The Playboy of the Western World, J.M. Synge

• Act 1
• SHAWN [with awkward humor]. If it is, when we're wedded in a short while you'll have no call to complain, for I've little will to be walking off to wakes or weddings in the darkness of night.
  PAGEEN [with rather scornful good humour]. You're making might certain, Shaheen, that I'll wed you now.
  little Shawn, scared of the dark
• MICHAEL. If you're afraid, let Shawn Keogh stop along with you. It's the will of God, I'm thinking, himself should be seeing to you now.
  SHAWN [in horrified confusion]. I would and welcome, Michael James, but I'm afeard of Father Reilly; and what at all the Holy Father and the Cardinals of Rome be saying if they heard I did the like of that.
  not just scared of the dark, also the church
• SHAWN. The queer dying fellow's beyond looking over the ditch. He's come up, I'm thinking, stealing your hens. [Looks over his shoulder.] God help me, he's following me now [he runs into room], and if he's heard what I said, he'll be having my life, and I going home lonesome in the darkness of the night.
  Christy enters with the usual "God save all here!"
• PAGEEN [in mock rage]. Not speaking the truth, is it? Would you have me knock the head of you with the butt of the broom?
  CRISTY [twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror]. Don't strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.
  Christy's fugitive status explained
• SHAWN [to PIGEEN]. Are you wanting me to stop along with you and keep you from harm?
  PAGEEN [gruffly]. Didn't you say you were fearing Father Reilly?
  Shawn unsuccessfully trying to block the night's upcoming events
• WIDOW QUIN [gathering her shawl up]. Well, it's a terror to be aged a score. [To CHRISTY.] God bless you now, young fellow, and let you be wary, or there's right torment will await you here if you go romancing with her like, and she waiting only, as they bade me say, on a sheepskin parchment to be wed with Shawn Keogh of Killakeen.
  Pageen shews away the final attempt to intervene before the night.
• Act 2
• p83, girls come looking for Christy,
  SUSAN. I'm thinking Shawn Keogh was making game of us and there's no such man in it at all.
  HONOR [pointing to straw and quilt]. Look at that. He's been sleeping there in the night. Well, it'll be a hard case if he's gone off now, the way we'll never set our eyes on a man killed his father, and we after rising early and destroying ourselves running fast on the hill.
• p84, eggs, butter, and cake, from the girls to Christy, after confirming he did kill his father
  SARA [taking eggs she has brought]. Then my thousand welcomes to you, and I've run with a brace of duck eggs for your food to-day. Pageen's duck is no use, but these are the real rich sort. Hold out your hand and you'll see it's no lie I'm telling you.
• p85, Widow Quin appears, and we get the story of how Christy murdered his father,
  CHRISTY [beginning to be pleased]. It's a long story; you'd be destroyed listening.
  WIDOW QUIN. Don't be letting on to be shy, a fine, gamey, treacherous lad the like of you. Was it in your house beyond you cracked his skull?
• p85, Christy's father wanted him to wed an old widow,
  WIDOW QUIN. And what kind was she?
  CHRISTY [with horror]. A walking terror from beyond the hills, and she two score and five years, and two hundredweights and five pounds in the weighing scales, with a limping leg on her, and a blinded eye, and she a noted woman of misbehavior with the old and young.
• p86, Pagan returns, and shews the other women away,
  SARA. I've forgotten my purse.
  PAGEEN. Then you best be getting it and not fooling us here. [To the WIDOW QUIN, with more elaborate scorn.] And what is it that you're wanting, Widow Quin?
• p88, Pageen, on a pedestal to Christy,
  CHRISTY [with infinite admiration]. How would a lovely handsome woman the like of you be lonesome when all men should be thronging around to hear the sweetness of your voice, and the little infant children should be pestering your steps, I'm thinking, and you walking the roads.
• p89, Shawn arrives, and diverts Pageen to beg to Christy,
  SHAWN [to PAGEEN]. I was passing below, and I seen your mountain sheep eating cabbages in Jimmy's field. Run up or they'll be bursting surely.
• p90, Shawn attempts to bribe Christy to leave,
  SHAWN [trembling with anxiety]. I'll give it to you and my new hat [pulling it out of hamper]; and my breeches with the double seat [pulling it off]; and my new coat is woven from the blackest shearings for the three miles around [giving him the coat]; I'll give you the whole of them, and my blessing, and the blessings of Father Reilly itself, maybe, if you'll quit from this and leave us in the peace we had till last night at the fall of dark.
• p91, while Christy tries on the clothes, Widow Quin now offers her services, for an equally steep price,
  WIDOW QUIN. A ewe's a small thing, but what would you give me if I did wed him and did save you so?
• p92, enter Christy's not-so-dead father
  WIDOW QUIN [in great amusement]. God save you, my poor man.
  MAHON [gruffly]. Did you see a young lad passing this way in the early morning or the fall of night?
• p95, after getting Mahon to leave, and Christy still professing his love of Pageen, seeks the same deal she had from Shawn,
  WIDOW QUIN [looks at him for a moment]. If I aid you, will you swear to give me a right of way I want, and a mountainy ram, and a load of dung at Michaelmas, the time that you'll be master here?
  CHRISTY. I will, by the elements and stars of night.
  WIDOW QUIN. Then we'll not say a word of the old fellow, the way Pageen won't know your story till the end of time.