Ezra:
Gather your wits together.
There’s no one else; and you must go to Rawridge—
No daundering on the road; and tell John Steel
Jim’s gone: and so, there’s none to look to the sheep.
He must send someone ... Though my money melt
In the hot pocket of a vagabond,
They must be minded: sheep can’t tend themselves.
Eliza:
I’ll go. ’Twas cruel to leave them in this heat,
With none to water them. This heat’s a judgment.
They were my sons: I bore and suckled them.
This heat’s a judgment on me, pressing down
On my brain like a redhot iron ...
(She rises with difficulty, and goes, bareheaded, into the sunshine. In a few moments she staggers back, and stumbles, with unseeing eyes, towards the inner room. She pauses a second at the door, and turns, as if to speak to Ezra; but goes in, without a word. Presently a soft thud is heard within: then a low moan.)
Ezra:
Who’s there? Not you,
Eliza? You can’t be back already, woman?
Why don’t you speak? You yammered enough, just now—
Such havers! Haven’t you gone? What’s keeping you?
I told you to step out. What’s wrong? What’s wrong?
You’re wambling like a wallydraigling waywand.
The old ewe’s got the staggers. Boodyankers!
If I wasn’t so crocked and groggy, I’d make a fend
To go myself—ay, blind bat as I am.
Come, pull yourself together; and step lively.
What’s that? What’s that? I can’t hear anything now.
Where are you, woman? Speak! There’s no one here—
Though I’d have sworn I heard the old wife waigling,
As if she carried a hoggerel on her shoulders.
I heard a foot: yet, she couldn’t come so soon.
I’m going watty. My mind’s so set on dogging
The heels of that damned thief, hot-foot for the gallows,
I hear his footsteps echoing in my head.
He’d hirple it barefoot on the coals of hell,
With a red-hot prong at his hurdies to prog him on,
If I’d my way with him: de’il scart the hanniel!
(He sits, brooding: and some time has passed, when the head of a tramp, shaggy and unkempt, is thrust in at the door; and is followed by the body of Peter Barrasford, who steps cautiously in, and stealing up to the old man’s chair, stands looking down upon him with a grin.)
Ezra (stirring uneasily):
A step, for sure! You’re back? Though how you’ve travelled
So quickly, Eliza, I can’t think. And when’s
John Steel to turn us out, to follow Jim
And the other vagabonds? And who’s he sending?
He’s not a man to spare ... But, sheep are sheep:
Someone must tend them, though all else go smash.
I’ve given my life to sheep, spent myself for them:
And now, I’m not the value of a dead sheep
To any farmer—a rackle of bones for the midden!
A bitter day, ’twill be, when I turn my back
On Krindlesyke. I little reckoned to go,
A blind old cripple, hobbling on two sticks.
Pride has a fall, they say: and I was proud—
Proud as a thistle; and a donkey’s cropt
The thistle’s prickly pride. Why don’t you speak?
I’m not mistaken this time: I heard you come:
I feel you standing over me.