The Well of the Saints

too certain their sight is, holy father; and they’re after making a great fight, because they’re a pair of pitiful shows. Saint Coming between them. May the Lord who has given you sight send a little sense into your heads, the way it won’t be on your two selves you’ll be looking⁠—on two pitiful sinners of the earth⁠—but on the splendour of the Spirit of God, you’ll see an odd time shining out through the big hills, and steep streams falling to the sea. For if it’s on the like of that you do be thinking, you’ll not be minding the faces of men, but you’ll be saying prayers and great praises, till you’ll be living the way the great saints do be living, with little but old sacks, and skin covering their bones. To Timmy. Leave him go now, you’re seeing he’s quiet again. He frees Martin Doul. And let you he turns to Mary Doul not be raising your voice, a bad thing in a woman; but let the lot of you, who have seen the power of the Lord, be thinking on it in the dark night, and be saying to yourselves it’s great pity and love He has for the poor, starving people of Ireland. He gathers his cloak about him. And now the Lord send blessing to you all, for I am going on to Annagolan, where there is a deaf woman, and to Laragh, where there are two men without sense, and to Glenassil, where there are children blind from their birth; and then I’m going to sleep this night in the bed of the holy Kevin, and to be praising God, and asking great blessing on you all. He bends his head. Curtain.

Act II

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