CHRISTY -- [dolefully.] I had it in my mind it was a different word and a bigger.
PEGEEN. There's a queer lad. Were you never slapped in school, young fellow, that you don't know the name of your deed?
CHRISTY -- [bashfully.] I'm slow at learning, a middling scholar only.
MICHAEL. If you're a dunce itself, you'd have a right to know that larceny's robbing and stealing. Is it for the like of that you're wanting?
CHRISTY -- [with a flash of family pride.] -- And I the son of a strong farmer (with a sudden qualm), God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have missed the weight of it gone.
MICHAEL -- [impressed.] If it's not stealing, it's maybe something big.
CHRISTY -- [flattered.] Aye; it's maybe something big.
JIMMY. He's a wicked-looking young fellow. Maybe he followed after a young woman on a lonesome night.
CHRISTY -- [shocked.] Oh, the saints forbid, mister; I was all times a decent lad.
PHILLY -- [turning on Jimmy.] -- You're a silly man, Jimmy Farrell. He said his father was a farmer a while since, and there's himself now in a poor state. Maybe the land was grabbed from him, and he did what any decent man would do.
MICHAEL -- [to Christy, mysteriously.] -- Was it bailiffs?
CHRISTY. The divil a one.
MICHAEL. Agents?
CHRISTY. The divil a one.
MICHAEL. Landlords?
CHRISTY -- [peevishly.] Ah, not at all, I'm saying. You'd see the like of them stories on any little paper of a Munster town. But I'm not calling to mind any person, gentle, simple, judge or jury, did the like of me. [They all draw nearer with delighted curiosity.]
PHILLY. Well, that lad's a puzzle--the world.
JIMMY. He'd beat Dan Davies' circus, or the holy missioners making sermons on the villainy of man. Try him again, Philly.
PHILLY. Did you strike golden guineas out of solder, young fellow, or shilling coins itself?
CHRISTY. I did not, mister, not sixpence nor a farthing coin.
JIMMY. Did you marry three wives maybe? I'm told there's a sprinkling have done that among the holy Luthers of the preaching north.
CHRISTY -- [shyly.] -- I never married with one, let alone with a couple or three.
PHILLY. Maybe he went fighting for the Boers, the like of the man beyond, was judged to be hanged, quartered and drawn. Were you off east, young fellow, fighting bloody wars for Kruger and the freedom of the Boers?
CHRISTY. I never left my own parish till Tuesday was a week.
PEGEEN -- [coming from counter.] -- He's done nothing, so. (To Christy.) If you didn't commit murder or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining, or robbery, or butchery, or the like of them, there isn't anything that would be worth your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at all.
CHRISTY -- [his feelings hurt.] -- That's an unkindly thing to be saying to a poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, and hanging before, and hell's gap gaping below.
PEGEEN [with a sign to the men to be quiet.] -- You're only saying it. You did nothing at all. A soft lad the like of you wouldn't slit the windpipe of a screeching sow.
CHRISTY -- [offended.] You're not speaking the truth.
PEGEEN -- [in mock rage.] -- Not speaking the truth, is it? Would you have me knock the head of you with the butt of the broom?
CHRISTY -- [twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror.] -- Don't strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.
PEGEEN [with blank amazement.] -- Is it killed your father?
CHRISTY -- [subsiding.] With the help of God I did surely, and that the Holy Immaculate Mother may intercede for his soul.
PHILLY -- [retreating with Jimmy.] -- There's a daring fellow.
JIMMY. Oh, glory be to God!
MICHAEL -- [with great respect.] -- That was a hanging crime, mister honey.
You should have had good reason for doing the like of that.
CHRISTY -- [in a very reasonable tone.] -- He was a dirty man, God forgive him, and he getting old and crusty, the way I couldn't put up with him at all.
PEGEEN. And you shot him dead?
CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- I never used weapons. I've no license, and I'm a law-fearing man.
MICHAEL. It was with a hilted knife maybe? I'm told, in the big world it's bloody knives they use.
CHRISTY -- [loudly, scandalized.] -- Do you take me for a slaughter-boy?
PEGEEN. You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from the license, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt of a string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers swearing it had life?
CHRISTY. I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all.
MICHAEL -- [making a sign to Pegeen to fill Christy's glass.] -- And what way weren't you hanged, mister? Did you bury him then?
CHRISTY -- [considering.] Aye. I buried him then. Wasn't I digging spuds in the field?
MICHAEL. And the peelers never followed after you the eleven days that you're out?
CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- Never a one of them, and I walking forward facing hog, dog, or divil on the highway of the road.
PHILLY -- [nodding wisely.] -- It's only with a common week-day kind of a murderer them lads would be trusting their carcase, and that man should be a great terror when his temper's roused.
MICHAEL. He should then. (To Christy.) And where was it, mister honey, that you did the deed?
CHRISTY -- [looking at him with suspicion.] -- Oh, a distant place, master of the house, a windy corner of high, distant hills.
PHILLY -- [nodding with approval.] -- He's a close man, and he's right, surely.
PEGEEN. That'd be a lad with the sense of Solomon to have for a pot-boy, Michael James, if it's the truth you're seeking one at all.
PHILLY. The peelers is fearing him, and if you'd that lad in the house there isn't one of them would come smelling around if the dogs itself were lapping poteen from the dungpit of the yard.
JIMMY. Bravery's a treasure in a lonesome place, and a lad would kill his father, I'm thinking, would face a foxy divil with a pitchpike on the flags of hell.
