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taking her easy, and not minding the can. What differ would an empty can make with a fine, rich, hardy man the like of you? SARAH — <i>imploringly.</i> — Marry us, your reverence, for the ten shillings in gold, and we'll make you a grand can in the evening — a can would be fit to carry water for the holy man of God. Marry us now and I'll be saying fine prayers for you, morning and night, if it'd be raining itself, and it'd be in two black pools I'd be setting my knees. PRIEST — <i>loudly.</i> — It's a wicked, thiev- ing, lying, scheming lot you are, the pack of you. Let you walk off now and take every stinking rag you have there from the ditch. MARY — <i>putting her shawl over her head.</i>* Marry her, your reverence, for the love of God, for there'll be queer doings below if you send her off the like of that and she swearing crazy on the road. SARAH — <i>angrily.</i> — It's the truth she's saying; for it's herself, I'm thinking, is after swapping the tin can for a pint, the time she was raging mad with the drouth, and our- selves above walking the hill. MARY — <i>crying out with indignation.</i> — Have you no shame, Sarah Casey, to tell lies unto a holy man? SARAH — <i>to Mary, working herself into</i>

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<i>a rage.</i> — It's making game of me you'd be, and putting a fool's head on me in the face of the world; but if you were thinking to be mighty cute walking off, or going up to hide in the church, I've got you this time, and you'll not run from me now. [<i>She seizes up one of the bottles.</i> MARY — <i>hiding behind the priest.</i> — Keep her off, your reverence, keep her off for the love of the Almighty God. What at all would the Lord Bishop say if he found me here lying with my head broken across, or the two of yous maybe digging a bloody grave for me at the door of the church? PRIEST — <i>waving Sarah off.</i> — Go along, Sarah Casey. Would you be doing murder at my feet? Go along from me now, and wasn't I a big fool to have to do with you when it's nothing but distraction and torment I get from the kindness of my heart? SARAH — <i>shouting.</i> — I've bet a power of strong lads east and west through the world, and are you thinking I'd turn back from a priest? Leave the road now, or maybe I would strike yourself. PRIEST. You would not, Sarah Casey. I've no fear for the lot of you; but let you walk off, I'm saying, and not be coming where

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you've no business, and screeching tumult and murder at the doorway of the church. SARAH. I'll not go a step till I have her head broke, or till I'm wed with himself. If you want to get shut of us, let you marry us now, for I'm thinking the ten shillings in gold is a good price for the like of you, and you near burst with the fat. PRIEST. I wouldn't have you coming in on me and soiling my church; for there's nothing at all, I'm thinking, would keep the like of you from hell. <i>(He throws down the ten shillings on the ground.)</i> Gather up your gold now, and begone from my sight, for if ever I set an eye on you again you'll hear me telling the peelers who it was stole the black ass belonging to Philly O'Cullen, and whose hay it is the grey ass does be eating. SARAH. You'd do that? PRIEST. I would, surely. SARAH. If you do, you'll be getting all the tinkers from Wicklow and Wexford, and the County Meath, to put up block tin in the place of glass to shield your windows where you do be looking out and blinking at the girls. It's hard set you'll be that time, I'm telling you, to fill the depth of your belly the long days of Lent; for we wouldn't leave a laying pullet in your yard at all.

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PRIEST — <i>losing his temper finally.</i> — Go on, now, or I'll send the Lords of Justice a dated story of your villainies — burning, stealing, robbing, raping to this mortal day. Go on now, I'm saying, if you'd run from Kilmainham or the rope itself. MICHAEL — <i>taking off his coat.</i> — Is it run from the like of you, holy father? Go up to your own shanty, or I'll beat you with the ass's reins till the world would hear you roar- ing from this place to the coast of Clare. PRIEST. Is it lift your hand upon myself when the Lord would blight your members if you'd touch me now? Go on from this. [<i>He gives him a shove.</i> MICHAEL. Blight me is it? Take it then, your reverence, and God help you so. [<i>He runs at him with the reins.</i> PRIEST — <i>runs up to ditch crying out.</i> — There are the peelers passing by the grace of God — hey, below! MARY — <i>clapping her hand over his mouth.</i> — Knock him down on the road; they didn't hear him at all. [<i>Michael pulls him down.</i> SARAH. Gag his jaws. MARY. Stuff the sacking in his teeth. [<i>They gag him with the sack that had the can in it.</i>

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SARAH. Tie the bag around his head, and if the peelers come, we'll put him head- first in the boghole is beyond the ditch. [<i>They tie him up in some sacking.</i> MICHAEL — <i>to Mary.</i> — Keep him quiet, and the rags tight on him for fear he'd screech. <i>(He goes back to their camp.)</i> Hurry with the things, Sarah Casey. The peelers aren't coming this way, and maybe we'll get off from them now. [<i>They bundle the things together in wild haste, the priest wriggling and struggling about on the ground, with old Mary trying to keep him quiet.</i> MARY — <i>patting his head.</i> — Be quiet, your reverence. What is it ails you, with your wrigglings now? Is it choking maybe? <i>(She puts her hand under the sack, and feels his mouth, patting him on the back.)</i> It's only letting on you are, holy father, for your nose is blowing back and forward as easy as an east wind on an April day. <i>(In a soothing voice.)</i> There now, holy father, let you stay easy, I'm telling you, and learn a little sense and patience, the way you'll not be so airy again going to rob poor sinners of their scraps of gold. <i>(He gets quieter.)</i> That's a good boy you are now, your reverence, and let you not be uneasy, for we wouldn't hurt you at

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all. It's sick and sorry we are to tease you; but what did you want meddling with the like of us, when it's a long time we are going our own ways — father and son, and his son after him, or mother and daughter, and her own daughter again — and it's little need we ever had of going up into a church and swear- ing — I'm told there's swearing with it — a word no man would believe, or with drawing rings on our fingers, would be cutting our skins maybe when we'd be taking the ass from the shafts, and pulling the straps the time they'd be slippy with going around beneath the heavens in rains falling. MICHAEL — <i>who has finished bundling up the things, comes over to Sarah.</i> — We're fixed now; and I have a mind to run him in a boghole the way he'll not be tattling to the peelers of our games to-day. SARAH. You'd have a right too, I'm thinking. MARY — <i>soothingly.</i> — Let you not be rough with him, Sarah Casey, and he after drinking his sup of porter with us at the fall of night. Maybe he'd swear a mighty oath he wouldn't harm us, and then we'd safer loose him; for if we went to drown him, they'd