PRIEST Let you get a crown along with the ten shillings and the gallon can, Sarah Casey, and I will wed you so. MARY _suddenly shouting behind, tipsily._—Larry was a fine lad, I’m saying; Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey— MICHAEL Whist, now, the two of you. There’s my mother coming, and she’d have us destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she’s been drinking her fill. MARY _comes in singing_ And when we asked him what way he’d die, And he hanging unrepented, “Begob,” says Larry, “that’s all in my eye, By the clergy first invented.” SARAH Give me the jug now, or you’ll have it spilt in the ditch. MARY _holding the jug with both her hands, in a stilted voice._—Let you leave me easy, Sarah Casey. I won’t spill it, I’m saying. God help you; are you thinking it’s frothing full to the brim it is at this hour of the night, and I after carrying it in my two hands a long step from Jemmy Neill’s? MICHAEL _anxiously._—Is there a sup left at all? SARAH _looking into the jug._—A little small sup only I’m thinking. MARY _sees the priest, and holds out jug towards him._—God save your reverence. I’m after bringing down a smart drop; and let you drink it up now, for it’s a middling drouthy man you are at all times, God forgive you, and this night is cruel dry. [_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?