by W. B. Yeats
Superior. Strip off those holy habits.
Paul Ruttledge. [Taking off his habit.] One by one I am plucking off the rags and tatters of the world.
ACT V.
Scene: Smooth level grass near the Shannon. Ecclesiastical ruins, a part of which have been roofed in. Rocky plain in the distance, with a river. Father Colman sorting some bundles of osiers.
Aloysius enters with an empty bag.
Colman. You are the first to come back Aloysius. Where is Brother Bartley?
Aloysius. He parted from me at the cross roads and went on to preach at Shanaglish. He should soon be back now.
Colman. Have you anything in the bag?
Aloysius. Nothing. [Throws the bag down.] It doesn’t seem as if our luck was growing. We have but food enough to last till to-morrow. We have hardly that. The rats from the river got at the few potatoes I gathered from the farmers at Lisheen last week, in the corner where they were.
Colman. This is the first day you got nothing at all. Maybe you didn’t ask the right way.
Aloysius. I asked for alms for the sake of the love of God. But the first place where I asked it, the man of the house was giving me a handful of meal, and the woman came and called out that we were serving the devil in the name of God, and she drove me from the door.
Colman. It is since the priests preached against us they say that. Did you go on to Lisheen. They used always to treat us well there.
Aloysius. I did, but I got on no better there.
Colman. That is a wonder, after the woman that had the jaundice being cured with prayers by Brother Paul.
Aloysius. That’s just it. If he did cure her, they say the two best of her husband’s bullocks died of the blackwater the next day, and he was no way thankful to us after that.
Colman. Did you try the houses along the bog road?
Aloysius. I did, and the children coming back from school called out after me and asked who was it did away with the widow Cloran’s cow.
Colman. The widow Cloran’s cow?
Aloysius. That was the cow that died after grazing in the ruins here.
Colman. If it did, it was because of an old boot it picked up and ate, and that never belonged to us.
Aloysius. I wish we had something ourselves to eat. They should be sitting down to their dinner in the monastery now. They will be having a good dinner to-day to carry them over the fast to-morrow.
Colman. I am thinking sometimes, Brother Paul should give more thought to us than he does. It is all very well for him, he is so taken up with his thoughts and his visions he doesn’t know if he is full or fasting.
Aloysius. He has such holy thoughts and visions no one would like to trouble him. He ought not to be in the world at all, or to do the world’s work.
Colman. So long as he is in the world, he must give some thought to it. There must be something wrong in the way he is doing things now. I thought he would have had half Ireland with him by this time with his great preaching, but someway when he preaches to the people, they don’t seem to mind him much.
Aloysius. He is too far above them; they have not education to understand him.
Colman. They understand me well enough when I give my mind to it. But it is harder to preach now than it was in the monastery. We had something to offer then; absolution here, and heaven after.
Aloysius. Isn’t it enough for them to hear that the kingdom of heaven is within them, and that if they do the right meditations — —
Colman. What can poor people that have their own troubles on them get from a few words like that they hear at a cross road or a market, and the wind maybe blowing them away? If we could gather them together now.... Look, Aloysius, at these sally rods; I have a plan in my mind about them.
[He has stuck some of the rods in the ground, and begins weaving others through them.
Aloysius. Are you going to make baskets like you did in the monastery schools?
Colman. We must make something if we are to live. But it is more than that I was thinking of; we might coax some of the youngsters to come and learn the basket making; it would make them take to us better if we could put them in the way of earning a few pence.
Aloysius. [Taking up some of the osiers and beginning to twist them.] That might be a good way to come at them; they could work through the day, and at evening we could tell them how to repeat the words till the light comes inside their heads. But would Paul think well of it? He is more for pulling down than building up.
Colman. When I explain it to him I am sure he will think well of it; he can’t go on for ever without anyone to listen to him.
Aloysius. I suppose not, and with no way of living. But I don’t know, I’m afraid he won’t like it.
Colman. Hush! Here he is coming.
Aloysius. If one had a plan now for doing some destruction — —
Colman. Hush! don’t you see there is somebody with him.
* * *
Paul Ruttledge comes in with Charlie Ward.
Paul Ruttledge. This is Charlie Ward, my old friend.
Aloysius. The Charlie Ward you lived on the roads with?
Paul Ruttledge. Yes, when I went looking for the favour of my hard mother, Earth, he helped me. He is her good child and she loves him.
Colman. He is welcome. How did he find you out?
Paul Ruttledge. I don’t know. How did you find me out, Charlie?
Charlie Ward. Oh, I didn’t lose sight of you so much as you thought. I had to stop away from Gortmore a good while after we left you at the gate, but I sent Paddy Cockfight one time to get news, and he mended cans for the laundry of the monastery, and they told him you were well again, and a monk as good as the rest. But a while ago I got word there was a monk had gone near to break up the whole monastery with his talk and his piety, and I said to myself, “That’s Paul!” And then I heard there was a monk had been driven out for not keeping the rules, and I said to myself, “That’s Paul!” And the other day when what’s left of us came to Athlone, I heard talk of some disfrocked monks that were upsetting the whole neighbourhood, and I said, “That’s Paul.” To Sabina Silver I said that. “That merry chap Paul,” I said.
Paul Ruttledge. I’m afraid you have a very bad opinion of me, Charlie. Well, maybe I earned it.
Aloysius. You cannot know much of him if you have a bad opinion of him. He will be made a saint some day.
Charlie Ward. He will, if there’s such a thing as a saint of mischief.
Paul Ruttledge. A saint of mischief? Well, why not that as well as another? He would upset all the beehives, he would throw them into the market-place. Sit down now, Charlie, and eat a bit with us.
Colman. You are welcome, indeed, to all we can give you, but we have not a bit of food that is worth offering you. Aloysius got nothing at all in the villages to-day, Brother Paul. The people are getting cross.
Paul Ruttledge. Well, sit down, anyway. The country people liked me well enough once, there was no man they liked so much as myself when I gave them drink for nothing. Didn’t they, Charlie?
Charlie Ward. Oh, that was a great time. They were lying thick about the roads. I’ll be thinking of it to my dying day.
Paul Ruttledge. I have given them another kind of drink now.
Charlie Ward. What sort of a drink is that?
Paul Ruttledge. We have rolled a great barrel out of a cellar that is under the earth. We have rolled it right into the midst of them. [He moves his hand about as if he were moving a barrel.] It’s heavy, and when they have drunk what is in it, I would like to see the man that would be their master.
Charlie Ward. That would be a great drink, but I wouldn’t be sure that you’re in earnest.
Paul Ruttledge. Colman and Aloysius will tell you all about it. It was made in a good still, the barley was grown in a field that’s down under the earth.
Charlie Ward. That’s likely enough. I often heard of places like that.
Paul Ruttledge. And when they have drunk from my barrel, they will b
reak open the door, they will put law and number under their two feet; and they will have a hot palm and a cold palm, for they will put down the moon and the sun with their two hands.
Charlie Ward. There’s no mistake but you’re the same Paul still; nice and plain and simple, only for your hard talk. And what about the rheumatism? It’s hardly you got through that fit you had, and you don’t look as if much hardship would agree with you now.
Aloysius. He does not, indeed, and if he doesn’t kill himself one way he will another. Wait now till I tell you the way he is living. I don’t think he tasted bit or sup to-day, and all he had last night was a couple of dry potatoes.
Charlie Ward. Is that so? [Takes Paul Ruttledge’s arm.] You haven’t much more flesh on you than a crane in moonlight. They don’t seem to have much notion of minding you here, you that were reared soft. It would be better for you to come back to us; bad as our lodging is, there’d be a bit in the pot for you and Sabina to care you. It’s she would give you a good welcome.
Colman. [Starting up.] We can mind him well enough here. I have a plan. We haven’t been getting on the way we ought with the people. It’s no way to be getting on with people to be asking things of them always, they have no opinion at all of us seeing us the way we are. They have no notion of the respect they should show to Brother Paul, and the way all the Brothers used to be listening to his preaching, and the townspeople as well. And I, myself, the time I preached in Dublin — —
Aloysius. Yes, indeed, Paul, think of the great crowds used to come when you preached in the Abbey church, and all the money that was gathered that time of the Mission.
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. God 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 God 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 brass 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. God 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.
