The Playboy of the Western World Part 4

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.) G.o.d save you, mister!

CHRISTY -- [shyly.] -- G.o.d 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, was.h.i.+ng gla.s.ses.] -- 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 gra.s.s tobacco would wring the liver from a mountain goat you'd meet leaping the hills?

WIDOW QUIN -- [with amus.e.m.e.nt.] -- 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.] -- G.o.d 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.) G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d give you a good rest till I call you in the morning when the c.o.c.ks will crow.

CHRISTY -- [as she goes to inner room.] -- May G.o.d 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

ACT II.