by J. M. Synge
[She turns to go off left.]
SARAH: (jumping up, and picking up the hammer threateningly.)Put down that can, I’m saying.
MARY: (looking at her for a moment in terror, and putting down the bundle in the ditch.)Is it raving mad you’re going, Sarah Casey, and you the pride of women to destroy the world?
SARAH: (going up to her, and giving her a push off left.)I’ll show you if it’s raving mad I am. Go on from this place, I’m saying, and be wary now.
MARY: (turning back after her.)If I go, I’ll be telling old and young you’re a weathered heathen savage, Sarah Casey, the one did put down a head of the parson’s cabbage to boil in the pot with your clothes (the priest comes in behind her, on the left, and listens), and quenched the flaming candles on
the throne of God the time your shadow fell within the pillars of the chapel door.
[Sarah turns on her, and she springs round nearly into the Priest’s arms. When she sees him, she claps her shawl over her mouth, and goes up towards the ditch, laughing to herself.]
PRIEST: (going to Sarah, half terrified at the language that he has heard.)Well, aren’t you a fearful lot? I’m thinking it’s only humbug you were making at the fall of night, and you won’t need me at all.
SARAH: (with anger still in her voice.) Humbug is it! would you be turning back upon your spoken promise in the face of God?
PRIEST: (dubiously.)I’m thinking you were never christened, Sarah Casey; and it would be a queer job to go dealing Christian sacraments unto the like of you. (Persuasively feeling in his pocket.) So it would be best, maybe, I’d give you a shilling for to drink my health, and let you walk on, and not trouble me at all.
SARAH: That’s your talking, is it? If you don’t stand to your spoken word, holy father, I’ll make my own complaint to the mitred bishop in the face of all.
PRIEST: You’d do that!
SARAH: I would surely, holy father, if I walked to the city of Dublin with blood and blisters on my naked feet.
PRIEST: (uneasily scratching his ear.) I wish this day was done, Sarah Casey; for I’m thinking it’s a risky thing getting mixed up in any matters with the like of you.
SARAH: Be hasty then, and you’ll have us done with before you’d think at all.
PRIEST: (giving in.)Well, maybe it’s right you are, and let you come up to the chapel when you see me looking from the door.
[He goes up into the chapel.]
SARAH: (calling after him.)We will, and God preserve you, holy father.
MARY: (coming down to them, speaking with amazement and consternation, but without anger.)Going to the chapel! It’s at marriage you’re fooling again, maybe? (Sarah turns her back on her.) It was for that you were washing your face, and you after sending me for porter at the fall of night the way I’d drink a good half from the jug? (Going round in front of Sarah) Is it at marriage you’re fooling again?
SARAH: (triumphantly.)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: (turning to Michael.)And it’s yourself is wedding her, Michael Byrne?
MICHAEL: (gloomily.)It is, God spare us.
MARY: (looks at Sarah for a moment, and then bursts out into a laugh of derision.) 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: (gloomily.)If I didn’t marry 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: (angrily.)Let you not be destroying 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: (soothingly.)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?
[She sits down.]
SARAH: (puzzled.)Is that the truth?
MARY: (pleased with the point she has made.)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: (vehement but uneasy.)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 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: (to Sarah)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: (decisively.)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: (looking at the bundle with surprise and dread.)The bit of gold and the tin can, is it?
MICHAEL: The half a sovereign, and the gallon can.
MARY:(scrambling to her feet quickly.) 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. (She goes a few steps towards the left, then turns and speaks to Sarah very persuasively.)Let you not take the can from the sack, Sarah Casey; for the people is coming above would be making game 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.
[She goes towards left, and pauses for a moment, looking about her with embarrassment.]
MICHAEL: (in a low voice.)What ails her at all?
SARAH: (anxiously.)It’s real wicked she does be when you hear her speaking as easy as that.
MARY: (to herself.)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.
[She comes hobbling back towards the right.]
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.
[As she reaches the chapel-gate, the Priest comes to it in his surplice.]
PRIEST: (crying out.)Come along now. 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.
[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.]
PRIEST: (looking at the gold.)It’s a good one, I’m thinking, wherever you got it. And where is the can?
SARAH: (taking the bundle.)We have it here i
n 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: (taking the bundle.)Give it here into my hand, Sarah Casey. What is it any person would think of a tinker making a can.
[He begins opening the bundle.]
SARAH: It’s a fine can, your reverence 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.
[Priest opens the bundle; the three empty bottles fall out.]
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: (crestfallen and astonished.) It’s the divil did it, your reverence, and I wouldn’t tell you a lie. (Raising her hands.) May the Lord Almighty strike me dead if the divil isn’t after hooshing the tin can from the bag.
PRIEST: (vehemently.)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: (in a peacemaking voice, putting her hand on the Priest’s left arm.)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 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: (imploringly.)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: (loudly.)It’s a wicked, thieving, 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: (putting her shawl over her head.) 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: (angrily.)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 ourselves above walking the hill.
MARY: (crying out with indignation.) Have you no shame, Sarah Casey, to tell lies unto a holy man?
SARAH: (to Mary, working herself into a rage.) 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.
[She seizes up one of the bottles].
MARY: (hiding behind the Priest.) 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: (waving Sarah off.)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: (shouting.)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 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. (He throws down the ten shillings on the ground.) 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.
PRIEST: (losing his temper finally.)Go on, now, or I’ll send the Lords of Justice a dated story of your villainiesburning, stealing, robbing, raping to this mortal day. Go on now, I’m saying, if you’d run from Kilmainham or the rope itself.
MICHAEL: (taking off his coat.)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 roaring 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.
[He gives him a shove.]
MICHAEL: Blight me is it? Take it then, your reverence, and God help you so.
[He runs at him with the reins.]
PRIEST: (runs up to ditch crying out.) There are the peelers passing by the grace of Godhey, below!
MARY: (clapping her hand over his mouth.)Knock him down on the road; they didn’t hear him at all.
[Michael pulls him down.]
SARAH: Gag his jaws.
MARY: Stuff the sacking in his teeth.
[They gag him with the sack that had the can in it.]
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.
[They tie him up in some sacking.]
MICHAEL: (to Mary)Keep him quiet, and the rags tight on him for fear he’d screech. (He goes back to their camp.) Hurry with the things, Sarah Casey. The peelers aren’t coming this way, and maybe we’ll get off from them now.
[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.]
MARY: (patting his head.)Be quiet, your reverence. What is it ails you, with your wrigglings now? Is it choking maybe? (She puts her hand under the sack, and feels his mouth, patting him on the back.) 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. (In a soothing voice.) 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. (He gets quieter.) That’s a good boy you are now, your reverence, and let you not be uneasy, for we wouldn’t hurt you at 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 waysfather and son, and his son after him, or mother and daughter, and her own daughter againand it’s little need we ever had of going up into a church and swearingI’m told there’s swearing with ita 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: (who has finished bundling up the things, comes over to Sarah.) We’re fixed no
w; 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: (soothingly.)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 maybe hang the batch of us, man and child and woman, and the ass itself.
MICHAEL: What would he care for an oath?
MARY: Don’t you know his like do live in terror of the wrath of God? (Putting her mouth to the Priest’s ear in the sacking.) Would you swear an oath, holy father, to leave us in our freedom, and not talk at all? (Priest nods in sacking.) Didn’t I tell you? Look at the poor fellow nodding his head off in the bias of the sacks. Strip them off from him, and he’ll be easy now.
MICHAEL: (as if speaking to a horse.) Hold up, holy father.
[He pulls the sacking off, and shows the priest with his hair on end. They free his mouth.]
MARY: Hold him till he swears.
PRIEST: (in a faint voice.I swear surely.) If you let me go in peace, I’ll not inform against you or say a thing at all, and may God forgive me for giving heed unto your like to-day.
SARAH: (puts the ring on his finger.) There’s the ring, holy father, to keep you minding of your oath until the end of time; for my heart’s scalded with your fooling; and it’ll be a long day till I go making talk of marriage or the like of that.
MARY: (complacently, standing up slowly.) She’s vexed now, your reverence; and let you not mind her at all, for she’s right surely, and it’s little need we ever had of the like of you to get us our bit to eat, and our bit to drink, and our time of love when we were young men and women, and were fine to look at.
MICHAEL: Hurry on now. He’s a great man to have kept us from fooling our gold; and we’ll have a great time drinking that bit with the trampers on the green of Clash.
[They gather up their things. The priest stands up.]
PRIEST: (lifting up his hand.)I’ve sworn not to call the hand of man upon your crimes to-day; but I haven’t sworn I wouldn’t call the fire of heaven from the hand of the Almighty God.
