The Unicorn from the Stars

poles. Nanny What way could I help letting a screech out of myself, and the life but just gone out of him in the darkness, and not a living Christian by his side but myself and the great God? Biddy It’s on ourselves the vengeance of the red soldiers will fall, they to find us sitting here the same as hares in a tuft. It would be best for us follow after the rest of the army of the Whiteboys. Nanny Whisht! I tell you. The lads are cracked about him. To get but the wind of the word of leaving him, it’s little but they’d knock the head off the two of us. Whisht! Enter Johnny Bacach with candles. Johnny Standing over Martin. Wouldn’t you say now there was some malice or some venom in the air, that is striking down one after another the whole of the heroes of the Gael? Paudeen

It makes a person be thinking of the four last ends, death and judgment, heaven and hell. Indeed and indeed my heart lies with him. It is well I knew what man he was under his by-name and his disguise.

Sings.

Oh, Johnny Gibbons, it’s you were the prop to us.
You to have left us, we are put astray!

Johnny It is lost we are now and broken to the end of our days. There is no satisfaction at all but to be destroying the English, and where now will we get so good a leader again? Lay him out fair and straight upon a stone, till I will let loose the secret of my heart keening him! Sets out candles on a rock, propping them up with stones. Nanny Is it mould candles you have brought to set around him, Johnny Bacach? It is great riches you should have in your pocket to be going to those lengths and not to be content with dips. Johnny It is lengths I will not be going to the time the life will be gone out of your own body. It is not your corpse I will be wishful to hold in honour the way I hold this corpse in honour. Nanny That’s the way always, there will be grief and quietness in the house if it is a young person has died, but funning and springing and tricking one another if it is an old person’s corpse is in it. There is no compassion at all for the old. Paudeen It is he would have got leave for the Gael to be as high as the Gall. Believe me, he was in the prophecies. Let you not be comparing yourself with the like of him. Nanny Why wouldn’t I be comparing myself? Look at all that was against me in the world. Would you be matching me against a man of his sort, that had the people shouting him and that had nothing to do but to die and to go to heaven? Johnny The day you go to heaven that you may never come back alive out of it! But it is not yourself will ever hear the saints hammering at their musics! It is you will be moving through the ages, chains upon you, and you in the form of a dog or a monster. I tell you that one will go through Purgatory as quick as lightning through a thorn-bush. Nanny

That’s the way, that the way.

Croons.

Three that are watching my time to run,
The worm, the devil, and my son,
To see a loop around their neck
It’s that would make my heart to lep!

Johnny Five white candles. I wouldn’t begrudge them to him indeed. If he had held out and held up it is my belief he would have freed Ireland! Paudeen Wait till the full light of the day and you’ll see the burying he’ll have. It is not in this place we will be waking him. I’ll make a call to the two hundred Ribbons he was to lead on to the attack on the barracks at Aughanish. They will bring him marching to his grave upon the hill. He had surely some gift from the other world, I wouldn’t say but he had power from the other side. Andrew Coming in very shaky. Well, it was a great night he gave to the village, and it is long till it will be forgotten. I tell you the whole of the neighbours are up against him. There is no one at all this morning to set the mills going. There was no bread baked in the nighttime, the horses are not fed in the stalls, the cows are not milked in the sheds. I met no man able to make a curse this night but he put it on my head and on the head of the boy that is lying there before us⁠ ⁠… Is there no sign of life in him at all? Johnny What way would there be a sign of life and the life gone out of him this three hours or more? Andrew He was lying in his sleep for a while yesterday, and he wakened again after another while. Nanny He will not waken, I tell you. I held his hand in my own and it getting cold as if you were pouring on it the coldest cold water, and no running in his blood. He is gone sure enough and the life is gone out of him. Andrew Maybe so, maybe so. It seems to me yesterday his cheeks were bloomy all the while, and now he is as pale as wood ashes. Sure we all must come to it at the last. Well, my white-headed darling, it is you were the bush among us all, and you to be cut down in your prime. Gentle and simple, everyone liked you. It is no narrow heart you had, it is you were for spending and not for getting. It is you made a good wake for yourself, scattering your estate in one night only in beer and in wine