SCENE I
[The Village Street.]
1ST PEASANT.
Are you bound on this Pilgrimage?
2D PEASANT.
Not I, sooth! Footsore enough, without trudging two leagues out, and two back, trolling litanies, and a day's work wasted.
3D PEASANT.
Aye, and to find mildew has made a fresh pilgrimage through one's rye. What work can't mend, praying won't end.
4TH PEASANT.
But Father Gabriel says we should pray and work as well.
1ST PEASANT.
Prince Lucifer neither prays nor works, and look how he prospers! His Lady of Good Help is his sweetheart, Eve; and they go on pilgrimages
together, but not of Father Gabriel's sort. They've been all round the world, I hear say, and they've come back happier than ever.
2D PEASANT.
All round's a long way.
3D PEASANT.
And a year's a long spell; and it must be a year, come this threshing, since they went. I saw them yesterday on the bridge over the Visp; and the sun seemed to be shining all over the faces of both of them.
4TH PEASANT.
Happiness is short, eternity's long; and, when life sets, maybe for them there'll be eternal darkness.
5TH PEASANT.
Well, they'll have had their life and their sunshine, and that's more than any of us can say. As for the rest, what is it but guessing? A flagon on the table is worth a tun in the cellar; more so, when you haven't got the key.
2D PEASANT.
They seem to be making ready to start.
1ST PEASANT.
Women and children, mostly. Praying is medicine to women; they never lose a chance. Church festivals are like fine clothes; they can't resist them. Lord! how tired they'll be before they get back!
3D PEASANT.
They wouldn't think it a pilgrimage, if they weren't. But for the pleasure women get out of pain, there would be mighty little of it for them in this world.
5TH PEASANT.
Look at the little ones, as eager as bees going to swarm. Both my lasses are among them. If Heaven doesn't hear such voices, then I give up Heaven.
6TH PEASANT.
They are happy, anyway. Singing and pilgrimaging are holiday to their young hearts. Singing and pilgrimaging are not like school or sermon; they can't be catechised about them. It's not till they begin to work that life means something; though what it means, it wants a wiser head than mine to say. Is Elspeth going?
1ST PEASANT.
Surely. Why shouldn't she? She hasn't much else to do, now her grand husband's away. Does any one know when he's coming back?
2D PEASANT.
Rich folks come and go, as it pleases them. Ladyday and Lammas are all one to them. But when he does come, you'll see he'll bring presents for Elspeth in one hand, and in the other offerings for Father Gabriel. He never says no to anything Father Gabriel asks.
3D PEASANT.
But Father Gabriel takes care not to ask too much. You never see Count Abdiel in the Confessional or at the Communion rail. He leaves that to Elspeth, and buys indulgences for himself with new chasubles and dalmatics. Yet one genuflection's more real than a hundred gifts.
1ST PEASANT.
Maybe it is; but folks with full hands were always welcome in the sacristy.
