To
destroy?
Yeats
O, but wait. I understand you. Thomas doesn't understand your thoughts,
but I understand them. Wasn't I telling you I was just like you once?
MARTIN.
Like me? Did you ever see the other things, the things beyond?
ANDREW.
I did. It is not the four walls of the house keep me content. Thomas
doesn't know. Oh, no, he doesn't know.
MARTIN.
No, he has no vision.
ANDREW.
He has not, nor any sort of a heart for a frolic.
MARTIN.
He has never heard the laughter and the music beyond.
ANDREW.
He has not, nor the music of my own little flute. I have it hidden in
the thatch outside.
MARTIN.
Does the body slip from you as it does from me? They have not shut your
window into eternity?
ANDREW.
Thomas never shut a window I could not get through. I knew you were one
of my own sort. When I am sluggish in the morning, Thomas says, 'Poor
Andrew is getting old. ' That is all he knows. The way to keep young is
to do the things youngsters do. Twenty years I have been slipping away,
and he never found me out yet!
MARTIN.
That is what they call ecstasy, but there is no word that can tell out
very plain what it means. That freeing of the mind from its thoughts,
those wonders we know when we put them into words; the words seem as
little like them as blackberries are like the moon and sun.
ANDREW.
I found that myself the time they knew me to be wild, and used to be
asking me to say what pleasure did I find in cards, and women, and
drink.
MARTIN.
You might help me to remember that vision I had this morning, to
understand it. The memory of it has slipped from me. Wait, it is coming
back, little by little. I know that I saw the unicorns trampling, and
then a figure, a many-changing figure, holding some bright thing.
I knew something was going to happen or to be said, something that
would make my whole life strong and beautiful like the rushing of the
unicorns, and then, and then--
JOHNNY BACACH'S _voice at window_.
A poor person I am, without food, without a way, without portion,
without costs, without a person or a stranger, without means, without
hope, without health, without warmth--
ANDREW [_looking towards window_].
It is that troop of beggars. Bringing their tricks and their thieveries
they are to the Kinvara Fair.
MARTIN [_impatiently_].
There is no quiet--come to the other room. I am trying to remember.
[_They go to door of inner room, but ANDREW stops him. _
ANDREW.
They are a bad-looking fleet. I have a mind to drive them away, giving
them a charity.
MARTIN.
Drive them away or come away from their voices.
ANOTHER VOICE.
I put under the power of my prayer
All that will give me help.
Rafael keep him Wednesday,
Sachiel feed him Thursday,
Hamiel provide him Friday,
Cassiel increase him Saturday.
Sure giving to us is giving to the Lord and laying up a store in the
treasury of heaven.
ANDREW.
Whisht! He is entering by the window!
[_JOHNNY climbs up. _
JOHNNY.
That I may never sin, but the place is empty.
PAUDEEN.
Go in and see what can you make a grab at.
JOHNNY [_getting in_].
That every blessing I gave may be turned to a curse on them that left
the place so bare! [_He turns things over. _] I might chance something
in this chest if it was open.
[_ANDREW begins creeping towards him. _
NANNY [_outside_].
Hurry on, now, you limping crabfish you! We can't be stopping here
while you'll boil stirabout!
JOHNNY.
[_Seizing bag of money and holding it up high in both
hands. _]
Look at this, now, look!
[_ANDREW comes behind, seizes his arm. _
JOHNNY [_letting bag fall with a crash_].
Destruction on us all!
MARTIN.
[_Running forward, seizes him. Heads disappear. _]
That is it! O, I remember. That is what happened. That is the command.
Who was it sent you here with that command?
JOHNNY.
It was misery sent me in, and starvation, and the hard ways of the
world.
NANNY [_outside_].
It was that, my poor child, and my one son only. Show mercy to him now
and he after leaving gaol this morning.
MARTIN [_to ANDREW_].
I was trying to remember it--when he spoke that word it all came back to
me. I saw a bright many-changing figure; it was holding up a shining
vessel [_holds up arms_]; then the vessel fell and was broken with a
great crash; then I saw the unicorns trampling it. They were breaking
the world to pieces--when I saw the cracks coming I shouted for joy! And
I heard the command 'Destroy, destroy, destruction is the life-giver!
destroy! '
ANDREW.
What will we do with him? He was thinking to rob you of your gold.
MARTIN.
How could I forget it or mistake it? It has all come upon me now; the
reasons of it all, like a flood, like a flooded river.
JOHNNY [_weeping_].
It was the hunger brought me in and the drouth.
MARTIN.
Were you given any other message? Did you see the unicorns?
JOHNNY.
I saw nothing and heard nothing; near dead I am with the fright I got
and with the hardship of the gaol.
MARTIN.
To destroy, to overthrow all that comes between us and God, between
us and that shining country. To break the wall, Andrew, to break the
thing--whatever it is that comes between, but where to begin--
ANDREW.
What is it you are talking about?
MARTIN.
It may be that this man is the beginning. He has been sent--the poor,
they have nothing, and so they can see heaven as we cannot. He and his
comrades will understand me. But how to give all men high hearts that
they may all understand?
JOHNNY.
It's the juice of the grey barley will do that.
ANDREW.
To rise everybody's heart, is it? Is it that was your meaning all the
time? If you will take the blame of it all, I'll do what you want. Give
me the bag of money then. [_He takes it up. _] O, I've a heart like your
own. I'll lift the world, too. The people will be running from all
parts. O, it will be a great day in this district.
JOHNNY.
Will I go with you?
MARTIN.
No, you must stay here; we have things to do and to plan.
JOHNNY.
Destroyed we all are with the hunger and the drouth.
MARTIN.
Go, then, get food and drink, whatever is wanted to give you strength
and courage. Gather your people together here, bring them all in. We
have a great thing to do. I have to begin--I want to tell it to the
whole world. Bring them in, bring them in, I will make the house ready.
[_He stands looking up as if in ecstasy; ANDREW and
JOHNNY BACACH go out. _
ACT II
_The same workshop. MARTIN seen arranging mugs and
bread, etc. , on a table. FATHER JOHN comes in, knocking
at open door as he comes; his mind intensely absorbed. _
MARTIN.
Come in, come in, I have got the house ready. Here is bread and
meat--everybody is welcome.
[_Hearing no answer, turns round. _
FATHER JOHN.
Martin, I have come back. There is something I want to say to you.
MARTIN.
You are welcome, there are others coming. They are not of your sort,
but all are welcome.
FATHER JOHN.
I have remembered suddenly something that I read when I was in the
seminary.
MARTIN.
You seem very tired.
FATHER JOHN [_sitting down_].
I had almost got back to my own place when I thought of it. I have run
part of the way. It is very important; it is about the trance that you
have been in. When one is inspired from above, either in trance or in
contemplation, one remembers afterwards all that one has seen and read.
I think there must be something about it in St. Thomas. I know that
I have read a long passage about it years ago. But, Martin, there is
another kind of inspiration, or rather an obsession or possession. A
diabolical power comes into one's body, or overshadows it. Those whose
bodies are taken hold of in this way, jugglers, and witches, and the
like, can often tell what is happening in distant places, or what is
going to happen, but when they come out of that state they remember
nothing. I think you said--
MARTIN.
That I could not remember.
FATHER JOHN.
You remembered something, but not all. Nature is a great sleep; there
are dangerous and evil spirits in her dreams, but God is above Nature.
She is a darkness, but He makes everything clear; He is light.
MARTIN.
All is clear now. I remember all, or all that matters to me. A poor man
brought me a word, and I know what I have to do.
FATHER JOHN.
Ah, I understand, words were put into his mouth. I have read of such
things. God sometimes uses some common man as his messenger.
MARTIN.
You may have passed the man who brought it on the road. He left me but
now.
FATHER JOHN.
Very likely, very likely, that is the way it happened. Some plain,
unnoticed man has sometimes been sent with a command.
MARTIN.
I saw the unicorns trampling in my dream. They were breaking the world.
I am to destroy, destruction was the word the messenger spoke.
FATHER JOHN.
To destroy?
MARTIN.
To bring again the old disturbed exalted life, the old splendour.
FATHER JOHN.
You are not the first that dream has come to. [_Gets up, and walks up
and down. _] It has been wandering here and there, calling now to this
man, now to that other. It is a terrible dream.
MARTIN.
Father John, you have had the same thought.
FATHER JOHN.
Men were holy then, there were saints everywhere. There was reverence;
but now it is all work, business, how to live a long time. Ah, if one
could change it all in a minute, even by war and violence! There is
a cell where Saint Ciaran used to pray; if one could bring that time
again!
MARTIN.
Do not deceive me. You have had the command.
FATHER JOHN.
Why are you questioning me? You are asking me things that I have told
to no one but my confessor.
MARTIN.
We must gather the crowds together, you and I.
FATHER JOHN.
I have dreamed your dream, it was long ago. I had your vision.
MARTIN.
And what happened?
FATHER JOHN [_harshly_].
It was stopped; that was an end. I was sent to the lonely parish where
I am, where there was no one I could lead astray. They have left me
there. We must have patience; the world was destroyed by water, it has
yet to be consumed by fire.
MARTIN.
Why should we be patient? To live seventy years, and others to come
after us and live seventy years it may be; and so from age to age, and
all the while the old splendour dying more and more.
[_A noise of shouting. ANDREW, who has been standing at
the door, comes in. _
ANDREW.
Martin says truth, and he says it well. Planing the side of a cart or
a shaft, is that life? It is not. Sitting at a desk writing letters to
the man that wants a coach, or to the man that won't pay for the one he
has got, is that life, I ask you? Thomas arguing at you and putting
you down--'Andrew, dear Andrew, did you put the tyre on that wheel yet? '
Is that life? Not, it is not. I ask you all, what do you remember
when you are dead? It's the sweet cup in the corner of the widow's
drinking-house that you remember. Ha, ha, listen to that shouting! That
is what the lads in the village will remember to the last day they live.
MARTIN.
Why are they shouting? What have you told them?
ANDREW.
Never you mind; you left that to me. You bade me to lift their hearts
and I did lift them. There is not one among them but will have his head
like a blazing tar-barrel before morning. What did your friend the
beggar say? The juice of the grey barley, he said.
FATHER JOHN.
You accursed villain! You have made them drunk!
ANDREW.
Not at all, but lifting them to the stars. That is what Martin bade me
to do, and there is no one can say I did not do it.
[_A shout at door, and beggars push in a barrel. They
cry, 'Hi! for the noble master! ' and point at ANDREW. _
JOHNNY.
It's not him, it's that one! [_Points at MARTIN. _
FATHER JOHN.
Are you bringing this devil's work in at the very door? Go out of this,
I say! get out! Take these others with you!
MARTIN.
No, no; I asked them in, they must not be turned out. They are my
guests.
FATHER JOHN.
Drive them out of your uncle's house!
MARTIN.
Come, Father, it is better for you to go. Go back to your own place. I
have taken the command. It is better perhaps for you that you did not
take it.
[_FATHER JOHN and MARTIN go out. _
BIDDY.
It is well for that old lad he didn't come between ourselves and our
luck. Himself to be after his meal, and ourselves staggering with the
hunger! It would be right to have flayed him and to have made bags of
his skin.
NANNY.
What a hurry you are in to get your enough! Look at the grease on your
frock yet, with the dint of the dabs you put in your pocket! Doing
cures and foretellings is it? You starved pot-picker, you!
BIDDY.
That you may be put up to-morrow to take the place of that decent son
of yours that had the yard of the gaol wore with walking it till this
morning!
NANNY.
If he had, he had a mother to come to, and he would know her when he
did see her; and that is what no son of your own could do and he to
meet you at the foot of the gallows.
JOHNNY.
If I did know you, I knew too much of you since the first beginning of
my life! What reward did I ever get travelling with you? What store did
you give me of cattle or of goods? What provision did I get from you by
day or by night but your own bad character to be joined on to my own,
and I following at your heels, and your bags tied round about me!
NANNY.
Disgrace and torment on you! Whatever you got from me, it was more
than any reward or any bit I ever got from the father you had, or any
honourable thing at all, but only the hurt and the harm of the world
and its shame!
JOHNNY.
What would he give you, and you going with him without leave! Crooked
and foolish you were always, and you begging by the side of the ditch.
NANNY.
Begging or sharing, the curse of my heart upon you! It's better off I
was before ever I met with you to my cost! What was on me at all that I
did not cut a scourge in the wood to put manners and decency on you the
time you were not hardened as you are!
JOHNNY.
Leave talking to me of your rods and your scourges! All you taught me
was robbery, and it is on yourself and not on myself the scourges will
be laid at the day of the recognition of tricks.
PAUDEEN.
'Faith, the pair of you together is better than Hector fighting before
Troy!
NANNY.
Ah, let you be quiet. It is not fighting we are craving, but the easing
of the hunger that is on us and of the passion of sleep. Lend me a
graineen of tobacco now till I'll kindle my pipe--a blast of it will
take the weight of the road off my heart.
[_ANDREW gives her some, NANNY grabs at it. _
BIDDY.
No, but it's to myself you should give it. I that never smoked a pipe
this forty year without saying the tobacco prayer. Let that one say did
ever she do that much.
NANNY.
That the pain of your front tooth may be in your back tooth, you to be
grabbing my share!
[_They snap at tobacco. _
ANDREW.
Pup, pup, pup! Don't be snapping and quarrelling now, and you so well
treated in this house. It is strollers like yourselves should be for
frolic and for fun. Have you ne'er a good song to sing, a song that
will rise all our hearts?
PAUDEEN.
Johnny Bacach is a good singer, it is what he used to be doing in the
fairs, if the oakum of the gaol did not give him a hoarseness within
the throat.
ANDREW.
Give it out so, a good song, a song will put courage and spirit into
any man at all.
JOHNNY [_singing_].
Come, all ye airy bachelors,
A warning take by me,
A sergeant caught me fowling,
And fired his gun so free.
His comrades came to his relief,
And I was soon trepanned,
And bound up like a woodcock
Had fallen into their hands.
The judge said transportation,
The ship was on the strand;
They have yoked me to the traces
For to plough Van Dieman's Land!
ANDREW.
That's no good of a song but a melancholy sort of a song. I'd as lief
be listening to a saw going through timber. Wait, now, till you will
hear myself giving out a tune on the flute.
[_Goes out for it. _
JOHNNY.
It is what I am thinking there must be a great dearth and a great
scarcity of good comrades in this place, a man like that youngster,
having means in his hand, to be bringing ourselves and our rags into
the house.
PAUDEEN.
You think yourself very wise, Johnny Bacach. Can you tell me, now, who
that man is?
JOHNNY.
Some decent lad, I suppose, with a good way of living and a mind to
send up his name upon the roads.
PAUDEEN.
You that have been gaoled this eight months know little of this
countryside. It isn't a limping stroller like yourself the Boys would
let come among them. But I know. I went to the drill a few nights and
I skinning kids for the mountainy men. In a quarry beyond the drill
is--they have their plans made--it's the square house of the Brownes is
to be made an attack on and plundered. Do you know, now, who is the
leader they are waiting for?
JOHNNY.
How would I know that?
PAUDEEN [_singing_].
Oh, Johnny Gibbons, my five hundred healths to you.
It is long you are away from us over the sea!
JOHNNY [_standing up excitedly_].
Sure that man could not be Johnny Gibbons that is outlawed!
PAUDEEN.
I asked news of him from the old lad, and I bringing in the drink along
with him. 'Don't be asking questions,' says he; 'take the treat he
gives you,' says he. 'If a lad that has a high heart has a mind to
rouse the neighbours,' says he, 'and to stretch out his hand to all
that pass the road, it is in France he learned it,' says he, 'the place
he is but lately come from, and where the wine does be standing open in
tubs. Take your treat when you get it,' says he, 'and make no delay or
all might be discovered and put an end to. '
JOHNNY.
He came over the sea from France! It is Johnny Gibbons, surely, but it
seems to me they were calling him by some other name.
PAUDEEN.
A man on his keeping might go by a hundred names. Would he be telling
it out to us that he never saw before, and we with that clutch of
chattering women along with us? Here he is coming now. Wait till you
see is he the lad I think him to be.
MARTIN [_coming in_].
I will make my banner, I will paint the unicorn on it. Give me that
bit of canvas, there is paint over here. We will get no help from
the settled men--we will call to the lawbreakers, the tinkers, the
sievemakers, the sheepstealers.
[_He begins to make banner. _
BIDDY.
That sounds to be a queer name of an army. Ribbons I can understand,
Whiteboys, Rightboys, Threshers, and Peep o' Day, but Unicorns I never
heard of before.
JOHNNY.
It is not a queer name but a very good name. [_Takes up lion and
unicorn. _] It is often you saw that before you in the dock. There is
the unicorn with the one horn, and what it is he is going against? The
lion of course. When he has the lion destroyed, the crown must fall
and be shivered. Can't you see it is the League of the Unicorns is the
league that will fight and destroy the power of England and King George?
