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 p.r.i.c.kling thistles in my head-- Big b.u.mblebees ... I never felt such heat.

EZRA: And I must sit, tied to a chair, and hearken To an old wife, havering of b.u.mblebees, 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 c.u.mber! 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 gla.s.s, 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 b.l.o.o.d.ysyke ...

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 bet.w.a.ttled ...

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 d.o.g.g.i.ng The heels of that d.a.m.ned thief, hot-foot for the gallows, I hear his footsteps echoing in my head.

He'd hirple it barefoot on the coals of h.e.l.l, With a red-hot p.r.o.ng 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 pa.s.sed, when the head of a tramp, s.h.a.ggy 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 p.r.i.c.kly 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 a.s.sault 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 b.l.o.o.d.y. 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 n.o.bs 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 G.o.d-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 bra.s.s, 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? La.s.s, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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.