e.] -- 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. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Agents?

CHRISTY. The divil a one.

MICHAEL. Landlords?

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.]

PHILLY. Well, that lad's a puzzle--the world.

JIMMY. He'd beat Dan Davies' circus, or the holy missioners making
sermons on the villainy of man. Try him again, Philly.

PHILLY. Did you strike golden guineas out of solder, young fellow, or
shilling coins itself?

CHRISTY. I did not, mister, not sixpence nor a farthing coin.

JIMMY. Did you marry three wives maybe? I'm told there's a sprinkling
have done that among the holy Luthers of the preaching north.

CHRISTY -- [shyly.] -- I never married with one, let alone with a couple
or three.

PHILLY. Maybe he went fighting for the Boers, the like of the man
beyond, was judged to be hanged, quartered and drawn. Were you off east,
young 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.] -- He's done nothing, so. (To Christy.)
If you didn't commit murder or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining,
or robbery, or butchery, or the like of them, there isn't anything that
would be worth your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at
all.

CHRISTY -- [his feelings hurt.] -- That's an unkindly thing to be saying
to a poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, a