The Well of the Saints Part 4

TIMMY -- [heard hammering inside forge, then calls.] -- Let you make haste out there.... I'll be putting up new fires at the turn of day, and you haven't the half of them cut yet.

MARTIN DOUL -- [gloomily.] -- It's destroyed I'll be whacking your old thorns till the turn of day, and I with no food in my stomach would keep the life in a pig. (He turns towards the door.) Let you come out here and cut them yourself if you want them cut, for there's an hour every day when a man has a right to his rest.

TIMMY -- [coming out, with a hammer, impatiently.] -- Do you want me to be driving you off again to be walking the roads? There you are now, and I giving you your food, and a corner to sleep, and money with it; and, to hear the talk of you, you'd think I was after beating you, or stealing your gold.

MARTIN DOUL. You'd do it handy, maybe, if I'd gold to steal.

TIMMY -- [throws down hammer; picks up some of the sticks already cut, and throws them into door.] There's no fear of your having gold -- a lazy, basking fool the like of you.

MARTIN DOUL. No fear, maybe, and I here with yourself, for it's more I got a while since and I sitting blinded in Grianan, than I get in this place working hard, and destroying myself, the length of the day.

TIMMY -- [stopping with amazement.] -- Working hard? (He goes over to him.) I'll teach you to work hard, Martin Doul. Strip off your coat now, and put a tuck in your sleeves, and cut the lot of them, while I'd rake the ashes from the forge, or I'll not put up with you another hour itself.

MARTIN DOUL -- [horrified.] -- Would you have me getting my death sitting out in the black wintry air with no coat on me at all?

TIMMY -- [with authority.] -- Strip it off now, or walk down upon the road.

MARTIN DOUL -- [bitterly.] -- Oh, G.o.d help me! (He begins taking off his coat.) I've heard tell you stripped the sheet from your wife and you putting her down into the grave, and that there isn't the like of you for plucking your living ducks, the short days, and leaving them running round in their skins, in the great rains and the cold. (He tucks up his sleeves.) Ah, I've heard a power of queer things of yourself, and there isn't one of them I'll not believe from this day, and be telling to the boys.

TIMMY -- [pulling over a big stick.] -- Let you cut that now, and give me rest from your talk, for I'm not heeding you at all.

MARTIN DOUL -- [taking stick.] -- That's a hard, terrible stick, Timmy; and isn't it a poor thing to be cutting strong timber the like of that, when it's cold the bark is, and slippy with the frost of the air?

TIMMY -- [gathering up another armful of sticks.] -- What way wouldn't it be cold, and it freezing since the moon was changed? [He goes into forge.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [querulously, as he cuts slowly.] -- What way, indeed, Timmy? For it's a raw, beastly day we do have each day, till I do be thinking it's well for the blind don't be seeing them gray clouds driving on the hill, and don't be looking on people with their noses red, the like of your nose, and their eyes weeping and watering, the like of your eyes, G.o.d help you, Timmy the smith.

TIMMY -- [seen blinking in doorway.] -- Is it turning now you are against your sight?

MARTIN DOUL -- [very miserably.] -- It's a hard thing for a man to have his sight, and he living near to the like of you (he cuts a stick and throws it away), or wed with a wife (cuts a stick); and I do be thinking it should be a hard thing for the Almighty G.o.d to be looking on the world, bad days, and on men the like of yourself walking around on it, and they slipping each way in the muck.

TIMMY -- [with pot-hooks which he taps on anvil.] -- You'd have a right to be minding, Martin Doul, for it's a power the Saint cured lose their sight after a while. Mary Doul's dimming again, I've heard them say; and I'm thinking the Lord, if he hears you making that talk, will have little pity left for you at all.

MARTIN DOUL. There's not a bit of fear of me losing my sight, and if it's a dark day itself it's too well I see every wicked wrinkle you have round by your eye.

TIMMY -- [looking at him sharply.] -- The day's not dark since the clouds broke in the east.

MARTIN DOUL. Let you not be tormenting yourself trying to make me afeard. You told me a power of bad lies the time I was blind, and it's right now for you to stop, and be taking your rest (Mary Doul comes in unnoticed on right with a sack filled with green stuff on her arm), for it's little ease or quiet any person would get if the big fools of Ireland weren't weary at times. (He looks up and sees Mary Doul.) Oh, glory be to G.o.d, she's coming again.

[He begins to work busily with his back to her.]

TIMMY -- [amused, to Mary Doul, as she is going by without looking at them.] -- Look on him now, Mary Doul. You'd be a great one for keeping him steady at his work, for he's after idling and blathering to this hour from the dawn of day.

MARY DOUL -- [stiffly.] -- Of what is it you're speaking, Timmy the smith?

TIMMY -- [laughing.] -- Of himself, surely. Look on him there, and he with the shirt on him ripping from his back. You'd have a right to come round this night, I'm thinking, and put a st.i.tch into his clothes, for it's long enough you are not speaking one to the other.

MARY DOUL. Let the two of you not torment me at all.

[She goes out left, with her head in the air.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [stops work and looks after her.] -- Well, isn't it a queer thing she can't keep herself two days without looking on my face?

TIMMY -- [jeeringly.] -- Looking on your face is it? And she after going by with her head turned the way you'd see a priest going where there'd be a drunken man in the side ditch talking with a girl. (Martin Doul gets up and goes to corner of forge, and looks out left.) Come back here and don't mind her at all. Come back here, I'm saying, you've no call to be spying behind her since she went off, and left you, in place of breaking her heart, trying to keep you in the decency of clothes and food.

MARTIN DOUL -- [crying out indignantly.] -- You know rightly, Timmy, it was myself drove her away.

TIMMY. That's a lie you're telling, yet it's little I care which one of you was driving the other, and let you walk back here, I'm saying, to your work.

MARTIN DOUL -- [turning round.] -- I'm coming, surely.

[He stops and looks out right, going a step or two towards centre.]

TIMMY. On what is it you're gaping, Martin Doul?

MARTIN DOUL. There's a person walking above.... It's Molly Byrne, I'm thinking, coming down with her can.

TIMMY. If she is itself let you not be idling this day, or minding her at all, and let you hurry with them sticks, for I'll want you in a short while to be blowing in the forge. [He throws down pot-hooks.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [crying out.] -- Is it roasting me now you'd be? (Turns back and sees pot-hooks; he takes them up.) Pot-hooks? Is it over them you've been inside sneezing and sweating since the dawn of day?

TIMMY -- [resting himself on anvil, with satisfaction.] -- I'm making a power of things you do have when you're settling with a wife, Martin Doul; for I heard tell last night the Saint'll be pa.s.sing again in a short while, and I'd have him wed Molly with myself.... He'd do it, I've heard them say, for not a penny at all.

MARTIN DOUL -- [lays down hooks and looks at him steadily.] -- Molly'll be saying great praises now to the Almighty G.o.d and He giving her a fine, stout, hardy man the like of you.

TIMMY -- [uneasily.] -- And why wouldn't she, if she's a fine woman itself?

MARTIN DOUL -- [looking up right.] -- Why wouldn't she, indeed, Timmy?.... The Almighty G.o.d's made a fine match in the two of you, for if you went marrying a woman was the like of yourself you'd be having the fearfullest little children, I'm thinking, was ever seen in the world.

TIMMY -- [seriously offended.] -- G.o.d forgive you! if you're an ugly man to be looking at, I'm thinking your tongue's worse than your view.

MARTIN DOUL -- [hurt also.] -- Isn't it destroyed with the cold I am, and if I'm ugly itself I never seen anyone the like of you for dreepiness this day, Timmy the smith, and I'm thinking now herself's coming above you'd have a right to step up into your old shanty, and give a rub to your face, and not be sitting there with your bleary eyes, and your big nose, the like of an old scarecrow stuck down upon the road.

TIMMY -- [looking up the road uneasily.] She's no call to mind what way I look, and I after building a house with four rooms in it above on the hill. (He stands up.) But it's a queer thing the way yourself and Mary Doul are after setting every person in this place, and up beyond to Rathvanna, talking of nothing, and thinking of nothing, but the way they do be looking in the face. (Going towards forge.) It's the devil's work you're after doing with your talk of fine looks, and I'd do right, maybe, to step in and wash the blackness from my eyes.

[He goes into forge. Martin Doul rubs his face furtively with the tail of his coat. Molly Byrne comes on right with a water-can, and begins to fill it at the well.]

MARTIN DOUL. G.o.d save you, Molly Byrne.

MOLLY BYRNE -- [indifferently.] -- G.o.d save you.

MARTIN DOUL. That's a dark, gloomy day, and the Lord have mercy on us all.

MOLLY BYRNE. Middling dark.

MARTIN DOUL. It's a power of dirty days, and dark mornings, and shabby-looking fellows (he makes a gesture over his shoulder) we do have to be looking on when we have our sight, G.o.d help us, but there's one fine thing we have, to be looking on a grand, white, handsome girl, the like of you.... and every time I set my eyes on you I do be blessing the saints, and the holy water, and the power of the Lord Almighty in the heavens above.

MOLLY BYRNE. I've heard the priests say it isn't looking on a young girl would teach many to be saying their prayers. [Bailing water into her can with a cup.]