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