But sometimes, when the children are asleep And I am in the school, do you not think About the Martyrs and the saints and the angels, And all the things that you believed in once? BRIDGET I think about nothing--sometimes I wonder if the linen is bleaching white, or I go out to see if the crows are picking up the chickens' food. WISE MAN My God,--my God! I will go out myself. My pupils said that they would find a man Whose faith I never shook--they may have found him. Therefore I will go out--but if I go, The glass will let the sands run out unseen. I cannot go--I cannot leave the glass. Go call my pupils--I can explain all now, Only when all our hold on life is troubled, Only in spiritual terror can the Truth Come through the broken mind--as the pease burst Out of a broken pease-cod. [_He clutches Bridget as she is going._ Say to them, That Nature would lack all in her most need, Could not the soul find truth as in a flash, Upon the battle-field, or in the midst Of overwhelming waves, and say to them-- But no, they would but answer as I bid. BRIDGET You want somebody to get up an argument with. WISE MAN Look out and see if there is any one There in the street--I cannot leave the glass, For somebody might shake it, and the sand If it were shaken might run down on the instant. BRIDGET I don't understand a word you are saying. There's a crowd of people talking to your pupils. WISE MAN Go out and find if they have found a man Who did not understand me when I taught, Or did not listen. BRIDGET It is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always be having arguments. [_She goes out._ WISE MAN Strange that I should be blind to the great secret, And that so simple a man might write it out Upon a blade of grass or bit of rush With naught but berry juice, and laugh to himself Writing it out, because it was so simple. [_Enter Bridget followed by the Fool._ FOOL Give me something; give me a penny to buy bacon in the shops and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak. BRIDGET I have no pennies. (_To Wise Man_) Your pupils cannot find anybody to argue with you. There's nobody in the whole country with belief enough for a lover's oath. Can't you be quiet now, and not always wanting to have arguments? It must be terrible to have a mind like that. WISE MAN Then I am lost indeed. BRIDGET Leave me alone now, I have to make the bread for you and the children. [_She goes into kitchen._ WISE MAN Children, children! BRIDGET Your father wants you, run to him. [_Children run in._ WISE MAN