The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays (13 page)

MAHON. He's passing the third.

JIMMY. He'll lick them yet!

WIDOW QUIN. He'd lick them if he was running races with a score itself.

MAHON. Look at the mule he has, kicking the stars.

WIDOW QUIN. There was a lep! (
Catching hold of
MAHON
in her excitement
) He's fallen! He's mounted again! Faith, he's passing them all!

JIMMY. Look at him skelping her!

PHILLY. And the mountain girls hooshing him on!

JIMMY. It's the last turn! The post's cleared for them now!

MAHON. Look at the narrow place. He'll be into the bogs! (
With a yell
) Good rider! He's through it again!

JIMMY. He's neck and neck!

MAHON. Good boy to him! Flames, but he's in!

 

(
Great cheering, in which all join.
)

 

MAHON (
with hesitation
). What's that? They're raising him up. They're coming this way. (
With a roar of rage and astonishment
) It's Christy! by the stars of God! I'd know his way of spitting and he astride the moon.

 

(
He jumps down and makes for the door, but
WIDOW QUIN
catches him and pulls him back.
)

 

WIDOW QUIN. Stay quiet, will you. That's not your son. (To JIMMY) Stop him, or you'll get a month for the abetting of manslaughter and be fined as well.

JIMMY. I'll hold him.

MAHON (
struggling
)
.
Let me out! Let me out, the lot of you! till I have my vengeance on his head to-day.

WIDOW QUIN (
shaking him, vehemently
)
.
That's not your son. That's a man is going to make a marriage with the daughter of this house, a place with fine trade, with a license, and with poteen too.

MAHON (
amazed
)
.
That man marrying a decent and a moneyed girl! Is it mad yous are? Is it in a crazy-house for females that I'm landed now?

WIDOW QUIN. It's mad yourself is with the blow upon your head. That lad is the wonder of the Western World.

MAHON. I seen it's my son.

WIDOW QUIN. You seen that you're mad. (
Cheering outside
) Do you hear them cheering him in the zigzags of the road? Aren't you after saying that your son's a fool, and how would they be cheering a true idiot born?

MAHON (
getting distressed
)
.
It's maybe out of reason that that man's himself. (
Cheering again
) There's none surely will go cheering him. Oh, I'm raving with a madness that would fright the world! (
He sits down with his hand to his head.
) There was one time I seen ten scarlet divils letting on they'd cork my spirit in a gallon can; and one time I seen rats as big as badgers sucking the life blood from the butt of my lug; but I never till this day confused that dribbling idiot with a likely man. I'm destroyed surely.

WIDOW QUIN. And who'd wonder when it's your brain-pan that is gaping now?

MAHON. Then the blight of the sacred drought upon myself and him, for I never went mad to this day, and I not three weeks with the Limerick girls drinking myself silly, and parlatic from the dusk to dawn. (To WIDOW QUIN,
suddenly
) Is my visage astray?

WIDOW QUIN. It is then. You're a sniggering maniac, a child could see.

MAHON (
getting up more cheerfully
). Then I'd best be going to the union beyond, and there'll be a welcome before me, I tell you (
with great pride
), and I a terrible and fearful case, the way that there I was one time, screeching in a straitened waistcoat, with seven doctors writing out my sayings in a printed book. Would you believe that?

WIDOW QUIN. If you're a wonder itself, you'd best be hasty, for them lads caught a maniac one time and pelted the poor creature till he ran out, raving and foaming, and was drowned in the sea.

MAHON (
with philosophy
). It's true mankind is the divil when your head's astray. Let me out now and I'll slip down the boreen, and not see them so.

WIDOW QUIN (
showing him out
). That's it. Run to the right, and not a one will see.

 

(
He runs off
.)

 

PHILLY (
wisely
). You're at some gaming, Widow Quin; but I'll walk after him and give him his dinner and a time to rest, and I'll see then if he's raving or as sane as you.

WIDOW QUIN (
annoyed
). If you go near that lad, let you be wary of your head, I'm saying. Didn't you hear him telling he was crazed at times?

PHILLY. I heard him telling a power; and I'm thinking we'll have right sport, before night will fall. (
He goes out.
)

JIMMY. Well, Philly's a conceited and foolish man. How could that madman have his senses and his brain-pan slit? I'll go after them and see him turn on Philly now.

 

(
He goes;
WIDOW QUIN
hides poteen behind counter. Then hubbub outside.)

 

VOICES. There you are! Good jumper! Grand lep per! Darlint boy! He's the racer! Bear him on, will you!

 

(CHRISTY
comes in, in
JOCKEY‘
s dress, with
PEGEEN MIKE, SARA,
and other girls, and men.
)

 

PEGEEN (
to crowd
)
.
Go on now and don't destroy him and he drenching with sweat. Go along, I'm saying, and have your tug-of-warring till he's dried his skin.

CROWD. Here's his prizes! A bagpipes! A fiddle was played by a poet in the years gone by! A flat and three-thorned blackthorn would lick the scholars out of Dublin town!

CHRISTY (
taking prizes from the men
)
.
Thank you kindly, the lot of you. But you'd say it was little only I did this day if you'd seen me a while since striking my one single blow.

TOWN CRIER (
outside, ringing a bell
)
.
Take notice, last event of this day! Tug-of-warring on the green below! Come on, the lot of you! Great achievements for all Mayo men!

PEGEEN. Go on, and leave him for to rest and dry. Go on, I tell you, for he'll do no more. (
She hustles crowd out;
WIDOW QUIN
following them.
)

MEN (
going
)
.
Come on, then. Good luck for the while!

PEGEEN (
radiantly, wiping his face with her shawl
)
.
Well, you're the lad, and you'll have great times from this out when you could win that wealth of prizes, and you sweating in the heat of noon!

CHRISTY (
looking at her with delight
)
.
I'll have great times if I win the crowning prize I'm seeking now, and that's your promise that you'll wed me in a fortnight, when our banns is called.

PEGEEN (
backing away from him
)
.
You've right daring to go ask me that, when all knows you'll be starting to some girl in your own townland, when your father's rotten in four months, or five.

CHRISTY (
indignantly
)
.
Starting from you, is it? (
He follows her.
) I will not, then, and when the airs is warming in four months, or five, it's then yourself and me should be pacing Neifin in the dews of night, the times sweet smells do be rising, and you'd see a little shiny new moon, maybe, sinking on the hills.

PEGEEN
(looking at him playfully).
And it's that kind of a poacher's love you'd make, Christy Mahon, on the sides of Neifin, when the night is down?

CHRISTY. It's little you'll think if my love's a poacher‘s, or an earl's itself, when you'll feel my two hands stretched around you, and I squeezing kisses on your puckered lips, till I'd feel a kind of pity for the Lord God in all ages sitting lonesome in his golden chair.

PEGEEN. That'll be right fun, Christy Mahon, and any girl would walk her heart out before she'd meet a young man was your like for eloquence, or talk, at all.

CHRISTY
(encouraged).
Let you wait, to hear me talking, till we're astray in Erris, when Good Friday's by, drinking a sup from a well, and making mighty kisses with our wetted mouths, or gaming in a gap or sunshine, with yourself stretched back unto your necklace, in the flowers of the earth.

PEGEEN
(in a lower voice, moved by his tone).
I'd be nice so, is it?

CHRISTY
(with rapture).
If the mitred bishops seen you that time, they'd be the like of the holy prophets, I'm thinking, do be straining the bars of Paradise to lay eyes on the Lady Helen of Troy, and she abroad, pacing back and forward, with a nose-gay in her golden shawl.

PEGEEN
(with real tenderness).
And what is it I have, Christy Mahon, to make me fitting entertainment for the like of you, that has such poet's talking, and such bravery of heart?

CHRISTY
(in a low voice).
Isn't there the light of seven heavens in your heart alone, the way you'll be an angel's lamp to me from this out, and I abroad in the darkness, spearing salmons in the Owen, or the Carrowmore?

PEGEEN. If I was your wife, I'd be along with you those nights, Christy Mahon, the way you'd see I was a great hand at coaxing bailiffs, or coining funny nick-names for the stars of night.

CHRISTY. You, is it? Taking your death in the hailstones, or in the fogs of dawn.

PEGEEN. Yourself and me would shelter easy in a narrow bush,
(with a qualm of dread)
but we're only talking, maybe, for this would be a poor, thatched place to hold a fine lad is the like of you.

CHRISTY
(putting his arm around her).
If I wasn't a good Christian, it's on my naked knees I'd be saying my prayers and paters to every jackstraw you have roofing your head, and every stony pebble is paving the laneway to your door.

PEGEEN
(radiantly).
If that's the truth, I'll be burning candles from this out to the miracles of God that have brought you from the south to-day, and I, with my gowns bought ready, the way that I can wed you, and not wait at all.

CHRISTY. It's miracles, and that's the truth. Me there toiling a long while, and walking a long while, not knowing at all I was drawing all times nearer to this holy day.

PEGEEN. And myself, a girl, was tempted often to go sailing the seas till I'd marry a Jew-man, with ten kegs of gold, and I not knowing at all there was the like of you drawing nearer, like the stars of God.

CHRISTY. And to think I'm long years hearing women talking that talk, to all bloody fools, and this the first time I've heard the like of your voice talking sweetly for my own delight.

PEGEEN. And to think it's me is talking sweetly, Christy Mahon, and I the fright of seven townlands for my biting tongue. Well, the heart's a wonder; and, I'm thinking, there won't be our like in Mayo, for gallant lovers, from this hour, to-day.
(Drunken singing is heard outside)
There's my father coming from the wake, and when he's had his sleep we'll tell him, for he's peaceful then.

(
They separate.
)

MICHAEL
(singing outside).

(
He comes in supported by
SHAWN.)

(He sees
CHRISTY.
Goes and shakes him drunkenly by the hand, while
PEGEEN
and
SHAWN
talk on the left.)

 

MICHAEL (to CHRISTY). The blessing of God and the holy angels on your head, young fellow. I hear tell you're after winning all in the sports below; and wasn't it a shame I didn't bear you along with me to Kate Cassidy's wake, a fine, stout lad, the like of you, for you'd never see the match of it for flows of drink, the way when we sunk her bones at noonday in her narrow grave, there were five men, aye, and six men, stretched out retching speechless on the holy stones.

CHRISTY (
uneasily, watching
PEGEEN). Is that the truth?

MICHAEL. It is then, and aren't you a louty schemer to go burying your poor father unbeknownst when you'd a right to throw him on the crupper of a Kerry mule and drive him westwards, like holy Joseph in the days gone by, the way we could have given him a decent burial, and not have him rotting beyond, and not a Christian drinking a smart drop to the glory of his soul?

CHRISTY
(gruffly).
It's well enough he's lying, for the likes of him.

MICHAEL
(slapping him on the back).
Well, aren't you a hardened slayer? It'll be a poor thing for the household man where you go sniffing for a female wife; and (
pointing to
SHAWN) look beyond at that shy and decent Christian I have chosen for my daughter's hand, and I after getting the gilded dispensation this day for to wed them now.

CHRISTY. And you'll be wedding them this day, is it?

MICHAEL
(drawing himself up).
Aye. Are you thinking, if I'm drunk itself, I'd leave my daughter living single with a little frisky rascal is the like of you?

PEGEEN (
breaking away from
SHAWN). Is it the truth the dispensation's come?

MICHAEL
(triumphantly).
Father Reilly's after reading it in gallous Latin, and “It's come in the nick of time,” says he; “so I'll wed them in a hurry, dreading that young gaffer who'd capsize the stars.”

PEGEEN
(fiercely).
He's missed his nick of time, for it's that lad, Christy Mahon, that I'm wedding now.

MICHAEL
(loudly with horror).
You'd be making him a son to me, and he wet and crusted with his father's blood?