Where There is Nothing Part 16

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yes, I used to like once to see all the faces looking up at me. But now all that is gone from me. Now I think it is enough to be a witness for the truth, and to think the thoughts I like. G.o.d will bring the people to me. He will make of my silence a great wind that will shatter the ships of the world.

_Colman._ That is all very well, but the people are not coming.

_Aloysius._ And more than that, they are driving us away from their doors now, Paul.

_Charlie Ward._ The way they do to us. But Paul was not born on the roads. [_Lights his pipe._

_Colman._ It's no use stopping waiting for a wind; if we have anything to say that's worth the people listening to, we must bring them to hear it one way or another. Now, it is what I was saying to Aloysius, we must begin teaching them to make things, they never had the chance of any instruction of the sort here.

_Paul Ruttledge._ To make things? This sort of things? [_Takes the half-made basket from_ COLMAN.

_Colman._ Those and other things, we got a good training in the old days. And we'll get a grant from the Technical Board. The Board pays up to four hundred pounds to some of its instructors.

_Paul Ruttledge._ And then?

_Aloysius._ Oh, then we'll sell all the things we make. I'm sure we'll get a market for them.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh, I understand; you will sell them. And what about the dividing of the money? You will need to make laws about that.

_Colman._ Of course; we will have to make rules, and to pay according to work.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh, we will grow quite rich in time. What are we to do then? we can't go on living in this ruin?

_Colman._ Of course not. We'll build workshops and houses for those who come to work from a distance, good houses, slated, not thatched.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Turning to_ ALOYSIUS _and_ CHARLIE WARD.] Yes, you see his plan. To gather the people together, to build houses for them; to make them rich too, and to keep their money safe. And the Kingdom of G.o.d too? What about that?

_Colman._ Oh, I'm just coming to that. They will think so much more of our teaching when we have got them under our influence by other things.

Of course we will teach them their meditations, and give them a regular religious life. We must settle out some little place for them to pray in--there's a high gable over there where we could hang a bell----

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh yes, I understand. You would weave them together like this [_weaves the osiers in and out_], you would add one thing to another, laws and money and church and bells, till you had got everything back again that you have escaped from. But it is my business to tear things asunder like this [_tears pieces from the basket_], and this, and this----

_Aloysius._ I told him you'd never agree to it. He ought to have known that himself.

_Colman._ We must have something to offer the people.

_Paul Ruttledge._ You say that because you got nothing to-day. Aloysius has got nothing in his sack. [_Taking sack and turning it upside down._]

It is quite empty. Every religious teacher before me has offered something to his followers, but I offer them nothing. [_Plunging his arm down into the sack._] My sack is quite empty. I will never dip my hand into nature's full sack of illusions; I am tired of that old conjuring bag. [_He walks up and down muttering._

_Charlie Ward._ [_To_ COLMAN.] You may as well give up trying to settle him down to anything. He was a tinker once, and he'll be a tinker always; he has got the wandering into his blood. Will you come back to the roads, Paul, to your old friends and to Sabina?

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Sitting down beside him._] Ah, my old friends, they were very kind to me; but these friends too are very kind to me.

_Charlie Ward._ Well, come and see them anyway; they'll be glad to see you, those that are left of us.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Those that are left of you? Where are the others?

_Charlie Ward._ Some are dead, and some are jailed, and some are on the roads here and there. Sabina is with us always, and Johneen is a great hand with the tools now, but Tommy the Song----

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh, Tommy the Song, does he pray still? He was beginning to pray. Did he ever get an answer?

_Charlie Ward._ Well, I don't know about an answer, but I believe he heard something one night beside an old thorn tree, some sort of a voice it was.

_Paul Ruttledge._ A voice? What did it say to him? Did he see anything?

We have learned too much, our minds are like troubled water--we get nothing but broken images. He who knew nothing may have seen all. Is he praying still?

_Charlie Ward._ If he is, it's in Galway gaol he's praying, with or without a thorn tree.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Did he tell no one what the voice said to him?

_Charlie Ward._ He did not, unless he might have told Johneen or some other one.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I will go with you and see them. [_Gets up._

_Colman._ [_To_ ALOYSIUS, _with whom he has been whispering_.] Take care, but if he goes back to his old friends, he'll stop with them and leave us.

_Aloysius._ [_Putting his hand on_ PAUL RUTTLEDGE'S _arm_.] Don't go, Brother Paul, till I talk to you awhile.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Do you want me? Well, Charlie, I will stay here, I won't go; but bring all the rest to see me, I want to ask them about that vision.

_Charlie Ward._ I'll bring one of them, anyway. [_Exit._

_Aloysius._ Brother Paul, it is what I am thinking; now the tinkers have come back to you, you could begin to gather a sort of an army; you can't fight your battle without an army. They could call to the other tinkers, and the tramps and the beggars, and the sieve-makers and all the wandering people. It would be a great army.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yes, that would be a great army, a great wandering army.

_Aloysius._ The people would be afraid to refuse us then; we would march on----

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yes, we could march on. We could march on the towns, and we could break up all settled order; we could bring back the old joyful, dangerous, individual life. We would have banners, we would each have a banner, banners with angels upon them--we will march upon the world with banners----

_Colman._ We would not be in want of food then, we could take all we wanted.

_Aloysius._ We could take all we wanted, we would be too many to put in gaol; all the people would join us in the end; you would be able to persuade them all, Brother Paul, you would be their leader; we would make great stores of food----

_Paul Ruttledge._ We will have one great banner that will go in front, it will take two men to carry it, and on it we will have Laughter, with his iron claws and his wings of bra.s.s and his eyes like sapphires----

_Aloysius._ That will be the banner for the front, we will have different troops, we will have captains to organize them, to give them orders----

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Standing up._] To organize? That is to bring in law and number? Organize--organize--that is how all the mischief has been done. I was forgetting, we cannot destroy the world with armies, it is inside our minds that it must be destroyed, it must be consumed in a moment inside our minds. G.o.d will accomplish his last judgment, first in one man's mind and then in another. He is always planning last judgments. And yet it takes a long time, and that is why he laments in the wind and in the reeds and in the cries of the curlews.

_Colman._ I think we had better go down to the river and see are there any eels on the lines we set. We must find something for supper. It is near sunset; see how the crows are flying home.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Looking up._] The crows are my darlings! I like their harsh merriment better than those sad cries of the wind and the rushes. Look at them, they are tossing about like witches, tossing about on the wind, drunk with the wind.

_Colman._ Well, I'll go look at the lines, anyhow. Put turf on the fire, Aloysius; Bartley should soon be home from Shanaglish.

_Aloysius._ I wonder why he isn't home by this. I'm uneasy till I see him, after the way the people treated me to-day. [_Shades his eyes to look out._] Here he is! He's running!