The Playboy of the Western World

a poet in a merchant’s town. I’ve won your racing, and your lepping, and.⁠ ⁠…

Mahon
Shut your gullet and come on with me.


Christy
I’m going, but I’ll stretch you first.



He runs at old Mahon with the loy, chases him out of the door, followed by crowd and Widow Quin. There is a great noise outside, then a yell, and dead silence for a moment. Christy comes in, half dazed, and goes to fire.


Widow Quin
Coming in, hurriedly, and going to him. They’re turning again you. Come on, or you’ll be hanged, indeed.


Christy
I’m thinking, from this out, Pegeen’ll be giving me praises the same as in the hours gone by.


Widow Quin
Impatiently. Come by the backdoor. I’d think bad to have you stifled on the gallows tree.


Christy
Indignantly. I will not, then. What good’d be my lifetime, if I left Pegeen?


Widow Quin
Come on, and you’ll be no worse than you were last night; and you with a double murder this time to be telling to the girls.


Christy
I’ll not leave Pegeen Mike.


Widow Quin
Impatiently. Isn’t there the match of her in every parish public, from Binghamstown unto the plain of Meath? Come on, I tell you, and I’ll find you finer sweethearts at each waning moon.


Christy
It’s Pegeen I’m seeking only, and what’d I care if you brought me a drift of chosen females, standing in their shifts itself, maybe, from this place to the Eastern World?


Sara
Runs in, pulling off one of her petticoats. They’re going to hang him. Holding out petticoat and shawl. Fit these upon him, and let him run off to the east.


Widow Quin
He’s raving now; but we’ll fit them on him, and I’ll take him, in the ferry, to the Achill boat.


Christy
Struggling feebly. Leave me go, will you? when I’m thinking of my luck today, for she will wed me surely, and I a proven hero in the end of all.



They try to fasten petticoat round him.


Widow Quin
Take his left hand, and we’ll pull him now. Come on, young fellow.


Christy
Suddenly starting up. You’ll be taking me from her? You’re jealous, is it, of her wedding me? Go on from this. He snatches up a stool, and threatens them with it.


Widow Quin
Going. It’s in the madhouse they should put him, not in jail, at all. We’ll go by the backdoor, to call the doctor, and we’ll save him so.



She goes out, with Sara, through inner room. Men crowd in the doorway. Christy sits down again by the fire.


Michael
In a terrified whisper. Is the old lad killed surely?


Philly
I’m after feeling the last gasps quitting his heart. They peer in at Christy.


Michael
With a rope. Look at the way he is. Twist a hangman’s knot on it, and slip it over his head, while he’s not minding at all.


Philly
Let you take it, Shaneen. You’re the soberest of all that’s here.


Shawn
Is it me to go near him, and he the wickedest and worst with me? Let you take it, Pegeen Mike.


Pegeen
Come on, so. She goes forward with the others, and they drop the double hitch over his head.


Christy
What ails you?


Shawn
Triumphantly, as they pull the rope tight on his arms. Come on to the peelers, till they stretch you now.


Christy
Me?


Michael
If we took pity on you, the Lord God would, maybe, bring us ruin from the law today, so you’d best come easy, for hanging is an easy and a speedy end.


Christy
I’ll not stir. To Pegeen. And what is it you’ll say to me, and I after doing it this time in the face of all?


Pegeen
I’ll say, a strange man is a marvel, with his mighty talk; but what’s a squabble in your backyard, and the blow of a loy, have taught me that there’s a great gap between a gallous story and a dirty deed. To men. Take him on from this, or the lot of us will be likely put on trial for his deed today.


Christy
With horror in his voice. And it’s yourself will send me off, to have a horny-fingered hangman hitching his bloody slipknots at the butt of my ear.


Men
Pulling rope. Come on, will you? He is pulled down on the floor.


Christy
Twisting his legs round the table. Cut the rope, Pegeen, and I’ll quit the lot of you, and live from this out, like the madmen of Keel, eating muck and green weeds, on the faces of the cliffs.


Pegeen
And leave us to hang, is it, for a saucy liar, the like of you? To men. Take him on, out from this.


Shawn
Pull a twist on his neck, and squeeze him so.


Philly
Twist yourself. Sure he cannot hurt you, if you keep your distance from his teeth alone.


Shawn
I’m afeard of him. To Pegeen. Lift a lighted sod, will you, and scorch his leg.


Pegeen
Blowing the fire, with a bellows. Leave go now, young fellow, or I’ll scorch your shins.


Christy
You’re blowing for to torture me His voice rising and growing stronger. That’s your kind, is it? Then let the lot of you be wary, for, if I’ve to face the gallows, I’ll have a gay march down, I tell you, and shed the blood of some of you before I die.


Shawn
In terror. Keep a good hold, Philly. Be wary, for the love of God. For I’m thinking he would liefest wreak his pains on me.


Christy
Almost gaily. If I do lay my hands on you, it’s the way you’ll be at the fall of night, hanging as a scarecrow for the fowls of hell. Ah, you’ll have a gallous jaunt I’m saying, coaching out through Limbo with my father’s ghost.


Shawn
To Pegeen. Make haste, will you? Oh, isn’t he a holy terror, and isn’t it true