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 pa.s.sing, 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 ap.r.o.n 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 G.o.d, 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 h.e.l.l: 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 la.s.s 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._