The Playboy of the Western World

you’re not wedding him at all?

Pegeen
I wouldn’t wed him if a bishop came walking for to join us here.


Christy
That God in glory may be thanked for that.


Pegeen
There’s your bed now. I’ve put a quilt upon you I’m after quilting a while since with my own two hands, and you’d best stretch out now for your sleep, and may God give you a good rest till I call you in the morning when the cocks will crow.


Christy
As she goes to inner room. May God and Mary and  St. Patrick bless you and reward you, for your kindly talk. She shuts the door behind her. He settles his bed slowly, feeling the quilt with immense satisfaction. Well, it’s a clean bed and soft with it, and it’s great luck and company I’ve won me in the end of time⁠—two fine women fighting for the likes of me⁠—till I’m thinking this night wasn’t I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by.



Curtain.


Act II
Scene as before. Brilliant morning light. Christy, looking bright and cheerful, is cleaning a girl’s boots.



Christy
To himself, counting jugs on dresser. Half a hundred beyond. Ten there. A score that’s above. Eighty jugs. Six cups and a broken one. Two plates. A power of glasses. Bottles, a schoolmaster’d be hard set to count, and enough in them, I’m thinking, to drunken all the wealth and wisdom of the County Clare. He puts down the boot carefully. There’s her boots now, nice and decent for her evening use, and isn’t it grand brushes she has? He puts them down and goes by degrees to the looking glass. Well, this’d be a fine place to be my whole life talking out with swearing Christians, in place of my old dogs and cat, and I stalking around, smoking my pipe and drinking my fill, and never a day’s work but drawing a cork an odd time, or wiping a glass, or rinsing out a shiny tumbler for a decent man. He takes the looking glass from the wall and puts it on the back of a chair; then sits down in front of it and begins washing his face. Didn’t I know rightly I was handsome, though it was the divil’s own mirror we had beyond, would twist a squint across an angel’s brow; and I’ll be growing fine from this day, the way I’ll have a soft lovely skin on me and won’t be the like of the clumsy young fellows do be ploughing all times in the earth and dung. He starts. Is she coming again? He looks out. Stranger girls. God help me, where’ll I hide myself away and my long neck naked to the world? He looks out. I’d best go to the room maybe till I’m dressed again.



He gathers up his coat and the looking glass, and runs into the inner room. The door is pushed open, and Susan Brady looks in, and knocks on door.


Susan
There’s nobody in it. Knocks again.


Nelly
Pushing her in and following her, with Honor Blake and Sara Tansey. It’d be early for them both to be out walking the hill.


Susan
I’m thinking Shawn Keogh was making game of us and there’s no such man in it at all.


Honor
Pointing to straw and quilt. Look at that. He’s been sleeping there in the night. Well, it’ll be a hard case if he’s gone off now, the way we’ll never set our eyes on a man killed his father, and we after rising early and destroying ourselves running fast on the hill.


Nelly
Are you thinking them’s his boots?


Sara
Taking them up. If they are, there should be his father’s track on them. Did you never read in the papers the way murdered men do bleed and drip?


Susan
Is that blood there, Sara Tansey?


Sara
Smelling it. That’s bog water, I’m thinking, but it’s his own they are surely, for I never seen the like of them for whity mud, and red mud, and turf on them, and the fine sands of the sea. That man’s been walking, I’m telling you. She goes down right, putting on one of his boots.


Susan
Going to window. Maybe he’s stolen off to Belmullet with the boots of Michael James, and you’d have a right so to follow after him, Sara Tansey, and you the one yoked the ass cart and drove ten miles to set your eyes on the man bit the yellow lady’s nostril on the northern shore. She looks out.


Sara
Running to window with one boot on. Don’t be talking, and we fooled today. Putting on other boot. There’s a pair do fit me well, and I’ll be keeping them for walking to the priest, when you’d be ashamed this place, going up winter and summer with nothing worth while to confess at all.


Honor
Who has been listening at the door. Whisht! there’s someone inside the room. She pushes door a chink open. It’s a man. Sara kicks off boots and puts them where they were. They all stand in a line looking through chink.


Sara
I’ll call him. Mister! Mister! He puts in his head. Is Pegeen within?


Christy
Coming in as meek as a mouse, with the looking glass held behind his back. She’s above on the cnuceen, seeking the nanny goats, the way she’d have a sup of goat’s milk for to colour my tea.


Sara
And asking your pardon, is it you’s the man killed his father?


Christy
Sidling toward the nail where the glass was hanging. I am, God help me!


Sara
Taking eggs she has brought. Then my thousand welcomes to you, and I’ve run up with a brace of duck’s eggs for your food today. Pegeen’s ducks is no use, but these are the real rich