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: