Oh, Widow Quin, will you find me some contrivance
when I've promised you a ewe?

WIDOW QUIN. A ewe's a small thing, but what would you give me if I did
wed him and did save you so?

SHAWN -- [with astonishment.] You?

WIDOW QUIN. Aye. Would you give me the red cow you have and the
mountainy ram, and the right of way across your rye path, and a load of
dung at Michaelmas, and turbary upon the western hill?

SHAWN -- [radiant with hope.] -- I would surely, and I'd give you the
wedding-ring I have, and the loan of a new suit, the way you'd have him
decent on the wedding-day. I'd give you two kids for your dinner, and a
gallon of poteen, and I'd call the piper on the long car to your wedding
from Crossmolina or from Ballina. I'd give you...

WIDOW QUIN. That'll do so, and let you whisht, for he's coming now
again. [Christy comes in very natty in the new clothes. Widow Quin goes
to him admiringly.]

WIDOW QUIN. If you seen yourself now, I'm thinking you'd be too proud to
speak to us at all, and it'd be a pity surely to have your like sailing
from Mayo to the Western World.

CHRISTY -- [as proud as a peacock.] -- I'm not going. If this is a poor
place itself, I'll make myself contented to be lodging here. [Widow Quin
makes a sign to Shawn to leave them.]

SHAWN. Well, I'm going measuring the race-course while the tide is low,
so I'll leave you the garments and my blessing for the sports to-day.
God bless you! [He wriggles out.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [admiring Christy.] -- Well, you're mighty spruce, young
fellow. Sit down now while you're quiet till you talk with me.

CHRISTY -- [swaggering.] I'm going abroad on the hillside for to seek
Pegeen.

WIDOW QUIN. You'll have time and plenty for to seek Pegeen, and you
heard me saying at the fall of night the two of us should be great
company.

CHRISTY. From this out I'll have no want of company when all sorts is
bringing me their food and clothing (he swaggers to the door, tightening
his belt), the way they'd set their eyes upon a gallant orphan cleft his
father with one blow to the breeches belt. (He opens door, then staggers
back.) Saints of glory! Holy angels from the throne of light!

WIDOW QUIN -- [going over.] -- What ails you?

CHRISTY. It's the walking spirit of my murdered da?

WIDOW QUIN -- [looking out.] -- Is it that tramper?

CHRISTY -- [wildly.] Where'll I hide my poor body from that ghost of
hell? [The door is pushed open, and old Mahon appears on threshold.
Christy darts in behind door.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [in great amusement.] -- Cod save you, my poor man.

MAHON -- [gruffly.] Did you see a young lad passing this way in the
early morning or the fall of night?

WIDOW QUIN. You're a queer kind to walk in not saluting at all.

MAHON. Did you see the young lad?

WIDOW QUIN -- [stiffly.] What kind was he?

MAHON. An ugly young streeler with a murderous gob on him, and a little
switch in his hand. I met a tramper seen him coming this way at the fall
of night.

WIDOW QUIN. There's harvest hundreds do be passing these days for the
Sligo boat. For what is it you're wanting him, my poor man?

MAHON. I want to destroy him for breaking the head on me with the clout
of a loy. (He takes off a big hat, and shows his head in a mass of
bandages and plaster, with some pride.) It was he did that, and amn't
I a great wonder to think I've traced him ten days with that rent in my
crown?

WIDOW QUIN -- [taking his head in both hands and examining it with
extreme delight.] -- That was a great blow. And who hit you? A robber
maybe?

MAHON. It was my own son hit me, and he the divil a robber, or anything
else, but a dirty, stuttering lout.

WIDOW -- [letting go his skull and wiping her hands in her apron.] --
You'd best be wary of a mortified scalp, I think they call it, lepping
around with that wound in the splendour of the sun. It was a bad blow
surely, and you should have vexed him fearful to make him strike that
gash in his da.

MAHON. Is it me?

WIDOW QUIN -- [amusing herself.] -- Aye. And isn't it a great shame when
the old and hardened do torment the young?

MAHON -- [raging.] Torment him is it? And I after holding out with the
patience of a martyred saint till there's nothing but destruction on,
and I'm driven out in my old age with none to aid me.

WIDOW QUIN -- [greatly amused.] -- It's a sacred wonder the way that
wickedness will spoil a man.

MAHON. My wickedness, is it? Amn't I after saying it is himself has me
destroyed, and he a liar on walls, a talker of folly, a man you'd see
stretched the half of the day in the brown ferns with his belly to the
sun.

WIDOW QUIN. Not working at all?

MAHON. The divil a work, or if he did itself, you'd see him raising up a
haystack like the stalk of a rush, or driving our last cow till he broke
her leg at the hip, and when he wasn't at that he'd be fooling over
little birds he had -- finches and felts -- or making mugs at his own
self in the bit of glass we had hung on the wall.

WIDOW QUIN -- [looking at Christy.] -- What way was he so foolish? It
was running wild after the girls may be?

MAHON -- [with a shout of derision.] -- Running wild, is it? If he seen
a red petticoat coming swinging over the hill, he'd be off to hide in
the sticks, and you'd see him shooting out his sheep's eyes between the
little twigs and the leaves, and his two ears rising like a hare looking
out through a gap. Girls, indeed!

WIDOW QUIN. It was drink maybe?

MAHON. And he a poor fellow would get drunk on the smell of a pint. He'd
a queer rotten stomach, I'm telling you, and when I gave him three pulls
from my pipe a while since, he was taken with contortions till I had to
send him in the ass cart to the females' nurse.

WIDOW QUIN -- [clasping her hands.] -- Well, I never till this day heard
tell of a man the like of that!

MAHON. I'd take a mighty oath you didn't surely, and wasn't he the
laughing joke of every female woman where four baronies meet, the way
the girls would stop their weeding if they seen him coming the road to
let a roar at him, and call him the looney of Mahon's.

WIDOW QUIN. I'd give the world and all to see the like of him. What kind
was he?

MAHON. A small low fellow.

WIDOW QUIN. And dark?

MAHON. Dark and dirty.

WIDOW QUIN -- [considering.] I'm thinking I seen him.

MAHON -- [eagerly.] An ugly young blackguard.

WIDOW QUIN. A hideous, fearful villain, and the spit of you.

MAHON. What way is he fled?

WIDOW QUIN. Gone over the hills to catch a coasting steamer to the north
or south.

MAHON. Could I pull up on him now?

WIDOW QUIN. If you'll cross the sands below where the tide is out,
you'll be in it as soon as himself, for he had to go round ten miles by
the top of the bay. (She points to the door). Strike down by the head
beyond and then follow on the roadway to the north and east. [Mahon goes
abruptly.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [shouting after him.] -- Let you give him a good vengeance
when you come up with him, but don't put yourself in the power of the
law, for it'd be a poor thing to see a judge in his black cap reading
out his sentence on a civil warrior the like of you. [She swings the
door to and looks at Christy, who is cowering in terror, for a moment,
then she bursts into a laugh.]

WIDOW QUIN. Well, you're the walking Playboy of the Western World, and
that's the poor man you had divided to his breeches belt.

CHRISTY -- [looking out: then, to her.] -- What'll Pegeen say when she
hears that story? What'll she be saying to me now?

WIDOW QUIN. She'll knock the head of you, I'm thinking, and drive you
from the door. God help her to be taking you for a wonder, and you a
little schemer making up the story you destroyed your da.

CHRISTY -- [turning to the door, nearly speechless with rage, half to
himself.] -- To be letting on he was dead, and coming back to his life,
and following after me like an old weazel tracing a rat, and coming
in here laying desolation between my own self and the fine women of
Ireland, and he a kind of carcase that you'd fling upon the sea...

WIDOW QUIN -- [more soberly.] -- There's talking for a man's one only
son.

CHRISTY -- [breaking out.] -- His one son, is it? May I meet him with
one tooth and it aching, and one eye to be seeing seven and seventy
divils in the twists of the road, and one old timber leg on him to limp
into the scalding grave. (Looking out.) There he is now crossing the
strands, and that the Lord God would send a high wave to wash him from
the world.

WIDOW QUIN -- [scandalised.] Have you no shame? (putting her hand on his
shoulder and turning him round.) What ails you? Near crying, is it?

CHRISTY -- [in despair and grief.] -- Amn't I after seeing the
love-light of the star of knowledge shining from her brow, and hearing
words would put you thinking on the holy Brigid speaking to the infant
saints, and now she'll be turning again, and speaking hard words to me,
like an old woman with a spavindy ass she'd have, urging on a hill.

WIDOW QUIN. There's poetry talk for a girl you'd see itching and
scratching, and she with a stale stink of poteen on her from selling in
the shop.

CHRISTY -- [impatiently.] It's her like is fitted to be handling
merchandise in the heavens above, and what'll I be doing now, I ask
you, and I a kind of wonder was jilted by the heavens when a day was by.
[There is a distant noise of girls' voices. Widow Quin looks from window
and comes to him, hurriedly.]

WIDOW QUIN. You'll be doing like myself, I'm thinking, when I did
destroy my man, for I'm above many's the day, odd times in great
spirits, abroad in the sunshine, darning a stocking or stitching a
shift; and odd times again looking out on the schooners, hookers,
trawlers is sailing the sea, and I thinking on the gallant hairy fellows
are drifting beyond, and myself long years living alone.

CHRISTY -- [interested.] You're like me, so.

WIDOW QUIN. I am your like, and it's for that I'm taking a fancy to you,
and I with my little houseen above where there'd be myself to tend you,
and none to ask were you a murderer or what at all.

CHRISTY. And what would I be doing if I left Pegeen?

WIDOW QUIN. I've nice jobs you could be doing, gathering shells to make
a whitewash for our hut within, building up a little goose-house, or
stretching a new skin on an old curragh I have, and if my hut is far
from all sides, it's there you'll meet the wisest old men, I tell you,
at the corner of my wheel, and it's there yourself and me will have
great times whispering and hugging.. ..

VOICES -- [outside, calling far away.] -- Christy! Christy Mahon!
Christy!

CHRISTY. Is it Pegeen Mike?

WIDOW QUIN. It's the young girls, I'm thinking, coming to bring you to
the sports below, and what is it you'll have me to tell them now?

CHRISTY. Aid me for to win Pegeen. It's herself only that I'm seeking
now. (Widow Quin gets up and goes to window.) Aid me for to win her, and
I'll be asking God to stretch a hand to you in the hour of death, and
lead you short cuts through the Meadows of Ease, and up the floor of
Heaven to the Footstool of the Virgin's Son.

WIDOW QUIN. There's praying.

VOICES -- [nearer.] Christy! Christy Mahon!

CHRISTY -- [with agitation.] -- They're coming. Will you swear to aid
and save me for the love of Christ?

WIDOW QUIN -- [looks at him for a moment.] -- If I aid you, will you
swear to give me a right of way I want, and a mountainy ram, and a load
of dung at Michaelmas, the time that you'll be master here?

CHRISTY. I will, by the elements and stars of night.

WIDOW QUIN. Then we'll not say a word of the old fellow, the way Pegeen
won't know your story till the end of time.

CHRISTY. And if he chances to return again?

WIDOW QUIN. We'll swear he's a maniac and not your da. I could take an
oath I seen him raving on the sands to-day. [Girls run in.]

SUSAN. Come on to the sports below. Pegeen says you're to come.

SARA TANSEY. The lepping's beginning, and we've a jockey's suit to fit
upon you for the mule race on the sands below.

HONOR. Come on, will you?

CHRISTY. I will then if Pegeen's beyond.

SARA. She's in the boreen making game of Shaneen Keogh.

CHRISTY. Then I'll be going to her now. [He runs out followed by the
girls.]

WIDOW QUIN. Well, if the worst comes in the end of all, it'll be great
game to see there's none to pity him but a widow woman, the like of me,
has buried her children and destroyed her man. [She goes out.]

CURTAIN

Act II begins the following morning, as Christy, alone, counts the pub's crockery and glassware. He decides this would be a fine place to call home, and then looks into the wall mirror to confirm that he is indeed a handsome man, as others have recently described him. He notes that he seemed ugly in his home mirror. When he hears some women outside, he quickly hides. Four village girls - Susan Brady, Sara Tansey, Nelly, and Honor Blake - enter. They have heard about Christy, and want to see him for themselves. They soon enough find him hiding, and then shyly offer some presents: duck eggs, butter, cake and a chicken. They flirt with him a bit, and then Widow Quin enters, announcing that she has registered Christy for the sports competition happening down on the beach. The women expect that he will prove a peerless athlete. As the girls and the widow prepare breakfast for him, Christy fleshes out the story of the murder. His father had ordered Christy to marry a fat, ugly widow-woman twice his age. When Christy refused, his father threatened him with a scythe, and Christy in turn threatened his father with a spade. When his father struck at him, Christy feinted and then delivered the fatal blow to the older man's skull. Susan teases that the Lord God has sent Christy to their village to wed the Widow Quin. The widow and Christy link arms, and drink a toast "to the wonders of the western world" . Pegeen enters to see the toast, and kicks the women out. She then accuses Christy of flirting, which he denies. He grabs a spade and holds it out to remind her of his great, heroic deed, but she scoffs at him. When he counters that the women were interested in his story, she insinuates that they will gossip about him and hence increase his chances of being apprehended. She then describes in detail a story she read in the paper, about a man recently hanged. The description completely unnerves Christy, who prepares to flee. However, Pegeen calms him down, insisting she was only mocking him, and that she has found no mention of his crime in the paper. He is safe with her. Pegeen and Christy then exchange kind, tender fantasies about the future they might share together. Shawn Keogh runs in with the Widow Quin. Shawn warns Pegeen that her family's sheep are eating cabbage in a neighbor's field, and hence might burst their stomachs. Pegeen runs out to collect her sheep, at which point Shawn offers Christy a one-way ticket to the "Western States" , his new hat, his excellent breeches, his new coat, and his blessing if Christy will agree to leave the village. Christy rejects this offer. However, the widow exhorts him to try on the new clothes so he will have something nice to wear for the competition, and Christy accepts. He leaves the room to change clothing. While Christy is gone, Shawn promises Widow Quin a ewe if she can interrupt the burgeoning relationship between Pegeen and the stranger. The widow asks what Shawn would pay if she could get Christy to marry her, and Shawn names just about everything he owns. The deal is struck. Christy parades back in, now wearing Shawn's clothes. After giving his compliments, Shawn races out. Christy continues to prance about, imagining a future of fine clothes and gifts celebrating his triumphant deed. Suddenly, he staggers back, aghast, saying he has seen "the walking spirit of murdered da" out the window . Christy hides just as Old Mahon enters. Old Mahon immediately inquires whether the widow has seen a young fellow, whom he has been tracking for ten days. He removes his hat to reveal a vicious, semi-bandaged wound, and then describes the young fellow as his stupid, useless, and dirty son. He further describes the son - Christy, of course - as too weak to drink or smoke a pipe, and as absurdly fearful of women. In fact, Christy is the butt of his own townswomen's jokes. The widow asserts that she has seen a young man who meets the description, but that he has traveled over the hills to catch a steamer. Mahon exits abruptly to chase after this lead. His father gone, Christy wonders why the man pretended to be dead, and wishes a violent death for him now. His venom shocks the widow. Christy then grows suddenly tearful as he imagines losing the new life with Pegeen that he was on the verge of beginning. The widow softly suggests that she and Christy are alike in character, each with a melancholy side that accompanies having killed a close relation. She begins to paint a picture of a tender future they might share together, but Christy hardly hears her, as the sound of the approaching girls interrupts them. Christy begs the widow to help him win Pegeen. She names her terms - "a right of way I want, and a mountainy ram, and a load of dung at Michaelmas" - and he agrees . Just like that, Widow Quin relinquishes her own design on Christy, and agrees to keep his secret. If Old Mahon should return, she will swear he is a lunatic. Sarah, Honor and Susan enter to lead Christy down to the beach so he can compete in the sports. Once they leave, Widow Quin reflects that even if his secret is revealed, she will end up with him as husband as consolation, since he will have nobody else to turn to.

Padraic Colum -- Synge's friend and fellow dramatist -- reported that The Playboy's audience grew hostile from the moment Old Mahon entered, wearing his bloodied bandage. According to Colum, the scene was "too representational." By "representational," Colum meant literal. Prior to his father's entrance, Christy's increasingly elaborate renditions of his parricide had been limited to the province of the imagination, and to the gift of gab. But the appearance of Old Mahon, with his "mortified scalp," introduces a faithful representation of violence's gruesome reality . The depiction of blood and gore challenges the comic tone Synge has set, mostly through the guilelessness of the bumbling Christy. In other words, for Synge's audience - and for us today - Christy comes off as essentially harmless, a lad seduced by the acclaim of his increasingly tall tale. As we laugh at his elaborate seduction, the grim reality -- whatever it may be -- of Christy's past deed recedes from our minds in direct proportion to its import for the characters on stage. In other words, the more taken the villagers are by Christy, the less does the violent reality seem to matter. When Old Mahon enters with a gaping brainpan, the distance closes. Even before Old Mahon's entrance, The Playboy continually explores the gap between the subjective experience the villagers have with Christy's story, and the objective reality of a violent murder. Consider this exchange between Christy and the Widow Quin, each painting an image of Pegeen: Christy:  Amn't I  after seeing the lovelight of the star of knowledge shining from her  brow, and hearing words would put you thinking on the holy Brigid speaking to the infant saints, and now she'll be turning again, and speaking hard words to me...   Widow Quin: There's poetry talk for a girl you'd see itching and scratching, and she with the stale stink of poteen on her from selling in the shop. In this exchange, Pegeen is presented in two utterly distinct fashions. Where Christy sees her in almost holy terms, the widow frames her simply as a dirty shop wench. The portraits exist simultaneously, speaking to language's power to inform reality. It is striking that both Christy and the Widow Quin refer to the transformative power inherent in the hearing of language --whether "that of Holy Brigid speaking" or simply "poetry-talk." In other words, language has the power to obliviate objective reality, to transform it into something greater. Christy's eloquent speech, his heightened language, reflects his burgeoning awareness that he can achieve a dignified life through his words. Heroes emerge in the place of nobodies, enlivened by language and its conflation with action. The link between language and action is the imagination. Throughout the play, Christy's power of speech blossoms in direct relation to his newfound vision of his own life's potential. This newfound vision is an expression of the imagination, an imagination spurring him to woo Pegeen and to enter the sports competition on the beach. His language and storytelling give him license to imagine a greater life, which is turn heightens his language even more. As a foil to Christy, Shawn further reflects this idea, absurdly lamenting that he was an orphan and hence never had the chance to "kill" his father and "make  a hero in the sight of all" . He does not recognize the power of the imagination to transform reality; he is obsessed with objective reality, and hence does not take the license for falsehood that Christy so easily embraces. What Christy realizes, and that Shawn does not, is that anything is possible through language. Except that reality has an ugly way of intruding on the imagination, as Old Mahon's return indicates. What Synge's audience reacted against, and what modern audiences have the opportunity to relish, is how the play constantly veers between "reality" and "joy." Everything Christy achieves through his powerful and poetic imagination is decimated in an instant when the reality returns. It is not only that his father is alive, but that he is reminded of his true character, as a coward and a nobody. It is telling that Widow Quin buys him a momentary reprieve, and then promises to help him, through the use of further stories. She tells Old Mahon a lie, and then promises to lie about the old man if he returns again. She and Christy are now allied in crafting an imaginative tale to transcend reality. Of course, the audience can probably recognize that this too will flourish only until reality rears its ugly head yet again.