with amazement and consternation, but with-
out anger. -- Going to the chapel! It's at mar-
riage you're fooling again, maybe? (Sarah
turns her back on her.) It was for that you
were washing your face, and you after sending
me for porter at the fall of night the way I'd
drink a good half from the jug? (Going


39

round in front of Sarah.) Is it at marriage
you're fooling again?
SARAH -- triumphantly. -- It is, Mary
Byrne. I'll be married now in a short while;
and from this day there will no one have a
right to call me a dirty name and I selling cans
in Wicklow or Wexford or the city of Dublin
itself.
MARY -- turning to Michael. -- And it's
yourself is wedding her, Michael Byrne?
MICHAEL -- gloomily. -- It is, God spare
us.
MARY -- looks at Sarah for a moment,
and then bursts out into a laugh of derision. --
Well, she's a tight, hardy girl, and it's no lie;
but I never knew till this day it was a black
born fool I had for a son. You'll breed asses,
I've heard them say, and poaching dogs, and
horses'd go licking the wind, but it's a hard