Part 35 (1/2)

_Conan:_ I didn't think to go that length.

_Celia:_ To roughen my hands with soap and scalding water till they're near as knotted and as ugly as your own!

_Conan:_ Ah, leave me alone! I tell you it is not by my own fault. My plan and my purpose that went astray and that broke down.

_Celia:_ I will not leave you till you'll change me back to what I was. What way can these hands go to the dance house to-night? Change me back, I say!

_Rock:_ And me--

_Timothy:_ And myself, that I'll have quiet in my head again.

_Conan:_ I cannot undo what has been done.

There is no back way.

_Timothy:_ Is there no way at all to come out of it safe and sane?

_Conan:_ (_Shakes head_.) Let ye make the best of it.

_Flannery: (Sings.) (Air, ”I saw from the Beach.”)_

”Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning The close of our day, the calm eve of our night.

Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morning, Her clouds and her tears are worth evening's best light.”

_Mother: (Who has bellows in her hand.)_ Stop!

Stop--my mind is travelling backward ...so far I can hardly reach to it ...but I'll come to it ...the way I'll be changed to what I was before, and the town and the country wis.h.i.+ng me well, I having got my enough of unfriendly looks and hard words!

_Timothy:_ Hurry on, Ma'am, and remember, and take the spell off the whole of us.

_Mother:_ I am going back, back, to the longest thing that is in my mind and my memory!...

I myself a child in my mother's arms the very day I was christened....

_Conan:_ Ah, stop your raving!

_Mother:_ Songs and storytelling, and my old generations laying down news of this spell that is now come to pa.s.s....

_Rock:_ Did they tell what way to undo the charm?

_Mother:_ You have but to turn the bellows the same as the smith would turn the anvil, or St.

Patrick turned the stone for fine weather ...

and to blow a blast ...and a twist will come inside in it and the charm will fall off with that blast, and undo the work that has been done!

_All:_ Turn it so!

(_Cats look over, playing on fiddles ”O Johnny, I hardly knew you,” while mother blows on each_.)

_Timothy:_ Ha! (_Takes hands from ears and puts one behind his ear_.)

_Rock:_ Ha! Where now is my bag? (_Turns out his pockets, unhappy to find them empty_.)

_Flannery:_ Ha! (_Smiles and holds out umbrella to Conan, who takes it_.)

_Mother: (To Celia.)_ Let you blow a blast on me.