The Tinkers Wedding | Page 7

single man you are itself, and I'll be singing you songs unto the dawn of day. PRIEST -- interrupting her. -- What is it I want with your songs when it'd be better for the like of you, that'll soon die, to be down on your two knees saying prayers to the Almighty God? MARY. If it's prayers I want, you'd have a right to say one yourself, holy father; for we don't have them at all, and I've heard tell a power of times it's that you're for. Say
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one now, your reverence, for I've heard a power of queer things and I walking the world, but there's one thing I never heard any time, and that's a real priest saying a prayer. PRIEST. The Lord protect us! MARY. It's no lie, holy father. I often heard the rural people making a queer noise and they going to rest; but who'd mind the like of them? And I'm thinking it should be great game to hear a scholar, the like of you, speaking Latin to the saints above. PRIEST -- scandalized. -- Stop your talk- ing, Mary Byrne; you're an old flagrant heathen, and I'll stay no more with the lot of you. [He rises. MARY -- catching hold of him. -- Stop till you say a prayer, your reverence; stop till you say a little prayer, I'm telling you, and I'll give you my blessing and the last sup from the jug. PRIEST -- breaking away. -- Leave me go, Mary Byrne; for I have never met your like for hard abominations the score and two years I'm living in the place. MARY -- innocently. -- Is that the truth? PRIEST. --* It is, then, and God have mercy on your soul. [The priest goes towards the left, and Sarah follows him.
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SARAH -- in a low voice. -- And what time will you do the thing I'm asking, holy father? for I'm thinking you'll do it surely, and not have me growing into an old wicked heathen like herself. MARY -- calling out shrilly. -- Let you be walking back here, Sarah Casey, and not be talking whisper-talk with the like of him in the face of the Almighty God. SARAH -- to the priest. -- Do you hear her now, your reverence? Isn't it true, surely, she's an old, flagrant heathen, would destroy the world? PRIEST -- to Sarah, moving off. -- Well, I'll be coming down early to the chapel, and let you come to me a while after you see me pas- sing, and bring the bit of gold along with you, and the tin can. I'll marry you for them two, though it's a pitiful small sum; for I wouldn't be easy in my soul if I left you growing into an old, wicked heathen the like of her. SARAH -- following him out. -- The bles- sing of the Almighty God be on you, holy father, and that He may reward and watch you from this present day. MARY -- nudging Michael. -- Did you see that, Michael Byrne? Didn't you hear me telling you she's flighty a while back since the change of the moon? With her fussing for
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marriage, and she making whisper-talk with one man or another man along by the road. MICHAEL. --* Whist now, or she'll knock the head of you the time she comes back. MARY. --* Ah, it's a bad, wicked way the world is this night, if there's a fine air in it itself. You'd never have seen me, and I a young woman, making whisper-talk with the like of him, and he the fearfullest old fellow you'd see any place walking the world. [Sarah comes back quickly. MARY -- calling out to her. -- What is it you're after whispering above with himself? SARAH -- exultingly. -- Lie down, and leave us in peace. She whispers with Michael. MARY -- poking out her pipe with a straw, sings -- She'd whisper with one, and she'd whisper with two -- She breaks off coughing. -- My singing voice is gone for this night, Sarah Casey. (She lights her pipe.) But 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 --