The Well of the Saints Part 2

[He feels for Mary Doul and gives her the can.]

MARY DOUL -- [shaking it.] -- Well, glory be to G.o.d.

MARTIN DOUL -- [pointing to Bride.] -- And what is it herself has, making sounds in her hand?

BRIDE -- [crossing to Martin Doul.] -- It's the Saint's bell; you'll hear him ringing out the time he'll be going up some place, to be saying his prayers.

[Martin Doul holds out his hand; she gives it to him.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [ringing it.] -- It's a sweet, beautiful sound.

MARY DOUL. You'd know, I'm thinking, by the little silvery voice of it, a fasting holy man was after carrying it a great way at his side.

[Bride crosses a little right behind Martin Doul.]

MOLLY BYRNE -- [unfolding Saint's cloak.] -- Let you stand up now, Martin Doul, till I put his big cloak on you. (Martin Doul rises, comes forward, centre a little.) The way we'd see how you'd look, and you a saint of the Almighty G.o.d.

MARTIN DOUL -- [standing up, a little diffidently.] -- I've heard 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 G.o.d.

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 G.o.d?

MARY DOUL -- [turning on her, fiercely.] -- How would he be bell-ringing with the saints of G.o.d 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, G.o.d 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 pa.s.s, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 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 G.o.d 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.] -- G.o.d 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.