PRIEST _waving Sarah off._—Go along, Sarah Casey. Would you be doing murder at my feet? Go along from me now, and wasn’t I a big fool to have to do with you when it’s nothing but distraction and torment I get from the kindness of my heart? SARAH _shouting._—I’ve bet a power of strong lads east and west through the world, and are you thinking I’d turn back from a priest? Leave the road now, or maybe I would strike yourself. PRIEST You would not, Sarah Casey. I’ve no fear for the lot of you; but let you walk off, I’m saying, and not be coming where you’ve no business, and screeching tumult and murder at the doorway of the church. SARAH I’ll not go a step till I have her head broke, or till I’m wed with himself. If you want to get shut of us, let you marry us now, for I’m thinking the ten shillings in gold is a good price for the like of you, and you near burst with the fat. PRIEST I wouldn’t have you coming in on me and soiling my church; for there’s nothing at all, I’m thinking, would keep the like of you from hell. _(He throws down the ten shillings on the ground.)_ Gather up your gold now, and begone from my sight, for if ever I set an eye on you again you’ll hear me telling the peelers who it was stole the black ass belonging to Philly O’Cullen, and whose hay it is the grey ass does be eating. SARAH You’d do that? PRIEST I would, surely. SARAH If you do, you’ll be getting all the tinkers from Wicklow and Wexford, and the County Meath, to put up block tin in the place of glass to shield your windows where you do be looking out and blinking at the girls. It’s hard set you’ll be that time, I’m telling you, to fill the depth of your belly the long days of Lent; for we wouldn’t leave a laying pullet in your yard at all. PRIEST _losing his temper finally._—Go on, now, or I’ll send the Lords of Justice a dated story of your villainies—burning, stealing, robbing, raping to this mortal day. Go on now, I’m saying, if you’d run from Kilmainham or the rope itself. MICHAEL _taking off his coat._—Is it run from the like of you, holy father? Go up to your own shanty, or I’ll beat you with the ass’s reins till the world would hear you roaring from this place to the coast of Clare. PRIEST Is it lift your hand upon myself when the Lord would blight your members if you’d touch me now? Go on from this. [_He gives him a shove._ MICHAEL Blight me is it? Take it then, your reverence, and God help you so. [_He runs at him with the reins._ PRIEST _runs up to ditch crying out._—There are the peelers passing by the grace of God—hey, below! MARY _clapping her hand over his mouth._—Knock him down on the road; they didn’t hear him at all. [_Michael pulls him down._ SARAH Gag his jaws. MARY Stuff the sacking in his teeth. [_They gag him with the sack that had the can in it._ SARAH Tie the bag around his head, and if the peelers come, we’ll put him head-first in the boghole is beyond the ditch. [_They tie him up in some sacking._