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: