MICHAEL. If you’d come in better hours, you’d have seen “Licensed for the sale of Beer and Spirits, to be consumed on the premises,” written in white letters above the door, and what would the polis want spying on me, and not a decent house within four miles, the way every living Christian is a bona fide, saving one widow alone?
CHRISTY. _with relief._—It’s a safe house, so. [_He goes over to the fire, sighing and moaning. Then he sits down, putting his glass beside him and begins gnawing a turnip, too miserable to feel the others staring at him with curiosity._]
MICHAEL. _going after him._—Is it yourself fearing the polis? You’re wanting, maybe?
MICHAEL. Many surely, with the broken harvest and the ended wars. (_He picks up some stockings, etc., that are near the fire, and carries them away furtively._) It should be larceny, I’m thinking?
CHRISTY. _dolefully._—I had it in my mind it was a different word and a bigger.
PEGEEN. There’s a queer lad. Were you never slapped in school, young fellow, that you don’t know the name of your deed?
CHRISTY. _bashfully._—I’m slow at learning, a middling scholar only.
MICHAEL. If you’re a dunce itself, you’d have a right to know that larceny’s robbing and stealing. Is it for the like of that you’re wanting?
CHRISTY. _with a flash of family pride._—And I the son of a strong farmer (_with a sudden qualm_), God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have missed the weight of it gone.
MICHAEL. _impressed._—If it’s not stealing, it’s maybe something big.
CHRISTY. _flattered._—Aye; it’s maybe something big.
JIMMY. He’s a wicked-looking young fellow. Maybe he followed after a young woman on a lonesome night.
CHRISTY. _shocked._—Oh, the saints forbid, mister; I was all times a decent lad.
PHILLY. _turning on Jimmy._—You’re a silly man, Jimmy Farrell. He said his father was a farmer a while since, and there’s himself now in a poor state. Maybe the land was grabbed from him, and he did what any decent man would do.
MICHAEL. _to Christy, mysteriously._—Was it bailiffs?
CHRISTY. _peevishly._—Ah, not at all, I’m saying. You’d see the like of them stories on any little paper of a Munster town. But I’m not calling to mind any person, gentle, simple, judge or jury, did the like of me. [_They all draw nearer with delighted curiosity._]