Part 13 (1/2)

_Jerome._ It was only a dream. Come with me. You will forget it when you have had food and rest.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Looking at his arm._] It was there one of them clawed me; one that looked at me with great heavy eyes.

_Jerome._ The Superior has been here; try and listen to me. He says you must not preach.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Great heavy eyes and hard sharp claws.

_Jerome._ [_Putting his hands on his shoulders._] You must awake from this. You must remember where you are. You are under rules. You must not break the rules you are under. The brothers will be coming in to hear you, you must not speak to them. The Superior has forbidden it.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Touching_ JEROME'S _hand_.] I have always been a great trouble to you.

_Jerome._ You must go and submit to the Superior. Go and make your submission now, for my sake. Think of what I have done for your sake.

Remember how I brought you in, and answered for you when you came here.

I did not tell about that wild business. I have done penance for that deceit.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yes, you have always been good to me, but do not ask me this. I have had other orders.

_Jerome._ Last time you preached the whole monastery was upset. The Friars began to laugh suddenly in the middle of the night.

_Paul Ruttledge._ If I have been given certain truths to tell, I must tell them at once before they slip away from me.

_Jerome._ I cannot understand your ideas; you tell them impossible things. Things that are against the order of nature.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I have learned that one needs a religion so wholly supernatural, that is so opposed to the order of nature that the world can never capture it.

[_Some_ Friars _come in. They carry green branches in their hands_.

_Paul Ruttledge._ They are coming. Will you stay and listen?

_Jerome._ I must not stay. I must not listen.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Help me over to the candles. I am weak, my knees are weak. I shall be strong when the words come. I shall be able to teach.

[_He lights a taper at the hanging lamp and tries to light the candles with a shaking hand. JEROME takes the taper from him and lights the candles._] Why are you crying, Jerome?

_Jerome._ Because we that were friends are separated now. We shall never be together again.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Never again? The love of G.o.d is a very terrible thing.

_Jerome._ I have done with meddling. I must leave you to authority now.

I must tell the Superior you will not obey. [_He goes out._

_First Friar._ Father Jerome had a very dark look going out.

_Second Friar._ He was shut up with the Superior this morning. I wonder what they were talking about.

_First Friar._ I wonder if the Superior will mind our taking the branches. They are only cut on Palm Sunday other years. What will he tell us, I wonder? It seems as if he was going to tell us how to do some great thing. Do you think he will teach us to do cures like the friars used at Esker?

_Second Friar._ Those were great cures they did there, and they were not strange men, but just the same as ourselves. I heard of a man went to them dying on a cart, and he walked twenty miles home to Burren holding the horses head.

_First Friar._ Maybe we'll be able to see visions the same as were seen at Knock. It's a great wonder all that was seen and all that was done there.