No More Learning

Oh, run out, Bridget, and see if they have found somebody that all the
time I was teaching understood nothing or did not listen!

BRIDGET.

[_Wiping her arms in her apron and pulling down her
sleeves. _]

It's a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must be
always having arguments. [_Goes out and shouts through the kitchen
door. _] Don't be meddling with the bread, children, while I'm out.

WISE MAN [_kneels down_].

'_Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti beatae Mariae . . . _' I have forgotten it all.
It is thirty years since I have said a prayer. I must pray in the
common tongue, like a clown begging in the market, like Teig the Fool!
[_He prays. _] Help me, Father, Son, and Spirit!
[_BRIDGET enters, followed by the FOOL, who is holding
out his hat to her. _

FOOL.

Give me something; give me a penny to buy bacon in the shops, and nuts
in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun grows weak.

BRIDGET.

I have no pennies. [_To the WISE MAN. _] Your pupils cannot find anybody
to argue with you. There is nobody in the whole country who has enough
belief to fill a pipe with since you put down the monk. Can't you be
quiet now and not always wanting to have arguments? It must be terrible
to have a mind like that.

WISE MAN.

I am lost! I am lost!

BRIDGET.

Leave me alone now; I have to make the bread for you and the children.

WISE MAN.