I was
mistaken
when I set out to destroy Church and Law.
Yeats
Rise up now and bid us what to do. Your great name itself will clear
the road before you. It is you yourself will have freed all Ireland
before the stooks will be in stacks!
MARTIN.
Listen, I will explain--I have misled you. It is only now I have the
whole vision plain. As I lay there I saw through everything, I know
all. It was but a frenzy that going out to burn and to destroy. What
have I to do with the foreign army? What I have to pierce is the wild
heart of time. My business is not reformation but revelation.
JOHNNY.
If you are going to turn back now from leading us, you are no better
than any other traitor that ever gave up the work he took in hand. Let
you come and face now the two hundred men you brought out daring the
power of the law last night, and give them your reason for failing them.
MARTIN.
I was mistaken when I set out to destroy Church and Law. The battle we
have to fight is fought out in our own mind. There is a fiery moment,
perhaps once in a lifetime, and in that moment we see the only thing
that matters. It is in that moment the great battles are lost and won,
for in that moment we are a part of the host of heaven.
PAUDEEN.
Have you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises and with
your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to ridicule us,
it is the last day you will live!
JOHNNY.
The curse of my heart on you! It would be right to send you to your own
place on the flagstone of the traitors in hell. When once I have made
an end of you I will be as well satisfied to be going to my death for
it as if I was going home!
MARTIN.
Father John, Father John, can you not hear? Can you not see? Are you
blind? Are you deaf?
