fellow, fighting bloody wars for Kruger and the freedom of the Boers?
CHRISTY. I never left my own parish till Tuesday was a week.
PEGEEN (coming from counter). Heâs done nothing, so. (To CHRISTY) If you didnât commit murder or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining, or robbery, or butchery, or the like of them, there isnât anything that would be worth your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at all.
CHRISTY (his feelings hurt). Thatâs an unkindly thing to be saying to a poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, and hanging before, and hellâs gap gaping below.
PEGEEN (with a sign to the men to be quiet). Youâre only saying it. You did nothing at all. A soft lad the like of you wouldnât slit the windpipe of a screeching sow.
CHRISTY (offended). Youâre not speaking the truth.
PEGEEN (in mock rage). Not speaking the truth, is it? Would you have me knock the head off you with the butt of the broom?
CHRISTY (twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror). Donât strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.
PEGEEN (with blank amazement). Is it killed your father?
CHRISTY (subsiding). With the help of God I did surely, and that the Holy Immaculate Mother may intercede for his soul.
PHILLY (retreating with JIMMY). Thereâs a daring fellow.
JIMMY. Oh, glory be to God!
MICHAEL (with great respect). That was a hanging crime, mister honey. You should have had good reason for doing the like of that.
CHRISTY (in a very reasonable tone). He was a dirty man, God forgive him, and he getting old and crusty, the way I couldnât put up with him at all.
PEGEEN. And you shot him dead?
CHRISTY (shaking his head). I never used weapons. Iâve no license, and Iâm a law-fearing man.
MICHAEL. It was with a hilted knife maybe? Iâm told, in the big world itâs bloody knives they use.
CHRISTY (loudly, scandalized). Do you take me for a slaughter-boy?
PEGEEN. You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from the license, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt of a string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers swearing it had life?
CHRISTY. I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all.
MICHAEL (making a sign to PEGEEN to fill CHRISTYâ s glass). And what way werenât you hanged, mister? Did you bury him then?
CHRISTY (considering). Aye. I buried him then. Wasnât I digging spuds in the field?
MICHAEL. And the peelers never followed after you the eleven days that youâre out?
CHRISTY (shaking his head). Never a one of them, and I walking forward facing hog, dog, or divil on the highway of the road.
PHILLY (nodding wisely). Itâs only with a common week-day kind of a murderer them lads would be trusting their carcase, and that man should be a great terror when his temperâs roused.
MICHAEL. He should then. (To CHRISTY) And where was it, mister honey, that you did the deed?
CHRISTY (looking at him with suspicion). Oh, a distant place, master of the house, a windy comer of high, distant hills.
PHILLY (nodding with approval). Heâs a close man, and heâs right, surely.
PEGEEN. Thatâd be a lad with the sense of Solomon to have for the pot-boy, Michael James, if itâs the truth youâre seeking one at all.
PHILLY. The peelers is fearing him, and if youâd that lad in the house there isnât one of them would come smelling around if the dogs itself were lapping poteen from the dung-pit of the yard.
JIMMY. Braveryâs a treasure in a lonesome place, and a lad would kill his father, Iâm thinking, would face a foxy divil with a pitchpike on the flags of hell.
PEGEEN. Itâs the truth theyâre saying, and if Iâd that lad in the house, I wouldnât be
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