May. [Bitterly.] Ah now, whatever did!
Harry. ’Tweren’t as though you might have been a young wench, flighty like, all for the town and for they as goes up and about the streets of it. For, look you here, ’tis an old woman as you be now, May, and has been a twenty year or more, I don’t doubt.
May. An old woman be I, Harry? Well, to the likes of you ’tis so, I count. But a twelve year gone by, O, ’twas a fine enough looking maid as I was then—Only a wild one, Harry, a wild one, all for the free ways of the road and the lights of the fair—And for the sun to rise in one place where I was, and for I to be in t’other when her should set.
Harry. I’d keep my breath for when ’twas wanted, if ’twas me.
May. Come, look I in the face, Harry Moss, and tell I if so be as they’ll be likely to know I again up at home?
Harry. How be I to tell you such a thing, May, seeing that ’tis but a ten days or less as I’ve been along of you on the road? And seeing that when you was a young wench I never knowed the looks of you neither?
May. Say how the face of I do seem to you now, Harry, and then I’ll tell you how ’twas in the days gone by?
Harry. ’Tis all too dark like for to see clear, May. The night be coming upon we wonderful fast.
May. The hair, ’twas bright upon my head eleven years gone by, Harry. ’Twas glancing, as might be the wing of a thrush, so ’twas.
Harry. Well, ’tis as the frost might lie on a dead leaf now, May, that it be.