The Woman:
If you kept saying naught, No one would guess the fool you are.
Second Man:
Almost
My very words!
The Woman:
O you're the knowing man!
The spark among the cinders!
First Man:
You can't fetch
A free man back, unless he wants to come.
The Woman:
Nay, I'll be bound he doesn't want to come!
Third Man:
And he won't come: he told me flat he wouldn't.
The Woman:
Are you there too?
Third Man:
And if he does come back
It will be devilry brought him.
The Woman:
I shall bring him;--
Tonight.
First Man:
How will he come?
The Woman:
Running: unless
He's broke his leg, and then he'll have to come
Crawling: but he will come.
First Man:
How do you know
What he may choose to do, three counties off?
The Woman:
He choose?
Third Man:
You haven't got him on a lead.
The Woman:
Haven't I though!
Second Man:
That's right; it's what I said.
The Woman:
Ay, there are brains in your family.
First Man:
You have
Some sort of pull on him, to draw him home?
The Woman:
You may say that: I have hold of his mind.
And I can slack it off or fetch it taut.
And make him dance a score of miles away
An answer to the least twangling thrum
I play on it. He thought he lurkt at last
Safely; and all the while, what has he been?
An eel on the end of a night line; and it's time
I haul'd him in. You'll see, to-night I'll land him.
Third Man:
Bragging's a light job.
The Woman;
You daren't let me take
Your eyes in mine!--Haul, did I say? no need:
I give his mind a twitch, and up he comes
Tumbling home to me. Whatever work he's at,
He drops the thing he holds like redhot iron
And runs--runs till he falls down like a beast
Pole-axt, and grunts for breath; then up and on,
No matter does he know the road or not:
The strain I put on his mind will keep him going
Right as a homing-pigeon.
First Man:
Devilry I call it.
The Woman:
And you're welcome.
Second Man:
But the law should have a say here.
The Woman:
What, isn't he mine,
My own? There's naught but what I please about it.
Third Man:
Why did you let him go?
The Woman:
To fetch him back!
For I enjoy this, mind. There's many a one
Would think, to see me, There goes misery!
There's a queer starveling for you!--and I do
A thing that makes me like a saint in glory,
The life of me the sound of a great tune
Your flesh could never hear: I can send power
Delighting out of me! O, the mere thought
Has made my blood go smarting in my veins,
Such a flame glowing along it!--And all the same
I'll pay him out for sidling off from me.
But I'll have supper first.
When she was gone,
Their talk could scarcely raise itself again
Above a grumble. But at last a cry
Sharp-pitcht came startling in from the street: at once
Their moody talk exploded into flare
Of swearing hubbub, like gunpowder dropt
On embers; mugs were clapt down, out they bolted
Rowdily jostling, eager for the event.
All down the street the folk throng'd out of doors,
But left a narrow track clear in the middle;
And there a man came running, a tall man
Running desperately and slowly, pounding
Like a machine, so evenly, so blindly;
And regularly his trotting body wagg'd.
Only one foot clatter'd upon the stones;
The other padded in his dogged stride:
The boot was gone, the sock hung frayed in shreds
About his ankle, the foot was blood and earth;
And never a limp, not the least flinch, to tell
The wounded pulp hit stone at every step.
His clothes were tatter'd and his rent skin showed,
Harrowed with thorns. His face was pale as putty,
Thrown far back; clots of drooping spittle foamed
On his moustache, and his hair hung in tails,
Mired with sweat; and sightless in their sockets
His eyeballs turned up white, as dull as pebbles.
Evenly and doggedly he trotted,
And as he went he moaned. Then out of sight
Round a corner he swerved, and out of hearing.
--'The law should have a say to that, by God!'
* * * * *