We cannot be waiting and
watching
through seven years.
Yeats
Look at the silks and the satins and the grandeurs I
brought away! Look at that now! [_Holds up a velvet cloak. _] It's a
good little jacket for myself will come out of it. It's the singers
will be stopping their songs and the jobbers turning from their cattle
in the fairs to be taking a view of the laces of it and the buttons!
It's my far-off cousins will be drawing from far and near!
BIDDY.
There was not so much gold in it all as what they were saying there
was. Or maybe that fleet of Whiteboys had the place ransacked before
we ourselves came in. Bad cess to them that put it in my mind to go
gather up the full of my bag of horseshoes out of the forge. Silver
they were saying they were, pure white silver; and what are they in
the end but only hardened iron! A bad end to them! [_Flings away
horseshoes. _] The time I will go robbing big houses again it will
not be in the light of the full moon I will go doing it, that does
be causing every common thing to shine out as if for a deceit and a
mockery. It's not shining at all they are at this time, but duck yellow
and dark.
NANNY.
To leave the big house blazing after us, it was that crowned all!
Two houses to be burned to ashes in the one night. It is likely the
servant-girls were rising from the feathers and the cocks crowing
from the rafters for seven miles around, taking the flames to be the
whitening of the dawn.
BIDDY.
It is the lad is stretched beyond you have to be thankful to for that.
There was never seen a leader was his equal for spirit and for daring.
Making a great scatter of the guards the way he did. Running up roofs
and ladders, the fire in his hand, till you'd think he would be apt to
strike his head against the stars.
NANNY.
I partly guessed death was near him, and the queer shining look he
had in his two eyes, and he throwing sparks east and west through the
beams. I wonder now was it some inward wound he got, or did some hardy
lad of the Brownes give him a tip on the skull unknownst in the fight?
It was I myself found him, and the troop of the Whiteboys gone, and he
lying by the side of a wall as weak as if he had knocked a mountain. I
failed to waken him trying him with the sharpness of my nails, and his
head fell back when I moved it, and I knew him to be spent and gone.
BIDDY.
It's a pity you not to have left him where he was lying and said no
word at all to Paudeen or to that son you have, that kept us back from
following on, bringing him here to this shelter on sacks and upon poles.
NANNY.
What way could I help letting a screech out of myself, and the life but
just gone out of him in the darkness, and not a living Christian by his
side but myself and the great God?
BIDDY.
It's on ourselves the vengeance of the red soldiers will fall, they to
find us sitting here the same as hares in a tuft. It would be best for
us follow after the rest of the army of the Whiteboys.
NANNY.
Whisht! I tell you. The lads are cracked about him. To get but the wind
of the word of leaving him, it's little but they'd knock the head off
the two of us. Whisht!
_Enter JOHNNY BACACH with candles. _
JOHNNY [_standing over MARTIN_].
Wouldn't you say now there was some malice or some venom in the air,
that is striking down one after another the whole of the heroes of the
Gael?
PAUDEEN.
It makes a person be thinking of the four last ends, death and
judgment, heaven and hell. Indeed and indeed my heart lies with him. It
is well I knew what man he was under his by-name and his disguise.
[_Sings. _] Oh, Johnny Gibbons, it's you were the prop to us.
You to have left us, we are put astray!
JOHNNY.
It is lost we are now and broken to the end of our days. There is no
satisfaction at all but to be destroying the English, and where now
will we get so good a leader again? Lay him out fair and straight upon
a stone, till I will let loose the secret of my heart keening him!
[_Sets out candles on a rock, propping them up with
stones. _
NANNY.
Is it mould candles you have brought to set around him, Johnny Bacach?
It is great riches you should have in your pocket to be going to those
lengths and not to be content with dips.
JOHNNY.
It is lengths I will not be going to the time the life will be gone out
of your own body. It is not your corpse I will be wishful to hold in
honour the way I hold this corpse in honour.
NANNY.
That's the way always, there will be grief and quietness in the house
if it is a young person has died, but funning and springing and
tricking one another if it is an old person's corpse is in it. There is
no compassion at all for the old.
PAUDEEN.
It is he would have got leave for the Gael to be as high as the Gall.
Believe me, he was in the prophecies. Let you not be comparing yourself
with the like of him.
NANNY.
Why wouldn't I be comparing myself? Look at all that was against me in
the world. Would you be matching me against a man of his sort, that had
the people shouting him and that had nothing to do but to die and to go
to heaven?
JOHNNY.
The day you go to heaven that you may never come back alive out of it!
But it is not yourself will ever hear the saints hammering at their
musics! It is you will be moving through the ages, chains upon you,
and you in the form of a dog or a monster. I tell you that one will go
through Purgatory as quick as lightning through a thorn-bush.
NANNY.
That's the way, that the way.
[_Croons. _] Three that are watching my time to run,
The worm, the devil, and my son,
To see a loop around their neck
It's that would make my heart to lep!
JOHNNY.
Five white candles. I wouldn't begrudge them to him indeed. If he had
held out and held up it is my belief he would have freed Ireland!
PAUDEEN.
Wait till the full light of the day and you'll see the burying he'll
have. It is not in this place we will be waking him. I'll make a call
to the two hundred Ribbons he was to lead on to the attack on the
barracks at Aughanish. They will bring him marching to his grave upon
the hill. He had surely some gift from the other world, I wouldn't say
but he had power from the other side.
ANDREW [_coming in very shaky_].
Well, it was a great night he gave to the village, and it is long
till it will be forgotten. I tell you the whole of the neighbours are
up against him. There is no one at all this morning to set the mills
going. There was no bread baked in the night-time, the horses are not
fed in the stalls, the cows are not milked in the sheds. I met no man
able to make a curse this night but he put it on my head and on the
head of the boy that is lying there before us . . . Is there no sign of
life in him at all?
JOHNNY.
What way would there be a sign of life and the life gone out of him
this three hours or more?
ANDREW.
He was lying in his sleep for a while yesterday, and he wakened again
after another while.
NANNY.
He will not waken, I tell you. I held his hand in my own and it getting
cold as if you were pouring on it the coldest cold water, and no
running in his blood. He is gone sure enough and the life is gone out
of him.
ANDREW.
Maybe so, maybe so. It seems to me yesterday his cheeks were bloomy all
the while, and now he is as pale as wood ashes. Sure we all must come
to it at the last. Well, my white-headed darling, it is you were the
bush among us all, and you to be cut down in your prime. Gentle and
simple, everyone liked you. It is no narrow heart you had, it is you
were for spending and not for getting. It is you made a good wake for
yourself, scattering your estate in one night only in beer and in wine
for the whole province; and that you may be sitting in the middle of
Paradise and in the chair of the Graces!
JOHNNY.
Amen to that. It's pity I didn't think the time I sent for yourself to
send the little lad of a messenger looking for a priest to overtake
him. It might be in the end the Almighty is the best man for us all!
ANDREW.
Sure I sent him on myself to bid the priest to come. Living or dead I
would wish to do all that is rightful for the last and the best of my
own race and generation.
BIDDY [_jumping up_].
Is it the priest you are bringing in among us? Where is the sense
in that? Aren't we robbed enough up to this with the expense of the
candles and the like?
JOHNNY.
If it is that poor starved priest he called to that came talking in
secret signs to the man that is gone, it is likely he will ask nothing
for what he has to do. There is many a priest is a Whiteboy in his
heart.
NANNY.
I tell you, if you brought him tied in a bag he would not say an Our
Father for you, without you having a half-crown at the top of your
fingers.
BIDDY.
There is no priest is any good at all but a spoiled priest. A one that
would take a drop of drink, it is he would have courage to face the
hosts of trouble. Rout them out he would, the same as a shoal of fish
from out the weeds. It's best not to vex a priest, or to run against
them at all.
NANNY.
It's yourself humbled yourself well to one the time you were sick in
the gaol and had like to die, and he bade you to give over the throwing
of the cups.
BIDDY.
Ah, plaster of Paris I gave him. I took to it again and I free upon the
roads.
NANNY.
Much good you are doing with it to yourself or any other one. Aren't
you after telling that corpse no later than yesterday that he was
coming within the best day of his life?
JOHNNY.
Whisht, let ye. Here is the priest coming.
_FATHER JOHN comes in. _
FATHER JOHN.
It is surely not true that he is dead?
JOHNNY.
The spirit went from him about the middle hour of the night. We brought
him here to this sheltered place. We were loth to leave him without
friends.
FATHER JOHN.
Where is he?
JOHNNY [_taking up sacks_].
Lying there stiff and stark. He has a very quiet look as if there was
no sin at all or no great trouble upon his mind.
FATHER JOHN [_kneels and touches him_].
He is not dead.
BIDDY [_pointing to NANNY_].
He is dead. If it was letting on he was, he would not have let that one
rob him and search him the way she did.
FATHER JOHN.
It has the appearance of death, but it is not death. He is in a trance.
PAUDEEN.
Is it Heaven and Hell he is walking at this time to be bringing back
newses of the sinners in pain?
BIDDY.
I was thinking myself it might away he was, riding on white horses with
the riders of the forths.
JOHNNY.
He will have great wonders to tell out the time he will rise up from
the ground. It is a pity he not to waken at this time and to lead us on
to overcome the troop of the English. Sure those that are in a trance
get strength, that they can walk on water.
ANDREW.
It was Father John wakened him yesterday the time he was lying in the
same way. Wasn't I telling you it was for that I called to him?
BIDDY.
Waken him now till they'll see did I tell any lie in my foretelling. I
knew well by the signs, he was coming within the best day of his life.
PAUDEEN.
And not dead at all! We'll be marching to attack Dublin itself within a
week. The horn will blow for him, and all good men will gather to him.
Hurry on, Father, and waken him.
FATHER JOHN.
I will not waken him. I will not bring him back from where he is.
JOHNNY.
And how long will it be before he will waken of himself?
FATHER JOHN.
Maybe to-day, maybe to-morrow, it is hard to be certain.
BIDDY.
If it is _away_ he is he might be away seven years. To be lying like
a stump of a tree and using no food and the world not able to knock a
word out of him, I know the signs of it well.
JOHNNY.
We cannot be waiting and watching through seven years. If the business
he has started is to be done we have to go on here and now. The
time there is any delay, that is the time the Government will get
information. Waken him now, Father, and you'll get the blessing of the
generations.
FATHER JOHN.
I will not bring him back. God will bring him back in his own good
time. For all I know he may be seeing the hidden things of God.
JOHNNY.
He might slip away in his dream. It is best to raise him up now.
ANDREW.
Waken him, Father John. I thought he was surely dead this time,
and what way could I go face Thomas through all that is left of my
lifetime, after me standing up to face him the way I did? And if I do
take a little drop of an odd night, sure I'd be very lonesome if I did
not take it. All the world knows it's not for love of what I drink, but
for love of the people that do be with me! Waken him, Father, or maybe
I would waken him myself. [_Shakes him. _]
FATHER JOHN.
Lift your hand from touching him. Leave him to himself and to the power
of God.
JOHNNY.
If you will not bring him back why wouldn't we ourselves do it? Go on
now, it is best for you to do it yourself.
FATHER JOHN.
I woke him yesterday. He was angry with me, he could not get to the
heart of the command.
JOHNNY.
If he did not, he got a command from myself that satisfied him, and a
message.
FATHER JOHN.
He did--he took it from you--and how do I know what devil's message it
may have been that brought him into that devil's work, destruction and
drunkenness and burnings! That was not a message from heaven! It was
I awoke him, it was I kept him from hearing what was maybe a divine
message, a voice of truth, and he heard you speak and he believed the
message was brought by you. You have made use of your deceit and his
mistaking--you have left him without house or means to support him, you
are striving to destroy and to drag him to entire ruin. I will not help
you, I would rather see him die in his trance and go into God's hands
than awake him and see him go into hell's mouth with vagabonds and
outcasts like you!
JOHNNY [_turning to BIDDY_].
You should have knowledge, Biddy Lally, of the means to bring back a
man that is away.
BIDDY.
The power of the earth will do it through its herbs, and the power of
the air will do it kindling fire into flame.
JOHNNY.
Rise up and make no delay. Stretch out and gather a handful of an herb
that will bring him back from whatever place he is in.
BIDDY.
Where is the use of herbs, and his teeth clenched the way he could not
use them?
JOHNNY.
Take fire so in the devil's name, and put it to the soles of his feet.
[_Takes a lighted sod from fire. _
FATHER JOHN.
Let him alone, I say! [_Dashes away the sod. _
JOHNNY.
I will not leave him alone! I will not give in to leave him swooning
there and the country waiting for him to awake!
FATHER JOHN.
I tell you I awoke him! I sent him into thieves' company! I will not
have him wakened again and evil things it maybe waiting to take hold of
him! Back from him, back, I say! Will you dare to lay a hand on me! You
cannot do it! You cannot touch him against my will!
BIDDY.
Mind yourself, do not be bringing us under the curse of the Church.
[_JOHNNY steps back. MARTIN moves. _
FATHER JOHN.
It is God has him in His care. It is He is awaking him. [_MARTIN has
risen to his elbow. _] Do not touch him, do not speak to him, he may be
hearing great secrets.
MARTIN.
That music, I must go nearer--sweet marvellous music--louder than the
trampling of the unicorns; far louder, though the mountain is shaking
with their feet--high joyous music.
FATHER JOHN.
Hush, he is listening to the music of Heaven!
MARTIN.
Take me to you, musicians, wherever you are! I will go nearer to you;
I hear you better now, more and more joyful; that is strange, it is
strange.
FATHER JOHN.
He is getting some secret.
MARTIN.
It is the music of Paradise, that is certain, somebody said that. It is
certainly the music of Paradise. Ah, now I hear, now I understand. It
is made of the continual clashing of swords!
JOHNNY.
That is the best music. We will clash them sure enough. We will clash
our swords and our pikes on the bayonets of the red soldiers. It is
well you rose up from the dead to lead us! Come on, now, come on!
MARTIN.
Who are you? Ah, I remember--where are you asking me to come to?
PAUDEEN.
To come on, to be sure, to the attack on the barracks at Aughanish. To
carry on the work you took in hand last night.
MARTIN.
What work did I take in hand last night? Oh, yes, I remember--some big
house--we burned it down--but I had not understood the vision when I did
that. I had not heard the command right. That was not the work I was
sent to do.
PAUDEEN.
Rise up now and bid us what to do. Your great name itself will clear
the road before you. It is you yourself will have freed all Ireland
before the stooks will be in stacks!
MARTIN.
Listen, I will explain--I have misled you. It is only now I have the
whole vision plain. As I lay there I saw through everything, I know
all. It was but a frenzy that going out to burn and to destroy. What
have I to do with the foreign army? What I have to pierce is the wild
heart of time. My business is not reformation but revelation.
JOHNNY.
If you are going to turn back now from leading us, you are no better
than any other traitor that ever gave up the work he took in hand. Let
you come and face now the two hundred men you brought out daring the
power of the law last night, and give them your reason for failing them.
MARTIN.
I was mistaken when I set out to destroy Church and Law. The battle we
have to fight is fought out in our own mind. There is a fiery moment,
perhaps once in a lifetime, and in that moment we see the only thing
that matters. It is in that moment the great battles are lost and won,
for in that moment we are a part of the host of heaven.
PAUDEEN.
Have you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises and with
your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to ridicule us,
it is the last day you will live!
JOHNNY.
The curse of my heart on you! It would be right to send you to your own
place on the flagstone of the traitors in hell. When once I have made
an end of you I will be as well satisfied to be going to my death for
it as if I was going home!
MARTIN.
Father John, Father John, can you not hear? Can you not see? Are you
blind? Are you deaf?
FATHER JOHN.
What is it? What is it?
MARTIN.
There on the mountain, a thousand white unicorns trampling; a thousand
riders with their swords drawn--the swords clashing! Oh, the sound of
the swords, the sound of the clashing of the swords!
[_He goes slowly off stage. JOHNNY takes up a stone to
throw at him. _
FATHER JOHN [_seizing his arm_].
Stop--do you not see he is beyond the world?
BIDDY.
Keep your hand off him, Johnny Bacach. If he is gone wild and cracked,
that's natural. Those that have been wakened from a trance on a sudden
are apt to go bad and light in the head.
PAUDEEN.
If it is madness is on him, it is not he himself should pay the penalty.
BIDDY.
To prey on the mind it does, and rises into the head. There are some
would go over any height and would have great power in their madness.
It is maybe to some secret cleft he is going, to get knowledge of the
great cure for all things, or of the Plough that was hidden in the old
times, the Golden Plough.
PAUDEEN.
It seemed as if he was talking through honey. He had the look of one
that had seen great wonders. It is maybe among the old heroes of
Ireland he went raising armies for our help.
FATHER JOHN.
God take him in his care and keep him from lying spirits and from all
delusions!
JOHNNY.
We have got candles here, Father. We had them to put around his body.
Maybe they would keep away the evil things of the air.
PAUDEEN.
Light them so, and he will say out a Mass for him the same as in a
lime-washed church.
[_They light the candles. _
_THOMAS comes in. _
THOMAS.
Where is he? I am come to warn him. The destruction he did in the
night-time has been heard of. The soldiers are out after him and the
constables--there are two of the constables not far off--there are others
on every side--they heard he was here in the mountain--where is he?
FATHER JOHN.
He has gone up the path.
THOMAS.
Hurry after him! Tell him to hide himself--this attack he had a hand in
is a hanging crime. Tell him to hide himself, to come to me when all is
quiet--bad as his doings are, he is my own brother's son; I will get him
on to a ship that will be going to France.
FATHER JOHN.
That will be best, send him back to the Brothers and to the wise
Bishops. They can unravel this tangle, I cannot. I cannot be sure of
the truth.
THOMAS.
Here are the constables, he will see them and get away. Say no word.
The Lord be praised that he is out of sight.
_Constables_ come in. _
CONSTABLE.
The man we are looking for, where is he? He was seen coming here along
with you. You have to give him up into the power of the law.
JOHNNY.
We will not give him up. Go back out of this or you will be sorry.
PAUDEEN.
We are not in dread of you or the like of you.
BIDDY.
Throw them down over the rocks!
NANNY.
Give them to the picking of the crows!
ALL.
brought away! Look at that now! [_Holds up a velvet cloak. _] It's a
good little jacket for myself will come out of it. It's the singers
will be stopping their songs and the jobbers turning from their cattle
in the fairs to be taking a view of the laces of it and the buttons!
It's my far-off cousins will be drawing from far and near!
BIDDY.
There was not so much gold in it all as what they were saying there
was. Or maybe that fleet of Whiteboys had the place ransacked before
we ourselves came in. Bad cess to them that put it in my mind to go
gather up the full of my bag of horseshoes out of the forge. Silver
they were saying they were, pure white silver; and what are they in
the end but only hardened iron! A bad end to them! [_Flings away
horseshoes. _] The time I will go robbing big houses again it will
not be in the light of the full moon I will go doing it, that does
be causing every common thing to shine out as if for a deceit and a
mockery. It's not shining at all they are at this time, but duck yellow
and dark.
NANNY.
To leave the big house blazing after us, it was that crowned all!
Two houses to be burned to ashes in the one night. It is likely the
servant-girls were rising from the feathers and the cocks crowing
from the rafters for seven miles around, taking the flames to be the
whitening of the dawn.
BIDDY.
It is the lad is stretched beyond you have to be thankful to for that.
There was never seen a leader was his equal for spirit and for daring.
Making a great scatter of the guards the way he did. Running up roofs
and ladders, the fire in his hand, till you'd think he would be apt to
strike his head against the stars.
NANNY.
I partly guessed death was near him, and the queer shining look he
had in his two eyes, and he throwing sparks east and west through the
beams. I wonder now was it some inward wound he got, or did some hardy
lad of the Brownes give him a tip on the skull unknownst in the fight?
It was I myself found him, and the troop of the Whiteboys gone, and he
lying by the side of a wall as weak as if he had knocked a mountain. I
failed to waken him trying him with the sharpness of my nails, and his
head fell back when I moved it, and I knew him to be spent and gone.
BIDDY.
It's a pity you not to have left him where he was lying and said no
word at all to Paudeen or to that son you have, that kept us back from
following on, bringing him here to this shelter on sacks and upon poles.
NANNY.
What way could I help letting a screech out of myself, and the life but
just gone out of him in the darkness, and not a living Christian by his
side but myself and the great God?
BIDDY.
It's on ourselves the vengeance of the red soldiers will fall, they to
find us sitting here the same as hares in a tuft. It would be best for
us follow after the rest of the army of the Whiteboys.
NANNY.
Whisht! I tell you. The lads are cracked about him. To get but the wind
of the word of leaving him, it's little but they'd knock the head off
the two of us. Whisht!
_Enter JOHNNY BACACH with candles. _
JOHNNY [_standing over MARTIN_].
Wouldn't you say now there was some malice or some venom in the air,
that is striking down one after another the whole of the heroes of the
Gael?
PAUDEEN.
It makes a person be thinking of the four last ends, death and
judgment, heaven and hell. Indeed and indeed my heart lies with him. It
is well I knew what man he was under his by-name and his disguise.
[_Sings. _] Oh, Johnny Gibbons, it's you were the prop to us.
You to have left us, we are put astray!
JOHNNY.
It is lost we are now and broken to the end of our days. There is no
satisfaction at all but to be destroying the English, and where now
will we get so good a leader again? Lay him out fair and straight upon
a stone, till I will let loose the secret of my heart keening him!
[_Sets out candles on a rock, propping them up with
stones. _
NANNY.
Is it mould candles you have brought to set around him, Johnny Bacach?
It is great riches you should have in your pocket to be going to those
lengths and not to be content with dips.
JOHNNY.
It is lengths I will not be going to the time the life will be gone out
of your own body. It is not your corpse I will be wishful to hold in
honour the way I hold this corpse in honour.
NANNY.
That's the way always, there will be grief and quietness in the house
if it is a young person has died, but funning and springing and
tricking one another if it is an old person's corpse is in it. There is
no compassion at all for the old.
PAUDEEN.
It is he would have got leave for the Gael to be as high as the Gall.
Believe me, he was in the prophecies. Let you not be comparing yourself
with the like of him.
NANNY.
Why wouldn't I be comparing myself? Look at all that was against me in
the world. Would you be matching me against a man of his sort, that had
the people shouting him and that had nothing to do but to die and to go
to heaven?
JOHNNY.
The day you go to heaven that you may never come back alive out of it!
But it is not yourself will ever hear the saints hammering at their
musics! It is you will be moving through the ages, chains upon you,
and you in the form of a dog or a monster. I tell you that one will go
through Purgatory as quick as lightning through a thorn-bush.
NANNY.
That's the way, that the way.
[_Croons. _] Three that are watching my time to run,
The worm, the devil, and my son,
To see a loop around their neck
It's that would make my heart to lep!
JOHNNY.
Five white candles. I wouldn't begrudge them to him indeed. If he had
held out and held up it is my belief he would have freed Ireland!
PAUDEEN.
Wait till the full light of the day and you'll see the burying he'll
have. It is not in this place we will be waking him. I'll make a call
to the two hundred Ribbons he was to lead on to the attack on the
barracks at Aughanish. They will bring him marching to his grave upon
the hill. He had surely some gift from the other world, I wouldn't say
but he had power from the other side.
ANDREW [_coming in very shaky_].
Well, it was a great night he gave to the village, and it is long
till it will be forgotten. I tell you the whole of the neighbours are
up against him. There is no one at all this morning to set the mills
going. There was no bread baked in the night-time, the horses are not
fed in the stalls, the cows are not milked in the sheds. I met no man
able to make a curse this night but he put it on my head and on the
head of the boy that is lying there before us . . . Is there no sign of
life in him at all?
JOHNNY.
What way would there be a sign of life and the life gone out of him
this three hours or more?
ANDREW.
He was lying in his sleep for a while yesterday, and he wakened again
after another while.
NANNY.
He will not waken, I tell you. I held his hand in my own and it getting
cold as if you were pouring on it the coldest cold water, and no
running in his blood. He is gone sure enough and the life is gone out
of him.
ANDREW.
Maybe so, maybe so. It seems to me yesterday his cheeks were bloomy all
the while, and now he is as pale as wood ashes. Sure we all must come
to it at the last. Well, my white-headed darling, it is you were the
bush among us all, and you to be cut down in your prime. Gentle and
simple, everyone liked you. It is no narrow heart you had, it is you
were for spending and not for getting. It is you made a good wake for
yourself, scattering your estate in one night only in beer and in wine
for the whole province; and that you may be sitting in the middle of
Paradise and in the chair of the Graces!
JOHNNY.
Amen to that. It's pity I didn't think the time I sent for yourself to
send the little lad of a messenger looking for a priest to overtake
him. It might be in the end the Almighty is the best man for us all!
ANDREW.
Sure I sent him on myself to bid the priest to come. Living or dead I
would wish to do all that is rightful for the last and the best of my
own race and generation.
BIDDY [_jumping up_].
Is it the priest you are bringing in among us? Where is the sense
in that? Aren't we robbed enough up to this with the expense of the
candles and the like?
JOHNNY.
If it is that poor starved priest he called to that came talking in
secret signs to the man that is gone, it is likely he will ask nothing
for what he has to do. There is many a priest is a Whiteboy in his
heart.
NANNY.
I tell you, if you brought him tied in a bag he would not say an Our
Father for you, without you having a half-crown at the top of your
fingers.
BIDDY.
There is no priest is any good at all but a spoiled priest. A one that
would take a drop of drink, it is he would have courage to face the
hosts of trouble. Rout them out he would, the same as a shoal of fish
from out the weeds. It's best not to vex a priest, or to run against
them at all.
NANNY.
It's yourself humbled yourself well to one the time you were sick in
the gaol and had like to die, and he bade you to give over the throwing
of the cups.
BIDDY.
Ah, plaster of Paris I gave him. I took to it again and I free upon the
roads.
NANNY.
Much good you are doing with it to yourself or any other one. Aren't
you after telling that corpse no later than yesterday that he was
coming within the best day of his life?
JOHNNY.
Whisht, let ye. Here is the priest coming.
_FATHER JOHN comes in. _
FATHER JOHN.
It is surely not true that he is dead?
JOHNNY.
The spirit went from him about the middle hour of the night. We brought
him here to this sheltered place. We were loth to leave him without
friends.
FATHER JOHN.
Where is he?
JOHNNY [_taking up sacks_].
Lying there stiff and stark. He has a very quiet look as if there was
no sin at all or no great trouble upon his mind.
FATHER JOHN [_kneels and touches him_].
He is not dead.
BIDDY [_pointing to NANNY_].
He is dead. If it was letting on he was, he would not have let that one
rob him and search him the way she did.
FATHER JOHN.
It has the appearance of death, but it is not death. He is in a trance.
PAUDEEN.
Is it Heaven and Hell he is walking at this time to be bringing back
newses of the sinners in pain?
BIDDY.
I was thinking myself it might away he was, riding on white horses with
the riders of the forths.
JOHNNY.
He will have great wonders to tell out the time he will rise up from
the ground. It is a pity he not to waken at this time and to lead us on
to overcome the troop of the English. Sure those that are in a trance
get strength, that they can walk on water.
ANDREW.
It was Father John wakened him yesterday the time he was lying in the
same way. Wasn't I telling you it was for that I called to him?
BIDDY.
Waken him now till they'll see did I tell any lie in my foretelling. I
knew well by the signs, he was coming within the best day of his life.
PAUDEEN.
And not dead at all! We'll be marching to attack Dublin itself within a
week. The horn will blow for him, and all good men will gather to him.
Hurry on, Father, and waken him.
FATHER JOHN.
I will not waken him. I will not bring him back from where he is.
JOHNNY.
And how long will it be before he will waken of himself?
FATHER JOHN.
Maybe to-day, maybe to-morrow, it is hard to be certain.
BIDDY.
If it is _away_ he is he might be away seven years. To be lying like
a stump of a tree and using no food and the world not able to knock a
word out of him, I know the signs of it well.
JOHNNY.
We cannot be waiting and watching through seven years. If the business
he has started is to be done we have to go on here and now. The
time there is any delay, that is the time the Government will get
information. Waken him now, Father, and you'll get the blessing of the
generations.
FATHER JOHN.
I will not bring him back. God will bring him back in his own good
time. For all I know he may be seeing the hidden things of God.
JOHNNY.
He might slip away in his dream. It is best to raise him up now.
ANDREW.
Waken him, Father John. I thought he was surely dead this time,
and what way could I go face Thomas through all that is left of my
lifetime, after me standing up to face him the way I did? And if I do
take a little drop of an odd night, sure I'd be very lonesome if I did
not take it. All the world knows it's not for love of what I drink, but
for love of the people that do be with me! Waken him, Father, or maybe
I would waken him myself. [_Shakes him. _]
FATHER JOHN.
Lift your hand from touching him. Leave him to himself and to the power
of God.
JOHNNY.
If you will not bring him back why wouldn't we ourselves do it? Go on
now, it is best for you to do it yourself.
FATHER JOHN.
I woke him yesterday. He was angry with me, he could not get to the
heart of the command.
JOHNNY.
If he did not, he got a command from myself that satisfied him, and a
message.
FATHER JOHN.
He did--he took it from you--and how do I know what devil's message it
may have been that brought him into that devil's work, destruction and
drunkenness and burnings! That was not a message from heaven! It was
I awoke him, it was I kept him from hearing what was maybe a divine
message, a voice of truth, and he heard you speak and he believed the
message was brought by you. You have made use of your deceit and his
mistaking--you have left him without house or means to support him, you
are striving to destroy and to drag him to entire ruin. I will not help
you, I would rather see him die in his trance and go into God's hands
than awake him and see him go into hell's mouth with vagabonds and
outcasts like you!
JOHNNY [_turning to BIDDY_].
You should have knowledge, Biddy Lally, of the means to bring back a
man that is away.
BIDDY.
The power of the earth will do it through its herbs, and the power of
the air will do it kindling fire into flame.
JOHNNY.
Rise up and make no delay. Stretch out and gather a handful of an herb
that will bring him back from whatever place he is in.
BIDDY.
Where is the use of herbs, and his teeth clenched the way he could not
use them?
JOHNNY.
Take fire so in the devil's name, and put it to the soles of his feet.
[_Takes a lighted sod from fire. _
FATHER JOHN.
Let him alone, I say! [_Dashes away the sod. _
JOHNNY.
I will not leave him alone! I will not give in to leave him swooning
there and the country waiting for him to awake!
FATHER JOHN.
I tell you I awoke him! I sent him into thieves' company! I will not
have him wakened again and evil things it maybe waiting to take hold of
him! Back from him, back, I say! Will you dare to lay a hand on me! You
cannot do it! You cannot touch him against my will!
BIDDY.
Mind yourself, do not be bringing us under the curse of the Church.
[_JOHNNY steps back. MARTIN moves. _
FATHER JOHN.
It is God has him in His care. It is He is awaking him. [_MARTIN has
risen to his elbow. _] Do not touch him, do not speak to him, he may be
hearing great secrets.
MARTIN.
That music, I must go nearer--sweet marvellous music--louder than the
trampling of the unicorns; far louder, though the mountain is shaking
with their feet--high joyous music.
FATHER JOHN.
Hush, he is listening to the music of Heaven!
MARTIN.
Take me to you, musicians, wherever you are! I will go nearer to you;
I hear you better now, more and more joyful; that is strange, it is
strange.
FATHER JOHN.
He is getting some secret.
MARTIN.
It is the music of Paradise, that is certain, somebody said that. It is
certainly the music of Paradise. Ah, now I hear, now I understand. It
is made of the continual clashing of swords!
JOHNNY.
That is the best music. We will clash them sure enough. We will clash
our swords and our pikes on the bayonets of the red soldiers. It is
well you rose up from the dead to lead us! Come on, now, come on!
MARTIN.
Who are you? Ah, I remember--where are you asking me to come to?
PAUDEEN.
To come on, to be sure, to the attack on the barracks at Aughanish. To
carry on the work you took in hand last night.
MARTIN.
What work did I take in hand last night? Oh, yes, I remember--some big
house--we burned it down--but I had not understood the vision when I did
that. I had not heard the command right. That was not the work I was
sent to do.
PAUDEEN.
Rise up now and bid us what to do. Your great name itself will clear
the road before you. It is you yourself will have freed all Ireland
before the stooks will be in stacks!
MARTIN.
Listen, I will explain--I have misled you. It is only now I have the
whole vision plain. As I lay there I saw through everything, I know
all. It was but a frenzy that going out to burn and to destroy. What
have I to do with the foreign army? What I have to pierce is the wild
heart of time. My business is not reformation but revelation.
JOHNNY.
If you are going to turn back now from leading us, you are no better
than any other traitor that ever gave up the work he took in hand. Let
you come and face now the two hundred men you brought out daring the
power of the law last night, and give them your reason for failing them.
MARTIN.
I was mistaken when I set out to destroy Church and Law. The battle we
have to fight is fought out in our own mind. There is a fiery moment,
perhaps once in a lifetime, and in that moment we see the only thing
that matters. It is in that moment the great battles are lost and won,
for in that moment we are a part of the host of heaven.
PAUDEEN.
Have you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises and with
your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to ridicule us,
it is the last day you will live!
JOHNNY.
The curse of my heart on you! It would be right to send you to your own
place on the flagstone of the traitors in hell. When once I have made
an end of you I will be as well satisfied to be going to my death for
it as if I was going home!
MARTIN.
Father John, Father John, can you not hear? Can you not see? Are you
blind? Are you deaf?
FATHER JOHN.
What is it? What is it?
MARTIN.
There on the mountain, a thousand white unicorns trampling; a thousand
riders with their swords drawn--the swords clashing! Oh, the sound of
the swords, the sound of the clashing of the swords!
[_He goes slowly off stage. JOHNNY takes up a stone to
throw at him. _
FATHER JOHN [_seizing his arm_].
Stop--do you not see he is beyond the world?
BIDDY.
Keep your hand off him, Johnny Bacach. If he is gone wild and cracked,
that's natural. Those that have been wakened from a trance on a sudden
are apt to go bad and light in the head.
PAUDEEN.
If it is madness is on him, it is not he himself should pay the penalty.
BIDDY.
To prey on the mind it does, and rises into the head. There are some
would go over any height and would have great power in their madness.
It is maybe to some secret cleft he is going, to get knowledge of the
great cure for all things, or of the Plough that was hidden in the old
times, the Golden Plough.
PAUDEEN.
It seemed as if he was talking through honey. He had the look of one
that had seen great wonders. It is maybe among the old heroes of
Ireland he went raising armies for our help.
FATHER JOHN.
God take him in his care and keep him from lying spirits and from all
delusions!
JOHNNY.
We have got candles here, Father. We had them to put around his body.
Maybe they would keep away the evil things of the air.
PAUDEEN.
Light them so, and he will say out a Mass for him the same as in a
lime-washed church.
[_They light the candles. _
_THOMAS comes in. _
THOMAS.
Where is he? I am come to warn him. The destruction he did in the
night-time has been heard of. The soldiers are out after him and the
constables--there are two of the constables not far off--there are others
on every side--they heard he was here in the mountain--where is he?
FATHER JOHN.
He has gone up the path.
THOMAS.
Hurry after him! Tell him to hide himself--this attack he had a hand in
is a hanging crime. Tell him to hide himself, to come to me when all is
quiet--bad as his doings are, he is my own brother's son; I will get him
on to a ship that will be going to France.
FATHER JOHN.
That will be best, send him back to the Brothers and to the wise
Bishops. They can unravel this tangle, I cannot. I cannot be sure of
the truth.
THOMAS.
Here are the constables, he will see them and get away. Say no word.
The Lord be praised that he is out of sight.
_Constables_ come in. _
CONSTABLE.
The man we are looking for, where is he? He was seen coming here along
with you. You have to give him up into the power of the law.
JOHNNY.
We will not give him up. Go back out of this or you will be sorry.
PAUDEEN.
We are not in dread of you or the like of you.
BIDDY.
Throw them down over the rocks!
NANNY.
Give them to the picking of the crows!
ALL.
