Eliza:
The last of your sons to leave you. Jim’s gone now.
Ezra:
Gone where, the tyke? After his wife, I’ll warrant.
’Twill take him all his time to catch her up:
She’s three months’ start of him. The gonneril,
To be forsaken on his wedding-day:
And the ninneyhammer let her go—he let her!
Do you reckon I’d let a woman I’d fetched home
Go gallivanting off at her own sweet will?
No wench I’d ringed, and had a mind to hold,
Should quit the steading till she was carried, feet-first
And shoulder-high, packed snug in a varnished box.
The noodle couldn’t stand up to a woman’s tongue:
And so, lightheels picked up her skirts, and flitted,
Before he’d even bedded her—skelped off
Like a ewe turned lowpy-dyke; and left the nowt,
The laughing-stock of the countryside. He should
Have used his fist to teach her manners. She seemed
To have the fondy flummoxed, till his wits
Were fozy as a frosted swede. Do you reckon
I’d let a lass ...
Eliza:
And yet, six lads have left you,
Without a by-your-leave.
Ezra:
Six lads?
Eliza:
Your sons.