The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays Part 8

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 G.o.d.

JOHNNY B. 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 B. 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 G.o.d's hands than awake him and see him go into h.e.l.l's mouth with vagabonds and outcasts like you!

JOHNNY B. [_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 B. 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 B. Take fire so in the devil's name and put it to the soles of his feet. [_Takes lighted sod from fire._]

FATHER JOHN. Let him alone, I say!

[_Dashes away the sod._]

JOHNNY B. 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 may be, 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; don't be bringing us under the curse of the church.

[JOHNNY _falls back_. MARTIN _moves._]

FATHER JOHN. It is G.o.d 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 clas.h.i.+ng of swords!

JOHNNY B. 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 B. 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 minds. 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 B. 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 h.e.l.l. 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 clas.h.i.+ng! Oh, the sound of the swords, the sound of the clas.h.i.+ng of the swords! [_He goes slowly off stage._]

[JOHNNY B. _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. G.o.d take him in His care and keep him from lying spirits and from all delusions.

JOHNNY B. 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 Ma.s.s for him the same as in a lime-washed church.

[_They light the candles on the rock._ 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?