[She tries to go towards him. Sarah holds her back.
PRIEST
waving her away.—Let you not be falling to the flames. Keep off, I’m saying.
MARY
persuasively.—Let you not be shy of us, your reverence. Aren’t we all sinners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I’m telling you; and we won’t let on a word about it till the Judgment Day.
[She takes up a tin mug, pours some porter into it, and gives it to him.
MARY
singing, and holding the jug in her hand.
A lonesome ditch in Ballygan
The day you’re beating a tenpenny can;
A lonesome bank in Ballyduff
The time . . .
[She breaks off. It’s a bad, wicked song, Sarah Casey; and let you put me down now in the ditch, and I won’t sing it till himself will be gone; for it’s bad enough he is, I’m thinking, without ourselves making him worse.
SARAH
putting her down, to the priest, half laughing.—Don’t mind her at all, your reverence. She’s no shame the time she’s a drop taken; and if it was the Holy Father from Rome was in it, she’d give him a little sup out of her mug, and say the same as she’d say to yourself.
MARY
to the priest.—Let you drink it up, holy father. Let you drink it up, I’m saying, and not be letting on you wouldn’t do the like of it, and you with a stack of pint bottles above, reaching the sky.
PRIEST
with resignation.—Well, here’s to your good health, and God forgive us all.
[He drinks.
MARY
That’s right now, your reverence, and the blessing of God be on you. Isn’t it a grand thing to see you sitting down, with no pride in you, and drinking a sup with the like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, starving creatures you’d see any place on the earth?