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diff --git a/18743-h/18743-h.htm b/18743-h/18743-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e155a68 --- /dev/null +++ b/18743-h/18743-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7845 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>Krindlesyke</title> +<meta http-equiv = "Content-Type" content = "text/html; charset=UTF-8"> + +<style type = "text/css"> + +body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +hr.mid {width: 50%;} +hr.tiny {width: 20%;} + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; +font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: +0em;} + +h1 {font-size: 200%;} +h2 {font-size: 150%;} +h3 {font-size: 125%;} +h4 {font-size: 115%;} +h5 {font-size: 100%;} +h6 {font-size: 90%;} + +p, div, blockquote {margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: 0em; line-height: +1.2;} + +div.frontpage {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-top: 1em; +padding-bottom: 1em; border: thin dashed;} + +p.illustration {text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: +1em;} + +p.critic {font-size: 92%; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;} +p.critic i {font-size: 115%; font-style: italic;} + +p.stagedir {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 2em; text-indent: -2em; +font-style: italic;} +span.stagedir {font-style: italic;} +.speaker {margin-top: .5em;} /* placeholder style */ +.act {font-size: 115%; text-align: center; font-weight: bold;} + +p.line {margin-top: .2em; margin-left: 1em;} +p.line span.stagedir {padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;} +p.line.first {margin-top: 1.5em;} +p.line.one {text-indent: 4em;} +p.line.two {text-indent: 7em;} +p.line.three {text-indent: 10em;} +p.line.four {text-indent: 13em;} + +table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 1em; +margin-bottom: 1em;} + +td {vertical-align: top;} + +td.rightpad {padding-right: 4em;} + +/* text formatting */ + +.chapter {margin-top: 4em;} +.section {margin-top: 2em;} +.space {margin-top: 1em;} +.nospace {margin-top: 0em;} + +.firstletter {float: left; clear: left; margin: -.1em .1em -.3em 0em; +padding: 0em; line-height: 1.3em; font-size: 400%;} + +.charname {font-variant: small-caps; font-style: normal;} +.smallcaps {font-variant: small-caps; font-style: normal;} +.firstword {text-transform: uppercase;} +.extended {letter-spacing: 0.2em;} +.ital {font-style: italic;} + +ins.correction {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted red;} +.pagenum {position: absolute; right: 5%; font-size: 95%; +font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-align: right; +text-indent: 0em;} + +/* Transcriber's Note */ + +.mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; +margin: 1em 5em; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + +</style> +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Krindlesyke, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Krindlesyke + +Author: Wilfrid Wilson Gibson + +Release Date: July 3, 2006 [EBook #18743] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KRINDLESYKE *** + + + + +Produced by Louise Hope, Alicia Williams and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class = "mynote"> +In the printed book, all advertising and related matter was placed +before the main text; the Epilogue was the final page of the book. +Most of this front matter has been moved to the end of the e-text. +<br> +Unusual spellings are assumed to be intentional unless there is strong +reason to believe otherwise. The use of parentheses in stage directions +is as in the original.<br> +The word “thon” (a regional variant of “yon”) is used several times in +the text. The pronoun “thou” does not occur. +</p> + + +<h2 class = "section extended">KRINDLESYKE</h2> + +<h4 class = "section">BY WILFRID GIBSON</h4> + + +<h6 class = "chapter">MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED<br> +ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON<br> +1922</h6> + + +<h6 class = "chapter">COPYRIGHT</h6> + +<h6 class = "section">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN</h6> + + +<h5 class = "chapter smallcaps">to<br> +CATHERINE and LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE</h5> + + +<span class = "pagenum">vii</span> +<h4 class = "chapter">NOTE</h4> + + +<p> +<span class = "smallcaps">On</span> the occasion of an obscure dramatic +presentation, an early and rudimentary draft of Book I. was published in +1910. It has since been entirely re-written. Book II., written +1919-22, has not been printed hitherto. Though the work was not +conceived with a view to stage-production, the author reserves the +acting rights.</p> + +<p> +It may be added that, while “Krindlesyke” is not in dialect, it has been +flavoured with a sprinkling of local words; but as these are, for the +most part, words expressive of emotion, rather than words conveying +information, the sense of them should be easily gathered even by the +south-country reader.</p> + +<p align = "right">W. G.</p> + + + + +<span class = "pagenum">ix</span> +<h4 class = "chapter">PRELUDE</h4> + + +<p class = "line first"> +Four bleak stone walls, an eaveless, bleak stone roof,<br> +Like a squared block of native crag, it stands,<br> +Hunched, on skirlnaked, windy fells, aloof:<br> +Yet, was it built by patient human hands:<br> +Hands, that have long been dust, chiselled each stone,<br> +And bedded it secure; and from the square<br> +Squat chimneystack, hither and thither blown,<br> +The reek of human fires still floats in air,<br> +And perishes, as life on life burns through.<br> +Squareset and stark to every blast that blows,<br> +It bears the brunt of time, withstands anew<br> +Wildfires of tempest and league-scouring snows,<br> +Dour and unshaken by any mortal doom,<br> +Timeless, unstirred by any mortal dream:<br> +And ghosts of reivers gather in the gloom<br> +About it, muttering, when the lych-owls scream.</p> + + + + +<span class = "pagenum">xi</span> +<h5 class = "chapter"> +“From one generation to another.”</h5> + + +<hr class = "chapter mid"> + +<span class = "pagenum">1</span> +<h4>BOOK I</h4> + +<h5>PHŒBE BARRASFORD</h5> + +<hr class = "mid"> + + +<span class = "pagenum">3</span> +<h4 class = "chapter">BOOK I</h4> + +<h5>PHŒBE BARRASFORD</h5> + +<p class = "stagedir first"> +Krindlesyke is a remote shepherd’s cottage on the Northumbrian fells, at +least three miles from any other habitation. It consists of two rooms, a +but and a ben. <span class = "charname">Ezra Barrasford</span>, an old +herd, blind and decrepit, sits in an armchair in the but, or +living-room, near the open door, on a mild afternoon in April. <span +class = "charname">Eliza Barrasford</span>, his wife, is busy, making +griddle-cakes over the peat fire.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Eliza</span> <span class = "stagedir">(glancing +at the wag-at-the-wa’)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +It’s hard on three o’clock, and they’ll be home<br> +Before so very long now.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Eh, what’s that?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’re growing duller every day. I said<br> +They’d soon be home now.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +They? And who be they?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +My faith, you’ve got a memory like a milk-sile!<br> +You’ve not forgotten Jim’s away to wed?<br> +You’re not that dull.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +We cannot all be needles:<br> +And some folk’s tongues are sharper than their wits.<br> +Yet, till thon spirt of hot tar blinded me,<br> +No chap was cuter in all the countryside,<br> +Or better at a bargain; and it took<br> +<span class = "pagenum">4</span> +A nimble tongue to bandy words with mine.<br> +You’d got to be up betimes to get round Ezra:<br> +And none was a shrewder judge of ewes, or women.<br> +My wits just failed me once, the day I married:<br> +But, you’re an early riser, and your tongue<br> +Is always up before you, and with an edge,<br> +Unblunted by the dewfall, and as busy<br> +As a scythe in the grass at Lammas. So Jim’s away<br> +To wed, is he, the limb? I thought he’d gone<br> +For swedes; though now, I mind some babblement<br> +About a wedding: but, nowadays, words tumble<br> +Through my old head like turnips through a slicer;<br> +And naught I ken who the bowdykite’s to wed—<br> +Some bletherskite he’s picked up in a ditch,<br> +Some fond fligary flirtigig, clarty-fine,<br> +Who’ll turn a slattern-shrew and a cap-river<br> +Within a week, if I ken aught of Jim.<br> +Unless ... Nay, sure, ’twas Judith Ellershaw.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +No, no; you’re dull, indeed. It’s Phœbe Martin.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Who’s Phœbe Martin? I ken naught of her.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And I, but little.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Some trapsing tatterwallops,<br> +I’ll warrant. Well, these days, the lads are like<br> +The young cockgrouse, who doesn’t consult his dad<br> +Before he mates. In my—yet, come to think,<br> +I didn’t say overmuch. My dad and mammy<br> +Scarce kenned her name when I sprung my bride on them;<br> +Just loosed on them a gisseypig out of a poke<br> +They’d heard no squeak of. They’d to thole my choice,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">5</span> +Lump it or like it. I’d the upper hand then:<br> +And well they kenned their master. No tawse to chide,<br> +Nor apron-strings to hold young Ezra then:<br> +His turn had come; and he was cock of the midden,<br> +And no braw cockerel’s hustled him from it yet,<br> +For all their crowing. The blind old bird’s still game.<br> +They’ve never had his spirit, the young cheepers,<br> +Not one; and Jim’s the lave of the clutch; and he<br> +Will never lord it at Krindlesyke till I’m straked.<br> +But this what’s-her-name the gaby’s bringing ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Phœbe.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +A posical name; I never heard the like.<br> +She’ll be a flighty faggit, mark my words.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +She’s only been here once before; and now<br> +She’ll be here all the time. I’ll find it strange<br> +With another woman in the house. Needs must<br> +Get used to it. Your mother found it strange,<br> +Likely ... It’s my turn now, and long in coming.<br> +Perhaps, that makes it harder. I’ve got set<br> +Like a vane, when the wind’s blown east so long, it’s clogged<br> +With dust, and cannot whisk with the chopping breeze.<br> +’Twill need a wrench to shift my bent; for change<br> +Comes sore and difficult at my time of life.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, you may find your nose put out of joint,<br> +If she’s a spirited wench.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Due east it’s blown<br> +Since your mother died. She barely outlived my coming;<br> +And never saw a grandchild. I wonder ... Yet,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">6</span> +I spared her all I could. Ay, that was it:<br> +She couldn’t abide to watch me trying to spare her,<br> +Another woman doing her work, finoodling<br> +At jobs she’d do so smartly, tidying her hearth,<br> +Using her oven, washing her cups and saucers,<br> +Scouring her tables, redding up her rooms,<br> +Handling her treasures, and wearing out her gear.<br> +And now, another, wringing out my dishclout,<br> +And going about my jobs in her own fashion;<br> +Turning my household, likely, howthery-towthery,<br> +While I sit mum. But it takes forty years’<br> +Steady east wind to teach some folk; and then<br> +They’re overdried to profit by their learning.<br> +And so, without a complaint, and keeping her secrets,<br> +Your mother died with patient, quizzical eyes,<br> +Half-pitying, fixed on mine; and dying, left<br> +Krindlesyke and its gear to its new mistress.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +A woman, she was. You’ve never had her hand<br> +At farls and bannocks; and her singing-hinnies<br> +Fair melted in the mouth—not sad and soggy<br> +As yours are like to be. She’d no habnab<br> +And hitty-missy ways; and she’d turn to,<br> +At shearing-time, and clip with any man.<br> +She never spared herself.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +And died at forty,<br> +As white and worn as an old table-cloth,<br> +Darned, washed, and ironed to a shred of cobweb,<br> +Past mending; while your father was sixty-nine<br> +Before he could finish himself, soak as he might.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Don’t you abuse my father. A man, he was—<br> +<span class = "pagenum">7</span> +No fonder of his glass than a man should be.<br> +Few like him now: I’ve not his guts, and Jim’s<br> +Just a lamb’s head, gets half-cocked on a thimble,<br> +And mortal, swilling an eggcupful; a gill<br> +Would send him randy, reeling to the gallows.<br> +Dad was the boy! Got through three bottles a day,<br> +And never turned a hair, when his own master,<br> +Before we’d to quit Rawridge, because the dandy<br> +Had put himself outside of all his money—<br> +Teeming it down his throat in liquid gold,<br> +Swallowing stock and plenishing, gear and graith.<br> +A bull-trout’s gape and a salamander thrapple—<br> +A man, and no mistake!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +A man; and so,<br> +She died; and since your mother was carried out,<br> +Hardly a woman’s crossed the threshold, and none<br> +Has slept the night at Krindlesyke. Forty-year,<br> +With none but men! They’ve kept me at it; and now<br> +Jim’s bride’s to take the work from my hands, and do<br> +Things over that I’ve done over for forty-year,<br> +Since I took them from your mother—things some woman’s<br> +Been doing at Krindlesyke since the first bride<br> +Came home.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Three hundred years since the first herd<br> +Cut peats for that hearth’s kindling. Set alow,<br> +Once and for all, it’s seen a wheen lives burn<br> +Black-out: and when we, too, lie in the house<br> +That never knew housewarming, ’twill be glowing.<br> +Ay! and some woman’s tongue’s been going it,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">8</span> +Like a wag-at-the-wa’, in this steading, three hundred years,<br> +Tick-tocking the same things over.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Dare say, we’ll manage:<br> +A decent lass—though something in her eye,<br> +I couldn’t quite make out. Hardly Jim’s sort ...<br> +But, who can ever tell why women marry?<br> +And Jim ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Takes after me: and wenches buzz<br> +Round a handsome lad, as wasps about a bunghole.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Though now they only see skin-deep, those eyes<br> +Will search the marrow. Jim will have his hands full,<br> +Unless she’s used to menfolk and their ways,<br> +And past the minding. She’d the quietness<br> +That’s a kind of pride, and yet, not haughty—held<br> +Her head like a young blood-mare, that’s mettlesome<br> +Without a touch of vice. She’ll gan her gait<br> +Through this world, and the next. The bit in her teeth,<br> +There’ll be no holding her, though Jim may tug<br> +The snaffle, till he’s tewed. I’ve kenned that look<br> +In women’s eyes, and mares’, though, with a difference.<br> +And Jim—yet she seemed fond enough of Jim:<br> +His daffing’s likely fresh to her, though his jokes<br> +Are last week’s butter. Last week’s! For forty-year<br> +I’ve tholed them, all twice-borrowed, from dad and granddad,<br> +And rank, when I came to Krindlesyke, to find<br> +Life, the same jobs and same jests over and over.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +A notion, that, to hatch, full-fledged and crowing!<br> +<span class = "pagenum">9</span> +You must have brooded, old clocker.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +True enough,<br> +Marriage means little more than a new gown<br> +To some: but Phœbe’s not a fancicle tauntril,<br> +With fingers itching to hansel new-fangled flerds.<br> +Why she’d wed ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Tuts! Girls take their chance. And you’d<br> +Conceit enough of Jim, at one time—proud<br> +As a pipit that’s hatched a cuckoo: and if the gowk<br> +Were half as handsome as I—you ken, yourself,<br> +You needed no coaxing: I wasted little breath<br> +Whistling to heel: you came at the first “Isca!”</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Who kens what a lass runs away from, crazed to quit<br> +Home, at all hazards, little realizing<br> +It’s life, itself, she’s trying to escape;<br> +And plodging deeper.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Trust a wench for kenning.<br> +I’ve to meet the wife who’d be a maid again:<br> +Once in the fire, no wife, though she may crackle<br> +On the live coals, leaps back to the frying-pan.<br> +It’s against nature.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Maybe: and yet, somehow,<br> +Phœbe seemed different.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’ve found little difference<br> +Betwixt one gimmer and another gimmer,<br> +When the ram’s among them. But, where does she hail from?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Allendale way. Jim met her at Martinmas fair.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +We met ...</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">10</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Ay, fairs have much to answer for.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I thought ’twas Judith Ellershaw.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +God forbid<br> +’Twas Judith I’d to share with: though Jim fancied<br> +The lass, at one time. He’s had many fancies:<br> +Light come, light go, it’s always been with Jim.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And I was gay when I was young—as brisk<br> +As a yearling tup with the ewes, till I’d the pains,<br> +Like red-hot iron, clamping back and thighs.<br> +My heart’s a younker’s still; but even love<br> +Gives in, at last, to rheumatics and lumbago.<br> +Now, I’m no better than an old bell-wether,<br> +A broken-winded, hirpling tattyjack<br> +That can do nothing but baa and baa and baa.<br> +I’d just to whistle for a wench at Jim’s age:<br> +And Jim’s ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +His father’s son.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +He’s never had<br> +My spirit. No woman’s ever bested me.<br> +For all his bluster, he’s a gaumless nowt,<br> +With neither guts nor gall. He just butts blindly—<br> +A woolly-witted ram, bashing his horns,<br> +And spattering its silly brains out on a rock:<br> +No backbone—any trollop could twiddle him<br> +Round her little finger: just the sort a doxy,<br> +Or a drop too much, sets dancing, heels in air:<br> +He’s got the gallows’ brand. But none of your sons<br> +Has a head for whisky or wenches; and not one<br> +Has half my spunk, my relish. I’d not trust<br> +Their judgment of a ewe, let alone a woman:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">11</span> +But I could size a wench up, at a glance;<br> +And Judith ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Ay: but Krindlesyke would be<br> +A muckheap-lie-on, with that cloffy slut<br> +For mistress. But she flitted one fine night.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Rarely the shots of the flock turn lowpy-dyke;<br> +Likelier the tops have the spunk to run ramrace;<br> +And I think no worse ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Her father turned her out,<br> +’Twas whispered; and he’s never named her, since:<br> +And no one’s heard a word. I couldn’t thole<br> +The lass. She’d big cow-eyes: there’s little good<br> +In that sort. Jim’s well shot of her; he’ll not<br> +Hear tell of her: that sort can always find<br> +Another man to fool: they don’t come back:<br> +Past’s past, with them.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I liked ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay, you’re Jim’s dad.<br> +But now he’s settling down, happen I’ll see<br> +Bairn’s bairns at Krindlesyke, before I die.<br> +Six sons—and only the youngest of the bunch<br> +Left in the old home to do his parents credit.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Queer, all went wild, your sons, like collies bitten<br> +With a taste for mutton bleeding-hot. Cold lead<br> +Cures dogs of that kidney, peppering them one fine night<br> +From a chink in a stell; but, when they’re two-legged curs,<br> +They’ve a longer run; and, in the end, the gallows<br> +Don’t noose them, kicking and squealing like snarled rabbits,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">12</span> +Dead-certain, as ’twould do in the good old days.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You crack your gallows-jokes on your own sons—<br> +And each the spit of the father that drove them wild,<br> +With cockering them and cursing them; one moment,<br> +Fooling them to their bent, the moment after,<br> +Flogging them senseless, till their little bodies<br> +Were one blue bruise.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I never larruped enough,<br> +But let the varmints off too easily:<br> +That was the mischief. They should have had my dad—<br> +An arm like a bullock-walloper, and a fist<br> +Could fell a stot; and faiks, but he welted me<br> +Skirlnaked, yarked my hurdies till I yollered,<br> +In season and out, and made me the man I am.<br> +Ay, he’d have garred the young eels squirm.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +And yet,<br> +My sons, as well: though I lost my hold of each<br> +Almost before he was off my lap, with you<br> +To egg them on against me. Peter went first:<br> +And Jim’s the lave. But he may settle down.<br> +God kens where you’d be, if you’d not wed young.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And the devil where you’d be, if we hadn’t met<br> +That hiring-day at Hexham, on the minute.<br> +I’d spent last hiring with another wench,<br> +A giggling red-haired besom; and we were trysted<br> +To meet at the Shambles: and I was awaiting her,<br> +When I caught the glisk of your eye: but she was late;<br> +<span class = "pagenum">13</span> +And you were a sonsy lassie, fresh and pink;<br> +Though little pink about you now, I’d fancy.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay, forty-year of Krindlesyke, and all!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Young carroty-pow must have been in a fine fantigue,<br> +When she found I’d mizzled. Yet, if she’d turned up<br> +In time, poor mealy-face, for all your roses,<br> +You’d never have clapped eyes on Krindlesyke:<br> +This countryside and you would still be strangers.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +In time!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +A narrow squeak.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +If she’d turned up,<br> +The red-haired girl had lived at Krindlesyke,<br> +Instead of me, this forty-year: and I—<br> +I might ... But we must dree our weird. And yet,<br> +To think what my life might have been, if only—<br> +The difference!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Ay, and hers, “if ifs and ans!”<br> +But I’m none certain she’d have seen it, either.<br> +I could have had her without wedding her,<br> +And no mistake, the nickering, red-haired baggage.<br> +Though she was merry, she’d big rabbit-teeth,<br> +Might prove gey ill to live with; ay, and a swarm<br> +Of little sandy moppies like their doe,<br> +Buck-teeth and freckled noses and saucer-eyes,<br> +Gaping and squealing round the table at dinner,<br> +And calling me their dad, as likely as not:<br> +Though little her mug would matter, now I’m blind;<br> +And by this there’ll scarce be a stump in her yellow gums,<br> +And not a red hair to her nodding poll—<br> +<span class = "pagenum">14</span> +That shock of flame a shrivelled, grizzled wisp<br> +Like bracken after a heathfire; that creamy skin,<br> +Like a plucked hen’s. But she’d a merry eye,<br> +The giglet; and that coppertop of hers<br> +Was good to think on of a nippy morning:<br> +While you—but you were young then ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Young and daft.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay, not so gite; for I was handsome then.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, the braw birkie of that gairishon<br> +Of menseless slubberdegullions: and I trusted<br> +My eyes, and other people’s tongues, in those days:<br> +And you’d a tongue to glaver a guff of a girl,<br> +The devil’s own; and whatever’s gone from you,<br> +You’ve still a tongue, though with a difference:<br> +Now it’s all edge.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +The knife that spreads the butter<br> +Will slice the loaf. But it’s sharper than my teeth.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, tongues cut deeper than any fang can bite,<br> +Sore-rankling wounds.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You talk of tongues! I’m deaf:<br> +But, for my sins, I cannot be deaf to yours,<br> +Nattering me into my grave; and, likely, your words<br> +Will flaffer about my lugs like channering peesweeps,<br> +When I lie cold.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Yes, I was young, and agape<br> +For your wheedling flum, till it fleeched my self from me.<br> +There’s something in a young girl seems to work<br> +Against her better sense, and gives her up,<br> +Almost in spite of her.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +It’s nature.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">15</span></p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Then<br> +Nature has more than enough to answer for.<br> +Young, ay! And you, as gallant as the stallion,<br> +With ribboned tail and mane, that pranced to the crack<br> +Of my father’s whip, when first I saw you gaping,<br> +Kenspeckle in that clamjamfrey of copers.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Love at first sight!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And I was just as foolish<br> +As you were braw.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Well, we’d our time of it,<br> +Fools, or no fools. And you could laugh in those days,<br> +And didn’t snigger like the ginger fizgig.<br> +Your voice was a bird’s: but you laugh little now;<br> +And—well, maybe, your voice is still a bird’s.<br> +There’s birds and birds. Then, ’twas a cushy-doo’s<br> +That’s brooding on her nest, while the red giglet’s<br> +Was a gowk’s at the end of June. Do you call to mind<br> +We sat the livelong day in a golden carriage,<br> +Squandering a fortune, forby the tanner I dropt?<br> +They wouldn’t stop to let me pick it up;<br> +And when we alighted from the roundabout,<br> +Some skunk had pouched it: may he pocket it<br> +Red-hot in hell through all eternity!<br> +If I’d that fortune now safe in my kist!<br> +But I was a scatterpenny: and you were bonnie—<br> +Pink as a dog-rose were your plump cheeks then:<br> +Your hair’d the gloss and colour of clean straw:<br> +And when, at darkening, the naphtha flares were kindled,<br> +And all the red and blue and gold aglitter—<br> +<span class = "pagenum">16</span> +Drums banging, trumpets braying, rattles craking;<br> +And we were rushing round and round, the music—<br> +The music and the dazzle ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay: that was it—<br> +The rushing and the music and the dazzle.<br> +Happen ’twas on a roundabout that Jim<br> +Won Phœbe Martin.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And when you were dizzy,<br> +And all a hazegaze with the hubblyshew;<br> +You cuddled up against me, snug and warm:<br> +And round and round we went—the music braying<br> +And beating in my blood: the gold aglitter ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And there’s been little dazzle since, or music.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But I was merry, till I fetched you home,<br> +To swarm the house with whinging wammerels.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You fetched me from my home. If I’d but known<br> +Before I crossed the threshold. I took my arles,<br> +And had to do my darg. And another bride<br> +Comes now. They’ll soon be here: the train was due<br> +At half-past one: they’d walk it in two hours,<br> +Though bride and groom.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I wish he’d married Judith.<br> +Cow-eyed, you called the wench; but cows have horns,<br> +And, whiles, they use them when you least expect.<br> +’Twould be no flighty heifer you’d to face,<br> +If she turned mankeen. But, I liked the runt.<br> +Jim might do worse.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You liked ... But come, I’ll set<br> +Your chair outside, where you can feel the sun;<br> +And hearken to the curlew; and be the first<br> +<span class = "pagenum">17</span> +To welcome Jim and Phœbe as man and wife.<br> +Come!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Are the curlew calling?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Calling? Ay!<br> +And they’ve been at it all the blessed day,<br> +As on the day I came to Krindlesyke.<br> +Likely the new bride—though ’twasn’t at the time<br> +I noticed them: too heedless and new-fangled.<br> +She may be different: she may hear them now:<br> +They’re noisy enough.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I cannot catch a note:<br> +I’m getting old, and deaved as well as darkened.<br> +When I was young, I liked to hear the whaups<br> +Calling to one another down the slacks:<br> +And I could whistle, too, like any curlew.<br> +’Twas an ancient bird wouldn’t answer my call: and now<br> +I’m ancient myself—an old, blind, doddering heron,<br> +Dozing his day out in a syke, while minnows<br> +Play tiggy round his shanks and nibble his toes;<br> +And the hawk hangs overhead. But then the blood<br> +Was hot, and I’d a relish—such a relish!<br> +Keen as a kestrel ... and now ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +It’s Jim and Phœbe—<br> +The music and the dazzle in their heads:<br> +And they’ll be here ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I wish he’d married Judith:<br> +She’s none the worse for being a ruddled ewe.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay, God forbid! At least, I’m spared that bildert.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">18</span> +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Ezra</span> rises; and <span class = +"charname">Eliza</span> carries out his chair, and he hobbles after her. +She soon returns, and puts griddle-cakes into the oven to keep hot. +Presently a step is heard on the threshold, and <span class = +"charname">Judith Ellershaw</span> stands in the doorway, a baby in her +arms. <span class = "charname">Eliza</span> does not notice her for a +few moments; then, glancing up, recognizes her with a start.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You, Judith Ellershaw! I thought ’twas Jim.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You thought ’twas Jim?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Jim and ... To think it’s you!<br> +Where’ve you sprung from? It’s long since you’ve shown face<br> +In these parts; and we’d seen the last of you,<br> +I reckoned, little dreaming—and, least of all,<br> +To-day!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +And should I be more welcome, then,<br> +On any other?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Welcome? I hardly know.<br> +Decent folk don’t keep open house for your sort<br> +At any time. Your foot’s not dirtied that doorstone<br> +A dozen times in your life: and then, to come,<br> +To-day, of all days, just when Jim ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Breaks off abruptly.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +When Jim?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But, don’t stand there. You’re looking pale and peaked.<br> +It’s heavy, traiking the fell-tracks with a baby:<br> +Come in, and rest a moment, if you’re tired.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">19</span> +You cannot bide here long: I’m sorry, lass;<br> +But I’m expecting company; and you<br> +Yourself, I take it, won’t be over-eager<br> +For company.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’m tired enough, God kens—<br> +Bone-weary: but we’ll not stay long, to shame you:<br> +And you can send us packing in good time,<br> +Before your company comes.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She enters, and seats herself on a chair near the door. <span class = +"charname">Eliza</span> busies herself, laying the table for tea, and +there is silence for a while.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +And so, Jim’s gone<br> +To fetch the company?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay, Jim has gone ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She breaks off again abruptly, and says no more for a while. Presently +she goes to the oven, takes out a griddle-cake, splits and butters it, +and hands it to <span class = "charname">Judith</span>.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Likely, you’re hungry, and could do with a bite?</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Judith</span> <span class = "stagedir">(taking +it)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’m famished. Cake! We’re grand, to-day, indeed!<br> +And scones and bannocks—carties, quite a spread!<br> +It’s almost like a wedding.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +A wedding, woman?<br> +Can’t folk have scones and bannocks and singing-hinnies,<br> +But you must prate of weddings—you, and all!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I meant no harm. I thought, perhaps, Jim might ...<br> +Though, doubtless, he was married long ago?</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +<span class = "pagenum">20</span> +(<span class = "charname">Eliza</span> does not answer. <span class = +"charname">Judith’s</span> baby begins to whimper, and she tries to hush +it in an absent manner.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Whisht, whisht! my little lass! You mustn’t cry,<br> +And shame the ears of decent folk. Whisht, whisht!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Why, that’s no way to hush the teelytoon.<br> +Come, give the bairn to me. Come, woman, come!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Taking the child from <span class = "charname">Judith</span>.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +I’ll show you how to handle babies. There!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And you would nurse my brat?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +A bairn’s a bairn—<br> +Ay, even though its mother ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Breaks off abruptly, and stands, gazing before her, clasping the baby +to her bosom.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Why don’t you finish?<br> +“Ay, even though its mother ...” you were saying.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +It’s ill work, calling names.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You needn’t fear<br> +To make me blush by calling me any name<br> +That hasn’t stung me to the quick already.<br> +My pious father had a holy tongue;<br> +And he had searched the Scriptures to some purpose.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Eliza</span> <span class = "stagedir">(gazing +before her in an abstracted manner)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay: likely enough.... Poor bairn, poor little bairn—<br> +It’s strange, but, as you snuggled to my breast,<br> +I could have fancied, a moment, ’twas Jim I held<br> +In my arms again. I’m growing old and foolish,<br> +To have such fancies.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">21</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Fancied ’twas Jim, your son—<br> +My bastard brat?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Shame on you, woman, to call<br> +Your own bairn such, poor innocent. It’s not<br> +To blame for being a chance-bairn. Yet ... O Jim!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Why do you call on Jim? He’s not come home yet?<br> +But I must go, before your son brings back ...<br> +Give me the bairn ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Eliza</span> <span class = +"stagedir">(withholding the baby)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay, daughter, not till I learn<br> +The father’s name.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +What right have you ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +God kens ...<br> +And yet ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Give me the bairn. You’ll never learn<br> +The father’s name from me.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Go, daughter, go.<br> +What ill-chance made you come to-day, of all days?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Why not to-day? Come, woman, I’d ken that,<br> +Before I go. I’ve half a mind to stay.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay, lass, you said ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’ve said a lot, in my time.<br> +I’ve changed my mind. ’Twas Jim I came to see—<br> +Though why, God kens! I liked the singing-hinny:<br> +Happen, there’ll be some more for me, if I stay.<br> +I find I cannot thrive on nettle-broth:<br> +And it’s not every day ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Judith, you ken.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ken? I ken nothing, but what you tell me.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">22</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Daughter,<br> +I’ll tell you all. You’ll never have the heart ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The heart!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +To stay and shame us, when you ken all.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +All?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +When you talked of weddings, you’d hit the truth:<br> +And Jim brings home his bride to-day. Even now ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And Jim brings home ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I looked for them by this:<br> +But you’ve still time ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +The bride comes home to-day.<br> +Brides should come home: it’s right a man should bring<br> +His bride home—ay! And we must go, my wean,<br> +To spare her blushes. We’re no company<br> +For bride and bridegroom. Happen, we should meet them,<br> +You must not cry to him: I must not lift<br> +My eyes to his. We’re nothing now to him.<br> +Your cry might tell her heart too much: my eyes<br> +Might meet her eyes, and tell ... It isn’t good<br> +For a bride to know too much. So, we must hide<br> +In the ditch, as they pass by, if we should chance<br> +To meet them on the road—their road and ours—<br> +The same road, though we’re travelling different ways.<br> +The bride comes home. Brides come home every day.<br> +And you and I ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +There’s nothing else for it.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +There’s nothing else?</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">23</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Nay, lass! How could you bide?<br> +They’ll soon ... But, you’ll not meet them, if you go ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Go, where?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +And how should I ken where you’re bound for?<br> +I thought you might be making home.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Home—home!<br> +I might be making home? And where’s my home—<br> +Ay, and my bairn’s home, if it be not here?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Here? You’d not stay?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Why not? Have I no right?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +If you’ll not go for my sake, go for Jim’s.<br> +If you were fond ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And, think you, I’d be here,<br> +If I had not been fond of Jim? And yet,<br> +Why should I spare him? He’s not spared me much,<br> +Who gave him all a woman has to give.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But, think of her, the bride, and her home-coming.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ll go.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +You lose but little: too well I ken<br> +How little—I, who’ve dwelt this forty-year<br> +At Krindlesyke.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Happen you never loved.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I, too, was young, once, daughter.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay: and yet,<br> +You’ve never tramped the road I’ve had to travel.<br> +God send it stretch not forty-year!</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">24</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +I’ve come<br> +That forty-year. We’re out on the selfsame road,<br> +The three of us: but, she’s the stoniest bit<br> +To travel still—the bride just setting out,<br> +And stepping daintily down the lilylea.<br> +We’ve known the worst.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +But, she can keep the highway,<br> +While I must slink in the ditch, among the nettles.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ve kept the hard road, daughter, forty-year:<br> +The ditch may be easier going, after all:<br> +Nettles don’t sting each other.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Nay: but I’m not<br> +A ditch-born nettle, but, among the nettles,<br> +Only a woman, naked to every sting:<br> +And there are slugs and slithery toads and paddocks<br> +In the ditch-bottom; and their slimy touch<br> +Is worse to bear than any nettle ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Ay—<br> +The pity of it! A maid blooms only once:<br> +And then, that a man should ruin ... But, you’ve your bairn:<br> +And bairns, while we can hold them safe in our arms,<br> +And they still need the breast, make up for much:<br> +For there’s a kind of comfort in their clinging,<br> +Though they only cling till they can stand alone.<br> +But yours is not a son. If I’d only had<br> +One daughter ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Well, you’ll have a daughter now.<br> +But we must go our way to—God kens where!<br> +Before Jim brings the bride home. You’ve your wish:<br> +Jim brings you home a daughter ...</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">25</span> +<p class = "stagedir"> +(As she speaks, a step is heard, and <span class = "charname">Ezra +Barrasford</span> appears in the doorway. Turning to go, <span class = +"charname">Judith</span> meets him. She tries to pass him, but he +clutches her arm; and she stands, dazed, while his fingers grope +over her.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +So Jim’s back:<br> +And has slipped by his old dad without a word?<br> +I caught no footfall, though once I’d hear an adder<br> +Slink through the bent. I’m deafer than an adder—<br> +Deaf as the stone-wall Johnny Looney built<br> +Around the frog that worried him with croaking.<br> +I couldn’t hear the curlew—not a note.<br> +But I forget my manners. Jim, you dog,<br> +To go and wed, and never tell your dad!<br> +I thought ’twas swedes you were after: and, by gox!<br> +It’s safer fetching turnips than a wife.<br> +But, welcome home! Is this the bonnie bride?<br> +You’re welcome, daughter, home to Krindlesyke.</p> +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Feeling her face.)</p> +<p class = "line"> +But, wife, it’s Judith, after all! I kenned<br> +That Judith was the lucky lass. You said<br> +’Twas somebody else: I cannot mind the name—<br> +Some fly-by-the-sky, outlandish name: but I<br> +Was right, you see. Though I be blind and deaf,<br> +I’m not so dull as some folk think. There’s others<br> +Are getting on in years, forby old Ezra.<br> +Though some have ears to hear the churchyard worms<br> +Stirring beneath the mould, and think it time<br> +That he was straked and chested, the old dobby<br> +Is not a corpse yet: and it well may happen<br> +<span class = "pagenum">26</span> +He’ll not be the first at Krindlesyke to lie,<br> +Cold as a slug, with pennies on his eyes.<br> +Aiblains, the old ram’s cassen, but he’s no trake yet:<br> +And, at the worst, he’ll be no braxy carcase<br> +When he’s cold mutton. Ay, I’m losing grip;<br> +But I’ve still got a kind of hold on life;<br> +And a young wench in the house makes all the difference.<br> +We’ve hardly blown the froth off, and smacked our lips,<br> +Before we’ve reached the bottom of the pot:<br> +Yet the last may prove the tastiest drop, who kens?<br> +You’re welcome, daughter.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(His hand, travelling over her shoulder, touches the child.)</p> + +<p class = "line two"> +Ah, a brat—Jim’s bairn!<br> +He hasn’t lost much time, has Jim, the dog!<br> +Come, let me take it, daughter. I’ve never held<br> +A grandchild in my arms. Six sons I’ve had,<br> +But not one’s made me granddad, to my knowledge:<br> +And all the hoggerels have turned lowpy-dyke,<br> +And scrambled, follow-my-leader, over the crag’s edge,<br> +But Jim, your husband: and not for me to say,<br> +Before his wife, that he’s the draft of the flock.<br> +Give me the baby: I’ll not let it fall:<br> +I’ve always had a way with bairns, and women.<br> +It’s not for naught I’ve tended ewes and lambs,<br> +This sixty-year.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He snatches the baby from <span class = "charname">Judith</span>, +before she realizes what he is doing, and hobbles away with it to the +high-backed settle by the fire, out of sight. Before <span class = +"charname">Judith</span> can move to follow him, steps are heard on the +threshold.)</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">27</span> +<p class = "speaker charname">Eliza:</p> + +<p class = "line two"> +Ah, God: they’re at the door!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +As she speaks, <span class = "charname">Jim</span> and <span class = +"charname">Phœbe Barrasford</span> enter, talking and laughing. <span +class = "charname">Judith Ellershaw</span> shrinks into the shadow +behind the door, while they come between her and the settle on which +<span class = "charname">Ezra</span> is nursing the baby unseen. <span +class = "charname">Eliza</span> stands dazed in the middle of the +room.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And they lived happy ever afterwards,<br> +Eh, lass? Well, mother: I’ve done the trick: all’s over;<br> +And I’m a married man, copt fair and square,<br> +Coupled to Phœbe: and I’ve brought her home.<br> +You call the lass to mind, though you look moidart?<br> +What’s dozzened you? She’ll find her wits soon, Phœbe:<br> +They’re in a mullock, all turned howthery-towthery<br> +At the notion of a new mistress at Krindlesyke—<br> +She’ll come to her senses soon, and bid you welcome.<br> +Take off your bonnet; and make yourself at home.<br> +I trust tea’s ready, mother: I’m fairly famished.<br> +I’ve hardly had a bite, and not a sup<br> +To wet my whistle since forenoon: and dod!<br> +But getting married is gey hungry work.<br> +I’m hollow as a kex in a ditch-bottom:<br> +And just as dry as Molly Miller’s milkpail<br> +She bought, on the chance of borrowing a cow.<br> +Eh, Phœbe, lass! But you’ve stopped laughing, have you?<br> +And you look fleyed: there’s nothing here to scare you:<br> +We’re quiet folk at Krindlesyke. Come, mother,<br> +Have you no word of welcome for the lass,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">28</span> +That you gape like a foundered ewe at us? What ghost<br> +Has given you a gliff, and set you chittering?<br> +Come, shake yourself, before I rax your bones;<br> +And give my bride the welcome due to her—<br> +My bride, the lady I have made my wife.<br> +Poor lass, she’s quaking like a dothery-dick.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Eliza</span> <span class = "stagedir">(<span +class = "stagedir">to <span class = +"charname">Phœbe</span></span>)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Daughter, may you ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Ezra</span> <span class = "stagedir">(<span +class = "stagedir">crooning, unseen, to the baby</span>)</span>:</p> + +<p class = "line two"> +“Dance for your mammy,</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Dance for your daddy ...”</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +What ails the old runt now?<br> +You <ins class = "correction" title = "text reads ‘musn’t’">mustn’t</ins> +heed him, Phœbe, lass: he’s blind<br> +And old and watty: but there’s no harm in him.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Goes towards settle.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +Come, dad, and jog your wits, and stir your stumps,<br> +And welcome ... What the devil’s this? Whose brat ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Whose brat? And who should ken—although they say,<br> +It’s a wise father knows his own child. Ay!<br> +If he’s the devil, you’re the devil’s brat,<br> +And I’m the devil’s daddy. Happen you came<br> +Before the parson had time to read the prayers.<br> +But, he’s a rum dad ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Judith Ellershaw</span> steps forward to take +the child from <span class = "charname">Ezra</span>.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Judith Ellershaw!<br> +Why, lass, where ever have ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He steps towards her, then stops in confusion. Nobody speaks as <span +class = "charname">Judith</span> goes towards the <span class = +"pagenum">29</span> settle, takes the child from <span class = +"charname">Ezra</span>, and wraps it in her shawl. She is moving to the +door when <span class = "charname">Phœbe</span> steps before her and +closes it, then turns and faces <span class = +"charname">Judith</span>.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You shall not go.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And who are you to stop me? Come, make way—<br> +Come, woman, let me pass.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I—I’m Jim’s bride.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And what should Jim’s bride have to say to me?<br> +Come, let me by.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You shall not go.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Come, lass.<br> +You do not ken me for the thing I am:<br> +If you but guessed, you’d fling the door wide open,<br> +And draw your petticoats about you tight,<br> +Lest any draggletail of mine should smutch them.<br> +I never should have come ’mid decent folk:<br> +I never should have crawled out of the ditch.<br> +You little ken ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I heard your name. I’ve heard<br> +That name before.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You heard no good of it,<br> +Whoever spoke.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I heard it from the lips<br> +That uttered it just now.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +From Jim’s? Well, Jim<br> +Kens what I am. I wonder he lets you talk<br> +With me. Come ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Not until I know the name<br> +Of your baby’s father.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">30</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You’ve no right to ask.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Maybe: and yet, you shall not cross that doorsill,<br> +Until I know.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Come, woman, don’t be foolish.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You say I’ve no right. Pray God, you speak the truth:<br> +But there may be no woman in the world<br> +Who has a better right.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You’d never heed<br> +A doting dobby’s blethering, would you, lass—<br> +An old, blind, crazy creature ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +If I’ve no right,<br> +You’ll surely never have the heart to keep<br> +The name from me? You’ll set my mind at ease?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The heart! If it will set your mind at ease,<br> +I’ll speak my shame ... I’ll speak my shame right out ...<br> +I’ll speak my shame right out, before you all.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But, lass!</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Eliza</span> <span class = "stagedir">(to <span +class = "charname">Phœbe</span>)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Nay: let her go. You’re young and hard:<br> +And I was hard, though far from young: I’ve long<br> +Been growing old; though little I realized<br> +How old. And when you’re old, you don’t judge hardly:<br> +You ken things happen, in spite of us, willy-nilly.<br> +We think we’re safe, holding the reins; and then<br> +In a flash the mare bolts; and the wheels fly off;<br> +And we’re lying, stunned, beneath the broken cart.<br> +So, let the lass go quietly; and keep<br> +<span class = "pagenum">31</span> +Your happiness. When you’re old, you’ll not let slip<br> +A chance of happiness so easily:<br> +There’s not so much of it going, to pick and choose:<br> +The apple’s speckled; but it’s best to munch it,<br> +And get what relish out of it you can;<br> +And, one day, you’ll be glad to chew the core:<br> +For all its bitterness, few chuck it from them,<br> +While they’ve a sense left that can savour aught.<br> +So, let the lass go. You may have the right<br> +To question her: but folk who stand on their rights<br> +Get little rest: they’re on a quaking moss<br> +Without a foothold; and find themselves to the neck<br> +In Deadman’s Flow, before they’ve floundered far.<br> +Rights go for little, in this life: few are worth<br> +The risk of losing peace and quiet. You’ll have<br> +Plenty to worrit, and keep you wakeful, without<br> +A pillow stuffed with burrs and briars: so, take<br> +An old wife’s counsel, daughter: let well alone;<br> +And don’t go gathering grievances. The lass ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, don’t be hard on her. Though mother’s old,<br> +She talks sense, whiles. So let the poor lass go.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The father of my bairn ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +She’s lying, Phœbe!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The father of my bairn is—William Burn—<br> +A stranger to these parts. Now, let me pass.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She tries to slip by, but <span class = "charname">Phœbe</span> still +does not make way for her.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, Phœbe, let her go. She tells the truth.<br> +I thought ... But I mistook her. Let her go.<br> +I never reckoned you’d be a reesty nag:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">32</span> +Yet, you can set your hoofs, and champ your bit<br> +With any mare, I see. I doubt you’ll prove<br> +A rackle ramstam wife, if you’ve your head.<br> +She’s answered what you asked; though, why, unless ...<br> +Well, I don’t blame the wench: she should ken best.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Judith, you lie.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I lie! You mean ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +To-day,<br> +I married your bairn’s father.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +O God!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Come, lass,<br> +I say!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +No woman, no! I spoke the truth.<br> +Haven’t I shamed myself enough already—<br> +That you must call me liar! <span class = "stagedir">(To <span class = +"charname">Eliza</span>)</span> Speak out now,<br> +If you’re not tongue-tied: tell her all you ken—<br> +How I’m a byword among honest women,<br> +And yet, no liar. You’d tongue enough just now<br> +To tell me what I was—a cruel tongue<br> +Cracking about my ears: and have you none<br> +To answer your son’s wife, and save the lad<br> +From scandal?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +I’ve not known the lass to lie ...<br> +And she’s the true heart, Phœbe, true as death,<br> +Whatever it may seem.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +That’s that: and so ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(While they have been talking, <span class = "charname">Ezra</span> has +risen from the settle, unnoticed; and has hobbled to where <span class = +"charname">Phœbe</span> and <span class = "charname">Judith</span> +confront one another. He suddenly touches <span class = +"charname">Phœbe’s</span> arm.)</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">33</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line">Cackling like guinea-fowl when a hawk’s in air!<br> +I must have snoozed; yet, I caught the gabble. There’ll be<br> +A clatter all day now, with two women’s tongues,<br> +Clack-clack against each other, in the house—<br> +Two pendulums in one clock. Lucky I’m deaf.<br> +But, I remember. Give me back the bairn.<br> +Nay: this is not the wench. I want Jim’s bride—<br> +The mother of his daughter. Judith, lass,<br> +Where are you? Come, I want to nurse my grandchild—<br> +Jim’s little lass.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Eliza</span> <span class = "stagedir">(stepping +towards <span class = "charname">Ezra</span>)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Come, hold your foolish tongue.<br> +You don’t know what you’re saying. Come, sit down.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Leads him back to the settle.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +If he don’t stop his yammer, I’ll slit his weasen—<br> +I’ll wring his neck for him!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +What’s wrong? What’s wrong?<br> +I’m an old man, now; and must do as I’m bid like a bairn—<br> +I, who was master, and did all the bidding.<br> +And you, Jim, I’d have broken your back like a rabbit’s,<br> +At one time, if you’d talked to me like that.<br> +But now I’m old and sightless; and any tit<br> +May chivvy a blind kestrel. Ay, I’m old<br> +And weak—so waffly in arms and shanks, that now<br> +I couldn’t even hold down a hog to be clipped:<br> +So, boys can threaten me, and go unskelped:<br> +So you can bray; and I must hold my peace:<br> +Yet, mark my words, the hemp’s ripe for the rope<br> +That’ll throttle you one day, you gallows-bird.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">34</span> +But, something’s happening that a blind man’s sense<br> +Cannot take hold of; so, I’d best be quiet—<br> +Ay, just sit still all day, and nod and nod,<br> +Until I nod myself into my coffin:<br> +That’s all that’s left me.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Judith</span> <span class = "stagedir">(to +<span class = "charname">Phœbe</span>)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You’d weigh an old man’s gossip<br> +Against my word? O woman, pay no heed<br> +To idle tongues, if you’d keep happiness.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +While the tongue lies, the eyes speak out the truth.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The eyes? Then you’ll not take my word for it,<br> +But let a dotard’s clatterjaw destroy you?<br> +You ken my worth: yet, if you care for Jim,<br> +You’ll trust his oath. If he denies the bairn,<br> +Then, you’ll believe? You’d surely never doubt<br> +Your husband’s word, and on your wedding-day?<br> +Small wonder you’d be duberous of mine.<br> +But Jim’s not my sort; he’s an honest lad;<br> +And he’ll speak truly. If he denies the bairn ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ve not been used to doubting people’s word.<br> +My father’s daughter couldn’t but be trustful<br> +Of what men said; for he was truth itself.<br> +If only he’d lived, I mightn’t ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +If Jim denies ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +If Jim can look me in the eyes, and swear ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Come, set her mind at ease. Don’t spare me, Jim;<br> +But look her in the eyes, and tell her all;<br> +For she’s your wife; and has a right to ken<br> +The bairn’s no bairn of yours. Come, lad, speak out;<br> +<span class = "pagenum">35</span> +And don’t stand gaping. You ken as well as I<br> +The bairn ... Speak! Speak! Have you no tongue at all?</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She pauses; but <span class = "charname">Jim</span> hesitates to +speak.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +Don’t think of me. You’ve naught to fear from me.<br> +Tell all you ken of me right out: no word<br> +Of yours can hurt me now: I’m shameless, now:<br> +I’m in the ditch, and spattered to the neck.<br> +Come, don’t mince matters: your tongue’s not so modest<br> +It fears to make your cheeks burn—I ken that;<br> +And when the question is a woman’s virtue,<br> +It rattles like a reaper round a wheatfield,<br> +And as little cares if it’s cutting grain or poppies.<br> +So, it’s too late to blush and stammer now,<br> +And let your teeth trip up your tongue. Speak out!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Jim</span> still hesitates.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +Your wife is waiting; if you don’t tell her true,<br> +And quick about it, it’s your own look-out.<br> +I wouldn’t be in your shoes, anyway.<br> +See, how she’s badgered me; and all because ...<br> +Come: be a man: and speak.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +The brat’s no brat<br> +Of mine, Phœbe, I swear ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He stops in confusion, dropping his eyes. <span class = +"charname">Phœbe</span> turns from him, lays one hand on the latch and +the other on <span class = "charname">Judith’s</span> arm.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Come, lass, it’s time<br> +We were getting home.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +We?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay, unless you’d stay?<br> +You’ve the right.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">36</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I stay? O God, what have I done!<br> +That I’d never crossed the threshold!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You’re not going<br> +To leave him, Phœbe? You cannot: you’re his wife;<br> +And cannot quit ... But, I’m getting old ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Leave me?<br> +Leave me? She’s mad! I never heard the like—<br> +And on my wedding-day—stark, staring mad!<br> +But, I’m your husband; and I bid you bide.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +O Jim, if you had only told the truth,<br> +I might, God knows—for I was fond of you,<br> +And trusted ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Now you’re talking sense. Leave me—<br> +And married to me in a church, and all!<br> +But, that’s all over; and you’re not huffed now.<br> +There’s naught in me to take a scunner at.<br> +Yet the shying filly may prove a steady mare,<br> +Once a man’s astriddle her who’ll stand no capers.<br> +You’ve got to let a woman learn who’s master,<br> +Sooner or later: so, it’s just as well<br> +To get it over, once and for all. That’s that.<br> +And now, let Judith go. Come, Phœbe, lass:<br> +I thought you’d a tender heart. Don’t be too hard<br> +On a luckless wench: but let bygones be bygones.<br> +All’s well that ends well. And what odds, my lass,<br> +Even if the brat were mine?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Judith, you’re ready?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Let the lass bide, and sup with us. I’ll warrant<br> +She’ll not say nay: she’s a peckish look, as though<br> +She’d tasted no singing-hinnies this long while back.<br> +Mother, another cup. Draw up your chairs.<br> +We’ve not a wedding-party every day<br> +<span class = "pagenum">37</span> +At Krindlesyke. I’m ravenous as a squab,<br> +When someone’s potted dad and mammy crow.<br> +So sit down, Phœbe, before I clear the board.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Judith, it’s time we were getting home.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Home, lass?<br> +I’ve got no home: I’ve long been homeless: I ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Phœbe:</p> +<p class = "line"> +That much he told me about you: he spoke the truth<br> +So far, at least: but I have still a home,<br> +My mother will be glad to see me back—<br> +Ay, more than glad: she was loth to let me go;<br> +Though, trusting Jim, as she trusted everyone,<br> +She said but little: and she’ll welcome you,<br> +If only for your baby’s sake. She’s just<br> +A child, with children. Unless you are too proud ...<br> +Nay! But I see you’ll come. We’ll live and work,<br> +And tend the bairn, as sisters, we who care.<br> +Come, Judith.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She throws the door wide and goes out, without looking back. <span +class = "charname">Jim</span> steps forward to stay her, but halts, +bewildered, on the threshold, and stands gazing after her.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +I’m damned! Nay, lass, I bid you bide:<br> +I’d see you straked, before I’d let you go ...<br> +Do you hear, I bid ... The blasted wench, she’s gone—<br> +Gone! I’ve a mind ... If I don’t hang for her ...<br> +Just let me get my fingers ... But, I’m betwattled<br> +Like a stoorded tup! And this is my wedding-day!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He stands speechless; but at length turns to <span class = +"charname">Judith</span>, who is gazing after <span class = +"charname">Phœbe</span> with an unrealizing stare.)</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">38</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Well ... anyway, you’ll not desert me, Judith.<br> +Old friends are best: and I—I always liked you.<br> +The other lass was a lamb to woo, but wed,<br> +A termagant: and I’m well shot of her.<br> +I’d have wrung the pullet’s neck for her one day,<br> +If she’d—and the devil to pay! So it’s good riddance ...<br> +Yet, she’d a way with her, she had, the filly!<br> +And I’d have relished breaking her in. But you<br> +Were always easy-going, and fond of me—<br> +Ay, fond and faithful. Look, how you stood up<br> +To her, the tawpy tauntril, for my sake!<br> +We’ll let bygones be bygones, won’t we, Judith?<br> +My chickens have come home to roost, it seems.<br> +And so, this is my baby? Who’d have dreamt ...<br> +I little looked to harvest my wild oats.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Judith</span> starts, shrinking from <span +class = "charname">Jim</span>: and then, clutching her baby to her +bosom, she goes quickly out of the door.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’m coming, Phœbe, coming home with you!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Jim</span> stands on the doorstone, staring +after her, dumbfounded, till she is out of sight; then he turns, and +clashes the door to.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, but it’s time to bar the stable door.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ve done with women: they’re a faithless lot.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I can’t make head or tail of all the wrangling—<br> +Such a gillaber and gilravishing,<br> +<span class = "charname">As I</span> never heard in all my born days, +never.<br> +Weddings were merrymakings in my time:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">39</span> +The reckoning seldom came till the morrow’s morn.<br> +But, Jim, my boy, though you’re a baa-waa body,<br> +And gan about like a goose with a nicked head,<br> +You’ve, aiblains, found out now that petticoats<br> +Are kittle-cattle, the whole rabblement.<br> +The reesty nags will neither heck nor gee:<br> +And they’re all clingclang like the Yetholm tinkers.<br> +Ay: though you’re just a splurging jackalally,<br> +You’ve spoken truth for once, Jim: womenfolk,<br> +Wenches and wives, are all just weathercocks.<br> +I’ve ever found them faithless, first and last.<br> +But, where’s your daughter, Jim? I want to hold<br> +The bairn.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +They’ve taken even her from me.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Eliza</span>, who has been filling the teapot, +takes <span class = "charname">Ezra</span> by the hand, and leads him to +his seat at the table.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Come, husband: sup your tea, before it’s cold:<br> +And you, too, son. Ay, we’re a faithless lot.</p> + + +<hr class = "chapter mid"> + +<span class = "pagenum">41</span> +<h4>BOOK II</h4> + + +<h5 class = "section">BELL HAGGARD</h5> + +<hr class = "mid"> + +<span class = "pagenum">43</span> +<h5 class = "chapter">PART I</h5> + +<p class = "stagedir first"> +Midsummer morning. <span class = "charname">Ezra Barrasford</span> sits +crouched over the fire. <span class = "charname">Eliza +Barrasford</span>, looking old and worn, and as if dazed by a shock, +comes from the ben, or inner room, with a piece of paper in her hand. As +she sinks to a chair to recover her breath, the paper flutters to the +floor, where she lets it lie, and sits staring before her.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +So that’s the last.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +The last? The last of what?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The last of your sons to leave you. Jim’s gone now.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Gone where, the tyke? After his wife, I’ll warrant.<br> +’Twill take him all his time to catch her up:<br> +She’s three months’ start of him. The gonneril,<br> +To be forsaken on his wedding-day:<br> +And the ninneyhammer let her go—he let her!<br> +Do you reckon I’d let a woman I’d fetched home<br> +Go gallivanting off at her own sweet will?<br> +No wench I’d ringed, and had a mind to hold,<br> +Should quit the steading till she was carried, feet-first<br> +<span class = "pagenum">44</span> +And shoulder-high, packed snug in a varnished box.<br> +The noodle couldn’t stand up to a woman’s tongue:<br> +And so, lightheels picked up her skirts, and flitted,<br> +Before he’d even bedded her—skelped off<br> +Like a ewe turned lowpy-dyke; and left the nowt,<br> +The laughing-stock of the countryside. He should<br> +Have used his fist to teach her manners. She seemed<br> +To have the fondy flummoxed, till his wits<br> +Were fozy as a frosted swede. Do you reckon<br> +I’d let a lass ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And yet, six lads have left you,<br> +Without a by-your-leave.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Six lads?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Your sons.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay ... but they’d not the spunk to scoot till I<br> +Was blind and crippled. The scurvy rats skidaddled<br> +As the old barn-roof fell in. While I’d my sight,<br> +They’d scarce the nerve to look me in the eye,<br> +The blinking, slinking squealers!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay, we’re old.<br> +The heat this morning seems to suffocate me,<br> +My head’s a skep of buzzing bees; and I pant<br> +Like an old ewe under a dyke, when the sun gives scarce<br> +An inch of shade. You harp on sight: but eyes<br> +Aren’t everything: my sight’s a girl’s: and yet<br> +I’m old and broken: you’ve broken me, among you.<br> +I’d count the pens of a hanging hawk: yet my eyes<br> +Have saved me little: they’ve never seen to the bottom<br> +Of the blackness of men’s hearts. The very sons<br> +<span class = "pagenum">45</span> +Of my body, I reckoned to ken through and through,<br> +As every mother thinks she knows her sons,<br> +Have been pitch night to me. We never learn.<br> +I thought I’d got by heart each turn and twist<br> +Of all Jim’s stupid cunning: but even he’s<br> +Outwitted me. Six sons, and not one left;<br> +All gone in bitterness—firstborn to reckling:<br> +Peter, twelve-year since, that black Christmas Eve:<br> +And now Jim ends ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You mean Jim’s gone for good?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +For good and all: he’s taken Peter’s road.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And who’s to tend the ewes? He couldn’t go—<br> +No herd could leave his sheep to an old wife’s care:<br> +For this old carcase, once counted the best herd’s<br> +In the countryside, is a useless bag of bones now.<br> +Jim couldn’t leave ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +For all I ken or care,<br> +He’s taken them with him too.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You’re havering!<br> +Your sons aren’t common thieves, I trust. And Jim<br> +Would scarce have pluck to sneak a swede from the mulls<br> +Of a hobbled ewe, much less make off with a flock—<br> +Though his forbears lifted a wheen Scots’ beasts in their +time—<br> +And Steel would have him by the heels before<br> +He’d travelled a donkey’s gallop, though he skelped along<br> +Like Willie Pigg’s dick-ass. But how do you ken<br> +The gawky’s gone for good? He couldn’t leave ...</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">46</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I found a paper in the empty chest,<br> +Scrawled with a bit of writing in his hand:<br> +“Tell dad I’ve gone to look for his lost wits:<br> +And he’ll not see me till he gets new eyes<br> +To seek me himself.”</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Eyes or no eyes, I’ll break<br> +The foumart’s back, in this world or the next:<br> +He’ll not escape. He thinks he’s the laugh of me;<br> +But I’ve never let another man laugh last.<br> +Though he should take the short cut to the gallows,<br> +I’ll have him, bibbering on his bended knees<br> +Before me yet, even if I have to wait<br> +Till I find him, brizzling on the coals of hell.<br> +But, what do you say—the empty chest—what chest?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The kist beneath the bed.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +But, that’s not empty!<br> +How could you open it, when I’d the key<br> +Strung safely on a bootlace next my skin?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The key—you should have chained the kist, itself,<br> +As a locket round your neck, if you’d have kept<br> +Your precious hoard from your own flesh and blood.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +To think a man begets the thieves to rob him!<br> +But, how ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I had no call to open it.<br> +I caught my foot against the splintered lid,<br> +When I went to make the bed.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +The splintered lid!<br> +And the kist—the kist! You say ’twas empty?</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">47</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Not quite:<br> +The paper was in.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +But the money, you dam of thieves—<br> +Where was the money?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +It wasn’t in the box—<br> +Not a brass farthing.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +The money gone—all gone?<br> +Why didn’t you tell me about it right away?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I wasn’t minding money: I’d lost a son.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +A son—a thief! I’ll have the law of him:<br> +I’ll sprag his wheel: for all his pretty pace,<br> +He’ll come a cropper yet, the scrunty wastrel.<br> +This comes of marrying into a coper’s family:<br> +I might have kenned: thieving runs in their blood.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ve seen the day that lie’d have roused ... But now,<br> +It’s not worth while ... worth while. I’ve never felt<br> +Such heat: it smothers me: it’s like a nightmare,<br> +When you wake with your head in the blankets, all asweat:<br> +Only, I cannot wake ... It snowed the night<br> +That Peter went ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Blabbering of heat and snow:<br> +And all that money gone—my hard-earned savings!<br> +We’re beggared, woman—beggared by your son:<br> +And then, to sit and yammer like a yieldewe:<br> +Come, stir your stumps; and clap your bonnet on:<br> +Up and away!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And where should I away to?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ll have the law of him: I’ll have him gaoled,<br> +And you must fetch the peeler.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">48</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Policemen throng<br> +Round Krindlesyke, as bees about a thistle!<br> +And I’m to set the peelers on my son?<br> +If he’d gone with Peter, they’d have tracked his hobnails ...<br> +It snowed that night ... The snowflakes buzz like bees<br> +About the prickling thistles in my head—<br> +Big bumblebees ... I never felt such heat.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And I must sit, tied to a chair, and hearken<br> +To an old wife, havering of bumblebees,<br> +While my hard-earned sovereigns lie snug and warm<br> +In the breeches’ pocket of a rascal thief—<br> +Fifty gold sovereigns!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Fifty golden bees—<br> +Golden Italian queens ... My father spent<br> +A sight of money on Italian queens:<br> +For he’d a way with bees. He’d handle them<br> +With naked hands. They swarmed on his beard, and hung,<br> +Buzzing like fury: but he never blinked—<br> +Just wagged his head, swaying them, till they dropped,<br> +All of a bunch, into an upturned skep....<br> +My head’s a hive of buzzing bees—bees buzzing<br> +In the hot, crowded darkness, dripping honey ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’re wandering, woman—maffling like a madpash.<br> +Jim’s stolen your senses, when he took my gold.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Don’t talk of money now: I want to think.<br> +Six sons, I had. My sons, you say. You’re right:<br> +For menfolk have no children: only women<br> +Carry them: only women are brought to bed:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">49</span> +And only women labour: and, when they go,<br> +Only the mothers lose them: and all for nothing,<br> +The coil and cumber! If I could have left one son,<br> +Wedded, and settled down at Krindlesyke,<br> +To do his parents credit, and carry on ...<br> +First Peter came: it snowed the night he came—<br> +A feeding-storm of fisselling dry snow.<br> +I lay and watched flakes fleetering out of the dark<br> +In the candleshine against the wet black glass,<br> +Like moths about a lanthorn ... I lay and watched,<br> +Till the pains were on me ... And they buzzed like bees,<br> +The snowflakes in my head—hot, stinging bees ...<br> +It snowed again, the night he went.... In the smother<br> +I lost him, in a drift down Bloodysyke ...<br> +I couldn’t follow further: the snow closed in—<br> +Dry flakes that stung my face like swarming bees,<br> +And blinded me ... and buzzing, till my head<br> +Was all ahum; and I was fair betwattled ...<br> +I’ve not set eyes ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Gather your wits together.<br> +There’s no one else; and you must go to Rawridge—<br> +No daundering on the road; and tell John Steel<br> +Jim’s gone: and so, there’s none to look to the sheep.<br> +He must send someone ... Though my money melt<br> +In the hot pocket of a vagabond,<br> +They must be minded: sheep can’t tend themselves.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Eliza:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ll go. ’Twas cruel to leave them in this heat,<br> +With none to water them. This heat’s a judgment.<br> +They were my sons: I bore and suckled them.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">50</span> +This heat’s a judgment on me, pressing down<br> +On my brain like a redhot iron ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She rises with difficulty, and goes, bareheaded, into the sunshine. In +a few moments she staggers back, and stumbles, with unseeing eyes, +towards the inner room. She pauses a second at the door, and turns, as +if to speak to <span class = "charname">Ezra</span>; but goes in, +without a word. Presently a soft thud is heard within: then a low +moan.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Who’s there? Not you,<br> +Eliza? You can’t be back already, woman?<br> +Why don’t you speak? You yammered enough, just now—<br> +Such havers! Haven’t you gone? What’s keeping you?<br> +I told you to step out. What’s wrong? What’s wrong?<br> +You’re wambling like a wallydraigling waywand.<br> +The old ewe’s got the staggers. Boodyankers!<br> +If I wasn’t so crocked and groggy, I’d make a fend<br> +To go myself—ay, blind bat as I am.<br> +Come, pull yourself together; and step lively.<br> +What’s that? What’s that? I can’t hear anything now.<br> +Where are you, woman? Speak! There’s no one here—<br> +Though I’d have sworn I heard the old wife waigling,<br> +As if she carried a hoggerel on her shoulders.<br> +I heard a foot: yet, she couldn’t come so soon.<br> +I’m going watty. My mind’s so set on dogging<br> +The heels of that damned thief, hot-foot for the gallows,<br> +I hear his footsteps echoing in my head.<br> +He’d hirple it barefoot on the coals of hell,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">51</span> +With a red-hot prong at his hurdies to prog him on,<br> +If I’d my way with him: de’il scart the hanniel!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He sits, brooding: and some time has passed, when the head of a tramp, +shaggy and unkempt, is thrust in at the door; and is followed by the +body of <span class = "charname">Peter Barrasford</span>, who steps +cautiously in, and stealing up to the old man’s chair, stands looking +down upon him with a grin.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Ezra</span> <span class = "stagedir">(stirring +uneasily)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +A step, for sure! You’re back? Though how you’ve travelled<br> +So quickly, Eliza, I can’t think. And when’s<br> +John Steel to turn us out, to follow Jim<br> +And the other vagabonds? And who’s he sending?<br> +He’s not a man to spare ... But, sheep are sheep:<br> +Someone must tend them, though all else go smash.<br> +I’ve given my life to sheep, spent myself for them:<br> +And now, I’m not the value of a dead sheep<br> +To any farmer—a rackle of bones for the midden!<br> +A bitter day, ’twill be, when I turn my back<br> +On Krindlesyke. I little reckoned to go,<br> +A blind old cripple, hobbling on two sticks.<br> +Pride has a fall, they say: and I was proud—<br> +Proud as a thistle; and a donkey’s cropt<br> +The thistle’s prickly pride. Why don’t you speak?<br> +I’m not mistaken this time: I heard you come:<br> +I feel you standing over me.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He pokes round with his stick, catching <span class = +"charname">Peter</span> on the shin with it.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Peter</span> <span class = "stagedir">(wresting +the stick from <span class = "charname">Ezra’s</span> grasp)</span>:</p> + +<p class = "line four"> +Easy on!<br> +Peter’s no lad to take a leathering, now.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">52</span> +Your time’s come round for breeches down, old boy:<br> +But don’t be scared; for I’m no walloper—<br> +Too like hard work! My son’s a clean white skin:<br> +He’s never skirled, as you made me. By gox,<br> +You gave me gip: my back still bears the stripes<br> +Of the loundering I got the night I left.<br> +But I bear no malice, you old bag-of-bones:<br> +And where’s the satisfaction in committing<br> +Assault and battery on a blasted scarecrow?<br> +’Twas basting hot young flesh that you enjoyed:<br> +I still can hear you smack your lips with relish,<br> +To see the blue weals rising, as you laid on,<br> +Until the tawse was bloody. Not juice enough<br> +In your geyzened carcase to raise one weal: and I never<br> +Could bear the sound of cracking bones: and you’re<br> +All nobs and knuckles, like the parson’s pig.<br> +To think I feared you once, old spindleshanks!<br> +But I’m not here for paying compliments:<br> +I’ve other pressing business on that brings me<br> +To the God-forsaken gaol where I was born.<br> +If I make sense of your doting, mother’s out:<br> +And that’s as well: it makes things easier.<br> +She’d flufter me: and I like to take things easy,<br> +Though I’m no sneak: I come in, bold as brass,<br> +By the front, when there’s no back door. I’ll do the trick<br> +While she’s gone: and borrow a trifle on account.<br> +I trust that cuddy hasn’t cropt your cashbox,<br> +Before your eldest son has got his portion.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He starts to go towards the inner room, but stops half-way as he hears +a step on the threshold.)</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">53</span> + +<p class = "speaker charname">Peter:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The devil!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +<span class = "charname">Bell Haggard</span>, a tall young tinker-woman, +with an orange-coloured kerchief about her head, appears in the doorway +with her young son, <span class = "charname">Michael</span>.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +You, Bell? Lass, but you startled me.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Ezra</span> <span class = "stagedir">(muttering +to himself)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +This must be death: the crows are gathering in.<br> +I don’t feel like cold carrion, but corbies will gather,<br> +And flesh their bloody beaks on an old ram’s carcase,<br> +Before the life’s quite out.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Peter</span> <span class = "stagedir">(to <span +class = "charname">Bell</span>)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I feared ’twas mother.<br> +Lucky, she’s out; it’s easier to do—<br> +Well, you ken what, when she’s ... But didn’t I bid<br> +You keep well out of sight, you and the lad?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You did. What then?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I thought ’twas better the bairn ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You think too much for a man with a small head:<br> +You’ll split the scalp, some day. I’ve not been used<br> +To doing any man’s bidding, as you should ken:<br> +And I’d a mind to see the marble halls<br> +You dreamt you dwelt in.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Hearken, how she gammons!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +She—the cat’s mother? You’ve no manners, Peter:<br> +You haven’t introduced us.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Only hark!<br> +Well, dad, she’s Bell—Bell Haggard, tinker-born—<br> +She’ll tell you she’s blood-royal, likely as not—<br> +<span class = "pagenum">54</span> +And this lad happens to be hers and mine,<br> +Somehow, though we’re not married.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +What a fashion<br> +To introduce a boy to his grandfather—<br> +And such a dear, respectable old sheep’s head!</p> +<p class = "stagedir"> +(to <span class = "charname">Michael</span>)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +Look well on granddad, son, and see what comes<br> +Of minding sheep.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I mean to be a shepherd.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Well, you’ve a knack of getting your own way:<br> +But, tripe and trotters, you can look on him,<br> +And still say that? Ay, you’re his grandson, surely—<br> +All Barrasford, with not a dash of Haggard,<br> +No drop of the wild colt’s blood. Ewe’s milk you’d bleed<br> +If your nose were tapped. Who’d ever guess my dugs<br> +Had suckled you? Even your dad’s no more<br> +Than three-parts mutton, with a strain of reynard—<br> +A fox’s heart, for all his weak sheep’s head.<br> +Lad, look well round on your ancestral halls:<br> +You’ll likely not clap eyes on them again.<br> +I’m eager to be off: we don’t seem welcome.<br> +Your venerable grandsire is asleep,<br> +Or else he’s a deaf mute; though, likely enough,<br> +That’s how folk look, awake, at Krindlesyke.<br> +I’d fancied we were bound for the Happy Return:<br> +But we’ve landed at the Undertaker’s Arms—<br> +And after closing time, and all. You’ve done<br> +That little business, Peter—though it’s not bulged<br> +Your pockets overmuch, that I can see?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Just setting about it, when you interrupted ...</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">55</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Step lively, then. I find this welcome too warm<br> +On such a sultry day: I’m choked for air.<br> +These whitewashed walls, they’re too like—well, you ken<br> +Where you’ll find yourself, if you get nobbled ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +It seems<br> +There’s no one here to nab us; Jim’s gone off:<br> +But I’d as lief be through with it, and away,<br> +Before my mother’s back.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You’re safe enough:<br> +There’s none but sheep in sight for three miles round:<br> +And they’re all huddled up against the dykes,<br> +With lollering tongues too baked to bleat “Stop thief!”<br> +Look slippy! I’m half-scumfished by these walls—<br> +A weak flame, easily snuffed out: the stink<br> +Of whitewash makes me queasy—sets me listening<br> +To catch the click of the cell-door behind me:<br> +I feel cold bracelets round my wrists, already.<br> +Is thon the strong-room?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ay.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Then sharp’s the word:<br> +It’s time that we were stepping, Deadwood Dick.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(As <span class = "charname">Peter</span> goes into the other room, +<span class = "charname">Ezra</span> tries to rise from his chair.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Help! Murder! Thieves!</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Bell</span> <span class = "stagedir">(thrusting +him easily back with one hand)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +The oracle has spoken.<br> +And so, old image, you’ve found your tongue at last:<br> +Small wonder you mislaid it, in such a mug.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">56</span> +Help, say you? But, you needn’t bleat so loud:<br> +There’s none within three miles to listen to you,<br> +But me and Peter and Michael; and we’re not deaf:<br> +So don’t go straining your voice, old nightingale,<br> +Or splitting your wheezy bellows. And “thieves,” no less!<br> +Tastes differ: but it isn’t just the word<br> +I’d choose for welcoming my son and heir,<br> +When he comes home; and brings with him his—well,<br> +His son, and his son’s mother, shall we say,<br> +So’s not to scandalize your innocence?<br> +And, come to think, it’s none too nice a word<br> +For grandson’s ears: and me, his tender mammy,<br> +Doing all I can to keep the lamb’s heart pure.<br> +And as for “murder”—how could there be murder?<br> +Murder’s full-blooded—no mean word like “thieves”:<br> +And who could murder a bundle of dried peas-sticks?<br> +Flung on the fire, happen they’d crackle and blaze:<br> +But I’m hot enough, to-day, without you frizzling.<br> +Still, “thieves” sticks in my gullet, old heel-of-the-loaf.<br> +Yet I’m not particular, myself, at times:<br> +And I’ve always gathered from your dutiful son<br> +Manners were taken for granted at Krindlesyke,<br> +And never missed: so I’ll overlook the word.<br> +You’ve not been used to talking with a lady,<br> +Old scrag-end: still, I’m truly honoured, sir,<br> +In making your acquaintance: for I’ve heard<br> +Some pretty things about you from your son.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Ezra</span>, who has shrunk back, gasping, +into his chair, suddenly starts chuckling to himself.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’re merry, sir! Will you not share the jest?<br> +Aren’t you the sparky blade, the daffing callant,<br> +Naffing and nickering like a three-year-old?<br> +Come, none-so-pretty, cough the old wheeze up,<br> +Before it chokes you. Let me clap your back.<br> +You’re, surely, never laughing at a lady?</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Seizing him by the collar, and shaking him.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +You deafy nut—you gibbet—you rusty corncrake!<br> +Tell me what’s kittling you, old skeleton,<br> +Or I’ll joggle your bones till they rattle like castanets.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Suddenly releasing him.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +Come, Peter: let’s away from this mouldy gaol,<br> +Before old heeltaps takes a fit. Your son<br> +Will be a full-grown shepherd before we leave—<br> +And his old mother, trapped between four walls—<br> +If you don’t put a jerk in it.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Peter</span> comes slowly from the inner room, +empty-handed; and stands, dazed, in the doorway.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Well, fumble-fingers?<br> +What’s kept you this half-year? I could have burgled<br> +The Bank of England in the time. What’s up?<br> +Have you gone gite, now?</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Ezra</span> <span class = "stagedir">(still +chuckling)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Thieves cheated by a thief!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But, where’s the box?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I didn’t see the box.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You didn’t see it?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +No; I didn’t see it:<br> +The valance hangs too low.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +And you’re too proud—<br> +Too proud a prig to stoop? Did you expect<br> +<span class = "pagenum">58</span> +The box to bounce itself into your arms,<br> +The moment it heard your step?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I dared not stoop:<br> +For there was someone lying on the bed,<br> +Asleep, I think.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You think?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I only saw<br> +A hunched-up shoulder, poking through the curtain.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +A woman?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ay, my mother, or her fetch.<br> +I couldn’t take my eyes from that hunched shoulder—<br> +It looked so queer—till you called my name.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +You said<br> +Your mother was out. But, we’ve no time to potter.<br> +To think I’ve borne a son to a calf that’s fleyed<br> +Of a sleeping woman’s back—his minney’s, and all!<br> +Collops and chitterlings, if she’s asleep,<br> +The job’s the easier done. There’s not a woman,<br> +Or a woman’s fetch, would scare me from good gold.<br> +I’ll get the box.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She steals softly into the other room, and is gone for some time. The +others await her expectantly in silence. Presently she comes out +bareheaded and empty-handed. Without a word, she goes to the window, and +pulls down the blind; then closes the outer door: <span class = +"charname">Peter</span> and <span class = "charname">Michael</span> +watching her in amazement.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +So Jim, the fox, has cheated Peter, the fox—<br> +And vixen and cub, to boot! But, he made off<br> +Only this morning: and the scent’s still fresh.<br> +You’ll ken the road he’d take, the fox’s track—<br> +<span class = "pagenum">59</span> +A thief to catch a thief! He’s lifted all:<br> +But, if you cop him, I’ll give you half, although<br> +’Twill scarcely leave enough to bury us<br> +With decency, when we have starved to death,<br> +Your mother and I. Run, lad: there’s fifty-sovereign!<br> +And mind you clout and clapperclaw the cull:<br> +Spanghew his jacket, when you’ve riped his pockets—<br> +The scurvy scrunt!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Silence, old misery:<br> +There’s a dead woman lying in the house—<br> +And you can prate of money!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Dead!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Eliza!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I found the body, huddled on the bed,<br> +Already cold and stiffening.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I thought I heard ...<br> +Yet, she set out for Rawridge, to fetch a man ...<br> +I felt her passing, in my very bones.<br> +I knew her foot: you cannot hear a step<br> +For forty-year, and mistake it, though the spring’s<br> +Gone out of it, and it’s turned to a shuffle, it’s still<br> +The same footfall. Why didn’t she answer me?<br> +She chattered enough, before she went—such havers!<br> +Words tumbling from her lips in a witless jumble.<br> +Contrary, to the last, she wouldn’t answer:<br> +But crept away, like a wounded pheasant, to die<br> +Alone. She’s gone before me, after all—<br> +And she, so hale; while I was crutched and crippled.<br> +I haven’t looked on her face for eleven-year:<br> +But she was bonnie, when I saw her first,<br> +That morning at the fair—so fresh and pink.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">60</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +She must have died alone. It’s an ill thing<br> +To die alone, folk say; but I don’t know.<br> +She’d hardly die more lonely than she lived:<br> +For every woman’s lonely in her heart.<br> +I never looked on a lonelier face.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Come, Bell:<br> +We’d best be making tracks: there’s nothing here:<br> +So let’s be going.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Going, Peter, where?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line"> +There’s nothing to bide here for: we’re too late.<br> +Jim’s stolen a march on us: there’s no loot left.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And you would leave a woman, lying dead;<br> +And an old blind cripple who cannot do a hand’s-turn,<br> +With no one to look after them—and they,<br> +Your father and mother?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Little enough I owe them:<br> +What can we do for them, anyway? We can’t<br> +Bring back the dead to life: and, sooner or later,<br> +Someone will come from Rawridge to see to the sheep:<br> +And dad won’t hurt, meanwhile: he’s gey and tough.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And you would leave your mother, lying dead,<br> +With none but strangers’ hands to lay her out—<br> +No soul of her kin to tend her at the last?</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She goes to the dresser and looks in the drawers, taking out an apron +and tying it round her waist.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I never guessed she’d go, and leave me alone.<br> +How did she think I could get along without her?<br> +She kenned I could do nothing for myself:<br> +And yet she’s left me alone, to starve to death—<br> +<span class = "pagenum">61</span> +Just sit in my chair, and starve. It wasn’t like her.<br> +And the breath’s scarce out of her body, before the place<br> +Is overrun with a plague of thieving rats.<br> +They’ll eat me out of house and home: my God,<br> +I’ve come to this—an old blind crippled dobby,<br> +Forsaken of wife and bairns; and left to die—<br> +To be nibbled to death by rats: de’il scart the vermin!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Time’s drawn your teeth, but hasn’t dulled your tongue’s edge.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Come, woman: what the devil are you up to?<br> +What’s this new game?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Peter, I’m biding here.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’re biding here?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And you are staying, too.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line"> +By crikey, no! You’ll not catch me: I cannot—<br> +With thon in the other room. I never could bear ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’ll stop, till Michael’s old enough to manage<br> +The sheep without your aid: then you may spurt<br> +To overtake Jim on the road to the gallows;<br> +And race, the pair of you, neck and neck, for hell:<br> +But not till I’m done with you.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Nay, I’ll be jiggered ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Truth slips out.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’ve a mind ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +She’s gone to earth.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Just hold your gob, you ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Does the daft beast fancy<br> +That just because he’s in his own calfyard<br> +He can turn his horns on me? Michael, my son,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">62</span> +You’ve got your way: and you’re to be a herd.<br> +You never took to horseflesh like a Haggard:<br> +Yet your mother must do her best for you. A mattress<br> +Under a roof; and sheep to keep you busy—<br> +That’s what you’re fashioned for—not bracken-beds<br> +In fellside ditches underneath the stars;<br> +And sharing potluck by the roadside fire.<br> +Well, every man must follow his own bent,<br> +Even though some woman’s wried to let him do it:<br> +So, I must bide within this whitewashed gaol,<br> +For ever scrubbing flagstones, and washing dishes,<br> +And darning hose, and making meals for men,<br> +Half-suffocated by the stink of sheep,<br> +Till you find a lass to your mind; and set me free<br> +To take the road again—if I’m not too doddery<br> +For gallivanting; as most folk are by the time<br> +They’ve done their duty by others. Who’d have dreamt<br> +I’d make the model mother, after all?<br> +It seems as though a woman can’t escape,<br> +Once she has any truck with men. But, carties!<br> +Something’s gone topsy-turvy with creation,<br> +When the cuckoo’s turned domestic, and starts to rear<br> +The young housesparrow. Granddad, Peter’s home<br> +To mind the sheep: and you’ll not be turned out,<br> +If you behave yourself: and when you’re lifted,<br> +There’ll be a grandson still at Krindlesyke:<br> +For Michael is a Barrasford, blood and bone:<br> +And till the day he fetches home a bride,<br> +I’m to be mistress here. But hark, old bones,<br> +You’ve got to mend your manners: for I’m used<br> +To having my own way.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">63</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +By gox, she is!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And there’s not room for two such in one house.<br> +Where I am mistress, there can be no master:<br> +So, don’t try on your pretty tricks with me.<br> +I’ve always taken the whiphand with men.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Peter:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’ll smart yet, dad.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You go about your business,<br> +Before your feet get frozen to the flagstones:<br> +Winter’s but six months off, you ken. It’s time<br> +You were watering those sheep, before their tongues<br> +Are baked as black as your heart. You’d better take<br> +The lad along with you: he cannot learn<br> +The job too soon; so I’ll get shot of the sight<br> +Of your mug, and have one lout the less to do for.<br> +Come, frisk your feet, the pair of you; and go:<br> +I’ve that to do which I must do alone.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(As soon as <span class = "charname">Peter</span> and <span class = +"charname">Michael</span> are gone, <span class = "charname">Bell</span> +fills a basin with water from a bucket, and carries it into the other +room, shutting the door behind her.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ezra:</p> +<p class = "line"> +To think she should go first, when I have had<br> +One foot in the grave for hard on eleven-year!<br> +I little looked to taste her funeral ham.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">64</span> +<h5 class = "section">PART II</h5> + +<p class = "stagedir first"> +An October afternoon, fifteen years later. There is no one in the room: +and the door stands open, showing a wide expanse of fell, golden in the +low sunshine. A figure is seen approaching along the cart-track: and +<span class = "charname">Judith Ellershaw</span>, neatly dressed in +black, appears at the door; and stands, undecided, on the threshold. She +knocks several times, but no one answers: so she steps in, and seats +herself an a chair near the door. Presently a sound of singing is heard +without: and <span class = "charname">Bell Haggard</span> is seen, +coming over the bent, an orange-coloured kerchief about her head, her +skirt kilted to the knee, and her arms full of withered bracken. She +enters, humming: but stops, with a start, on seeing <span class = +"charname">Judith</span>; drops the bracken; whips off her kerchief; and +lets down her skirt; and so appears as an ordinary cottage-wife.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’re Mistress Barrasford?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay; so they call me.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I knocked; but no one answered; so, I’ve taken<br> +The liberty of stepping in to rest.<br> +I’m Judith Ellershaw.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">65</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I’ve heard the name;<br> +But can’t just mind ... Ay! You’re the hard-mouthed wench<br> +That took the bit in her teeth, and bolted: although<br> +You scarcely look it, either. Old Ezra used<br> +To mumble your name, when he was raiming on<br> +About the sovereigns Jim made off with: he missed<br> +The money more than the son—small blame to him:<br> +Though why grudge travelling-expenses to good-riddance?<br> +And still, ’twas shabby to pinch the lot: a case<br> +Of pot and kettle, but I’d have scorned to bag<br> +The lot, and leave the old folk penniless.<br> +’Twas hundreds Peter blabbed of—said our share<br> +Wouldn’t be missed—or I’d have never set foot<br> +In Krindlesyke; to think I walked into this trap<br> +For fifty-pound, that wasn’t even here!<br> +I might have kenned—Peter never told the truth,<br> +Except by accident. I did ... and yet,<br> +I came. I had to come: the old witch drew me.<br> +But, Jim was greedy ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Doesn’t Jim live here, now?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’re not sent back by the penitent, then, to pay<br> +The interest on the loan he took that morning<br> +In an absent-minded fit—and pretty tales<br> +Are tarradiddles? Jim’s not mucked that step<br> +In my time: Ezra thought he’d followed you.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Me?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +You’re Jim’s wife—though you’ve not taken his name—<br> +<span class = "pagenum">66</span> +Stuck to your own, and rightly: I’d not swap mine<br> +For any man’s: but, you’re the bride the bridegroom<br> +Lost before bedtime?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +No, ’twas Phœbe Martin:<br> +And dead, this fifteen-year: she didn’t last<br> +A twelvemonth after—it proved too much for her,<br> +The shock; for all her heart was set on Jim.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Poor fool: though I’ve no cause to call her so;<br> +For women are mostly fools, where men come in.<br> +You’re not the vanished bride? Then who’ve I blabbed<br> +The family-secrets to, unsnecking the cupboard,<br> +And setting the skeleton rattling his bones? I took you<br> +For one of us, who’d ken our pretty ways;<br> +And reckoned naught I could tell of Jim to Jim’s wife<br> +Could startle her, though she’d no notion of it.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I took you for Jim’s wife.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Me! I’m a fool—<br> +But never fool enough to wear a ring<br> +For any man.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Yet, Mistress Barrasford?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +They call me that: but I’m Bell Haggard still;<br> +And will be to the day I die, and after:<br> +Though, happen, there’ll be marriage and giving in marriage<br> +In hell; for old Nick’s ever been matchmaker.<br> +In that particular, heaven would suit me better:<br> +But I’ve travelled the wrong road too far to turn now.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Then you’re not the mother of Michael Barrasford?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And who’s the brass to say he’s not my son?<br> +<span class = "pagenum">67</span> +I’m no man’s wife: but what’s to hinder me<br> +From being a mother?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Then Jim is his father?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And what’s it got to do with you, the man<br> +I chose for my son’s father? Chose—God help us!<br> +That’s how we women gammon ourselves. Deuce kens<br> +The almighty lot choice has to do with it!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +It wasn’t Jim, then?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Crikey! You’re not blate<br> +Of asking questions: I’ve not been so riddled<br> +Since that old egg-with-whiskers committed me.<br> +Why harp on Jim? I’ve not clapped eyes on Jim,<br> +Your worship; though I fear I must plead guilty<br> +To some acquaintance with the family,<br> +As you might put it; seeing that Jim’s brother<br> +Is my son’s father; though how it came to happen,<br> +The devil only kenned; and he’s forgotten.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Thank God, it wasn’t Jim.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +And so say I:<br> +Though, kenning only Peter, I’m inclined<br> +To fancy Jim may be the better man.<br> +What licks me is, what it’s to do with you?<br> +And why I answer your delicate questions, woman?<br> +Even old hard-boiled drew the line somewhere.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’m the mother of Jim’s daughter.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You’re the wench<br> +The bride found here—and the mother of a daughter;<br> +And live ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +At Bellingham.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Where Michael finds<br> +So often he’s pressing business, must be seen to—<br> +<span class = "pagenum">68</span> +Something to do with sheep. I see ... To think<br> +I didn’t guess! Why is it, any man<br> +Can put the blinkers on us? But, was I blind,<br> +Or only wanting not to see—afraid<br> +Of what I’ve been itching after all these years?<br> +Can a hawk be caged so long, it’s scared to watch<br> +The cage door opening? More to it than that:<br> +After all, there’s something of the mother in me.<br> +Ay: you’ve found Michael’s minney! As for his dad,<br> +It’s eight-year since he quitted Krindlesyke,<br> +The second time, for good.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +He left you?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Hooked it:<br> +But, shed no tears for me: he only left me,<br> +As a sobering lout will quit the bramble-bush<br> +He’s tumbled in, blind-drunk—or was it an anthill<br> +He’d pillowed his fuddled head on? Anyway,<br> +He went, sore-skinned; and gay to go; escaped<br> +From Krindlesyke—he always had the luck—<br> +Before the bitter winter that finished Ezra:<br> +But, I’d to stay on, listening all day long<br> +To that old dotard, counting the fifty sovereigns<br> +Your fancy man made off with, when he cleaned out<br> +The coffers of Krindlesyke, the very day<br> +Ananias and I came for our share, too late:<br> +And so, got stuck at Back-o’-Beyont, like wasps<br> +In a treacle-trap—the gold all gone: naught left<br> +But the chink of coins in an old man’s noddle, that age<br> +Had emptied of wits. He’d count them, over and over—<br> +Just stopping to curse Jim, when he called to mind<br> +<span class = "pagenum">69</span> +The box was empty: and, often, in the night,<br> +I’d hear him counting, counting in the dark,<br> +Till the night he stopped at forty-nine, stopped dead,<br> +With a rattle—not a breath to whisper fifty.<br> +A crookt corpse, yellow as his lost gold, I found him,<br> +When I fetched my candle.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Dead?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay, guttered out—<br> +A dip burned to the socket. May chance puff out<br> +My flame, while it still burns steady, and not sowse it<br> +In a sweel of melted tallow.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay, but it’s sad<br> +When the wits go first.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And he, so wried and geyzened,<br> +The undertakers couldn’t strake him rightly.<br> +Even when they’d nailed him down, and we were watching<br> +By candle-light, the night before the funeral,<br> +Nid-nodding, Michael and I, just as the clock<br> +Struck twelve, there was a crack that brought us to,<br> +Bolt-upright, as the coffin lid flew off:<br> +And old granddaddy sat up in his shroud.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +God save us, woman! Whatever did ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +I fancied<br> +He’d popped up to say fifty: but he dropped back<br> +With knees to chin. They’d got to screw him down:<br> +And they’d sore work to get him underground—<br> +Snow overnight had reached the window-sill:<br> +And when, at length, the cart got on the road,<br> +The coffin was jolted twice into the drifts,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">70</span> +Before they’d travelled the twelve-mile to the church-yard:<br> +And the hole they’d howked for him, chockful of slush:<br> +And the coffin slipt with a splash into the sluther.<br> +Ay—we see life at Krindlesyke, God help us!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +A fearsome end.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Little to choose, ’twixt ends.<br> +So, Michael’s granddad, and your girl’s, went home<br> +To his forefathers, and theirs—both Barrasfords:<br> +Though I’d guess your bairn’s a gentler strain: yet mine’s<br> +No streak of me. All Barrasford, I judged him:<br> +But, though he’s Ezra’s stubbornness, he’s naught<br> +Of foxy Peter: and grows more like Eliza,<br> +I’d fancy: though I never kenned her, living:<br> +I only saw her, dead.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Eliza, too?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I was the first to look on her dead face,<br> +The morn I came: if she’d but lived a day—<br> +Just one day longer, she’d have let me go.<br> +No living woman could have held me here:<br> +But she was dead; and so, I had to stay—<br> +A fly, caught in the web of a dead spider.<br> +It must be her he favours: and he’s got<br> +A dogged patience well-nigh crazes me:<br> +A husband, born, as I was never born<br> +For wife. But, happen, you ken him, well as I,<br> +Leastways, his company-side, since he does business<br> +At Bellingham? A happy ending, eh!<br> +<span class = "pagenum">71</span> +For our mischances, they should make a match:<br> +Though naught that ever happens is an ending;<br> +A wedding, least of all.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I’ve never seen him.<br> +Ruth keeps her counsel. I’d not even heard<br> +His name, till late last night; and then by chance:<br> +But, I’ve not slept a wink since, you may guess.<br> +When I heard “Barrasford of Krindlesyke,”<br> +My heart went cold within me, thinking of Jim,<br> +And what he’d been to me. I’d had no news<br> +Of all that’s happened since I left the day<br> +Jim wedded; and ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +The nowt felt like a poacher,<br> +When keeper’s sneaked his bunny, and broken his snare?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I fancied he, perhaps ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay, likely enough.<br> +Jim’s wasted a sight of matches, since that day<br> +He burnt his fingers so badly: but he’s not kindled<br> +A hearthfire yet at Krindlesyke. Anyway,<br> +For Michael to be his son, I’d need to be<br> +Even an older flame of his than you:<br> +For Michael’s twenty-one.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +As old as that?<br> +But I could never rest, till I’d made sure.<br> +Knowing myself, I did not question Ruth ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +What’s worth the kenning’s seldom learned by speiring.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Though, knowing myself, I dreaded what might chance,<br> +What might already ...</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">72</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You’d no cause to worrit<br> +Michael’s not that sort: he’s respectable—<br> +Too staid and sober for his tinker-mother:<br> +He’ll waste no matches, lighting wayside fires.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Like me, Ruth’s easy kindled; hard to quench—<br> +A flying spark, and the heather’s afire in a gale;<br> +And the fell’s burned to the rock—naught but black ash,<br> +When the downpour comes, too late.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay—but the flare,<br> +And crackle, and tossing flames, and golden smoke;<br> +And the sting of the reek in the nostrils!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Ruth’ll love<br> +Once and for all: like me, she’s born for marriage:<br> +Though, in my eager trustfulness, I missed it.<br> +You’ll scorn me, as I often scorn myself:<br> +But, kenning the worst, in my heart of hearts, I hanker ...<br> +Jim meant so much to me once: I can’t forget,<br> +Or keep from dwelling on the might-have-been.<br> +Snow on the felltop, now: but underground<br> +Fire smoulders still: and still might burst to flame.<br> +Deceived and broken ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +What’s this jackadandy,<br> +That you and Phœbe, both—and kenning him!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +What’s kenning got to do with love? It makes<br> +No difference, once you’ve given ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +If I’ve a heart,<br> +And it’s broken, it’s a broken stone, sunk deep<br> +<span class = "pagenum">73</span> +In bottomless mosshags, where no heat can touch it,<br> +Till the whole world grills, at last, on hell’s gridiron.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nothing you ken of broken hearts, or hell,<br> +To talk so lightly. I have come through hell:<br> +But you have never loved. What’s given in love,<br> +Is given. It’s something to have loved, at least:<br> +And I have Ruth.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ay, the green bracken-shoots,<br> +Soon push through the black litter of charred heath:<br> +And you have Ruth.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Or, had her, till last night:<br> +I’ve lost her, now, it seems.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You let life hurt you:<br> +You shy at shadows; and shrink from the crack of the whip,<br> +Before the lash stings: and life loves no sport<br> +Like yarking a shivering hide: you ask for it.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ve been through much.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And so, you should ken better<br> +Than to hang yourself, before the judge gives sentence:<br> +His honour can put the black cap on for himself,<br> +Without your aid. You’ll die a thousand deaths,<br> +Before your end comes, peacefully in bed.<br> +Why should you go half-way to meet your funeral?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Though there’s a joy in giving recklessly,<br> +In flinging all your faggots on the blaze,<br> +In losing all for love—a crazy joy<br> +Long years of suffering cannot quench, I’d have<br> +<span class = "pagenum">74</span> +Ruth spared that madness: and kenning she’s just myself<br> +Born over, how could I sleep with the dread upon me?<br> +She’d throw herself away; would burn to waste,<br> +Suffering as I have ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Anyway, you burned:<br> +And who’s to say what burns to waste, even when<br> +The kindled peatstack fires the steading? Far better<br> +To perish in a flare, than smoulder away<br> +Your life in smother: and what are faggots for,<br> +If not for firing? But, you’ve suffered, woman,<br> +More than need be, because you were ashamed.<br> +The lurcher that slinks with drooping tail and lugs<br> +Just asks for pelting. It’s shame makes life bad travelling—<br> +The stone in the shoe that lames you. Other folk<br> +Might be ashamed to do the things I’ve done:<br> +That’s their look-out; they’ve got no call to do them:<br> +I’ve never done what I would blush to own to:<br> +I’ve got my self-respect. For all my talk,<br> +I’m proud of Michael: and you’re proud of Ruth,<br> +I take it?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Ay.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Then, where’s the need for shame,<br> +Because they were come-by-chances? A mean thief<br> +That snivels, because the fruit he relishes<br> +Is stolen; and keeps munching it to the core.<br> +Married, and so lived happily ever after?<br> +A deal of virtue in a wedding-ring:<br> +And marriage-lines make all the difference, don’t they?<br> +Your man and mine were born in lawful wedlock:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">75</span> +And sober, honest, dutiful sons they’ve proved:<br> +While our two bastards, Ruth and ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Never been<br> +A better daughter!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Then, what would you have?<br> +You’ve had her to yourself, without the worrit<br> +Of a man to wear your soul out, all these years.<br> +If I’d been married, before a week was through,<br> +I’d have picked my husband’s pocket, to buy rats’ bane:<br> +Envying the spiders who can gobble up<br> +Husbands they’ve no more use for between meals.<br> +But I wasn’t born to kick my heels in air<br> +For a plaguey husband: and if I’m to dangle,<br> +’Twon’t be for that, but something worth putting myself<br> +Out of the way for. You say I’ll scorn you, woman.<br> +Who ’m I, to scorn? You’re not my sort: but I ken<br> +Too much of life for easy scorn: I’ve learnt<br> +The lessons of the road.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’ve known the road, too;<br> +And learned its bitter ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You didn’t relish it?<br> +It’s meat to me; but then, I like mixed pickles—<br> +Life, with an edge, and a free hand with the pepper.<br> +You can’t make a good hotchpotch with only ’taties:<br> +And a good hotchpotch I’m fairly famished for:<br> +I’ve starved on the lean fare of Krindlesyke:<br> +My mouth is watering for the old savoury mess—<br> +Life, piping hot: for I’m no man-in-the-moon,<br> +To sup off cold peaseporridge: and it’s the wash<br> +Of bitters over the tongue gives bite to the pepper:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">76</span> +But you’ve no taste for bitters, or devilled collops—<br> +Roast scrag on Sunday: cold mutton and boiled ’taties<br> +The rest of the week, is the most you’d ask of life—<br> +Nay, a cup of milky tea by a white hearth—<br> +And you’re in heaven!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You’re not far out.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +I take<br> +Mine, laced with rum, by a camp-fire under the stars;<br> +And not too dainty to mind the smatch of smoke.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Tastes differ.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Yet, for all my appetite,<br> +At Krindlesyke, I’m a ewe overhead in a drift<br> +That’s cropped the grass round its feet, and mumbles its wool<br> +For nourishment: and that’s what you call life!<br> +You’re you: I’m I. It takes all turns for a circus:<br> +And it’s just the change and chances of the ring<br> +Make the old game worth the candle: variety<br> +At all costs: hurly-burly, razzle-dazzle—<br> +Life, cowping creels through endless flaming hoops,<br> +A breakneck business, ending with a crash,<br> +If only in the big drum. The devil’s to pay<br> +For what we have, or haven’t; and I believe<br> +In value for my money.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Peace and quiet<br> +And a good home are worth ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +But, you’ve no turn<br> +For circuses: your heart’s a pipeclayed hearthstone—<br> +No ring for hoofs to trample to the clang<br> +Of cymbals, blare of trumpets, rattle of drums:<br> +No dash of brandy in your stirabout:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">77</span> +Porridge in peace, with a door ’twixt you and the weather;<br> +A sanded floor; and the glow and smother of peat:<br> +But I’d rather be a lean pig, running free,<br> +Than the fattest flitch of bacon on the rafters.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And yet, you’ve kept ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ay: but my fingers have itched<br> +Sorely to fire the peatstack in a west wind,<br> +That flames might swarm walls and rooftree, and Krindlesyke,<br> +Perishing in a crackle and golden flare-up,<br> +Tumble a smoking ruin of blackened stone.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Yet, you’ve kept house ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ay, true enough; I’ve been<br> +Cook, slut, and butler here this fifteen-year,<br> +As thrang as Throp’s wife when she hanged herself<br> +With her own dishclout. Needs must, the fire will burn,<br> +Barred in the grate: burn—nay, I’ve only smouldered<br> +Like sodden peat. Ay, true, I’ve drudged; and yet,<br> +What could I do against that old dead witch,<br> +Lying in wait for me the day I came?<br> +Her very patience was a kind of cunning<br> +That challenged me, hinting I’d not have grit<br> +To stand her life, even for a dozen years.<br> +What could I do, but prove I could stick it out?<br> +If I’d turned tail, she’d have bared her toothless gums<br> +To grin at me: and how could I go through life,<br> +Haunted by her dead smile? But now the spell<br> +Is snapt: I’ve proved her wrong: she cannot hold me.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">78</span> +I’ve served my sentence: the cell-door opens: and yet,<br> +You would have done that fifteen-years-hard willingly?<br> +Some folk can only thrive in gaol—no nerve<br> +To face the risks outside; and never happy<br> +Till lagged for life: meals punctual and no cares:<br> +And the king for landlord. While I’ve eaten my head off,<br> +You’ve been a galled jade, fretting for the stable.<br> +Tastes differ: but it’s just that you’re not my sort<br> +Puzzles me why you gave yourself to Jim.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +There are no whys and wherefores, when you love.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I gave myself to Peter, with a difference.<br> +You’d have wed Jim: I just let Peter travel<br> +With me, to keep the others from pestering;<br> +And scooted him when Michael could manage the sheep.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You never loved him. I loved Jim ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +A deal<br> +Of difference that’s made!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +More than you can guess.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Peter stuck longer, tangled in the brambles.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I loved Jim; so, I trusted him.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +But when<br> +You found him out?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +If you had loved, you’d ken<br> +That finding out makes little difference.<br> +There are things in this life you don’t understand,<br> +For all your ready tongue.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay: men and women<br> +I’ve given up—just senseless marionettes,<br> +Jigging and bobbing to the twitching strings:<br> +Though I like to fancy I pick my steps, and choose<br> +<span class = "pagenum">79</span> +The tunes I dance to; happen, that’s my pride;<br> +But, choose or not, we’ve got to pay the piper.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay: in your pride, you think you’ve the best of life.<br> +You’re missing more than you reckon, the best of all.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Well, I’ve no turn for penal servitude.<br> +But, have you never gabbed to keep your heart up?<br> +What are hats for, if not for talking through?<br> +Pride—we’ve both pride; yours, hot and fierce, and mine<br> +Careless and cold: yet, both came the same cropper—<br> +Not quite ... for you were hurt to death almost:<br> +While I picked myself up, scatheless; not a scratch;<br> +Only my skirt torn; and it always draggled.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You never cared: I couldn’t have borne myself,<br> +If I’d not cared: I’d hate myself as much<br> +As I’ve hated Jim, whiles, when I thought of all.<br> +They’re mixter-maxter, hate and love: and, often,<br> +I’ve wondered if I loathed, or loved, Jim most.<br> +I understand as little as you, it seems:<br> +Yet, it’s only caring counts for anything<br> +In this life; though it’s caring’s broken me.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +It stiffens some. But, why take accidents<br> +So bitterly? It’s all a rough-and-tumble<br> +Of accidents, from the accident of birth<br> +To the last accident that lays us out—<br> +A go-as-you-please, and the devil take the hindmost.<br> +It’s pluck that counts, and an easy seat in the saddle:<br> +Better to break your neck at the first ditch,<br> +Than waste the day in seeking gates to slip through:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">80</span> +Cold-blooded crawlers I’ve no sort of use for.<br> +You took the leap, and landed in the quickset:<br> +But, at least, you leapt sky-high, before you tumbled:<br> +And it’s silly to lie moaning in the prickles:<br> +Best pick yourself up sharp, and shake the thorns out,<br> +Else the following hoofs will bash you. Give life leave<br> +To break your heart, ’twill trample you ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Leave, say you?<br> +Life takes French-leave: your heart’s beneath the hoofs<br> +Before ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +But grin, and keep yourself heartwhole;<br> +And you’ll find the fun of the fair’s in taking chances:<br> +It’s the uncertainty makes the race—no sport<br> +In putting money on dead-certainties.<br> +I back the dark horse; stake my soul against<br> +The odds: and I’ll not grouse if life should prove<br> +A welsher in the end: I’ll have had my fling,<br> +At least: and yet talk’s cheap ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay, cheap.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Dirt-cheap:<br> +Three-shots-a-penny; and it’s not every time<br> +You hit Aunt Sally and get a good cigar,<br> +Or even pot a milky coconut:<br> +And, all this while, life’s had the upper hand:<br> +I slipt, the day I came; and lost my grip:<br> +Life got me by the scruff of the neck, and held<br> +My proud nose to the grindstone. My turn, now—<br> +I’ll be upsides with life, and teach it manners,<br> +Before death gets the stranglehold: I’ll have<br> +The last laugh, though it choke me. And what’s death,<br> +To set us twittering? I’ll be no frightened squirrel:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">81</span> +Scarting and scolding never yet scared death:<br> +When he’s a mind to crack me like a nut,<br> +I’d be no husk: still ripe and milky, I’d have him<br> +Swallow the kernel, and spit out the shell,<br> +Before all’s shrivelled to black dust. But, tombstones,<br> +What’s turned my thoughts to death? It’s these white walls,<br> +After a day in the open. When I came,<br> +At first, these four walls seemed to close in on me,<br> +As though they’d crush the life out: and I felt<br> +I’d die between them: but, after all ... And yet,<br> +Who kens what green sod’s to be broken for him?<br> +Queer, that I’ll lie, like any innocent<br> +Beneath the daisies; but the gowans must wait.<br> +Sore-punished, I’m not yet knocked out: life’s had<br> +My head in chancery; but I’ll soon be free<br> +To spar another round or so with him,<br> +Before he sends me spinning to the ropes.<br> +And life would not be life, without the hazards.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Too many hazards for me.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay: so it seems:<br> +But you’re too honest for the tricky game.<br> +I’ve a sort of honesty—a liar and thief<br> +In little things—I’m honesty itself<br> +In the things that matter—few enough, deuce kens:<br> +But your heart’s open to the day; while mine’s<br> +A pitchy night, with just a star or so<br> +To light me to cover at the keeper’s step.<br> +You’re honest, to your hurt: your honesty’s<br> +A knife that cuts through all; and will be cutting—<br> +Hacking and jabbing, and thirsting to draw blood;<br> +<span class = "pagenum">82</span> +And turning in the wound it makes—a gulley,<br> +To cut your heart out, if you doubted it:<br> +And so, you’re faithful, even to a fool;<br> +While I would just be faithful to myself.<br> +You thrive on misery.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Nay: I’ve only asked<br> +A little happiness of life: I’ve starved<br> +For happiness, God kens.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +What’s happiness?<br> +You’ve got a sweet-tooth; and don’t relish life:<br> +You want run-honey, when it’s the honeycomb<br> +That gives the crunch and flavour. Would you be<br> +As happy as a maggot in a medlar,<br> +Swelling yourself in sweet deliciousness,<br> +Till the blackbird nips you? None escapes his crop.<br> +You’d quarrel with the juiciest plum, because<br> +Your teeth grit on the stone, instead of cracking<br> +The shell, and savouring the bitter kernel.<br> +Nigh all the jests life cracks have bitter kernels.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, bitter enough to set my teeth on edge.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +What are teeth for, if we must live on pap?<br> +The sweetest marrow’s in the hardest bone,<br> +As you’ve found with Ruth, I take it.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay: and still,<br> +You have been faithful, Bell.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +A faithful fool,<br> +Against the grain, this fifteen-year: my son<br> +And that dead woman were too strong for me:<br> +They turned me false to my nature; broke me in<br> +Like a flea in harness, that draws a nutshell-coach.<br> +Till then I’d jumped, and bit, at my own sweet will.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">83</span> +Oh! amn’t I the wiseacre, the downy owl,<br> +Fancying myself as knowing as a signpost?<br> +And yet, there’s always some new twist to learn.<br> +Life’s an old thimblerigger; and, it seems,<br> +Can still get on the silly side of me,<br> +Can still bamboozle me with his hanky-panky:<br> +He always kens a trick worth two of mine;<br> +Though he lets me spot the pea beneath the thimble<br> +Just often enough to keep me in good conceit.<br> +And he’s kept you going, too, with Ruth to live for.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +If it hadn’t been for Ruth ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +He kens, he kens:<br> +As canny as he’s cute, for his own ends,<br> +He’s a wise showman; and doesn’t overfeed<br> +The living skeleton or let the fat lady starve:<br> +And so, we’re each kept going, in our own kind,<br> +Till we’ve served our turn. Mine’s talking, you’ll have gathered!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, you’ve a tongue.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +It rattles in my head<br> +Like crocks in a mugger’s cart: but I’ve had few<br> +To talk with here; and too much time for brooding,<br> +Turning things over and over in my own mind,<br> +These fifteen years.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +True: neighbours, hereabouts,<br> +Are few, and far to seek.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +The devil a chance<br> +I’ve ever had of a gossip: and, as for news,<br> +I’ve had to fall back on the wormy Bible<br> +That props the broken looking-glass: so, now<br> +I’ve got the chance of a crack, my tongue goes randy;<br> +<span class = "pagenum">84</span> +And patters like a cheapjack’s, or a bookie’s<br> +Offering you odds against the favourite, life:<br> +Or, wasn’t life the dark horse? I have talked<br> +My wits out, till I’m like a drunken tipster,<br> +Too milled to ken the dark horse from the favourite.<br> +My sharp tongue’s minced my very wits to words.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, it’s been rattling round.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +A slick tongue spares<br> +The owner the fag of thinking: it’s the listeners<br> +Who get the headache. And yet, I could talk<br> +At one time to some purpose—didn’t dribble<br> +Like a tap that needs a washer: and, by carties,<br> +It’s talking I’ve missed most: I’ve always been<br> +Like an urchin with a withy—must be slashing—<br> +Thistles for choice: and not once, since I came,<br> +Have I had a real good shindy to warm my blood.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’d have thought Ezra ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ay: we fratched, at first;<br> +For he’d a tongue of his own; and could use it, too,<br> +Better than most menfolk—a bonnie sparrer,<br> +I warrant, in his time; but past his best<br> +Before I kenned him; little fight left in him:<br> +And when his wits went cranky, he just havered—<br> +Ground out his two tunes like a hurdygurdy,<br> +With most notes missing and a creaky handle.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And Michael?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Michael! The lad will sit mumchance<br> +The evening through: he’s got a powerful gift<br> +Of saying nothing: no sparks to strike off him;<br> +Though he’s had to serve as a whetstone, this long while,<br> +To keep an edge on my tongue.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">85</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +He’s quiet?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Quiet!<br> +A husband born. No need to fear for Ruth:<br> +She’s safe with Michael, safe for life.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +He’s steady?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +He’s not his mother’s son: he banks his money;<br> +And takes no hazards; never risks his shirt:<br> +As canny as I’m spendthrift, he’s the sort<br> +Can pouch his cutty, half-smoked, ten minutes after<br> +I’ve puffed away my pipeful. Ay: Ruth’s safe.<br> +His peatstacks never fire: he’ll never lose<br> +A lamb, or let a ewe slip through his hands,<br> +For want of watching; though he go for nights<br> +Without a nap. The day of Ezra’s funeral,<br> +A score of gimmers perished in the snow,<br> +But not a ewe of Michael’s: his were folded<br> +Before the wind began to pile the drifts:<br> +He takes no risks.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ruth needs a careful man:<br> +For she’s the sort that’s steady with the steady,<br> +And a featherhead with featherheads. She’s sense:<br> +And Michael ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Michael’s sense itself—a cob<br> +Too steady to shy even at the crack of doom:<br> +He’ll keep the beaten track, the road that leads<br> +To four walls, and the same bed every night.<br> +Talk of the devil—but he’s coming now<br> +Up Bloodysyke: ay, and there’s someone with him—<br> +A petticoat, no less!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Mercy! It’s Ruth:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">86</span> +Yet I didn’t leave, till she was safely off<br> +To work ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Work? Michael, too, had business<br> +In Bellingham this morning, oddly enough.<br> +Doubtless, they helped each other; and got through<br> +The job the quicker, working well together:<br> +And a parson took a hand in it for certain,<br> +If I ken Michael: likes things proper, he does;<br> +And always had a weakness for black lambs.<br> +But, who’d have guessed he’d ... Surely, there’s a strain<br> +Of Haggard in the young limb, after all:<br> +No Haggard stops to ask a parent’s leave,<br> +Even should they happen to ken the old folk by sight:<br> +My own I knew by hearsay. But, what luck<br> +You’re here to welcome the young pair.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +No! They’ll wonder ...<br> +I bring no luck to weddings ... I must go ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You can’t, without being spotted: but you can hide<br> +Behind the door, till I speak with them.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +No! No!<br> +Not that door ... I can’t hide behind that door<br> +Again.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +That door? Well, you ken best what’s been<br> +Between that door and you. It’s crazy and old,<br> +But, it looks innocent, wooden-faced humbug: yet<br> +I don’t trust doors myself; they’ve got a knack<br> +Of shutting me in. But you’ll be snug enough<br> +In the other room: I’d advise you to lie down,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">87</span> +And rest; you’re looking trashed: and, come to think,<br> +I’ve a deal to say to the bridegroom, before I go.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Go?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Quick, this way: step lively, or they’ll catch<br> +Your skirt-tail whisking round the doorcheek.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Bell</span> hustles <span class = +"charname">Judith</span> into the inner room; closing the door behind +her. She then thrusts the orange-coloured kerchief into her pocket; +picks up the bracken, and flings it on the fire; seats herself on the +settle, with her back to the door; and gazes at the blaze: not even +glancing up, as <span class = "charname">Michael</span> and <span class += "charname">Ruth</span> enter.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Mother!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Is that you, Prodigal son? You’re late, to-day,<br> +As always when you’ve business in Bellingham.<br> +That’s through, I trust: those ewes have taken a deal<br> +Of seeing to: and I’m lonely as a milestone,<br> +When you’re away.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’ve taken the last trip, mother:<br> +That job’s through: and I’ve made the best of bargains.<br> +You’ll not be lonely, now, when I’m not here:<br> +I’ve brought you a daughter to keep you company.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Bell</span> <span class = "stagedir">(turning +sharply)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I might have known you were no Prodigal son:<br> +He didn’t bring home even a single sausage,<br> +For all his keeping company with swine.<br> +But, what should I do with a daughter, lad?<br> +Do you fancy, if I’d had a mind for daughters,<br> +I couldn’t have had a dozen of my own?<br> +One petticoat’s enough in any house:<br> +And who are you, to bring your mother a daughter?</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">88</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Her husband. Ruth’s my bride. Ruth Ellershaw<br> +She was till ten o’clock: Ruth Barrasford,<br> +Till doomsday, now.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +When did I give you leave<br> +To bring strange lasses to disturb my peace,<br> +Just as I’m getting used to Krindlesyke?<br> +To think you’d wed, without a word!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Leave, say you?<br> +You’ll always have your jest. I said no word:<br> +For words breed words: and I’d not have a swarm<br> +Of stinging ants bumming about my lugs<br> +For days beforehand.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ants? They’d need be kaids,<br> +To burrow through your fleece, and prog your skin.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’d as lief ask leave of the tricky wind as you:<br> +And, leave or not, I’d see you damned, if you tried<br> +To part us. None of your games! I’m no young wether,<br> +To be let keep his old dam company;<br> +Trotting beside her ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Cock-a-whoop, my lad!<br> +Well done, for you, Ruth, lass; you’ve kindled him,<br> +<span class = "charname">As I</span> could never do, for all my +chaff.<br> +I little dreamt he’d ever turn lobstroplous:<br> +I hardly ken him, with his dander up,<br> +Swelling and bridling like a bubblyjock.<br> +If I pricked him now, he’d bleed red blood—not ewe’s milk:<br> +The flick of my tongue can nettle him at last:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">89</span> +His haunches quiver, for all his woolly coat;<br> +He’ll prove a Haggard, yet. Nay—he said “husband”:<br> +No Haggard I’ve heard tell on’s been a husband:<br> +But, if your taste’s for husbands, lass, you’re suited,<br> +Till doomsday, as he says. He kens his mind:<br> +When barely breeched, he chose to bide with sheep;<br> +Though he might have travelled with horses: and it’s sheep<br> +His heart is set on still. But, I’ve no turn<br> +For certainties myself: no sheep for me:<br> +Life, with a tossing mane, and clattering hoofs,<br> +The chancy life for me—not certain death,<br> +With the stink of tar and sheepdip in my nostrils.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Life, with a clattering tongue, you mean to say.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Well: you’re a bonnie lass, I must admit:<br> +And, if I’d fancied daughters, I might have done<br> +Much worse than let young Michael pick them for me:<br> +He’s not gone poseying in the kitchen garden.<br> +I never guessed he’d an eye for aught but ewes:<br> +As, blind as other mothers, I’d have sworn<br> +I’d kenned him, inside-out, since he was—nay!<br> +But he was never a rapscallion ripstitch—<br> +Always a prim and proper little man,<br> +A butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth young sobersides,<br> +Since he found his own feet. Yet, the blade that’s wed—<br> +The jack-knife, turned into a pair of scissors—<br> +Without a word, is not the son I thought him.<br> +There’s something of his mammy, after all,<br> +In Michael: and as for you, my lass, you’re just<br> +Your minney’s very spit.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">90</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You ken my mother?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ken Judith Ellershaw? You’ll ask me, next,<br> +If I’m acquainted with Bell Haggard. Well,<br> +Gaping for turnips, Michael?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I never heard ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +What have you heard this fifteen-year, except<br> +The bleat of sheep, till Ruth’s voice kittled your ear?<br> +But, Judith sent some message by her daughter?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +She doesn’t ken I’ve come: nay, doesn’t dream<br> +I’m married even; though I meant to tell her<br> +This morning; but I couldn’t: she started so,<br> +When I let slip Michael’s name; and turned so pale.<br> +I don’t know why; but I feared some word of hers<br> +Might come between us: and I couldn’t let<br> +Even my mother come between us now:<br> +So, I pretended to set out for work<br> +As usual: then, when we were married, went back<br> +With Michael, to break the news. But the door was locked:<br> +And neighbours said she was out—been gone some time:<br> +And Michael was impatient to be home:<br> +So, I had to come. I can’t think what has happened.<br> +I hated leaving her like that: I’ve never<br> +In all my life done such a thing.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Well, Michael<br> +Should be relieved to learn it’s a first offence.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +She’d gone without a word ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +A family failing—<br> +And, happen, on like errand to your own.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Mother? Nay, she’s too old: you said you knew her.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">91</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, well enough to reckon I’m her elder:<br> +And who’s to tell me I’m too old to marry?<br> +A woman is never too old for anything:<br> +It’s only men grow sober and faint-hearted:<br> +And Judith’s just the sort whose soul is set<br> +On a husband and a hearthstone: I ken that.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay: mother’ll never marry.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You can speak<br> +With all the cock-a-whoop of ignorance:<br> +For you’re too young to dare to doubt your wisdom.<br> +It’s a wise man, or a fool, can speak for himself,<br> +Let alone for others, in this haphazard life.<br> +But give me a young fool, rather than an old—<br> +A plucky plunger, than a canny crone<br> +Who’s old enough to ken she doesn’t ken.<br> +You’re right: for doubting is a kind of dotage:<br> +Experience ages and decays; while folk<br> +Who never doubt themselves die young—at ninety.<br> +Age never yet brought gumption to a ninny:<br> +And you cannot reckon up a stranger’s wits<br> +By counting his bare patches and grey hairs:<br> +It’s seldom sense that makes a bald head shine:<br> +And I’m not partial to Methuselahs.<br> +Keep your cocksureness, while you can: too soon,<br> +Time plucks the feathers off you; and you lie,<br> +Naked and skewered, with not a cock-a-doodle,<br> +Or flap of the wings to warm your heart again.<br> +And so, you quitted your mammy, without a word,<br> +When the jockey whistled?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Nay: I left a letter:<br> +’Twas all I could do.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">92</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +She’s lost a daughter; and got<br> +A bit of paper, instead: and what have I,<br> +For my lost son?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You’ve lost no son; but gained<br> +A daughter. You’ll always live with us.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Just so.<br> +I’ve waited for you to say that: and it comes pat.<br> +You’ll think his thoughts; and mutter them in your mind,<br> +Before he can give them tongue, Ruth. He’s not said<br> +An unexpected thing since he grew out<br> +Of his first breeches: and, like the most of men,<br> +He speaks so slowly, you can almost catch<br> +The creaking of his wits between the words.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Well: I’ve a tongue for two: and you, yourself,<br> +Don’t lack for ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +So, all’s settled: you’ve arranged<br> +The world for your convenience; and have planned<br> +Your mothers’ lives between you? I’m to be<br> +The dear old grannie in the ingleneuk;<br> +And hide my grizzled wisps in a mutch with frills?<br> +Nay, God forbid! I’m no tame pussycat,<br> +To snuggle on the corner of a settle,<br> +With one eye open for the chance-thrown titbit,<br> +While the good housewife goes about her duties:<br> +Me! lapping with blinking eyes and possing paws,<br> +The saucer of skim-milk that young skinflint spares me,<br> +And purring, when her darlings pull my tail—<br> +Great-grandchildren, too, to Ezra, on both sides.<br> +Ay: you may gape like a brace of guddled brandling:<br> +But that old bull-trout’s grandsire to you both;<br> +<span class = "pagenum">93</span> +And a double dose of his blue blood will run<br> +In the veins of your small fry—if fish have veins.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You surely never mean to say ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +I do.<br> +More than a little for you young know-alls to learn,<br> +When you meet Judith Ellershaw: for havers<br> +As it sounds to your young lugs, the world went round,<br> +And one or two things happened, before you were born.<br> +Yet, none of us kens what life’s got up his sleeve:<br> +He’s played so long: and had a deal of practice,<br> +Since he sat down with Adam: he’s always got<br> +A trump tucked out of sight, that takes the trick.<br> +But, son, you’ve lived with me for all these years;<br> +And yet ken me so little? Grannie’s mutch-frills!<br> +I’d as lief rig myself in widow’s weeds<br> +For my fancy man, who may have departed this life,<br> +For all I ken or care.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Come, hold your tongue:<br> +Enough of shameless talk. I’m master, now:<br> +And I’ll not have Ruth hear this radgy slack.<br> +If you’ve no shame yourself, I’ll find a way<br> +To bridle your loose tongue: so mind yourself:<br> +I’ll have no tinker’s tattle.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +The tinker’s brat<br> +Rides the high-horse now, mounted on prime mutton.<br> +Ruth, lass, you’re safe, you’re safe—if safety’s all:<br> +He’ll never guess your heart, unless you blab.<br> +I’ve never told him mine: I’ve kept him easy,<br> +Till he’d found someone else to victual him,<br> +And make his bed, and darn his hose; and you<br> +Seem born to take the job out of my hands.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">94</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But I’d not come between you ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Think not, lass?<br> +I bear you no ill-will: you set me free.<br> +I’m a wildcat, all bristling fur and claws:<br> +At Krindlesyke, I’ve been a wildcat, caged:<br> +And Michael never twigged! Son, don’t you mind<br> +The day we came—was I a tabby then?<br> +The day we came here, with no thought to bide,<br> +Once we had got the plunder; and were trapped<br> +Between these four white walls by a dead woman?<br> +She held me—forced my feet into her shoes—<br> +Held me for your sake. Ay: there seemed some link<br> +’Twixt your dead grannie and you, too strong for me<br> +To break; though it’s been strained to the snapping-point,<br> +Times out of mind, whenever a hoolet’s screech<br> +Sang through my blood; or poaching foxes barked<br> +On a shiny night to the cackle of wild geese,<br> +Travelling from sea to sea far overhead:<br> +Or whenever, waking in the quiet dark,<br> +The ghosts of horses whinneyed in my heart.<br> +Ghosts! Nay, I’ve been the mare between the limmers<br> +Who hears the hunters gallop gaily by;<br> +Or, rather, the hunter, bogged in a quaking moss,<br> +Fankit in sluthery strothers, belly-deep,<br> +With the tune of the horn tally-hoing through her blood,<br> +As the field sweeps out of sight.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Wildcats and hunters—<br> +A mongrel breed, eh, Ruth?</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">95</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +But, now it seems,<br> +I can draw my hocks out of the clungy sump<br> +I’ve floundered in so long; and, snuffing the wind,<br> +Shew a clean pair of heels to Krindlesyke.<br> +A mongrel breed, say you? And who but a man<br> +Could have a wildcat-hunter making his bed<br> +For him for fifteen-year, and never know it?<br> +But, the old wife’s satisfied, at last: she should be:<br> +She’s had my best years: I’ve grown old and grizzled,<br> +And full of useless wisdom, in her service.<br> +She’s taught me much: for I’ve had time and to spare,<br> +Brooding among these God-forsaken fells,<br> +To turn life inside-out in my own mind;<br> +And study every thread of it, warp and weft.<br> +I’m far from the same woman who came here:<br> +And I’ll take up my old life with a difference,<br> +Now she and you’ve got no more use for me:<br> +You’ve squeezed me dry betwixt you.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Dry, do you say?<br> +The Tyne’s in spate; and we must swim for life,<br> +Eh, Ruth? But, you’ll soon get used ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +She’s done with me.<br> +She’ll not be sorry to lose me: I fancy, at times,<br> +She felt she’d got more than she’d bargained for—<br> +A wasp, rampaging in her spider’s web.<br> +“Far above rubies” has never been my line,<br> +Though I could wag a tongue with Solomon,<br> +Like the Queen of Sheba herself: I doubt if she<br> +Rose in the night to give meat to her household.<br> +She must have been an ancestor of mine:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">96</span> +For she’d traik any distance for a crack,<br> +The gipsy-hearted ganwife that she was.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Wildcats and hunters and the Queen of Sheba—<br> +A royal family, Ruth, you’ve married into!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But now I can kick Eliza’s shoes sky-high:<br> +Nay—I must shuffle them quietly off; and lay<br> +The old wife’s shoes decently by the hearth,<br> +<span class = "charname">As I</span> found them when I came—a +slattern stopgap—<br> +Ready for the young wife to step into.<br> +They’ll fit her, as they never fitted me:<br> +For all her youth, they will not gall her heels,<br> +Or give her corns: she’s the true Cinderella:<br> +The clock has struck for her; and the dancing’s done;<br> +And the Prince has brought her home—to wash the dishes.<br> +But now I’m free: and I’ll away to-night.<br> +My bones have been restless in me all day long:<br> +They felt their freedom coming, before I kenned.<br> +I’ve little time to lose: I’m getting old—<br> +Stiff-jointed in my wits, that once were nimble<br> +As a ferret among the bobtails, old and dull.<br> +A night or so may seem to matter little,<br> +When I’ve already lost full fifteen-year:<br> +But I hear the owls call: and my fur’s a-tingle:<br> +The Haggard blood is pricking in my veins.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She loosens the string of her apron, which slips to the ground, kilts +her skirt to her knee, takes the orange-coloured kerchief from her +pocket, and twists it about her head; while <span class = +"charname">Michael</span> and <span class = "charname">Ruth</span> watch +the transformation in amazement.)</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">97</span> +<p class = "speaker charname">Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But you don’t mean to leave us?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Pat it comes:<br> +You’ve just to twitch the wire and the bell rings:<br> +You’ll learn the trick, soon, Ruth. <span class = "stagedir">(To <span +class = "charname">Michael</span>)</span> Bat, don’t you see<br> +I’ve just put on my nightcap, ready for bed—<br> +Grannie’s frilled mutch? I leave you, Michael? Son,<br> +The time came, as it comes to every man,<br> +When you’d to make a choice betwixt two women.<br> +You’ve made your choice: and chosen well: but I,<br> +Who’ve always done the choosing, and never yet<br> +Tripped to the beck of any man, or bobbed<br> +To any living woman—I’m free to follow<br> +My own bent, now that that old witch’s fingers<br> +Have slackened their cold clutch; and your dead grannie<br> +Has gained her ends, and seen you settled down<br> +At Krindlesyke: and from this on I, too,<br> +Am dead to you. You’ll soon enough forget me:<br> +The world would end if a man could not forget<br> +His mother’s deathbed in his young wife’s arms—<br> +I’m far from corpse-cold yet; and it may be years<br> +Before they pluck Bell Haggard’s kerchief off,<br> +To tie her chin up with, and ripe her pockets<br> +Of her last pennies to shut up her eyes.<br> +Even then, they’ll have to tug the chin-clout tight,<br> +To keep her tongue from wagging. Well, my son,<br> +So, it’s good-bye till doomsday.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You’re not going?<br> +I thought you only havered. You can’t go.<br> +Do you think I’d let you go, and ...</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">98</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Hearken, Ruth:<br> +That’s the true husband’s voice: for husbands think,<br> +If only they are headstrong and high-handed,<br> +They’re getting their own way: they charge, head-down,<br> +At their own image in the window-glass;<br> +And don’t come to their senses till their carcase<br> +Is spiked with smarting splinters. But I’m your mother,<br> +Not your tame wife, lad: and I’ll go my gait.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You shall not go, for all your crazy cackle—<br> +My mother, on the road, a tinker’s baggage,<br> +While I’ve a roof to shelter her!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +You pull<br> +The handle downwards towards you, and the beer<br> +Spouts out. No hope for you, Ruth: lass, you’re safe—<br> +Safe as a linnet in a cage, for life:<br> +No need to read your hand, to tell your fortune:<br> +No gallivanting with the dark-eyed stranger,<br> +Calleevering over all the countryside,<br> +When the owls are hooting to the hunter’s moon,<br> +For the wife of Michael Barrasford. Well, boy,<br> +What if I choose to be a tinker’s baggage?<br> +It was a tinker’s baggage mothered you—<br> +For tying a white apron round the waist<br> +Has never made a housewife of a gipsy—<br> +And a tinker’s baggage went out of her way<br> +To set you well on yours: and now she turns.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You shall not go, I say. I’m master here:<br> +<span class = "pagenum">99</span> +And I won’t let you shame me. I’ve been decent;<br> +And have always done my duty by the sheep,<br> +Working to keep a decent home together<br> +To bring a wife to: and, for all your jeers,<br> +There are worse things for a woman than a home<br> +And husband and a lawful family.<br> +You shall not go. You say I ken my mind ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay: but not mine. What should a tinker’s trollop<br> +Do in the house of Michael Barrasford,<br> +But bring a blush to his children’s cheeks? God help them,<br> +If they take after me, if they’ve a dash<br> +Of Haggard blood—for ewe’s milk laced with brandy<br> +Is like to curdle: or, happen, I should say,<br> +God help their father!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Mother, why should you go?<br> +Why should you want to travel the ditch-bottom,<br> +When you’ve a hearth to sit by, snug and clean?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The fatted calf’s to be killed for the prodigal mother?<br> +You’ve not the hard heart of the young cockrobin<br> +That’s got no use for parents, once he’s mated:<br> +But I’m, somehow, out of place within four walls,<br> +Tied to one spot—that never wander the world.<br> +I long for the rumble of wheels beneath me; to hear<br> +The clatter and creak of the lurching caravan;<br> +And the daylong patter of raindrops on the roof:<br> +Ay, and the gossip of nights about the campfire—<br> +The give-and-take of tongues: mine’s getting stiff<br> +For want of use, and spoiling for a fight.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">100</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay: still as nimble and nippy as a flea!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But, I could talk, at one time! There are days<br> +When the whole world’s hoddendoon and draggletailed,<br> +Drooked through and through; and blury, gurly days<br> +When the wind blows snell: but it’s something to be stirring,<br> +And not shut up between four glowering walls,<br> +Like blind white faces; and you never ken<br> +What traveller your wayside fire will draw<br> +Out of the night, to tell outlandish tales,<br> +Or crack a jest, or start quarrel with you,<br> +Till the words bite hot as ginger on the tongue.<br> +Anger’s the stuff to loose a tongue grown rusty:<br> +And keep it in good fettle for all chances.<br> +I’m sick of dozing by a dumb hearthstone—<br> +And the peat, with never a click or crackle in it—<br> +Famished for news.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +For scandal.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +There’s no scandal<br> +For those who can’t be scandalized—just news:<br> +All’s fish that comes to their net. I was made<br> +For company.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And you’d go back again<br> +To that tag-rag-and-bobtail? What’s the use<br> +Of a man’s working to keep a decent home,<br> +When his own mother tries to drag him down?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay: my pernicketty, fine gentleman,<br> +But I’ll not drag you down: you’re free of me:<br> +I’ve slipt my apron off; and you’re tied now<br> +To your wife’s apron-strings: for menfolk seem<br> +Uneasy on the loose, and never happy<br> +<span class = "pagenum">101</span> +Unless they’re clinging to some woman’s skirt.<br> +I’m out of place in any decent house,<br> +As a kestrel in a hencoop. Ay, you’re decent:<br> +But, son, remember a man’s decency<br> +Depends on his braces; and it’s I who’ve sewn<br> +Your trouser-buttons on; so, when you fasten<br> +Your galluses, give the tinker’s baggage credit.<br> +She’s done her best for you; and scrubbed and scoured,<br> +Against the grain, for all these years, to keep<br> +Your home respectable; though, in her heart,<br> +Thank God, she’s never been respectable—<br> +No dry-rot in her bones, while she’s alive:<br> +Time and to spare for decency in the grave.<br> +So, you can do your duty by the sheep,<br> +While I go hunting with the jinneyhoolets—<br> +Birds of a feather—ay, and fleece with fleece:<br> +And when I’m a toothless, mumbling crone, you’ll be<br> +So proper a gentleman, ’twill be hard to tell<br> +The shepherd from the sheep. Someone must rear<br> +The mutton and wool, to keep us warm and fed;<br> +But that’s not my line: please to step this way<br> +For the fancy goods and fakish faldalals,<br> +Trinkets and toys and fairings. Son, you say,<br> +You’re master here: well, that’s for Ruth to settle:<br> +I’ll be elsewhere. I’ve never knuckled down<br> +To any man: and I’ll be coffin-cold<br> +Before I brook a master; so, good-night,<br> +And pleasant dreams; and a long family<br> +Of curly lambkins, bleating round the board.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Michael, you’ll never let her go alone?<br> +She’s only talking wild, because she’s jealous.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">102</span> +Mothers are always jealous, when their sons<br> +Bring home a bride: though she needn’t be uneasy:<br> +I’d never interfere ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Too wise to put<br> +Your fingers ’twixt the cleaver and the block?<br> +Jealous—I wonder? Anyhow, it seems,<br> +I’ve got a daughter, too. Alone, you say?<br> +However long I stayed, I’d have to go<br> +Alone, at last: and I’d as lief be gone,<br> +While I can carry myself on my two pins.<br> +Being buried with the Barrasfords is a chance<br> +I’ve little mind to risk a second time:<br> +I’m too much of a Haggard, to want to rise,<br> +At the last trump, among a flock of bleaters.<br> +If I’ve my way, there’ll be stampeding hoofs<br> +About me, startled at the crack of doom.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +When you’ve done play-acting ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Play-acting? Ay: I’m through:<br> +Exit the villain: ring the curtain down<br> +On the happy ending—bride and bridegroom seated<br> +On either side the poor, but pious, hearth.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’d as soon argue with a weathercock<br> +As with a woman ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Yet the weathervanes<br> +Are always cocks, not hens.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You shall not go.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Your naked hurdles cannot hold the wind.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Wind? Ay, I’m fairly tewed and hattered with words:<br> +And yet, for all your wind, you shall not go.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">103</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +While you’ve a roof to shelter me, eh, son?<br> +You mean so well; and understand so little.<br> +Yours is a good thick fleece—no skin that twitches<br> +When a breath tickles it. Sheep will be sheep,<br> +And horses, horses, till the day of judgment.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Better a sound tup than a spavined nag.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, Ruth, you’ve kindled him! Good luck to you:<br> +And may your hearthfire warm you to the end.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(To <span class = "charname">Michael</span>.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +You’ve been a good son to me, in your way:<br> +Only, our ways are different; and here they part.<br> +For all my blether, there’s no bitterness<br> +On my side: I’ve long kenned ’twas bound to come:<br> +And, in your heart, you know it’s for the best,<br> +For your sake, and for Ruth’s sake, and for mine.<br> +I couldn’t obey, where I have bid; nor risk<br> +My own son’s fathering me in second childhood:<br> +And you’d not care to have me like old Ezra,<br> +A dothering haiveril in your chimney corner,<br> +Babbling of vanished gold? I read my fortune<br> +In the flames just now: and I’ll not rot to death:<br> +It’s time enough to moulder, underground.<br> +My death’ll come quick and chancy, as I’d have had<br> +Each instant of life: but still there are risky years<br> +Before me, and a sudden, unlooked-for ending.<br> +And I’ll not haunt you: ghosts enough, with Ezra,<br> +Counting his ghostly sovereigns all night long,<br> +And old Eliza, darning ghostly stockings.<br> +My ghost will ride a broomstick....</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">104</span> +<p class = "stagedir"> +(As she speaks, the inner door opens, and <span class = +"charname">Ruth</span> and <span class = "charname">Michael</span>, +turning sharply at the click of the latch, gaze, dumbfounded, at <span +class = "charname">Judith Ellershaw</span>, standing in the +doorway.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Fee-fo-fum!<br> +The barguest bays; and boggles, brags, and bo-los<br> +Follow the hunt. How’s that for witchcraft, think you?<br> +Hark, how the lych-owl screeches!</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Ruth</span> <span class = "stagedir">(running +to her mother’s arms)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Mother, you!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Now there’s a sweet, domestic picture for you!<br> +My cue’s to vanish in a puff of smoke<br> +And reek of brimstone, like the witch I am.<br> +I’m coming, hoolet, my old cat with wings!<br> +It’s time I was away: there never yet<br> +Was room for two grandmothers in one house.<br> +I’m through with Krindlesyke. Good-bye, old gaol!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(While <span class = "charname">Michael</span> still gazes at <span +class = "charname">Ruth</span> and her mother in amazement, <span class += "charname">Bell Haggard</span> slips out of the door, unnoticed, and +away through the bracken in the gathering dusk. An owl hoots.)</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">105</span> +<h5 class = "section">PART III</h5> + +<p class = "stagedir first"> +A wet afternoon in May, six years later. The table is already set for +tea. <span class = "charname">Judith Ellershaw</span> sits, knitting, by +the hearth; a cradle with a young baby in it by her side. The outer door +is closed, but unlatched. Presently the unkempt head of a man appears +furtively at the window; then vanishes. The door is pushed stealthily +open: and <span class = "charname">Jim Barrasford</span>, ragged and +disreputable (and some twenty years older than when he married <span +class = "charname">Phœbe Martin</span>) stands on the threshold a +moment, eyeing <span class = "charname">Judith’s</span> unconscious back +in silence: then he speaks, limping towards her chair.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +While the cat calleevers the hills of Back-o’-Beyont,<br> +The rats make free of the rick: and so, you doubled,<br> +As soon as my hurdies were turned on Krindlesyke,<br> +And settled yourself in the ingle?</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Judith</span> <span class = +"stagedir">(starting up, and facing him)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Jim!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Ay, Jim—<br> +No other, Judith. I’ll be bound you weren’t<br> +Just looking to see me: you seem overcome<br> +<span class = "pagenum">106</span> +By the unexpected pleasure. Your pardon, mistress,<br> +If I intrude. By crikes! But I’m no ghost<br> +To set you adither: you don’t see anything wrong—<br> +No, no! What should you see? I startled you.<br> +Happen I look a wee bit muggerishlike—<br> +A ragtag hipplety-clinch: but I’ve been travelling<br> +Mischancy roads; and I’m fair muggert-up.<br> +Yet, why should that stagnate you? Where’s the sense<br> +Of expecting a mislucket man like me<br> +To be as snod and spruce as a young shaver?<br> +But I’m all right: there’s naught amiss with Jim,<br> +Except too much of nothing in his belly.<br> +A good square meal, and a pipe, and a decent night’s rest,<br> +And I’ll be fit as a fiddle. I’ve hardly slept ...<br> +Well, now I’m home, I’ll make myself at home.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He seizes the loaf of bread from the table; hacks off a hunch with his +jack-knife; and wolfs it ravenously.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Home? You’ve come home, Jim?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Nay, I’m my own fetch!<br> +God’s truth! there’s little else but skin and bone<br> +Beneath these tatters: just a two-legged boggart,<br> +With naught but wind to fill my waim—small wonder<br> +You’re maiselt, to see a scarecrow stottering in—<br> +For plover’s eggs and heather-broth don’t sleek<br> +A wrinkled hide or swell a scrankit belly.<br> +But still, what should there be to flabbergast you<br> +About a man’s returning to his home?<br> +Naught wrong in coming home, I hope? By gox,<br> +A poor lad can’t come home, but he’s cross-questioned,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">107</span> +And stared at like ... Why do you stare like that?<br> +It’s I should be agape, to find you here:<br> +But no, I’m not surprised: you can’t surprise me:<br> +I’m a travelled man: I’ve seen the world; and so,<br> +Don’t look for gratitude. My eyes were opened,<br> +Once and for all, by Phœbe and you, that day—<br> +Nigh twenty-year since: and they’ve not been shut ...<br> +By gum, that’s so! it seems like twenty-year<br> +Since I’d a wink of sleep ... And, anyway,<br> +I’ve heard the story, all the goings-on;<br> +And a pretty tale it is: for I’d a drink,<br> +A sappy-crack with that old windywallops,<br> +Sep Shanks, in a bar at Bellingham: and he let out<br> +How you’d crawled back to Krindlesyke with your daughter—<br> +Our daughter, I should say: and she, no less,<br> +Married to Peter’s son: though how the deuce<br> +You picked him up, is more that I can fashion.<br> +Sep had already had his fill of cheerers,<br> +Before I met him; and that last rum-hot<br> +Was just the drop too much: and he got fuddled.<br> +Ay, Sep was mortal-clay, the addled egg:<br> +And I couldn’t make head or tail of his hiccuping,<br> +Though he tried to make himself plain: he did his best,<br> +Did Sep: I’ll say that for him—tried so hard<br> +To make himself plain, he got us both chucked out:<br> +And I left him in the gutter, trying still.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’ve come from Bellingham hiring?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I couldn’t stand<br> +The dindum: felt fair-clumpered in that cluther—<br> +Such a hubblyshew of gowks and flirtigigs,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">108</span> +Craking and cackling like a gabble of geese:<br> +And folk kept looking: I might have been a bizen,<br> +The way they gaped: so I thought I’d just win home<br> +For a little peace and quiet. Where’s my daughter,<br> +And this young cuckoo, calls himself my nephew,<br> +And has made himself free and easy of my nest?<br> +Ay, but you’ve fettled things nicely, the lot of you,<br> +While I tramped the hungry roads. He’s pinched my job:<br> +But I bear no grudge: it’s not a job I’m after,<br> +Since I’ve a married daughter I can live with.<br> +I’ve seen the world, a sight too much: and I mean<br> +To settle down, and end my days in peace<br> +In my old home.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Your home? But you can’t stay here.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’ll see! Now that I’m home, I mean to clag<br> +Like a cleaver to a flagstone: they’ll have to lift<br> +The hearth, to get me out of Krindlesyke.<br> +I’ve had enough of travelling the turnpike,<br> +Houffling and hirpling like a cadging faa:<br> +And, but for you and your brat, I’d settled down,<br> +A respectable married man, this twenty-year.<br> +But you shan’t drive me from my home again.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +We drove you?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You began it, anyway—<br> +Made me an April-gowk and laughing-stock,<br> +Till I couldn’t face the neighbours’ fleers. By joes!<br> +You diddled me out of house and home, among you:<br> +And settled yourselves couthily in my calfyard,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">109</span> +Like maggots in a muckheap, while I went cawdrife.<br> +But I’ve had my fill of it, Judith, Hexham-measure:<br> +I’m home for good: and isn’t she my daughter?<br> +You stole her from me once, when you made off<br> +With hoity-toity Phœbe—ay, I ken<br> +She died: I learned it at the time—you sneaked<br> +My only bairn: I cannot mind her name,<br> +If ever I heard it: you kept even that<br> +From me, her dad. But, anyway, she’s mine:<br> +I’ve only her and you to turn to now:<br> +A poor, lone widower I’ve been any time<br> +This twenty-year: that’s what’s been wrong with me,<br> +Though it hadn’t entered my noddle till this minute.<br> +But where’s the canny couple?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ruth and Michael<br> +Are at the hiring.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Well, I’ll not deny<br> +That suits my book. I’d a notion, Judith lass,<br> +I’d find you alone, and make my peace with you,<br> +Before I tackled the young folk. Poor relations<br> +Aren’t made too welcome in this ungrateful world—<br> +Least so, by those who’ve taken the bread from their mouths,<br> +And beggared them of bit and brat: and so<br> +I thought ’twould be more couthy-like with you,<br> +Just having a crack and talking old times over,<br> +Till I was more myself. I don’t like strangers,<br> +Not even when they’re my own flesh and blood:<br> +They’ve got a trick of staring at a man:<br> +And all I want is to be let alone—<br> +Just let alone ... By God, why can’t they let me<br> +<span class = "pagenum">110</span> +Alone! But you are kind and comfortable:<br> +And you won’t heckle me and stare at me:<br> +For I’m not quite myself: I’ll own to that—<br> +I’m not myself ... Though who the devil I am<br> +I hardly ken ... I’ve been that hunted and harried.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Hunted?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Ay, Judith—in a manner of speaking,<br> +Hunted’s the word: and I’m too old for the sport.<br> +I’m getting on in years: and you’re no younger<br> +Than when I saw you last—you mind the day,<br> +My wedding-day? A fine fligarishon<br> +You made of it between you, you and Phœbe:<br> +And wasn’t she the high and mighty madam,<br> +The niffy-naffy don’t-come-nigh-me nonesuch?<br> +But I’ve forgiven her: I bear no malice.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You bear no malice: and she died of it!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, ay: she showed some sense of decency<br> +In that, at least: though she got her sting in first<br> +Like an angry bee. But, Judith, doesn’t it seem<br> +We two are tokened to end our days together?<br> +Nothing can keep us parted, seemingly:<br> +So let bygones be bygones.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Catching sight of the cradle.)</p> + +<p class = "line three"> +What, another!<br> +Have you always got a brat about you, Judith?<br> +Last time you sprang a daughter on me, and now ...<br> +But I’m forgetting how the years have flitted.<br> +Don’t tell me I’m a grandfather?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +The boy<br> +Is Ruth’s.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">111</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Well, I’ve come into a family,<br> +And no mistake—a happy family:<br> +And I was born to be a family-man.<br> +They’ll never turn against their bairn’s granddad:<br> +And I’m in luck.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You cannot bide here, Jim.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And who the hell are you, to say me nay?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The boy’s grandmother.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ay: and so the grandam’s<br> +To sit in the ingleneuk, while granddad hoofs it?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +When you left Krindlesyke, you quitted it<br> +For good and all.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And yet, I’m here again,<br> +Unless I’m dreaming. It seems we all come back<br> +To Krindlesyke, like martins to the byre-baulks:<br> +It draws us back—can’t keep away, nohow.<br> +Ay, first and last, the old gaol is my home.<br> +You’re surely forgetting ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’m forgetting nothing.<br> +It’s you’ve the knack of only recollecting<br> +What you’ve a mind to. How could you have come<br> +If you remembered all these walls have seen?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +So walls have eyes as well as ears? I can’t<br> +Get away from eyes ... But they’ll not freeze my blood,<br> +Or stare me out of countenance: they’ve no tongues<br> +To tittle-tattle: they’re no tell-tale-tits,<br> +No slinking skeadlicks, nosing and sniffing round,<br> +To wink and nod when I turn my back, colloguing,<br> +With heads together, to lay me by the heels.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">112</span> +Nay: I’m not fleyed of a bit of whitewashed plaister.<br> +But you’re a nice one to welcome home a traveller<br> +With “cannots” and clavers of eyes. Why can’t you let<br> +Things rest, and not hark back, routing things out,<br> +And casting them in my teeth? Why must you lug<br> +The dead to light—dead days? ... I’m not afraid<br> +Of corpses: the dead are dead: their eyes are shut:<br> +Leastways, they cannot glower when once the mould’s<br> +Atop of them: though they follow a chap round the room,<br> +Seeking the coppers to clap them to ... dead eyes<br> +Can’t wink: and twopence shuts their bravest stare.<br> +So, ghosts won’t trouble my rest at Krindlesyke.<br> +I vowed that I’d sleep sound at Krindlesyke,<br> +When I ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +You cannot bide.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I bear no malice.<br> +Why can’t you let bygones be bygones? But that’s<br> +A woman all over; must be raking up<br> +The ashes into a glow, and puffing them red,<br> +To roast a man for what he did, or didn’t,<br> +Twenty-year syne. Why should you still bear malice?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I bear no malice: but you cannot bide.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Why do you keep cuckooing “cannot, cannot”?<br> +And who’s to turn me out of Krindlesyke,<br> +Where I was born and bred, I’d like to ken?<br> +You can’t gainsay it’s my home.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Not your home now.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Then who the devil’s home ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +It’s Ruth’s and Michael’s.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">113</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +My daughter’s and her man’s: their home’s my home.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You shall not stay.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +It’s got to “shall not” now?<br> +The cuckoo’s changed his tune; but I can’t say<br> +I like the new note better: it’s too harsh:<br> +The gowk’s grown croupy. But, lass, I never thought<br> +You’d be harsh with me: yet even you’ve turned raspy ...<br> +First “cannot,” then ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Nay! I’ll not have their home<br> +Pulled down about their ears by any man;<br> +And least of all by you—the home they’ve made ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Stolen, I’d say.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Together, for themselves<br> +And their three boys.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Jim, granddad three times over?<br> +It’s well you broke it piecemeal: the old callant’s<br> +A waffly heart; and any sudden joy<br> +Just sets it twittering: but the more the merrier!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You shall not wreck their happiness. I’d not dreamed<br> +Such happiness as theirs could be in this world.<br> +Since it was built, there’s not been such a home<br> +At Krindlesyke: it’s only been a house ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +’Twas just about as homely as a hearse<br> +In my young days: but my luck’s turned, it seems.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +It takes more than four walls to make a home,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">114</span> +And such a home as Michael’s made for Ruth.<br> +Though she’s a fendy lass; she’s too like me,<br> +And needs a helpmate, or she’ll waste herself;<br> +And, with another man, she might have wrecked,<br> +Instead of building. She’s got her man, her mate:<br> +Husband and father, born, day in, day out,<br> +He works to keep a home for wife and weans.<br> +There’s never been a luckier lass than Ruth:<br> +Though she deserves it, too; and it’s but seldom<br> +Good lasses are the lucky ones; and few<br> +Get their deserts in this life.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +True, egox!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Few, good or bad. But Ruth has everything—<br> +A home, a steady husband, and her boys.<br> +There never were such boys.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +A pretty picture:<br> +It takes my fancy: and the dear old grannie,<br> +Why do you leave her out? And there’s a corner<br> +For granddad in it, surely—an armchair<br> +On the other side of the ingle, with a pipe<br> +And packet of twist, and a pot of nappy beer,<br> +Hot-fettled four-ale, handy on the hob?<br> +Ay: there’s the chair: I’d best secure it now.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(As he seats himself, with his back to the door, the head of <span class += "charname">Bell Haggard</span>, in her orange-coloured kerchief, peeps +round the jamb: then slowly withdraws, unseen of <span class = +"charname">Jim</span> or <span class = "charname">Judith</span>.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Fetch up the swipes and shag. I can reach the cutty ...</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">115</span> +<p class = "stagedir"> +(He takes down <span class = "charname">Michael’s</span> pipe from the +mantel-shelf; and sticks it between his teeth: but <span class = +"charname">Judith</span> snatches at it, breaking the stem, and flings +the bowl on the fire.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And you, to touch his pipe!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Jim</span> stares at her, startled, as she +stands before him, with drawn face and set teeth: then, still eyeing her +uneasily, begins to bluster.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You scarting randy!<br> +I’ll teach you manners. That’s a good three-halfpence<br> +Smashed into smithereens: and all for nothing.<br> +I’ve lammed a wench for less. I’ve half a mind<br> +To snap you like the stopple, you yackey-yaa!<br> +De’il rive your sark! It’s long since I’ve had the price<br> +Of a clay in my pouch: and I’m half-dead for a puff.<br> +What’s taken you? What’s set you agee with me?<br> +You used to like me; and you always seemed<br> +A menseful body: and I lippened to you.<br> +But you’re just a wheepie-leekie weathercock<br> +Like the lave of women, when a man’s mislucket,<br> +Moidart and mismeaved and beside himself.<br> +I fancied I’d be in clover at Krindlesyke,<br> +With you and all: but, sink me, if I haven’t<br> +Just stuck my silly head into a bee-bike!<br> +What’s turned you vicious? I only want to smoke<br> +A cutty in peace: and you go on the rampage.<br> +I mustn’t smoke young master’s pipe, it seems—<br> +His pipe, no less! Young cock-a-ride-a-roosie<br> +Is on the muckheap now; and all the hens<br> +Are clucking round him. I ken what it is:<br> +The cockmadendy’s been too easy with you.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">116</span> +It doesn’t do to let you womenfolk<br> +Get out of hand. It’s time I came, i’ faiks,<br> +To pull you up, and keep you in your place.<br> +I’ll have no naggers, narr-narring all day long:<br> +I’ll stand no fantigues. If the cull’s too soft ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Soft, did you say? I’ve seen him hike a man,<br> +And a heftier man than you, over a dyke,<br> +For yarking a lame beast. That drover’ll mind—<br> +Ay, to his dying day, he’ll not forget<br> +He once ran into something hard.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Ay—ay ...<br> +He’s that sort, is he? My luck is out again.<br> +I want a quiet life, to be let alone:<br> +And Krindlesyke won’t be a bed of roses,<br> +With that sort ramping round. <span class = "stagedir">(Starting +uneasily.)</span></p> + +<p class = "line three"> +What’s that? I thought ...<br> +There’s no one in the other room, is there?<br> +I’ve a feeling in my bones somebody’s listening.<br> +You’ve not deceived me, Judith? You’ve not trapped ...<br> +I’m all a-swither, sweating like a brock.<br> +I little dreamt you’d turn against me, Judith:<br> +But even here I don’t feel safe now.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Safe?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +So you don’t know? I fancied everyone kenned.<br> +Else why the devil should they stare like that?<br> +And when you, too, looked ... Nay, how could you learn?<br> +I’m davered, surely: Seppy Shank’s rum<br> +Has gone to my noddle: drink’s the very devil<br> +On an empty waim: and I never had a head.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">117</span> +What have I done? Ay, wouldn’t you like to ken,<br> +To holler on the hounds?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Jim!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +But what matter<br> +Whether you ken or not? You’ve done for me<br> +Already, dang you, with your hettle-tongue:<br> +You’ve put the notion in my head, the curs<br> +Are on my scent: and now, I cannot rest.<br> +Happen, they’re slinking now up Bloodysyke,<br> +Like adders through the bent ... Nay, they don’t yelp,<br> +The hounds that sleuth me: it’s only in my head<br> +I hear the yapping: they’re too cunning to yelp.<br> +The sleichers slither after me on their bellies,<br> +As dumb and slick as adders ... But I’m doitered,<br> +And doting like a dobby. I want to sleep ...<br> +A good night’s rest would pull my wits together.<br> +I swore I’d sleep ... but I couldn’t close an eye, now<br> +Since ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Jim, what ails you? Tell me what you’ve done.<br> +I’m sorry, Jim ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I swear I never set out<br> +To do it, Judith; and the thing was done,<br> +Before I came to my senses: that’s God’s truth:<br> +And may hell blast ... You’re sorry? Nay, but Jim’s<br> +Too old a bird to be caught with chaff. You’re fly:<br> +But, Jim’s fly, too. No: mum’s the word.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +O Jim,<br> +You, surely, never think I’d ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I don’t know.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">118</span> +A man in my case can’t tell who to trust,<br> +When every mongrel’s yowling for his carcase.<br> +Mum’s my best friend, the only one ... though, whiles,<br> +It’s seemed even he had blabbered out my secrets,<br> +And hollered them to rouse the countryside,<br> +And draw all eyes on me. But, I must mizzle.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’re going, Jim?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’ll not be taken here,<br> +Like a brock in his earth: I’ll not be trapped and torn ...<br> +Yet, I don’t know. Why should I go? No worse<br> +To be taken here than elsewhere: and I’m dead beat:<br> +I’m all to rovers, my wit’s all gone agate:<br> +And how can I travel in these boots? A week since<br> +The soles bid a fond farewell to the uppers: I’ve been<br> +Hirpling it, barefoot—ay, kind lady, barefoot.<br> +You’d hardly care to be in my shoes, Judith?<br> +While you’ve been sitting doose ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I’ve known the road:<br> +I’ve trudged it, too, lad: and your feet are bleeding.<br> +I’ll bathe them for you, Jim, before you go:<br> +And you shall have a pair of Michael’s boots.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +So, I may have young master’s cast-off boots,<br> +Since he’s stepped into my shoes—a fair swap!<br> +And tug my forelock, like a lousy tinker;<br> +And whine God bless the master of this house,<br> +Likewise the mistress, too ... By gox, I’ve come<br> +To charity—Jim Barrasford’s come to mooch<br> +For charity at Krindlesyke! Shanks’s mare’s<br> +A sorry nag at best; and lets you down,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">119</span> +Sooner or later, for certain—the last straw,<br> +When a man can’t trust his feet, and his own legs<br> +Give under him, in his need, and bring him down<br> +A devasher in the ditch as the dogs are on him!<br> +You’re sorry? I don’t know. How can I tell?<br> +You’re sly, you faggit; but don’t get over Jim<br> +With jookery-pawkry, Judith: I may be maiselt,<br> +But I’ve a little rummelgumption left:<br> +I still ken a bran from a brimmer—bless your heart!<br> +It suits you to get rid of me; and you judge<br> +It’s cheaply done at the price of a pair of tackities.<br> +Nay: I’ll be taken here.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You cannot stay.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Do you take me for a cangling cadger, to haggle ...<br> +Forgimety! I cannot ... God’s truth, I dare not!<br> +You’ve got me on the hop; and I must hirple;<br> +But if I go, I will not go alone:<br> +I’ve a mind to have a partner for this polka.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Alone? And who do you think that ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Who but you?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +If I’ve got to take the road again,<br> +You’ve got to pad it with me: for I’m tired<br> +Of travelling lonesome: I’ve a mind to have<br> +My doxy with me. By crikes! I’m fleyed to face<br> +The road again, alone. You’ll come ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +I cannot.<br> +How could I leave ...</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">120</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Then I’ll be taken here:<br> +You’ll be to blame.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +But, Jim, how could I leave ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The sooner it’s over, the better I’ll be pleased.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You mustn’t stop: and yet, I cannot go.<br> +How could I leave the bairn?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +The brat’s asleep.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +It won’t sleep long.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Its mammy’ll soon be home.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Not for three hours, at earliest.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Then I’ll wait<br> +Till then: they can’t be on my track so soon:<br> +And when its dad and mammy come back ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Nay, nay:<br> +They mustn’t find you here.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Judith, you’re right:<br> +For they might blab. I’d best be hooking it.<br> +I’ll go: but, mind, you’re not yet shot of me.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(As he is speaking, <span class = "charname">Bell Haggard</span> appears +in the doorway, and stands, with arms akimbo, watching them; but <span +class = "charname">Jim</span> has his back to the door, and <span class += "charname">Judith</span>, gazing into the fire, doesn’t see her +either.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ll wait for you beneath the Gallows Rigg,<br> +Where the burn skirts the planting, in the slack<br> +We trysted in, in the old days—do you mind?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I mind.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Trust you for that! And I’ll lie low:<br> +It’s a dry bottom: and when the family’s snoring<br> +<span class = "pagenum">121</span> +You’ll come to me. Just whicker like a peesweep<br> +Three times, and I’ll be with you in a jiffy.<br> +We’ll take the road together, bonnie lass;<br> +For we were always marrows, you and I.<br> +If only that flirtigig, Phœbe, hadn’t come<br> +Between me and my senses, we’d have wed,<br> +And settled down at Krindlesyke for life:<br> +But now we’ve got to hoof it to the end.<br> +My sang! ’twill be a honeymoon for me,<br> +After the rig I’ve run. But, hearken, Judith:<br> +If you don’t turn up by ten o’clock, I’ll come<br> +And batter on that door to wake the dead:<br> +I’ll make such a rumpus, such a Bob-’s-adying,<br> +Would rouse you, if you were straked. I’ll have you with me,<br> +If I’ve got to carry you, chested: sink my soul!<br> +And for all I care, that luggish slubberdegullion<br> +May lounder my hurdies; and go to Hecklebarney!<br> +I’m desperate, Judith ... and I don’t mind much ...<br> +But, you’ll come, lass?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’ll come.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Well, if you fail,<br> +They’ll take me here, as sure as death.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Bell</span> <span class = "stagedir">(stepping +forward)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +That’s so.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Jim</span> <span class = "stagedir">(wheeling +round)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +The devil!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Nay: not yet: all in good time.<br> +But I question they’ll wait till ten o’clock: they seemed<br> +Impatient for your company, deuce kens why:<br> +But then, what’s one man’s meat ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +What’s that you say?</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">122</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +They seemed dead-set ... You needn’t jump like that:<br> +I haven’t got the bracelets in my pocket.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And who the hell are you? and what do you mean?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You’ve seen my face before.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay—ay ... I’ve seen it:<br> +But I don’t ken your name. You dog my heels:<br> +I’ve seen your face ... I saw it on that night—<br> +That night ... and sink me, but I saw it last<br> +In the bar at Bellingham: your eyes were on me.<br> +Ay, and I’ve seen that phisgog many times:<br> +And it always brought ill-luck.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +It hasn’t served<br> +Its owner so much better: yet it’s my fortune,<br> +Though I’m no peachy milkmaid. Ay: I fancied<br> +’Twas you they meant.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Who meant?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +How should I know?<br> +You should ken best who’s after you, and what<br> +You’re wanted for? They might be friends of yours,<br> +For all I ken: though I’ve never taken, myself,<br> +To the little boy-blues. But, carties, I’d have fancied<br> +’Twould make your lugs burn—such a gillaber about you.<br> +They talked.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Who talked?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Your friends.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">123</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Friends? I’ve no friends.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Well: they were none of mine. Last night I slept<br> +’Neath Winter’s Stob ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +What’s that to do with me?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I slept till midnight, when a clank of chains<br> +Awakened me: and, looking up, I saw<br> +A body on the gibbet ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +A body, woman?<br> +No man’s hung there this hundred-year.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +I saw<br> +A tattered corpse against the hagging moon,<br> +Above me black.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You didn’t see the face?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I saw its face—before it disappeared,<br> +And left the gibbet bare.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You kenned the face?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I kenned the face.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Whose face? ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Best not to ask.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +O Christ!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +But we were talking of your friends:<br> +Quite anxious about you, they seemed.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Jim</span> <span class = "stagedir">(limping +towards <span class = "charname">Bell Haggard</span> with lifted +arm)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You cadger-quean!<br> +You’ve set them on. I’ll crack you over the cruntle—<br> +You rummel-dusty ... You muckhut ... You windyhash!<br> +<span class = "pagenum">124</span> +I’ll slit your weazen for you: I’ll break your jaw—<br> +I’ll stop your gob, if I’ve to do you in!<br> +You’ll not sleep under Winter’s Stob to-night.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Bell</span> <span class = "stagedir">(regarding +him, unmoved)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Jim</span> <span class = "stagedir">(stopping +short)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Hanged?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +To be hanged by the neck till you are dead.<br> +That bleaches you? But you’ll look whiter yet,<br> +When you lie cold and stiffening, my pretty bleater.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Jim</span> <span class = "stagedir">(shrinking +back)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You witch ... You witch! You’ve got the evil eye.<br> +Don’t look at me like that ... Come, let me go!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +A witch? Ay, wise men always carry witch-bane<br> +When they’ve to do with women. Witch, say you?<br> +Eh, lad, but you’ve been walking widdershins:<br> +You’d best turn deazil, crook your thumbs, my callant,<br> +And gather cowgrass, if you’d break the spell,<br> +And send the old witch skiting on her broomstick.<br> +They said that you’d make tracks for Krindlesyke:<br> +And they’d cop you here, for certain—dig you out<br> +Like a badger from his earth. I left them talking.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Where, you hell-hag?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Ah, where? You’d like to learn?<br> +It’s well to keep a civil tongue with witches,<br> +If you’ve no sliver of rowan in your pocket:<br> +Though it won’t need any witch, my jackadandy,<br> +To clap the clicking jimmies round your wrists.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">125</span> +To think I fashed myself to give you warning:<br> +And this is all the thanks I get! Well, well—<br> +They’ll soon be here. As I came up Bloodysyke ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Jim:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Up Bloodysyke: and they were following?<br> +I’d best cut over Gallows Rigg. My God,<br> +The hunt’s afoot ... But it may be a trap—<br> +And you ... And you ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Nay: but I’m no ratcatcher.<br> +You’d best turn tail, before the terriers sight you.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(As <span class = "charname">Jim</span> bolts past her and through the +open door)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +Rats! Rats! Good dog! ... And now we’re rid of vermin.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Oh, Bell, what has he done? What has he done?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +How should I ken?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +And yet you said ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +I said?<br> +You’ve surely not forgotten Bell Haggard’s tongue,<br> +After the taste you had of it the last time?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +What did you hear?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +A drunken blether-breeks<br> +In a bar at Bellingham: and I recognized<br> +Peter’s own brother, too; and guessed ’twas Jim:<br> +And when they gossiped of Krindlesyke ... Oh, I ken<br> +Ladies don’t listen: but not being a lady<br> +Whiles has advantages: and when he left<br> +His crony sprawling, splurging in the gutter,<br> +I followed him, full-pelt, hot on his heel,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">126</span> +Guessing the hanniel was up to little good.<br> +But he got here before me: so I waited<br> +Outside, until I heard him blustering;<br> +And judged it time to choke his cracking-croose.<br> +I couldn’t have that wastrel making mischief<br> +In Michael’s house: I didn’t quit Krindlesyke<br> +That it might be turned into a tinker’s dosshouse,<br> +Hotching with maggots like a reesty gowdy,<br> +For any hammy, halfnabs, and hang-gallows<br> +To stretch his lousy carcase in at ease,<br> +After I’d slutted to keep it respectable<br> +For fifteen-year.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +But what do you think he’s done—<br> +Not murder?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Murder? Nay: it takes a man<br> +To murder.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Ay ... But when you spoke of hanging,<br> +He turned like death: and when he threatened you,<br> +I saw blue-murder in his eyes.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +At most,<br> +’Twould be manslaughter with the likes of him.<br> +I’ve some respect for murderers: they, at least,<br> +Take things into their own hands, and don’t wait<br> +On lucky chances, like the rest of us—<br> +Murderers and suicides ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +But Jim?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +I’d back<br> +Cain against Abel, ay, and hairy Esau<br> +Against that smooth sneak Jacob. Jim? He’s likely<br> +Done in some doxy in a drunken sleep:<br> +’Twould be about his measure.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">127</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Jim—O Jim!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay: he’ll not dangle in a hempen noose.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And yet you saw his body ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Dead men’s knuckles!<br> +You didn’t swallow that gammon? Why should I<br> +Be sleeping under Winter’s Stob? But Jim—<br> +I doubt if he’d the guts to stick a porker:<br> +You needn’t fear for him. But I must go.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Go? You’ll not go without a sup of tea,<br> +After you’ve traiked so far? Michael and Ruth ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, Judith: I just caught a squint of them<br> +Among the cluther outside the circus-tent:<br> +But I was full-tilt on Jim’s track, then: and so,<br> +I couldn’t daunder: or I’d have stopped to have<br> +A closer look: yet I saw that each was carrying<br> +A little image of a Barrasford:</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Looking into the cradle.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +And here’s the reckling image, seemingly—<br> +The sleeping spit of Michael at the age.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +You never saw such laleeking lads: and they<br> +All fashion after their father.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I’m glad I came.<br> +Even if I’d not struck Jim, I’d meant to come,<br> +And have a prowl round the old gaol, and see<br> +How Michael throve: although I hadn’t ettled<br> +To cross the doorstone—just to come and go,<br> +And not a soul the wiser. But it turns out<br> +I was fated to get here in the nick of time:<br> +It seems the old witch drew me here once more<br> +To serve her turn and save the happy home.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">128</span> +I judged you’d lost your hold on me, Eliza:<br> +But, once a ghost has got a grip of you,<br> +It won’t let go its clutch on your life until<br> +It’s dragged you into the grave with it: even then ...<br> +Although my ghost should prove a match for any,<br> +I’d fancy, with a fair field, and no favour.<br> +But ghosts and graves! I’m down-in-the-mouth to-day:<br> +I must have supped off toadstools on a tombstone,<br> +Or happen the droppy weather makes me dyvous:<br> +I never could thole the mooth and muggy mizzle,<br> +Seeping me sodden: I’d liefer it teemed wholewater,<br> +A sousing, drooking downpour, any time.<br> +I’m dowf and blunkit, why, deuce only kens!<br> +It seems as if Eliza had me fey:<br> +And that old witch would be the death of me:<br> +And these white walls ... ’Twould be the queerest start!<br> +But, Michael’s happy?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +He’s the best of husbands—<br> +The best of fathers: he ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I ken, I ken.<br> +Well ... He’s got what he wanted, anyway.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +And you?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Ay ... I was born to take my luck.<br> +But I must go.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +You’ll not wait for them?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Nay:<br> +I’m dead to them: I’ve bid good-bye to them<br> +Till doomsday: and I’m through with Krindlesyke,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">129</span> +This time, I hope—though you can never tell.<br> +I hadn’t ettled to darken the door again;<br> +Yet here I am: and even now the walls<br> +Seem closing ... It would be the queerest start<br> +If, after all ... But, dod, I’ve got the dismals,<br> +And no mistake! I’m in the dowie dumps—<br> +Maundering and moonging like a spancelled cow:<br> +It’s over dour and dearn for me in this loaning<br> +On a dowly day. Best pull myself together,<br> +And put my best foot foremost before darkening:<br> +And I’ve no mind to meet them in the road.<br> +So long!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She goes out of the door and makes down the syke.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +Good-bye! If you’d only bide a while ...<br> +Come back! You mustn’t go like that ... Bell, Bell!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She breaks off, as <span class = "charname">Bell Haggard</span> is +already out of hearing, and stands watching her till she is out of +sight; then turns, closing the door, and sinks into a chair in an +abstracted fashion. She takes up her knitting mechanically, but sits, +motionless, brooding by the fire.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +To think that Jim—and after all these years ...<br> +And then, to come like that! I wonder what ...<br> +I wish he hadn’t gone without the boots.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She resumes her knitting, musing in silence, until she is roused by the +click of the latch. The door opens, and <span class = "charname">Bell +Haggard</span> stumbles into <span class = "pagenum">130</span> the room +and sinks to the floor in a heap. Her brow is bleeding, and her dress, +torn and dishevelled.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Judith</span> <span class = +"stagedir">(starting up)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Bell! What has happened, woman? Are you hurt?<br> +Oh, but your brow is bleeding!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I’d an inkling<br> +There must be blood somewhere: I seemed to smell it.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +But what has happened, Bell? Don’t say ’twas Jim!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Nay ... nay ... it wasn’t Jim ... I stumbled, Judith:<br> +And, seemingly, I cracked my cruntle a bit—<br> +It’s Jill fell down, and cracked her crown, this journey.<br> +I smelt the blood ... but, it’s not there, the pain ...<br> +It’s in my side ... I must have dunched my side<br> +Against a stone in falling ... I could fancy<br> +A rib or so’s gone smash.</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Judith</span> <span class = "stagedir">(putting +an arm about her and helping her to rise)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Come and lie down,<br> +And I’ll see what ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Nay: but I’ll not lie down:<br> +I’m not that bad ... and, anyhow, I swore<br> +I’d not lie down again at Krindlesyke.<br> +If I lay down, the walls would close on me,<br> +And scrunch the life out ... But I’m havering—<br> +Craitching and craking like a doitered crone.<br> +Lightheaded from the tumble ... mother-wit’s<br> +Jirbled and jumbled ... I came such a flam.<br> +I’m not that bad ... I say, I’ll not lie down ...<br> +<span class = "pagenum">131</span> +Just let me rest a moment by the hearth,<br> +Until ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Judith</span> leads her to a chair, fetches a +basin of water and some linen, and bathes the wound on <span class = +"charname">Bell’s</span> brow.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line one"> +I wish ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I’m better here. I’ll soon<br> +Be fit again ... Bell isn’t done for, yet:<br> +She’s a tough customer—she’s always been<br> +A banging, bobberous bletherskite, has Bell—<br> +No fushenless, brashy, mim-mouthed mealy-face,<br> +Fratished and perished in the howl-o’-winter.<br> +No wind has ever blown too etherish,<br> +Too snell to fire her blood: she’s always relished<br> +A gorly, gousty, blusterous day that sets<br> +Her body alow and birselling like a whinfire.<br> +But what a windyhash! My wit’s wool-gathering;<br> +And I’m waffling like a ... But I’d best be stepping,<br> +Before he comes: I’ve far to travel to-night:<br> +And I’m not so young ... And Michael mustn’t find<br> +His tinker-mother, squatted by the hearth,<br> +Nursing a bloody head. But, mind you, Judith:<br> +I stumbled; and I hurt my side in falling:<br> +Whatever they may say, you stick to that:<br> +Swear that I told you that upon my oath—<br> +So help me God, and all—my bible-oath.<br> +I’m better ... already ... I fancy ... and I’ll go<br> +Before ... What was I saying? Well, old hob,<br> +I little ettled I’d look on you again.<br> +The times I’ve polished you, the elbow-grease<br> +I’ve wasted on you: but I never made<br> +<span class = "pagenum">132</span> +You shine like that ... You’re winking red eyes at me:<br> +And well you may, to see ... I little guessed<br> +You’d see me sitting ... I’ve watched many fires<br> +Since last I sat beside this hearth—good fires:<br> +Coal, coke, and peat, but wood-fires in the main.<br> +There’s naught like izles for dancing flames and singing:<br> +Birch kindles best, and has the liveliest flames:<br> +But elm just smoulders—it’s the coffin-wood ...<br> +Coffins? Who muttered coffins? Let’s not talk<br> +Of coffins, Judith ... Shut in a black box!<br> +They couldn’t keep old Ezra in: the lid<br> +Flew off; and old granddaddy sat up, girning ...<br> +They had to screw him down ... And Solomon<br> +Slept with his fathers ... I wonder he could sleep,<br> +After the razzle-dazzle ... Concubines!<br> +’Twould take a pyramid to keep him down!<br> +And me ... That tumble’s cracked the bell ... not stopt<br> +The crazy clapper, seemingly ... But, coffins—<br> +Let’s talk no more of coffins: what have I<br> +To do with coffins? Let us talk of fires:<br> +I’ve always loved a fire: I’d set the world<br> +Alow for my delight, if it would burn.<br> +It’s such a soggy, sodden world to-day,<br> +I’m duberous I could kindle it with an izle:<br> +It might just smoulder with muckle funeral-plumes<br> +Of smoke, like coffin-elder ... And the blaze—<br> +The biggest flare-up ever I set eyes on,<br> +It was a kind of funeral, you might say—<br> +A fiery, flaming, roaring funeral,<br> +<span class = "pagenum">133</span> +A funeral such as I ... but no such luck<br> +For me in this world—likely, in the next!<br> +And anyway, it wouldn’t be much fun,<br> +If I couldn’t watch it, myself ... Ay, Long Nick Salkeld,<br> +And his old woman, Zillah, died together,<br> +The selfsame day, within an hour or so.<br> +’Twas on Spadeadam Waste we’d camped that time ...<br> +And kenning how they loved their caravan,<br> +And how they’d hate to leave it, or be parted<br> +From one another, even by a foot of earth,<br> +We laid them out, together, side by side,<br> +In the van, as they’d slept in it, night after night,<br> +For hard on fifty-year. We took naught out,<br> +And shifted naught: just burnished up the brasses,<br> +Till they twinkled as Zillah’d kept them, while she could ...<br> +And so, with not a coffin-board betwixt them,<br> +At dead of night we fired the caravan ...<br> +The flames leapt up; and roaring to the stars,<br> +As we stood round ... The flames leapt up, and roaring ...<br> +I hear them roaring now ... the flames ... I hear ...<br> +Flames roaring in my head ... I hear ... I hear ...<br> +And flying izles ... falling sparks ... I hear<br> +Flames roaring ... roaring ... roaring ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(She sways forward, but <span class = "charname">Judith</span> catches +her in her arms.)</p> + +<p class = "line"> +Where am I? Judith, is that you?<br> +How did I come here, honey? But, now I mind—<br> +I fell ... He must have hidden in the heather<br> +<span class = "pagenum">134</span> +To trip me up ... He kicked me, as I lay—<br> +The harrygad!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Jim!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Nay! What am I saying?<br> +I stumbled, Judith: you must stick to that,<br> +Whatever they may say ... I stumbled, Judith.<br> +Think what would happen if they strung Jim up;<br> +Should I ... you can’t hang any man alone ...<br> +Think what would happen should I ... Don’t you see,<br> +We cannot let them string up Michael’s uncle?<br> +Respectable ... it wouldn’t be respectable ...<br> +And I ... I slutted, fifteen ... I’d an inkling<br> +There must be blood, somewhere ... I thought I smelt it ...<br> +And it tastes salt on the lips ... It’s choking me ...<br> +It’s fire and salt and candle-light for me<br> +This time, and Whinny Muir and Brig-o’-Dread ...<br> +I’m done for, Judith ... It’s all up with me ...<br> +It’s been a fine ploy, while it lasted ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Come ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Life with a smack in it: death with a tang ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I’ll help you into bed.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Bell Haggard</span> gazes about her in a dazed +fashion, as <span class = "charname">Judith</span> raises her and +supports her across the floor towards the inner room.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Bed, did you say?<br> +Bed, it’s not bedtime, is it? To bed, to bed,<br> +Says Sleepyhead: tarry awhile, says Slow:<br> +Put on the pot, says Greedygut ... I swore<br> +I’d not lie down ... You cannot dodge your luck:<br> +It had to be ... And I must dree my weird.<br> +<span class = "pagenum">135</span> +When first I came to Krindlesyke, I felt<br> +These walls ... these walls ... They’re closing on me now!<br> +Let’s sup before we go!</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(They pass into the other room, but <span class = "charname">Bell +Haggard’s</span> voice still sounds through the open door.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Bell:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Nay! not that bed—<br> +Eliza’s bed! The old witch lay in wait<br> +For me ... and now she has me! Well, what odds?<br> +Jim called me witch: and the old spaewife and I<br> +Should be the doose bedfellows, after all.<br> +Early to bed and early to rise ... I’ve never<br> +Turned in, while I could wink an eye, before:<br> +I’ve always sat late ... And I’d sit it out<br> +Now ... But I’m dizzy ... And that old witch, Eliza—<br> +I little guessed she’d play this cantrip on me:<br> +But what a jest—Jerusalem, what a jest!<br> +She must be chuckling, thinking how she’s done me:<br> +And I could laugh, if it wasn’t for the pain ...<br> +It doesn’t do to rattle broken ribs—<br> +But I could die of laughing, split my sides,<br> +If they weren’t split already. Yet my clapper<br> +Keeps wagging: and I’m my own passing-bell—<br> +They knew, who named me ... Talking to gain time ...<br> +It’s running out so quick ... And mum’s the word:<br> +I mustn’t rouse her ... She sleeps couthily,<br> +Free of the coil of cumber and trouble ... I never<br> +<span class = "pagenum">136</span> +Looked on a lonelier face ... The flames ... the flames ...<br> +They’re roaring to the stars ... roaring ... roaring ...<br> +The heather’s all turned gold ... and golden showers—<br> +Izles and flying embers and falling stars ...<br> +Great flakes of fire ... They’ve set the world alow ...<br> +It’s all about me ... blood-red in my eyes ...<br> +I’m burning ... What have I to do with worms!<br> +Burning ... burning ... burning ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(Her voice sinks to a low moaning, which goes on for some time, then +stops abruptly. After a while, <span class = "charname">Judith</span> +comes into the living-room, fills a basin of water from a bucket, and +carries it into the other room. She returns with <span class = +"charname">Bell’s</span> orange-coloured kerchief, which she throws on +the fire, where it burns to a grey wisp. She then takes a nightdress and +a white mutch from a drawer in the dresser, and carries them into the +other room, where she stays for some time. The baby in the cradle +wakens, and begins to whimper till <span class = +"charname">Judith</span> comes out, shutting the door behind her, and +takes it in her arms.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Whisht, whisht, my canny hinny, my bonnie boy!<br> +Your wee warm body’s good to cuddle after ...<br> +Whisht, whisht! <span class = "stagedir">(Gazing in the +fire.)</span></p> + +<p class = "line one"> +First, Phœbe—and then, Bell ... Oh, Jim!</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">137</span> +<p class = "stagedir"> +Steps are heard on the threshold, and <span class = +"charname">Michael</span> and <span class = "charname">Ruth</span> +enter, carrying their sleeping sons, <span class = +"charname">Nicholas</span>, aged five, and <span class = +"charname">Ralph</span>, aged three. They put down the children on the +settle by the hearth, where they sit, dazed and silent, sleepily rubbing +their eyes.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Well, I’m not sorry to be home again:<br> +My arms are fairly broken.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +Ay: they’re heavy.<br> +The hoggerel you lift up turns a sheep<br> +Before you set it down again. Well, Judith,<br> +You’ve had a quiet day of it, I warrant?</p> + +<p class = "speaker"> +<span class = "charname">Judith</span> <span class = "stagedir">(in a +low voice)</span>:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Michael, your mother’s here.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +My mother here?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +I always fancied she’d turn up again,<br> +In spite of all her raivelling—Michael, you mind,<br> +About the mutch with frills, and all thon havers?<br> +But where we are to put her I can’t think:<br> +There’s not a bed for her.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +She’s on my bed.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Your bed? But you ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +She’s welcome to my bed,<br> +As long as she has need. She’ll not lie long,<br> +Before they lift her.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Michael:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Judith!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +She’s not dead?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Ay, son: she breathed her last an hour ago.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ruth:</p> +<p class = "line"> +So, after all, the poor old soul crept back<br> +To Krindlesyke to die.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">138</span> +<p class = "stagedir"> +(<span class = "charname">Michael Barrasford</span>, without a word, +moves towards the inner room in a dazed manner, lifts the latch, and +goes in. After a moment’s hesitation, <span class = +"charname">Ruth</span> follows him, closing the door behind her. The +boys, who have been sitting staring at the fire, drowsily and unheeding, +rouse themselves gradually, stretching and yawning.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Nicholas:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Grannie, we saw the circus:<br> +And Ralph still says he wants to be a herd,<br> +Like dad: but I can’t bide the silly baas.<br> +When I’m a man I’ll be a circus-rider,<br> +And gallop, gallop! I’m clean daft on horses.</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(An owl hoots piercingly without.)</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ralph:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Grannie, what’s that?</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Only an owl, son.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Nicholas:</p> +<p class = "line four"> +Bo!<br> +Fearent of hoolets!</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ralph:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +I thought it was a bo-lo.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Nicholas:</p> +<p class = "line"> +Bo-los or horneys or wirrakows can’t scare me:<br> +And I like to hear the jinneyhoolets scritching:<br> +It gives me such a queer, cold, creepy feeling.<br> +I like to feel the shivers in my hair.<br> +When I’m a man I’ll ride the fells by moonlight,<br> +Like the mosstroopers, when the owls are skirling.<br> +They used to gallop on their galloways,<br> +The reivers, dad says ...</p> + +<p class = "stagedir"> +(The owl calls again, and is answered by its mate; and then they seem to +be flying round and round Krindlesyke, hooting shrilly.)</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">139</span> +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ralph:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Oh, there it is again!<br> +Grannie, I’m freckened ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +Its an ellerish yelling:<br> +I never heard ...</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Ralph:</p> +<p class = "line two"> +What’s in the other room?<br> +I want my dad and mammy.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Judith:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +You’re overtired.<br> +Come, I’ll undress you, and tuck you into bed:<br> +And you’ll sleep sound, my lamb, as sound and snug<br> +As a yeanling in a maud-neuk.</p> + +<p class = "speaker charname"> +Nicholas:</p> +<p class = "line three"> +I’ll ride! I’ll ride!</p> + + + + + +<span class = "pagenum">140</span> +<h4 class = "chapter">EPILOGUE</h4> + + +<p class = "line first"> +Ghosts of my fathers, where you keep<br> +On ghostly hills your ghostly sheep,<br> +Should you a moment chance to turn<br> +The pages of this book to learn<br> +What trade your offspring’s taken to,<br> +Because my exiled heart is true<br> +To your Northumbrian fells and you,<br> +Forgive me that my flocks and herds<br> +Are only barren bleating words.</p> + + + + +<h6 class = "chapter">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY<br> +BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER</h6> + +<hr class = "mid"> + +<div class = "mynote"> +All following text was printed at the beginning of the book.</div> + +<div class = "frontpage"> + +<h2 class = "ital extended">KRINDLESYKE</h2> + +<h3 class = "ital">BY WILFRID GIBSON</h3> + +<h4 class = "ital">Author of ‘Livelihood,’ ‘Whin,’<br> +‘Neighbours,’ &c.</h4> + + +<h4 class = "section"><i>Crown 8vo.</i><br> +6/-<br> +<i>Net.</i></h4> + + +<h4 class = "chapter ital">MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED</h4> +<h4 class = "ital">St. Martin’s Street, London</h4> +<h4>1922</h4> + +</div> + + +<p class = "chapter"> +<span class = "firstletter">M</span><span class = "firstword">r. +Gibson’s</span> new work is a tragic drama in blank verse, concerned +with three generations of a family of Northumbrian shepherds. The title, +‘Krindlesyke,’ is taken from the name of the lonely cottage on the fells +where they live and the incidents of the story pass.</p> + +<p>While ‘Krindlesyke’ is not in dialect, it has been flavoured with a +sprinkling of local words; but as these are, for the most part, words +expressive of emotion, rather than words conveying information, the +sense of them should be easily gathered even by the south-country +reader.</p> + + +<h3 class = "ital">Some Press Opinions</h3> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>The Poetry Review.</i>—‘A new book by Mr. Wilfrid Gibson must +always arouse interest, for his genius has been displayed in such varied +forms that one can only wonder what new development, what new blending +of his great qualities may appear.... In “Krindlesyke” he may be said to +have astounded us all by achieving the seemingly impossible combination +of the diverse qualities he has hitherto displayed separately.... Ezra +Barrasford and his sons appear, amidst the wreck they have made, +wonderfully convincing characters.... The women are no less +convincing—good-hearted, toil-worn Eliza, driven to “nagging” by +her husband and sons; Bell Haggard, a truly wonderful study; Judith, who +has learned much wisdom from bitter experience. As to the language, it +is wonderfully true to country life and character.’</p> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>The Daily News.</i>—‘There is much breadth of vision and much +of that bitter wisdom that is yet half beauty in this poem.’</p> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>Mr. Laurence Binyon in The Observer.</i>—‘“Krindlesyke” is at +once the most ambitious and the strongest work that Mr. Wilfrid Gibson +has given us. It is a dramatic poem, firmly designed, and carried out +with abundant energy and power.’</p> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>The Times Literary Supplement.</i>—‘The poet of deep and +self-forgetful feeling must, we venture to think, survive when mannered +muses are forgotten. Mr. Gibson is such a poet.... It is his distinction +to belong to the school of Wordsworth in an age which is generally too +clever, hasty, and conscious to wait upon “the still sad music of +humanity.” ... “Krindlesyke” is a notable achievement of the sympathetic +imagination.’</p> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>Prof. C. H. Herford in The Manchester Guardian.</i>—‘Bell’s +talk is full of salt and vivacity, a brilliant stream in which city +slang reinforces rustic idiom, and both are re-manipulated by +inexhaustible native wit. She is the most remarkable creation in a +gallery where not a single figure is indistinct or conventional.... Mr. +Gibson’s essay—for there is confessedly something experimental +about it—must be reckoned, with those of Mr. Abercrombie, to whom +“Krindlesyke” is dedicated, among the most remarkable dramatic poems of +our time.’</p> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>The Aberdeen Journal.</i>—‘“Krindlesyke” is incontestably the +best work Mr. Gibson has so far given us. It is amazingly +good—vivid, sincere, living, felt in the marrow of his bones and +the beat of his heart.... Here are peasants that belong to a world as +true and as deeply felt as those of Hardy and Synge. They are provincial +only in the sense that Wordsworth’s dalesmen and women are provincial; +that is, they are, in the true sense, universal.... No recent work is +more worth reading.... Mr. Gibson has fashioned for his peasants the +rich, racy, coloured, vigorous speech that is essential to them. No +thing of book this.... As peasant talk it rings true; its rich tang is a +rare delight.’</p> + + +<h4 class = "section ital">Other Works by Wilfrid Gibson</h4> + +<hr class = "tiny"> + +<h5 class = "ital">Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net</h5> +<h4 class = "ital extended">LIVELIHOOD</h4> +<h5 class = "ital">Dramatic Reveries</h5> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>The Times.</i> ‘All have the same freedom, vigour, life, tenderness, +minute and thoughtful observation, ever-present sense of the +interestingness of human beings and their doings and feelings, work and +love and play. There is not a dull page in them.’</p> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>Katharine Tynan in The Bookman.</i> ‘These “Dramatic Reveries” are +compact of imagination.... The poems are so much extraordinarily vivid +and compelling short stories that they might be read with zest by a man +with no poetry in his soul, although that man would miss the beauty of +poetry which lies over the tale.’</p> + + +<h5 class = "ital">Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net</h5> +<h4 class = "ital extended">WHIN</h4> +<h5 class = "ital">Poems</h5> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>The Observer.</i> ‘There are charming things in this little book.... +Throughout there is a very cunning use of northern place names that stir +the imagination like the sound of the Borderers’ riding. +“R. L. S.” would have liked these names and used them as +cunningly.’</p> + + +<h5 class = "ital">Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net</h5> +<h4 class = "ital extended">NEIGHBOURS</h4> +<h5 class = "ital">Poems</h5> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>The Westminster Gazette.</i> ‘The workmanship of these heart-breaking +little studies is, as we should expect from Mr. Gibson, honest and +exact. Their grim view of human destiny, its all-pervading greyness, is +presented with appropriate austerity; and this restraint and detachment +increase their vividness and force.... The beautiful sonnets in the +section called “Home” show that he, too, is capable of delight.’</p> + +<p class = "critic"> +<i>The Spectator.</i> ‘Mr. Gibson’s skill is most admirable when we +consider that it is allied to poetic feeling of the utmost simplicity +and depth.’</p> + + +<h5 class = "section ital">LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.</h5> + + + + +<h5 class = "chapter ital">BY THE SAME WRITER</h5> + +<table> +<tr> +<td>NEIGHBOURS</td><td>1920</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>WHIN</td><td>1918</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>LIVELIHOOD</td><td>1917</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>FRIENDS</td><td>1916</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>BATTLE</td><td>1915</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>BORDERLANDS</td><td>1914</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "rightpad">THOROUGHFARES</td><td>1914</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>FIRES</td><td>1912</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>DAILY BREAD</td><td>1910</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>STONEFOLDS</td><td>1907</td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class = "chapter mid"> + +<h5>KRINDLESYKE</h5> + +<hr class = "mid"> + +<br> +<br> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/publogo.png" width = "144" height = "41" +alt = "publisher's logo"></p> + +<h5 class = "smallcaps">MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited</h5> +<h6>LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS<br> +MELBOURNE</h6> + +<h5>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h5> +<h6>NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO<br> +DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO</h6> + +<h5 class = "smallcaps">THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.</h5> +<h6>TORONTO</h6> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Krindlesyke, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KRINDLESYKE *** + +***** This file should be named 18743-h.htm or 18743-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/4/18743/ + +Produced by Louise Hope, Alicia Williams and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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