Jaspar come back—Jaspar come home again——
Jaspar—why don’t ’e answer? There, now there!
Have that to warm yer. Oh, ye’ll soon come round,
Ye’ve starved yerself, ye—! Ah—she’s dead, she’s dead!
(He lifts her onto the chair by the hearth and now holds the candle to her face, then draws away with a growing fear of what other deaths may be there. He advances to the crib, and looks in on the sleeping children. He assures himself that they are alive. It startles him to fresh hope; he turns back to his wife)
No, she ain’t dead, she can’t be, they’re alive!
She wouldn’t leave ’em. No, she can’t be dead.
Wife, do ’e hear? The children be alive.
You wouldn’t go and leave ’em, no, not you——
’Twouldn’t be like yer. There, my—there, come, come!