The Tinker's Wedding: Act II

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 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.

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
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?

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
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 thinking it's only
humbug you were making at the fall of night,
and you won't need me at all.

SARAH -- with anger still in her voice. --
Humbug is it! would you be turning back upon
your spoken promise in the face of God?

PRIEST -- dubiously. -- I'm thinking you
were never christened, Sarah Casey; and it
would be a queer job to go dealing Christian
sacraments unto the like of you. (Persuasive-
ly feeling in his pocket.) So it would be best,
maybe, I'd give you a shilling for to drink
my health, and let you walk on, and not
trouble me at all.

SARAH. That's your talking, is it? If
you don't stand to your spoken word, holy
father, I'll make my own complaint to the
mitred bishop in the face of all.

PRIEST. You'd do that!

SARAH. I would surely, holy father, if
I walked to the city of Dublin with blood and
blisters on my naked feet.

PRIEST -- uneasily scratching his ear. --
I wish this day was done, Sarah Casey; for
I'm thinking it's a risky thing getting mixed
up in any matters with the like of you.

SARAH. Be hasty then, and you'll have
us done with before you'd think at all.

PRIEST -- giving in. -- Well, maybe it's
right you are, and let you come up to the chapel
when you see me looking from the door.
[He goes up into the chapel.

SARAH -- calling after him. -- We will,
and God preserve you, holy father.

MARY -- coming down to them, speaking
with amazement and consternation, but with-
out anger. -- Going to the chapel! It's at mar-
riage you're fooling again, maybe? (Sarah
turns her back on her.) It was for that you
were washing your face, and you after sending
me for porter at the fall of night the way I'd
drink a good half from the jug?
(Going round in front of Sarah.)
Is it at marriage you're fooling again?

SARAH -- triumphantly. -- It is, Mary
Byrne. I'll be married now in a short while;
and from this day there will no one have a
right to call me a dirty name and I selling cans
in Wicklow or Wexford or the city of Dublin
itself.

MARY -- turning to Michael. -- And it's
yourself is wedding her, Michael Byrne?

MICHAEL -- gloomily. -- It is, God spare
us.

MARY -- looks at Sarah for a moment,
and then bursts out into a laugh of derision. --
Well, she's a tight, hardy girl, and it's no lie;
but I never knew till this day it was a black
born fool I had for a son. You'll breed asses,
I've heard them say, and poaching dogs, and
horses'd go licking the wind, but it's a hard
thing, God help me, to breed sense in a son.

MICHAEL -- gloomily. -- If I didn't mar-
ry her, she'd be walking off to Jaunting Jim
maybe at the fall of night; and it's well your-
self knows there isn't the like of her for getting
money and selling songs to the men.

MARY. And you're thinking it's paying
gold to his reverence would make a woman
stop when she's a mind to go?

SARAH -- angrily. -- Let you not be
destroying us with your talk when I've as good
a right to a decent marriage as any speckled
female does be sleeping in the black hovels
above, would choke a mule.

MARY -- soothingly. -- It's as good a right
you have surely, Sarah Casey, but what good
will it do? Is it putting that ring on your
finger will keep you from getting an aged
woman and losing the fine face you have, or
be easing your pains, when it's the grand ladies
do be married in silk dresses, with rings of
gold, that do pass any woman with their share
of torment in the hour of birth, and do be
paying the doctors in the city of Dublin a great
price at that time, the like of what you'd pay
for a good ass and a cart?
[She sits down.

SARAH -- puzzled. -- Is that the truth?

MARY -- pleased with the point she has
made. -- Wouldn't any know it's the truth?
Ah, it's a few short years you are yet in the
world, Sarah Casey, and it's little or nothing
at all maybe you know about it.

SARAH -- vehement but uneasy. -- What
is it yourself knows of the fine ladies when
they wouldn't let the like of you go near them
at all?

MARY. If you do be drinking a little sup
in one town and another town, it's soon you
get great knowledge and a great sight into
the world. You'll see men there, and women
there, sitting up on the ends of barrels in the
dark night, and they making great talk would
soon have the like of you, Sarah Casey, as
wise as a March hare.

MICHAEL -- to Sarah. -- That's the truth
she's saying, and maybe if you've sense in you
at all, you'd have a right still to leave your
fooling, and not be wasting our gold.

SARAH -- decisively. -- If it's wise or fool
I am, I've made a good bargain and I'll stand
to it now.

MARY. What is it he's making you give?

MICHAEL. The ten shillings in gold, and
the tin can is above tied in the sack.

MARY -- looking at the bundle with sur-
prise and dread. -- The bit of gold and the
tin can, is it?

MICHAEL. The half a sovereign, and the
gallon can.

MARY -- scrambling to her feet quickly. --
Well, I think I'll be walking off the road to
the fair the way you won't be destroying me
going too fast on the hills. (She goes a few
steps towards the left, then turns and speaks
to Sarah very persuasively. -- Let you not take
the can from the sack, Sarah Casey; for the
people is coming above would be making game
of you, and pointing their fingers if they seen
you do the like of that. Let you leave it safe
in the bag, I'm saying, Sarah darling. It's
that way will be best.

[She goes towards left, and pauses for a
moment, looking about her with em-
barrassment.

MICHAEL -- in a low voice. -- What ails
her at all?

SARAH -- anxiously. -- It's real wicked
she does be when you hear her speaking as
easy as that.

MARY -- to herself. -- I'd be safer in the
chapel, I'm thinking; for if she caught me
after on the road, maybe she would kill me
then.

[She comes hobbling back towards the
right.

SARAH. Where is it you're going? It
isn't that way we'll be walking to the fair.

MARY. I'm going up into the chapel to
give you my blessing and hear the priest
saying his prayers. It's a lonesome road is
running below to Greenane, and a woman
would never know the things might happen
her and she walking single in a lonesome place.

[As she reaches the chapel-gate, the
Priest comes to it in his surplice.

PRIEST -- crying out. -- Come along now.
It is the whole day you'd keep me here saying
my prayers, and I getting my death with not
a bit in my stomach, and my breakfast in ruins,
and the Lord Bishop maybe driving on the
road to-day?

SARAH. We're coming now, holy father.

PRIEST. Give me the bit of gold into my
hand.

SARAH. It's here, holy father.

[She gives it to him. Michael takes the
bundle from the ditch and brings it
over, standing a little behind Sarah.
He feels the bundle, and looks at Mary
with a meaning look.

PRIEST -- looking at the gold. -- It's a
good one, I'm thinking, wherever you got it.
And where is the can?

SARAH -- taking the bundle. -- We have
it here in a bit of clean sack, your reverence.
We tied it up in the inside of that to keep it
from rusting in the dews of night, and let you
not open it now or you'll have the people
making game of us and telling the story on
us, east and west to the butt of the hills.

PRIEST -- taking the bundle. -- Give it
here into my hand, Sarah Casey. What is it
any person would think of a tinker making a
can. [He begins opening the bundle.

SARAH. It's a fine can, your reverence
for if it's poor simple people we are, it's fine
cans we can make, and himself, God help him,
is a great man surely at the trade.

[Priest opens the bundle; the three empty
bottles fall out.

SARAH. Glory to the saints of joy!

PRIEST. Did ever any man see the like
of that? To think you'd be putting deceit
on me, and telling lies to me, and I going to
marry you for a little sum wouldn't marry a
child.

SARAH -- crestfallen and astonished. --
It's the divil did it, your reverence, and I
wouldn't tell you a lie. (Raising her hands.)
May the Lord Almighty strike me dead if the
divil isn't after hooshing the tin can from the
bag.

PRIEST -- vehemently. -- Go along now,
and don't be swearing your lies. Go along
now, and let you not be thinking I'm big fool
enough to believe the like of that, when it's
after selling it you are or making a swap for
drink of it, maybe, in the darkness of the night.

MARY -- in a peacemaking voice, putting
her hand on the Priest's left arm. -- She
wouldn't do the like of that, your reverence,
when she hasn't a decent standing drouth on
her at all; and she's setting great store on her
marriage the way you'd have a right to be
taking her easy, and not minding the can.
What differ would an empty can make with
a fine, rich, hardy man the like of you?

SARAH -- imploringly. -- Marry us, your
reverence, for the ten shillings in gold, and
we'll make you a grand can in the evening --
a can would be fit to carry water for the holy
man of God. Marry us now and I'll be saying
fine prayers for you, morning and night, if
it'd be raining itself, and it'd be in two black
pools I'd be setting my knees.

PRIEST -- loudly. -- It's a wicked, thiev-
ing, lying, scheming lot you are, the pack of
you. Let you walk off now and take every
stinking rag you have there from the ditch.

MARY -- putting her shawl over her head.
Marry her, your reverence, for the love of
God, for there'll be queer doings below if you
send her off the like of that and she swearing
crazy on the road.

SARAH -- angrily. -- It's the truth she's
saying; for it's herself, I'm thinking, is after
swapping the tin can for a pint, the time she
was raging mad with the drouth, and our-
selves above walking the hill.

MARY -- crying out with indignation. --
Have you no shame, Sarah Casey, to tell lies
unto a holy man?

SARAH -- to Mary, working herself into a rage.
-- It's making game of me you'd be,
and putting a fool's head on me in the face
of the world; but if you were thinking to be
mighty cute walking off, or going up to hide
in the church, I've got you this time, and
you'll not run from me now.
[She seizes up one of the bottles.

MARY -- hiding behind the priest.
-- Keep her off, your reverence, keep her off for the
love of the Almighty God. What at all would
the Lord Bishop say if he found me here
lying with my head broken across, or the two
of yous maybe digging a bloody grave for
me at the door of the church?

PRIEST -- waving Sarah 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 roar-
ing 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 head-
first 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 swear-
ing -- 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 to-day.

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
oath?

MARY. Don't you know his like do live
in terror of the wrath of God? (Putting her
mouth to the Priest's ear in the sacking.)
Would you swear an oath, holy father, to
leave us in our freedom, and not talk at all?
(Priest nods in sacking.) Didn't I tell you?
Look at the poor fellow nodding his head off
in the bias of the sacks. Strip them off from
him, and he'll be easy now.

MICHAEL -- as if speaking to a horse. --
Hold up, holy father.

[He pulls the sacking off, and shows the
priest with his hair on end. They free
his mouth.

MARY. Hold him till he swears.

PRIEST -- in a faint voice. -- I swear
surely. If you let me go in peace, I'll not
inform against you or say a thing at all, and
may God forgive me for giving heed unto
your like to-day.

SARAH -- puts the ring on his finger. --
There's the ring, holy father, to keep you
minding of your oath until the end of time;
for my heart's scalded with your fooling; and
it'll be a long day till I go making talk of
marriage or the like of that.

MARY -- complacently, standing up slowly.
-- She's vexed now, your reverence; and
let you not mind her at all, for she's right
surely, and it's little need we ever had of the
like of you to get us our bit to eat, and our
bit to drink, and our time of love when we
were young men and women, and were fine
to look at.

MICHAEL. Hurry on now. He's a great
man to have kept us from fooling our gold;
and we'll have a great time drinking that bit
with the trampers on the green of Clash.

[They gather up their things. The priest
stands up.

PRIEST -- lifting up his hand. -- I've
sworn not to call the hand of man upon your
crimes to-day; but I haven't sworn I wouldn't
call the fire of heaven from the hand of the
Almighty God.

[He begins saying a Latin malediction in
a loud ecclesiastical voice.

MARY. There's an old villain.

All -- together. -- Run, run. Run for
your lives.

[They rush out, leaving the Priest master
of the situation.

CURTAIN

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