Mrs Huff:
The devil in the world that hates all love.But Shale said, he'd the love in him would holdIf the world's frame and the fate of men were crackt.
Shale:
What I said!Whoever thought the world was going to crack?
Mrs Huff:
And now he hears someone move behind him. —They'll say, perhaps, 'You stole this!' — Down it goes,Thrown to the dirty road — thrown to Huff!
Shale:
Yes, to the owner.
Mrs Huff:
It was not such brave thieving.You did not take me from my owner, Shale:There's an old robber will do that some day,Not you.
Vine:
Were you thinking of me then, missis?
Mrs Huff (still to SHALE):
You found me lost in the dirt: I was with Huff.You lifted me from there; and there again,Like a frightened urchin, you're for throwing me.
Shale:
Let it be that! I'm firmNot to have you about me, when the thing,Whatever it is, that's standing now behindThe burning of the world, comes out on us.
Huff:
The way men cheat! This windle-stalk was heWould hold a show of spirit for the worldTo study while it ruined! — Make what you pleaseOf your short wrangle here, but leave me out.I have my thoughts — O far enough from this.
Turning away.
Shale (seizing him):
You shall not put me off. I tell you, Huff,You are to take her back now.
Huff:
Take her back!And what has she to do with what I want?
Shale:
Isn't she yours? I must be quit of her;I'll not be in the risk of keeping her.She's yours!
Huff:
And what's the good of her now to me?What's the good of a woman whom I've married?
During this, WARP the molecatcher has come in.
Warp:
Shale and Huff at their old pother again!
Merrick:
The molecatcher.
Sollers:
Warp, have you travelled far?Is it through frenzy and ghastly crowds you've come?
Vine:
Have you got dreadful things to tell us, Warp?
Warp:
Why, no.But seemingly you'ld have had news for me,If I'd come later. Is Huff to murder Shale,Or Shale for murdering Huff? One way or 'tother,'Tis time 'twas settled surely. — Mrs Huff,They're neither of them worth you: here's your health.
Draws and drinks.
Huff:
Where have you been? Are you not new from folkThat throng together in a pelting horror?
Warp:
Do you think the whole land hearkens to the flurryOf an old dog biting at a young dog's throat?
Merrick:
No, no! Not their shrill yapping; you've not heardThe world's near to be blasted?
Warp:
No mutter of it.I am from walking the whole ground I trap,And there's no likeness of it, but the molesI've turned up dead and dried out of three counties.
Sollers:
Why, but the fire that's eating the whole earth;The breath of it is scarlet in the sky!You must have seen that?
Warp:
But what's taken you?You are like boys that go to hunt for ghosts,And turn the scuttle of rats to a roused demonCrawling to shut the door of the barn they search.Fire? Yes, fire is playing a pretty gameYonder, and has its golden fun to itself,Seemingly.
Sollers:
You don't know what 'tis that burns?
Warp:
Call me a mole and not a molecatcherIf I do not. It is a rick that burns;And a strange thing I'll count it if the rickBe not old Huff's.
Sollers:
That flare a fired stack?
Huff:
Only one of my ricks alight? O Glory!There may be chance for me yet.
Merrick:
Best take the trainTo Droitwich, Huff.
Vine (at the door):
It would be like a stack,But for the star.
Sollers (to WARP):
Yes, as you're so clever,You can talk down maybe yon brandishing star!
Warp:
O, 'tis the star has flickt your brains? Indeed,The tail swings long enough to-night for that.Well, look your best at it; 'tis off againTo go its rounds, they tell me, from now on;And the next time it swaggers in our sky,The moles a long while will have tired themselvesOf having their easy joke with me.
A pause.
Merrick:
You meanThe flight of the star is from us?
Sollers:
But the world,The whole world reckons on it battering us!
Warp:
Who told you that?
Sollers:
A dowser.
Merrick:
Where's he gone?
Warp:
A dowser! say a tramping conjurer.You'll believe aught, if you believe a dowser.
Sollers:
I had it in me to be doubting him.
Merrick:
The noise you made was like that! But I knewYou'ld laugh at me, so sure you were the worldWould shiver like a bursting grindlestone:Else I'ld have said out loud, 'twas a fool's whimsy.
Vine:
Where are you now? What am I now to think?Your minds run round in puzzles, like chased hares.I cannot sight them.
Merrick:
Think of going to bed.
Sollers:
And dreaming prices for your pigs.
Merrick:
O Warp,You should have seen Vine crying! The moon, he said,The silver moon! Just like an onion 'twasTo stir the water in his eyes.
Sollers:
He's leftA puddle of his tears where he was drooptOver the table.
Vine:
There's to be no ruin? —But what's the word of a molecatcher, to crowSo ringing over a dowser's word?
Warp:
I'll tell you.These dowsers live on lies: my trade's the truth.I can read moles, and the way they've dug their journeys,Where you'ld not see a wrinkle.
Vine:
And he knowsThe buried water.
Warp:
There's always buried water,If you prod deep enough. A dowser findsBecause the whole earth's floating, like a raft.What does he know? A twitching in his thews;A dog asleep knows that much. What I knowI've learnt, and if I'd learnt it wrong, I'ld starve.And if I'm right about the grubbing moles,Won't I be right for news of walking men?
Merrick:
Of course you're right. Let's put the whole thing by,And have a pleasant drink.
Shale (to Mrs HUFF):
You must be tiredWith all this story. Shall we be off for home?
Huff:
You brass! You don't go now with her! She's mine:You gave her up.
Shale:
And you made nothing of her.
(To Mrs Huff)
Come on.
Mrs Huff:
Warp, will you do a thing for me?
Warp:
A hundred things.
Mrs Huff:
Then slap me these cur-dogs.
Warp:
I will. Where will I slap them, and which first?
Mrs Huff:
Maybe 'twill do if you but laugh at them.
Warp:
I'll try for that; but they are not good jokes;Though there's a kind of monkey-look about them.
Mrs Huff:
They thinking I'ld be near one or the otherAfter this night! Will I be made no moreThan clay that children puddle to their minds,Moulding it what they fancy? — Shale was brave:He made a bogy and defied it, tillHe frightened of his work and ran away.But Huff! — Huff was for modelling wickedly.
Huff:
Who told you that?
Mrs Huff:
I need no one's telling.I was your wife once. Don't I know your goodness?A stupid heart gone sour with jealousy,To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning. —Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but hadNo notion how, and flung the clay aside. —O they were gaudy colours both! But nowFear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank,Fear of a loon that cried, End of the World!
Huff:
Shale, do you know what we're to do?
Shale:
I'ld likeTo have the handling of that dowser-man
Huff:
Just that, my lad, just that!
Warp:
And your fired rick.
Huff:
Let it be blazes! Quick, Shale, after him!I'll tramp the night out, but I'll take the rogue.
Shale (to the others):
You wait, and see us haul him by the ears,And swim the blatherer in Huff's farm-yard pond.
As HUFF and SHALE go out, they see the comet before them.
Huff:
The devil's own star is that!
Shale:
And floats as calmAs a pike basking.
Huff:
There shouldn't be such stars!
Shale:
Neither such dowsers, and we'll learn him that.
They go off together.
Sollers:
Why, the star's dwindling now, surely!
Merrick:
O, smallAnd dull now to the glowing size it was.
Vine:
But is it certain there'll be nothing smasht?Not even a house knockt roaring down in crumbles?— And I did think, I'ld open my wife's mouthWith envy of the dreadful things I'd seen!
CURTAIN
Contents/Contents, p. 3
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