MAHON -- [making a grab at Christy.] -- Come here to me.

CHRISTY -- [more threateningly.] -- Leave me go, I'm saying.

MAHON. I will maybe, when your legs is limping, and your back is blue.

CROWD. Keep it up, the two of you. I'll back the old one. Now the playboy.

CHRISTY -- [in low and intense voice.] -- Shut your yelling, for if you're after making a mighty man of me this day by the power of a lie, you're setting me now to think if it's a poor thing to be lonesome, it's worse maybe to go mixing with the fools of earth. [Mahon makes a movement towards him.]

CHRISTY -- [almost shouting.] -- Keep off... lest I do show a blow unto the lot of you would set the guardian angels winking in the clouds above. [He swings round with a sudden rapid movement and picks up a loy.]

CROWD -- [half frightened, half amused.] -- He's going mad! Mind yourselves! Run from the idiot!

CHRISTY. If I am an idiot, I'm after hearing my voice this day saying words would raise the topknot on a poet in a merchant's town. I've won your racing, and your lepping, and...

MAHON. Shut your gullet and come on with me.

CHRISTY. I'm going, but I'll stretch you first. [He runs at old Mahon with the loy, chases him out of the door, followed by crowd and Widow Quin. There is a great noise outside, then a yell, and dead silence for a moment. Christy comes in, half dazed, and goes to fire.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming in, hurriedly, and going to him.] -- They're turning again you. Come on, or you'll be hanged, indeed.

CHRISTY. I'm thinking, from this out, Pegeen'll be giving me praises the same as in the hours gone by.

WIDOW QUIN -- [impatiently.] Come by the back-door. I'd think bad to have you stifled on the gallows tree.

CHRISTY -- [indignantly.] I will not, then. What good'd be my life-time, if I left Pegeen?

WIDOW QUIN. Come on, and you'll be no worse than you were last night; and you with a double murder this time to be telling to the girls.

CHRISTY. I'll not leave Pegeen Mike.

WIDOW QUIN -- [impatiently.] Isn't there the match of her in every parish public, from Binghamstown unto the plain of Meath? Come on, I tell you, and I'll find you finer sweethearts at each waning moon.

CHRISTY. It's Pegeen I'm seeking only, and what'd I care if you brought me a drift of chosen females, standing in their shifts itself, maybe, from this place to the Eastern World?

SARA -- [runs in, pulling off one of her petticoats.] -- They're going to hang him. (Holding out petticoat and shawl.) Fit these upon him, and let him run off to the east.

WIDOW QUIN. He's raving now; but we'll fit them on him, and I'll take him, in the ferry, to the Achill boat.

CHRISTY -- [struggling feebly.] -- Leave me go, will you? when I'm thinking of my luck to-day, for she will wed me surely, and I a proven hero in the end of all. [They try to fasten petticoat round him.]

WIDOW QUIN. Take his left hand, and we'll pull him now. Come on, young fellow.

CHRISTY -- [suddenly starting up.] -- You'll be taking me from her?

You're jealous, is it, of her wedding me? Go on from this. [He s.n.a.t.c.hes up a stool, and threatens them with it.]

WIDOW QUIN -- [going.] -- It's in the mad-house they should put him, not in jail, at all. We'll go by the back-door, to call the doctor, and we'll save him so. [She goes out, with Sara, through inner room. Men crowd in the doorway. Christy sits down again by the fire.]

MICHAEL -- [in a terrified whisper.] -- Is the old lad killed surely?

PHILLY. I'm after feeling the last gasps quitting his heart. [They peer in at Christy.]

MICHAEL -- [with a rope.] -- Look at the way he is. Twist a hangman's knot on it, and slip it over his head, while he's not minding at all.

PHILLY. Let you take it, Shaneen. You're the soberest of all that's here.

SHAWN. Is it me to go near him, and he the wickedest and worst with me?

Let you take it, Pegeen Mike.

PEGEEN. Come on, so. [She goes forward with the others, and they drop the double hitch over his head.]

CHRISTY. What ails you?

SHAWN -- [triumphantly, as they pull the rope tight on his arms.] -- Come on to the peelers, till they stretch you now.

CHRISTY. Me!

MICHAEL. If we took pity on you, the Lord G.o.d would, maybe, bring us ruin from the law to-day, so you'd best come easy, for hanging is an easy and a speedy end.

CHRISTY. I'll not stir. (To Pegeen.) And what is it you'll say to me, and I after doing it this time in the face of all?

PEGEEN. I'll say, a strange man is a marvel, with his mighty talk; but what's a squabble in your back-yard, and the blow of a loy, have taught me that there's a great gap between a gallous story and a dirty deed.

(To Men.) Take him on from this, or the lot of us will be likely put on trial for his deed to-day.

CHRISTY -- [with horror in his voice.] -- And it's yourself will send me off, to have a h.o.r.n.y-fingered hangman hitching his b.l.o.o.d.y slip-knots at the b.u.t.t of my ear.

MEN -- [pulling rope.] -- Come on, will you? [He is pulled down on the floor.]

CHRISTY -- [twisting his legs round the table.] -- Cut the rope, Pegeen, and I'll quit the lot of you, and live from this out, like the madmen of Keel, eating muck and green weeds, on the faces of the cliffs.

PEGEEN. And leave us to hang, is it, for a saucy liar, the like of you?

(To men.) Take him on, out from this.

SHAWN. Pull a twist on his neck, and squeeze him so.

PHILLY. Twist yourself. Sure he cannot hurt you, if you keep your distance from his teeth alone.

SHAWN. I'm afeard of him. (To Pegeen.) Lift a lighted sod, will you, and scorch his leg.

PEGEEN -- [blowing the fire, with a bellows.] Leave go now, young fellow, or I'll scorch your shins.

CHRISTY. You're blowing for to torture me (His voice rising and growing stronger.) That's your kind, is it? Then let the lot of you be wary, for, if I've to face the gallows, I'll have a gay march down, I tell you, and shed the blood of some of you before I die.

SHAWN -- [in terror.] -- Keep a good hold, Philly. Be wary, for the love of G.o.d. For I'm thinking he would liefest wreak his pains on me.

CHRISTY -- [almost gaily.] -- If I do lay my hands on you, it's the way you'll be at the fall of night, hanging as a scarecrow for the fowls of h.e.l.l. Ah, you'll have a gallous jaunt I'm saying, coaching out through Limbo with my father's ghost.

SHAWN -- [to Pegeen.] -- Make haste, will you? Oh, isn't he a holy terror, and isn't it true for Father Reilly, that all drink's a curse that has the lot of you so shaky and uncertain now?