PEGEEN. It’s queer joys they have, and who knows the thing they’d do, if it’d make the green stones cry itself to think of you swaying and swiggling at the butt of a rope, and you with a fine, stout neck, God bless you! the way you’d be a half an hour, in great anguish, getting your death. CHRISTY. _getting his boots and putting them on._—If there’s that terror of them, it’d be best, maybe, I went on wandering like Esau or Cain and Abel on the sides of Neifin or the Erris plain. PEGEEN. _beginning to play with him._—It would, maybe, for I’ve heard the Circuit Judges this place is a heartless crew. CHRISTY. _bitterly._—It’s more than Judges this place is a heartless crew. (_Looking up at her._) And isn’t it a poor thing to be starting again and I a lonesome fellow will be looking out on women and girls the way the needy fallen spirits do be looking on the Lord? PEGEEN. What call have you to be that lonesome when there’s poor girls walking Mayo in their thousands now? CHRISTY. _grimly._—It’s well you know what call I have. It’s well you know it’s a lonesome thing to be passing small towns with the lights shining sideways when the night is down, or going in strange places with a dog nosing before you and a dog nosing behind, or drawn to the cities where you’d hear a voice kissing and talking deep love in every shadow of the ditch, and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing from your heart. PEGEEN. I’m thinking you’re an odd man, Christy Mahon. The oddest walking fellow I ever set my eyes on to this hour to-day. CHRISTY. What would any be but odd men and they living lonesome in the world? PEGEEN. I’m not odd, and I’m my whole life with my father only. CHRISTY. _with infinite admiration._—How would a lovely handsome woman the like of you be lonesome when all men should be thronging around to hear the sweetness of your voice, and the little infant children should be pestering your steps I’m thinking, and you walking the roads. PEGEEN. I’m hard set to know what way a coaxing fellow the like of yourself should be lonesome either. CHRISTY. Coaxing? PEGEEN. Would you have me think a man never talked with the girls would have the words you’ve spoken to-day? It’s only letting on you are to be lonesome, the way you’d get around me now. CHRISTY. I wish to God I was letting on; but I was lonesome all times, and born lonesome, I’m thinking, as the moon of dawn. [_Going to door._] PEGEEN. _puzzled by his talk._—Well, it’s a story I’m not understanding at all why you’d be worse than another, Christy Mahon, and you a fine lad with the great savagery to destroy your da.