Where There is Nothing

Jerome. Brother Colman once said he heard harps in the night.

Paul Ruttledge. Harps! It was because he was shut in a cell he heard harps, maybe it sounds like harps in a cell. But the music I have heard sometimes is made of the continual clashing of swords. It comes rejoicing from Paradise.

Jerome. These are very wild thoughts.

Tommy the Song. I often heard music in the forths. There is many of us hear it when we lie with our heads on the ground at night.

Jerome. That was not the music of Paradise.

Paul Ruttledge. Why should they not hear that music, although it may not set them praying, but dancing.

Jerome. How can you think you will ever find happiness amongst their devils' mirth?

Paul Ruttledge. I have taken to the roads because there is a wild beast I would overtake, and these people are good snarers of beasts. They can help me.

Charlie Ward. What kind of a wild beast is it you want?

Paul Ruttledge. Oh! it's a very terrible wild beast, with iron teeth and brazen claws that can root up spires and towers.

Charlie Ward. It's best not to try and overtake a beast like that, but to cross running water and leave it after you.

Tommy the Song. I heard one coming after me one night; very big and shadowy it was, and I could hear it breathing. But when it came up with me I lifted a hazel rod was in my hand, and it was gone on the moment.

Paul Ruttledge. My wild beast is Laughter, the mightiest of the enemies of God. I will outrun it and make it friendly.

Jerome. That is your old wild talk. Do have some sense and go back to your family.

Paul Ruttledge. I am never going back to them. I am going to live among these people. I will marry among them.

Jerome. That is nonsense; you will soon change your mind.

Paul Ruttledge. Oh! no, I won't; I am taking my vows as you made yours when you entered religion. I have chosen my wife; I am going to marry before evening.

Jerome. Thank God, you will have to stop short of that, the Church will never marry you.

Paul Ruttledge. Oh! I am not going to ask the help of the Church. But I am to be married by what may be as old a ceremony as yours. What is it I am to do, Charlie?

Charlie Ward. To lep a budget, sir.

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, that is it, the budget is there by the wall.

Jerome. I command you, in the name of the Holy Church and of the teaching you have received from the Church, to leave this folly, this degradation, this sin!

Paul Ruttledge. You forget, Jerome, that I am on the track of the wild beast, and hunters in all ages have been a bad people to preach to. When I have tamed the beast, perhaps I will bring him to your religious house to be baptized.

Jerome. I will not listen to this profanity. [To Charlie Ward.] It is you who have put this madness on him as you have stolen his clothes!

Charlie Ward. Stop your chat, ye petticoated preacher.

Paul Ruttledge. I think, Father Jerome, you had better be getting home. This people never gave in to the preaching of S. Patrick.

Paddy Cockfight. I'll send you riding home with your face to the tail of the ass!

Tommy the Song. No, stop till we show you that we can make as good curses as yourself. That you may never be warm in winter or cold in summer time —

Charlie Ward. That's the chat! Bravo! Let him have it.

Tinkers. Be off! be off out of this!

Molly the Scold. Now curse him, Tommy.

Tommy the Song. A wide hoarseness on you – a high hanging to you on a windy day; that shivering fever may stretch you nine times, and that the curses of the poor may be your best music, and you hiding behind the door. [Jeromegoes out.

Molly the Scold. And you hiding behind the door, and squeezed between the hinges and the wall.

Other Tinkers. Squeezed between the hinges and the wall. [They follow Jerome.

Paul Ruttledge. [Crying after them.] Don't harm that gentleman; he is a friend of mine.

[He goes to the wall, and stands there silently, looking upward.

Sabina Silver. It was grand talk, indeed: I didn't understand a word of it.

Paul Ruttledge. The crows are beginning to fly home. There is a flock of them high up under that cloud. I wonder where their nests are.

Charlie Ward. A long way off, among those big trees about Tillyra Castle.

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, I remember. I have seen them coming home there on a windy evening, tossing and whirling like the sea. They may have seen what I am looking for, they fly so far. A sailor told me once that he saw a crow three hundred miles from land, but maybe he was a liar.

Charlie Ward. Well, they fly far, anyway.

Paul Ruttledge. They tell one another what they have seen, too. That is why they make so much noise. Maybe their news goes round the world. [He comes towards the others.] I think they have seen my wild beast, Laughter. They could tell me if he has a face smoky from the eternal fires, and wings of brass and claws of brass – claws of brass. [Holds out his hands and moves them like claws.] Sabina, would you like to see a beast with eyes hard and cold and blue, like sapphires? Would you, Sabina? Well, it's time now for the wedding. So what shall we get for the wedding party? What would you like, Sabina?

Sabina Silver. I don't know.

Paul Ruttledge. What do you say, Charlie? A wedding cake and champagne. How would you like champagne? [Tinkers begin to return.

Charlie Ward. It might be middling.

Paul Ruttledge. What would you say to a —

One of the Boys runs in carrying a pig's cheek. The rest of the Tinkers return with him.

Boy. I knew I could do it. I told you I'd have my dealing trick out of the priest. I took a hold of this, and Johneen made a snap at the onions.

Paul Ruttledge. And he didn't catch you?

Boy. He'd want to be a lot smarter than he is to do that.