The Tinkers Wedding | Page 9

beyond, and you'll find a kind of a red handkerchief
to put upon your neck, and a green one for myself. MICHAEL --
getting them. -- You're after spending more money on the like
of them. Well, it's a power we're losing this time, and we not gaining a
thing at all. (With the handkerchief.) Is it them two? SARAH. It
is, Michael. (She takes one of them.) Let you tackle that one

round under your chin; and let you not forget to take your hat from
your head when we go up into the church. I asked Biddy Flynn below,
that's after marrying her second man, and she told me it's the like of
that they do. [Mary yawns, and turns over in her sleep. SARAH
-- with anxiety. -- There she is waking up on us, and I thinking
we'd have the job done before she'd know of it at all.
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MICHAEL. She'll be crying out now, and making game of us, and
saying it's fools we are surely. SARAH. I'll send her to sleep again, or
get her out of it one way or another; for it'd be a bad case to have a
divil's scholar the like of her turning the priest against us maybe with
her godless talk. MARY -- waking up, and looking at them with
curiosity, blandly. -- That's fine things you have on you, Sarah
Casey; and it's a great stir you're making this day, washing your face.
I'm that used to the hammer, I wouldn't hear it at all, but washing is a
rare thing, and you're after waking me up, and I having a great sleep in
the sun. [She looks around cautiously at the bundle in which she has
hidden the bottles. SARAH -- coaxingly. -- Let you stretch
out again for a sleep, Mary Byrne, for it'll be a middling time yet before
we go to the fair. MARY -- with suspicion. -- That's a sweet
tongue you have, Sarah Casey; but if sleep's a grand thing, it's a grand
thing to be waking up a day the like of this, when there's a warm sun in
it, and a kind air, and you'll hear the
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cuckoos singing and crying out on the top of the hills. SARAH. If it's
that gay you are, you'd have a right to walk down and see would you
get a few halfpence from the rich men do be driving early to the fair.
MARY. When rich men do be driving early, it's queer tempers they
have, the Lord forgive them; the way it's little but bad words and
swearing out you'd get from them all. SARAH -- losing her temper
and breaking out fiercely. -- Then if you'll neither beg nor sleep, let
you walk off from this place where you're not wanted, and not have us
waiting for you maybe at the turn of day. MARY -- rather uneasy,
turning to Mi- chael. -- God help our spirits, Michael; there she is

again rousing cranky from the break of dawn. Oh! isn't she a terror
since the moon did change (she gets up slowly)? And I'd best be
going forward to sell the gallon can. [She goes over and takes up the
bundle. SARAH -- crying out angrily. -- Leave that down,
Mary Byrne. Oh! aren't you the scorn of women to think that you'd
have that drouth and roguery on you that you'd go drinking the can and
the dew not dried from the grass?
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MARY -- in a feigned tone of pacification, with the bundle still in
her hand. -- It's not a drouth but a heartburn I have this day, Sarah
Casey, so I'm going down to cool my gullet at the blessed well; and I'll
sell the can to the parson's daughter below, a harmless poor creature
would fill your hand with shillings for a brace of lies. SARAH. Leave
down the tin can, Mary Byrne, for I hear the drouth upon your tongue
to-day. MARY. There's not a drink-house from this place to the fair,
Sarah Casey; the way you'll find me below with the full price, and not a
farthing gone. [She turns to go off left. SARAH -- jumping
up, and picking up the hammer threateningly. -- Put down that can,
I'm saying. MARY -- looking at her for a moment in terror, and
putting down the bundle in the ditch. -- Is it raving mad you're
going, Sarah Casey, and you the pride of women to destroy the world?
SARAH -- going up to her, and giving her a push off left. -- I'll
show you if it's raving mad I am. Go on from this place, I'm saying, and
be wary now. MARY -- turning back after her. -- If