Part 8 (1/2)

The Master has come.

FOOL

Will anybody give a penny to a fool?

[_One of the pupils draws back the stage curtain showing the Master sitting at his desk. There is an hour-gla.s.s upon his desk or in a bracket on the wall. One pupil puts the book before him._

FIRST PUPIL

We have chosen the pa.s.sage for the lesson, Master. 'There are two living countries, one visible and one invisible, and when it is summer there, it is winter here, and when it is November with us, it is lambing-time there.'

WISE MAN

That pa.s.sage, that pa.s.sage! what mischief has there been since yesterday?

FIRST PUPIL

None, Master.

WISE MAN

Oh yes, there has; some craziness has fallen from the wind, or risen from the graves of old men, and made you choose that subject.

FOURTH PUPIL

I knew that it was folly, but they would have it.

THIRD PUPIL

Had we not better say we picked it by chance?

SECOND PUPIL

No; he would say we were children still.

FIRST PUPIL

I have found a sentence under that one that says--as though to show it had a hidden meaning--a beggar wrote it upon the walls of Babylon.

WISE MAN

Then find some beggar and ask him what it means, for I will have nothing to do with it.

FOURTH PUPIL

Come, Teigue, what is the old book's meaning when it says that there are sheep that drop their lambs in November?

FOOL

To be sure--everybody knows, everybody in the world knows, when it is Spring with us, the trees are withering there, when it is Summer with us, the snow is falling there, and have I not myself heard the lambs that are there all bleating on a cold November day--to be sure, does not everybody with an intellect know that; and maybe when it's night with us, it is day with them, for many a time I have seen the roads lighted before me.