[He is going to strike her, but Timmy catches him by the arm.]
TIMMY.
Have you no shame to be making a great row, and the Saint above saying his prayers?
MARTIN DOUL.
What is it I care for the like of him? (Struggling to free himself). Let me hit her one good one, for the love of the Almighty God, and I’ll be quiet after till I die.
TIMMY.
shaking him. — Will you whisht, I’m saying.
SAINT.
coming forward, centre. — Are their minds troubled with joy, or is their sight uncertain, the way it does often be the day a person is restored?
TIMMY.
It’s 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