The Tinkers Wedding | Page 9

[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 I
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go, I'll be telling old and young you're a weathered heathen savage, Sarah Casey, the one did put down a head of the parson's cab- bage to boil in the pot with your clothes (the priest comes in behind her, on the left, and listens), and quenched the flaming candles on the throne of God the time your shadow fell within the pillars of the chapel door. [Sarah turns on her, and she springs round nearly into the Priest's arms. When she sees him, she claps her shawl over her mouth, and goes up towards the ditch, laughing to herself. PRIEST -- going to Sarah, half terrified at the language that he has heard. -- Well, aren't you a fearful lot? I'm