The Well of the Saints | Page 7

the priests a power of times making great talk and praises of the beauty of the saints. [Molly Byrne slips cloak round him.]
TIMMY -- [uneasily.] -- You'd have a right to be leaving him alone, Molly. What would the Saint say if he seen you making game with his cloak?
MOLLY BYRNE -- [recklessly.] -- How would he see us, and he saying prayers in the wood? (She turns Martin Doul round.) Isn't that a fine holy-looking saint, Timmy the smith? (Laughing foolishly.) There's a grand, handsome fellow, Mary Doul; and if you seen him now you'd be as proud, I'm thinking, as the archangels below, fell out with the Almighty God.
MARY DOUL -- [with quiet confidence going to Martin Doul and feeling his cloak.] -- It's proud we'll be this day, surely. [Martin Doul is still ringing.]
MOLLY BYRNE -- [to Martin Doul.] -- Would you think well to be all your life walking round the like of that, Martin Doul, and you bell-ringing with the saints of God?
MARY DOUL -- [turning on her, fiercely.] -- How would he be bell-ringing with the saints of God and he wedded with myself?
MARTIN DOUL. It's the truth she's saying, and if bell-ringing is a fine life, yet I'm thinking, maybe, it's better I am wedded with the beautiful dark woman of Ballinatone.
MOLLY BYRNE -- [scornfully.] -- You're thinking that, God help you; but it's little you know of her at all.
MARTIN DOUL. It's little surely, and I'm destroyed this day waiting to look upon her face.
TIMMY -- [awkwardly.] -- It's well you know the way she is; for the like of you do have great knowledge in the feeling of your hands.
MARTIN DOUL -- [still feeling the cloak.] -- We do, maybe. Yet it's little I know of faces, or of fine beautiful cloaks, for it's few cloaks I've had my hand to, and few faces (plaintively); for the young girls is mighty shy, Timmy the smith and it isn't much they heed me, though they do be saying I'm a handsome man.
MARY DOUL -- [mockingly, with good humour.] -- Isn't it a queer thing the voice he puts on him, when you hear him talking of the skinny-looking girls, and he married with a woman he's heard called the wonder of the western world?
TIMMY -- [pityingly.] -- The two of you will see a great wonder this day, and it's no lie.
MARTIN DOUL. I've heard tell her yellow hair, and her white skin, and her big eyes are a wonder, surely.
BRIDE -- [who has looked out left.] -- Here's the saint coming from the selvage of the wood. . . . Strip the cloak from him, Molly, or he'll be seeing it now.
MOLLY BYRNE -- [hastily to Bride.] -- Take the bell and put yourself by the stones. (To Martin Doul.) Will you hold your head up till I loosen the cloak? (She pulls off the cloak and throws it over her arm. Then she pushes Martin Doul over and stands him beside Mary Doul.) Stand there now, quiet, and let you not be saying a word.
[She and Bride stand a little on their left, demurely, with bell, etc., in their hands.]
MARTIN DOUL -- [nervously arranging his clothes.] -- Will he mind the way we are, and not tidied or washed cleanly at all?
MOLLY BYRNE. He'll not see what way you are. . . . He'd walk by the finest woman in Ireland, I'm thinking, and not trouble to raise his two eyes to look upon her face. . . . Whisht!
[The Saint comes left, with crowd.]
SAINT. Are these the two poor people?
TIMMY -- [officiously.] -- They are, holy father; they do be always sitting here at the crossing of the roads, asking a bit of copper from them that do pass, or stripping rushes for lights, and they not mournful at all, but talking out straight with a full voice, and making game with them that likes it.
SAINT -- [to Martin Doul and Mary Doul.] -- It's a hard life you've had not seeing sun or moon, or the holy priests itself praying to the Lord, but it's the like of you who are brave in a bad time will make a fine use of the gift of sight the Almighty God will bring to you today. (He takes his cloak and puts it about him.) It's on a bare starving rock that there's the grave of the four beauties of God, the way it's little wonder, I'm thinking, if it's with bare starving people the water should be used. (He takes the water and bell and slings them round his shoulders.) So it's to the like of yourselves I do be going, who are wrinkled and poor, a thing rich men would hardly look at at all, but would throw