by J. M. Synge
[The priest comes in on right; she comes forward in front of him.]
SARAH: (in a very plausible voice.) Good evening, your reverence. It’s a grand fine night, by the grace of God.
PRIEST: The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of a living woman is it that you are at all?
SARAH: It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch.
PRIEST: A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way. [He tries to pass by.]
SARAH: (keeping in front of him.)We are wanting a little word with your reverence.
PRIEST: I haven’t a halfpenny at all. Leave the road I’m saying.
SARAH: It isn’t a halfpenny we’re asking, holy father; but we were thinking maybe we’d have a right to be getting married; and we were thinking it’s yourself would marry us for not a halfpenny at all; for you’re a kind man, your reverence, a kind man with the poor.
PRIEST: (with astonishment.)Is it marry you for nothing at all?
SARAH: It is, your reverence; and we were thinking maybe you’d give us a little small bit of silver to pay for the ring.
PRIEST: (loudly.)Let you hold your tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. I’ve no silver at all for the like of you; and if you want to be married, let you pay your pound. I’d do it for a pound only, and that’s making it a sight cheaper than I’d make it for one of my own pairs is living here in the place.
SARAH: Where would the like of us get a pound, your reverence?
PRIEST: Wouldn’t you easy get it with your selling asses, and making cans, and your stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wexford and the county Meath? (He tries to pass her.) Let you leave the road, and not be plaguing me more.
SARAH: (pleadingly, taking money from her pocket.)Wouldn’t you have a little mercy on us, your reverence? (Holding out money.) Wouldn’t you marry us for a half a sovereign, and it a nice shiny one with a view on it of the living king’s mamma?
PRIEST: If it’s ten shillings you have, let you get ten more the same way, and I’ll marry you then.
SARAH: (whining.)It’s two years we are getting that bit, your reverence, with our pence and our halfpence and an odd three- penny bit; and if you don’t marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great drouth, will be drinking it to-morrow in the fair (she puts her apron to her eyes, half sobbing), and then I won’t be married any time, and I’ll be saying till I’m an old woman: “It’s a cruel and a wicked thing to be bred poor.”
PRIEST: (turning up towards the fire.) Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. It’s a queer woman you are to be crying at the like of that, and you your whole life walking the roads.
SARAH: (sobbing.)It’s two years we are getting the gold, your reverence, and now you won’t marry us for that bit, and we hard-working poor people do be making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the black smoke from the bits of twigs we do be burning.
[An old woman is heard singing tipsily on the left.]
PRIEST: (looking at the can Michael is making.)When will you have that can done, Michael Byrne?
MICHAEL: In a short space only, your reverence, for I’m putting the last dab of solder on the rim.
PRIEST: Let you get a crown along with the ten shillings and the gallon can, Sarah Casey, and I will wed you so.
MARY: (suddenly shouting behind, tipsily.)Larry was a fine lad, I’m saying; Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey.
MICHAEL: Whist, now, the two of you. There’s my mother coming, and she’d have us destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she’s been drinking her fill.
MARY: (comes in singing)
And when we asked him what way he’d die,
And he hanging unrepented,
“Begob,” says Larry, “that’s all in my eye,
By the clergy first invented.”
SARAH: Give me the jug now, or you’ll have it spilt in the ditch.
MARY: (holding the jug with both her hands, in a stilted voice.)Let you leave me easy, Sarah Casey. I won’t spill it, I’m saying. God help you; are you thinking it’s frothing full to the brim it is at this hour of the night, and I after carrying it in my two hands a long step from Jemmy Neill’s?
MICHAEL: (anxiously.)Is there a sup left at all?
SARAH: (looking into the jug.)A little small sup only I’m thinking.
MARY: (sees the priest, and holds out jug towards him.)God save your reverence. I’m after bringing down a smart drop; and let you drink it up now, for it’s a middling drouthy man you are at all times, God forgive you, and this night is cruel dry.
[She tries to go towards him. Sarah holds her back.]
PRIEST: (waving her away.)Let you not be falling to the flames. Keep off, I’m saying.
MARY: (persuasively.)Let you not be shy of us, your reverence. Aren’t we all sinners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I’m telling you; and we won’t let on a word about it till the Judgment Day.
[She takes up a tin mug, pours some porter into it, and gives it to him.]
MARY: (singing, and holding the jug in her hand)
A lonesome ditch in Ballygan
The day you’re beating a tenpenny can;
A lonesome bank in Ballyduff
The time . . . [She breaks off.]
It’s a bad, wicked song, Sarah Casey; and let you put me down now in the ditch, and I won’t sing it till himself will be gone; for it’s bad enough he is, I’m thinking, without ourselves making him worse.
SARAH: (putting her down, to the priest, half laughing.)Don’t mind her at all, your reverence. She’s no shame the time she’s a drop taken; and if it was the Holy Father from Rome was in it, she’d give him a little sup out of her mug, and say the same as she’d say to yourself.
MARY: ( to the Priest)Let you drink it up, holy father. Let you drink it up, I’m saying, and not be letting on you wouldn’t do the like of it, and you with a stack of pint bottles above, reaching the sky.
PRIEST: (with resignation.)Well, here’s to your good health, and God forgive us all. [He drinks.]
MARY: That’s right now, your reverence, and the blessing of God be on you. Isn’t it a grand thing to see you sitting down, with no pride in you, and drinking a sup with the like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, starving creatures you’d see any place on the earth?
PRIEST: If it’s starving you are itself, I’m thinking it’s well for the like of you that do be drinking when there’s drouth on you, and lying down to sleep when your legs are stiff. (He sighs gloomily.) What would you do if it was the like of myself you were, saying Mass with your mouth dry, and running east and west for a sick call maybe, and hearing the rural people again and they saying their sins?
MARY: (with compassion.)It’s destroyed you must be hearing the sins of the rural people on a fine spring.
PRIEST: (with despondency.)It’s a hard life, I’m telling you, a hard life, Mary Byrne; and there’s the bishop coming in the morning, and he an old man, would have you destroyed if he seen a thing at all.
MARY: (with great sympathy.)It’d break my heart to hear you talking and sighing the like of that, your reverence. (She pats him on the knee.) Let you rouse up, now, if it’s a poor, single man you are itself, and I’ll be singing you songs unto the dawn of day.
PRIEST: (interrupting her.)What is it I want with your songs when it’d be better for the like of you, that’ll soon die, to be down on your two knees saying prayers to the Almighty God?
MARY: If it’s prayers I want, you’d have a right to say one yourself, holy father; for we don’t have them at all, and I’ve heard tell a power of times it’s that you’re for. Say one now, your reverence, for I’ve heard a power of queer things and I walking the world, but there’s one thing I never heard any time, and that’s a real priest saying a prayer.
PRIEST: The Lord protect us!
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? A
nd I’m thinking it should be great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, speaking Latin to the saints above.
PRIEST: (scandalized.)Stop your talking, Mary Byrne; you’re an old flagrant heathen, and I’ll stay no more with the lot of you. [He rises.]
MARY: (catching hold of him.)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: (breaking away.)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: (innocently.)Is that the truth?
PRIEST: It is, then, and God have mercy on your soul.
[The priest goes towards the left, and Sarah follows him.]
SARAH: (in a low voice.)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: (calling out shrilly.)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: (to the Priest)Do you hear her now, your reverence? Isn’t it true, surely, she’s an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy the world?
PRIEST: (to Sarah, moving off.)Well, I’ll be coming down early to the chapel, and let you come to me a while after you see me passing, 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: (following him out.)The blessing of the Almighty God be on you, holy father, and that He may reward and watch you from this present day.
MARY: (nudging Michael.)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 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.
[Sarah comes back quickly.]
MARY: (calling out to her.)What is it you’re after whispering above with himself?
SARAH: (exultingly.)Lie down, and leave us in peace. She whispers with Michael.
MARY: (poking out her pipe with a straw, sings)
She’d whisper with one, and she’d whisper with two
She breaks off coughing.
My singing voice is gone for this night, Sarah Casey. (She lights her pipe.) 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 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: (standing up with the tin can in his hand.)Let you go asleep, and not have us destroyed.
MARY: (lying back sleepily.)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: (taking the can from Michael, and tying it up in a piece of sacking.) 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. [She puts the can in the ditch.]
MARY: (sleepily.)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: (beckoning on the left.)Come along now, Michael, while she’s falling asleep. [He goes towards left.] Mary sees that they are going, starts up suddenly, and turns over on her hands and knees.
MARY: (piteously.)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.
[She and Michael go out left.]
MARY: (standing up slowly.)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 you’d hear in a stream and it running between two rocks and rain falling. (She goes over to the ditch where the can is tied in sacking, and takes it down.) 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? (She takes the can from the sacking and fits in three empty bottles and straw in its place, and ties them up.) 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. (She takes up the can, and puts the package back in the ditch.) 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 dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you saying over, it’s a short while only till you die.
[She goes out singing “The night before Larry was stretched.”]
CURTAIN
ACT II
SCENE: THE SAME. Early morning. Sarah is washing her face in an old bucket; then plaits her hair. Michael is tidying himself also. Mary Byrne is asleep against the ditch.
SARAH: (to Michael, with pleased excitement.)Go over, now, to the bundle beyond, and you’ll find a kind of a red handkerchief to put upon your neck, and a green one for myself.
MICHAEL: (getting them.)You’re after spending more money on the like of them. Well, it’s a power we’re losing this time, and we not gaining a thing at all. (With the handkerchief.) Is it them two?
SARAH: It is, Michael. (She takes one of them.) Let you tackle that one round under your chin; and let you not forget to take your hat from your head when we go up into the church. I asked Biddy Flynn below, that’s after marrying her second man, and she told me it’s the like of that they do.
[Mary yawns, and turns over in her sleep.]
SARAH: (with anxiety.)There she is waking up on us, and I thinking we’d have the job done before she’d know of it at all.
MICHAEL: She’ll be crying out now, and making game of us, and saying it’s fools we are surely.
SARAH: I’ll send her to sleep again, or get her out of it one way or another; for it’d be a bad case to have a divil’s scholar the like of her turning the priest against us maybe with her godless talk.
MARY: (waking up, and looking at them with curiosity, blandly.)That’s fine things you have on you, Sarah Casey; and it’s a great stir you’re making this day, washing your face. I’m that used to the hammer, I wouldn’t
hear it at all, but washing is a rare thing, and you’re after waking me up, and I having a great sleep in the sun.
[She looks around cautiously at the bundle in which she has hidden the bottles.]
SARAH: (coaxingly.)Let you stretch out again for a sleep, Mary Byrne, for it’ll be a middling time yet before we go to the fair.
MARY: (with suspicion.)That’s a sweet tongue you have, Sarah Casey; but if sleep’s a grand thing, it’s a grand thing to be waking up a day the like of this, when there’s a warm sun in it, and a kind air, and you’ll hear the cuckoos singing and crying out on the top of the hills.
SARAH: If it’s that gay you are, you’d have a right to walk down and see would you get a few halfpence from the rich men do be driving early to the fair.
MARY: When rich men do be driving early, it’s queer tempers they have, the Lord forgive them; the way it’s little but bad words and swearing out you’d get from them all.
SARAH: (losing her temper and breaking out fiercely.)Then if you’ll neither beg nor sleep, let you walk off from this place where you’re not wanted, and not have us waiting for you maybe at the turn of day.
MARY: (rather uneasy, turning to Michael.)God help our spirits, Michael; there she is again rousing cranky from the break of dawn. Oh! isn’t she a terror since the moon did change (she gets up slowly)? And I’d best be going forward to sell the gallon can.
[She goes over and takes up the bundle.]
SARAH: (crying out angrily.)Leave that down, Mary Byrne. Oh! aren’t you the scorn of women to think that you’d have that drouth and roguery on you that you’d go drinking the can and the dew not dried from the grass?
MARY: (in a feigned tone of pacification, with the bundle still in her hand.)It’s not a drouth but a heartburn I have this day, Sarah Casey, so I’m going down to cool my gullet at the blessed well; and I’ll sell the can to the parson’s daughter below, a harmless poor creature would fill your hand with shillings for a brace of lies.
SARAH: Leave down the tin can, Mary Byrne, for I hear the drouth upon your tongue to-day.
MARY: There’s not a drink-house from this place to the fair, Sarah Casey; the way you’ll find me below with the full price, and not a farthing gone.
