MARTIN DOUL -- [with dismay.] -- It's the old Saint, I'm thinking,
ringing his bell.

MARY DOUL. The Lord protect us from the saints of God! (They listen.)
He's coming this road, surely.

MARTIN DOUL -- [tentatively.] -- Will we be running off, Mary Doul?

MARY DOUL. What place would we run?

MARTIN DOUL. There's the little path going up through the sloughs....
If we reached the bank above, where the elders do be growing, no person
would see a sight of us, if it was a hundred yeomen were passing itself;
but I'm afeard after the time we were with our sight we'll not find our
way to it at all.

MARY DOUL -- [standing up.] -- You'd find the way, surely. You're a
grand man the world knows at finding your way winter or summer, if there
was deep snow in it itself, or thick grass and leaves, maybe, growing
from the earth.

MARTIN DOUL -- [taking her hand.] -- Come a bit this way; it's here it
begins. (They grope about gap.) There's a tree pulled into the gap, or a
strange thing happened, since I was passing it before.

MARY DOUL. Would we have a right to be crawling in below under the
sticks?

MARTIN DOUL. It's hard set I am to know what would be right. And isn't
it a poor thing to be blind when you can't run off itself, and you
fearing to see?

MARY DOUL -- [nearly in tears.] -- It's a poor thing, God help us, and
what good'll our gray hairs be itself, if we have our sight, the way
we'll see them falling each day, and turning dirty in the rain?

[The bell sounds nearby.]

MARTIN DOUL -- [in despair.] -- He's coming now, and we won't get off
from him at all.

MARY DOUL. Could we hide in the bit of a briar is growing at the west
butt of the church?

MARTIN DOUL. We'll try that, surely. (He listens a moment.) Let you make
haste; I hear them trampling in the wood. [They grope over to church.]

MARY DOUL. It's the words of the young girls making a great stir in the
trees. (They find the bush.) Here's the briar on my left, Martin; I'll
go in first, I'm the big one, and I'm easy to see.

MARTIN DOUL -- [turning his head anxiously.] -- It's easy heard you are;
and will you be holding your tongue?

MARY DOUL -- [partly behind bush.] -- Come in now beside of me. (They
kneel down, still clearly visible.) Do you think they can see us now,
Martin Doul?

MARTIN DOUL. I'm thinking they can't, but I'm hard set to know; for the
lot of them young girls, the devil save them, have sharp, terrible eyes,
would pick out a