lind? Are you deaf?

FATHER JOHN. What is it? What is it?

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.

[_They light the candles on the rock._ THOMAS _comes in._]

THOMAS. Where is he? I am come to warn him. The destruction he did in
the night-time has been heard of. The soldiers are out after him and
the constables ... there are two of the constables not far off ...
there are others on every side ... they heard he was here in the
mountain ... where is he?

FATHER JOHN. He has gone up the path.

THOMAS. Hurry after him! Tell him to hide himself ... this attack he
had a hand in is a hanging crime.... Tell him to hide himself, to come
to me when all is quiet ... bad as his doings are, he is my own
brother's son; I will get him on to a ship that will be going to
France.

FATHER JOHN. That will be best; send him back to the Brothers and to
the wise Bishops. They can unravel this tangle. I cannot; I cannot be
sure of the truth.

THOMAS. Here are the constables; he will see them and