Timmy.] -- Maybe they're hanging a thief,
above at the bit of a tree. I'm told it's a great sight to see a man
hanging by his neck; but what joy would that be to ourselves, and we not
seeing it at all?

TIMMY -- [more pleasantly.] -- They're hanging no one this day, Mary
Doul, and yet, with the help of God, you'll see a power hanged before
you die.

MARY DOUL. Well you've queer hum-bugging talk.... What way would I see a
power hanged, and I a dark woman since the seventh year of my age?

TIMMY. Did ever you hear tell of a place across a bit of the sea, where
there is an island, and the grave of the four beautiful saints?

MARY DOUL. I've heard people have walked round from the west and they
speaking of that.

TIMMY -- [impressively.] -- There's a green ferny well, I'm told, behind
of that place, and if you put a drop of the water out of it on the eyes
of a blind man, you'll make him see as well as any person is walking the
world.

MARTIN DOUL -- [with excitement.] -- Is that the truth, Timmy? I'm
thinking you're telling a lie.

TIMMY -- [gruffly.] -- That's the truth, Martin Doul, and you may
believe it now, for you're after believing a power of things weren't as
likely at all.

MARY DOUL. Maybe we could send us a young lad to bring us the water. I
could wash a naggin bottle in the morning, and I'm thinking Patch Ruadh
would go for it, if we gave him a good drink, and the bit of money we
have hid in the thatch.

TIMMY. It'd be no good to be sending a sinful man the like of ourselves,
for I'm told the holiness of the water does be getting soiled with the
villainy of your heart, the time you'd be carrying it, and you looking
round on the girls, maybe, or drinking a small sup at a still.

MARTIN DOUL -- [with disappointment.] -- It'd be a long terrible way to
be walking ourselves, and I'm thinking that's a wonder will bring small
joy to us at all.

TIMMY -- [turning on him impatiently.] -- What is it you want with
your walking? It's as deaf as blind you're growing if you're not after
hearing me say it's in this place the wonder would be done.

MARTIN DOUL -- [with a flash of anger.] -- If it is can't you open the
big slobbering mouth you have and say what way it'll be done, and not be
making blather till the fall of night.

TIMMY -- [jumping up.] -- I'll be going on now (Mary Doul rises), and
not wasting time talking civil talk with the like of you.

MARY DOUL -- [standing up, disguising her impatience.]