Ay, but it’s time to bar the stable door.
Jim:
I’ve done with women: they’re a faithless lot.
Ezra:
I can’t make head or tail of all the wrangling—
Such a gillaber and gilravishing,
As I never heard in all my born days, never.
Weddings were merrymakings in my time:
The reckoning seldom came till the morrow’s morn.
But, Jim, my boy, though you’re a baa-waa body,
And gan about like a goose with a nicked head,
You’ve, aiblains, found out now that petticoats
Are kittle-cattle, the whole rabblement.
The reesty nags will neither heck nor gee:
And they’re all clingclang like the Yetholm tinkers.
Ay: though you’re just a splurging jackalally,
You’ve spoken truth for once, Jim: womenfolk,
Wenches and wives, are all just weathercocks.
I’ve ever found them faithless, first and last.
But, where’s your daughter, Jim? I want to hold
The bairn.
Jim:
They’ve taken even her from me.
(Eliza, who has been filling the teapot, takes Ezra by the hand, and leads him to his seat at the table.)
Eliza:
Come, husband: sup your tea, before it’s cold:
And you, too, son. Ay, we’re a faithless lot.