Sarah.)</i> Is it at marriage you're fooling again? SARAH — <i>triumphantly.</i> — It is, Mary Byrne. I'll be married now in a short while; and from this day there will no one have a right to call me a dirty name and I selling cans in Wicklow or Wexford or the city of Dublin itself. MARY — <i>turning to Michael.</i> — And it's yourself is wedding her, Michael Byrne? MICHAEL — <i>gloomily.</i> — It is, God spare us. MARY — <i>looks at Sarah for a moment, and then bursts out into a laugh of derision.</i> — Well, she's a tight, hardy girl, and it's no lie; but I never knew till this day it was a black born fool I had for a son. You'll breed asses, I've heard them say, and poaching dogs, and horses'd go licking the wind, but it's a hard thing, God help me, to breed sense in a son. MICHAEL — <i>gloomily.</i> — If I didn't mar- ry her, she'd be walking off to Jaunting Jim maybe at the fall of night; and it's well your- self knows there isn't the like of her for getting money and selling songs to the men. MARY. And you're thinking it's paying gold to his reverence would make a woman stop when she's a mind to go? SARAH — <i>angrily.</i> — Let you not be de-

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stroying us with your talk when I've as good a right to a decent marriage as any speckled female does be sleeping in the black hovels above, would choke a mule. MARY — <i>soothingly.</i> — It's as good a right you have surely, Sarah Casey, but what good will it do? Is it putting that ring on your finger will keep you from getting an aged woman and losing the fine face you have, or be easing your pains, when it's the grand ladies do be married in silk dresses, with rings of gold, that do pass any woman with their share of torment in the hour of birth, and do be paying the doctors in the city of Dublin a great price at that time, the like of what you'd pay for a good ass and a cart? [<i>She sits down.</i> SARAH — <i>puzzled.</i> — Is that the truth? MARY — <i>pleased with the point she has made.</i> — Wouldn't any know it's the truth? Ah, it's a few short years you are yet in the world, Sarah Casey, and it's little or nothing at all maybe you know about it. SARAH — <i>vehement but uneasy.</i> — What is it yourself knows of the fine ladies when they wouldn't let the like of you go near them at all? MARY. If you do be drinking a little sup in one town and another town, it's soon you

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get great knowledge and a great sight into the world. You'll see men there, and women there, sitting up on the ends of barrels in the dark night, and they making great talk would soon have the like of you, Sarah Casey, as wise as a March hare. MICHAEL — <i>to Sarah.</i> — That's the truth she's saying, and maybe if you've sense in you at all, you'd have a right still to leave your fooling, and not be wasting our gold. SARAH — <i>decisively.</i> — If it's wise or fool I am, I've made a good bargain and I'll stand to it now. MARY. What is it he's making you give? MICHAEL. The ten shillings in gold, and the tin can is above tied in the sack. MARY — <i>looking at the bundle with sur- prise and dread.</i> — The bit of gold and the tin can, is it? MICHAEL. The half a sovereign, and the gallon can. MARY — <i>scrambling to her feet quickly.</i> — Well, I think I'll be walking off the road to the fair the way you won't be destroying me going too fast on the hills. <i>(She goes a few steps towards the left, then turns and speaks to Sarah very persuasively.</i> — Let you not take the can from the sack, Sarah Casey; for the people is coming above would be making game

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of you, and pointing their fingers if they seen you do the like of that. Let you leave it safe in the bag, I'm saying, Sarah darling. It's that way will be best. [<i>She goes towards left, and pauses for a moment, looking about her with em- barrassment.</i> MICHAEL — <i>in a low voice.</i> — What ails her at all? SARAH — <i>anxiously.</i> — It's real wicked she does be when you hear her speaking as easy as that. MARY — <i>to herself.</i> — I'd be safer in the chapel, I'm thinking; for if she caught me after on the road, maybe she would kill me then. [<i>She comes hobbling back towards the right.</i> SARAH. Where is it you're going? It isn't that way we'll be walking to the fair. MARY. I'm going up into the chapel to give you my blessing and hear the priest saying his prayers. It's a lonesome road is running below to Greenane, and a woman would never know the things might happen her and she walking single in a lonesome place. [<i>As she reaches the chapel-gate, the Priest comes to it in his surplice.</i> PRIEST — <i>crying out.</i> — Come along now.

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It is the whole day you'd keep me here saying my prayers, and I getting my death with not a bit in my stomach, and my breakfast in ruins, and the Lord Bishop maybe driving on the road to-day? SARAH. We're coming now, holy father. PRIEST. Give me the bit of gold into my hand. SARAH. It's here, holy father. [<i>She gives it to him. Michael takes the bundle from the ditch and brings it over, standing a little behind Sarah. He feels the bundle, and looks at Mary with a meaning look.</i> PRIEST — <i>looking at the gold.</i> — It's a good one, I'm thinking, wherever you got it. And where is the can? SARAH — <i>taking the bundle.</i> — We have it here in a bit of clean sack, your reverence. We tied it up in the inside of that to keep it from rusting in the dews of night, and let you not open it now or you'll have the people making game of us and telling the story on us, east and west to the butt of the hills. PRIEST — <i>taking the bundle.</i> — Give it here into my hand, Sarah Casey. What is it any person would think of a tinker making a can. [<i>He begins opening the bundle.</i> SARAH. It's a fine can, your reverence.

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for if it's poor simple people we are, it's fine cans we can make, and himself, God help him, is a great man surely at the trade. [<i>Priest opens the bundle; the three empty bottles fall out.</i> SARAH. Glory to the saints of joy! PRIEST. Did ever any man see the like of that? To think you'd be putting deceit on me, and telling lies to me, and I going to marry you for a little sum wouldn't marry a child. SARAH — <i>crestfallen and astonished.</i> — It's the divil did it, your reverence, and I wouldn't tell you a lie. <i>(Raising her hands.)</i> May the Lord Almighty strike me dead if the divil isn't after hooshing the tin can from the bag. PRIEST — <i>vehemently.</i> — Go along now, and don't be swearing your lies. Go along now, and let you not be thinking I'm big fool enough to believe the like of that, when it's after selling it you are or making a swap for drink of it, maybe, in the darkness of the night. MARY — <i>in a peacemaking voice, putting her hand on the Priest's left arm.</i> — She wouldn't do the like of that, your reverence, when she hasn't a decent standing drouth on her at all; and she's setting great store on her marriage the way you'd have a right to be