C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
From ‘The Playboy of the Western World’
By John Millington Synge (1871–1909)
C
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?
Sara[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.
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—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 color 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 to-day. 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 are 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.
Sara—Will you pinch it? Is your right hand too sacred for you 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 misbehavior 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 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 to-night.” “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.
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.
Widow Quin—That’s a right toast, Sara Tansey. Now Christy.
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 moon is by.[They go out.]