Oh, run out, Bridget, and see if they have found somebody that all the time I was teaching understood nothing or did not listen!
BRIDGET.
[Wiping her arms in her apron and pulling down her sleeves.]
It’s a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must be always having arguments. [Goes out and shouts through the kitchen door.] Don’t be meddling with the bread, children, while I’m out.
WISE MAN [kneels down].
‘Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti beatæ Mariæ . . .’ I have forgotten it all. It is thirty years since I have said a prayer. I must pray in the common tongue, like a clown begging in the market, like Teig the Fool! [He prays.] Help me, Father, Son, and Spirit!
[BRIDGET enters, followed by the FOOL, who is holding out his hat to her.
FOOL.
Give me something; give me a penny to buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun grows weak.
BRIDGET.
I have no pennies. [To the WISE MAN.] Your pupils cannot find anybody to argue with you. There is nobody in the whole country who has enough belief to fill a pipe with since you put down the monk. Can’t you be quiet now and not always wanting to have arguments? It must be terrible to have a mind like that.