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?