No More Learning

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

O, who would think to find so young a child
Loving old age and wisdom?

[_BRIDGET gives her more bread and honey. _

THE CHILD.

No more, mother.

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

What a small bite! The milk is ready now;
What a small sip!

THE CHILD.

Put on my shoes, old mother,
For I would like to dance now I have eaten.
The reeds are dancing by Coolaney lake,
And I would like to dance until the reeds
And the white waves have danced themselves to sleep.

[_BRIDGET having put on her shoes, she gets off the old
man's knees and is about to dance, but suddenly sees
the crucifix and shrieks and covers her eyes. _]

What is that ugly thing on the black cross?

FATHER HART.

You cannot know how naughty your words are!
That is our Blessed Lord!

THE CHILD.

Hide it away!

BRIDGET BRUIN.

I have begun to be afraid, again!

THE CHILD.

Hide it away!

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

That would be wickedness!

BRIDGET BRUIN.

That would be sacrilege!

THE CHILD.

The tortured thing!
Hide it away!

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

Her parents are to blame.

FATHER HART.

That is the image of the Son of God.

[_THE CHILD puts her arm round his neck and kisses him. _

THE CHILD.

Hide it away! Hide it away!

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

No! no!

FATHER HART.

Because you are so young and little a child
I will go take it down.

THE CHILD.

Hide it away,
And cover it out of sight and out of mind.

[_FATHER HART takes it down and carries it towards the
inner room. _

FATHER HART.

Since you have come into this barony,
I will instruct you in our blessed faith:
Being a clever child, you will soon learn.
[_To the others. _] We must be tender with all budding things.
Our Maker let no thought of Calvary
Trouble the morning stars in their first song.

[_Puts the crucifix in the inner room. _

THE CHILD.

Here is level ground for dancing. I will dance.
The wind is blowing on the waving reeds,
The wind is blowing on the heart of man.

[_She dances, swaying about like the reeds. _

MAIRE [_to SHAWN BRUIN_].

Just now when she came near I thought I heard
Other small steps beating upon the floor,
And a faint music blowing in the wind,
Invisible pipes giving her feet the time.

SHAWN BRUIN.

I heard no step but hers.

MAIRE BRUIN.

Look to the bolt!
Because the unholy powers are abroad.

MAURTEEN BRUIN [_to THE CHILD_].

Come over here, and if you promise me
Not to talk wickedly of holy things
I will give you something.

THE CHILD.

Bring it me, old father!

[_MAURTEEN BRUIN goes into the next room. _

FATHER HART.

I will have queen cakes when you come to me!

[_MAURTEEN BRUIN returns and lays a piece of money on
the table. THE CHILD makes a gesture of refusal. _

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

It will buy lots of toys; see how it glitters!

THE CHILD.

Come, tell me, do you love me?

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

I love you!

THE CHILD.

Ah, but you love this fireside!

FATHER HART.

I love you.

THE CHILD.

But you love Him above.

BRIDGET BRUIN.

She is blaspheming.

THE CHILD [_to MAIRE_].

And do you love me?

MAIRE BRUIN.

I--I do not know.

THE CHILD.

You love that great tall fellow over there:
Yet I could make you ride upon the winds,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame!

MAIRE BRUIN.

Queen of the Angels and kind Saints, defend us!
Some dreadful fate has fallen: a while ago
The wind cried out and took the primroses,
And she ran by me laughing in the wind,
And I gave milk and fire, and she came in
And made you hide the blessed crucifix.

FATHER HART.

You fear because of her wild, pretty prattle;
She knows no better.
[_To THE CHILD_] Child, how old are you?

THE CHILD.

When winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin,
My feet unsteady. When the leaves awaken
My mother carries me in her golden arms.
I'll soon put on my womanhood and marry
The spirits of wood and water, but who can tell
When I was born for the first time? I think
I am much older than the eagle cock
That blinks and blinks on Ballygawley Hill,
And he is the oldest thing under the moon.

FATHER HART.

She is of the faery people.

THE CHILD.

I am Brig's daughter.
I sent my messengers for milk and fire,
And then I heard one call to me and came.

[_They all except MAIRE BRUIN gather about the priest
for protection. MAIRE BRUIN stays on the settle in a
stupor of terror. THE CHILD takes primroses from the
great bowl and begins to strew them between herself and
the priest and about MAIRE BRUIN. During the following
dialogue SHAWN BRUIN goes more than once to the brink
of the primroses, but shrinks back to the others
timidly. _

FATHER HART.

I will confront this mighty spirit alone.

[_They cling to him and hold him back. _

THE CHILD [_while she strews the primroses_].

No one whose heart is heavy with human tears
Can cross these little cressets of the wood.

FATHER HART.

Be not afraid, the Father is with us,
And all the nine angelic hierarchies,
The Holy Martyrs and the Innocents,
The adoring Magi in their coats of mail,
And He who died and rose on the third day,
And Mary with her seven times wounded heart.

[_THE CHILD ceases strewing the primroses, and kneels
upon the settle beside MAIRE and puts her arms about
her neck. _]

Cry, daughter, to the Angels and the Saints.

THE CHILD.

You shall go with me, newly-married bride,
And gaze upon a merrier multitude;
White-armed Nuala and Aengus of the birds,
And Feacra of the hurtling foam, and him
Who is the ruler of the western host,
Finvarra, and their Land of Heart's Desire,
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.
I kiss you and the world begins to fade.

FATHER HART.

Daughter, I call you unto home and love!

THE CHILD.

Stay, and come with me, newly-married bride,
For, if you hear him, you grow like the rest:
Bear children, cook, be mindful of the churn,
And wrangle over butter, fowl, and eggs,
And sit at last there, old and bitter of tongue,
Watching the white stars war upon your hopes.

FATHER HART.

Daughter, I point you out the way to heaven.

THE CHILD.

But I can lead you, newly-married bride,
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue,
And where kind tongues bring no captivity,
For we are only true to the far lights
We follow singing, over valley and hill.

FATHER HART.

By the dear name of the One crucified,
I bid you, Maire Bruin, come to me.

THE CHILD.

I keep you in the name of your own heart!

[_She leaves the settle, and stooping takes up a mass
of primroses and kisses them. _]

We have great power to-night, dear golden folk,
For he took down and hid the crucifix.
And my invisible brethren fill the house;
I hear their footsteps going up and down.
O, they shall soon rule all the hearts of men
And own all lands; last night they merrily danced
About his chapel belfry! [_To MAIRE_] Come away,
I hear my brethren bidding us away!

FATHER HART.

I will go fetch the crucifix again.

[_They hang about him in terror and prevent him from
moving. _

BRIDGET BRUIN.

The enchanted flowers will kill us if you go.

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

They turn the flowers to little twisted flames.

SHAWN BRUIN.

The little twisted flames burn up the heart.

THE CHILD.

I hear them crying, 'Newly-married bride,
Come to the woods and waters and pale lights. '

MAIRE BRUIN.

I will go with you.

FATHER HART.

She is lost, alas!

THE CHILD [_standing by the door_].

Then, follow: but the heavy body of clay
And clinging mortal hope must fall from you,
For we who ride the winds, run on the waves,
And dance upon the mountains, are more light
Than dewdrops on the banners of the dawn.

MAIRE BRUIN.

Then take my soul. [_SHAWN BRUIN goes over to her. _

SHAWN BRUIN.

Beloved, do not leave me!
Remember when I met you by the well
And took your hand in mine and spoke of love.

MAIRE BRUIN.

Dear face! Dear voice!

THE CHILD.

Come, newly-married bride!

MAIRE BRUIN.

I always loved her world--and yet--and yet--

[_Sinks into his arms. _

THE CHILD [_from the door_].

White bird, white bird, come with me, little bird.

MAIRE BRUIN.

She calls my soul!

THE CHILD.

Come with me, little bird!

MAIRE BRUIN.

I can hear songs and dancing!

SHAWN BRUIN.

Stay with me!

MAIRE BRUIN.

I think that I would stay--and yet--and yet--

THE CHILD.

Come, little bird with crest of gold!

MAIRE BRUIN [_very softly_].

And yet--

THE CHILD.

Come, little bird with silver feet!

[_MAIRE dies, and THE CHILD goes. _

SHAWN BRUIN.

She is dead!

BRIDGET BRUIN.

Come from that image there: she is far away:
You have thrown your arms about a drift of leaves
Or bole of an ash-tree changed into her image.

FATHER HART.

Thus do the spirits of evil snatch their prey
Almost out of the very hand of God;
And day by day their power is more and more,
And men and women leave old paths, for pride
Comes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart.

A VOICE [_singing outside_].

_The wind blows out of the gates of the day,
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,
And the lonely of heart is withered away
While the faeries dance in a place apart,
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,
Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;
For they hear the wind laugh, and murmur and sing
Of a land where even the old are fair,
And even the wise are merry of tongue;
But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,
'When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,
The lonely of heart is withered away. '_

[_The song is taken up by many voices, who sing loudly,
as if in triumph. Some of the voices seem to come from
within the house. _]




THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS




_PERSONS IN THE PLAY_


FATHER JOHN
THOMAS HEARNE, _a coachbuilder_
ANDREW HEARNE, _his brother_
MARTIN HEARNE, _his nephew_
JOHNNY BACACH }
PAUDEEN } _beggars_
BIDDY LALLY }
NANNY }




THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS




ACT I.


_Interior of a coachbuilder's workshop.
Parts of a
gilded coach, among them an ornament representing a
lion and unicorn. THOMAS working at a wheel. FATHER
JOHN coming from door of inner room. _

FATHER JOHN.

I have prayed over Martin. I have prayed a long time, but there is no
move in him yet.

THOMAS.

You are giving yourself too much trouble, Father. It's as good for you
to leave him alone till the doctor's bottle will come. If there is any
cure at all for what is on him, it is likely the doctor will have it.

FATHER JOHN.

I think it is not doctor's medicine will help him in this case.

THOMAS.

It will, it will. The doctor has his business learned well. If Andrew
had gone to him the time I bade him and had not turned again to bring
yourself to the house, it is likely Martin would be walking at this
time. I am loth to trouble you, Father, when the business is not of
your own sort. Any doctor at all should be able and well able to cure
the falling sickness.

FATHER JOHN.

It is not any common sickness that is on him now.

THOMAS.

I thought at the first it was gone to sleep he was. But when shaking
him and roaring at him failed to rouse him, I knew well it was the
falling sickness. Believe me, the doctor will reach it with his drugs.

FATHER JOHN.

Nothing but prayer can reach a soul that is so far beyond the world as
his soul is at this moment.

THOMAS.

You are not saying that the life is gone out of him!

FATHER JOHN.

No, no, his life is in no danger. But where he himself, the spirit, the
soul, is gone, I cannot say. It has gone beyond our imaginings. He is
fallen into a trance.

THOMAS.

He used to be queer as a child, going asleep in the fields, and coming
back with talk of white horses he saw, and bright people like angels or
whatever they were. But I mended that. I taught him to recognise stones
beyond angels with a few strokes of a rod. I would never give in to
visions or to trances.

FATHER JOHN.

We who hold the faith have no right to speak against trance or vision.
Saint Elizabeth had them, Saint Benedict, Saint Anthony, Saint
Columcille. Saint Catherine of Siena often lay a long time as if dead.

THOMAS.

That might be so in the olden time, but those things are gone out
of the world now. Those that do their work fair and honest have no
occasion to let the mind go rambling. What would send my nephew, Martin
Hearne, into a trance, supposing trances to be in it, and he rubbing
the gold on the lion and unicorn that he had taken in hand to make a
good job of for the top of the coach?

FATHER JOHN [_taking up ornament_].

It is likely it was that sent him off. The flashing of light upon
it would be enough to throw one that had a disposition to it into a
trance. There was a very saintly man, though he was not of our church;
he wrote a great book called _Mysterium Magnum_ was seven days in
a trance. Truth, or whatever truth he found, fell upon him like a
bursting shower, and he a poor tradesman at his work. It was a ray of
sunlight on a pewter vessel that was the beginning of all. [_Goes to
the door and looks in. _] There is no stir in him yet. It is either the
best thing or the worst thing can happen to anyone, that is happening
to him now.

THOMAS.

And what in the living world can happen to a man that is asleep on his
bed?

FATHER JOHN.

There are some would answer you that it is to those who are awake that
nothing happens, and it is they that know nothing. He is gone where all
have gone for supreme truth.

THOMAS.

[_Sitting down again and taking up tools. _]

Well, maybe so. But work must go on and coachbuilding must go on,
and they will not go on the time there is too much attention given
to dreams. A dream is a sort of a shadow, no profit in it to anyone
at all. A coach, now, is a real thing and a thing that will last for
generations and be made use of to the last, and maybe turn to be a
hen-roost at its latter end.

FATHER JOHN.

I think Andrew told me it was a dream of Martin's that led to the
making of that coach.

THOMAS.

Well, I believe he saw gold in some dream, and it led him to want to
make some golden thing, and coaches being the handiest, nothing would
do him till he put the most of his fortune into the making of this
golden coach. It turned out better than I thought, for some of the
lawyers came looking at it at Assize time, and through them it was
heard of at Dublin Castle . . . and who now has it ordered but the Lord
Lieutenant! [_FATHER JOHN nods. _] Ready it must be and sent off it must
be by the end of the month. It is likely King George will be visiting
Dublin, and it is he himself will be sitting in it yet.

FATHER JOHN.

Martin has been working hard at it, I know.

THOMAS.

You never saw a man work the way he did, day and night, near ever since
the time six months ago he first came home from France.

FATHER JOHN.

I never thought he would be so good at a trade. I thought his mind was
only set on books.

THOMAS.

He should be thankful to myself for that. Any person I will take in
hand, I make a clean job of them the same as I would make of any other
thing in my yard--coach, half-coach, hackney-coach, ass-car, common-car,
post-chaise, calash, chariot on two wheels, on four wheels. Each one
has the shape Thomas Hearne put on it, and it in his hands; and what I
can do with wood and iron, why would I not be able to do it with flesh
and blood, and it in a way my own?

FATHER JOHN.

Indeed, I know you did your best for Martin.

THOMAS.

Every best. Checked him, taught him the trade, sent him to the
monastery in France for to learn the language and to see the wide
world; but who should know that if you did not know it, Father John,
and I doing it according to your own advice?

FATHER JOHN.

I thought his nature needed spiritual guidance and teaching, the best
that could be found.

THOMAS.

I thought myself it was best for him to be away for a while. There are
too many wild lads about this place. He to have stopped here, he might
have taken some fancies, and got into some trouble, going against the
Government maybe the same as Johnny Gibbons that is at this time an
outlaw, having a price upon his head.

FATHER JOHN.

That is so. That imagination of his might have taken fire here at home.
It was better putting him with the Brothers, to turn it to imaginings
of heaven.

THOMAS.

Well, I will soon have a good hardy tradesman made of him now that will
live quiet and rear a family, and be maybe appointed coachbuilder to
the Royal Family at the last.

FATHER JOHN [_at window_].

I see your brother Andrew coming back from the doctor; he is stopping
to talk with a troop of beggars that are sitting by the side of the
road.

THOMAS.

There, now, is another that I have shaped. Andrew used to be a bit wild
in his talk and in his ways, wanting to go rambling, not content to
settle in the place where he was reared. But I kept a guard over him;
I watched the time poverty gave him a nip, and then I settled him into
the business. He never was so good a worker as Martin, he is too fond
of wasting his time talking vanities. But he is middling handy, and
he is always steady and civil to customers. I have no complaint worth
while to be making this last twenty years against Andrew.

[_ANDREW comes in. _]

ANDREW.

Beggars there outside going the road to the Kinvara fair. They were
saying there is news that Johnny Gibbons is coming back from France on
the quiet; the king's soldiers are watching the ports for him.

THOMAS.

Let you keep now, Andrew, to the business you have in hand. Will the
doctor be coming himself or did he send a bottle that will cure Martin?

ANDREW.

The doctor can't come, for he's down with the lumbago in the back. He
questioned me as to what ailed Martin, and he got a book to go looking
for a cure, and he began telling me things out of it, but I said I
could not be carrying things of that sort in my head. He gave me the
book then, and he has marks put in it for the places where the cures
are . . . wait now. . . . [_Reads_] 'Compound medicines are usually taken
inwardly, or outwardly applied; inwardly taken, they should be either
liquid or solid; outwardly, they should be fomentations or sponges wet
in some decoctions. '

THOMAS.

He had a right to have written it out himself upon a paper. Where is
the use of all that?

ANDREW.

I think I moved the mark maybe . . . here, now, is the part he was
reading to me himself. . . . 'The remedies for diseases belonging to the
skins next the brain, headache, vertigo, cramp, convulsions, palsy,
incubus, apoplexy, falling sickness. '

THOMAS.

It is what I bid you to tell him that it was the falling sickness.

ANDREW [_dropping book_].

O, my dear, look at all the marks gone out of it! Wait, now, I partly
remember what he said . . . a blister he spoke of . . . or to be smelling
hartshorn . . . or the sneezing powder . . . or if all fails, to try
letting the blood.

FATHER JOHN.

All this has nothing to do with the real case. It is all waste of time.

ANDREW.

That is what I was thinking myself, Father. Sure it was I was the first
to call out to you when I saw you coming down from the hill-side, and
to bring you in to see what could you do. I would have more trust in
your means than in any doctor's learning. And in case you might fail
to cure him, I have a cure myself I heard from my grandmother--God rest
her soul! --and she told me she never knew it to fail. A person to have
the falling sickness, to cut the top of his nails and a small share of
the hair of his head, and to put it down on the floor, and to take a
harry-pin and drive it down with that into the floor and to leave it
there. 'That is the cure will never fail,' she said, 'to rise up any
person at all having the falling sickness. '

FATHER JOHN [_hand on ear_].

I will go back to the hill-side, I will go back to the hill-side; but
no, no, I must do what I can. I will go again, I will wrestle, I will
strive my best to call him back with prayer.

[_Goes in and shuts door. _

ANDREW.

It is queer Father John is sometimes, and very queer. There are times
when you would say that he believes in nothing at all.

THOMAS.

If you wanted a priest, why did you not get our own parish priest that
is a sensible man, and a man that you would know what his thoughts are?
You know well the bishop should have something against Father John to
have left him through the years in that poor mountainy place, minding
the few unfortunate people that were left out of the last famine. A man
of his learning to be going in rags the way he is, there must be some
good cause for that.

ANDREW.

I had all that in mind and I bringing him. But I thought he would have
done more for Martin than what he is doing. To read a Mass over him
I thought he would, and to be convulsed in the reading it, and some
strange thing to have gone out with a great noise through the doorway.

THOMAS.

It would give no good name to the place such a thing to be happening in
it. It is well enough for labouring-men and for half-acre men. It would
be no credit at all such a thing to be heard of in this house, that is
for coachbuilding the capital of the county.

ANDREW.

If it is from the devil this sickness comes, it would be best to put it
out whatever way it would be put out. But there might no bad thing be
on the lad at all. It is likely he was with wild companions abroad, and
that knocking about might have shaken his health. I was that way myself
one time.

THOMAS.

Father John said that it was some sort of a vision or a trance, but I
would give no heed to what he would say. It is his trade to see more
than other people would see, the same as I myself might be seeing a
split in a leather car hood that no other person would find out at all.

ANDREW.

If it is the falling sickness is on him, I have no objection to
that--a plain, straight sickness that was cast as a punishment on the
unbelieving Jews.