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you do if it was the like of myself you were,
saying Mass with your mouth dry, and run-
ning east and west for a sick call maybe, and
hearing the rural people again and they saying
their sins?
MARY -- with compassion. -- It's destroy-
ed you must be hearing the sins of the rural
people on a fine spring.
PRIEST -- with despondency. -- It's a hard
life, I'm telling you, a hard life, Mary Byrne;
and there's the bishop coming in the morning,
and he an old man, would have you destroyed
if he seen a thing at all.
MARY -- with great sympathy. -- It'd
break my heart to hear you talking and sigh-
ing the like of that, your reverence. (She
pats him on the knee.) Let you rouse up,
now, if it's a poor, single man you are itself,
and I'll be singing you songs unto the dawn
of day.
PRIEST -- interrupting her. -- What is it
I want with your songs when it'd be better
for the like of you, that'll soon die, to be down
on your two knees saying prayers to the
Almighty God?
MARY. If it's prayers I want, you'd have
a right to say one yourself, holy father; for