No More Learning

Columcille said, the four corners to be burned, and then the middle of
the field to be burned. I tell you it was Columcille's prophecy said
that.

BIDDY.

Iron handcuffs I see and a rope and a gallows, and it maybe is not for
yourself I see it, but for some I have acquaintance with a good way
back.

MARTIN.

That means the law. We must destroy the law. That was the first sin,
the first mouthful of the apple.

JOHNNY.

So it was, so it was. The law is the worst loss. The ancient law was
for the benefit of all. It is the law of the English is the only sin.

MARTIN.

When there were no laws men warred on one another and man to man, not
with machines made in towns as they do now, and they grew hard and
strong in body.
They were altogether alive like him that made them in
his image, like people in that unfallen country. But presently they
thought it better to be safe, as if safety mattered or anything but the
exaltation of the heart, and to have eyes that danger had made grave
and piercing. We must overthrow the laws and banish them.

JOHNNY.

It is what I say, to put out the laws is to put out the whole nation of
the English. Laws for themselves they made for their own profit, and
left us nothing at all, no more than a dog or a sow.

BIDDY.

An old priest I see, and I would not say is he the one was here or
another. Vexed and troubled he is, kneeling fretting and ever-fretting
in some lonesome ruined place.

MARTIN.

I thought it would come to that. Yes, the Church too--that is to be
destroyed. Once men fought with their desires and their fears, with all
that they call their sins, unhelped, and their souls became hard and
strong. When we have brought back the clean earth and destroyed the
law and the Church all life will become like a flame of fire, like a
burning eye . . .