I’ve kept the hard road, daughter, forty-year:
The ditch may be easier going, after all:
Nettles don’t sting each other.
Judith:
Nay: but I’m not
A ditch-born nettle, but, among the nettles,
Only a woman, naked to every sting:
And there are slugs and slithery toads and paddocks
In the ditch-bottom; and their slimy touch
Is worse to bear than any nettle ...
Eliza:
Ay—
The pity of it! A maid blooms only once:
And then, that a man should ruin ... But, you’ve your bairn:
And bairns, while we can hold them safe in our arms,
And they still need the breast, make up for much:
For there’s a kind of comfort in their clinging,
Though they only cling till they can stand alone.
But yours is not a son. If I’d only had
One daughter ...
Judith:
Well, you’ll have a daughter now.
But we must go our way to—God kens where!
Before Jim brings the bride home. You’ve your wish:
Jim brings you home a daughter ...
(As she speaks, a step is heard, and Ezra Barrasford appears in the doorway. Turning to go, Judith meets him. She tries to pass him, but he clutches her arm; and she stands, dazed, while his fingers grope over her.)
Ezra:
So Jim’s back:
And has slipped by his old dad without a word?
I caught no footfall, though once I’d hear an adder
Slink through the bent. I’m deafer than an adder—
Deaf as the stone-wall Johnny Looney built
Around the frog that worried him with croaking.
I couldn’t hear the curlew—not a note.
But I forget my manners. Jim, you dog,
To go and wed, and never tell your dad!
I thought ’twas swedes you were after: and, by gox!
It’s safer fetching turnips than a wife.
But, welcome home! Is this the bonnie bride?
You’re welcome, daughter, home to Krindlesyke.