The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays Part 5

JOHNNY B. 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 sheep-stealers. [_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 B. 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 is it he is going against?

The Lion of course. When he has the Lion destroyed, the Crown must fall and be s.h.i.+vered. 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 the banner_]. There it is ready! We are very few now, but the army of the Unicorns will be a great army! [_To_ JOHNNY B.] Why have you brought me the message? Can you remember any more? Has anything more come to you? Who told you to come to me? Who gave you the message?... Can you see anything or hear anything that is beyond the world?

JOHNNY B. I cannot. 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 B. 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 B. 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 B. 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 one machine against another 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 B. 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 pa.s.s away!

JOHNNY B. 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 [_rising_]. We will go out against the world and break it and unmake it. We are the army of the Unicorn from the Stars! We will trample it to pieces. We will consume the world, we will burn it away.

Father John said the world has yet to be consumed by fire. Bring me fire.

ANDREW. Here is Thomas coming! [_All except_ MARTIN _hurry into next room._ THOMAS _comes in._]

THOMAS. Come with me, Martin. There is terrible work going on in the town! There is mischief gone abroad! Very strange things are happening!

MARTIN. What are you talking of? What has happened?

THOMAS. Come along, I say; it must be put a stop to! We must call to every decent man!... It is as if the devil himself had gone through the town on a blast and set every drinking house open!

MARTIN. I wonder how that has happened. Can it have anything to do with Andrew's plan?

THOMAS. Are you giving no heed to what I'm saying? There is not a man, I tell you, in the parish, and beyond the parish, but has left the work he was doing, whether in the field or in the mill.

MARTIN. Then all work has come to an end? Perhaps that was a good thought of Andrew's.

THOMAS. There is not a man has come to sensible years that is not drunk or drinking! My own labourers and my own serving-man are sitting on counters and on barrels! I give you my word the smell of the spirits and the porter and the shouting and the cheering within made the hair to rise up on my scalp.

MARTIN. And there is not one of them that does not feel that he could bridle the four winds.

THOMAS [_sitting down in despair_]. You are drunk, too. I never thought you had a fancy for it.

MARTIN. It is hard for you to understand. You have worked all your life. You have said to yourself every morning, "What is to be done to-day?" and when you are tired out you have thought of the next day's work. If you gave yourself an hour's idleness, it was but that you might work the better. Yet it is only when one has put work away that one begins to live.