A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way. He tries to pass by.

SARAH keeping in front of him. We are wanting a little word with your reverence.

PRIEST. I haven't a halfpenny at all. Leave the road I'm saying.

SARAH. It isn't a halfpenny we're asking, holy father; but we were thinking maybe we'd have a right to be getting married; and we were thinking it's yourself would marry us for not a halfpenny at all; for you're a kind man, your reverence, a kind man with the poor.

PRIEST with astonishment. Is it marry you for nothing at all?

SARAH. It is, your reverence; and we were thinking maybe you'd give us a little small bit of silver to pay for the ring.

PRIEST loudly. Let you hold your tongue; let you be quiet, Sarah Casey. I've no silver at all for the like of you; and if you want to be married, let you pay your pound. I'd do it for a pound only, and that's making it a sight cheaper than I'd make it for one of my own pairs is living here in the place.

SARAH. Where would the like of us get a pound, your reverence?

PRIEST. Wouldn't you easy get it with your selling asses, and making cans, and your stealing east and west in Wicklow and Wexford and the county Meath? He tries to pass her. Let you leave the road, and not be plaguing me more.

SARAH pleadingly, taking money from her pocket. Wouldn't you have a little mercy on us, your reverence? Holding out money. Wouldn't you marry us for a half a sovereign, and it a nice shiny one with a view on it of the living king's mamma?

PRIEST. If it's ten shillings you have, let you get ten more the same way, and I'll marry you then.

SARAH whining. It's two years we are getting that bit, your reverence, with our pence and our halfpence and an odd threepenny bit; and if you don't marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great drouth, will be drinking it to- morrow in the fair she puts her apron to her eyes, half sobbing, and then I won't be married any time, and I'll be saying till I'm an old woman: »It's a cruel and a wicked thing to be bred poor.«

PRIEST turning up towards the fire. Let you not be crying, Sarah Casey. It's a queer woman you are to be crying at the like of that, and you your whole life walking the roads.

SARAH sobbing. It's two years we are getting the gold, your reverence, and now you won't marry us for that bit, and we hard-working poor people do be making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the black smoke from the bits of twigs we do be burning.

 

An old woman is heard singing tipsily on the left.

 

PRIEST looking at the can Michael is making. When will you have that can done, Michael Byrne?

MICHAEL. In a short space only, your reverence, for I'm putting the last dab of solder on the rim.

PRIEST. Let you get a crown along with the ten shillings and the gallon can, Sarah Casey, and I will wed you so.

MARY suddenly shouting behind, tipsily. Larry was a fine lad, I'm saying; Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey –

MICHAEL. Whisht, now, the two of you. There's my mother coming, and she'd have us destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she's been drinking her fill.

MARY comes in singing. –

And when we asked him what way he'd die,

And he hanging unrepented,

»Begob,« says Larry, »that's all in my eye,

By the clergy first invented.«

SARAH. Give me the jug now, or you'll have it spilt in the ditch.

MARY holding the jug with both her hands, in a stilted voice. Let you leave me easy, Sarah Casey.