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KING PELLINORE’S LITERARY MAGAZINE

WIDOW QUIN -- (going over.) -- around with that wound in the splen-
What ails you? dour of the sun. It was a bad blow
CHRISTY. It's the walking spirit surely, and you should have vexed
of my murdered da? him fearful to make him strike that
WIDOW QUIN -- (looking out.) -- gash in his da.
Is it that tramper? MAHON. Is it me?
CHRISTY -- (wildly.) Where'll I WIDOW QUIN -- (amusing her-
hide my poor body from that ghost of self.) -- Aye. And isn't it a great
hell? (The door is pushed open, and shame when the old and hardened do
old Mahon appears on threshold. torment the young?
Christy darts in behind door.) MAHON -- (raging.) Torment him
WIDOW QUIN -- (in great is it? And I after holding out with the
amusement.) -- Cod save you, my poor patience of a martyred saint till
man. there's nothing but destruction on,
MAHON -- (gruffly.) Did you see and I'm driven out in my old age with
a young lad passing this way in the none to aid me.
early morning or the fall of night? WIDOW QUIN -- (greatly
WIDOW QUIN. You're a queer amused.) -- It's a sacred wonder the
kind to walk in not saluting at all. way that wickedness will spoil a man.
MAHON. Did you see the young MAHON. My wickedness, is it?
lad? Amn't I after saying it is himself has
WIDOW QUIN -- (stiffly.) What me destroyed, and he a liar on walls, a
kind was he? talker of folly, a man you'd see
MAHON. An ugly young streeler stretched the half of the day in the
with a murderous gob on him, and a brown ferns with his belly to the sun.
little switch in his hand. I met a WIDOW QUIN. Not working at
tramper seen him coming this way at all?
the fall of night. MAHON. The divil a work, or if
WIDOW QUIN. There's harvest he did itself, you'd see him raising up
hundreds do be passing these days for a haystack like the stalk of a rush, or
the Sligo boat. For what is it you're driving our last cow till he broke her
wanting him, my poor man? leg at the hip, and when he wasn't at
MAHON. I want to destroy him that he'd be fooling over little birds
for breaking the head on me with the he had -- finches and felts -- or mak-
clout of a loy. (He takes off a big hat, ing mugs at his own self in the bit of
and shows his head in a mass of band- glass we had hung on the wall.
ages and plaster, with some pride.) It WIDOW QUIN -- (looking at
was he did that, and amn't I a great Christy.) -- What way was he so fool-
wonder to think I've traced him ten ish? It was running wild after the
days with that rent in my crown? girls may be?
WIDOW QUIN -- (taking his MAHON -- (with a shout of deri-
head in both hands and examining it sion.) -- Running wild, is it? If he
with extreme delight.) -- That was a seen a red petticoat coming swinging
great blow. And who hit you? A rob- over the hill, he'd be off to hide in the
ber maybe? sticks, and you'd see him shooting out
MAHON. It was my own son hit his sheep's eyes between the little
me, and he the divil a robber, or any- twigs and the leaves, and his two ears
thing else, but a dirty, stuttering lout. rising like a hare looking out through
WIDOW -- (letting go his skull a gap. Girls, indeed!
and wiping her hands in her apron.) - WIDOW QUIN. It was drink
- You'd best be wary of a mortified maybe?
scalp, I think they call it, lepping

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