The Playboy of the Western World

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?


Christy
Dolefully. I had it in my mind it was a different word and a bigger.


Pegeen
There’s a queer lad. Were you never slapped in school, young fellow, that you don’t know the name of your deed?


Christy
Bashfully. I’m slow at learning, a middling scholar only.


Michael
If you’re a dunce itself, you’d have a right to know that larceny’s robbing and stealing. Is it for the like of that you’re wanting?


Christy
With a flash of family pride. And I the son of a strong farmer, With a sudden qualm. God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have missed the weight of it gone.


Michael
Impressed. If it’s not stealing, it’s maybe something big.


Christy
Flattered. Aye; it’s maybe something big.


Jimmy
He’s a wicked-looking young fellow. Maybe he followed after a young woman on a lonesome night.


Christy
Shocked. Oh, the saints forbid, mister; I was all times a decent lad.


Philly
Turning on Jimmy. You’re a silly man, Jimmy Farrell. He said his father was a farmer a while since, and there’s himself now in a poor state. Maybe the land was grabbed from him, and he did what any decent man would do.


Michael
To Christy, mysteriously. Was it bailiffs?


Christy
The divil a one.


Michael
Agents?


Christy
The divil a one.


Michael
Landlords?


Christy
Peevishly. Ah, not at all, I’m saying. You’d see the like of them stories on any little paper of a Munster town. But I’m not calling to mind any person, gentle, simple, judge or jury, did the like of me.



They all draw nearer with delighted curiosity.


Philly
Well, that lad’s a puzzle⁠—the world.


Jimmy
He’d beat Dan Davies’ circus, or the holy missioners making sermons on the villainy of man. Try him again, Philly.


Philly
Did you strike golden guineas out of solder, young fellow, or shilling coins itself?


Christy
I did not, mister, not sixpence nor a farthing coin.


Jimmy
Did you marry three wives maybe? I’m told there’s a sprinkling have done that among the holy Luthers of the preaching north.


Christy
Shyly. I never married with one, let alone with a couple or three.


Philly
Maybe he went fighting for the Boers, the like of the man beyond, was judged to be hanged, quartered and drawn. Were you off east, young fellow, fighting bloody wars for Kruger and the freedom of the Boers?


Christy
I never left my own parish till Tuesday was a week.


Pegeen
Coming from counter. He’s done nothing, so. To Christy. If you didn’t commit murder or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining, or robbery, or butchery, or the like of them, there isn’t anything that would be worth your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at all.


Christy
His feelings hurt. That’s an unkindly thing to be saying to a poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, and hanging before, and hell’s gap gaping below.


Pegeen
With a sign to the men to be quiet. You’re only saying it. You did nothing at all. A soft lad the like of you wouldn’t slit the windpipe of a screeching sow.


Christy
Offended. You’re not speaking the truth.


Pegeen
In mock rage. Not speaking the truth, is it? Would you have me knock the head of you with the butt of the broom?


Christy
Twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror. Don’t strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.


Pegeen
With blank amazement. Is it killed your father?


Christy
Subsiding. With the help of God I did surely, and that the Holy Immaculate Mother may intercede for his soul.


Philly
Retreating with Jimmy. There’s a daring fellow.


Jimmy
Oh, glory be to God!


Michael
With great respect. That was a hanging crime, mister honey. You should have had good reason for doing the like of that.


Christy
In a very reasonable tone. He was a dirty man, God forgive him, and he getting old and crusty, the way I couldn’t put up with him at all.


Pegeen
And you shot him dead?


Christy
Shaking his head. I never used weapons. I’ve no license, and I’m a law-fearing man.


Michael
It was with a hilted knife maybe? I’m told, in the big world it’s bloody knives they use.


Christy
Loudly, scandalized. Do you take me for a slaughter-boy?


Pegeen
You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from the license, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt of a string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers swearing it had life?


Christy
I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all.


Michael
Making a sign to Pegeen to fill Christy’s glass. And what way weren’t you hanged, mister? Did you bury him then?


Christy
Considering. Aye. I buried him then. Wasn’t I digging spuds in the field?


Michael
And the peelers never followed after you the eleven days that you’re out?


Christy
Shaking his head. Never a one of them, and I walking forward facing hog, dog, or divil on the highway of the road.


Philly
Nodding wisely. It’s only with a common weekday kind of a murderer