[_Village roadside, on left the door of a forge, with broken wheels,
etc., lying about. A well near centre, with board above it, and room to
pass behind it. Martin Doul is sitting near forge, cutting sticks._]
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, God 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, God 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 God 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
God, 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 stitch 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 passing 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 God 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
God’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._ — God 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.
God save you, Molly Byrne.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_indifferently._ — God 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, God 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._]
MARTIN DOUL.
It isn’t many have been the way I was, hearing your voice speaking, and
not seeing you at all.
MOLLY BYRNE.
That should have been a queer time for an old, wicked, coaxing fool to
be sitting there with your eyes shut, and not seeing a sight of girl or
woman passing the road.
MARTIN DOUL.
If it was a queer time itself it was great joy and pride I had the time
I’d hear your voice speaking and you passing to Grianan (_beginning to
speak with plaintive intensity_), for it’s of many a fine thing your
voice would put a poor dark fellow in mind, and the day I’d hear it
it’s of little else at all I would be thinking.
MOLLY BYRNE.
I’ll tell your wife if you talk to me the like of that.... You’ve
heard, maybe, she’s below picking nettles for the widow O’Flinn, who
took great pity on her when she seen the two of you fighting, and
yourself putting shame on her at the crossing of the roads.
MARTIN DOUL.
_impatiently._ — Is there no living person can speak a score of words
to me, or say “God speed you,” itself, without putting me in mind of
the old woman, or that day either at Grianan?
MOLLY BYRNE.
_maliciously._ — I was thinking it should be a fine thing to put you in
mind of the day you called the grand day of your life.
MARTIN DOUL.
Grand day, is it? (_Plaintively again, throwing aside his work, and
leaning towards her._) Or a bad black day when I was roused up and
found I was the like of the little children do be listening to the
stories of an old woman, and do be dreaming after in the dark night
that it’s in grand houses of gold they are, with speckled horses to
ride, and do be waking again, in a short while, and they destroyed with
the cold, and the thatch dripping, maybe, and the starved ass braying
in the yard?
MOLLY BYRNE.
_working indifferently._ — You’ve great romancing this day, Martin
Doul. Was it up at the still you were at the fall of night?
MARTIN DOUL.
_stands up, comes towards her, but stands at far (_right_) side of
well._ — It was not, Molly Byrne, but lying down in a little rickety
shed.... Lying down across a sop of straw, and I thinking I was seeing
you walk, and hearing the sound of your step on a dry road, and hearing
you again, and you laughing and making great talk in a high room with
dry timber lining the roof. For it’s a fine sound your voice has that
time, and it’s better I am, I’m thinking, lying down, the way a blind
man does be lying, than to be sitting here in the gray light taking
hard words of Timmy the smith.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_looking at him with interest._ — It’s queer talk you have if it’s a
little, old, shabby stump of a man you are itself.
MARTIN DOUL.
I’m not so old as you do hear them say.
MOLLY BYRNE.
You’re old, I’m thinking, to be talking that talk with a girl.
MARTIN DOUL.
_despondingly._ — It’s not a lie you’re telling, maybe, for it’s long
years I’m after losing from the world, feeling love and talking love,
with the old woman, and I fooled the whole while with the lies of Timmy
the smith.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_half invitingly._ — It’s a fine way you’re wanting to pay Timmy the
smith.... And it’s not his _lies_ you’re making love to this day,
Martin Doul.
MARTIN DOUL.
It is not, Molly, and the Lord forgive us all. (_He passes behind her
and comes near her left._) For I’ve heard tell there are lands beyond
in Cahir Iveraghig and the Reeks of Cork with warm sun in them, and
fine light in the sky. (_Bending towards her._) And light’s a grand
thing for a man ever was blind, or a woman, with a fine neck, and a
skin on her the like of you, the way we’d have a right to go off this
day till we’d have a fine life passing abroad through them towns of the
south, and we telling stories, maybe, or singing songs at the fairs.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_turning round half amused, and looking him over from head to foot._ —
Well, isn’t it a queer thing when your own wife’s after leaving you
because you’re a pitiful show, you’d talk the like of that to me?
MARTIN DOUL.
_drawing back a little, hurt, but indignant._ — It’s a queer thing,
maybe, for all things is queer in the world. (_In a low voice with
peculiar emphasis._) But there’s one thing I’m telling you, if she
walked off away from me, it wasn’t because of seeing me, and I no more
than I am, but because I was looking on her with my two eyes, and she
getting up, and eating her food, and combing her hair, and lying down
for her sleep.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_interested, off her guard._ — Wouldn’t any married man you’d have be
doing the like of that?
MARTIN DOUL.
_seizing the moment that he has her attention._ — I’m thinking by the
mercy of God it’s few sees anything but them is blind for a space
(_with excitement._) It’s a few sees the old woman rotting for the
grave, and it’s few sees the like of yourself. (_He bends over her._)
Though it’s shining you are, like a high lamp would drag in the ships
out of the sea.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_shrinking away from him._ — Keep off from me, Martin Doul.
MARTIN DOUL.
_quickly, with low, furious intensity._ — It’s the truth I’m telling
you. (_He puts his hand on her shoulder and shakes her._) And you’d do
right not to marry a man is after looking out a long while on the bad
days of the world; for what way would the like of him have fit eyes to
look on yourself, when you rise up in the morning and come out of the
little door you have above in the lane, the time it’d be a fine thing
if a man would be seeing, and losing his sight, the way he’d have your
two eyes facing him, and he going the roads, and shining above him, and
he looking in the sky, and springing up from the earth, the time he’d
lower his head, in place of the muck that seeing men do meet all roads
spread on the world.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_who has listened half mesmerized, starting away._ — It’s the like of
that talk you’d hear from a man would be losing his mind.
MARTIN DOUL.
_going after her, passing to her right._ — It’d be little wonder if a
man near the like of you would be losing his mind. Put down your can
now, and come along with myself, for I’m seeing you this day, seeing
you, maybe, the way no man has seen you in the world. (_He takes her by
the arm and tries to pull her away softly to the right._) Let you come
on now, I’m saying, to the lands of Iveragh and the Reeks of Cork,
where you won’t set down the width of your two feet and not be crushing
fine flowers, and making sweet smells in the air.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_laying down the can; trying to free herself._ — Leave me go, Martin
Doul! Leave me go, I’m saying!
MARTIN DOUL.
Let you not be fooling. Come along now the little path through the
trees.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_crying out towards forge._ — Timmy the smith. (_Timmy comes out of
forge, and Martin Doul lets her go. Molly Byrne, excited and
breathless, pointing to Martin Doul._) Did ever you hear that them that
loses their sight loses their senses along with it, Timmy the smith!
TIMMY.
_suspicious, but uncertain._ — He’s no sense, surely, and he’ll be
having himself driven off this day from where he’s good sleeping, and
feeding, and wages for his work.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_as before._ — He’s a bigger fool than that, Timmy. Look on him now,
and tell me if that isn’t a grand fellow to think he’s only to open his
mouth to have a fine woman, the like of me, running along by his heels.
[_Martin Doul recoils towards centre, with his hand to his eyes; Mary
Doul is seen on left coming forward softly._]
TIMMY.
_with blank amazement._ — Oh, the blind is wicked people, and it’s no
lie. But he’ll walk off this day and not be troubling us more.
[_Turns back left and picks up Martin Doul’s coat and stick; some
things fall out of coat pocket, which he gathers up again._]
MARTIN DOUL.
_turns around, sees Mary Doul, whispers to Molly Byrne with imploring
agony._ — Let you not put shame on me, Molly, before herself and the
smith. Let you not put shame on me and I after saying fine words to
you, and dreaming... dreams... in the night. (_He hesitates, and looks
round the sky._) Is it a storm of thunder is coming, or the last end of
the world? (_He staggers towards Mary Doul, tripping slightly over tin
can._) The heavens is closing, I’m thinking, with darkness and great
trouble passing in the sky. (_He reaches Mary Doul, and seizes her left
arm with both his hands — with a frantic cry._) Is it darkness of
thunder is coming, Mary Doul! Do you see me clearly with your eyes?
MARY DOUL.
_snatches her arm away, and hits him with empty sack across the face._
— I see you a sight too clearly, and let you keep off from me now.
MOLLY BYRNE.
_clapping her hands._ — That’s right, Mary. That’s the way to treat the
like of him is after standing there at my feet and asking me to go off
with him, till I’d grow an old wretched road-woman the like of
yourself.
MARY DOUL.
_defiantly._ — When the skin shrinks on your chin, Molly Byrne, there
won’t be the like of you for a shrunk hag in the four quarters of
Ireland.... It’s a fine pair you’d be, surely!
[_Martin Doul is standing at back right centre, with his back to the
audience._]
TIMMY.
_coming over to Mary Doul._ — Is it no shame you have to let on she’d
ever be the like of you?
MARY DOUL.
It’s them that’s fat and flabby do be wrinkled young, and that whitish
yellowy hair she has does be soon turning the like of a handful of thin
grass you’d see rotting, where the wet lies, at the north of a sty.
(_Turning to go out on right._) Ah, it’s a better thing to have a
simple, seemly face, the like of my face, for two-score years, or fifty
itself, than to be setting fools mad a short while, and then to be
turning a thing would drive off the little children from your feet.
[_She goes out; Martin Doul has come forward again, mastering himself,
but uncertain._]
TIMMY.
Oh, God protect us, Molly, from the words of the blind. (_He throws
down Martin Doul’s coat and stick._) There’s your old rubbish now,
Martin Doul, and let you take it up, for it’s all you have, and walk
off through the world, for if ever I meet you coming again, if it’s
seeing or blind you are itself, I’ll bring out the big hammer and hit
you a welt with it will leave you easy till the judgment day.
MARTIN DOUL.
_rousing himself with an effort._ — What call have you to talk the like
of that with myself?
TIMMY.
_pointing to Molly Byrne._ — It’s well you know what call I have. It’s
well you know a decent girl, I’m thinking to wed, has no right to have
her heart scalded with hearing talk — and queer, bad talk, I’m thinking
— from a raggy-looking fool the like of you.
MARTIN DOUL.
_raising his voice._ — It’s making game of you she is, for what seeing
girl would marry with yourself? Look on him, Molly, look on him, I’m
saying, for I’m seeing him still, and let you raise your voice, for the
time is come, and bid him go up into his forge, and be sitting there by
himself, sneezing and sweating, and he beating pot-hooks till the
judgment day.
[_He seizes her arm again._]
MOLLY BYRNE.
Keep him off from me, Timmy!
TIMMY.
_pushing Martin Doul aside._ — Would you have me strike you, Martin
Doul? Go along now after your wife, who’s a fit match for you, and
leave Molly with myself.
MARTIN DOUL.
_despairingly._ — Won’t you raise your voice, Molly, and lay hell’s
long curse on his tongue?
MOLLY BYRNE.
_on Timmy’s left._ — I’ll be telling him it’s destroyed I am with the
sight of you and the sound of your voice. Go off now after your wife,
and if she beats you again, let you go after the tinker girls is above
running the hills, or down among the sluts of the town, and you’ll
learn one day, maybe, the way a man should speak with a well-reared,
civil girl the like of me. (_She takes Timmy by the arm._) Come up now
into the forge till he’ll be gone down a bit on the road, for it’s near
afeard I am of the wild look he has come in his eyes.
[_She goes into the forge. Timmy stops in the doorway._]
TIMMY.
Let me not find you out here again, Martin Doul. (_He bares his arm._)
It’s well you know Timmy the smith has great strength in his arm, and
it’s a power of things it has broken a sight harder than the old bone
of your skull.
[_He goes into the forge and pulls the door after him._]
MARTIN DOUL.
_stands a moment with his hand to his eyes._ — And that’s the last
thing I’m to set my sight on in the life of the world — the villainy of
a woman and the bloody strength of a man. Oh, God, pity a poor, blind
fellow, the way I am this day with no strength in me to do hurt to them
at all. (_He begins groping about for a moment, then stops._) Yet if
I’ve no strength in me I’ve a voice left for my prayers, and may God
blight them this day, and my own soul the same hour with them, the way
I’ll see them after, Molly Byrne and Timmy the smith, the two of them
on a high bed, and they screeching in hell.... It’ll be a grand thing
that time to look on the two of them; and they twisting and roaring
out, and twisting and roaring again, one day and the next day, and each
day always and ever. It’s not blind I’ll be that time, and it won’t be
hell to me, I’m thinking, but the like of heaven itself; and it’s fine
care I’ll be taking the Lord Almighty doesn’t know.
_He turns to grope out._
CURTAIN