Short Plays

off. Go along, Sarah Casey. Would you be doing murder at my feet? Go along from me now, and wasn’t I a big fool to have to do with you when it’s nothing but distraction and torment I get from the kindness of my heart? Sarah Shouting. I’ve bet a power of strong lads east and west through the world, and are you thinking I’d turn back from a priest? Leave the road now, or maybe I would strike yourself. Priest You would not, Sarah Casey. I’ve no fear for the lot of you; but let you walk off, I’m saying, and not be coming where you’ve no business, and screeching tumult and murder at the doorway of the church. Sarah I’ll not go a step till I have her head broke, or till I’m wed with himself. If you want to get shut of us, let you marry us now, for I’m thinking the ten shillings in gold is a good price for the like of you, and you near burst with the fat. Priest I wouldn’t have you coming in on me and soiling my church; for there’s nothing at all, I’m thinking, would keep the like of you from hell. He throws down the ten shillings on the ground. Gather up your gold now, and begone from my sight, for if ever I set an eye on you again you’ll hear me telling the peelers who it was stole the black ass belonging to Philly O’Cullen, and whose hay it is the grey ass does be eating. Sarah You’d do that? Priest I would, surely. Sarah If you do, you’ll be getting all the tinkers from Wicklow and Wexford, and the County Meath, to put up block tin in the place of glass to shield your windows where you do be looking out and blinking at the girls. It’s hard set you’ll be that time, I’m telling you, to fill the depth of your belly the long days of Lent; for we wouldn’t leave a laying pullet in your yard at all. Priest Losing his temper finally. Go on, now, or I’ll send the Lords of Justice a dated story of your villainies⁠—burning, stealing, robbing, raping to this mortal day. Go on now, I’m saying, if you’d run from Kilmainham or the rope itself. Michael Taking off his coat. Is it run from the like of you, holy father? Go up to your own shanty, or I’ll beat you with the ass’s reins till the world would hear you roaring from this place to the coast of Clare. Priest Is it lift your hand upon myself when the Lord would blight your members if you’d touch me now? Go on from this. He gives him a shove. Michael Blight me, is it? Take it then, your reverence, and God help you so. He runs at him with the reins. Priest Runs up to ditch crying out. There are the peelers passing, by the grace of God. Hey, below! Mary Clapping her hand over his mouth. Knock him down on the road; they didn’t hear him at all. Michael pulls him down. Sarah Gag his jaws. Mary Stuff the sacking in his teeth. They gag him with the sack that had the can in it. Sarah Tie the bag around his head, and if the peelers come, we’ll put him headfirst in the boghole is beyond the ditch. They tie him up in some sacking. Michael To Mary. Keep him quiet, and the rags tight on him for fear he’d screech. He goes back to their camp. Hurry with the things, Sarah Casey. The peelers aren’t coming this way, and maybe we’ll get off from them now. They bundle the things together in wild haste, the Priest wriggling and struggling about on the ground, with old Mary trying to keep him quiet. Mary Patting his head. Be quiet, your reverence. What is it ails you, with your wrigglings now? Is it choking maybe? She puts her hand under the sack, and feels his mouth, patting him on the back. It’s only letting on you are, holy father, for your nose is blowing back and forward as easy as an east wind on an April day. In a soothing voice. There now, holy father, let you stay easy, I’m telling you, and learn a little sense and patience, the way you’ll not be so airy again going to rob poor sinners of their scraps of gold. He gets quieter. That’s a good boy you are now, your reverence, and let you not be uneasy, for we wouldn’t hurt you at all. It’s sick and sorry we are to tease you; but what did you want meddling with the like of us, when it’s a long time we are going our own ways⁠—father and son, and his son after him, or mother and daughter, and her own daughter again; and it’s little need we ever had of going up into a church and swearing⁠—I’m told there’s swearing with it⁠—a word no man would believe, or with drawing rings on our fingers, would be cutting our skins maybe when we’d be taking the ass from the shafts, and pulling the straps the time they’d be slippy with going around beneath the heavens in rains falling. Michael Who has finished bundling up the things, comes over to Sarah. We’re fixed now; and I have a mind to run him in a boghole the way he’ll not be tattling to the peelers of our games today. Sarah You’d have a right too, I’m thinking. Mary Soothingly. Let you not be rough with him, Sarah Casey, and he after drinking his sup of porter with us at the fall of night. Maybe he’d swear a mighty oath he wouldn’t harm us, and then we’d safer loose him; for if we went to drown him, they’d maybe hang the batch of us, man and child and woman, and the ass itself. Michael What would he care for an