, that are near the fire, and carries them away
furtively.) It should be larceny, I'm thinking?
CHRISTY -- [dolefully.] I had it in my mind it was a different word and a
bigger.
PEGEEN. There's a queer lad. Were you never slapped in school, young fellow,
that you don't know the name of your deed?
CHRISTY -- [bashfully.] I'm slow at learning, a middling scholar only.
MICHAEL. If you're a dunce itself, you'd have a right to know that larceny's
robbing and stealing. Is it for the like of that you're wanting?
CHRISTY -- [with a flash of family pride.] -- 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.
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