The Well of the Saints Part 8

MOLLY BYRNE. Let you not be a raving fool, Mary Doul. Kneel down now, and let him give you your sight, and himself can be sitting here if he likes it best, and taking halfpence on the road.

TIMMY. That's the truth, Mary; and if it's choosing a wilful blindness you are, I'm thinking there isn't anyone in this place will ever be giving you a hand's turn or a hap'orth of meal, or be doing the little things you need to keep you at all living in the world.

MAT SIMON. If you had your sight, Mary, you could be walking up for him and down with him, and be st.i.tching his clothes, and keeping a watch on him day and night the way no other woman would come near him at all.

MARY DOUL -- [half persuaded.] -- That's the truth, maybe.

SAINT. Kneel down now, I'm saying, for it's in haste I am to be going on with the marriage and be walking my own way before the fall of night.

THE PEOPLE. Kneel down, Mary! Kneel down when you're bid by the Saint!

MARY DOUL -- [looking uneasily towards Martin Doul.] -- Maybe it's right they are, and I will if you wish it, holy father.

[She kneels down. The Saint takes off his hat and gives it to some one near him. All the men take off their hats. He goes forward a step to take Martin Doul's hand away from Mary Doul.]

SAINT -- [to Martin Doul.] -- Go aside now; we're not wanting you here.

MARTIN DOUL -- [pushes him away roughly, and stands with his left hand on Mary Doul's shoulder.] -- Keep off yourself, holy father, and let you not be taking my rest from me in the darkness of my wife.... What call has the like of you to be coming between married people -- that you're not understanding at all -- and be making a great mess with the holy water you have, and the length of your prayers? Go on now, I'm saying, and leave us here on the road.

SAINT. If it was a seeing man I heard talking to me the like of that I'd put a black curse on him would weigh down his soul till it'd be falling to h.e.l.l; but you're a poor blind sinner, G.o.d forgive you, and I don't mind you at all. (He raises his can.) Go aside now till I give the blessing to your wife, and if you won't go with your own will, there are those standing by will make you, surely.

MARTIN DOUL -- [pulling Mary Doul.] -- Come along now, and don't mind him at all.

SAINT -- [imperiously, to the People.] -- Let you take that man and drive him down upon the road. [Some men seize Martin Doul.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [struggling and shouting.] -- Make them leave me go, holy father! Make them leave me go, I'm saying, and you may cure her this day, or do anything that you will.

SAINT -- [to People.] -- Let him be..... Let him be if his sense is come to him at all.

MARTIN DOUL -- [shakes himself loose, feels for Mary Doul, sinking his voice to a plausible whine.] -- You may cure herself, surely, holy father; I wouldn't stop you at all -- and it's great joy she'll have looking on your face -- but let you cure myself along with her, the way I'll see when it's lies she's telling, and be looking out day and night upon the holy men of G.o.d.

[He kneels down a little before Mary Doul.]

SAINT -- [speaking half to the People.] -- Men who are dark a long while and thinking over queer thoughts in their heads, aren't the like of simple men, who do be working every day, and praying, and living like ourselves; so if he has found a right mind at the last minute itself, I'll cure him, if the Lord will, and not be thinking of the hard, foolish words he's after saying this day to us all.

MARTIN DOUL -- [listening eagerly.] -- I'm waiting now, holy father.

SAINT -- [with can in his hand, close to Martin Doul.] -- With the power of the water from the grave of the four beauties of G.o.d, with the power of this water, I'm saying, that I put upon your eyes --. [He raises can.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [with a sudden movement strikes the can from the Saint's hand and sends it rocketing across stage. He stands up; People murmur loudly.] -- If I'm a poor dark sinner I've sharp ears, G.o.d help me, and have left you with a big head on you and it's well I heard the little splash of the water you had there in the can. Go on now, holy father, for if you're a fine Saint itself, it's more sense is in a blind man, and more power maybe than you're thinking at all. Let you walk on now with your worn feet, and your welted knees, and your fasting, holy ways a thin pitiful arm. (The Saint looks at him for a moment severely, then turns away and picks up his can. He pulls Mary Doul up.) For if it's a right some of you have to be working and sweating the like of Timmy the smith, and a right some of you have to be fasting and praying and talking holy talk the like of yourself, I'm thinking it's a good right ourselves have to be sitting blind, hearing a soft wind turning round the little leaves of the spring and feeling the sun, and we not tormenting our souls with the sight of the gray days, and the holy men, and the dirty feet is trampling the world.

[He gropes towards his stone with Mary Doul.]

MAT SIMON. It'd be an unlucky fearful thing, I'm thinking, to have the like of that man living near us at all in the townland of Grianan.

Wouldn't he bring down a curse upon us, holy father, from the heavens of G.o.d?

SAINT -- [tying his girdle.] -- G.o.d has great mercy, but great wrath for them that sin.

THE PEOPLE. Go on now, Martin Doul. Go on from this place. Let you not be bringing great storms or droughts on us maybe from the power of the Lord. [Some of them throw things at him.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [turning round defiantly and picking up a stone.] -- Keep off now, the yelping lot of you, or it's more than one maybe will get a b.l.o.o.d.y head on him with the pitch of my stone. Keep off now, and let you not be afeard; for we're going on the two of us to the towns of the south, where the people will have kind voices maybe, and we won't know their bad looks or their villainy at all. (He takes Mary Doul's hand again.) Come along now and we'll be walking to the south, for we've seen too much of everyone in this place, and it's small joy we'd have living near them, or hearing the lies they do be telling from the gray of dawn till the night.

MARY DOUL -- [despondingly.] -- That's the truth, surely; and we'd have a right to be gone, if it's a long way itself, as I've heard them say, where you do have to be walking with a slough of wet on the one side and a slough of wet on the other, and you going a stony path with a north wind blowing behind. [They go out.]

TIMMY. There's a power of deep rivers with floods in them where you do have to be lepping the stones and you going to the south, so I'm thinking the two of them will be drowned together in a short while, surely.

SAINT. They have chosen their lot, and the Lord have mercy on their souls. (He rings his bell.) And let the two of you come up now into the church, Molly Byrne and Timmy the smith, till I make your marriage and put my blessing on you all.

[He turns to the church; procession forms, and the curtain comes down, as they go slowly into the church.]