SHAWN. I am not, Michael James. I'm going home the short cut to my bed.
PEGEEN -- [speaking across the counter.] -- He's right too, and have you no shame, Michael James, to be quitting off for the whole night, and leaving myself lonesome in the shop?
MICHAEL -- [good-humouredly.] Isn't it the same whether I go for the whole night or a part only? and I'm thinking it's a queer daughter you are if you'd have me crossing backward through the Stooks of the Dead Women, with a drop taken.
PEGEEN. If I am a queer daughter, it's a queer father'd be leaving me lonesome these twelve hours of dark, and I piling the turf with the dogs barking, and the calves mooing, and my own teeth rattling with the fear.
JIMMY -- [flatteringly.] -- What is there to hurt you, and you a fine, hardy girl would knock the head of any two men in the place?
PEGEEN -- [working herself up.] -- Isn't there the harvest boys with their tongues red for drink, and the ten tinkers is camped in the east glen, and the thousand militia -- bad cess to them! -- walking idle through the land.
There's lots surely to hurt me, and I won't stop alone in it, let himself do what he will.
MICHAEL. If you're that afeard, let Shawn Keogh stop along with you. It's the will of God, I'm thinking, himself should be seeing to you now. [They all turn on Shawn.]
SHAWN -- [in horrified confusion.] -- I would and welcome, Michael James, but I'm afeard of Father Reilly; and what at all would the Holy Father and the Cardinals of Rome be saying if they heard I did the like of that?
MICHAEL -- [with contempt.] -- God help you! Can't you sit in by the hearth with the light lit and herself beyond in the room? You'll do that surely, for I've heard tell there's a queer fellow above, going mad or getting his death, maybe, in the gripe of the ditch, so she'd be safer this night with a person here.
SHAWN -- [with plaintive despair.] -- I'm afeard of Father Reilly, I'm saying.
Let you not be tempting me, and we near married itself.
PHILLY -- [with cold contempt.] -- Lock him in the west room. He'll stay then and have no sin to be telling to the priest.
MICHAEL -- [to Shawn, getting between him and the door.] -- Go up now.
SHAWN -- [at the top of his voice.] -- Don't stop me, Michael James. Let me out of the door, I'm saying, for the love of the Almighty God. Let me out (trying to dodge past him). Let me out of it, and may God grant you His indulgence in the hour of need.
MICHAEL -- [loudly.] Stop your noising, and sit down by the hearth. [Gives him a push and goes to counter laughing.]
SHAWN -- [turning back, wringing his hands.] -- Oh, Father Reilly and the saints of God, where will I hide myself to-day? Oh, St. Joseph and St.
Patrick and St. Brigid, and St. James, have mercy on me now! [Shawn turns round, sees door clear, and makes a rush for it.]
MICHAEL -- [catching him by the coattail.] -- You'd be going, is it?
SHAWN -- [screaming.] Leave me go, Michael James, leave me go, you old Pagan, leave me go, or I'll get the curse of the priests on you, and of the scarlet-coated bishops of the courts of Rome. [With a sudden movement he pulls himself out of his coat, and disappears out of the door, leaving his coat in Michael's hands.]
MICHAEL -- [turning round, and holding up coat.] -- Well, there's the coat of a Christian man. Oh, there's sainted glory this day in the lonesome west; and by the will of God I've got you a decent man, Pegeen, you'll have no call to be spying after if you've a score of young girls, maybe, weeding in your fields.
PEGEEN [taking up the defence of her property.] -- What right have you to be ****** game of a poor fellow for minding the priest, when it's your own the fault is, not paying a penny pot-boy to stand along with me and give me courage in the doing of my work? [She snaps the coat away from him, and goes behind counter with it.]
MICHAEL -- [taken aback.] -- Where would I get a pot-boy? Would you have me send the bell-man screaming in the streets of Castlebar?
SHAWN -- [opening the door a chink and putting in his head, in a small voice.]
-- Michael James!
MICHAEL -- [imitating him.] -- What ails you?
SHAWN. The queer dying fellow's beyond looking over the ditch. He's come up, I'm thinking, stealing your hens. (Looks over his shoulder.) God help me, he's following me now (he runs into room), and if he's heard what I said, he'll be having my life, and I going home lonesome in the darkness of the night. [For a perceptible moment they watch the door with curiosity. Some one coughs outside. Then Christy Mahon, a slight young man, comes in very tired and frightened and dirty.]
CHRISTY -- [in a small voice.] -- God save all here!
MEN. God save you kindly.
CHRISTY -- [going to the counter.] -- I'd trouble you for a glass of porter, woman of the house. [He puts down coin.]
PEGEEN -- [serving him.] -- You're one of the tinkers, young fellow, is beyond camped in the glen?
CHRISTY. I am not; but I'm destroyed walking.
MICHAEL -- [patronizingly.] Let you come up then to the fire. You're looking famished with the cold.
CHRISTY. God reward you. (He takes up his glass and goes a little way across to the left, then stops and looks about him.) Is it often the police do be coming into this place, master of the house?
MICHAEL. If you'd come in better hours, you'd have seen "Licensed for the sale of Beer and Spirits, to be consumed on the premises," written in white letters above the door, and what would the polis want spying on me, and not a decent house within four miles, the way every living Christian is a bona fide, saving one widow alone?
CHRISTY -- [with relief.] -- It's a safe house, so. [He goes over to the fire, sighing and moaning. Then he sits down, putting his glass beside him and begins gnawing a turnip, too miserable to feel the others staring at him with curiosity.]
MICHAEL -- [going after him.] -- Is it yourself fearing the polis? You're wanting, maybe?
CHRISTY. There's many wanting.
MICHAEL. Many surely, with the broken harvest and the ended wars. (He picks up some stockings, etc., that are near the fire, and carries them away furtively.) It should be larceny, I'm thinking?