SHAWN. Didn’t I say it was Father Reilly....
PEGEEN. Go on, then, to Father Reilly (_in a jeering tone_), and let him put you in the holy brotherhoods, and leave that lad to me.
PEGEEN. Go on, I’m saying, and don’t be waking this place with your noise. (_She hustles him out and bolts the door._) That lad would wear the spirits from the saints of peace. (_Bustles about, then takes off her apron and pins it up in the window as a blind. Christy watching her timidly. Then she comes to him and speaks with bland good-humour._) Let you stretch out now by the fire, young fellow. You should be destroyed travelling.
CHRISTY. _shyly again, drawing off his boots._—I’m tired, surely, walking wild eleven days, and waking fearful in the night. [_He holds up one of his feet, feeling his blisters, and looking at them with compassion._]
PEGEEN. _standing beside him, watching him with delight._—You should have had great people in your family, I’m thinking, with the little, small feet you have, and you with a kind of a quality name, the like of what you’d find on the great powers and potentates of France and Spain.
CHRISTY. _with pride._—We were great surely, with wide and windy acres of rich Munster land.
PEGEEN. Wasn’t I telling you, and you a fine, handsome young fellow with a noble brow?
CHRISTY. _with a flash of delighted surprise._—Is it me?
PEGEEN. Aye. Did you never hear that from the young girls where you come from in the west or south?
CHRISTY. _with venom._—I did not then. Oh, they’re bloody liars in the naked parish where I grew a man.
PEGEEN. If they are itself, you’ve heard it these days, I’m thinking, and you walking the world telling out your story to young girls or old.
CHRISTY. I’ve told my story no place till this night, Pegeen Mike, and it’s foolish I was here, maybe, to be talking free, but you’re decent people, I’m thinking, and yourself a kindly woman, the way I wasn’t fearing you at all.
PEGEEN. _filling a sack with straw._—You’ve said the like of that, maybe, in every cot and cabin where you’ve met a young girl on your way.
CHRISTY. _going over to her, gradually raising his voice._—I’ve said it nowhere till this night, I’m telling you, for I’ve seen none the like of you the eleven long days I am walking the world, looking over a low ditch or a high ditch on my north or my south, into stony scattered fields, or scribes of bog, where you’d see young, limber girls, and fine prancing women making laughter with the men.