Jim:
You’ll see! Now that I’m home, I mean to clag
Like a cleaver to a flagstone: they’ll have to lift
The hearth, to get me out of Krindlesyke.
I’ve had enough of travelling the turnpike,
Houffling and hirpling like a cadging faa:
And, but for you and your brat, I’d settled down,
A respectable married man, this twenty-year.
But you shan’t drive me from my home again.
Judith:
We drove you?
Jim:
You began it, anyway—
Made me an April-gowk and laughing-stock,
Till I couldn’t face the neighbours’ fleers. By joes!
You diddled me out of house and home, among you:
And settled yourselves couthily in my calfyard,
Like maggots in a muckheap, while I went cawdrife.
But I’ve had my fill of it, Judith, Hexham-measure:
I’m home for good: and isn’t she my daughter?
You stole her from me once, when you made off
With hoity-toity Phœbe—ay, I ken
She died: I learned it at the time—you sneaked
My only bairn: I cannot mind her name,
If ever I heard it: you kept even that
From me, her dad. But, anyway, she’s mine:
I’ve only her and you to turn to now:
A poor, lone widower I’ve been any time
This twenty-year: that’s what’s been wrong with me,
Though it hadn’t entered my noddle till this minute.
But where’s the canny couple?
Judith:
Ruth and Michael
Are at the hiring.
Jim:
Well, I’ll not deny
That suits my book. I’d a notion, Judith lass,
I’d find you alone, and make my peace with you,
Before I tackled the young folk. Poor relations
Aren’t made too welcome in this ungrateful world—
Least so, by those who’ve taken the bread from their mouths,
And beggared them of bit and brat: and so
I thought ’twould be more couthy-like with you,
Just having a crack and talking old times over,
Till I was more myself. I don’t like strangers,
Not even when they’re my own flesh and blood:
They’ve got a trick of staring at a man:
And all I want is to be let alone—
Just let alone ... By God, why can’t they let me
Alone! But you are kind and comfortable:
And you won’t heckle me and stare at me:
For I’m not quite myself: I’ll own to that—
I’m not myself ... Though who the devil I am
I hardly ken ... I’ve been that hunted and harried.