No More Learning

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?

PAUDEEN.

It is with that banner we will march and the lads in the quarry with
us, it is they will have the welcome before him! It won't be long till
we'll be attacking the Square House! Arms there are in it, riches that
would smother the world, rooms full of guineas we will put wax on our
shoes walking them; the horses themselves shod with no less than silver!

MARTIN [_holding up banner_].

There it is ready! We are very few now, but the army of the Unicorns
will be a great army! [_To JOHNNY. _] Why have you brought me the
message? Can you remember any more? Has anything more come to you? You
have been drinking, the clouds upon your mind have been destroyed. . . .
Can you see anything or hear anything that is beyond the world?

JOHNNY.

I can not. I don't know what do you want me to tell you at all?

MARTIN.

I want to begin the destruction, but I don't know where to begin . . .
you do not hear any other voice?

JOHNNY.

I do not. I have nothing at all to do with Freemasons or witchcraft.

PAUDEEN.

It is Biddy Lally has to do with witchcraft. It is often she threw the
cups and gave out prophecies the same as Columcille.

MARTIN.

You are one of the knowledgeable women. You can tell me where it is
best to begin, and what will happen in the end.

BIDDY.

I will foretell nothing at all. I rose out of it this good while, with
the stiffness and the swelling it brought upon my joints.

MARTIN.

If you have foreknowledge you have no right to keep silent. If you
do not help me I may go to work in the wrong way. I know I have to
destroy, but when I ask myself what I am to begin with, I am full of
uncertainty.

PAUDEEN.

Here now are the cups handy and the leavings in them.

BIDDY.

[_Taking cups and pouring one from another. _]

Throw a bit of white money into the four corners of the house.

MARTIN.

There! [_Throwing it. _]

BIDDY.

There can be nothing told without silver. It is not myself will have
the profit of it. Along with that I will be forced to throw out gold.

MARTIN.

There is a guinea for you. Tell me what comes before your eyes.

BIDDY.

What is it you are wanting to have news of?

MARTIN.

Of what I have to go out against at the beginning . . . there is so much
. . . the whole world it may be.

BIDDY.

[_Throwing from one cup to another and looking. _]

You have no care for yourself. You have been across the sea, you are
not long back. You are coming within the best day of your life.

MARTIN.

What is it? What is it I have to do?

BIDDY.

I see a great smoke, I see burning . . . there is a great smoke overhead.

MARTIN.

That means we have to burn away a great deal that men have piled up
upon the earth. We must bring men once more to the wildness of the
clean green earth.

BIDDY.

Herbs for my healing, the big herb and the little herb, it is true
enough they get their great strength out of the earth.

JOHNNY.

Who was it the green sod of Ireland belonged to in the olden times?
Wasn't it to the ancient race it belonged? And who has possession of it
now but the race that came robbing over the sea? The meaning of that
is to destroy the big houses and the towns, and the fields to be given
back to the ancient race.

MARTIN.

That is it. You don't put it as I do, but what matter? Battle is all.

PAUDEEN.

Columcille said, the four corners to be burned, and then the middle of
the field to be burned. I tell you it was Columcille's prophecy said
that.

BIDDY.

Iron handcuffs I see and a rope and a gallows, and it maybe is not for
yourself I see it, but for some I have acquaintance with a good way
back.

MARTIN.

That means the law. We must destroy the law. That was the first sin,
the first mouthful of the apple.

JOHNNY.

So it was, so it was. The law is the worst loss. The ancient law was
for the benefit of all. It is the law of the English is the only sin.

MARTIN.

When there were no laws men warred on one another and man to man, not
with machines made in towns as they do now, and they grew hard and
strong in body. They were altogether alive like him that made them in
his image, like people in that unfallen country. But presently they
thought it better to be safe, as if safety mattered or anything but the
exaltation of the heart, and to have eyes that danger had made grave
and piercing. We must overthrow the laws and banish them.

JOHNNY.

It is what I say, to put out the laws is to put out the whole nation of
the English. Laws for themselves they made for their own profit, and
left us nothing at all, no more than a dog or a sow.

BIDDY.

An old priest I see, and I would not say is he the one was here or
another. Vexed and troubled he is, kneeling fretting and ever-fretting
in some lonesome ruined place.

MARTIN.

I thought it would come to that. Yes, the Church too--that is to be
destroyed. Once men fought with their desires and their fears, with all
that they call their sins, unhelped, and their souls became hard and
strong. When we have brought back the clean earth and destroyed the
law and the Church all life will become like a flame of fire, like a
burning eye . . . Oh, how to find words for it all . . . all that is not
life will pass away.

JOHNNY.

It is Luther's Church he means, and the humpbacked discourse of Seaghan
Calvin's Bible. So we will break it, and make an end of it.

MARTIN.

We will go out against the world and break it and unmake it.
[_Rising. _] We are the army of the Unicorn from the Stars!