MICHAEL.
imitating him.—What ails you?
SHAWN.
The queer dying fellow’s beyond looking over the ditch. He’s come up, I’m thinking, stealing your hens. (Looks over his shoulder.) God help me, he’s following me now (he runs into room), and if he’s heard what I said, he’ll be having my life, and I going home lonesome in the darkness of the night. (For a perceptible moment they watch the door with curiosity. Some one coughs outside. Then Christy Mahon, a slight young man, comes in very tired and frightened and dirty.)
CHRISTY.
in a small voice.—God save all here!
MEN.
God save you kindly.
CHRISTY.
going to the counter.—I’d trouble you for a glass of porter, woman of the house. [He puts down coin.]
PEGEEN.
serving him.—You’re one of the tinkers, young fellow, is beyond camped in the glen?
CHRISTY.
I am not; but I’m destroyed walking.
MICHAEL.
patronizingly.—Let you come up then to the fire. You’re looking famished with the cold.
CHRISTY.
God reward you. (He takes up his glass and goes a little way across to the left, then stops and looks about him.) Is it often the police do be coming into this place, master of the house?
MICHAEL.
If you’d come in better hours, you’d have seen “Licensed for the sale of Beer and Spirits, to be consumed on the premises,” written in white letters above the door, and what would the polis want spying on me, and not a decent house within four miles, the way every living Christian is a bona fide, saving one widow alone?