MARY. It's no lie, holy father. I often heard the rural people making a queer noise and they going to rest; but who'd mind the like of them? And I'm thinking it should be great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, speaking Latin to the saints above. PRIEST — <i>scandalized.</i> — Stop your talk- ing, Mary Byrne; you're an old flagrant heathen, and I'll stay no more with the lot of you. [<i>He rises.</i> MARY — <i>catching hold of him.</i> — Stop till you say a prayer, your reverence; stop till you say a little prayer, I'm telling you, and I'll give you my blessing and the last sup from the jug. PRIEST — <i>breaking away.</i> — Leave me go, Mary Byrne; for I have never met your like for hard abominations the score and two years I'm living in the place. MARY — <i>innocently.</i> — Is that the truth? PRIEST. —* It is, then, and God have mercy on your soul. [<i>The priest goes towards the left, and Sarah follows him.</i>

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SARAH — <i>in a low voice.</i> — And what time will you do the thing I'm asking, holy father? for I'm thinking you'll do it surely, and not have me growing into an old wicked heathen like herself. MARY — <i>calling out shrilly.</i> — Let you be walking back here, Sarah Casey, and not be talking whisper-talk with the like of him in the face of the Almighty God. SARAH — <i>to the priest.</i> — Do you hear her now, your reverence? Isn't it true, surely, she's an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy the world? PRIEST — <i>to Sarah, moving off.</i> — Well, I'll be coming down early to the chapel, and let you come to me a while after you see me pas- sing, and bring the bit of gold along with you, and the tin can. I'll marry you for them two, though it's a pitiful small sum; for I wouldn't be easy in my soul if I left you growing into an old, wicked heathen the like of her. SARAH — <i>following him out.</i> — The bles- sing of the Almighty God be on you, holy father, and that He may reward and watch you from this present day. MARY — <i>nudging Michael.</i> — Did you see that, Michael Byrne? Didn't you hear me telling you she's flighty a while back since the change of the moon? With her fussing for

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marriage, and she making whisper-talk with one man or another man along by the road. MICHAEL. —* Whist now, or she'll knock the head of you the time she comes back. MARY. —* Ah, it's a bad, wicked way the world is this night, if there's a fine air in it itself. You'd never have seen me, and I a young woman, making whisper-talk with the like of him, and he the fearfullest old fellow you'd see any place walking the world. [<i>Sarah comes back quickly.</i> MARY — <i>calling out to her.</i> — What is it you're after whispering above with himself? SARAH — <i>exultingly.</i> — Lie down, and leave us in peace. <i>She whispers with Michael.</i> MARY — <i>poking out her pipe with a straw, sings</i> — She'd whisper with one, and she'd whisper with two — <i>She breaks off coughing.</i> — My singing voice is gone for this night, Sarah Casey. <i>(She lights her pipe.)</i> But if it's flighty you are itself, you're a grand handsome woman, the glory of tinkers, the pride of Wicklow, the Beauty of Ballinacree. I wouldn't have you lying down and you lonesome to sleep this night in a dark ditch when the spring is coming in the trees; so let you sit down there by the big bough, and I'll be telling you the finest

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story you'd hear any place from Dundalk to Ballinacree, with great queens in it, making themselves matches from the start to the end, and they with shiny silks on them the length of the day, and white shifts for the night. MICHAEL — <i>standing up with the tin can in his hand.</i> — Let you go asleep, and not have us destroyed. MARY — <i>lying back sleepily.</i> — Don't mind him, Sarah Casey. Sit down now, and I'll be telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman the like of you in the springtime of the year. SARAH — <i>taking the can from Michael, and tying it up in a piece of sacking.</i> — That'll not be rusting now in the dews of night. I'll put it up in the ditch the way it will be handy in the morning; and now we've that done, Michael Byrne, I'll go along with you and welcome for Tim Flaherty's hens. [<i>She puts the can in the ditch.</i> MARY — <i>sleepily.</i> — I've a grand story of the great queens of Ireland with white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey, and fine arms would hit you a slap the way Sarah Casey would hit you. SARAH — <i>beckoning on the left.</i> — Come along now, Michael, while she's falling asleep.

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[<i>He goes towards left. Mary sees that they are going, starts up suddenly, and turns over on her hands and knees.</i> MARY — <i>piteously.</i> — Where is it you're going? Let you walk back here, and not be leaving me lonesome when the night is fine. SARAH. Don't be waking the world with your talk when we're going up through the back wood to get two of Tim Flaherty's hens are roosting in the ash-tree above at the well. MARY. And it's leaving me lone you are? Come back here, Sarah Casey. Come back here, I'm saying; or if it's off you must go, leave me the two little coppers you have, the way I can walk up in a short while, and get another pint for my sleep. SARAH. It's too much you have taken. Let you stretch yourself out and take a long sleep; for isn't that the best thing any woman can do, and she an old drinking heathen like yourself. [<i>She and Michael go out left.</i> MARY — <i>standing up slowly.</i> — It's gone they are, and I with my feet that weak under me you'd knock me down with a rush, and my head with a noise in it the like of what

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you'd hear in a stream and it running between two rocks and rain falling. <i>(She goes over to the ditch where the can is tied in sacking, and takes it down.)</i> What good am I this night, God help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it's few would listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the time her hour was come, or a little child wouldn't be sleeping with the hunger on a cold night? <i>(She takes the can from the sacking and fits in three empty bottles and straw in its place, and ties them up.)</i> Maybe the two of them have a good right to be walking out the little short while they'd be young; but if they have itself, they'll not keep Mary Byrne from her full pint when the night's fine, and there's a dry moon in the sky. <i>(She takes up the can, and puts the package back in the ditch.)</i> Jemmy Neill's a decent lad; and he'll give me a good drop for the can; and maybe if I keep near the peelers to-morrow for the first bit of the fair, herself won't strike me at all; and if she does itself, what's a little stroke on your head beside sitting lonesome on a fine night, hearing the

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dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you
saying over, it's a short while only till you die.
        [<i>She goes out singing "The night before
            Larry was stretched."</i>

CURTAIN