The Tinkers Wedding | Page 8

if it's
flighty you are itself, you're a grand handsome woman, the glory of
tinkers, the pride of Wicklow, the Beauty of Ballinacree. I wouldn't
have you lying down and you lonesome to sleep this night in a dark
ditch when the spring is coming in the trees; so let you sit down there
by the big bough, and I'll be telling you the finest
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story you'd hear any place from Dundalk to Ballinacree, with great
queens in it, making themselves matches from the start to the end, and
they with shiny silks on them the length of the day, and white shifts for
the night. MICHAEL -- standing up with the tin can in his

hand. -- Let you go asleep, and not have us destroyed. MARY --
lying back sleepily. -- Don't mind him, Sarah Casey. Sit down
now, and I'll be telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman the like
of you in the springtime of the year. SARAH -- taking the can from
Michael, and tying it up in a piece of sacking. -- That'll not be
rusting now in the dews of night. I'll put it up in the ditch the way it
will be handy in the morning; and now we've that done, Michael Byrne,
I'll go along with you and welcome for Tim Flaherty's hens. [She
puts the can in the ditch. MARY -- sleepily. -- I've a grand
story of the great queens of Ireland with white necks on them the like
of Sarah Casey, and fine arms would hit you a slap the way Sarah
Casey would hit you. SARAH -- beckoning on the left. -- Come
along now, Michael, while she's falling asleep.
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[He goes towards left. Mary sees that they are going, starts up
suddenly, and turns over on her hands and knees. MARY --
piteously. -- Where is it you're going? Let you walk back here,
and not be leaving me lonesome when the night is fine. SARAH. Don't
be waking the world with your talk when we're going up through the
back wood to get two of Tim Flaherty's hens are roosting in the ash-tree
above at the well. MARY. And it's leaving me lone you are? Come
back here, Sarah Casey. Come back here, I'm saying; or if it's off you
must go, leave me the two little coppers you have, the way I can walk
up in a short while, and get another pint for my sleep. SARAH. It's too
much you have taken. Let you stretch yourself out and take a long sleep;
for isn't that the best thing any woman can do, and she an old drinking
heathen like yourself. [She and Michael go out left. MARY --
standing up slowly. -- It's gone they are, and I with my feet that
weak under me you'd knock me down with a rush, and my head with a
noise in it the like of what
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you'd hear in a stream and it running between two rocks and rain falling.
(She goes over to the ditch where the can is tied in sacking, and
takes it down.) What good am I this night, God help me? What

good are the grand stories I have when it's few would listen to an old
woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the time her hour
was come, or a little child wouldn't be sleeping with the hunger on a
cold night? (She takes the can from the sacking and fits in three
empty bottles and straw in its place, and ties them up.) Maybe the
two of them have a good right to be walking out the little short while
they'd be young; but if they have itself, they'll not keep Mary Byrne
from her full pint when the night's fine, and there's a dry moon in the
sky. (She takes up the can, and puts the package back in the
ditch.) Jemmy Neill's a decent lad; and he'll give me a good drop
for the can; and maybe if I keep near the peelers to-morrow for the first
bit of the fair, herself won't strike me at all; and if she does itself,
what's a little stroke on your head beside sitting lonesome on a fine
night, hearing the
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dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you saying over, it's a short
while only till you die. [She goes out singing "The night before
Larry was stretched."
CURTAIN
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ACT II.
SCENE: The same. Early morning. Sarah is washing her face in an
old bucket; then plaits her hair. Michael is tidying himself also. Mary
Byrne is asleep against the ditch.
SARAH -- to Michael, with pleased excite- ment. -- Go over,
now, to the bundle