ntre a little.) The way we'd see how you'd look, and you a
saint of the Almighty God.

MARTIN DOUL -- [standing up, a little diffidently.] -- I've heard the
priests a power of times making great talk and praises of the beauty of
the saints. [Molly Byrne slips cloak round him.]

TIMMY -- [uneasily.] -- You'd have a right to be leaving him alone,
Molly. What would the Saint say if he seen you making game with his
cloak?

MOLLY BYRNE -- [recklessly.] -- How would he see us, and he saying
prayers in the wood? (She turns Martin Doul round.) Isn't that a fine
holy-looking saint, Timmy the smith? (Laughing foolishly.) There's a
grand, handsome fellow, Mary Doul; and if you seen him now you'd be as
proud, I'm thinking, as the archangels below, fell out with the Almighty
God.

MARY DOUL -- [with quiet confidence going to Martin Doul and feeling his
cloak.] -- It's proud we'll be this day, surely. [Martin Doul is still
ringing.]

MOLLY BYRNE -- [to Martin Doul.] -- Would you think well to be all your
life walking round the like of that, Martin Doul, and you bell-ringing
with the saints of God?

MARY DOUL -- [turning on her, fiercely.] -- How would he be bell-ringing
with the saints of God and he wedded with myself?

MARTIN DOUL. It's the truth she's saying, and if bell-ringing is a
fine life, yet I'm thinking, maybe, it's better I am wedded with the
beautiful dark woman of Ballinatone.

MOLLY BYRNE -- [scornfully.] -- You're thinking that, God help you; but
it's little you know of her at all.

MARTIN DOUL. It's little surely, and I'm destroyed this day waiting to
look upon her face.

TIMMY -- [awkwardly.] -- It's well you know the way she is; for the like
of you do have great knowledge in the feeling of your hands.

MARTIN DOUL -- [still feeling the cloak.] -- We do, maybe. Yet it's
little I know of faces, or of fine beautiful cloaks, for it's few cloaks
I've had my hand to, and few faces (plaintively); for the young girls is
mighty shy, Timmy the smith and it isn't much they heed me, though they
do be saying I'm a handsome man.

MARY DOUL -- [mockingly, with good humour.] -- Isn't it a queer
thing the voice he puts on him, when you hear him talking of the
skinny-looking girls, and he married with a woman he's heard called the
wonder of the western world?

TIMMY -- [pityingly.] -- The two of you will see a great wonder this
day, and it's no lie.

MARTIN DOUL. I've heard tell her yellow hair, and her white skin,