PRIEST The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of a living woman is it that you are at all? SARAH It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch. PRIEST A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way. [_He tries to pass by._ SARAH _keeping in front of him._—We are wanting a little word with your reverence. PRIEST I haven’t a halfpenny at all. Leave the road I’m saying. SARAH It isn’t a halfpenny we’re asking, holy father; but we were thinking maybe we’d have a right to be getting married; and we were thinking it’s yourself would marry us for not a halfpenny at all; for you’re a kind man, your reverence, a kind man with the poor. PRIEST _with astonishment._—Is it marry you for nothing at all? SARAH It is, your reverence; and we were thinking maybe you’d give us a little small bit of silver to pay for the ring. PRIEST _loudly._—Let you hold your tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. I’ve no silver at all for the like of you; and if you want to be married, let you pay your pound. I’d do it for a pound only, and that’s making it a sight cheaper than I’d make it for one of my own pairs is living here in the place. SARAH Where would the like of us get a pound, your reverence? PRIEST Wouldn’t you easy get it with your selling asses, and making cans, and your stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wexford and the county Meath? _(He tries to pass her.)_ Let you leave the road, and not be plaguing me more. SARAH _pleadingly, taking money from her pocket._—Wouldn’t you have a little mercy on us, your reverence? _(Holding out money.)_ Wouldn’t you marry us for a half a sovereign, and it a nice shiny one with a view on it of the living king’s mamma? PRIEST If it’s ten shillings you have, let you get ten more the same way, and I’ll marry you then. SARAH _whining._—It’s two years we are getting that bit, your reverence, with our pence and our halfpence and an odd three-penny bit; and if you don’t marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great drouth, will be drinking it to-morrow in the fair _(she puts her apron to her eyes, half sobbing)_, and then I won’t be married any time, and I’ll be saying till I’m an old woman: “It’s a cruel and a wicked thing to be bred poor.” PRIEST _turning up towards the fire._—Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. It’s a queer woman you are to be crying at the like of that, and you your whole life walking the roads. SARAH _sobbing._—It’s two years we are getting the gold, your reverence, and now you won’t marry us for that bit, and we hard-working poor people do be making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the black smoke from the bits of twigs we do be burning. [_An old woman is heard singing tipsily on the left._ PRIEST _looking at the can Michael is making._—When will you have that can done, Michael Byrne? MICHAEL In a short space only, your reverence, for I’m putting the last dab of solder on the rim.