CHRISTY.
with rapture.—If the mitred bishops seen you that time, they’d be the like of the holy prophets, I’m thinking, do be straining the bars of Paradise to lay eyes on the Lady Helen of Troy, and she abroad, pacing back and forward, with a nosegay in her golden shawl.
PEGEEN.
with real tenderness.—And what is it I have, Christy Mahon, to make me fitting entertainment for the like of you, that has such poet’s talking, and such bravery of heart?
CHRISTY.
in a low voice.—Isn’t there the light of seven heavens in your heart alone, the way you’ll be an angel’s lamp to me from this out, and I abroad in the darkness, spearing salmons in the Owen, or the Carrowmore?
PEGEEN.
If I was your wife, I’d be along with you those nights, Christy Mahon, the way you’d see I was a great hand at coaxing bailiffs, or coining funny nick-names for the stars of night.
CHRISTY.
You, is it? Taking your death in the hailstones, or in the fogs of dawn.
PEGEEN.
Yourself and me would shelter easy in a narrow bush, (with a qualm of dread) but we’re only talking, maybe, for this would be a poor, thatched place to hold a fine lad is the like of you.
CHRISTY.
putting his arm round her.—If I wasn’t a good Christian, it’s on my naked knees I’d be saying my prayers and paters to every jackstraw you have roofing your head, and every stony pebble is paving the laneway to your door.
PEGEEN.
radiantly.—If that’s the truth, I’ll be burning candles from this out to the miracles of God that have brought you from the south to-day, and I, with my gowns bought ready, the way that I can wed you, and not wait at all.
CHRISTY.
It’s miracles, and that’s the truth. Me there toiling a long while, and walking a long while, not knowing at all I was drawing all times nearer to this holy day.
PEGEEN.
And myself, a girl, was tempted often to go sailing the seas till I’d marry a Jew-man, with ten kegs of gold, and I not knowing at all there was the like of you drawing nearer, like the stars of God.