The Well of the Saints | Page 8

a coin to or a crust of bread.
MARTIN DOUL -- [moving uneasily.] -- When they look on herself, who is a fine woman.
TIMMY -- [shaking him.] -- Whisht now, and be listening to the Saint.
SAINT -- [looks at them a moment, continues.] -- If it's raggy and dirty you are itself, I'm saying, the Almighty God isn't at all like the rich men of Ireland; and, with the power of the water I'm after bringing in a little curagh into Cashla Bay, He'll have pity on you, and put sight into your eyes.
MARTIN DOUL -- [taking off his hat.] -- I'm ready now, holy father.
SAINT -- [taking him by the hand.] -- I'll cure you first, and then I'll come for your wife. We'll go up now into the church, for I must say a prayer to the Lord. (To Mary Doul, as he moves off.) And let you be making your mind still and saying praises in your heart, for it's a great wonderful thing when the power of the Lord of the world is brought down upon your like.
PEOPLE -- [pressing after him.] -- Come now till we watch.
BRIDE. Come, Timmy.
SAINT -- [waving them back.] -- Stay back where you are, for I'm not wanting a big crowd making whispers in the church. Stay back there, I'm saying, and you'd do well to be thinking on the way sin has brought blindness to the world, and to be saying a prayer for your own sakes against false prophets and heathens, and the words of women and smiths, and all knowledge that would soil the soul or the body of a man.
[People shrink back. He goes into church. Mary Doul gropes half-way towards the door and kneels near path. People form a group at right.]
TIMMY. Isn't it a fine, beautiful voice he has, and he a fine, brave man if it wasn't for the fasting?
BRIDE. Did you watch him moving his hands?
MOLLY BYRNE. It'd be a fine thing if some one in this place could pray the like of him, for I'm thinking the water from our own blessed well would do rightly if a man knew the way to be saying prayers, and then there'd be no call to be bringing water from that wild place, where, I'm told, there are no decent houses, or fine-looking people at all.
BRIDE -- [who is looking in at door from right.] -- Look at the great trembling Martin has shaking him, and he on his knees.
TIMMY -- [anxiously.] -- God help him. . . What will he be doing when he sees his wife this day? I'm thinking it was bad work we did when we let on she was fine-looking, and not a wrinkled, wizened hag the way she is.
MAT SIMON. Why would he be vexed, and we after giving him great joy and pride, the time he was dark?
MOLLY BYRNE -- [sitting down in Mary Doul's seat and tidying her hair.] -- If it's vexed he is itself, he'll have other things now to think on as well as his wife; and what does any man care for a wife, when it's two weeks or three, he is looking on her face?
MAT SIMON. That's the truth now, Molly, and it's more joy dark Martin got from the lies we told of that hag is kneeling by the path than your own man will get from you, day or night, and he living at your side.
MOLLY BYRNE -- [defiantly.] -- Let you not be talking, Mat Simon, for it's not yourself will be my man, though you'd be crowing and singing fine songs if you'd that hope in you at all.
TIMMY -- [shocked, to Molly Byrne.] -- Let you not be raising your voice when the Saint's above at his prayers.
BRIDE -- [crying out.] -- Whisht. . . . Whisht. . . . I'm thinking he's cured.
MARTIN DOUL -- [crying out in the church.] -- Oh, glory be to God. . . .
SAINT -- [solemnly.] Laus Patri sit et Filio cum Spiritu Paraclito Qui Suae dono gratiae misertus est Hiberniae. . . .
MARTIN DOUL -- [ecstatically.] -- Oh, glory be to God, I see now surely. . . . I see the walls of the church, and the green bits of ferns in them, and yourself, holy father, and the great width of the sky.
[He runs out half-foolish with joy, and comes past Mary Doul as she scrambles to her feet, drawing a little away from her as he goes by.]
TIMMY -- [to the others.] -- He doesn't know her at all.
[The Saint comes out behind Martin Doul, and leads Mary Doul into the church. Martin Doul comes on to the People. The men are between him and the Girls; he verifies his position with his stick.]
MARTIN DOUL -- [crying