James. A quarter to.
John. Whose house is that I see?[[2]]
No, not the County Member’s with the vane:
Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half
A score of gables.
James. That? Sir Edward Head’s:
But he’s abroad: the place is to be sold.
John. Oh, his. He was not broken?
James. No, sir, he,
Vex’d with a morbid devil in his blood
That veil’d the world with jaundice, hid his face
From all men, and commercing with himself,
He lost the sense that handles daily life—
That keeps us all in order more or less—
And sick of home went overseas for change.
John. And whither?
James. Nay, who knows? he’s here and there.
But let him go; his devil goes with him,
As well as with his tenant, Jockey Dawes.
John. What’s that?
James. You saw the man—on Monday, was it?—[[3]]
There by the hump-back’d willow; half stands up
And bristles; half has fall’n and made a bridge;
And there he caught the younker tickling trout—
Caught in flagrante—what’s the Latin word?—
Delicto; but his house, for so they say,
Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook
The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors,
And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay’d:
The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,
And all his household stuff; and with his boy
Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt,
Sets out,[[4]] and meets a friend who hails him,
“What! You’re flitting!” “Yes, we’re flitting,” says the ghost
(For they had pack’d the thing among the beds).
“Oh, well,” says he, “you flitting with us too—
Jack, turn the horses’ heads and home again”.[[5]]
John. He left his wife behind; for so I heard.