I mean to be a shepherd.
Bell:
Well, you’ve a knack of getting your own way:
But, tripe and trotters, you can look on him,
And still say that? Ay, you’re his grandson, surely—
All Barrasford, with not a dash of Haggard,
No drop of the wild colt’s blood. Ewe’s milk you’d bleed
If your nose were tapped. Who’d ever guess my dugs
Had suckled you? Even your dad’s no more
Than three-parts mutton, with a strain of reynard—
A fox’s heart, for all his weak sheep’s head.
Lad, look well round on your ancestral halls:
You’ll likely not clap eyes on them again.
I’m eager to be off: we don’t seem welcome.
Your venerable grandsire is asleep,
Or else he’s a deaf mute; though, likely enough,
That’s how folk look, awake, at Krindlesyke.
I’d fancied we were bound for the Happy Return:
But we’ve landed at the Undertaker’s Arms—
And after closing time, and all. You’ve done
That little business, Peter—though it’s not bulged
Your pockets overmuch, that I can see?
Peter:
Just setting about it, when you interrupted ...
Bell:
Step lively, then. I find this welcome too warm
On such a sultry day: I’m choked for air.
These whitewashed walls, they’re too like—well, you ken
Where you’ll find yourself, if you get nobbled ...
Peter:
It seems
There’s no one here to nab us; Jim’s gone off:
But I’d as lief be through with it, and away,
Before my mother’s back.
Bell: