_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._
JUDITH:
You're Mistress Barrasford?
BELL:
Ay; so they call me.
JUDITH:
I knocked; but no one answered; so, I've taken
The 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 wench
That took the bit in her teeth, and bolted: although
You scarcely look it, either. Old Ezra used
To mumble your name, when he was raiming on
About the sovereigns Jim made off with: he missed
The 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 case
Of pot and kettle, but I'd have scorned to bag
The lot, and leave the old folk penniless.
'Twas hundreds Peter blabbed of--said our share
Wouldn't be missed--or I'd have never set foot
In Krindlesyke; to think I walked into this trap
For 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 pay
The interest on the loan he took that morning
In an absent-minded fit--and pretty tales
Are tarradiddles? Jim's not mucked that step
In 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 mine
For any man's: but, you're the bride the bridegroom
Lost before bedtime?
JUDITH:
No, 'twas Phoebe Martin:
And dead, this fifteen-year: she didn't last
A 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 blabbed
The family-secrets to, unsnecking the cupboard,
And setting the skeleton rattling his bones? I took you
For one of us, who'd ken our pretty ways;
And reckoned naught I could tell of Jim to Jim's wife
Could 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 ring
For 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 marriage
In 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 me
From being a mother?
JUDITH:
Then Jim is his father?
BELL:
And what's it got to do with you, the man
I chose for my son's father? Chose--God help us!
That's how we women gammon ourselves. Deuce kens
The almighty lot choice has to do with it!
JUDITH:
It wasn't Jim, then?
BELL:
Crikey! You're not blate
Of asking questions: I've not been so riddled
Since 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 guilty
To some acquaintance with the family,
As you might put it; seeing that Jim's brother
Is 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 inclined
To 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 wench
The bride found here--and the mother of a daughter;
And live ...
JUDITH:
At Bellingham.
BELL:
Where Michael finds
So often he's pressing business, must be seen to--
Something to do with sheep. I see ... To think
I didn't guess! Why is it, any man
Can put the blinkers on us? But, was I blind,
Or only wanting not to see--afraid
Of what I've been itching after all these years?
Can a hawk be caged so long, it's scared to watch
The 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-bush
He's tumbled in, blind-drunk--or was it an anthill
He'd pillowed his fuddled head on? Anyway,
He went, sore-skinned; and gay to go; escaped
From Krindlesyke--he always had the luck--
Before the bitter winter that finished Ezra:
But, I'd to stay on, listening all day long
To that old dotard, counting the fifty sovereigns
Your fancy man made off with, when he cleaned out
The coffers of Krindlesyke, the very day
Ananias and I came for our share, too late:
And so, got stuck at Back-o'-Beyont, like wasps
In a treacle-trap--the gold all gone: naught left
But the chink of coins in an old man's noddle, that age
Had emptied of wits. He'd count them, over and over--
Just stopping to curse Jim, when he called to mind
The 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 out
My flame, while it still burns steady, and not sowse it
In a sweel of melted tallow.
JUDITH:
Ay, but it's sad
When 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 watching
By candle-light, the night before the funeral,
Nid-nodding, Michael and I, just as the clock
Struck 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 fancied
He'd popped up to say fifty: but he dropped back
With 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 home
To his forefathers, and theirs--both Barrasfords:
Though I'd guess your bairn's a gentler strain: yet mine's
No streak of me. All Barrasford, I judged him:
But, though he's Ezra's stubbornness, he's naught
Of 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 got
A dogged patience well-nigh crazes me:
A husband, born, as I was never born
For wife. But, happen, you ken him, well as I,
Leastways, his company-side, since he does business
At 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 heard
His 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 news
Of all that's happened since I left the day
Jim 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 day
He burnt his fingers so badly: but he's not kindled
A hearthfire yet at Krindlesyke. Anyway,
For Michael to be his son, I'd need to be
Even 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 ...
BELL:
You'd no cause to worrit
Michael's not that sort: he's respectable--
Too staid and sober for his tinker-mother:
He'll waste no matches, lighting wayside fires.
JUDITH:
Like me, Ruth's easy kindled; hard to quench--
A flying spark, and the heather's afire in a gale;
And the fell's burned to the rock--naught but black ash,
When the downpour comes, too late.
BELL:
Ay--but the flare,
And crackle, and tossing flames, and golden smoke;
And the sting of the reek in the nostrils!
JUDITH:
Ruth'll love
Once and for all: like me, she's born for marriage:
Though, in my eager trustfulness, I missed it.
You'll scorn me, as I often scorn myself:
But, kenning the worst, in my heart of hearts, I hanker ...
Jim meant so much to me once: I can't forget,
Or keep from dwelling on the might-have-been.
Snow on the felltop, now: but underground
Fire smoulders still: and still might burst to flame.
Deceived and broken ...
BELL:
What's this jackadandy,
That you and Phoebe, both--and kenning him!
JUDITH:
What's kenning got to do with love? It makes
No difference, once you've given ...
BELL:
If I've a heart,
And it's broken, it's a broken stone, sunk deep
In bottomless mosshags, where no heat can touch it,
Till the whole world grills, at last, on hell's gridiron.
JUDITH:
Nothing you ken of broken hearts, or hell,
To talk so lightly. I have come through hell:
But you have never loved. What's given in love,
Is given. It's something to have loved, at least:
And I have Ruth.
BELL:
Ay, the green bracken-shoots,
Soon push through the black litter of charred heath:
And you have Ruth.
JUDITH:
Or, had her, till last night:
I've lost her, now, it seems.
BELL:
You let life hurt you:
You shy at shadows; and shrink from the crack of the whip,
Before the lash stings: and life loves no sport
Like yarking a shivering hide: you ask for it.
JUDITH:
I've been through much.
BELL:
And so, you should ken better
Than to hang yourself, before the judge gives sentence:
His honour can put the black cap on for himself,
Without your aid. You'll die a thousand deaths,
Before your end comes, peacefully in bed.
Why should you go half-way to meet your funeral?
JUDITH:
Though there's a joy in giving recklessly,
In flinging all your faggots on the blaze,
In losing all for love--a crazy joy
Long years of suffering cannot quench, I'd have
Ruth spared that madness: and kenning she's just myself
Born over, how could I sleep with the dread upon me?
She'd throw herself away; would burn to waste,
Suffering as I have ...
BELL:
Anyway, you burned:
And who's to say what burns to waste, even when
The kindled peatstack fires the steading? Far better
To perish in a flare, than smoulder away
Your life in smother: and what are faggots for,
If not for firing? But, you've suffered, woman,
More than need be, because you were ashamed.
The lurcher that slinks with drooping tail and lugs
Just asks for pelting. It's shame makes life bad travelling--
The stone in the shoe that lames you. Other folk
Might be ashamed to do the things I've done:
That's their look-out; they've got no call to do them:
I've never done what I would blush to own to:
I've got my self-respect. For all my talk,
I'm proud of Michael: and you're proud of Ruth,
I take it?
JUDITH:
Ay.
BELL:
Then, where's the need for shame,
Because they were come-by-chances? A mean thief
That snivels, because the fruit he relishes
Is stolen; and keeps munching it to the core.
Married, and so lived happily ever after?
A deal of virtue in a wedding-ring:
And marriage-lines make all the difference, don't they?
Your man and mine were born in lawful wedlock:
And sober, honest, dutiful sons they've proved:
While our two bastards, Ruth and ...
JUDITH:
Never been
A better daughter!
BELL:
Then, what would you have?
You've had her to yourself, without the worrit
Of a man to wear your soul out, all these years.
If I'd been married, before a week was through,
I'd have picked my husband's pocket, to buy rats' bane:
Envying the spiders who can gobble up
Husbands they've no more use for between meals.
But I wasn't born to kick my heels in air
For a plaguey husband: and if I'm to dangle,
'Twon't be for that, but something worth putting myself
Out of the way for. You say I'll scorn you, woman.
Who 'm I, to scorn? You're not my sort: but I ken
Too much of life for easy scorn: I've learnt
The lessons of the road.
JUDITH:
I've known the road, too;
And learned its bitter ...
BELL:
You didn't relish it?
It's meat to me; but then, I like mixed pickles--
Life, with an edge, and a free hand with the pepper.
You can't make a good hotchpotch with only 'taties:
And a good hotchpotch I'm fairly famished for:
I've starved on the lean fare of Krindlesyke:
My mouth is watering for the old savoury mess--
Life, piping hot: for I'm no man-in-the-moon,
To sup off cold peaseporridge: and it's the wash
Of bitters over the tongue gives bite to the pepper:
But you've no taste for bitters, or devilled collops--
Roast scrag on Sunday: cold mutton and boiled 'taties
The rest of the week, is the most you'd ask of life--
Nay, a cup of milky tea by a white hearth--
And you're in heaven!
JUDITH:
You're not far out.
BELL:
I take
Mine, laced with rum, by a camp-fire under the stars;
And not too dainty to mind the smatch of smoke.
JUDITH:
Tastes differ.
BELL:
Yet, for all my appetite,
At Krindlesyke, I'm a ewe overhead in a drift
That's cropped the grass round its feet, and mumbles its wool
For nourishment: and that's what you call life!
You're you: I'm I. It takes all turns for a circus:
And it's just the change and chances of the ring
Make the old game worth the candle: variety
At all costs: hurly-burly, razzle-dazzle--
Life, cowping creels through endless flaming hoops,
A breakneck business, ending with a crash,
If only in the big drum. The devil's to pay
For what we have, or haven't; and I believe
In value for my money.
JUDITH:
Peace and quiet
And a good home are worth ...
BELL:
But, you've no turn
For circuses: your heart's a pipeclayed hearthstone--
No ring for hoofs to trample to the clang
Of cymbals, blare of trumpets, rattle of drums:
No dash of brandy in your stirabout:
Porridge in peace, with a door 'twixt you and the weather;
A sanded floor; and the glow and smother of peat:
But I'd rather be a lean pig, running free,
Than the fattest flitch of bacon on the rafters.
JUDITH:
And yet, you've kept ...
BELL:
Ay: but my fingers have itched
Sorely to fire the peatstack in a west wind,
That flames might swarm walls and rooftree, and Krindlesyke,
Perishing in a crackle and golden flare-up,
Tumble a smoking ruin of blackened stone.
JUDITH:
Yet, you've kept house ...
BELL:
Ay, true enough; I've been
Cook, slut, and butler here this fifteen-year,
As thrang as Throp's wife when she hanged herself
With her own dishclout. Needs must, the fire will burn,
Barred in the grate: burn--nay, I've only smouldered
Like sodden peat. Ay, true, I've drudged; and yet,
What could I do against that old dead witch,
Lying in wait for me the day I came?
Her very patience was a kind of cunning
That challenged me, hinting I'd not have grit
To stand her life, even for a dozen years.
What could I do, but prove I could stick it out?
If I'd turned tail, she'd have bared her toothless gums
To grin at me: and how could I go through life,
Haunted by her dead smile? But now the spell
Is snapt: I've proved her wrong: she cannot hold me.
I've served my sentence: the cell-door opens: and yet,
You would have done that fifteen-years-hard willingly?
Some folk can only thrive in gaol--no nerve
To face the risks outside; and never happy
Till lagged for life: meals punctual and no cares:
And the king for landlord. While I've eaten my head off,
You've been a galled jade, fretting for the stable.
Tastes differ: but it's just that you're not my sort
Puzzles me why you gave yourself to Jim.
JUDITH:
There are no whys and wherefores, when you love.
BELL:
I gave myself to Peter, with a difference.
You'd have wed Jim: I just let Peter travel
With me, to keep the others from pestering;
And scooted him when Michael could manage the sheep.
JUDITH:
You never loved him. I loved Jim ...
BELL:
A deal
Of difference that's made!
JUDITH:
More than you can guess.
BELL:
Peter stuck longer, tangled in the brambles.
JUDITH:
I loved Jim; so, I trusted him.
BELL:
But when
You found him out?
JUDITH:
If you had loved, you'd ken
That finding out makes little difference.
There are things in this life you don't understand,
For all your ready tongue.
BELL:
Ay: men and women
I've given up--just senseless marionettes,
Jigging and bobbing to the twitching strings:
Though I like to fancy I pick my steps, and choose
The tunes I dance to; happen, that's my pride;
But, choose or not, we've got to pay the piper.
JUDITH:
Ay: in your pride, you think you've the best of life.
You're missing more than you reckon, the best of all.
BELL:
Well, I've no turn for penal servitude.
But, have you never gabbed to keep your heart up?
What are hats for, if not for talking through?
Pride--we've both pride; yours, hot and fierce, and mine
Careless and cold: yet, both came the same cropper--
Not quite ... for you were hurt to death almost:
While I picked myself up, scatheless; not a scratch;
Only my skirt torn; and it always draggled.
JUDITH:
You never cared: I couldn't have borne myself,
If I'd not cared: I'd hate myself as much
As I've hated Jim, whiles, when I thought of all.
They're mixter-maxter, hate and love: and, often,
I've wondered if I loathed, or loved, Jim most.
I understand as little as you, it seems:
Yet, it's only caring counts for anything
In this life; though it's caring's broken me.
BELL:
It stiffens some. But, why take accidents
So bitterly? It's all a rough-and-tumble
Of accidents, from the accident of birth
To the last accident that lays us out--
A go-as-you-please, and the devil take the hindmost.
It's pluck that counts, and an easy seat in the saddle:
Better to break your neck at the first ditch,
Than waste the day in seeking gates to slip through:
Cold-blooded crawlers I've no sort of use for.
You took the leap, and landed in the quickset:
But, at least, you leapt sky-high, before you tumbled:
And it's silly to lie moaning in the prickles:
Best pick yourself up sharp, and shake the thorns out,
Else the following hoofs will bash you. Give life leave
To break your heart, 'twill trample you ...
JUDITH:
Leave, say you?
Life takes French-leave: your heart's beneath the hoofs
Before ...
BELL:
But grin, and keep yourself heartwhole;
And you'll find the fun of the fair's in taking chances:
It's the uncertainty makes the race--no sport
In putting money on dead-certainties.
I back the dark horse; stake my soul against
The odds: and I'll not grouse if life should prove
A welsher in the end: I'll have had my fling,
At least: and yet talk's cheap ...
JUDITH:
Ay, cheap.
BELL:
Dirt-cheap:
Three-shots-a-penny; and it's not every time
You hit Aunt Sally and get a good cigar,
Or even pot a milky coconut:
And, all this while, life's had the upper hand:
I slipt, the day I came; and lost my grip:
Life got me by the scruff of the neck, and held
My proud nose to the grindstone. My turn, now--
I'll be upsides with life, and teach it manners,
Before death gets the stranglehold: I'll have
The last laugh, though it choke me. And what's death,
To set us twittering? I'll be no frightened squirrel:
Scarting and scolding never yet scared death:
When he's a mind to crack me like a nut,
I'd be no husk: still ripe and milky, I'd have him
Swallow the kernel, and spit out the shell,
Before all's shrivelled to black dust. But, tombstones,
What's turned my thoughts to death? It's these white walls,
After a day in the open. When I came,
At first, these four walls seemed to close in on me,
As though they'd crush the life out: and I felt
I'd die between them: but, after all ... And yet,
Who kens what green sod's to be broken for him?
Queer, that I'll lie, like any innocent
Beneath the daisies; but the gowans must wait.
Sore-punished, I'm not yet knocked out: life's had
My head in chancery; but I'll soon be free
To spar another round or so with him,
Before he sends me spinning to the ropes.
And life would not be life, without the hazards.
JUDITH:
Too many hazards for me.
BELL:
Ay: so it seems:
But you're too honest for the tricky game.
I've a sort of honesty--a liar and thief
In little things--I'm honesty itself
In the things that matter--few enough, deuce kens:
But your heart's open to the day; while mine's
A pitchy night, with just a star or so
To light me to cover at the keeper's step.
You're honest, to your hurt: your honesty's
A knife that cuts through all; and will be cutting--
Hacking and jabbing, and thirsting to draw blood;
And turning in the wound it makes--a gulley,
To cut your heart out, if you doubted it:
And so, you're faithful, even to a fool;
While I would just be faithful to myself.
You thrive on misery.
JUDITH:
Nay: I've only asked
A little happiness of life: I've starved
For happiness, God kens.
BELL:
What's happiness?
You've got a sweet-tooth; and don't relish life:
You want run-honey, when it's the honeycomb
That gives the crunch and flavour. Would you be
As happy as a maggot in a medlar,
Swelling yourself in sweet deliciousness,
Till the blackbird nips you? None escapes his crop.
You'd quarrel with the juiciest plum, because
Your teeth grit on the stone, instead of cracking
The shell, and savouring the bitter kernel.
Nigh all the jests life cracks have bitter kernels.
JUDITH:
Ay, bitter enough to set my teeth on edge.
BELL:
What are teeth for, if we must live on pap?
The sweetest marrow's in the hardest bone,
As you've found with Ruth, I take it.
JUDITH:
Ay: and still,
You have been faithful, Bell.
BELL:
A faithful fool,
Against the grain, this fifteen-year: my son
And that dead woman were too strong for me:
They turned me false to my nature; broke me in
Like a flea in harness, that draws a nutshell-coach.
Till then I'd jumped, and bit, at my own sweet will.
Oh! amn't I the wiseacre, the downy owl,
Fancying myself as knowing as a signpost?
And yet, there's always some new twist to learn.
Life's an old thimblerigger; and, it seems,
Can still get on the silly side of me,
Can still bamboozle me with his hanky-panky:
He always kens a trick worth two of mine;
Though he lets me spot the pea beneath the thimble
Just often enough to keep me in good conceit.
And he's kept you going, too, with Ruth to live for.
JUDITH:
If it hadn't been for Ruth ...
BELL:
He kens, he kens:
As canny as he's cute, for his own ends,
He's a wise showman; and doesn't overfeed
The living skeleton or let the fat lady starve:
And so, we're each kept going, in our own kind,
Till we've served our turn. Mine's talking, you'll have gathered!
JUDITH:
Ay, you've a tongue.
BELL:
It rattles in my head
Like crocks in a mugger's cart: but I've had few
To talk with here; and too much time for brooding,
Turning things over and over in my own mind,
These fifteen years.
JUDITH:
True: neighbours, hereabouts,
Are few, and far to seek.
BELL:
The devil a chance
I've ever had of a gossip: and, as for news,
I've had to fall back on the wormy Bible
That props the broken looking-glass: so, now
I've got the chance of a crack, my tongue goes randy;
And patters like a cheapjack's, or a bookie's
Offering you odds against the favourite, life:
Or, wasn't life the dark horse? I have talked
My wits out, till I'm like a drunken tipster,
Too milled to ken the dark horse from the favourite.
My sharp tongue's minced my very wits to words.
JUDITH:
Ay, it's been rattling round.
BELL:
A slick tongue spares
The owner the fag of thinking: it's the listeners
Who get the headache. And yet, I could talk
At one time to some purpose--didn't dribble
Like a tap that needs a washer: and, by carties,
It's talking I've missed most: I've always been
Like an urchin with a withy--must be slashing--
Thistles for choice: and not once, since I came,
Have I had a real good shindy to warm my blood.
JUDITH:
I'd have thought Ezra ...
BELL:
Ay: we fratched, at first;
For he'd a tongue of his own; and could use it, too,
Better than most menfolk--a bonnie sparrer,
I warrant, in his time; but past his best
Before I kenned him; little fight left in him:
And when his wits went cranky, he just havered--
Ground out his two tunes like a hurdygurdy,
With most notes missing and a creaky handle.
JUDITH:
And Michael?
BELL:
Michael! The lad will sit mumchance
The evening through: he's got a powerful gift
Of saying nothing: no sparks to strike off him;
Though he's had to serve as a whetstone, this long while,
To keep an edge on my tongue.
JUDITH:
He's quiet?
BELL:
Quiet!
A husband born. No need to fear for Ruth:
She's safe with Michael, safe for life.
JUDITH:
He's steady?
BELL:
He's not his mother's son: he banks his money;
And takes no hazards; never risks his shirt:
As canny as I'm spendthrift, he's the sort
Can pouch his cutty, half-smoked, ten minutes after
I've puffed away my pipeful. Ay: Ruth's safe.
His peatstacks never fire: he'll never lose
A lamb, or let a ewe slip through his hands,
For want of watching; though he go for nights
Without a nap. The day of Ezra's funeral,
A score of gimmers perished in the snow,
But not a ewe of Michael's: his were folded
Before the wind began to pile the drifts:
He takes no risks.
JUDITH:
Ruth needs a careful man:
For she's the sort that's steady with the steady,
And a featherhead with featherheads. She's sense:
And Michael ...
BELL:
Michael's sense itself--a cob
Too steady to shy even at the crack of doom:
He'll keep the beaten track, the road that leads
To four walls, and the same bed every night.
Talk of the devil--but he's coming now
Up Bloodysyke: ay, and there's someone with him--
A petticoat, no less!
JUDITH:
Mercy! It's Ruth:
Yet I didn't leave, till she was safely off
To work ...
BELL:
Work? Michael, too, had business
In Bellingham this morning, oddly enough.
Doubtless, they helped each other; and got through
The job the quicker, working well together:
And a parson took a hand in it for certain,
If I ken Michael: likes things proper, he does;
And always had a weakness for black lambs.
But, who'd have guessed he'd ... Surely, there's a strain
Of Haggard in the young limb, after all:
No Haggard stops to ask a parent's leave,
Even should they happen to ken the old folk by sight:
My own I knew by hearsay. But, what luck
You're here to welcome the young pair.
JUDITH:
No! They'll wonder ...
I bring no luck to weddings ... I must go ...
BELL:
You can't, without being spotted: but you can hide
Behind the door, till I speak with them.
JUDITH:
No! No!
Not that door ... I can't hide behind that door
Again.
BELL:
That door? Well, you ken best what's been
Between that door and you. It's crazy and old,
But, it looks innocent, wooden-faced humbug: yet
I don't trust doors myself; they've got a knack
Of shutting me in. But you'll be snug enough
In the other room: I'd advise you to lie down,
And rest; you're looking trashed: and, come to think,
I've a deal to say to the bridegroom, before I go.
JUDITH:
Go?
BELL:
Quick, this way: step lively, or they'll catch
Your skirt-tail whisking round the doorcheek.
(_BELL hustles JUDITH into the inner room; closing the door behind her.
She then thrusts the orange-coloured kerchief into her pocket; picks
up the bracken, and flings it on the fire; seats herself on the
settle, with her back to the door; and gazes at the blaze: not even
glancing up, as MICHAEL and RUTH enter._)
MICHAEL:
Mother!
BELL:
Is that you, Prodigal son? You're late, to-day,
As always when you've business in Bellingham.
That's through, I trust: those ewes have taken a deal
Of seeing to: and I'm lonely as a milestone,
When you're away.
MICHAEL:
I've taken the last trip, mother:
That job's through: and I've made the best of bargains.
You'll not be lonely, now, when I'm not here:
I've brought you a daughter to keep you company.
BELL (_turning sharply_):
I might have known you were no Prodigal son:
He didn't bring home even a single sausage,
For all his keeping company with swine.
But, what should I do with a daughter, lad?
Do you fancy, if I'd had a mind for daughters,
I couldn't have had a dozen of my own?
One petticoat's enough in any house:
And who are you, to bring your mother a daughter?
MICHAEL:
Her husband. Ruth's my bride. Ruth Ellershaw
She was till ten o'clock: Ruth Barrasford,
Till doomsday, now.
BELL:
When did I give you leave
To bring strange lasses to disturb my peace,
Just as I'm getting used to Krindlesyke?
To think you'd wed, without a word!
MICHAEL:
Leave, say you?
You'll always have your jest. I said no word:
For words breed words: and I'd not have a swarm
Of stinging ants bumming about my lugs
For days beforehand.
BELL:
Ants? They'd need be kaids,
To burrow through your fleece, and prog your skin.
MICHAEL:
I'd as lief ask leave of the tricky wind as you:
And, leave or not, I'd see you damned, if you tried
To part us. None of your games! I'm no young wether,
To be let keep his old dam company;
Trotting beside her ...
BELL:
Cock-a-whoop, my lad!
Well done, for you, Ruth, lass; you've kindled him,
As I could never do, for all my chaff.
I little dreamt he'd ever turn lobstroplous:
I hardly ken him, with his dander up,
Swelling and bridling like a bubblyjock.
If I pricked him now, he'd bleed red blood--not ewe's milk:
The flick of my tongue can nettle him at last:
His haunches quiver, for all his woolly coat;
He'll prove a Haggard, yet. Nay--he said "husband":
No Haggard I've heard tell on's been a husband:
But, if your taste's for husbands, lass, you're suited,
Till doomsday, as he says. He kens his mind:
When barely breeched, he chose to bide with sheep;
Though he might have travelled with horses: and it's sheep
His heart is set on still. But, I've no turn
For certainties myself: no sheep for me:
Life, with a tossing mane, and clattering hoofs,
The chancy life for me--not certain death,
With the stink of tar and sheepdip in my nostrils.
MICHAEL:
Life, with a clattering tongue, you mean to say.
BELL:
Well: you're a bonnie lass, I must admit:
And, if I'd fancied daughters, I might have done
Much worse than let young Michael pick them for me:
He's not gone poseying in the kitchen garden.
I never guessed he'd an eye for aught but ewes:
As, blind as other mothers, I'd have sworn
I'd kenned him, inside-out, since he was--nay!
But he was never a rapscallion ripstitch--
Always a prim and proper little man,
A butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth young sobersides,
Since he found his own feet. Yet, the blade that's wed--
The jack-knife, turned into a pair of scissors--
Without a word, is not the son I thought him.
There's something of his mammy, after all,
In Michael: and as for you, my lass, you're just
Your minney's very spit.
RUTH:
You ken my mother?
BELL:
Ken Judith Ellershaw? You'll ask me, next,
If I'm acquainted with Bell Haggard. Well,
Gaping for turnips, Michael?
MICHAEL:
I never heard ...
BELL:
What have you heard this fifteen-year, except
The bleat of sheep, till Ruth's voice kittled your ear?
But, Judith sent some message by her daughter?
RUTH:
She doesn't ken I've come: nay, doesn't dream
I'm married even; though I meant to tell her
This morning; but I couldn't: she started so,
When I let slip Michael's name; and turned so pale.
I don't know why; but I feared some word of hers
Might come between us: and I couldn't let
Even my mother come between us now:
So, I pretended to set out for work
As usual: then, when we were married, went back
With Michael, to break the news. But the door was locked:
And neighbours said she was out--been gone some time:
And Michael was impatient to be home:
So, I had to come. I can't think what has happened.
I hated leaving her like that: I've never
In all my life done such a thing.
BELL:
Well, Michael
Should be relieved to learn it's a first offence.
RUTH:
She'd gone without a word ...
BELL:
A family failing--
And, happen, on like errand to your own.
RUTH:
Mother? Nay, she's too old: you said you knew her.
BELL:
Ay, well enough to reckon I'm her elder:
And who's to tell me I'm too old to marry?
A woman is never too old for anything:
It's only men grow sober and faint-hearted:
And Judith's just the sort whose soul is set
On a husband and a hearthstone: I ken that.
RUTH:
Nay: mother'll never marry.
BELL:
You can speak
With all the cock-a-whoop of ignorance:
For you're too young to dare to doubt your wisdom.
It's a wise man, or a fool, can speak for himself,
Let alone for others, in this haphazard life.
But give me a young fool, rather than an old--
A plucky plunger, than a canny crone
Who's old enough to ken she doesn't ken.
You're right: for doubting is a kind of dotage:
Experience ages and decays; while folk
Who never doubt themselves die young--at ninety.
Age never yet brought gumption to a ninny:
And you cannot reckon up a stranger's wits
By counting his bare patches and grey hairs:
It's seldom sense that makes a bald head shine:
And I'm not partial to Methuselahs.
Keep your cocksureness, while you can: too soon,
Time plucks the feathers off you; and you lie,
Naked and skewered, with not a cock-a-doodle,
Or flap of the wings to warm your heart again.
And so, you quitted your mammy, without a word,
When the jockey whistled?
RUTH:
Nay: I left a letter:
'Twas all I could do.
BELL:
She's lost a daughter; and got
A bit of paper, instead: and what have I,
For my lost son?
MICHAEL:
You've lost no son; but gained
A daughter. You'll always live with us.
BELL:
Just so.
I've waited for you to say that: and it comes pat.
You'll think his thoughts; and mutter them in your mind,
Before he can give them tongue, Ruth. He's not said
An unexpected thing since he grew out
Of his first breeches: and, like the most of men,
He speaks so slowly, you can almost catch
The creaking of his wits between the words.
RUTH:
Well: I've a tongue for two: and you, yourself,
Don't lack for ...
BELL:
So, all's settled: you've arranged
The world for your convenience; and have planned
Your mothers' lives between you? I'm to be
The dear old grannie in the ingleneuk;
And hide my grizzled wisps in a mutch with frills?
Nay, God forbid! I'm no tame pussycat,
To snuggle on the corner of a settle,
With one eye open for the chance-thrown titbit,
While the good housewife goes about her duties:
Me! lapping with blinking eyes and possing paws,
The saucer of skim-milk that young skinflint spares me,
And purring, when her darlings pull my tail--
Great-grandchildren, too, to Ezra, on both sides.
Ay: you may gape like a brace of guddled brandling:
But that old bull-trout's grandsire to you both;
And a double dose of his blue blood will run
In the veins of your small fry--if fish have veins.
MICHAEL:
You surely never mean to say ...
BELL:
I do.
More than a little for you young know-alls to learn,
When you meet Judith Ellershaw: for havers
As it sounds to your young lugs, the world went round,
And one or two things happened, before you were born.
Yet, none of us kens what life's got up his sleeve:
He's played so long: and had a deal of practice,
Since he sat down with Adam: he's always got
A trump tucked out of sight, that takes the trick.
But, son, you've lived with me for all these years;
And yet ken me so little? Grannie's mutch-frills!
I'd as lief rig myself in widow's weeds
For my fancy man, who may have departed this life,
For all I ken or care.
MICHAEL:
Come, hold your tongue:
Enough of shameless talk. I'm master, now:
And I'll not have Ruth hear this radgy slack.
If you've no shame yourself, I'll find a way
To bridle your loose tongue: so mind yourself:
I'll have no tinker's tattle.
BELL:
The tinker's brat
Rides the high-horse now, mounted on prime mutton.
Ruth, lass, you're safe, you're safe--if safety's all:
He'll never guess your heart, unless you blab.
I've never told him mine: I've kept him easy,
Till he'd found someone else to victual him,
And make his bed, and darn his hose; and you
Seem born to take the job out of my hands.
RUTH:
But I'd not come between you ...
BELL:
Think not, lass?
I bear you no ill-will: you set me free.
I'm a wildcat, all bristling fur and claws:
At Krindlesyke, I've been a wildcat, caged:
And Michael never twigged! Son, don't you mind
The day we came--was I a tabby then?
The day we came here, with no thought to bide,
Once we had got the plunder; and were trapped
Between these four white walls by a dead woman?
She held me--forced my feet into her shoes--
Held me for your sake. Ay: there seemed some link
'Twixt your dead grannie and you, too strong for me
To break; though it's been strained to the snapping-point,
Times out of mind, whenever a hoolet's screech
Sang through my blood; or poaching foxes barked
On a shiny night to the cackle of wild geese,
Travelling from sea to sea far overhead:
Or whenever, waking in the quiet dark,
The ghosts of horses whinneyed in my heart.
Ghosts! Nay, I've been the mare between the limmers
Who hears the hunters gallop gaily by;
Or, rather, the hunter, bogged in a quaking moss,
Fankit in sluthery strothers, belly-deep,
With the tune of the horn tally-hoing through her blood,
As the field sweeps out of sight.
MICHAEL:
Wildcats and hunters--
A mongrel breed, eh, Ruth?
BELL:
But, now it seems,
I can draw my hocks out of the clungy sump
I've floundered in so long; and, snuffing the wind,
Shew a clean pair of heels to Krindlesyke.
A mongrel breed, say you? And who but a man
Could have a wildcat-hunter making his bed
For him for fifteen-year, and never know it?
But, the old wife's satisfied, at last: she should be:
She's had my best years: I've grown old and grizzled,
And full of useless wisdom, in her service.
She's taught me much: for I've had time and to spare,
Brooding among these God-forsaken fells,
To turn life inside-out in my own mind;
And study every thread of it, warp and weft.
I'm far from the same woman who came here:
And I'll take up my old life with a difference,
Now she and you've got no more use for me:
You've squeezed me dry betwixt you.
MICHAEL:
Dry, do you say?
The Tyne's in spate; and we must swim for life,
Eh, Ruth? But, you'll soon get used ...
BELL:
She's done with me.
She'll not be sorry to lose me: I fancy, at times,
She felt she'd got more than she'd bargained for--
A wasp, rampaging in her spider's web.
"Far above rubies" has never been my line,
Though I could wag a tongue with Solomon,
Like the Queen of Sheba herself: I doubt if she
Rose in the night to give meat to her household.
She must have been an ancestor of mine:
For she'd traik any distance for a crack,
The gipsy-hearted ganwife that she was.
MICHAEL:
Wildcats and hunters and the Queen of Sheba--
A royal family, Ruth, you've married into!
BELL:
But now I can kick Eliza's shoes sky-high:
Nay--I must shuffle them quietly off; and lay
The old wife's shoes decently by the hearth,
As I found them when I came--a slattern stopgap--
Ready for the young wife to step into.
They'll fit her, as they never fitted me:
For all her youth, they will not gall her heels,
Or give her corns: she's the true Cinderella:
The clock has struck for her; and the dancing's done;
And the Prince has brought her home--to wash the dishes.
But now I'm free: and I'll away to-night.
My bones have been restless in me all day long:
They felt their freedom coming, before I kenned.
I've little time to lose: I'm getting old--
Stiff-jointed in my wits, that once were nimble
As a ferret among the bobtails, old and dull.
A night or so may seem to matter little,
When I've already lost full fifteen-year:
But I hear the owls call: and my fur's a-tingle:
The Haggard blood is pricking in my veins.
(_She loosens the string of her apron, which slips to the ground, kilts
her skirt to her knee, takes the orange-coloured kerchief from her
pocket, and twists it about her head; while MICHAEL and RUTH watch
the transformation in amazement._)
MICHAEL:
But you don't mean to leave us?
BELL:
Pat it comes:
You've just to twitch the wire and the bell rings:
You'll learn the trick, soon, Ruth. (_To MICHAEL_) Bat, don't you see
I've just put on my nightcap, ready for bed--
Grannie's frilled mutch? I leave you, Michael? Son,
The time came, as it comes to every man,
When you'd to make a choice betwixt two women.
You've made your choice: and chosen well: but I,
Who've always done the choosing, and never yet
Tripped to the beck of any man, or bobbed
To any living woman--I'm free to follow
My own bent, now that that old witch's fingers
Have slackened their cold clutch; and your dead grannie
Has gained her ends, and seen you settled down
At Krindlesyke: and from this on I, too,
Am dead to you. You'll soon enough forget me:
The world would end if a man could not forget
His mother's deathbed in his young wife's arms--
I'm far from corpse-cold yet; and it may be years
Before they pluck Bell Haggard's kerchief off,
To tie her chin up with, and ripe her pockets
Of her last pennies to shut up her eyes.
Even then, they'll have to tug the chin-clout tight,
To keep her tongue from wagging. Well, my son,
So, it's good-bye till doomsday.
MICHAEL:
You're not going?
I thought you only havered. You can't go.
Do you think I'd let you go, and ...
BELL:
Hearken, Ruth:
That's the true husband's voice: for husbands think,
If only they are headstrong and high-handed,
They're getting their own way: they charge, head-down,
At their own image in the window-glass;
And don't come to their senses till their carcase
Is spiked with smarting splinters. But I'm your mother,
Not your tame wife, lad: and I'll go my gait.
MICHAEL:
You shall not go, for all your crazy cackle--
My mother, on the road, a tinker's baggage,
While I've a roof to shelter her!
BELL:
You pull
The handle downwards towards you, and the beer
Spouts out. No hope for you, Ruth: lass, you're safe--
Safe as a linnet in a cage, for life:
No need to read your hand, to tell your fortune:
No gallivanting with the dark-eyed stranger,
Calleevering over all the countryside,
When the owls are hooting to the hunter's moon,
For the wife of Michael Barrasford. Well, boy,
What if I choose to be a tinker's baggage?
It was a tinker's baggage mothered you--
For tying a white apron round the waist
Has never made a housewife of a gipsy--
And a tinker's baggage went out of her way
To set you well on yours: and now she turns.
MICHAEL:
You shall not go, I say. I'm master here:
And I won't let you shame me. I've been decent;
And have always done my duty by the sheep,
Working to keep a decent home together
To bring a wife to: and, for all your jeers,
There are worse things for a woman than a home
And husband and a lawful family.
You shall not go. You say I ken my mind ...
BELL:
Ay: but not mine. What should a tinker's trollop
Do in the house of Michael Barrasford,
But bring a blush to his children's cheeks? God help them,
If they take after me, if they've a dash
Of Haggard blood--for ewe's milk laced with brandy
Is like to curdle: or, happen, I should say,
God help their father!
MICHAEL:
Mother, why should you go?
Why should you want to travel the ditch-bottom,
When you've a hearth to sit by, snug and clean?
BELL:
The fatted calf's to be killed for the prodigal mother?
You've not the hard heart of the young cockrobin
That's got no use for parents, once he's mated:
But I'm, somehow, out of place within four walls,
Tied to one spot--that never wander the world.
I long for the rumble of wheels beneath me; to hear
The clatter and creak of the lurching caravan;
And the daylong patter of raindrops on the roof:
Ay, and the gossip of nights about the campfire--
The give-and-take of tongues: mine's getting stiff
For want of use, and spoiling for a fight.
MICHAEL:
Nay: still as nimble and nippy as a flea!
BELL:
But, I could talk, at one time! There are days
When the whole world's hoddendoon and draggletailed,
Drooked through and through; and blury, gurly days
When the wind blows snell: but it's something to be stirring,
And not shut up between four glowering walls,
Like blind white faces; and you never ken
What traveller your wayside fire will draw
Out of the night, to tell outlandish tales,
Or crack a jest, or start quarrel with you,
Till the words bite hot as ginger on the tongue.
Anger's the stuff to loose a tongue grown rusty:
And keep it in good fettle for all chances.
I'm sick of dozing by a dumb hearthstone--
And the peat, with never a click or crackle in it--
Famished for news.
MICHAEL:
For scandal.
BELL:
There's no scandal
For those who can't be scandalized--just news:
All's fish that comes to their net. I was made
For company.
MICHAEL:
And you'd go back again
To that tag-rag-and-bobtail? What's the use
Of a man's working to keep a decent home,
When his own mother tries to drag him down?
BELL:
Nay: my pernicketty, fine gentleman,
But I'll not drag you down: you're free of me:
I've slipt my apron off; and you're tied now
To your wife's apron-strings: for menfolk seem
Uneasy on the loose, and never happy
Unless they're clinging to some woman's skirt.
I'm out of place in any decent house,
As a kestrel in a hencoop. Ay, you're decent:
But, son, remember a man's decency
Depends on his braces; and it's I who've sewn
Your trouser-buttons on; so, when you fasten
Your galluses, give the tinker's baggage credit.
She's done her best for you; and scrubbed and scoured,
Against the grain, for all these years, to keep
Your home respectable; though, in her heart,
Thank God, she's never been respectable--
No dry-rot in her bones, while she's alive:
Time and to spare for decency in the grave.
So, you can do your duty by the sheep,
While I go hunting with the jinneyhoolets--
Birds of a feather--ay, and fleece with fleece:
And when I'm a toothless, mumbling crone, you'll be
So proper a gentleman, 'twill be hard to tell
The shepherd from the sheep. Someone must rear
The mutton and wool, to keep us warm and fed;
But that's not my line: please to step this way
For the fancy goods and fakish faldalals,
Trinkets and toys and fairings. Son, you say,
You're master here: well, that's for Ruth to settle:
I'll be elsewhere. I've never knuckled down
To any man: and I'll be coffin-cold
Before I brook a master; so, good-night,
And pleasant dreams; and a long family
Of curly lambkins, bleating round the board.
RUTH:
Michael, you'll never let her go alone?
She's only talking wild, because she's jealous.
Mothers are always jealous, when their sons
Bring home a bride: though she needn't be uneasy:
I'd never interfere ...
BELL:
Too wise to put
Your fingers 'twixt the cleaver and the block?
Jealous--I wonder? Anyhow, it seems,
I've got a daughter, too. Alone, you say?
However long I stayed, I'd have to go
Alone, at last: and I'd as lief be gone,
While I can carry myself on my two pins.
Being buried with the Barrasfords is a chance
I've little mind to risk a second time:
I'm too much of a Haggard, to want to rise,
At the last trump, among a flock of bleaters.
If I've my way, there'll be stampeding hoofs
About me, startled at the crack of doom.
MICHAEL:
When you've done play-acting ...
BELL:
Play-acting? Ay: I'm through:
Exit the villain: ring the curtain down
On the happy ending--bride and bridegroom seated
On either side the poor, but pious, hearth.
MICHAEL:
I'd as soon argue with a weathercock
As with a woman ...
BELL:
Yet the weathervanes
Are always cocks, not hens.
MICHAEL:
You shall not go.
BELL:
Your naked hurdles cannot hold the wind.
MICHAEL:
Wind? Ay, I'm fairly tewed and hattered with words:
And yet, for all your wind, you shall not go.
BELL:
While you've a roof to shelter me, eh, son?
You mean so well; and understand so little.
Yours is a good thick fleece--no skin that twitches
When a breath tickles it. Sheep will be sheep,
And horses, horses, till the day of judgment.
MICHAEL:
Better a sound tup than a spavined nag.
BELL:
Ay, Ruth, you've kindled him! Good luck to you:
And may your hearthfire warm you to the end.
(_To MICHAEL._)
You've been a good son to me, in your way:
Only, our ways are different; and here they part.
For all my blether, there's no bitterness
On my side: I've long kenned 'twas bound to come:
And, in your heart, you know it's for the best,
For your sake, and for Ruth's sake, and for mine.
I couldn't obey, where I have bid; nor risk
My own son's fathering me in second childhood:
And you'd not care to have me like old Ezra,
A dothering haiveril in your chimney corner,
Babbling of vanished gold? I read my fortune
In the flames just now: and I'll not rot to death:
It's time enough to moulder, underground.
My death'll come quick and chancy, as I'd have had
Each instant of life: but still there are risky years
Before me, and a sudden, unlooked-for ending.
And I'll not haunt you: ghosts enough, with Ezra,
Counting his ghostly sovereigns all night long,
And old Eliza, darning ghostly stockings.
My ghost will ride a broomstick....
(_As she speaks, the inner door opens, and RUTH and MICHAEL, turning
sharply at the click of the latch, gaze, dumbfounded, at JUDITH
ELLERSHAW, standing in the doorway._)
BELL:
Fee-fo-fum!
The barguest bays; and boggles, brags, and bo-los
Follow the hunt. How's that for witchcraft, think you?
Hark, how the lych-owl screeches!
RUTH (_running to her mother's arms_):
Mother, you!
BELL:
Now there's a sweet, domestic picture for you!
My cue's to vanish in a puff of smoke
And reek of brimstone, like the witch I am.
I'm coming, hoolet, my old cat with wings!
It's time I was away: there never yet
Was room for two grandmothers in one house.
I'm through with Krindlesyke. Good-bye, old gaol!
(_While MICHAEL still gazes at RUTH and her mother in amazement, BELL
HAGGARD slips out of the door, unnoticed, and away through the bracken
in the gathering dusk. An owl hoots._)