The Tinker's WeddingSynge, J. M. (John Millington)
Philosophy
The Tinker's Wedding
Synge, J. M. (John Millington)
Ireland -- Drama
SARAH
It is, Michael. _(She takes one of them.)_ Let you tackle that one
round under your chin; and let you not forget to take your hat from
your head when we go up into the church. I asked Biddy Flynn below,
that’s after marrying her second man, and she told me it’s the like of
that they do.
[_Mary yawns, and turns over in her sleep._
SARAH
_with anxiety._—There she is waking up on us, and I thinking we’d have
the job done before she’d know of it at all.
MICHAEL
She’ll be crying out now, and making game of us, and saying it’s fools
we are surely.
SARAH
I’ll send her to sleep again, or get her out of it one way or another;
for it’d be a bad case to have a divil’s scholar the like of her
turning the priest against us maybe with her godless talk.
MARY
_waking up, and looking at them with curiosity, blandly._—That’s fine
things you have on you, Sarah Casey; and it’s a great stir you’re
making this day, washing your face. I’m that used to the hammer, I
wouldn’t hear it at all, but washing is a rare thing, and you’re after
waking me up, and I having a great sleep in the sun.
[_She looks around cautiously at the bundle in which she has hidden the
bottles._
SARAH
_coaxingly._—Let you stretch out again for a sleep, Mary Byrne, for
it’ll be a middling time yet before we go to the fair.
MARY
_with suspicion._—That’s a sweet tongue you have, Sarah Casey; but if
sleep’s a grand thing, it’s a grand thing to be waking up a day the
like of this, when there’s a warm sun in it, and a kind air, and you’ll
hear the cuckoos singing and crying out on the top of the hills.
SARAH
If it’s that gay you are, you’d have a right to walk down and see would
you get a few halfpence from the rich men do be driving early to the
fair.
MARY
When rich men do be driving early, it’s queer tempers they have, the
Lord forgive them; the way it’s little but bad words and swearing out
you’d get from them all.
SARAH
_losing her temper and breaking out fiercely._—Then if you’ll neither
beg nor sleep, let you walk off from this place where you’re not
wanted, and not have us waiting for you maybe at the turn of day.
MARY
_rather uneasy, turning to Michael._—God help our spirits, Michael;
there she is again rousing cranky from the break of dawn. Oh! isn’t she
a terror since the moon did change? _(She gets up slowly.)_ And I’d
best be going forward to sell the gallon can.
[_She goes over and takes up the bundle._
SARAH
_crying out angrily._—Leave that down, Mary Byrne. Oh! aren’t you the
scorn of women to think that you’d have that drouth and roguery on you
that you’d go drinking the can and the dew not dried from the grass?
MARY
_in a feigned tone of pacification, with the bundle still in her
hand._—It’s not a drouth but a heartburn I have this day, Sarah Casey,
so I’m going down to cool my gullet at the blessed well; and I’ll sell
the can to the parson’s daughter below, a harmless poor creature would
fill your hand with shillings for a brace of lies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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