Martin. There on the mountain, a thousand white unicorns trampling; a thousand riders with their swords drawn ... the swords clashing! Oh, the sound of the swords, the sound of the clashing of the swords! [He goes slowly off stage.]
[Johnny B. takes up a stone to throw at him.]
Father John [seizing his arm]. Stop ... do you not see he is beyond the world?
Biddy. Keep your hand off him, Johnny Bacach. If he is gone wild and cracked, that's natural. Those that have been wakened from a trance on a sudden are apt to go bad and light in the head.
Paudeen. If it is madness is on him, it is not he himself should pay the penalty.
Biddy. To prey on the mind it does, and rises into the head. There are some would go over any height and would have great power in their madness. It is maybe to some secret cleft he is going to get knowledge of the great cure for all things, or of the Plough that was hidden in the old times, the Golden Plough.
Paudeen. It seemed as if he was talking through honey. He had the look of one that had seen great wonders. It is maybe among the old heroes of Ireland he went raising armies for our help.
Father John. God take him in His care and keep him from lying spirits and from all delusions.
Johnny B. We have got candles here, Father. We had them to put around his body. Maybe they would keep away the evil things of the air.
Paudeen. Light them so, and he will say out a Mass for him the same as in a lime-washed church.