Eliza:
Policemen throngRound 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 beesAbout the prickling thistles in my head—Big bumblebees ... I never felt such heat.
Ezra:
And I must sit, tied to a chair, and hearkenTo an old wife, havering of bumblebees,While my hard-earned sovereigns lie snug and warmIn the breeches’ pocket of a rascal thief—Fifty gold sovereigns!
Eliza:
Fifty golden bees—Golden Italian queens ... My father spentA sight of money on Italian queens:For he’d a way with bees. He’d handle themWith 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 buzzingIn 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 womenCarry 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 darkIn 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 smotherI 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 headWas 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 SteelJim’s gone: and so, there’s none to look to the sheep.He must send someone ... Though my money meltIn 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 downOn 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 toEzra; 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 fendTo 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 doggingThe 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 ofPeter 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 travelledSo quickly, Eliza, I can’t think. And when’sJohn Steel to turn us out, to follow JimAnd 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 sheepTo any farmer—a rackle of bones for the midden!A bitter day, ’twill be, when I turn my backOn 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 croptThe 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, catchingPeteron the shin with it.)
Peter(wresting the stick fromEzra’sgrasp):
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 stripesOf the loundering I got the night I left.But I bear no malice, you old bag-of-bones:And where’s the satisfaction in committingAssault 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 enoughIn your geyzened carcase to raise one weal: and I neverCould bear the sound of cracking bones: and you’reAll 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 meTo 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 trickWhile 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(toBell):
I feared ’twas mother.Lucky, she’s out; it’s easier to do—Well, you ken what, when she’s ... But didn’t I bidYou 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 usedTo doing any man’s bidding, as you should ken:And I’d a mind to see the marble hallsYou 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 fashionTo introduce a boy to his grandfather—And such a dear, respectable old sheep’s head!
(toMichael)
Look well on granddad, son, and see what comesOf 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 bleedIf your nose were tapped. Who’d ever guess my dugsHad suckled you? Even your dad’s no moreThan 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 doneThat little business, Peter—though it’s not bulgedYour pockets overmuch, that I can see?
Peter:
Just setting about it, when you interrupted ...
Bell:
Step lively, then. I find this welcome too warmOn such a sultry day: I’m choked for air.These whitewashed walls, they’re too like—well, you kenWhere you’ll find yourself, if you get nobbled ...
Peter:
It seemsThere’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 stinkOf whitewash makes me queasy—sets me listeningTo 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.
(AsPetergoes into the other room,Ezratries 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 wordI’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 wordFor 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 sonManners 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 heardSome 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 sonWill 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.
(Petercomes 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 burgledThe 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 expectThe 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 sawA 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 saidYour mother was out. But, we’ve no time to potter.To think I’ve borne a son to a calf that’s fleyedOf 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:PeterandMichaelwatching her in amazement.)
Ezra:
So Jim, the fox, has cheated Peter, the fox—And vixen and cub, to boot! But, he made offOnly 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 usWith 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 stepFor forty-year, and mistake it, though the spring’sGone out of it, and it’s turned to a shuffle, it’s stillThe 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 dieAlone. 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 thingTo 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’tBring 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 placeIs 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 manageThe sheep without your aid: then you may spurtTo 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 fancyThat just because he’s in his own calfyardHe 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 mattressUnder a roof; and sheep to keep you busy—That’s what you’re fashioned for—not bracken-bedsIn 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 freeTo take the road again—if I’m not too dodderyFor gallivanting; as most folk are by the timeThey’ve done their duty by others. Who’d have dreamtI’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 rearThe young housesparrow. Granddad, Peter’s homeTo 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 usedTo 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 timeYou were watering those sheep, before their tonguesAre baked as black as your heart. You’d better takeThe lad along with you: he cannot learnThe job too soon; so I’ll get shot of the sightOf 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 asPeterandMichaelare gone,Bellfills 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 hadOne foot in the grave for hard on eleven-year!I little looked to taste her funeral ham.
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: andJudith 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: andBell Haggardis 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 seeingJudith; 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 takenThe 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 wenchThat took the bit in her teeth, and bolted: althoughYou scarcely look it, either. Old Ezra usedTo mumble your name, when he was raiming onAbout the sovereigns Jim made off with: he missedThe 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 caseOf pot and kettle, but I’d have scorned to bagThe lot, and leave the old folk penniless.’Twas hundreds Peter blabbed of—said our shareWouldn’t be missed—or I’d have never set footIn Krindlesyke; to think I walked into this trapFor 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 payThe interest on the loan he took that morningIn an absent-minded fit—and pretty talesAre tarradiddles? Jim’s not mucked that stepIn 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 mineFor any man’s: but, you’re the bride the bridegroomLost before bedtime?
Judith:
No, ’twas Phœbe Martin:And dead, this fifteen-year: she didn’t lastA 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 blabbedThe family-secrets to, unsnecking the cupboard,And setting the skeleton rattling his bones? I took youFor one of us, who’d ken our pretty ways;And reckoned naught I could tell of Jim to Jim’s wifeCould 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 ringFor 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 marriageIn 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 meFrom being a mother?
Judith:
Then Jim is his father?
Bell:
And what’s it got to do with you, the manI chose for my son’s father? Chose—God help us!That’s how we women gammon ourselves. Deuce kensThe almighty lot choice has to do with it!
Judith:
It wasn’t Jim, then?
Bell:
Crikey! You’re not blateOf asking questions: I’ve not been so riddledSince 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 guiltyTo some acquaintance with the family,As you might put it; seeing that Jim’s brotherIs 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 inclinedTo 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 wenchThe bride found here—and the mother of a daughter;And live ...
Judith:
At Bellingham.
Bell:
Where Michael findsSo often he’s pressing business, must be seen to—Something to do with sheep. I see ... To thinkI didn’t guess! Why is it, any manCan put the blinkers on us? But, was I blind,Or only wanting not to see—afraidOf what I’ve been itching after all these years?Can a hawk be caged so long, it’s scared to watchThe 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-bushHe’s tumbled in, blind-drunk—or was it an anthillHe’d pillowed his fuddled head on? Anyway,He went, sore-skinned; and gay to go; escapedFrom Krindlesyke—he always had the luck—Before the bitter winter that finished Ezra:But, I’d to stay on, listening all day longTo that old dotard, counting the fifty sovereignsYour fancy man made off with, when he cleaned outThe coffers of Krindlesyke, the very dayAnanias and I came for our share, too late:And so, got stuck at Back-o’-Beyont, like waspsIn a treacle-trap—the gold all gone: naught leftBut the chink of coins in an old man’s noddle, that ageHad emptied of wits. He’d count them, over and over—Just stopping to curse Jim, when he called to mindThe 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 outMy flame, while it still burns steady, and not sowse itIn a sweel of melted tallow.
Judith:
Ay, but it’s sadWhen 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 watchingBy candle-light, the night before the funeral,Nid-nodding, Michael and I, just as the clockStruck 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 fanciedHe’d popped up to say fifty: but he dropped backWith 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 homeTo his forefathers, and theirs—both Barrasfords:Though I’d guess your bairn’s a gentler strain: yet mine’sNo streak of me. All Barrasford, I judged him:But, though he’s Ezra’s stubbornness, he’s naughtOf 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 gotA dogged patience well-nigh crazes me:A husband, born, as I was never bornFor wife. But, happen, you ken him, well as I,Leastways, his company-side, since he does businessAt 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 heardHis 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 newsOf all that’s happened since I left the dayJim 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 dayHe burnt his fingers so badly: but he’s not kindledA hearthfire yet at Krindlesyke. Anyway,For Michael to be his son, I’d need to beEven 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 ...