The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 3 of 8. The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars

ANDREW

He was lying in his sleep for a while yesterday, and he wakened again after another while.

NANNY

He will not waken, I tell you. I held his hand in my own and it getting cold as if you were pouring on it the coldest cold water, and no running in his blood. He is gone sure enough and the life is gone out of him.

ANDREW

Maybe so, maybe so. It seems to me yesterday his cheeks were bloomy all the while, and now he is as pale as wood ashes. Sure we all must come to it at the last. Well, my white-headed darling, it is you were the bush among us all, and you to be cut down in your prime. Gentle and simple, everyone liked you. It is no narrow heart you had, it is you were for spending and not for getting. It is you made a good wake for yourself, scattering your estate in one night only in beer and in wine for the whole province; and that you may be sitting in the middle of Paradise and in the chair of the Graces!

JOHNNY

Amen to that. It’s pity I didn’t think the time I sent for yourself to send the little lad of a messenger looking for a priest to overtake him. It might be in the end the Almighty is the best man for us all!

ANDREW

Sure I sent him on myself to bid the priest to come. Living or dead I would wish to do all that is rightful for the last and the best of my own race and generation.

BIDDY [jumping up]

Is it the priest you are bringing in among us? Where is the sense in that? Aren’t we robbed enough up to this with the expense of the candles and the like?

JOHNNY

If it is that poor starved priest he called to that came talking in secret signs to the man that is gone, it is likely he will ask nothing for what he has to do. There is many a priest is a Whiteboy in his heart.

NANNY

I tell you, if you brought him tied in a bag he would not say an Our Father for you, without you having a half-crown at the top of your fingers.

BIDDY

There is no priest is any good at all but a spoiled priest. A one that would take a drop of drink, it is he would have courage to face the hosts of trouble. Rout them out he would, the same as a shoal of fish from out the weeds. It’s best not to vex a priest, or to run against them at all.

NANNY

It’s yourself humbled yourself well to one the time you were sick in the gaol and had like to die, and he bade you to give over the throwing of the cups.

BIDDY

Ah, plaster of Paris I gave him. I took to it again and I free upon the roads.

NANNY

Much good you are doing with it to yourself or any other one. Aren’t you after telling that corpse no later than yesterday that he was coming within the best day of his life?

JOHNNY

Whisht, let ye. Here is the priest coming.

FATHER JOHN comes in

FATHER JOHN

It is surely not true that he is dead?

JOHNNY

The spirit went from him about the middle hour of the night. We brought him here to this sheltered place. We were loth to leave him without friends.

FATHER JOHN

Where is he?

JOHNNY [taking up sacks]

Lying there stiff and stark. He has a very quiet look as if there was no sin at all or no great trouble upon his mind.

FATHER JOHN [kneels and touches him]

He is not dead.

BIDDY [pointing to NANNY]

He is dead. If it was letting on he was, he would not have let that one rob him and search him the way she did.

FATHER JOHN

It has the appearance of death, but it is not death. He is in a trance.

PAUDEEN

Is it Heaven and Hell he is walking at this time to be bringing back newses of the sinners in pain?

BIDDY

I was thinking myself it might away he was, riding on white horses with the riders of the forths.

JOHNNY

He will have great wonders to tell out the time he will rise up from the ground. It is a pity he not to waken at this time and to lead us on to overcome the troop of the English. Sure those that are in a trance get strength, that they can walk on water.

ANDREW

It was Father John wakened him yesterday the time he was lying in the same way. Wasn’t I telling you it was for that I called to him?

BIDDY