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diff --git a/18743.txt b/18743.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26daefc --- /dev/null +++ b/18743.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5968 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KRINDLESYKE *** + + + + +Produced by Louise Hope, Alicia Williams and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: + +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.] + + + * * * * * + + + KRINDLESYKE + + BY WILFRID GIBSON + + + * * * * * + + + Macmillan And Co., Limited + St. Martin's Street, London + 1922 + + + + + Copyright + Printed in Great Britain + + + + + To + +CATHERINE and LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE + + + + +NOTE + + +On 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. + +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. + + W. G. + + + + +PRELUDE + + +Four bleak stone walls, an eaveless, bleak stone roof, +Like a squared block of native crag, it stands, +Hunched, on skirlnaked, windy fells, aloof: +Yet, was it built by patient human hands: +Hands, that have long been dust, chiselled each stone, +And bedded it secure; and from the square +Squat chimneystack, hither and thither blown, +The reek of human fires still floats in air, +And perishes, as life on life burns through. +Squareset and stark to every blast that blows, +It bears the brunt of time, withstands anew +Wildfires of tempest and league-scouring snows, +Dour and unshaken by any mortal doom, +Timeless, unstirred by any mortal dream: +And ghosts of reivers gather in the gloom +About it, muttering, when the lych-owls scream. + + + + +"From one generation to another." + + + * * * * * + + + BOOK I + + PHOEBE BARRASFORD + + + * * * * * + + +BOOK I + +PHOEBE BARRASFORD + + +_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. EZRA BARRASFORD, 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. ELIZA BARRASFORD, his wife, + is busy, making griddle-cakes over the peat fire._ + +ELIZA (_glancing at the wag-at-the-wa'_): +It's hard on three o'clock, and they'll be home +Before so very long now. + +EZRA: + Eh, what's that? + +ELIZA: +You're growing duller every day. I said +They'd soon be home now. + +EZRA: + They? And who be they? + +ELIZA: +My faith, you've got a memory like a milk-sile! +You've not forgotten Jim's away to wed? +You're not that dull. + +EZRA: + We cannot all be needles: +And some folk's tongues are sharper than their wits. +Yet, till thon spirt of hot tar blinded me, +No chap was cuter in all the countryside, +Or better at a bargain; and it took +A nimble tongue to bandy words with mine. +You'd got to be up betimes to get round Ezra: +And none was a shrewder judge of ewes, or women. +My wits just failed me once, the day I married: +But, you're an early riser, and your tongue +Is always up before you, and with an edge, +Unblunted by the dewfall, and as busy +As a scythe in the grass at Lammas. So Jim's away +To wed, is he, the limb? I thought he'd gone +For swedes; though now, I mind some babblement +About a wedding: but, nowadays, words tumble +Through my old head like turnips through a slicer; +And naught I ken who the bowdykite's to wed-- +Some bletherskite he's picked up in a ditch, +Some fond fligary flirtigig, clarty-fine, +Who'll turn a slattern-shrew and a cap-river +Within a week, if I ken aught of Jim. +Unless ... Nay, sure, 'twas Judith Ellershaw. + +ELIZA: +No, no; you're dull, indeed. It's Phoebe Martin. + +EZRA: +Who's Phoebe Martin? I ken naught of her. + +ELIZA: +And I, but little. + +EZRA: + Some trapsing tatterwallops, +I'll warrant. Well, these days, the lads are like +The young cockgrouse, who doesn't consult his dad +Before he mates. In my--yet, come to think, +I didn't say overmuch. My dad and mammy +Scarce kenned her name when I sprung my bride on them; +Just loosed on them a gisseypig out of a poke +They'd heard no squeak of. They'd to thole my choice, +Lump it or like it. I'd the upper hand then: +And well they kenned their master. No tawse to chide, +Nor apron-strings to hold young Ezra then: +His turn had come; and he was cock of the midden, +And no braw cockerel's hustled him from it yet, +For all their crowing. The blind old bird's still game. +They've never had his spirit, the young cheepers, +Not one; and Jim's the lave of the clutch; and he +Will never lord it at Krindlesyke till I'm straked. +But this what's-her-name the gaby's bringing ... + +ELIZA: + Phoebe. + +EZRA: +A posical name; I never heard the like. +She'll be a flighty faggit, mark my words. + +ELIZA: +She's only been here once before; and now +She'll be here all the time. I'll find it strange +With another woman in the house. Needs must +Get used to it. Your mother found it strange, +Likely ... It's my turn now, and long in coming. +Perhaps, that makes it harder. I've got set +Like a vane, when the wind's blown east so long, it's clogged +With dust, and cannot whisk with the chopping breeze. +'Twill need a wrench to shift my bent; for change +Comes sore and difficult at my time of life. + +EZRA: +Ay, you may find your nose put out of joint, +If she's a spirited wench. + +ELIZA: + Due east it's blown +Since your mother died. She barely outlived my coming; +And never saw a grandchild. I wonder ... Yet, +I spared her all I could. Ay, that was it: +She couldn't abide to watch me trying to spare her, +Another woman doing her work, finoodling +At jobs she'd do so smartly, tidying her hearth, +Using her oven, washing her cups and saucers, +Scouring her tables, redding up her rooms, +Handling her treasures, and wearing out her gear. +And now, another, wringing out my dishclout, +And going about my jobs in her own fashion; +Turning my household, likely, howthery-towthery, +While I sit mum. But it takes forty years' +Steady east wind to teach some folk; and then +They're overdried to profit by their learning. +And so, without a complaint, and keeping her secrets, +Your mother died with patient, quizzical eyes, +Half-pitying, fixed on mine; and dying, left +Krindlesyke and its gear to its new mistress. + +EZRA: +A woman, she was. You've never had her hand +At farls and bannocks; and her singing-hinnies +Fair melted in the mouth--not sad and soggy +As yours are like to be. She'd no habnab +And hitty-missy ways; and she'd turn to, +At shearing-time, and clip with any man. +She never spared herself. + +ELIZA: + And died at forty, +As white and worn as an old table-cloth, +Darned, washed, and ironed to a shred of cobweb, +Past mending; while your father was sixty-nine +Before he could finish himself, soak as he might. + +EZRA: +Don't you abuse my father. A man, he was-- +No fonder of his glass than a man should be. +Few like him now: I've not his guts, and Jim's +Just a lamb's head, gets half-cocked on a thimble, +And mortal, swilling an eggcupful; a gill +Would send him randy, reeling to the gallows. +Dad was the boy! Got through three bottles a day, +And never turned a hair, when his own master, +Before we'd to quit Rawridge, because the dandy +Had put himself outside of all his money-- +Teeming it down his throat in liquid gold, +Swallowing stock and plenishing, gear and graith. +A bull-trout's gape and a salamander thrapple-- +A man, and no mistake! + +ELIZA: + A man; and so, +She died; and since your mother was carried out, +Hardly a woman's crossed the threshold, and none +Has slept the night at Krindlesyke. Forty-year, +With none but men! They've kept me at it; and now +Jim's bride's to take the work from my hands, and do +Things over that I've done over for forty-year, +Since I took them from your mother--things some woman's +Been doing at Krindlesyke since the first bride +Came home. + +EZRA: + Three hundred years since the first herd +Cut peats for that hearth's kindling. Set alow, +Once and for all, it's seen a wheen lives burn +Black-out: and when we, too, lie in the house +That never knew housewarming, 'twill be glowing. +Ay! and some woman's tongue's been going it, +Like a wag-at-the-wa', in this steading, three hundred years, +Tick-tocking the same things over. + +ELIZA: + Dare say, we'll manage: +A decent lass--though something in her eye, +I couldn't quite make out. Hardly Jim's sort ... +But, who can ever tell why women marry? +And Jim ... + +EZRA: + Takes after me: and wenches buzz +Round a handsome lad, as wasps about a bunghole. + +ELIZA: +Though now they only see skin-deep, those eyes +Will search the marrow. Jim will have his hands full, +Unless she's used to menfolk and their ways, +And past the minding. She'd the quietness +That's a kind of pride, and yet, not haughty--held +Her head like a young blood-mare, that's mettlesome +Without a touch of vice. She'll gan her gait +Through this world, and the next. The bit in her teeth, +There'll be no holding her, though Jim may tug +The snaffle, till he's tewed. I've kenned that look +In women's eyes, and mares', though, with a difference. +And Jim--yet she seemed fond enough of Jim: +His daffing's likely fresh to her, though his jokes +Are last week's butter. Last week's! For forty-year +I've tholed them, all twice-borrowed, from dad and granddad, +And rank, when I came to Krindlesyke, to find +Life, the same jobs and same jests over and over. + +EZRA: +A notion, that, to hatch, full-fledged and crowing! +You must have brooded, old clocker. + +ELIZA: + True enough, +Marriage means little more than a new gown +To some: but Phoebe's not a fancicle tauntril, +With fingers itching to hansel new-fangled flerds. +Why she'd wed ... + +EZRA: + Tuts! Girls take their chance. And you'd +Conceit enough of Jim, at one time--proud +As a pipit that's hatched a cuckoo: and if the gowk +Were half as handsome as I--you ken, yourself, +You needed no coaxing: I wasted little breath +Whistling to heel: you came at the first "Isca!" + +ELIZA: +Who kens what a lass runs away from, crazed to quit +Home, at all hazards, little realizing +It's life, itself, she's trying to escape; +And plodging deeper. + +EZRA: + Trust a wench for kenning. +I've to meet the wife who'd be a maid again: +Once in the fire, no wife, though she may crackle +On the live coals, leaps back to the frying-pan. +It's against nature. + +ELIZA: + Maybe: and yet, somehow, +Phoebe seemed different. + +EZRA: + I've found little difference +Betwixt one gimmer and another gimmer, +When the ram's among them. But, where does she hail from? + +ELIZA: +Allendale way. Jim met her at Martinmas fair. + +EZRA: +We met ... + +ELIZA: + Ay, fairs have much to answer for. + +EZRA: +I thought 'twas Judith Ellershaw. + +ELIZA: + God forbid +'Twas Judith I'd to share with: though Jim fancied +The lass, at one time. He's had many fancies: +Light come, light go, it's always been with Jim. + +EZRA: +And I was gay when I was young--as brisk +As a yearling tup with the ewes, till I'd the pains, +Like red-hot iron, clamping back and thighs. +My heart's a younker's still; but even love +Gives in, at last, to rheumatics and lumbago. +Now, I'm no better than an old bell-wether, +A broken-winded, hirpling tattyjack +That can do nothing but baa and baa and baa. +I'd just to whistle for a wench at Jim's age: +And Jim's ... + +ELIZA: + His father's son. + +EZRA: + He's never had +My spirit. No woman's ever bested me. +For all his bluster, he's a gaumless nowt, +With neither guts nor gall. He just butts blindly-- +A woolly-witted ram, bashing his horns, +And spattering its silly brains out on a rock: +No backbone--any trollop could twiddle him +Round her little finger: just the sort a doxy, +Or a drop too much, sets dancing, heels in air: +He's got the gallows' brand. But none of your sons +Has a head for whisky or wenches; and not one +Has half my spunk, my relish. I'd not trust +Their judgment of a ewe, let alone a woman: +But I could size a wench up, at a glance; +And Judith ... + +ELIZA: + Ay: but Krindlesyke would be +A muckheap-lie-on, with that cloffy slut +For mistress. But she flitted one fine night. + +EZRA: +Rarely the shots of the flock turn lowpy-dyke; +Likelier the tops have the spunk to run ramrace; +And I think no worse ... + +ELIZA: + Her father turned her out, +'Twas whispered; and he's never named her, since: +And no one's heard a word. I couldn't thole +The lass. She'd big cow-eyes: there's little good +In that sort. Jim's well shot of her; he'll not +Hear tell of her: that sort can always find +Another man to fool: they don't come back: +Past's past, with them. + +EZRA: + I liked ... + +ELIZA: + Ay, you're Jim's dad. +But now he's settling down, happen I'll see +Bairn's bairns at Krindlesyke, before I die. +Six sons--and only the youngest of the bunch +Left in the old home to do his parents credit. + +EZRA: +Queer, all went wild, your sons, like collies bitten +With a taste for mutton bleeding-hot. Cold lead +Cures dogs of that kidney, peppering them one fine night +From a chink in a stell; but, when they're two-legged curs, +They've a longer run; and, in the end, the gallows +Don't noose them, kicking and squealing like snarled rabbits, +Dead-certain, as 'twould do in the good old days. + +ELIZA: +You crack your gallows-jokes on your own sons-- +And each the spit of the father that drove them wild, +With cockering them and cursing them; one moment, +Fooling them to their bent, the moment after, +Flogging them senseless, till their little bodies +Were one blue bruise. + +EZRA: + I never larruped enough, +But let the varmints off too easily: +That was the mischief. They should have had my dad-- +An arm like a bullock-walloper, and a fist +Could fell a stot; and faiks, but he welted me +Skirlnaked, yarked my hurdies till I yollered, +In season and out, and made me the man I am. +Ay, he'd have garred the young eels squirm. + +ELIZA: + And yet, +My sons, as well: though I lost my hold of each +Almost before he was off my lap, with you +To egg them on against me. Peter went first: +And Jim's the lave. But he may settle down. +God kens where you'd be, if you'd not wed young. + +EZRA: +And the devil where you'd be, if we hadn't met +That hiring-day at Hexham, on the minute. +I'd spent last hiring with another wench, +A giggling red-haired besom; and we were trysted +To meet at the Shambles: and I was awaiting her, +When I caught the glisk of your eye: but she was late; +And you were a sonsy lassie, fresh and pink; +Though little pink about you now, I'd fancy. + +ELIZA: +Nay, forty-year of Krindlesyke, and all! + +EZRA: +Young carroty-pow must have been in a fine fantigue, +When she found I'd mizzled. Yet, if she'd turned up +In time, poor mealy-face, for all your roses, +You'd never have clapped eyes on Krindlesyke: +This countryside and you would still be strangers. + +ELIZA: +In time! + +EZRA: + A narrow squeak. + +ELIZA: + If she'd turned up, +The red-haired girl had lived at Krindlesyke, +Instead of me, this forty-year: and I-- +I might ... But we must dree our weird. And yet, +To think what my life might have been, if only-- +The difference! + +EZRA: + Ay, and hers, "if ifs and ans!" +But I'm none certain she'd have seen it, either. +I could have had her without wedding her, +And no mistake, the nickering, red-haired baggage. +Though she was merry, she'd big rabbit-teeth, +Might prove gey ill to live with; ay, and a swarm +Of little sandy moppies like their doe, +Buck-teeth and freckled noses and saucer-eyes, +Gaping and squealing round the table at dinner, +And calling me their dad, as likely as not: +Though little her mug would matter, now I'm blind; +And by this there'll scarce be a stump in her yellow gums, +And not a red hair to her nodding poll-- +That shock of flame a shrivelled, grizzled wisp +Like bracken after a heathfire; that creamy skin, +Like a plucked hen's. But she'd a merry eye, +The giglet; and that coppertop of hers +Was good to think on of a nippy morning: +While you--but you were young then ... + +ELIZA: + Young and daft. + +EZRA: +Nay, not so gite; for I was handsome then. + +ELIZA: +Ay, the braw birkie of that gairishon +Of menseless slubberdegullions: and I trusted +My eyes, and other people's tongues, in those days: +And you'd a tongue to glaver a guff of a girl, +The devil's own; and whatever's gone from you, +You've still a tongue, though with a difference: +Now it's all edge. + +EZRA: + The knife that spreads the butter +Will slice the loaf. But it's sharper than my teeth. + +ELIZA: +Ay, tongues cut deeper than any fang can bite, +Sore-rankling wounds. + +EZRA: + You talk of tongues! I'm deaf: +But, for my sins, I cannot be deaf to yours, +Nattering me into my grave; and, likely, your words +Will flaffer about my lugs like channering peesweeps, +When I lie cold. + +ELIZA: + Yes, I was young, and agape +For your wheedling flum, till it fleeched my self from me. +There's something in a young girl seems to work +Against her better sense, and gives her up, +Almost in spite of her. + +EZRA: + It's nature. + +ELIZA: + Then +Nature has more than enough to answer for. +Young, ay! And you, as gallant as the stallion, +With ribboned tail and mane, that pranced to the crack +Of my father's whip, when first I saw you gaping, +Kenspeckle in that clamjamfrey of copers. + +EZRA: +Love at first sight! + +ELIZA: + And I was just as foolish +As you were braw. + +EZRA: + Well, we'd our time of it, +Fools, or no fools. And you could laugh in those days, +And didn't snigger like the ginger fizgig. +Your voice was a bird's: but you laugh little now; +And--well, maybe, your voice is still a bird's. +There's birds and birds. Then, 'twas a cushy-doo's +That's brooding on her nest, while the red giglet's +Was a gowk's at the end of June. Do you call to mind +We sat the livelong day in a golden carriage, +Squandering a fortune, forby the tanner I dropt? +They wouldn't stop to let me pick it up; +And when we alighted from the roundabout, +Some skunk had pouched it: may he pocket it +Red-hot in hell through all eternity! +If I'd that fortune now safe in my kist! +But I was a scatterpenny: and you were bonnie-- +Pink as a dog-rose were your plump cheeks then: +Your hair'd the gloss and colour of clean straw: +And when, at darkening, the naphtha flares were kindled, +And all the red and blue and gold aglitter-- +Drums banging, trumpets braying, rattles craking; +And we were rushing round and round, the music-- +The music and the dazzle ... + +ELIZA: + Ay: that was it-- +The rushing and the music and the dazzle. +Happen 'twas on a roundabout that Jim +Won Phoebe Martin. + +EZRA: + And when you were dizzy, +And all a hazegaze with the hubblyshew; +You cuddled up against me, snug and warm: +And round and round we went--the music braying +And beating in my blood: the gold aglitter ... + +ELIZA: +And there's been little dazzle since, or music. + +EZRA: +But I was merry, till I fetched you home, +To swarm the house with whinging wammerels. + +ELIZA: +You fetched me from my home. If I'd but known +Before I crossed the threshold. I took my arles, +And had to do my darg. And another bride +Comes now. They'll soon be here: the train was due +At half-past one: they'd walk it in two hours, +Though bride and groom. + +EZRA: + I wish he'd married Judith. +Cow-eyed, you called the wench; but cows have horns, +And, whiles, they use them when you least expect. +'Twould be no flighty heifer you'd to face, +If she turned mankeen. But, I liked the runt. +Jim might do worse. + +ELIZA: + You liked ... But come, I'll set +Your chair outside, where you can feel the sun; +And hearken to the curlew; and be the first +To welcome Jim and Phoebe as man and wife. +Come! + +EZRA: + Are the curlew calling? + +ELIZA: + Calling? Ay! +And they've been at it all the blessed day, +As on the day I came to Krindlesyke. +Likely the new bride--though 'twasn't at the time +I noticed them: too heedless and new-fangled. +She may be different: she may hear them now: +They're noisy enough. + +EZRA: + I cannot catch a note: +I'm getting old, and deaved as well as darkened. +When I was young, I liked to hear the whaups +Calling to one another down the slacks: +And I could whistle, too, like any curlew. +'Twas an ancient bird wouldn't answer my call: and now +I'm ancient myself--an old, blind, doddering heron, +Dozing his day out in a syke, while minnows +Play tiggy round his shanks and nibble his toes; +And the hawk hangs overhead. But then the blood +Was hot, and I'd a relish--such a relish! +Keen as a kestrel ... and now ... + +ELIZA: + It's Jim and Phoebe-- +The music and the dazzle in their heads: +And they'll be here ... + +EZRA: + I wish he'd married Judith: +She's none the worse for being a ruddled ewe. + +ELIZA: +Nay, God forbid! At least, I'm spared that bildert. + +(_EZRA rises; and ELIZA 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 JUDITH ELLERSHAW + stands in the doorway, a baby in her arms. ELIZA does not notice + her for a few moments; then, glancing up, recognizes her with a + start._) + +ELIZA: +You, Judith Ellershaw! I thought 'twas Jim. + +JUDITH: +You thought 'twas Jim? + +ELIZA: + Jim and ... To think it's you! +Where've you sprung from? It's long since you've shown face +In these parts; and we'd seen the last of you, +I reckoned, little dreaming--and, least of all, +To-day! + +JUDITH: + And should I be more welcome, then, +On any other? + +ELIZA: + Welcome? I hardly know. +Decent folk don't keep open house for your sort +At any time. Your foot's not dirtied that doorstone +A dozen times in your life: and then, to come, +To-day, of all days, just when Jim ... + (_Breaks off abruptly._) + +JUDITH: + When Jim? + +ELIZA: +But, don't stand there. You're looking pale and peaked. +It's heavy, traiking the fell-tracks with a baby: +Come in, and rest a moment, if you're tired. +You cannot bide here long: I'm sorry, lass; +But I'm expecting company; and you +Yourself, I take it, won't be over-eager +For company. + +JUDITH: + I'm tired enough, God kens-- +Bone-weary: but we'll not stay long, to shame you: +And you can send us packing in good time, +Before your company comes. + +(_She enters, and seats herself on a chair near the door. ELIZA busies + herself, laying the table for tea, and there is silence for a while._) + +JUDITH: + And so, Jim's gone +To fetch the company? + +ELIZA: + Ay, Jim has gone ... + +(_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 JUDITH._) + +ELIZA: +Likely, you're hungry, and could do with a bite? + +JUDITH (_taking it_): +I'm famished. Cake! We're grand, to-day, indeed! +And scones and bannocks--carties, quite a spread! +It's almost like a wedding. + +ELIZA: + A wedding, woman? +Can't folk have scones and bannocks and singing-hinnies, +But you must prate of weddings--you, and all! + +JUDITH: +I meant no harm. I thought, perhaps, Jim might ... +Though, doubtless, he was married long ago? + +(_ELIZA does not answer. JUDITH's baby begins to whimper, and she tries + to hush it in an absent manner._) + +JUDITH: +Whisht, whisht! my little lass! You mustn't cry, +And shame the ears of decent folk. Whisht, whisht! + +ELIZA: +Why, that's no way to hush the teelytoon. +Come, give the bairn to me. Come, woman, come! + (_Taking the child from JUDITH._) +I'll show you how to handle babies. There! + +JUDITH: +And you would nurse my brat? + +ELIZA: + A bairn's a bairn-- +Ay, even though its mother ... + +(_Breaks off abruptly, and stands, gazing before her, clasping the baby + to her bosom._) + +JUDITH: + Why don't you finish? +"Ay, even though its mother ..." you were saying. + +ELIZA: +It's ill work, calling names. + +JUDITH: + You needn't fear +To make me blush by calling me any name +That hasn't stung me to the quick already. +My pious father had a holy tongue; +And he had searched the Scriptures to some purpose. + +ELIZA (_gazing before her in an abstracted manner_): +Ay: likely enough.... Poor bairn, poor little bairn-- +It's strange, but, as you snuggled to my breast, +I could have fancied, a moment, 'twas Jim I held +In my arms again. I'm growing old and foolish, +To have such fancies. + +JUDITH: + Fancied 'twas Jim, your son-- +My bastard brat? + +ELIZA: + Shame on you, woman, to call +Your own bairn such, poor innocent. It's not +To blame for being a chance-bairn. Yet ... O Jim! + +JUDITH: +Why do you call on Jim? He's not come home yet? +But I must go, before your son brings back ... +Give me the bairn ... + +ELIZA (_withholding the baby_): +Nay, daughter, not till I learn +The father's name. + +JUDITH: + What right have you ... + +ELIZA: + God kens ... +And yet ... + +JUDITH: + Give me the bairn. You'll never learn +The father's name from me. + +ELIZA: + Go, daughter, go. +What ill-chance made you come to-day, of all days? + +JUDITH: +Why not to-day? Come, woman, I'd ken that, +Before I go. I've half a mind to stay. + +ELIZA: +Nay, lass, you said ... + +JUDITH: + I've said a lot, in my time. +I've changed my mind. 'Twas Jim I came to see-- +Though why, God kens! I liked the singing-hinny: +Happen, there'll be some more for me, if I stay. +I find I cannot thrive on nettle-broth: +And it's not every day ... + +ELIZA: + Judith, you ken. + +JUDITH: +Ken? I ken nothing, but what you tell me. + +ELIZA: + Daughter, +I'll tell you all. You'll never have the heart ... + +JUDITH: +The heart! + +ELIZA: + To stay and shame us, when you ken all. + +JUDITH: +All? + +ELIZA: + When you talked of weddings, you'd hit the truth: +And Jim brings home his bride to-day. Even now ... + +JUDITH: +And Jim brings home ... + +ELIZA: + I looked for them by this: +But you've still time ... + +JUDITH: + The bride comes home to-day. +Brides should come home: it's right a man should bring +His bride home--ay! And we must go, my wean, +To spare her blushes. We're no company +For bride and bridegroom. Happen, we should meet them, +You must not cry to him: I must not lift +My eyes to his. We're nothing now to him. +Your cry might tell her heart too much: my eyes +Might meet her eyes, and tell ... It isn't good +For a bride to know too much. So, we must hide +In the ditch, as they pass by, if we should chance +To meet them on the road--their road and ours-- +The same road, though we're travelling different ways. +The bride comes home. Brides come home every day. +And you and I ... + +ELIZA: + There's nothing else for it. + +JUDITH: +There's nothing else? + +ELIZA: + Nay, lass! How could you bide? +They'll soon ... But, you'll not meet them, if you go ... + +JUDITH: +Go, where? + +ELIZA: + And how should I ken where you're bound for? +I thought you might be making home. + +JUDITH: + Home--home! +I might be making home? And where's my home-- +Ay, and my bairn's home, if it be not here? + +ELIZA: +Here? You'd not stay? + +JUDITH: + Why not? Have I no right? + +ELIZA: +If you'll not go for my sake, go for Jim's. +If you were fond ... + +JUDITH: + And, think you, I'd be here, +If I had not been fond of Jim? And yet, +Why should I spare him? He's not spared me much, +Who gave him all a woman has to give. + +ELIZA: +But, think of her, the bride, and her home-coming. + +JUDITH: +I'll go. + +ELIZA: + You lose but little: too well I ken +How little--I, who've dwelt this forty-year +At Krindlesyke. + +JUDITH: + Happen you never loved. + +ELIZA: +I, too, was young, once, daughter. + +JUDITH: + Ay: and yet, +You've never tramped the road I've had to travel. +God send it stretch not forty-year! + +ELIZA: + I've come +That forty-year. We're out on the selfsame road, +The three of us: but, she's the stoniest bit +To travel still--the bride just setting out, +And stepping daintily down the lilylea. +We've known the worst. + +JUDITH: + But, she can keep the highway, +While I must slink in the ditch, among the nettles. + +ELIZA: +I've kept the hard road, daughter, forty-year: +The ditch may be easier going, after all: +Nettles don't sting each other. + +JUDITH: + Nay: but I'm not +A ditch-born nettle, but, among the nettles, +Only a woman, naked to every sting: +And there are slugs and slithery toads and paddocks +In the ditch-bottom; and their slimy touch +Is worse to bear than any nettle ... + +ELIZA: + Ay-- +The pity of it! A maid blooms only once: +And then, that a man should ruin ... But, you've your bairn: +And bairns, while we can hold them safe in our arms, +And they still need the breast, make up for much: +For there's a kind of comfort in their clinging, +Though they only cling till they can stand alone. +But yours is not a son. If I'd only had +One daughter ... + +JUDITH: + Well, you'll have a daughter now. +But we must go our way to--God kens where! +Before Jim brings the bride home. You've your wish: +Jim brings you home a daughter ... + +(_As she speaks, a step is heard, and EZRA BARRASFORD appears in the + doorway. Turning to go, JUDITH meets him. She tries to pass him, but + he clutches her arm; and she stands, dazed, while his fingers grope + over her._) + +EZRA: + So Jim's back: +And has slipped by his old dad without a word? +I caught no footfall, though once I'd hear an adder +Slink through the bent. I'm deafer than an adder-- +Deaf as the stone-wall Johnny Looney built +Around the frog that worried him with croaking. +I couldn't hear the curlew--not a note. +But I forget my manners. Jim, you dog, +To go and wed, and never tell your dad! +I thought 'twas swedes you were after: and, by gox! +It's safer fetching turnips than a wife. +But, welcome home! Is this the bonnie bride? +You're welcome, daughter, home to Krindlesyke. + (_Feeling her face._) +But, wife, it's Judith, after all! I kenned +That Judith was the lucky lass. You said +'Twas somebody else: I cannot mind the name-- +Some fly-by-the-sky, outlandish name: but I +Was right, you see. Though I be blind and deaf, +I'm not so dull as some folk think. There's others +Are getting on in years, forby old Ezra. +Though some have ears to hear the churchyard worms +Stirring beneath the mould, and think it time +That he was straked and chested, the old dobby +Is not a corpse yet: and it well may happen +He'll not be the first at Krindlesyke to lie, +Cold as a slug, with pennies on his eyes. +Aiblains, the old ram's cassen, but he's no trake yet: +And, at the worst, he'll be no braxy carcase +When he's cold mutton. Ay, I'm losing grip; +But I've still got a kind of hold on life; +And a young wench in the house makes all the difference. +We've hardly blown the froth off, and smacked our lips, +Before we've reached the bottom of the pot: +Yet the last may prove the tastiest drop, who kens? +You're welcome, daughter. + +(_His hand, travelling over her shoulder, touches the child._) + + Ah, a brat--Jim's bairn! +He hasn't lost much time, has Jim, the dog! +Come, let me take it, daughter. I've never held +A grandchild in my arms. Six sons I've had, +But not one's made me granddad, to my knowledge: +And all the hoggerels have turned lowpy-dyke, +And scrambled, follow-my-leader, over the crag's edge, +But Jim, your husband: and not for me to say, +Before his wife, that he's the draft of the flock. +Give me the baby: I'll not let it fall: +I've always had a way with bairns, and women. +It's not for naught I've tended ewes and lambs, +This sixty-year. + +(_He snatches the baby from JUDITH, before she realizes what he is + doing, and hobbles away with it to the high-backed settle by the fire, + out of sight. Before JUDITH can move to follow him, steps are heard on + the threshold._) + +ELIZA: + Ah, God: they're at the door! + +_As she speaks, JIM and PHOEBE BARRASFORD enter, talking and laughing. + JUDITH ELLERSHAW shrinks into the shadow behind the door, while they + come between her and the settle on which EZRA is nursing the baby + unseen. ELIZA stands dazed in the middle of the room._ + +JIM: +And they lived happy ever afterwards, +Eh, lass? Well, mother: I've done the trick: all's over; +And I'm a married man, copt fair and square, +Coupled to Phoebe: and I've brought her home. +You call the lass to mind, though you look moidart? +What's dozzened you? She'll find her wits soon, Phoebe: +They're in a mullock, all turned howthery-towthery +At the notion of a new mistress at Krindlesyke-- +She'll come to her senses soon, and bid you welcome. +Take off your bonnet; and make yourself at home. +I trust tea's ready, mother: I'm fairly famished. +I've hardly had a bite, and not a sup +To wet my whistle since forenoon: and dod! +But getting married is gey hungry work. +I'm hollow as a kex in a ditch-bottom: +And just as dry as Molly Miller's milkpail +She bought, on the chance of borrowing a cow. +Eh, Phoebe, lass! But you've stopped laughing, have you? +And you look fleyed: there's nothing here to scare you: +We're quiet folk at Krindlesyke. Come, mother, +Have you no word of welcome for the lass, +That you gape like a foundered ewe at us? What ghost +Has given you a gliff, and set you chittering? +Come, shake yourself, before I rax your bones; +And give my bride the welcome due to her-- +My bride, the lady I have made my wife. +Poor lass, she's quaking like a dothery-dick. + +ELIZA (_to PHOEBE_): +Daughter, may you ... + +EZRA (_crooning, unseen, to the baby_): + + "Dance for your mammy, + Dance for your daddy ..." + +JIM: + What ails the old runt now? +You mustn't heed him, Phoebe, lass: he's blind +And old and watty: but there's no harm in him. + +(_Goes towards settle._) + +Come, dad, and jog your wits, and stir your stumps, +And welcome ... What the devil's this? Whose brat ... + +EZRA: +Whose brat? And who should ken--although they say, +It's a wise father knows his own child. Ay! +If he's the devil, you're the devil's brat, +And I'm the devil's daddy. Happen you came +Before the parson had time to read the prayers. +But, he's a rum dad ... + +(_JUDITH ELLERSHAW steps forward to take the child from EZRA._) + +JIM: + Judith Ellershaw! +Why, lass, where ever have ... + +(_He steps towards her, then stops in confusion. Nobody speaks as JUDITH + goes towards the settle, takes the child from EZRA, and wraps it in + her shawl. She is moving to the door when PHOEBE steps before her and + closes it, then turns and faces JUDITH._) + +PHOEBE: + You shall not go. + +JUDITH: +And who are you to stop me? Come, make way-- +Come, woman, let me pass. + +PHOEBE: + I--I'm Jim's bride. + +JUDITH: +And what should Jim's bride have to say to me? +Come, let me by. + +PHOEBE: + You shall not go. + +JUDITH: + Come, lass. +You do not ken me for the thing I am: +If you but guessed, you'd fling the door wide open, +And draw your petticoats about you tight, +Lest any draggletail of mine should smutch them. +I never should have come 'mid decent folk: +I never should have crawled out of the ditch. +You little ken ... + +PHOEBE: + I heard your name. I've heard +That name before. + +JUDITH: + You heard no good of it, +Whoever spoke. + +PHOEBE: + I heard it from the lips +That uttered it just now. + +JUDITH: + From Jim's? Well, Jim +Kens what I am. I wonder he lets you talk +With me. Come ... + +PHOEBE: + Not until I know the name +Of your baby's father. + +JUDITH: + You've no right to ask. + +PHOEBE: +Maybe: and yet, you shall not cross that doorsill, +Until I know. + +JUDITH: + Come, woman, don't be foolish. + +PHOEBE: +You say I've no right. Pray God, you speak the truth: +But there may be no woman in the world +Who has a better right. + +JUDITH: + You'd never heed +A doting dobby's blethering, would you, lass-- +An old, blind, crazy creature ... + +PHOEBE: + If I've no right, +You'll surely never have the heart to keep +The name from me? You'll set my mind at ease? + +JUDITH: +The heart! If it will set your mind at ease, +I'll speak my shame ... I'll speak my shame right out ... +I'll speak my shame right out, before you all. + +JIM: +But, lass! + +ELIZA (_to PHOEBE_): + Nay: let her go. You're young and hard: +And I was hard, though far from young: I've long +Been growing old; though little I realized +How old. And when you're old, you don't judge hardly: +You ken things happen, in spite of us, willy-nilly. +We think we're safe, holding the reins; and then +In a flash the mare bolts; and the wheels fly off; +And we're lying, stunned, beneath the broken cart. +So, let the lass go quietly; and keep +Your happiness. When you're old, you'll not let slip +A chance of happiness so easily: +There's not so much of it going, to pick and choose: +The apple's speckled; but it's best to munch it, +And get what relish out of it you can; +And, one day, you'll be glad to chew the core: +For all its bitterness, few chuck it from them, +While they've a sense left that can savour aught. +So, let the lass go. You may have the right +To question her: but folk who stand on their rights +Get little rest: they're on a quaking moss +Without a foothold; and find themselves to the neck +In Deadman's Flow, before they've floundered far. +Rights go for little, in this life: few are worth +The risk of losing peace and quiet. You'll have +Plenty to worrit, and keep you wakeful, without +A pillow stuffed with burrs and briars: so, take +An old wife's counsel, daughter: let well alone; +And don't go gathering grievances. The lass ... + +JIM: +Ay, don't be hard on her. Though mother's old, +She talks sense, whiles. So let the poor lass go. + +JUDITH: +The father of my bairn ... + +JIM: + She's lying, Phoebe! + +JUDITH: +The father of my bairn is--William Burn-- +A stranger to these parts. Now, let me pass. + +(_She tries to slip by, but PHOEBE still does not make way for her._) + +JIM: +Ay, Phoebe, let her go. She tells the truth. +I thought ... But I mistook her. Let her go. +I never reckoned you'd be a reesty nag: +Yet, you can set your hoofs, and champ your bit +With any mare, I see. I doubt you'll prove +A rackle ramstam wife, if you've your head. +She's answered what you asked; though, why, unless ... +Well, I don't blame the wench: she should ken best. + +PHOEBE: +Judith, you lie. + +JUDITH: + I lie! You mean ... + +PHOEBE: + To-day, +I married your bairn's father. + +ELIZA: + O God! + +JIM: + Come, lass, +I say! + +JUDITH: + No woman, no! I spoke the truth. +Haven't I shamed myself enough already-- +That you must call me liar! (_To ELIZA_) Speak out now, +If you're not tongue-tied: tell her all you ken-- +How I'm a byword among honest women, +And yet, no liar. You'd tongue enough just now +To tell me what I was--a cruel tongue +Cracking about my ears: and have you none +To answer your son's wife, and save the lad +From scandal? + +ELIZA: + I've not known the lass to lie ... +And she's the true heart, Phoebe, true as death, +Whatever it may seem. + +JIM: + That's that: and so ... + +(_While they have been talking, EZRA has risen from the settle, + unnoticed; and has hobbled to where PHOEBE and JUDITH confront one + another. He suddenly touches PHOEBE's arm._) + +EZRA: +Cackling like guinea-fowl when a hawk's in air! +I must have snoozed; yet, I caught the gabble. There'll be +A clatter all day now, with two women's tongues, +Clack-clack against each other, in the house-- +Two pendulums in one clock. Lucky I'm deaf. +But, I remember. Give me back the bairn. +Nay: this is not the wench. I want Jim's bride-- +The mother of his daughter. Judith, lass, +Where are you? Come, I want to nurse my grandchild-- +Jim's little lass. + +ELIZA (_stepping towards EZRA_): + Come, hold your foolish tongue. +You don't know what you're saying. Come, sit down. + +(_Leads him back to the settle._) + +JIM: +If he don't stop his yammer, I'll slit his weasen-- +I'll wring his neck for him! + +EZRA: + What's wrong? What's wrong? +I'm an old man, now; and must do as I'm bid like a bairn-- +I, who was master, and did all the bidding. +And you, Jim, I'd have broken your back like a rabbit's, +At one time, if you'd talked to me like that. +But now I'm old and sightless; and any tit +May chivvy a blind kestrel. Ay, I'm old +And weak--so waffly in arms and shanks, that now +I couldn't even hold down a hog to be clipped: +So, boys can threaten me, and go unskelped: +So you can bray; and I must hold my peace: +Yet, mark my words, the hemp's ripe for the rope +That'll throttle you one day, you gallows-bird. +But, something's happening that a blind man's sense +Cannot take hold of; so, I'd best be quiet-- +Ay, just sit still all day, and nod and nod, +Until I nod myself into my coffin: +That's all that's left me. + +JUDITH (_to PHOEBE_): + You'd weigh an old man's gossip +Against my word? O woman, pay no heed +To idle tongues, if you'd keep happiness. + +PHOEBE: +While the tongue lies, the eyes speak out the truth. + +JUDITH: +The eyes? Then you'll not take my word for it, +But let a dotard's clatterjaw destroy you? +You ken my worth: yet, if you care for Jim, +You'll trust his oath. If he denies the bairn, +Then, you'll believe? You'd surely never doubt +Your husband's word, and on your wedding-day? +Small wonder you'd be duberous of mine. +But Jim's not my sort; he's an honest lad; +And he'll speak truly. If he denies the bairn ... + +PHOEBE: +I've not been used to doubting people's word. +My father's daughter couldn't but be trustful +Of what men said; for he was truth itself. +If only he'd lived, I mightn't ... + +JUDITH: + If Jim denies ... + +PHOEBE: +If Jim can look me in the eyes, and swear ... + +JUDITH: +Come, set her mind at ease. Don't spare me, Jim; +But look her in the eyes, and tell her all; +For she's your wife; and has a right to ken +The bairn's no bairn of yours. Come, lad, speak out; +And don't stand gaping. You ken as well as I +The bairn ... Speak! Speak! Have you no tongue at all? + +(_She pauses; but JIM hesitates to speak._) + +Don't think of me. You've naught to fear from me. +Tell all you ken of me right out: no word +Of yours can hurt me now: I'm shameless, now: +I'm in the ditch, and spattered to the neck. +Come, don't mince matters: your tongue's not so modest +It fears to make your cheeks burn--I ken that; +And when the question is a woman's virtue, +It rattles like a reaper round a wheatfield, +And as little cares if it's cutting grain or poppies. +So, it's too late to blush and stammer now, +And let your teeth trip up your tongue. Speak out! + +(_JIM still hesitates._) + +Your wife is waiting; if you don't tell her true, +And quick about it, it's your own look-out. +I wouldn't be in your shoes, anyway. +See, how she's badgered me; and all because ... +Come: be a man: and speak. + +JIM: + The brat's no brat +Of mine, Phoebe, I swear ... + +(_He stops in confusion, dropping his eyes. PHOEBE turns from him, lays + one hand on the latch and the other on JUDITH's arm._) + +PHOEBE: + Come, lass, it's time +We were getting home. + +JUDITH: + We? + +PHOEBE: + Ay, unless you'd stay? +You've the right. + +JUDITH: + I stay? O God, what have I done! +That I'd never crossed the threshold! + +ELIZA: + You're not going +To leave him, Phoebe? You cannot: you're his wife; +And cannot quit ... But, I'm getting old ... + +JIM: + Leave me? +Leave me? She's mad! I never heard the like-- +And on my wedding-day--stark, staring mad! +But, I'm your husband; and I bid you bide. + +PHOEBE: +O Jim, if you had only told the truth, +I might, God knows--for I was fond of you, +And trusted ... + +JIM: + Now you're talking sense. Leave me-- +And married to me in a church, and all! +But, that's all over; and you're not huffed now. +There's naught in me to take a scunner at. +Yet the shying filly may prove a steady mare, +Once a man's astriddle her who'll stand no capers. +You've got to let a woman learn who's master, +Sooner or later: so, it's just as well +To get it over, once and for all. That's that. +And now, let Judith go. Come, Phoebe, lass: +I thought you'd a tender heart. Don't be too hard +On a luckless wench: but let bygones be bygones. +All's well that ends well. And what odds, my lass, +Even if the brat were mine? + +PHOEBE: + Judith, you're ready? + +JIM: +Let the lass bide, and sup with us. I'll warrant +She'll not say nay: she's a peckish look, as though +She'd tasted no singing-hinnies this long while back. +Mother, another cup. Draw up your chairs. +We've not a wedding-party every day +At Krindlesyke. I'm ravenous as a squab, +When someone's potted dad and mammy crow. +So sit down, Phoebe, before I clear the board. + +PHOEBE: +Judith, it's time we were getting home. + +JUDITH: + Home, lass? +I've got no home: I've long been homeless: I ... + +PHOEBE: +That much he told me about you: he spoke the truth +So far, at least: but I have still a home, +My mother will be glad to see me back-- +Ay, more than glad: she was loth to let me go; +Though, trusting Jim, as she trusted everyone, +She said but little: and she'll welcome you, +If only for your baby's sake. She's just +A child, with children. Unless you are too proud ... +Nay! But I see you'll come. We'll live and work, +And tend the bairn, as sisters, we who care. +Come, Judith. + +(_She throws the door wide and goes out, without looking back. JIM steps + forward to stay her, but halts, bewildered, on the threshold, and + stands gazing after her._) + +JIM: + I'm damned! Nay, lass, I bid you bide: +I'd see you straked, before I'd let you go ... +Do you hear, I bid ... The blasted wench, she's gone-- +Gone! I've a mind ... If I don't hang for her ... +Just let me get my fingers ... But, I'm betwattled +Like a stoorded tup! And this is my wedding-day! + +(_He stands speechless; but at length turns to JUDITH, who is gazing + after PHOEBE with an unrealizing stare._) + +JIM: +Well ... anyway, you'll not desert me, Judith. +Old friends are best: and I--I always liked you. +The other lass was a lamb to woo, but wed, +A termagant: and I'm well shot of her. +I'd have wrung the pullet's neck for her one day, +If she'd--and the devil to pay! So it's good riddance ... +Yet, she'd a way with her, she had, the filly! +And I'd have relished breaking her in. But you +Were always easy-going, and fond of me-- +Ay, fond and faithful. Look, how you stood up +To her, the tawpy tauntril, for my sake! +We'll let bygones be bygones, won't we, Judith? +My chickens have come home to roost, it seems. +And so, this is my baby? Who'd have dreamt ... +I little looked to harvest my wild oats. + +(_JUDITH starts, shrinking from JIM: and then, clutching her baby to her + bosom, she goes quickly out of the door._) + +JUDITH: +I'm coming, Phoebe, coming home with you! + +(_JIM stands on the doorstone, staring after her, dumbfounded, till she + is out of sight; then he turns, and clashes the door to._) + +ELIZA: +Ay, but it's time to bar the stable door. + +JIM: +I've done with women: they're a faithless lot. + +EZRA: +I can't make head or tail of all the wrangling-- +Such a gillaber and gilravishing, +As I never heard in all my born days, never. +Weddings were merrymakings in my time: +The reckoning seldom came till the morrow's morn. +But, Jim, my boy, though you're a baa-waa body, +And gan about like a goose with a nicked head, +You've, aiblains, found out now that petticoats +Are kittle-cattle, the whole rabblement. +The reesty nags will neither heck nor gee: +And they're all clingclang like the Yetholm tinkers. +Ay: though you're just a splurging jackalally, +You've spoken truth for once, Jim: womenfolk, +Wenches and wives, are all just weathercocks. +I've ever found them faithless, first and last. +But, where's your daughter, Jim? I want to hold +The bairn. + +JIM: + They've taken even her from me. + +(_ELIZA, who has been filling the teapot, takes EZRA by the hand, and + leads him to his seat at the table._) + +ELIZA: +Come, husband: sup your tea, before it's cold: +And you, too, son. Ay, we're a faithless lot. + + + * * * * * + + + BOOK II + + + BELL HAGGARD + + + * * * * * + + +PART I + + +_Midsummer morning. EZRA BARRASFORD sits crouched over the fire. ELIZA + BARRASFORD, 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._ + +ELIZA: +So that's the last. + +EZRA: + The last? The last of what? + +ELIZA: +The last of your sons to leave you. Jim's gone now. + +EZRA: +Gone where, the tyke? After his wife, I'll warrant. +'Twill take him all his time to catch her up: +She's three months' start of him. The gonneril, +To be forsaken on his wedding-day: +And the ninneyhammer let her go--he let her! +Do you reckon I'd let a woman I'd fetched home +Go gallivanting off at her own sweet will? +No wench I'd ringed, and had a mind to hold, +Should quit the steading till she was carried, feet-first +And shoulder-high, packed snug in a varnished box. +The noodle couldn't stand up to a woman's tongue: +And so, lightheels picked up her skirts, and flitted, +Before he'd even bedded her--skelped off +Like a ewe turned lowpy-dyke; and left the nowt, +The laughing-stock of the countryside. He should +Have used his fist to teach her manners. She seemed +To have the fondy flummoxed, till his wits +Were fozy as a frosted swede. Do you reckon +I'd let a lass ... + +ELIZA: + And yet, six lads have left you, +Without a by-your-leave. + +EZRA: + Six lads? + +ELIZA: + Your sons. + +EZRA: +Ay ... but they'd not the spunk to scoot till I +Was blind and crippled. The scurvy rats skidaddled +As the old barn-roof fell in. While I'd my sight, +They'd scarce the nerve to look me in the eye, +The blinking, slinking squealers! + +ELIZA: + Ay, we're old. +The heat this morning seems to suffocate me, +My head's a skep of buzzing bees; and I pant +Like an old ewe under a dyke, when the sun gives scarce +An inch of shade. You harp on sight: but eyes +Aren't everything: my sight's a girl's: and yet +I'm old and broken: you've broken me, among you. +I'd count the pens of a hanging hawk: yet my eyes +Have saved me little: they've never seen to the bottom +Of the blackness of men's hearts. The very sons +Of my body, I reckoned to ken through and through, +As every mother thinks she knows her sons, +Have been pitch night to me. We never learn. +I thought I'd got by heart each turn and twist +Of all Jim's stupid cunning: but even he's +Outwitted me. Six sons, and not one left; +All gone in bitterness--firstborn to reckling: +Peter, twelve-year since, that black Christmas Eve: +And now Jim ends ... + +EZRA: + You mean Jim's gone for good? + +ELIZA: +For good and all: he's taken Peter's road. + +EZRA: +And who's to tend the ewes? He couldn't go-- +No herd could leave his sheep to an old wife's care: +For this old carcase, once counted the best herd's +In the countryside, is a useless bag of bones now. +Jim couldn't leave ... + +ELIZA: + For all I ken or care, +He's taken them with him too. + +EZRA: + You're havering! +Your sons aren't common thieves, I trust. And Jim +Would scarce have pluck to sneak a swede from the mulls +Of a hobbled ewe, much less make off with a flock-- +Though his forbears lifted a wheen Scots' beasts in their time-- +And Steel would have him by the heels before +He'd travelled a donkey's gallop, though he skelped along +Like Willie Pigg's dick-ass. But how do you ken +The gawky's gone for good? He couldn't leave ... + +ELIZA: +I found a paper in the empty chest, +Scrawled with a bit of writing in his hand: +"Tell dad I've gone to look for his lost wits: +And he'll not see me till he gets new eyes +To seek me himself." + +EZRA: + Eyes or no eyes, I'll break +The foumart's back, in this world or the next: +He'll not escape. He thinks he's the laugh of me; +But I've never let another man laugh last. +Though he should take the short cut to the gallows, +I'll have him, bibbering on his bended knees +Before me yet, even if I have to wait +Till I find him, brizzling on the coals of hell. +But, what do you say--the empty chest--what chest? + +ELIZA: +The kist beneath the bed. + +EZRA: + But, that's not empty! +How could you open it, when I'd the key +Strung safely on a bootlace next my skin? + +ELIZA: +The key--you should have chained the kist, itself, +As a locket round your neck, if you'd have kept +Your precious hoard from your own flesh and blood. + +EZRA: +To think a man begets the thieves to rob him! +But, how ... + +ELIZA: + I had no call to open it. +I caught my foot against the splintered lid, +When I went to make the bed. + +EZRA: + The splintered lid! +And the kist--the kist! You say 'twas empty? + +ELIZA: + Not quite: +The paper was in. + +EZRA: + But the money, you dam of thieves-- +Where was the money? + +ELIZA: + It wasn't in the box-- +Not a brass farthing. + +EZRA: + The money gone--all gone? +Why didn't you tell me about it right away? + +ELIZA: +I wasn't minding money: I'd lost a son. + +EZRA: +A son--a thief! I'll have the law of him: +I'll sprag his wheel: for all his pretty pace, +He'll come a cropper yet, the scrunty wastrel. +This comes of marrying into a coper's family: +I might have kenned: thieving runs in their blood. + +ELIZA: +I've seen the day that lie'd have roused ... But now, +It's not worth while ... worth while. I've never felt +Such heat: it smothers me: it's like a nightmare, +When you wake with your head in the blankets, all asweat: +Only, I cannot wake ... It snowed the night +That Peter went ... + +EZRA: + Blabbering of heat and snow: +And all that money gone--my hard-earned savings! +We're beggared, woman--beggared by your son: +And then, to sit and yammer like a yieldewe: +Come, stir your stumps; and clap your bonnet on: +Up and away! + +ELIZA: + And where should I away to? + +EZRA: +I'll have the law of him: I'll have him gaoled, +And you must fetch the peeler. + +ELIZA: + Policemen throng +Round Krindlesyke, as bees about a thistle! +And I'm to set the peelers on my son? +If he'd gone with Peter, they'd have tracked his hobnails ... +It snowed that night ... The snowflakes buzz like bees +About the prickling thistles in my head-- +Big bumblebees ... I never felt such heat. + +EZRA: +And I must sit, tied to a chair, and hearken +To an old wife, havering of bumblebees, +While my hard-earned sovereigns lie snug and warm +In the breeches' pocket of a rascal thief-- +Fifty gold sovereigns! + +ELIZA: + Fifty golden bees-- +Golden Italian queens ... My father spent +A sight of money on Italian queens: +For he'd a way with bees. He'd handle them +With naked hands. They swarmed on his beard, and hung, +Buzzing like fury: but he never blinked-- +Just wagged his head, swaying them, till they dropped, +All of a bunch, into an upturned skep.... +My head's a hive of buzzing bees--bees buzzing +In the hot, crowded darkness, dripping honey ... + +EZRA: +You're wandering, woman--maffling like a madpash. +Jim's stolen your senses, when he took my gold. + +ELIZA: +Don't talk of money now: I want to think. +Six sons, I had. My sons, you say. You're right: +For menfolk have no children: only women +Carry them: only women are brought to bed: +And only women labour: and, when they go, +Only the mothers lose them: and all for nothing, +The coil and cumber! If I could have left one son, +Wedded, and settled down at Krindlesyke, +To do his parents credit, and carry on ... +First Peter came: it snowed the night he came-- +A feeding-storm of fisselling dry snow. +I lay and watched flakes fleetering out of the dark +In the candleshine against the wet black glass, +Like moths about a lanthorn ... I lay and watched, +Till the pains were on me ... And they buzzed like bees, +The snowflakes in my head--hot, stinging bees ... +It snowed again, the night he went.... In the smother +I lost him, in a drift down Bloodysyke ... +I couldn't follow further: the snow closed in-- +Dry flakes that stung my face like swarming bees, +And blinded me ... and buzzing, till my head +Was all ahum; and I was fair betwattled ... +I've not set eyes ... + +EZRA: + Gather your wits together. +There's no one else; and you must go to Rawridge-- +No daundering on the road; and tell John Steel +Jim's gone: and so, there's none to look to the sheep. +He must send someone ... Though my money melt +In the hot pocket of a vagabond, +They must be minded: sheep can't tend themselves. + +ELIZA: +I'll go. 'Twas cruel to leave them in this heat, +With none to water them. This heat's a judgment. +They were my sons: I bore and suckled them. +This heat's a judgment on me, pressing down +On my brain like a redhot iron ... + +(_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 EZRA; but goes in, without a word. Presently a soft + thud is heard within: then a low moan._) + +EZRA: + Who's there? Not you, +Eliza? You can't be back already, woman? +Why don't you speak? You yammered enough, just now-- +Such havers! Haven't you gone? What's keeping you? +I told you to step out. What's wrong? What's wrong? +You're wambling like a wallydraigling waywand. +The old ewe's got the staggers. Boodyankers! +If I wasn't so crocked and groggy, I'd make a fend +To go myself--ay, blind bat as I am. +Come, pull yourself together; and step lively. +What's that? What's that? I can't hear anything now. +Where are you, woman? Speak! There's no one here-- +Though I'd have sworn I heard the old wife waigling, +As if she carried a hoggerel on her shoulders. +I heard a foot: yet, she couldn't come so soon. +I'm going watty. My mind's so set on dogging +The heels of that damned thief, hot-foot for the gallows, +I hear his footsteps echoing in my head. +He'd hirple it barefoot on the coals of hell, +With a red-hot prong at his hurdies to prog him on, +If I'd my way with him: de'il scart the hanniel! + +(_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 PETER BARRASFORD, who steps cautiously in, and stealing up to + the old man's chair, stands looking down upon him with a grin._) + +EZRA (_stirring uneasily_): +A step, for sure! You're back? Though how you've travelled +So quickly, Eliza, I can't think. And when's +John Steel to turn us out, to follow Jim +And the other vagabonds? And who's he sending? +He's not a man to spare ... But, sheep are sheep: +Someone must tend them, though all else go smash. +I've given my life to sheep, spent myself for them: +And now, I'm not the value of a dead sheep +To any farmer--a rackle of bones for the midden! +A bitter day, 'twill be, when I turn my back +On Krindlesyke. I little reckoned to go, +A blind old cripple, hobbling on two sticks. +Pride has a fall, they say: and I was proud-- +Proud as a thistle; and a donkey's cropt +The thistle's prickly pride. Why don't you speak? +I'm not mistaken this time: I heard you come: +I feel you standing over me. + +(_He pokes round with his stick, catching PETER on the shin with it._) + +PETER (_wresting the stick from EZRA's grasp_): +Easy on! +Peter's no lad to take a leathering, now. +Your time's come round for breeches down, old boy: +But don't be scared; for I'm no walloper-- +Too like hard work! My son's a clean white skin: +He's never skirled, as you made me. By gox, +You gave me gip: my back still bears the stripes +Of the loundering I got the night I left. +But I bear no malice, you old bag-of-bones: +And where's the satisfaction in committing +Assault and battery on a blasted scarecrow? +'Twas basting hot young flesh that you enjoyed: +I still can hear you smack your lips with relish, +To see the blue weals rising, as you laid on, +Until the tawse was bloody. Not juice enough +In your geyzened carcase to raise one weal: and I never +Could bear the sound of cracking bones: and you're +All nobs and knuckles, like the parson's pig. +To think I feared you once, old spindleshanks! +But I'm not here for paying compliments: +I've other pressing business on that brings me +To the God-forsaken gaol where I was born. +If I make sense of your doting, mother's out: +And that's as well: it makes things easier. +She'd flufter me: and I like to take things easy, +Though I'm no sneak: I come in, bold as brass, +By the front, when there's no back door. I'll do the trick +While she's gone: and borrow a trifle on account. +I trust that cuddy hasn't cropt your cashbox, +Before your eldest son has got his portion. + +(_He starts to go towards the inner room, but stops half-way as he hears + a step on the threshold._) + +PETER: +The devil! + +_BELL HAGGARD, a tall young tinker-woman, with an orange-coloured + kerchief about her head, appears in the doorway with her young son, + MICHAEL._ + +PETER: + You, Bell? Lass, but you startled me. + +EZRA (_muttering to himself_): +This must be death: the crows are gathering in. +I don't feel like cold carrion, but corbies will gather, +And flesh their bloody beaks on an old ram's carcase, +Before the life's quite out. + +PETER (_to BELL_): + I feared 'twas mother. +Lucky, she's out; it's easier to do-- +Well, you ken what, when she's ... But didn't I bid +You keep well out of sight, you and the lad? + +BELL: +You did. What then? + +PETER: + I thought 'twas better the bairn ... + +BELL: +You think too much for a man with a small head: +You'll split the scalp, some day. I've not been used +To doing any man's bidding, as you should ken: +And I'd a mind to see the marble halls +You dreamt you dwelt in. + +PETER: + Hearken, how she gammons! + +BELL: +She--the cat's mother? You've no manners, Peter: +You haven't introduced us. + +PETER: + Only hark! +Well, dad, she's Bell--Bell Haggard, tinker-born-- +She'll tell you she's blood-royal, likely as not-- +And this lad happens to be hers and mine, +Somehow, though we're not married. + +BELL: + What a fashion +To introduce a boy to his grandfather-- +And such a dear, respectable old sheep's head! + (_to MICHAEL_) +Look well on granddad, son, and see what comes +Of minding sheep. + +MICHAEL: + I mean to be a shepherd. + +BELL: +Well, you've a knack of getting your own way: +But, tripe and trotters, you can look on him, +And still say that? Ay, you're his grandson, surely-- +All Barrasford, with not a dash of Haggard, +No drop of the wild colt's blood. Ewe's milk you'd bleed +If your nose were tapped. Who'd ever guess my dugs +Had suckled you? Even your dad's no more +Than three-parts mutton, with a strain of reynard-- +A fox's heart, for all his weak sheep's head. +Lad, look well round on your ancestral halls: +You'll likely not clap eyes on them again. +I'm eager to be off: we don't seem welcome. +Your venerable grandsire is asleep, +Or else he's a deaf mute; though, likely enough, +That's how folk look, awake, at Krindlesyke. +I'd fancied we were bound for the Happy Return: +But we've landed at the Undertaker's Arms-- +And after closing time, and all. You've done +That little business, Peter--though it's not bulged +Your pockets overmuch, that I can see? + +PETER: +Just setting about it, when you interrupted ... + +BELL: +Step lively, then. I find this welcome too warm +On such a sultry day: I'm choked for air. +These whitewashed walls, they're too like--well, you ken +Where you'll find yourself, if you get nobbled ... + +PETER: + It seems +There's no one here to nab us; Jim's gone off: +But I'd as lief be through with it, and away, +Before my mother's back. + +BELL: + You're safe enough: +There's none but sheep in sight for three miles round: +And they're all huddled up against the dykes, +With lollering tongues too baked to bleat "Stop thief!" +Look slippy! I'm half-scumfished by these walls-- +A weak flame, easily snuffed out: the stink +Of whitewash makes me queasy--sets me listening +To catch the click of the cell-door behind me: +I feel cold bracelets round my wrists, already. +Is thon the strong-room? + +PETER: + Ay. + +BELL: + Then sharp's the word: +It's time that we were stepping, Deadwood Dick. + +(_As PETER goes into the other room, EZRA tries to rise from his + chair._) + +EZRA: +Help! Murder! Thieves! + +BELL (_thrusting him easily back with one hand_): + The oracle has spoken. +And so, old image, you've found your tongue at last: +Small wonder you mislaid it, in such a mug. +Help, say you? But, you needn't bleat so loud: +There's none within three miles to listen to you, +But me and Peter and Michael; and we're not deaf: +So don't go straining your voice, old nightingale, +Or splitting your wheezy bellows. And "thieves," no less! +Tastes differ: but it isn't just the word +I'd choose for welcoming my son and heir, +When he comes home; and brings with him his--well, +His son, and his son's mother, shall we say, +So's not to scandalize your innocence? +And, come to think, it's none too nice a word +For grandson's ears: and me, his tender mammy, +Doing all I can to keep the lamb's heart pure. +And as for "murder"--how could there be murder? +Murder's full-blooded--no mean word like "thieves": +And who could murder a bundle of dried peas-sticks? +Flung on the fire, happen they'd crackle and blaze: +But I'm hot enough, to-day, without you frizzling. +Still, "thieves" sticks in my gullet, old heel-of-the-loaf. +Yet I'm not particular, myself, at times: +And I've always gathered from your dutiful son +Manners were taken for granted at Krindlesyke, +And never missed: so I'll overlook the word. +You've not been used to talking with a lady, +Old scrag-end: still, I'm truly honoured, sir, +In making your acquaintance: for I've heard +Some pretty things about you from your son. + +(_EZRA, who has shrunk back, gasping, into his chair, suddenly starts + chuckling to himself._) + +BELL: +You're merry, sir! Will you not share the jest? +Aren't you the sparky blade, the daffing callant, +Naffing and nickering like a three-year-old? +Come, none-so-pretty, cough the old wheeze up, +Before it chokes you. Let me clap your back. +You're, surely, never laughing at a lady? + +(_Seizing him by the collar, and shaking him._) + +You deafy nut--you gibbet--you rusty corncrake! +Tell me what's kittling you, old skeleton, +Or I'll joggle your bones till they rattle like castanets. + +(_Suddenly releasing him._) + +Come, Peter: let's away from this mouldy gaol, +Before old heeltaps takes a fit. Your son +Will be a full-grown shepherd before we leave-- +And his old mother, trapped between four walls-- +If you don't put a jerk in it. + +(_PETER comes slowly from the inner room, empty-handed; and stands, + dazed, in the doorway._) + +BELL: + Well, fumble-fingers? +What's kept you this half-year? I could have burgled +The Bank of England in the time. What's up? +Have you gone gite, now? + +EZRA (_still chuckling_): + Thieves cheated by a thief! + +BELL: +But, where's the box? + +PETER: + I didn't see the box. + +BELL: +You didn't see it? + +PETER: + No; I didn't see it: +The valance hangs too low. + +BELL: + And you're too proud-- +Too proud a prig to stoop? Did you expect +The box to bounce itself into your arms, +The moment it heard your step? + +PETER: + I dared not stoop: +For there was someone lying on the bed, +Asleep, I think. + +BELL: + You think? + +PETER: + I only saw +A hunched-up shoulder, poking through the curtain. + +BELL: +A woman? + +PETER: + Ay, my mother, or her fetch. +I couldn't take my eyes from that hunched shoulder-- +It looked so queer--till you called my name. + +BELL: + You said +Your mother was out. But, we've no time to potter. +To think I've borne a son to a calf that's fleyed +Of a sleeping woman's back--his minney's, and all! +Collops and chitterlings, if she's asleep, +The job's the easier done. There's not a woman, +Or a woman's fetch, would scare me from good gold. +I'll get the box. + +(_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: PETER and + MICHAEL watching her in amazement._) + +EZRA: +So Jim, the fox, has cheated Peter, the fox-- +And vixen and cub, to boot! But, he made off +Only this morning: and the scent's still fresh. +You'll ken the road he'd take, the fox's track-- +A thief to catch a thief! He's lifted all: +But, if you cop him, I'll give you half, although +'Twill scarcely leave enough to bury us +With decency, when we have starved to death, +Your mother and I. Run, lad: there's fifty-sovereign! +And mind you clout and clapperclaw the cull: +Spanghew his jacket, when you've riped his pockets-- +The scurvy scrunt! + +BELL: + Silence, old misery: +There's a dead woman lying in the house-- +And you can prate of money! + +PETER: + Dead! + +EZRA: + Eliza! + +BELL: +I found the body, huddled on the bed, +Already cold and stiffening. + +EZRA: + I thought I heard ... +Yet, she set out for Rawridge, to fetch a man ... +I felt her passing, in my very bones. +I knew her foot: you cannot hear a step +For forty-year, and mistake it, though the spring's +Gone out of it, and it's turned to a shuffle, it's still +The same footfall. Why didn't she answer me? +She chattered enough, before she went--such havers! +Words tumbling from her lips in a witless jumble. +Contrary, to the last, she wouldn't answer: +But crept away, like a wounded pheasant, to die +Alone. She's gone before me, after all-- +And she, so hale; while I was crutched and crippled. +I haven't looked on her face for eleven-year: +But she was bonnie, when I saw her first, +That morning at the fair--so fresh and pink. + +BELL: +She must have died alone. It's an ill thing +To die alone, folk say; but I don't know. +She'd hardly die more lonely than she lived: +For every woman's lonely in her heart. +I never looked on a lonelier face. + +PETER: + Come, Bell: +We'd best be making tracks: there's nothing here: +So let's be going. + +BELL: + Going, Peter, where? + +PETER: +There's nothing to bide here for: we're too late. +Jim's stolen a march on us: there's no loot left. + +BELL: +And you would leave a woman, lying dead; +And an old blind cripple who cannot do a hand's-turn, +With no one to look after them--and they, +Your father and mother? + +PETER: + Little enough I owe them: +What can we do for them, anyway? We can't +Bring back the dead to life: and, sooner or later, +Someone will come from Rawridge to see to the sheep: +And dad won't hurt, meanwhile: he's gey and tough. + +BELL: +And you would leave your mother, lying dead, +With none but strangers' hands to lay her out-- +No soul of her kin to tend her at the last? + +(_She goes to the dresser and looks in the drawers, taking out an apron + and tying it round her waist._) + +EZRA: +I never guessed she'd go, and leave me alone. +How did she think I could get along without her? +She kenned I could do nothing for myself: +And yet she's left me alone, to starve to death-- +Just sit in my chair, and starve. It wasn't like her. +And the breath's scarce out of her body, before the place +Is overrun with a plague of thieving rats. +They'll eat me out of house and home: my God, +I've come to this--an old blind crippled dobby, +Forsaken of wife and bairns; and left to die-- +To be nibbled to death by rats: de'il scart the vermin! + +BELL: +Time's drawn your teeth, but hasn't dulled your tongue's edge. + +PETER: +Come, woman: what the devil are you up to? +What's this new game? + +BELL: + Peter, I'm biding here. + +PETER: +You're biding here? + +BELL: + And you are staying, too. + +PETER: +By crikey, no! You'll not catch me: I cannot-- +With thon in the other room. I never could bear ... + +BELL: +You'll stop, till Michael's old enough to manage +The sheep without your aid: then you may spurt +To overtake Jim on the road to the gallows; +And race, the pair of you, neck and neck, for hell: +But not till I'm done with you. + +PETER: + Nay, I'll be jiggered ... + +BELL: +Truth slips out. + +PETER: + I've a mind ... + +BELL: + She's gone to earth. + +PETER: +Just hold your gob, you ... + +BELL: + Does the daft beast fancy +That just because he's in his own calfyard +He can turn his horns on me? Michael, my son, +You've got your way: and you're to be a herd. +You never took to horseflesh like a Haggard: +Yet your mother must do her best for you. A mattress +Under a roof; and sheep to keep you busy-- +That's what you're fashioned for--not bracken-beds +In fellside ditches underneath the stars; +And sharing potluck by the roadside fire. +Well, every man must follow his own bent, +Even though some woman's wried to let him do it: +So, I must bide within this whitewashed gaol, +For ever scrubbing flagstones, and washing dishes, +And darning hose, and making meals for men, +Half-suffocated by the stink of sheep, +Till you find a lass to your mind; and set me free +To take the road again--if I'm not too doddery +For gallivanting; as most folk are by the time +They've done their duty by others. Who'd have dreamt +I'd make the model mother, after all? +It seems as though a woman can't escape, +Once she has any truck with men. But, carties! +Something's gone topsy-turvy with creation, +When the cuckoo's turned domestic, and starts to rear +The young housesparrow. Granddad, Peter's home +To mind the sheep: and you'll not be turned out, +If you behave yourself: and when you're lifted, +There'll be a grandson still at Krindlesyke: +For Michael is a Barrasford, blood and bone: +And till the day he fetches home a bride, +I'm to be mistress here. But hark, old bones, +You've got to mend your manners: for I'm used +To having my own way. + +PETER: + By gox, she is! + +BELL: +And there's not room for two such in one house. +Where I am mistress, there can be no master: +So, don't try on your pretty tricks with me. +I've always taken the whiphand with men. + +PETER: +You'll smart yet, dad. + +BELL: + You go about your business, +Before your feet get frozen to the flagstones: +Winter's but six months off, you ken. It's time +You were watering those sheep, before their tongues +Are baked as black as your heart. You'd better take +The lad along with you: he cannot learn +The job too soon; so I'll get shot of the sight +Of your mug, and have one lout the less to do for. +Come, frisk your feet, the pair of you; and go: +I've that to do which I must do alone. + +(_As soon as PETER and MICHAEL are gone, BELL fills a basin with water + from a bucket, and carries it into the other room, shutting the door + behind her._) + +EZRA: +To think she should go first, when I have had +One foot in the grave for hard on eleven-year! +I little looked to taste her funeral ham. + + + + +PART II + + +_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 JUDITH ELLERSHAW, 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 BELL HAGGARD + 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 + JUDITH; drops the bracken; whips off her kerchief; and lets down her + skirt; and so appears as an ordinary cottage-wife._ + +JUDITH: +You're Mistress Barrasford? + +BELL: + Ay; so they call me. + +JUDITH: +I knocked; but no one answered; so, I've taken +The liberty of stepping in to rest. +I'm Judith Ellershaw. + +BELL: + I've heard the name; +But can't just mind ... Ay! You're the hard-mouthed wench +That took the bit in her teeth, and bolted: although +You scarcely look it, either. Old Ezra used +To mumble your name, when he was raiming on +About the sovereigns Jim made off with: he missed +The money more than the son--small blame to him: +Though why grudge travelling-expenses to good-riddance? +And still, 'twas shabby to pinch the lot: a case +Of pot and kettle, but I'd have scorned to bag +The lot, and leave the old folk penniless. +'Twas hundreds Peter blabbed of--said our share +Wouldn't be missed--or I'd have never set foot +In Krindlesyke; to think I walked into this trap +For fifty-pound, that wasn't even here! +I might have kenned--Peter never told the truth, +Except by accident. I did ... and yet, +I came. I had to come: the old witch drew me. +But, Jim was greedy ... + +JUDITH: + Doesn't Jim live here, now? + +BELL: +You're not sent back by the penitent, then, to pay +The interest on the loan he took that morning +In an absent-minded fit--and pretty tales +Are tarradiddles? Jim's not mucked that step +In my time: Ezra thought he'd followed you. + +JUDITH: +Me? + +BELL: + You're Jim's wife--though you've not taken his name-- +Stuck to your own, and rightly: I'd not swap mine +For any man's: but, you're the bride the bridegroom +Lost before bedtime? + +JUDITH: + No, 'twas Phoebe Martin: +And dead, this fifteen-year: she didn't last +A twelvemonth after--it proved too much for her, +The shock; for all her heart was set on Jim. + +BELL: +Poor fool: though I've no cause to call her so; +For women are mostly fools, where men come in. +You're not the vanished bride? Then who've I blabbed +The family-secrets to, unsnecking the cupboard, +And setting the skeleton rattling his bones? I took you +For one of us, who'd ken our pretty ways; +And reckoned naught I could tell of Jim to Jim's wife +Could startle her, though she'd no notion of it. + +JUDITH: +I took you for Jim's wife. + +BELL: + Me! I'm a fool-- +But never fool enough to wear a ring +For any man. + +JUDITH: + Yet, Mistress Barrasford? + +BELL: +They call me that: but I'm Bell Haggard still; +And will be to the day I die, and after: +Though, happen, there'll be marriage and giving in marriage +In hell; for old Nick's ever been matchmaker. +In that particular, heaven would suit me better: +But I've travelled the wrong road too far to turn now. + +JUDITH: +Then you're not the mother of Michael Barrasford? + +BELL: +And who's the brass to say he's not my son? +I'm no man's wife: but what's to hinder me +From being a mother? + +JUDITH: + Then Jim is his father? + +BELL: +And what's it got to do with you, the man +I chose for my son's father? Chose--God help us! +That's how we women gammon ourselves. Deuce kens +The almighty lot choice has to do with it! + +JUDITH: +It wasn't Jim, then? + +BELL: + Crikey! You're not blate +Of asking questions: I've not been so riddled +Since that old egg-with-whiskers committed me. +Why harp on Jim? I've not clapped eyes on Jim, +Your worship; though I fear I must plead guilty +To some acquaintance with the family, +As you might put it; seeing that Jim's brother +Is my son's father; though how it came to happen, +The devil only kenned; and he's forgotten. + +JUDITH: +Thank God, it wasn't Jim. + +BELL: + And so say I: +Though, kenning only Peter, I'm inclined +To fancy Jim may be the better man. +What licks me is, what it's to do with you? +And why I answer your delicate questions, woman? +Even old hard-boiled drew the line somewhere. + +JUDITH: +I'm the mother of Jim's daughter. + +BELL: + You're the wench +The bride found here--and the mother of a daughter; +And live ... + +JUDITH: + At Bellingham. + +BELL: + Where Michael finds +So often he's pressing business, must be seen to-- +Something to do with sheep. I see ... To think +I didn't guess! Why is it, any man +Can put the blinkers on us? But, was I blind, +Or only wanting not to see--afraid +Of what I've been itching after all these years? +Can a hawk be caged so long, it's scared to watch +The cage door opening? More to it than that: +After all, there's something of the mother in me. +Ay: you've found Michael's minney! As for his dad, +It's eight-year since he quitted Krindlesyke, +The second time, for good. + +JUDITH: + He left you? + +BELL: + Hooked it: +But, shed no tears for me: he only left me, +As a sobering lout will quit the bramble-bush +He's tumbled in, blind-drunk--or was it an anthill +He'd pillowed his fuddled head on? Anyway, +He went, sore-skinned; and gay to go; escaped +From Krindlesyke--he always had the luck-- +Before the bitter winter that finished Ezra: +But, I'd to stay on, listening all day long +To that old dotard, counting the fifty sovereigns +Your fancy man made off with, when he cleaned out +The coffers of Krindlesyke, the very day +Ananias and I came for our share, too late: +And so, got stuck at Back-o'-Beyont, like wasps +In a treacle-trap--the gold all gone: naught left +But the chink of coins in an old man's noddle, that age +Had emptied of wits. He'd count them, over and over-- +Just stopping to curse Jim, when he called to mind +The box was empty: and, often, in the night, +I'd hear him counting, counting in the dark, +Till the night he stopped at forty-nine, stopped dead, +With a rattle--not a breath to whisper fifty. +A crookt corpse, yellow as his lost gold, I found him, +When I fetched my candle. + +JUDITH: + Dead? + +BELL: + Ay, guttered out-- +A dip burned to the socket. May chance puff out +My flame, while it still burns steady, and not sowse it +In a sweel of melted tallow. + +JUDITH: + Ay, but it's sad +When the wits go first. + +BELL: + And he, so wried and geyzened, +The undertakers couldn't strake him rightly. +Even when they'd nailed him down, and we were watching +By candle-light, the night before the funeral, +Nid-nodding, Michael and I, just as the clock +Struck twelve, there was a crack that brought us to, +Bolt-upright, as the coffin lid flew off: +And old granddaddy sat up in his shroud. + +JUDITH: +God save us, woman! Whatever did ... + +BELL: + I fancied +He'd popped up to say fifty: but he dropped back +With knees to chin. They'd got to screw him down: +And they'd sore work to get him underground-- +Snow overnight had reached the window-sill: +And when, at length, the cart got on the road, +The coffin was jolted twice into the drifts, +Before they'd travelled the twelve-mile to the church-yard: +And the hole they'd howked for him, chockful of slush: +And the coffin slipt with a splash into the sluther. +Ay--we see life at Krindlesyke, God help us! + +JUDITH: +A fearsome end. + +BELL: + Little to choose, 'twixt ends. +So, Michael's granddad, and your girl's, went home +To his forefathers, and theirs--both Barrasfords: +Though I'd guess your bairn's a gentler strain: yet mine's +No streak of me. All Barrasford, I judged him: +But, though he's Ezra's stubbornness, he's naught +Of foxy Peter: and grows more like Eliza, +I'd fancy: though I never kenned her, living: +I only saw her, dead. + +JUDITH: + Eliza, too? + +BELL: +I was the first to look on her dead face, +The morn I came: if she'd but lived a day-- +Just one day longer, she'd have let me go. +No living woman could have held me here: +But she was dead; and so, I had to stay-- +A fly, caught in the web of a dead spider. +It must be her he favours: and he's got +A dogged patience well-nigh crazes me: +A husband, born, as I was never born +For wife. But, happen, you ken him, well as I, +Leastways, his company-side, since he does business +At Bellingham? A happy ending, eh! +For our mischances, they should make a match: +Though naught that ever happens is an ending; +A wedding, least of all. + +JUDITH: + I've never seen him. +Ruth keeps her counsel. I'd not even heard +His name, till late last night; and then by chance: +But, I've not slept a wink since, you may guess. +When I heard "Barrasford of Krindlesyke," +My heart went cold within me, thinking of Jim, +And what he'd been to me. I'd had no news +Of all that's happened since I left the day +Jim wedded; and ... + +BELL: + The nowt felt like a poacher, +When keeper's sneaked his bunny, and broken his snare? + +JUDITH: +I fancied he, perhaps ... + +BELL: + Ay, likely enough. +Jim's wasted a sight of matches, since that day +He burnt his fingers so badly: but he's not kindled +A hearthfire yet at Krindlesyke. Anyway, +For Michael to be his son, I'd need to be +Even an older flame of his than you: +For Michael's twenty-one. + +JUDITH: + As old as that? +But I could never rest, till I'd made sure. +Knowing myself, I did not question Ruth ... + +BELL: +What's worth the kenning's seldom learned by speiring. + +JUDITH: +Though, knowing myself, I dreaded what might chance, +What might already ... + +BELL: + You'd no cause to worrit +Michael's not that sort: he's respectable-- +Too staid and sober for his tinker-mother: +He'll waste no matches, lighting wayside fires. + +JUDITH: +Like me, Ruth's easy kindled; hard to quench-- +A flying spark, and the heather's afire in a gale; +And the fell's burned to the rock--naught but black ash, +When the downpour comes, too late. + +BELL: + Ay--but the flare, +And crackle, and tossing flames, and golden smoke; +And the sting of the reek in the nostrils! + +JUDITH: + Ruth'll love +Once and for all: like me, she's born for marriage: +Though, in my eager trustfulness, I missed it. +You'll scorn me, as I often scorn myself: +But, kenning the worst, in my heart of hearts, I hanker ... +Jim meant so much to me once: I can't forget, +Or keep from dwelling on the might-have-been. +Snow on the felltop, now: but underground +Fire smoulders still: and still might burst to flame. +Deceived and broken ... + +BELL: + What's this jackadandy, +That you and Phoebe, both--and kenning him! + +JUDITH: +What's kenning got to do with love? It makes +No difference, once you've given ... + +BELL: + If I've a heart, +And it's broken, it's a broken stone, sunk deep +In bottomless mosshags, where no heat can touch it, +Till the whole world grills, at last, on hell's gridiron. + +JUDITH: +Nothing you ken of broken hearts, or hell, +To talk so lightly. I have come through hell: +But you have never loved. What's given in love, +Is given. It's something to have loved, at least: +And I have Ruth. + +BELL: + Ay, the green bracken-shoots, +Soon push through the black litter of charred heath: +And you have Ruth. + +JUDITH: + Or, had her, till last night: +I've lost her, now, it seems. + +BELL: + You let life hurt you: +You shy at shadows; and shrink from the crack of the whip, +Before the lash stings: and life loves no sport +Like yarking a shivering hide: you ask for it. + +JUDITH: +I've been through much. + +BELL: + And so, you should ken better +Than to hang yourself, before the judge gives sentence: +His honour can put the black cap on for himself, +Without your aid. You'll die a thousand deaths, +Before your end comes, peacefully in bed. +Why should you go half-way to meet your funeral? + +JUDITH: +Though there's a joy in giving recklessly, +In flinging all your faggots on the blaze, +In losing all for love--a crazy joy +Long years of suffering cannot quench, I'd have +Ruth spared that madness: and kenning she's just myself +Born over, how could I sleep with the dread upon me? +She'd throw herself away; would burn to waste, +Suffering as I have ... + +BELL: + Anyway, you burned: +And who's to say what burns to waste, even when +The kindled peatstack fires the steading? Far better +To perish in a flare, than smoulder away +Your life in smother: and what are faggots for, +If not for firing? But, you've suffered, woman, +More than need be, because you were ashamed. +The lurcher that slinks with drooping tail and lugs +Just asks for pelting. It's shame makes life bad travelling-- +The stone in the shoe that lames you. Other folk +Might be ashamed to do the things I've done: +That's their look-out; they've got no call to do them: +I've never done what I would blush to own to: +I've got my self-respect. For all my talk, +I'm proud of Michael: and you're proud of Ruth, +I take it? + +JUDITH: + Ay. + +BELL: + Then, where's the need for shame, +Because they were come-by-chances? A mean thief +That snivels, because the fruit he relishes +Is stolen; and keeps munching it to the core. +Married, and so lived happily ever after? +A deal of virtue in a wedding-ring: +And marriage-lines make all the difference, don't they? +Your man and mine were born in lawful wedlock: +And sober, honest, dutiful sons they've proved: +While our two bastards, Ruth and ... + +JUDITH: + Never been +A better daughter! + +BELL: + Then, what would you have? +You've had her to yourself, without the worrit +Of a man to wear your soul out, all these years. +If I'd been married, before a week was through, +I'd have picked my husband's pocket, to buy rats' bane: +Envying the spiders who can gobble up +Husbands they've no more use for between meals. +But I wasn't born to kick my heels in air +For a plaguey husband: and if I'm to dangle, +'Twon't be for that, but something worth putting myself +Out of the way for. You say I'll scorn you, woman. +Who 'm I, to scorn? You're not my sort: but I ken +Too much of life for easy scorn: I've learnt +The lessons of the road. + +JUDITH: + I've known the road, too; +And learned its bitter ... + +BELL: + You didn't relish it? +It's meat to me; but then, I like mixed pickles-- +Life, with an edge, and a free hand with the pepper. +You can't make a good hotchpotch with only 'taties: +And a good hotchpotch I'm fairly famished for: +I've starved on the lean fare of Krindlesyke: +My mouth is watering for the old savoury mess-- +Life, piping hot: for I'm no man-in-the-moon, +To sup off cold peaseporridge: and it's the wash +Of bitters over the tongue gives bite to the pepper: +But you've no taste for bitters, or devilled collops-- +Roast scrag on Sunday: cold mutton and boiled 'taties +The rest of the week, is the most you'd ask of life-- +Nay, a cup of milky tea by a white hearth-- +And you're in heaven! + +JUDITH: + You're not far out. + +BELL: + I take +Mine, laced with rum, by a camp-fire under the stars; +And not too dainty to mind the smatch of smoke. + +JUDITH: +Tastes differ. + +BELL: + Yet, for all my appetite, +At Krindlesyke, I'm a ewe overhead in a drift +That's cropped the grass round its feet, and mumbles its wool +For nourishment: and that's what you call life! +You're you: I'm I. It takes all turns for a circus: +And it's just the change and chances of the ring +Make the old game worth the candle: variety +At all costs: hurly-burly, razzle-dazzle-- +Life, cowping creels through endless flaming hoops, +A breakneck business, ending with a crash, +If only in the big drum. The devil's to pay +For what we have, or haven't; and I believe +In value for my money. + +JUDITH: + Peace and quiet +And a good home are worth ... + +BELL: + But, you've no turn +For circuses: your heart's a pipeclayed hearthstone-- +No ring for hoofs to trample to the clang +Of cymbals, blare of trumpets, rattle of drums: +No dash of brandy in your stirabout: +Porridge in peace, with a door 'twixt you and the weather; +A sanded floor; and the glow and smother of peat: +But I'd rather be a lean pig, running free, +Than the fattest flitch of bacon on the rafters. + +JUDITH: +And yet, you've kept ... + +BELL: + Ay: but my fingers have itched +Sorely to fire the peatstack in a west wind, +That flames might swarm walls and rooftree, and Krindlesyke, +Perishing in a crackle and golden flare-up, +Tumble a smoking ruin of blackened stone. + +JUDITH: +Yet, you've kept house ... + +BELL: + Ay, true enough; I've been +Cook, slut, and butler here this fifteen-year, +As thrang as Throp's wife when she hanged herself +With her own dishclout. Needs must, the fire will burn, +Barred in the grate: burn--nay, I've only smouldered +Like sodden peat. Ay, true, I've drudged; and yet, +What could I do against that old dead witch, +Lying in wait for me the day I came? +Her very patience was a kind of cunning +That challenged me, hinting I'd not have grit +To stand her life, even for a dozen years. +What could I do, but prove I could stick it out? +If I'd turned tail, she'd have bared her toothless gums +To grin at me: and how could I go through life, +Haunted by her dead smile? But now the spell +Is snapt: I've proved her wrong: she cannot hold me. +I've served my sentence: the cell-door opens: and yet, +You would have done that fifteen-years-hard willingly? +Some folk can only thrive in gaol--no nerve +To face the risks outside; and never happy +Till lagged for life: meals punctual and no cares: +And the king for landlord. While I've eaten my head off, +You've been a galled jade, fretting for the stable. +Tastes differ: but it's just that you're not my sort +Puzzles me why you gave yourself to Jim. + +JUDITH: +There are no whys and wherefores, when you love. + +BELL: +I gave myself to Peter, with a difference. +You'd have wed Jim: I just let Peter travel +With me, to keep the others from pestering; +And scooted him when Michael could manage the sheep. + +JUDITH: +You never loved him. I loved Jim ... + +BELL: + A deal +Of difference that's made! + +JUDITH: + More than you can guess. + +BELL: +Peter stuck longer, tangled in the brambles. + +JUDITH: +I loved Jim; so, I trusted him. + +BELL: + But when +You found him out? + +JUDITH: + If you had loved, you'd ken +That finding out makes little difference. +There are things in this life you don't understand, +For all your ready tongue. + +BELL: + Ay: men and women +I've given up--just senseless marionettes, +Jigging and bobbing to the twitching strings: +Though I like to fancy I pick my steps, and choose +The tunes I dance to; happen, that's my pride; +But, choose or not, we've got to pay the piper. + +JUDITH: +Ay: in your pride, you think you've the best of life. +You're missing more than you reckon, the best of all. + +BELL: +Well, I've no turn for penal servitude. +But, have you never gabbed to keep your heart up? +What are hats for, if not for talking through? +Pride--we've both pride; yours, hot and fierce, and mine +Careless and cold: yet, both came the same cropper-- +Not quite ... for you were hurt to death almost: +While I picked myself up, scatheless; not a scratch; +Only my skirt torn; and it always draggled. + +JUDITH: +You never cared: I couldn't have borne myself, +If I'd not cared: I'd hate myself as much +As I've hated Jim, whiles, when I thought of all. +They're mixter-maxter, hate and love: and, often, +I've wondered if I loathed, or loved, Jim most. +I understand as little as you, it seems: +Yet, it's only caring counts for anything +In this life; though it's caring's broken me. + +BELL: +It stiffens some. But, why take accidents +So bitterly? It's all a rough-and-tumble +Of accidents, from the accident of birth +To the last accident that lays us out-- +A go-as-you-please, and the devil take the hindmost. +It's pluck that counts, and an easy seat in the saddle: +Better to break your neck at the first ditch, +Than waste the day in seeking gates to slip through: +Cold-blooded crawlers I've no sort of use for. +You took the leap, and landed in the quickset: +But, at least, you leapt sky-high, before you tumbled: +And it's silly to lie moaning in the prickles: +Best pick yourself up sharp, and shake the thorns out, +Else the following hoofs will bash you. Give life leave +To break your heart, 'twill trample you ... + +JUDITH: + Leave, say you? +Life takes French-leave: your heart's beneath the hoofs +Before ... + +BELL: + But grin, and keep yourself heartwhole; +And you'll find the fun of the fair's in taking chances: +It's the uncertainty makes the race--no sport +In putting money on dead-certainties. +I back the dark horse; stake my soul against +The odds: and I'll not grouse if life should prove +A welsher in the end: I'll have had my fling, +At least: and yet talk's cheap ... + +JUDITH: + Ay, cheap. + +BELL: + Dirt-cheap: +Three-shots-a-penny; and it's not every time +You hit Aunt Sally and get a good cigar, +Or even pot a milky coconut: +And, all this while, life's had the upper hand: +I slipt, the day I came; and lost my grip: +Life got me by the scruff of the neck, and held +My proud nose to the grindstone. My turn, now-- +I'll be upsides with life, and teach it manners, +Before death gets the stranglehold: I'll have +The last laugh, though it choke me. And what's death, +To set us twittering? I'll be no frightened squirrel: +Scarting and scolding never yet scared death: +When he's a mind to crack me like a nut, +I'd be no husk: still ripe and milky, I'd have him +Swallow the kernel, and spit out the shell, +Before all's shrivelled to black dust. But, tombstones, +What's turned my thoughts to death? It's these white walls, +After a day in the open. When I came, +At first, these four walls seemed to close in on me, +As though they'd crush the life out: and I felt +I'd die between them: but, after all ... And yet, +Who kens what green sod's to be broken for him? +Queer, that I'll lie, like any innocent +Beneath the daisies; but the gowans must wait. +Sore-punished, I'm not yet knocked out: life's had +My head in chancery; but I'll soon be free +To spar another round or so with him, +Before he sends me spinning to the ropes. +And life would not be life, without the hazards. + +JUDITH: +Too many hazards for me. + +BELL: + Ay: so it seems: +But you're too honest for the tricky game. +I've a sort of honesty--a liar and thief +In little things--I'm honesty itself +In the things that matter--few enough, deuce kens: +But your heart's open to the day; while mine's +A pitchy night, with just a star or so +To light me to cover at the keeper's step. +You're honest, to your hurt: your honesty's +A knife that cuts through all; and will be cutting-- +Hacking and jabbing, and thirsting to draw blood; +And turning in the wound it makes--a gulley, +To cut your heart out, if you doubted it: +And so, you're faithful, even to a fool; +While I would just be faithful to myself. +You thrive on misery. + +JUDITH: + Nay: I've only asked +A little happiness of life: I've starved +For happiness, God kens. + +BELL: + What's happiness? +You've got a sweet-tooth; and don't relish life: +You want run-honey, when it's the honeycomb +That gives the crunch and flavour. Would you be +As happy as a maggot in a medlar, +Swelling yourself in sweet deliciousness, +Till the blackbird nips you? None escapes his crop. +You'd quarrel with the juiciest plum, because +Your teeth grit on the stone, instead of cracking +The shell, and savouring the bitter kernel. +Nigh all the jests life cracks have bitter kernels. + +JUDITH: +Ay, bitter enough to set my teeth on edge. + +BELL: +What are teeth for, if we must live on pap? +The sweetest marrow's in the hardest bone, +As you've found with Ruth, I take it. + +JUDITH: + Ay: and still, +You have been faithful, Bell. + +BELL: + A faithful fool, +Against the grain, this fifteen-year: my son +And that dead woman were too strong for me: +They turned me false to my nature; broke me in +Like a flea in harness, that draws a nutshell-coach. +Till then I'd jumped, and bit, at my own sweet will. +Oh! amn't I the wiseacre, the downy owl, +Fancying myself as knowing as a signpost? +And yet, there's always some new twist to learn. +Life's an old thimblerigger; and, it seems, +Can still get on the silly side of me, +Can still bamboozle me with his hanky-panky: +He always kens a trick worth two of mine; +Though he lets me spot the pea beneath the thimble +Just often enough to keep me in good conceit. +And he's kept you going, too, with Ruth to live for. + +JUDITH: +If it hadn't been for Ruth ... + +BELL: + He kens, he kens: +As canny as he's cute, for his own ends, +He's a wise showman; and doesn't overfeed +The living skeleton or let the fat lady starve: +And so, we're each kept going, in our own kind, +Till we've served our turn. Mine's talking, you'll have gathered! + +JUDITH: +Ay, you've a tongue. + +BELL: + It rattles in my head +Like crocks in a mugger's cart: but I've had few +To talk with here; and too much time for brooding, +Turning things over and over in my own mind, +These fifteen years. + +JUDITH: + True: neighbours, hereabouts, +Are few, and far to seek. + +BELL: + The devil a chance +I've ever had of a gossip: and, as for news, +I've had to fall back on the wormy Bible +That props the broken looking-glass: so, now +I've got the chance of a crack, my tongue goes randy; +And patters like a cheapjack's, or a bookie's +Offering you odds against the favourite, life: +Or, wasn't life the dark horse? I have talked +My wits out, till I'm like a drunken tipster, +Too milled to ken the dark horse from the favourite. +My sharp tongue's minced my very wits to words. + +JUDITH: +Ay, it's been rattling round. + +BELL: + A slick tongue spares +The owner the fag of thinking: it's the listeners +Who get the headache. And yet, I could talk +At one time to some purpose--didn't dribble +Like a tap that needs a washer: and, by carties, +It's talking I've missed most: I've always been +Like an urchin with a withy--must be slashing-- +Thistles for choice: and not once, since I came, +Have I had a real good shindy to warm my blood. + +JUDITH: +I'd have thought Ezra ... + +BELL: + Ay: we fratched, at first; +For he'd a tongue of his own; and could use it, too, +Better than most menfolk--a bonnie sparrer, +I warrant, in his time; but past his best +Before I kenned him; little fight left in him: +And when his wits went cranky, he just havered-- +Ground out his two tunes like a hurdygurdy, +With most notes missing and a creaky handle. + +JUDITH: +And Michael? + +BELL: + Michael! The lad will sit mumchance +The evening through: he's got a powerful gift +Of saying nothing: no sparks to strike off him; +Though he's had to serve as a whetstone, this long while, +To keep an edge on my tongue. + +JUDITH: + He's quiet? + +BELL: + Quiet! +A husband born. No need to fear for Ruth: +She's safe with Michael, safe for life. + +JUDITH: + He's steady? + +BELL: +He's not his mother's son: he banks his money; +And takes no hazards; never risks his shirt: +As canny as I'm spendthrift, he's the sort +Can pouch his cutty, half-smoked, ten minutes after +I've puffed away my pipeful. Ay: Ruth's safe. +His peatstacks never fire: he'll never lose +A lamb, or let a ewe slip through his hands, +For want of watching; though he go for nights +Without a nap. The day of Ezra's funeral, +A score of gimmers perished in the snow, +But not a ewe of Michael's: his were folded +Before the wind began to pile the drifts: +He takes no risks. + +JUDITH: + Ruth needs a careful man: +For she's the sort that's steady with the steady, +And a featherhead with featherheads. She's sense: +And Michael ... + +BELL: + Michael's sense itself--a cob +Too steady to shy even at the crack of doom: +He'll keep the beaten track, the road that leads +To four walls, and the same bed every night. +Talk of the devil--but he's coming now +Up Bloodysyke: ay, and there's someone with him-- +A petticoat, no less! + +JUDITH: + Mercy! It's Ruth: +Yet I didn't leave, till she was safely off +To work ... + +BELL: + Work? Michael, too, had business +In Bellingham this morning, oddly enough. +Doubtless, they helped each other; and got through +The job the quicker, working well together: +And a parson took a hand in it for certain, +If I ken Michael: likes things proper, he does; +And always had a weakness for black lambs. +But, who'd have guessed he'd ... Surely, there's a strain +Of Haggard in the young limb, after all: +No Haggard stops to ask a parent's leave, +Even should they happen to ken the old folk by sight: +My own I knew by hearsay. But, what luck +You're here to welcome the young pair. + +JUDITH: + No! They'll wonder ... +I bring no luck to weddings ... I must go ... + +BELL: +You can't, without being spotted: but you can hide +Behind the door, till I speak with them. + +JUDITH: + No! No! +Not that door ... I can't hide behind that door +Again. + +BELL: + That door? Well, you ken best what's been +Between that door and you. It's crazy and old, +But, it looks innocent, wooden-faced humbug: yet +I don't trust doors myself; they've got a knack +Of shutting me in. But you'll be snug enough +In the other room: I'd advise you to lie down, +And rest; you're looking trashed: and, come to think, +I've a deal to say to the bridegroom, before I go. + +JUDITH: +Go? + +BELL: + Quick, this way: step lively, or they'll catch +Your skirt-tail whisking round the doorcheek. + +(_BELL hustles JUDITH 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 MICHAEL and RUTH enter._) + +MICHAEL: + Mother! + +BELL: +Is that you, Prodigal son? You're late, to-day, +As always when you've business in Bellingham. +That's through, I trust: those ewes have taken a deal +Of seeing to: and I'm lonely as a milestone, +When you're away. + +MICHAEL: + I've taken the last trip, mother: +That job's through: and I've made the best of bargains. +You'll not be lonely, now, when I'm not here: +I've brought you a daughter to keep you company. + +BELL (_turning sharply_): +I might have known you were no Prodigal son: +He didn't bring home even a single sausage, +For all his keeping company with swine. +But, what should I do with a daughter, lad? +Do you fancy, if I'd had a mind for daughters, +I couldn't have had a dozen of my own? +One petticoat's enough in any house: +And who are you, to bring your mother a daughter? + +MICHAEL: +Her husband. Ruth's my bride. Ruth Ellershaw +She was till ten o'clock: Ruth Barrasford, +Till doomsday, now. + +BELL: + When did I give you leave +To bring strange lasses to disturb my peace, +Just as I'm getting used to Krindlesyke? +To think you'd wed, without a word! + +MICHAEL: + Leave, say you? +You'll always have your jest. I said no word: +For words breed words: and I'd not have a swarm +Of stinging ants bumming about my lugs +For days beforehand. + +BELL: + Ants? They'd need be kaids, +To burrow through your fleece, and prog your skin. + +MICHAEL: +I'd as lief ask leave of the tricky wind as you: +And, leave or not, I'd see you damned, if you tried +To part us. None of your games! I'm no young wether, +To be let keep his old dam company; +Trotting beside her ... + +BELL: + Cock-a-whoop, my lad! +Well done, for you, Ruth, lass; you've kindled him, +As I could never do, for all my chaff. +I little dreamt he'd ever turn lobstroplous: +I hardly ken him, with his dander up, +Swelling and bridling like a bubblyjock. +If I pricked him now, he'd bleed red blood--not ewe's milk: +The flick of my tongue can nettle him at last: +His haunches quiver, for all his woolly coat; +He'll prove a Haggard, yet. Nay--he said "husband": +No Haggard I've heard tell on's been a husband: +But, if your taste's for husbands, lass, you're suited, +Till doomsday, as he says. He kens his mind: +When barely breeched, he chose to bide with sheep; +Though he might have travelled with horses: and it's sheep +His heart is set on still. But, I've no turn +For certainties myself: no sheep for me: +Life, with a tossing mane, and clattering hoofs, +The chancy life for me--not certain death, +With the stink of tar and sheepdip in my nostrils. + +MICHAEL: +Life, with a clattering tongue, you mean to say. + +BELL: +Well: you're a bonnie lass, I must admit: +And, if I'd fancied daughters, I might have done +Much worse than let young Michael pick them for me: +He's not gone poseying in the kitchen garden. +I never guessed he'd an eye for aught but ewes: +As, blind as other mothers, I'd have sworn +I'd kenned him, inside-out, since he was--nay! +But he was never a rapscallion ripstitch-- +Always a prim and proper little man, +A butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth young sobersides, +Since he found his own feet. Yet, the blade that's wed-- +The jack-knife, turned into a pair of scissors-- +Without a word, is not the son I thought him. +There's something of his mammy, after all, +In Michael: and as for you, my lass, you're just +Your minney's very spit. + +RUTH: + You ken my mother? + +BELL: +Ken Judith Ellershaw? You'll ask me, next, +If I'm acquainted with Bell Haggard. Well, +Gaping for turnips, Michael? + +MICHAEL: + I never heard ... + +BELL: +What have you heard this fifteen-year, except +The bleat of sheep, till Ruth's voice kittled your ear? +But, Judith sent some message by her daughter? + +RUTH: +She doesn't ken I've come: nay, doesn't dream +I'm married even; though I meant to tell her +This morning; but I couldn't: she started so, +When I let slip Michael's name; and turned so pale. +I don't know why; but I feared some word of hers +Might come between us: and I couldn't let +Even my mother come between us now: +So, I pretended to set out for work +As usual: then, when we were married, went back +With Michael, to break the news. But the door was locked: +And neighbours said she was out--been gone some time: +And Michael was impatient to be home: +So, I had to come. I can't think what has happened. +I hated leaving her like that: I've never +In all my life done such a thing. + +BELL: + Well, Michael +Should be relieved to learn it's a first offence. + +RUTH: +She'd gone without a word ... + +BELL: + A family failing-- +And, happen, on like errand to your own. + +RUTH: +Mother? Nay, she's too old: you said you knew her. + +BELL: +Ay, well enough to reckon I'm her elder: +And who's to tell me I'm too old to marry? +A woman is never too old for anything: +It's only men grow sober and faint-hearted: +And Judith's just the sort whose soul is set +On a husband and a hearthstone: I ken that. + +RUTH: +Nay: mother'll never marry. + +BELL: + You can speak +With all the cock-a-whoop of ignorance: +For you're too young to dare to doubt your wisdom. +It's a wise man, or a fool, can speak for himself, +Let alone for others, in this haphazard life. +But give me a young fool, rather than an old-- +A plucky plunger, than a canny crone +Who's old enough to ken she doesn't ken. +You're right: for doubting is a kind of dotage: +Experience ages and decays; while folk +Who never doubt themselves die young--at ninety. +Age never yet brought gumption to a ninny: +And you cannot reckon up a stranger's wits +By counting his bare patches and grey hairs: +It's seldom sense that makes a bald head shine: +And I'm not partial to Methuselahs. +Keep your cocksureness, while you can: too soon, +Time plucks the feathers off you; and you lie, +Naked and skewered, with not a cock-a-doodle, +Or flap of the wings to warm your heart again. +And so, you quitted your mammy, without a word, +When the jockey whistled? + +RUTH: + Nay: I left a letter: +'Twas all I could do. + +BELL: + She's lost a daughter; and got +A bit of paper, instead: and what have I, +For my lost son? + +MICHAEL: + You've lost no son; but gained +A daughter. You'll always live with us. + +BELL: + Just so. +I've waited for you to say that: and it comes pat. +You'll think his thoughts; and mutter them in your mind, +Before he can give them tongue, Ruth. He's not said +An unexpected thing since he grew out +Of his first breeches: and, like the most of men, +He speaks so slowly, you can almost catch +The creaking of his wits between the words. + +RUTH: +Well: I've a tongue for two: and you, yourself, +Don't lack for ... + +BELL: + So, all's settled: you've arranged +The world for your convenience; and have planned +Your mothers' lives between you? I'm to be +The dear old grannie in the ingleneuk; +And hide my grizzled wisps in a mutch with frills? +Nay, God forbid! I'm no tame pussycat, +To snuggle on the corner of a settle, +With one eye open for the chance-thrown titbit, +While the good housewife goes about her duties: +Me! lapping with blinking eyes and possing paws, +The saucer of skim-milk that young skinflint spares me, +And purring, when her darlings pull my tail-- +Great-grandchildren, too, to Ezra, on both sides. +Ay: you may gape like a brace of guddled brandling: +But that old bull-trout's grandsire to you both; +And a double dose of his blue blood will run +In the veins of your small fry--if fish have veins. + +MICHAEL: +You surely never mean to say ... + +BELL: + I do. +More than a little for you young know-alls to learn, +When you meet Judith Ellershaw: for havers +As it sounds to your young lugs, the world went round, +And one or two things happened, before you were born. +Yet, none of us kens what life's got up his sleeve: +He's played so long: and had a deal of practice, +Since he sat down with Adam: he's always got +A trump tucked out of sight, that takes the trick. +But, son, you've lived with me for all these years; +And yet ken me so little? Grannie's mutch-frills! +I'd as lief rig myself in widow's weeds +For my fancy man, who may have departed this life, +For all I ken or care. + +MICHAEL: + Come, hold your tongue: +Enough of shameless talk. I'm master, now: +And I'll not have Ruth hear this radgy slack. +If you've no shame yourself, I'll find a way +To bridle your loose tongue: so mind yourself: +I'll have no tinker's tattle. + +BELL: + The tinker's brat +Rides the high-horse now, mounted on prime mutton. +Ruth, lass, you're safe, you're safe--if safety's all: +He'll never guess your heart, unless you blab. +I've never told him mine: I've kept him easy, +Till he'd found someone else to victual him, +And make his bed, and darn his hose; and you +Seem born to take the job out of my hands. + +RUTH: +But I'd not come between you ... + +BELL: + Think not, lass? +I bear you no ill-will: you set me free. +I'm a wildcat, all bristling fur and claws: +At Krindlesyke, I've been a wildcat, caged: +And Michael never twigged! Son, don't you mind +The day we came--was I a tabby then? +The day we came here, with no thought to bide, +Once we had got the plunder; and were trapped +Between these four white walls by a dead woman? +She held me--forced my feet into her shoes-- +Held me for your sake. Ay: there seemed some link +'Twixt your dead grannie and you, too strong for me +To break; though it's been strained to the snapping-point, +Times out of mind, whenever a hoolet's screech +Sang through my blood; or poaching foxes barked +On a shiny night to the cackle of wild geese, +Travelling from sea to sea far overhead: +Or whenever, waking in the quiet dark, +The ghosts of horses whinneyed in my heart. +Ghosts! Nay, I've been the mare between the limmers +Who hears the hunters gallop gaily by; +Or, rather, the hunter, bogged in a quaking moss, +Fankit in sluthery strothers, belly-deep, +With the tune of the horn tally-hoing through her blood, +As the field sweeps out of sight. + +MICHAEL: + Wildcats and hunters-- +A mongrel breed, eh, Ruth? + +BELL: + But, now it seems, +I can draw my hocks out of the clungy sump +I've floundered in so long; and, snuffing the wind, +Shew a clean pair of heels to Krindlesyke. +A mongrel breed, say you? And who but a man +Could have a wildcat-hunter making his bed +For him for fifteen-year, and never know it? +But, the old wife's satisfied, at last: she should be: +She's had my best years: I've grown old and grizzled, +And full of useless wisdom, in her service. +She's taught me much: for I've had time and to spare, +Brooding among these God-forsaken fells, +To turn life inside-out in my own mind; +And study every thread of it, warp and weft. +I'm far from the same woman who came here: +And I'll take up my old life with a difference, +Now she and you've got no more use for me: +You've squeezed me dry betwixt you. + +MICHAEL: + Dry, do you say? +The Tyne's in spate; and we must swim for life, +Eh, Ruth? But, you'll soon get used ... + +BELL: + She's done with me. +She'll not be sorry to lose me: I fancy, at times, +She felt she'd got more than she'd bargained for-- +A wasp, rampaging in her spider's web. +"Far above rubies" has never been my line, +Though I could wag a tongue with Solomon, +Like the Queen of Sheba herself: I doubt if she +Rose in the night to give meat to her household. +She must have been an ancestor of mine: +For she'd traik any distance for a crack, +The gipsy-hearted ganwife that she was. + +MICHAEL: +Wildcats and hunters and the Queen of Sheba-- +A royal family, Ruth, you've married into! + +BELL: +But now I can kick Eliza's shoes sky-high: +Nay--I must shuffle them quietly off; and lay +The old wife's shoes decently by the hearth, +As I found them when I came--a slattern stopgap-- +Ready for the young wife to step into. +They'll fit her, as they never fitted me: +For all her youth, they will not gall her heels, +Or give her corns: she's the true Cinderella: +The clock has struck for her; and the dancing's done; +And the Prince has brought her home--to wash the dishes. +But now I'm free: and I'll away to-night. +My bones have been restless in me all day long: +They felt their freedom coming, before I kenned. +I've little time to lose: I'm getting old-- +Stiff-jointed in my wits, that once were nimble +As a ferret among the bobtails, old and dull. +A night or so may seem to matter little, +When I've already lost full fifteen-year: +But I hear the owls call: and my fur's a-tingle: +The Haggard blood is pricking in my veins. + +(_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 MICHAEL and RUTH watch + the transformation in amazement._) + +MICHAEL: +But you don't mean to leave us? + +BELL: + Pat it comes: +You've just to twitch the wire and the bell rings: +You'll learn the trick, soon, Ruth. (_To MICHAEL_) Bat, don't you see +I've just put on my nightcap, ready for bed-- +Grannie's frilled mutch? I leave you, Michael? Son, +The time came, as it comes to every man, +When you'd to make a choice betwixt two women. +You've made your choice: and chosen well: but I, +Who've always done the choosing, and never yet +Tripped to the beck of any man, or bobbed +To any living woman--I'm free to follow +My own bent, now that that old witch's fingers +Have slackened their cold clutch; and your dead grannie +Has gained her ends, and seen you settled down +At Krindlesyke: and from this on I, too, +Am dead to you. You'll soon enough forget me: +The world would end if a man could not forget +His mother's deathbed in his young wife's arms-- +I'm far from corpse-cold yet; and it may be years +Before they pluck Bell Haggard's kerchief off, +To tie her chin up with, and ripe her pockets +Of her last pennies to shut up her eyes. +Even then, they'll have to tug the chin-clout tight, +To keep her tongue from wagging. Well, my son, +So, it's good-bye till doomsday. + +MICHAEL: + You're not going? +I thought you only havered. You can't go. +Do you think I'd let you go, and ... + +BELL: + Hearken, Ruth: +That's the true husband's voice: for husbands think, +If only they are headstrong and high-handed, +They're getting their own way: they charge, head-down, +At their own image in the window-glass; +And don't come to their senses till their carcase +Is spiked with smarting splinters. But I'm your mother, +Not your tame wife, lad: and I'll go my gait. + +MICHAEL: +You shall not go, for all your crazy cackle-- +My mother, on the road, a tinker's baggage, +While I've a roof to shelter her! + +BELL: + You pull +The handle downwards towards you, and the beer +Spouts out. No hope for you, Ruth: lass, you're safe-- +Safe as a linnet in a cage, for life: +No need to read your hand, to tell your fortune: +No gallivanting with the dark-eyed stranger, +Calleevering over all the countryside, +When the owls are hooting to the hunter's moon, +For the wife of Michael Barrasford. Well, boy, +What if I choose to be a tinker's baggage? +It was a tinker's baggage mothered you-- +For tying a white apron round the waist +Has never made a housewife of a gipsy-- +And a tinker's baggage went out of her way +To set you well on yours: and now she turns. + +MICHAEL: +You shall not go, I say. I'm master here: +And I won't let you shame me. I've been decent; +And have always done my duty by the sheep, +Working to keep a decent home together +To bring a wife to: and, for all your jeers, +There are worse things for a woman than a home +And husband and a lawful family. +You shall not go. You say I ken my mind ... + +BELL: +Ay: but not mine. What should a tinker's trollop +Do in the house of Michael Barrasford, +But bring a blush to his children's cheeks? God help them, +If they take after me, if they've a dash +Of Haggard blood--for ewe's milk laced with brandy +Is like to curdle: or, happen, I should say, +God help their father! + +MICHAEL: + Mother, why should you go? +Why should you want to travel the ditch-bottom, +When you've a hearth to sit by, snug and clean? + +BELL: +The fatted calf's to be killed for the prodigal mother? +You've not the hard heart of the young cockrobin +That's got no use for parents, once he's mated: +But I'm, somehow, out of place within four walls, +Tied to one spot--that never wander the world. +I long for the rumble of wheels beneath me; to hear +The clatter and creak of the lurching caravan; +And the daylong patter of raindrops on the roof: +Ay, and the gossip of nights about the campfire-- +The give-and-take of tongues: mine's getting stiff +For want of use, and spoiling for a fight. + +MICHAEL: +Nay: still as nimble and nippy as a flea! + +BELL: +But, I could talk, at one time! There are days +When the whole world's hoddendoon and draggletailed, +Drooked through and through; and blury, gurly days +When the wind blows snell: but it's something to be stirring, +And not shut up between four glowering walls, +Like blind white faces; and you never ken +What traveller your wayside fire will draw +Out of the night, to tell outlandish tales, +Or crack a jest, or start quarrel with you, +Till the words bite hot as ginger on the tongue. +Anger's the stuff to loose a tongue grown rusty: +And keep it in good fettle for all chances. +I'm sick of dozing by a dumb hearthstone-- +And the peat, with never a click or crackle in it-- +Famished for news. + +MICHAEL: + For scandal. + +BELL: + There's no scandal +For those who can't be scandalized--just news: +All's fish that comes to their net. I was made +For company. + +MICHAEL: + And you'd go back again +To that tag-rag-and-bobtail? What's the use +Of a man's working to keep a decent home, +When his own mother tries to drag him down? + +BELL: +Nay: my pernicketty, fine gentleman, +But I'll not drag you down: you're free of me: +I've slipt my apron off; and you're tied now +To your wife's apron-strings: for menfolk seem +Uneasy on the loose, and never happy +Unless they're clinging to some woman's skirt. +I'm out of place in any decent house, +As a kestrel in a hencoop. Ay, you're decent: +But, son, remember a man's decency +Depends on his braces; and it's I who've sewn +Your trouser-buttons on; so, when you fasten +Your galluses, give the tinker's baggage credit. +She's done her best for you; and scrubbed and scoured, +Against the grain, for all these years, to keep +Your home respectable; though, in her heart, +Thank God, she's never been respectable-- +No dry-rot in her bones, while she's alive: +Time and to spare for decency in the grave. +So, you can do your duty by the sheep, +While I go hunting with the jinneyhoolets-- +Birds of a feather--ay, and fleece with fleece: +And when I'm a toothless, mumbling crone, you'll be +So proper a gentleman, 'twill be hard to tell +The shepherd from the sheep. Someone must rear +The mutton and wool, to keep us warm and fed; +But that's not my line: please to step this way +For the fancy goods and fakish faldalals, +Trinkets and toys and fairings. Son, you say, +You're master here: well, that's for Ruth to settle: +I'll be elsewhere. I've never knuckled down +To any man: and I'll be coffin-cold +Before I brook a master; so, good-night, +And pleasant dreams; and a long family +Of curly lambkins, bleating round the board. + +RUTH: +Michael, you'll never let her go alone? +She's only talking wild, because she's jealous. +Mothers are always jealous, when their sons +Bring home a bride: though she needn't be uneasy: +I'd never interfere ... + +BELL: + Too wise to put +Your fingers 'twixt the cleaver and the block? +Jealous--I wonder? Anyhow, it seems, +I've got a daughter, too. Alone, you say? +However long I stayed, I'd have to go +Alone, at last: and I'd as lief be gone, +While I can carry myself on my two pins. +Being buried with the Barrasfords is a chance +I've little mind to risk a second time: +I'm too much of a Haggard, to want to rise, +At the last trump, among a flock of bleaters. +If I've my way, there'll be stampeding hoofs +About me, startled at the crack of doom. + +MICHAEL: +When you've done play-acting ... + +BELL: + Play-acting? Ay: I'm through: +Exit the villain: ring the curtain down +On the happy ending--bride and bridegroom seated +On either side the poor, but pious, hearth. + +MICHAEL: +I'd as soon argue with a weathercock +As with a woman ... + +BELL: + Yet the weathervanes +Are always cocks, not hens. + +MICHAEL: + You shall not go. + +BELL: +Your naked hurdles cannot hold the wind. + +MICHAEL: +Wind? Ay, I'm fairly tewed and hattered with words: +And yet, for all your wind, you shall not go. + +BELL: +While you've a roof to shelter me, eh, son? +You mean so well; and understand so little. +Yours is a good thick fleece--no skin that twitches +When a breath tickles it. Sheep will be sheep, +And horses, horses, till the day of judgment. + +MICHAEL: +Better a sound tup than a spavined nag. + +BELL: +Ay, Ruth, you've kindled him! Good luck to you: +And may your hearthfire warm you to the end. + + (_To MICHAEL._) + +You've been a good son to me, in your way: +Only, our ways are different; and here they part. +For all my blether, there's no bitterness +On my side: I've long kenned 'twas bound to come: +And, in your heart, you know it's for the best, +For your sake, and for Ruth's sake, and for mine. +I couldn't obey, where I have bid; nor risk +My own son's fathering me in second childhood: +And you'd not care to have me like old Ezra, +A dothering haiveril in your chimney corner, +Babbling of vanished gold? I read my fortune +In the flames just now: and I'll not rot to death: +It's time enough to moulder, underground. +My death'll come quick and chancy, as I'd have had +Each instant of life: but still there are risky years +Before me, and a sudden, unlooked-for ending. +And I'll not haunt you: ghosts enough, with Ezra, +Counting his ghostly sovereigns all night long, +And old Eliza, darning ghostly stockings. +My ghost will ride a broomstick.... + +(_As she speaks, the inner door opens, and RUTH and MICHAEL, turning + sharply at the click of the latch, gaze, dumbfounded, at JUDITH + ELLERSHAW, standing in the doorway._) + +BELL: + Fee-fo-fum! +The barguest bays; and boggles, brags, and bo-los +Follow the hunt. How's that for witchcraft, think you? +Hark, how the lych-owl screeches! + +RUTH (_running to her mother's arms_): + Mother, you! + +BELL: +Now there's a sweet, domestic picture for you! +My cue's to vanish in a puff of smoke +And reek of brimstone, like the witch I am. +I'm coming, hoolet, my old cat with wings! +It's time I was away: there never yet +Was room for two grandmothers in one house. +I'm through with Krindlesyke. Good-bye, old gaol! + +(_While MICHAEL still gazes at RUTH and her mother in amazement, BELL + HAGGARD slips out of the door, unnoticed, and away through the bracken + in the gathering dusk. An owl hoots._) + + + + +PART III + + +_A wet afternoon in May, six years later. The table is already set for + tea. JUDITH ELLERSHAW 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 JIM BARRASFORD, + ragged and disreputable (and some twenty years older than when he + married PHOEBE MARTIN) stands on the threshold a moment, eyeing + JUDITH's unconscious back in silence: then he speaks, limping + towards her chair._ + +JIM: +While the cat calleevers the hills of Back-o'-Beyont, +The rats make free of the rick: and so, you doubled, +As soon as my hurdies were turned on Krindlesyke, +And settled yourself in the ingle? + +JUDITH (_starting up, and facing him_): + Jim! + +JIM: + Ay, Jim-- +No other, Judith. I'll be bound you weren't +Just looking to see me: you seem overcome +By the unexpected pleasure. Your pardon, mistress, +If I intrude. By crikes! But I'm no ghost +To set you adither: you don't see anything wrong-- +No, no! What should you see? I startled you. +Happen I look a wee bit muggerishlike-- +A ragtag hipplety-clinch: but I've been travelling +Mischancy roads; and I'm fair muggert-up. +Yet, why should that stagnate you? Where's the sense +Of expecting a mislucket man like me +To be as snod and spruce as a young shaver? +But I'm all right: there's naught amiss with Jim, +Except too much of nothing in his belly. +A good square meal, and a pipe, and a decent night's rest, +And I'll be fit as a fiddle. I've hardly slept ... +Well, now I'm home, I'll make myself at home. + +(_He seizes the loaf of bread from the table; hacks off a hunch with his + jack-knife; and wolfs it ravenously._) + +JUDITH: +Home? You've come home, Jim? + +JIM: + Nay, I'm my own fetch! +God's truth! there's little else but skin and bone +Beneath these tatters: just a two-legged boggart, +With naught but wind to fill my waim--small wonder +You're maiselt, to see a scarecrow stottering in-- +For plover's eggs and heather-broth don't sleek +A wrinkled hide or swell a scrankit belly. +But still, what should there be to flabbergast you +About a man's returning to his home? +Naught wrong in coming home, I hope? By gox, +A poor lad can't come home, but he's cross-questioned, +And stared at like ... Why do you stare like that? +It's I should be agape, to find you here: +But no, I'm not surprised: you can't surprise me: +I'm a travelled man: I've seen the world; and so, +Don't look for gratitude. My eyes were opened, +Once and for all, by Phoebe and you, that day-- +Nigh twenty-year since: and they've not been shut ... +By gum, that's so! it seems like twenty-year +Since I'd a wink of sleep ... And, anyway, +I've heard the story, all the goings-on; +And a pretty tale it is: for I'd a drink, +A sappy-crack with that old windywallops, +Sep Shanks, in a bar at Bellingham: and he let out +How you'd crawled back to Krindlesyke with your daughter-- +Our daughter, I should say: and she, no less, +Married to Peter's son: though how the deuce +You picked him up, is more that I can fashion. +Sep had already had his fill of cheerers, +Before I met him; and that last rum-hot +Was just the drop too much: and he got fuddled. +Ay, Sep was mortal-clay, the addled egg: +And I couldn't make head or tail of his hiccuping, +Though he tried to make himself plain: he did his best, +Did Sep: I'll say that for him--tried so hard +To make himself plain, he got us both chucked out: +And I left him in the gutter, trying still. + +JUDITH: +You've come from Bellingham hiring? + +JIM: + I couldn't stand +The dindum: felt fair-clumpered in that cluther-- +Such a hubblyshew of gowks and flirtigigs, +Craking and cackling like a gabble of geese: +And folk kept looking: I might have been a bizen, +The way they gaped: so I thought I'd just win home +For a little peace and quiet. Where's my daughter, +And this young cuckoo, calls himself my nephew, +And has made himself free and easy of my nest? +Ay, but you've fettled things nicely, the lot of you, +While I tramped the hungry roads. He's pinched my job: +But I bear no grudge: it's not a job I'm after, +Since I've a married daughter I can live with. +I've seen the world, a sight too much: and I mean +To settle down, and end my days in peace +In my old home. + +JUDITH: + Your home? But you can't stay here. + +JIM: +You'll see! Now that I'm home, I mean to clag +Like a cleaver to a flagstone: they'll have to lift +The hearth, to get me out of Krindlesyke. +I've had enough of travelling the turnpike, +Houffling and hirpling like a cadging faa: +And, but for you and your brat, I'd settled down, +A respectable married man, this twenty-year. +But you shan't drive me from my home again. + +JUDITH: +We drove you? + +JIM: + You began it, anyway-- +Made me an April-gowk and laughing-stock, +Till I couldn't face the neighbours' fleers. By joes! +You diddled me out of house and home, among you: +And settled yourselves couthily in my calfyard, +Like maggots in a muckheap, while I went cawdrife. +But I've had my fill of it, Judith, Hexham-measure: +I'm home for good: and isn't she my daughter? +You stole her from me once, when you made off +With hoity-toity Phoebe--ay, I ken +She died: I learned it at the time--you sneaked +My only bairn: I cannot mind her name, +If ever I heard it: you kept even that +From me, her dad. But, anyway, she's mine: +I've only her and you to turn to now: +A poor, lone widower I've been any time +This twenty-year: that's what's been wrong with me, +Though it hadn't entered my noddle till this minute. +But where's the canny couple? + +JUDITH: + Ruth and Michael +Are at the hiring. + +JIM: + Well, I'll not deny +That suits my book. I'd a notion, Judith lass, +I'd find you alone, and make my peace with you, +Before I tackled the young folk. Poor relations +Aren't made too welcome in this ungrateful world-- +Least so, by those who've taken the bread from their mouths, +And beggared them of bit and brat: and so +I thought 'twould be more couthy-like with you, +Just having a crack and talking old times over, +Till I was more myself. I don't like strangers, +Not even when they're my own flesh and blood: +They've got a trick of staring at a man: +And all I want is to be let alone-- +Just let alone ... By God, why can't they let me +Alone! But you are kind and comfortable: +And you won't heckle me and stare at me: +For I'm not quite myself: I'll own to that-- +I'm not myself ... Though who the devil I am +I hardly ken ... I've been that hunted and harried. + +JUDITH: +Hunted? + +JIM: + Ay, Judith--in a manner of speaking, +Hunted's the word: and I'm too old for the sport. +I'm getting on in years: and you're no younger +Than when I saw you last--you mind the day, +My wedding-day? A fine fligarishon +You made of it between you, you and Phoebe: +And wasn't she the high and mighty madam, +The niffy-naffy don't-come-nigh-me nonesuch? +But I've forgiven her: I bear no malice. + +JUDITH: +You bear no malice: and she died of it! + +JIM: +Ay, ay: she showed some sense of decency +In that, at least: though she got her sting in first +Like an angry bee. But, Judith, doesn't it seem +We two are tokened to end our days together? +Nothing can keep us parted, seemingly: +So let bygones be bygones. + +(_Catching sight of the cradle._) + + What, another! +Have you always got a brat about you, Judith? +Last time you sprang a daughter on me, and now ... +But I'm forgetting how the years have flitted. +Don't tell me I'm a grandfather? + +JUDITH: + The boy +Is Ruth's. + +JIM: + Well, I've come into a family, +And no mistake--a happy family: +And I was born to be a family-man. +They'll never turn against their bairn's granddad: +And I'm in luck. + +JUDITH: + You cannot bide here, Jim. + +JIM: +And who the hell are you, to say me nay? + +JUDITH: +The boy's grandmother. + +JIM: + Ay: and so the grandam's +To sit in the ingleneuk, while granddad hoofs it? + +JUDITH: +When you left Krindlesyke, you quitted it +For good and all. + +JIM: + And yet, I'm here again, +Unless I'm dreaming. It seems we all come back +To Krindlesyke, like martins to the byre-baulks: +It draws us back--can't keep away, nohow. +Ay, first and last, the old gaol is my home. +You're surely forgetting ... + +JUDITH: + I'm forgetting nothing. +It's you've the knack of only recollecting +What you've a mind to. How could you have come +If you remembered all these walls have seen? + +JIM: +So walls have eyes as well as ears? I can't +Get away from eyes ... But they'll not freeze my blood, +Or stare me out of countenance: they've no tongues +To tittle-tattle: they're no tell-tale-tits, +No slinking skeadlicks, nosing and sniffing round, +To wink and nod when I turn my back, colloguing, +With heads together, to lay me by the heels. +Nay: I'm not fleyed of a bit of whitewashed plaister. +But you're a nice one to welcome home a traveller +With "cannots" and clavers of eyes. Why can't you let +Things rest, and not hark back, routing things out, +And casting them in my teeth? Why must you lug +The dead to light--dead days? ... I'm not afraid +Of corpses: the dead are dead: their eyes are shut: +Leastways, they cannot glower when once the mould's +Atop of them: though they follow a chap round the room, +Seeking the coppers to clap them to ... dead eyes +Can't wink: and twopence shuts their bravest stare. +So, ghosts won't trouble my rest at Krindlesyke. +I vowed that I'd sleep sound at Krindlesyke, +When I ... + +JUDITH: + You cannot bide. + +JIM: + I bear no malice. +Why can't you let bygones be bygones? But that's +A woman all over; must be raking up +The ashes into a glow, and puffing them red, +To roast a man for what he did, or didn't, +Twenty-year syne. Why should you still bear malice? + +JUDITH: +I bear no malice: but you cannot bide. + +JIM: +Why do you keep cuckooing "cannot, cannot"? +And who's to turn me out of Krindlesyke, +Where I was born and bred, I'd like to ken? +You can't gainsay it's my home. + +JUDITH: + Not your home now. + +JIM: +Then who the devil's home ... + +JUDITH: + It's Ruth's and Michael's. + +JIM: +My daughter's and her man's: their home's my home. + +JUDITH: +You shall not stay. + +JIM: + It's got to "shall not" now? +The cuckoo's changed his tune; but I can't say +I like the new note better: it's too harsh: +The gowk's grown croupy. But, lass, I never thought +You'd be harsh with me: yet even you've turned raspy ... +First "cannot," then ... + +JUDITH: + Nay! I'll not have their home +Pulled down about their ears by any man; +And least of all by you--the home they've made ... + +JIM: +Stolen, I'd say. + +JUDITH: + Together, for themselves +And their three boys. + +JIM: + Jim, granddad three times over? +It's well you broke it piecemeal: the old callant's +A waffly heart; and any sudden joy +Just sets it twittering: but the more the merrier! + +JUDITH: +You shall not wreck their happiness. I'd not dreamed +Such happiness as theirs could be in this world. +Since it was built, there's not been such a home +At Krindlesyke: it's only been a house ... + +JIM: +'Twas just about as homely as a hearse +In my young days: but my luck's turned, it seems. + +JUDITH: +It takes more than four walls to make a home, +And such a home as Michael's made for Ruth. +Though she's a fendy lass; she's too like me, +And needs a helpmate, or she'll waste herself; +And, with another man, she might have wrecked, +Instead of building. She's got her man, her mate: +Husband and father, born, day in, day out, +He works to keep a home for wife and weans. +There's never been a luckier lass than Ruth: +Though she deserves it, too; and it's but seldom +Good lasses are the lucky ones; and few +Get their deserts in this life. + +JIM: + True, egox! + +JUDITH: +Few, good or bad. But Ruth has everything-- +A home, a steady husband, and her boys. +There never were such boys. + +JIM: + A pretty picture: +It takes my fancy: and the dear old grannie, +Why do you leave her out? And there's a corner +For granddad in it, surely--an armchair +On the other side of the ingle, with a pipe +And packet of twist, and a pot of nappy beer, +Hot-fettled four-ale, handy on the hob? +Ay: there's the chair: I'd best secure it now. + +(_As he seats himself, with his back to the door, the head of BELL + HAGGARD, in her orange-coloured kerchief, peeps round the jamb: then + slowly withdraws, unseen of JIM or JUDITH._) + +JIM: +Fetch up the swipes and shag. I can reach the cutty ... + +(_He takes down MICHAEL's pipe from the mantel-shelf; and sticks it + between his teeth: but JUDITH snatches at it, breaking the stem, and + flings the bowl on the fire._) + +JUDITH: +And you, to touch his pipe! + +(_JIM stares at her, startled, as she stands before him, with drawn face + and set teeth: then, still eyeing her uneasily, begins to bluster._) + +JIM: + You scarting randy! +I'll teach you manners. That's a good three-halfpence +Smashed into smithereens: and all for nothing. +I've lammed a wench for less. I've half a mind +To snap you like the stopple, you yackey-yaa! +De'il rive your sark! It's long since I've had the price +Of a clay in my pouch: and I'm half-dead for a puff. +What's taken you? What's set you agee with me? +You used to like me; and you always seemed +A menseful body: and I lippened to you. +But you're just a wheepie-leekie weathercock +Like the lave of women, when a man's mislucket, +Moidart and mismeaved and beside himself. +I fancied I'd be in clover at Krindlesyke, +With you and all: but, sink me, if I haven't +Just stuck my silly head into a bee-bike! +What's turned you vicious? I only want to smoke +A cutty in peace: and you go on the rampage. +I mustn't smoke young master's pipe, it seems-- +His pipe, no less! Young cock-a-ride-a-roosie +Is on the muckheap now; and all the hens +Are clucking round him. I ken what it is: +The cockmadendy's been too easy with you. +It doesn't do to let you womenfolk +Get out of hand. It's time I came, i' faiks, +To pull you up, and keep you in your place. +I'll have no naggers, narr-narring all day long: +I'll stand no fantigues. If the cull's too soft ... + +JUDITH: +Soft, did you say? I've seen him hike a man, +And a heftier man than you, over a dyke, +For yarking a lame beast. That drover'll mind-- +Ay, to his dying day, he'll not forget +He once ran into something hard. + +JIM: + Ay--ay ... +He's that sort, is he? My luck is out again. +I want a quiet life, to be let alone: +And Krindlesyke won't be a bed of roses, +With that sort ramping round. (_Starting uneasily._) + What's that? I thought ... +There's no one in the other room, is there? +I've a feeling in my bones somebody's listening. +You've not deceived me, Judith? You've not trapped ... +I'm all a-swither, sweating like a brock. +I little dreamt you'd turn against me, Judith: +But even here I don't feel safe now. + +JUDITH: + Safe? + +JIM: +So you don't know? I fancied everyone kenned. +Else why the devil should they stare like that? +And when you, too, looked ... Nay, how could you learn? +I'm davered, surely: Seppy Shank's rum +Has gone to my noddle: drink's the very devil +On an empty waim: and I never had a head. +What have I done? Ay, wouldn't you like to ken, +To holler on the hounds? + +JUDITH: + Jim! + +JIM: + But what matter +Whether you ken or not? You've done for me +Already, dang you, with your hettle-tongue: +You've put the notion in my head, the curs +Are on my scent: and now, I cannot rest. +Happen, they're slinking now up Bloodysyke, +Like adders through the bent ... Nay, they don't yelp, +The hounds that sleuth me: it's only in my head +I hear the yapping: they're too cunning to yelp. +The sleichers slither after me on their bellies, +As dumb and slick as adders ... But I'm doitered, +And doting like a dobby. I want to sleep ... +A good night's rest would pull my wits together. +I swore I'd sleep ... but I couldn't close an eye, now +Since ... + +JUDITH: + Jim, what ails you? Tell me what you've done. +I'm sorry, Jim ... + +JIM: + I swear I never set out +To do it, Judith; and the thing was done, +Before I came to my senses: that's God's truth: +And may hell blast ... You're sorry? Nay, but Jim's +Too old a bird to be caught with chaff. You're fly: +But, Jim's fly, too. No: mum's the word. + +JUDITH: + O Jim, +You, surely, never think I'd ... + +JIM: + I don't know. +A man in my case can't tell who to trust, +When every mongrel's yowling for his carcase. +Mum's my best friend, the only one ... though, whiles, +It's seemed even he had blabbered out my secrets, +And hollered them to rouse the countryside, +And draw all eyes on me. But, I must mizzle. + +JUDITH: +You're going, Jim? + +JIM: + I'll not be taken here, +Like a brock in his earth: I'll not be trapped and torn ... +Yet, I don't know. Why should I go? No worse +To be taken here than elsewhere: and I'm dead beat: +I'm all to rovers, my wit's all gone agate: +And how can I travel in these boots? A week since +The soles bid a fond farewell to the uppers: I've been +Hirpling it, barefoot--ay, kind lady, barefoot. +You'd hardly care to be in my shoes, Judith? +While you've been sitting doose ... + +JUDITH: + I've known the road: +I've trudged it, too, lad: and your feet are bleeding. +I'll bathe them for you, Jim, before you go: +And you shall have a pair of Michael's boots. + +JIM: +So, I may have young master's cast-off boots, +Since he's stepped into my shoes--a fair swap! +And tug my forelock, like a lousy tinker; +And whine God bless the master of this house, +Likewise the mistress, too ... By gox, I've come +To charity--Jim Barrasford's come to mooch +For charity at Krindlesyke! Shanks's mare's +A sorry nag at best; and lets you down, +Sooner or later, for certain--the last straw, +When a man can't trust his feet, and his own legs +Give under him, in his need, and bring him down +A devasher in the ditch as the dogs are on him! +You're sorry? I don't know. How can I tell? +You're sly, you faggit; but don't get over Jim +With jookery-pawkry, Judith: I may be maiselt, +But I've a little rummelgumption left: +I still ken a bran from a brimmer--bless your heart! +It suits you to get rid of me; and you judge +It's cheaply done at the price of a pair of tackities. +Nay: I'll be taken here. + +JUDITH: + You cannot stay. + +JIM: +Do you take me for a cangling cadger, to haggle ... +Forgimety! I cannot ... God's truth, I dare not! +You've got me on the hop; and I must hirple; +But if I go, I will not go alone: +I've a mind to have a partner for this polka. + +JUDITH: +Alone? And who do you think that ... + +JIM: + Who but you? + +JUDITH: +I! + +JIM: + If I've got to take the road again, +You've got to pad it with me: for I'm tired +Of travelling lonesome: I've a mind to have +My doxy with me. By crikes! I'm fleyed to face +The road again, alone. You'll come ... + +JUDITH: + I cannot. +How could I leave ... + +JIM: + Then I'll be taken here: +You'll be to blame. + +JUDITH: + But, Jim, how could I leave ... + +JIM: +The sooner it's over, the better I'll be pleased. + +JUDITH: +You mustn't stop: and yet, I cannot go. +How could I leave the bairn? + +JIM: + The brat's asleep. + +JUDITH: +It won't sleep long. + +JIM: + Its mammy'll soon be home. + +JUDITH: +Not for three hours, at earliest. + +JIM: + Then I'll wait +Till then: they can't be on my track so soon: +And when its dad and mammy come back ... + +JUDITH: + Nay, nay: +They mustn't find you here. + +JIM: + Judith, you're right: +For they might blab. I'd best be hooking it. +I'll go: but, mind, you're not yet shot of me. + +(_As he is speaking, BELL HAGGARD appears in the doorway, and stands, + with arms akimbo, watching them; but JIM has his back to the door, and + JUDITH, gazing into the fire, doesn't see her either._) + +JIM: +I'll wait for you beneath the Gallows Rigg, +Where the burn skirts the planting, in the slack +We trysted in, in the old days--do you mind? + +JUDITH: +I mind. + +JIM: + Trust you for that! And I'll lie low: +It's a dry bottom: and when the family's snoring +You'll come to me. Just whicker like a peesweep +Three times, and I'll be with you in a jiffy. +We'll take the road together, bonnie lass; +For we were always marrows, you and I. +If only that flirtigig, Phoebe, hadn't come +Between me and my senses, we'd have wed, +And settled down at Krindlesyke for life: +But now we've got to hoof it to the end. +My sang! 'twill be a honeymoon for me, +After the rig I've run. But, hearken, Judith: +If you don't turn up by ten o'clock, I'll come +And batter on that door to wake the dead: +I'll make such a rumpus, such a Bob-'s-adying, +Would rouse you, if you were straked. I'll have you with me, +If I've got to carry you, chested: sink my soul! +And for all I care, that luggish slubberdegullion +May lounder my hurdies; and go to Hecklebarney! +I'm desperate, Judith ... and I don't mind much ... +But, you'll come, lass? + +JUDITH: + I'll come. + +JIM: + Well, if you fail, +They'll take me here, as sure as death. + +BELL (_stepping forward_): + That's so. + +JIM (_wheeling round_): +The devil! + +BELL: + Nay: not yet: all in good time. +But I question they'll wait till ten o'clock: they seemed +Impatient for your company, deuce kens why: +But then, what's one man's meat ... + +JIM: + What's that you say? + +BELL: +They seemed dead-set ... You needn't jump like that: +I haven't got the bracelets in my pocket. + +JIM: +And who the hell are you? and what do you mean? + +BELL: +You've seen my face before. + +JIM: + Ay--ay ... I've seen it: +But I don't ken your name. You dog my heels: +I've seen your face ... I saw it on that night-- +That night ... and sink me, but I saw it last +In the bar at Bellingham: your eyes were on me. +Ay, and I've seen that phisgog many times: +And it always brought ill-luck. + +BELL: + It hasn't served +Its owner so much better: yet it's my fortune, +Though I'm no peachy milkmaid. Ay: I fancied +'Twas you they meant. + +JIM: + Who meant? + +BELL: + How should I know? +You should ken best who's after you, and what +You're wanted for? They might be friends of yours, +For all I ken: though I've never taken, myself, +To the little boy-blues. But, carties, I'd have fancied +'Twould make your lugs burn--such a gillaber about you. +They talked. + +JIM: + Who talked? + +BELL: + Your friends. + +JIM: + Friends? I've no friends. + +BELL: +Well: they were none of mine. Last night I slept +'Neath Winter's Stob ... + +JIM: + What's that to do with me? + +BELL: +I slept till midnight, when a clank of chains +Awakened me: and, looking up, I saw +A body on the gibbet ... + +JIM: + A body, woman? +No man's hung there this hundred-year. + +BELL: + I saw +A tattered corpse against the hagging moon, +Above me black. + +JIM: + You didn't see the face? + +BELL: +I saw its face--before it disappeared, +And left the gibbet bare. + +JIM: + You kenned the face? + +BELL: +I kenned the face. + +JIM: + Whose face? ... + +BELL: + Best not to ask. + +JIM: +O Christ! + +BELL: + But we were talking of your friends: +Quite anxious about you, they seemed. + +JIM (_limping towards BELL HAGGARD with lifted arm_): + You cadger-quean! +You've set them on. I'll crack you over the cruntle-- +You rummel-dusty ... You muckhut ... You windyhash! +I'll slit your weazen for you: I'll break your jaw-- +I'll stop your gob, if I've to do you in! +You'll not sleep under Winter's Stob to-night. + +BELL (_regarding him, unmoved_): +As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb? + +JIM (_stopping short_): +Hanged? + +BELL: + To be hanged by the neck till you are dead. +That bleaches you? But you'll look whiter yet, +When you lie cold and stiffening, my pretty bleater. + +JIM (_shrinking back_): +You witch ... You witch! You've got the evil eye. +Don't look at me like that ... Come, let me go! + +BELL: +A witch? Ay, wise men always carry witch-bane +When they've to do with women. Witch, say you? +Eh, lad, but you've been walking widdershins: +You'd best turn deazil, crook your thumbs, my callant, +And gather cowgrass, if you'd break the spell, +And send the old witch skiting on her broomstick. +They said that you'd make tracks for Krindlesyke: +And they'd cop you here, for certain--dig you out +Like a badger from his earth. I left them talking. + +JIM: +Where, you hell-hag? + +BELL: + Ah, where? You'd like to learn? +It's well to keep a civil tongue with witches, +If you've no sliver of rowan in your pocket: +Though it won't need any witch, my jackadandy, +To clap the clicking jimmies round your wrists. +To think I fashed myself to give you warning: +And this is all the thanks I get! Well, well-- +They'll soon be here. As I came up Bloodysyke ... + +JIM: +Up Bloodysyke: and they were following? +I'd best cut over Gallows Rigg. My God, +The hunt's afoot ... But it may be a trap-- +And you ... And you ... + +BELL: + Nay: but I'm no ratcatcher. +You'd best turn tail, before the terriers sight you. + +(_As JIM bolts past her and through the open door_) + +Rats! Rats! Good dog! ... And now we're rid of vermin. + +JUDITH: +Oh, Bell, what has he done? What has he done? + +BELL: +How should I ken? + +JUDITH: + And yet you said ... + +BELL: + I said? +You've surely not forgotten Bell Haggard's tongue, +After the taste you had of it the last time? + +JUDITH: +What did you hear? + +BELL: + A drunken blether-breeks +In a bar at Bellingham: and I recognized +Peter's own brother, too; and guessed 'twas Jim: +And when they gossiped of Krindlesyke ... Oh, I ken +Ladies don't listen: but not being a lady +Whiles has advantages: and when he left +His crony sprawling, splurging in the gutter, +I followed him, full-pelt, hot on his heel, +Guessing the hanniel was up to little good. +But he got here before me: so I waited +Outside, until I heard him blustering; +And judged it time to choke his cracking-croose. +I couldn't have that wastrel making mischief +In Michael's house: I didn't quit Krindlesyke +That it might be turned into a tinker's dosshouse, +Hotching with maggots like a reesty gowdy, +For any hammy, halfnabs, and hang-gallows +To stretch his lousy carcase in at ease, +After I'd slutted to keep it respectable +For fifteen-year. + +JUDITH: + But what do you think he's done-- +Not murder? + +BELL: + Murder? Nay: it takes a man +To murder. + +JUDITH: + Ay ... But when you spoke of hanging, +He turned like death: and when he threatened you, +I saw blue-murder in his eyes. + +BELL: + At most, +'Twould be manslaughter with the likes of him. +I've some respect for murderers: they, at least, +Take things into their own hands, and don't wait +On lucky chances, like the rest of us-- +Murderers and suicides ... + +JUDITH: + But Jim? + +BELL: + I'd back +Cain against Abel, ay, and hairy Esau +Against that smooth sneak Jacob. Jim? He's likely +Done in some doxy in a drunken sleep: +'Twould be about his measure. + +JUDITH: + Jim--O Jim! + +BELL: +Nay: he'll not dangle in a hempen noose. + +JUDITH: +And yet you saw his body ... + +BELL: + Dead men's knuckles! +You didn't swallow that gammon? Why should I +Be sleeping under Winter's Stob? But Jim-- +I doubt if he'd the guts to stick a porker: +You needn't fear for him. But I must go. + +JUDITH: +Go? You'll not go without a sup of tea, +After you've traiked so far? Michael and Ruth ... + +BELL: +Ay, Judith: I just caught a squint of them +Among the cluther outside the circus-tent: +But I was full-tilt on Jim's track, then: and so, +I couldn't daunder: or I'd have stopped to have +A closer look: yet I saw that each was carrying +A little image of a Barrasford: + + (_Looking into the cradle._) + +And here's the reckling image, seemingly-- +The sleeping spit of Michael at the age. + +JUDITH: +You never saw such laleeking lads: and they +All fashion after their father. + +BELL: + I'm glad I came. +Even if I'd not struck Jim, I'd meant to come, +And have a prowl round the old gaol, and see +How Michael throve: although I hadn't ettled +To cross the doorstone--just to come and go, +And not a soul the wiser. But it turns out +I was fated to get here in the nick of time: +It seems the old witch drew me here once more +To serve her turn and save the happy home. +I judged you'd lost your hold on me, Eliza: +But, once a ghost has got a grip of you, +It won't let go its clutch on your life until +It's dragged you into the grave with it: even then ... +Although my ghost should prove a match for any, +I'd fancy, with a fair field, and no favour. +But ghosts and graves! I'm down-in-the-mouth to-day: +I must have supped off toadstools on a tombstone, +Or happen the droppy weather makes me dyvous: +I never could thole the mooth and muggy mizzle, +Seeping me sodden: I'd liefer it teemed wholewater, +A sousing, drooking downpour, any time. +I'm dowf and blunkit, why, deuce only kens! +It seems as if Eliza had me fey: +And that old witch would be the death of me: +And these white walls ... 'Twould be the queerest start! +But, Michael's happy? + +JUDITH: + He's the best of husbands-- +The best of fathers: he ... + +BELL: + I ken, I ken. +Well ... He's got what he wanted, anyway. + +JUDITH: +And you? + +BELL: + Ay ... I was born to take my luck. +But I must go. + +JUDITH: + You'll not wait for them? + +BELL: + Nay: +I'm dead to them: I've bid good-bye to them +Till doomsday: and I'm through with Krindlesyke, +This time, I hope--though you can never tell. +I hadn't ettled to darken the door again; +Yet here I am: and even now the walls +Seem closing ... It would be the queerest start +If, after all ... But, dod, I've got the dismals, +And no mistake! I'm in the dowie dumps-- +Maundering and moonging like a spancelled cow: +It's over dour and dearn for me in this loaning +On a dowly day. Best pull myself together, +And put my best foot foremost before darkening: +And I've no mind to meet them in the road. +So long! + +(_She goes out of the door and makes down the syke._) + +JUDITH: + Good-bye! If you'd only bide a while ... +Come back! You mustn't go like that ... Bell, Bell! + +(_She breaks off, as BELL HAGGARD 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._) + +JUDITH: +To think that Jim--and after all these years ... +And then, to come like that! I wonder what ... +I wish he hadn't gone without the boots. + +(_She resumes her knitting, musing in silence, until she is roused by + the click of the latch. The door opens, and BELL HAGGARD stumbles into + the room and sinks to the floor in a heap. Her brow is bleeding, and + her dress, torn and dishevelled._) + +JUDITH (_starting up_): +Bell! What has happened, woman? Are you hurt? +Oh, but your brow is bleeding! + +BELL: + I'd an inkling +There must be blood somewhere: I seemed to smell it. + +JUDITH: +But what has happened, Bell? Don't say 'twas Jim! + +BELL: +Nay ... nay ... it wasn't Jim ... I stumbled, Judith: +And, seemingly, I cracked my cruntle a bit-- +It's Jill fell down, and cracked her crown, this journey. +I smelt the blood ... but, it's not there, the pain ... +It's in my side ... I must have dunched my side +Against a stone in falling ... I could fancy +A rib or so's gone smash. + +JUDITH (_putting an arm about her and helping her to rise_): + Come and lie down, +And I'll see what ... + +BELL: + Nay: but I'll not lie down: +I'm not that bad ... and, anyhow, I swore +I'd not lie down again at Krindlesyke. +If I lay down, the walls would close on me, +And scrunch the life out ... But I'm havering-- +Craitching and craking like a doitered crone. +Lightheaded from the tumble ... mother-wit's +Jirbled and jumbled ... I came such a flam. +I'm not that bad ... I say, I'll not lie down ... +Just let me rest a moment by the hearth, +Until ... + +(_JUDITH leads her to a chair, fetches a basin of water and some linen, + and bathes the wound on BELL's brow._) + +JUDITH: + I wish ... + +BELL: + I'm better here. I'll soon +Be fit again ... Bell isn't done for, yet: +She's a tough customer--she's always been +A banging, bobberous bletherskite, has Bell-- +No fushenless, brashy, mim-mouthed mealy-face, +Fratished and perished in the howl-o'-winter. +No wind has ever blown too etherish, +Too snell to fire her blood: she's always relished +A gorly, gousty, blusterous day that sets +Her body alow and birselling like a whinfire. +But what a windyhash! My wit's wool-gathering; +And I'm waffling like a ... But I'd best be stepping, +Before he comes: I've far to travel to-night: +And I'm not so young ... And Michael mustn't find +His tinker-mother, squatted by the hearth, +Nursing a bloody head. But, mind you, Judith: +I stumbled; and I hurt my side in falling: +Whatever they may say, you stick to that: +Swear that I told you that upon my oath-- +So help me God, and all--my bible-oath. +I'm better ... already ... I fancy ... and I'll go +Before ... What was I saying? Well, old hob, +I little ettled I'd look on you again. +The times I've polished you, the elbow-grease +I've wasted on you: but I never made +You shine like that ... You're winking red eyes at me: +And well you may, to see ... I little guessed +You'd see me sitting ... I've watched many fires +Since last I sat beside this hearth--good fires: +Coal, coke, and peat, but wood-fires in the main. +There's naught like izles for dancing flames and singing: +Birch kindles best, and has the liveliest flames: +But elm just smoulders--it's the coffin-wood ... +Coffins? Who muttered coffins? Let's not talk +Of coffins, Judith ... Shut in a black box! +They couldn't keep old Ezra in: the lid +Flew off; and old granddaddy sat up, girning ... +They had to screw him down ... And Solomon +Slept with his fathers ... I wonder he could sleep, +After the razzle-dazzle ... Concubines! +'Twould take a pyramid to keep him down! +And me ... That tumble's cracked the bell ... not stopt +The crazy clapper, seemingly ... But, coffins-- +Let's talk no more of coffins: what have I +To do with coffins? Let us talk of fires: +I've always loved a fire: I'd set the world +Alow for my delight, if it would burn. +It's such a soggy, sodden world to-day, +I'm duberous I could kindle it with an izle: +It might just smoulder with muckle funeral-plumes +Of smoke, like coffin-elder ... And the blaze-- +The biggest flare-up ever I set eyes on, +It was a kind of funeral, you might say-- +A fiery, flaming, roaring funeral, +A funeral such as I ... but no such luck +For me in this world--likely, in the next! +And anyway, it wouldn't be much fun, +If I couldn't watch it, myself ... Ay, Long Nick Salkeld, +And his old woman, Zillah, died together, +The selfsame day, within an hour or so. +'Twas on Spadeadam Waste we'd camped that time ... +And kenning how they loved their caravan, +And how they'd hate to leave it, or be parted +From one another, even by a foot of earth, +We laid them out, together, side by side, +In the van, as they'd slept in it, night after night, +For hard on fifty-year. We took naught out, +And shifted naught: just burnished up the brasses, +Till they twinkled as Zillah'd kept them, while she could ... +And so, with not a coffin-board betwixt them, +At dead of night we fired the caravan ... +The flames leapt up; and roaring to the stars, +As we stood round ... The flames leapt up, and roaring ... +I hear them roaring now ... the flames ... I hear ... +Flames roaring in my head ... I hear ... I hear ... +And flying izles ... falling sparks ... I hear +Flames roaring ... roaring ... roaring ... + +(_She sways forward, but JUDITH catches her in her arms._) + + Where am I? Judith, is that you? +How did I come here, honey? But, now I mind-- +I fell ... He must have hidden in the heather +To trip me up ... He kicked me, as I lay-- +The harrygad! + +JUDITH: + Jim! + +BELL: + Nay! What am I saying? +I stumbled, Judith: you must stick to that, +Whatever they may say ... I stumbled, Judith. +Think what would happen if they strung Jim up; +Should I ... you can't hang any man alone ... +Think what would happen should I ... Don't you see, +We cannot let them string up Michael's uncle? +Respectable ... it wouldn't be respectable ... +And I ... I slutted, fifteen ... I'd an inkling +There must be blood, somewhere ... I thought I smelt it ... +And it tastes salt on the lips ... It's choking me ... +It's fire and salt and candle-light for me +This time, and Whinny Muir and Brig-o'-Dread ... +I'm done for, Judith ... It's all up with me ... +It's been a fine ploy, while it lasted ... + +JUDITH: + Come ... + +BELL: +Life with a smack in it: death with a tang ... + +JUDITH: +I'll help you into bed. + +(_BELL HAGGARD gazes about her in a dazed fashion, as JUDITH raises her + and supports her across the floor towards the inner room._) + +BELL: + Bed, did you say? +Bed, it's not bedtime, is it? To bed, to bed, +Says Sleepyhead: tarry awhile, says Slow: +Put on the pot, says Greedygut ... I swore +I'd not lie down ... You cannot dodge your luck: +It had to be ... And I must dree my weird. +When first I came to Krindlesyke, I felt +These walls ... these walls ... They're closing on me now! +Let's sup before we go! + +(_They pass into the other room, but BELL HAGGARD's voice still sounds + through the open door._) + +BELL: + Nay! not that bed-- +Eliza's bed! The old witch lay in wait +For me ... and now she has me! Well, what odds? +Jim called me witch: and the old spaewife and I +Should be the doose bedfellows, after all. +Early to bed and early to rise ... I've never +Turned in, while I could wink an eye, before: +I've always sat late ... And I'd sit it out +Now ... But I'm dizzy ... And that old witch, Eliza-- +I little guessed she'd play this cantrip on me: +But what a jest--Jerusalem, what a jest! +She must be chuckling, thinking how she's done me: +And I could laugh, if it wasn't for the pain ... +It doesn't do to rattle broken ribs-- +But I could die of laughing, split my sides, +If they weren't split already. Yet my clapper +Keeps wagging: and I'm my own passing-bell-- +They knew, who named me ... Talking to gain time ... +It's running out so quick ... And mum's the word: +I mustn't rouse her ... She sleeps couthily, +Free of the coil of cumber and trouble ... I never +Looked on a lonelier face ... The flames ... the flames ... +They're roaring to the stars ... roaring ... roaring ... +The heather's all turned gold ... and golden showers-- +Izles and flying embers and falling stars ... +Great flakes of fire ... They've set the world alow ... +It's all about me ... blood-red in my eyes ... +I'm burning ... What have I to do with worms! +Burning ... burning ... burning ... + +(_Her voice sinks to a low moaning, which goes on for some time, then + stops abruptly. After a while, JUDITH comes into the living-room, + fills a basin of water from a bucket, and carries it into the other + room. She returns with BELL's 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 JUDITH comes out, + shutting the door behind her, and takes it in her arms._) + +JUDITH: +Whisht, whisht, my canny hinny, my bonnie boy! +Your wee warm body's good to cuddle after ... +Whisht, whisht! (_Gazing in the fire._) + First, Phoebe--and then, Bell ... Oh, Jim! + +_Steps are heard on the threshold, and MICHAEL and RUTH enter, carrying + their sleeping sons, NICHOLAS, aged five, and RALPH, aged three. They + put down the children on the settle by the hearth, where they sit, + dazed and silent, sleepily rubbing their eyes._ + +RUTH: +Well, I'm not sorry to be home again: +My arms are fairly broken. + +MICHAEL: + Ay: they're heavy. +The hoggerel you lift up turns a sheep +Before you set it down again. Well, Judith, +You've had a quiet day of it, I warrant? + +JUDITH (_in a low voice_): +Michael, your mother's here. + +MICHAEL: + My mother here? + +RUTH: +I always fancied she'd turn up again, +In spite of all her raivelling--Michael, you mind, +About the mutch with frills, and all thon havers? +But where we are to put her I can't think: +There's not a bed for her. + +JUDITH: + She's on my bed. + +RUTH: +Your bed? But you ... + +JUDITH: + She's welcome to my bed, +As long as she has need. She'll not lie long, +Before they lift her. + +MICHAEL: + Judith! + +RUTH: + She's not dead? + +JUDITH: +Ay, son: she breathed her last an hour ago. + +RUTH: +So, after all, the poor old soul crept back +To Krindlesyke to die. + +(_MICHAEL BARRASFORD, without a word, moves towards the inner room + in a dazed manner, lifts the latch, and goes in. After a moment's + hesitation, RUTH 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._) + +NICHOLAS: + Grannie, we saw the circus: +And Ralph still says he wants to be a herd, +Like dad: but I can't bide the silly baas. +When I'm a man I'll be a circus-rider, +And gallop, gallop! I'm clean daft on horses. + +(_An owl hoots piercingly without._) + +RALPH: +Grannie, what's that? + +JUDITH: + Only an owl, son. + +NICHOLAS: + Bo! +Fearent of hoolets! + +RALPH: + I thought it was a bo-lo. + +NICHOLAS: +Bo-los or horneys or wirrakows can't scare me: +And I like to hear the jinneyhoolets scritching: +It gives me such a queer, cold, creepy feeling. +I like to feel the shivers in my hair. +When I'm a man I'll ride the fells by moonlight, +Like the mosstroopers, when the owls are skirling. +They used to gallop on their galloways, +The reivers, dad says ... + +(_The owl calls again, and is answered by its mate; and then they seem + to be flying round and round Krindlesyke, hooting shrilly._) + +RALPH: + Oh, there it is again! +Grannie, I'm freckened ... + +JUDITH: + Its an ellerish yelling: +I never heard ... + +RALPH: + What's in the other room? +I want my dad and mammy. + +JUDITH: + You're overtired. +Come, I'll undress you, and tuck you into bed: +And you'll sleep sound, my lamb, as sound and snug +As a yeanling in a maud-neuk. + +NICHOLAS: + I'll ride! I'll ride! + + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +Ghosts of my fathers, where you keep +On ghostly hills your ghostly sheep, +Should you a moment chance to turn +The pages of this book to learn +What trade your offspring's taken to, +Because my exiled heart is true +To your Northumbrian fells and you, +Forgive me that my flocks and herds +Are only barren bleating words. + + + + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY + BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER + + + + + _KRINDLESYKE_ + + _By WILFRID GIBSON_ + + _Author of 'Livelihood,' 'Whin,' + 'Neighbours,' &c._ + + + _Crown 8vo._ + 6/- + _Net._ + + + _MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED_ + _St. Martin's Street, London_ + 1922 + + + + +Mr. Gibson's 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. + +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. + + +_Some Press Opinions_ + + _The Poetry Review._--'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.' + + _The Daily News._--'There is much breadth of vision and much of that + bitter wisdom that is yet half beauty in this poem.' + + _Mr. Laurence Binyon in The Observer._--'"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.' + + _The Times Literary Supplement._--'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.' + + _Prof. C. H. Herford in The Manchester Guardian._--'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.' + + _The Aberdeen Journal._--'"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.' + + +_Other Works by Wilfrid Gibson_ + +_Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net_ +_LIVELIHOOD_ +_Dramatic Reveries_ + + _The Times._ '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.' + + _Katharine Tynan in The Bookman._ '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.' + + +_Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net_ +_WHIN_ +_Poems_ + + _The Observer._ '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.' + + +_Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net_ +_NEIGHBOURS_ +_Poems_ + + _The Westminster Gazette._ '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.' + + _The Spectator._ 'Mr. Gibson's skill is most admirable when we + consider that it is allied to poetic feeling of the utmost + simplicity and depth.' + + + + +_LONDON: MACMILLAN & Co., Ltd._ + + + + +_BY THE SAME WRITER_ + + + NEIGHBOURS 1920 + WHIN 1918 + LIVELIHOOD 1917 + FRIENDS 1916 + BATTLE 1915 + BORDERLANDS 1914 + THOROUGHFARES 1914 + FIRES 1912 + DAILY BREAD 1910 + STONEFOLDS 1907 + + + + + KRINDLESYKE + + + + + Macmillan and Co., Limited + London . Bombay . Calcutta . Madras + Melbourne + + + The Macmillan Company + New York . Boston . Chicago + Dallas . San Francisco + + + The Macmillan Co. of Canada, Ltd. + Toronto + + + * * * * * + * * * * + * * * * * + + +Errata: + +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. + +You mustn't heed him, Phoebe, lass + _text reads "musn't," but all other occurrences of the word are + spelled "mustn't"_ + +thon + _regional variant of "yon" used several times in the text. The pronoun + "thou" does not occur._ + + + + + +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.txt or 18743.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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