第5章 ACT I.(5)

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.