To think she should go first, when I have had
One foot in the grave for hard on eleven-year!
I little looked to taste her funeral ham.
PART II
An October afternoon, fifteen years later. There is no one in the room: and the door stands open, showing a wide expanse of fell, golden in the low sunshine. A figure is seen approaching along the cart-track: and Judith Ellershaw, neatly dressed in black, appears at the door; and stands, undecided, on the threshold. She knocks several times, but no one answers: so she steps in, and seats herself an a chair near the door. Presently a sound of singing is heard without: and Bell Haggard is seen, coming over the bent, an orange-coloured kerchief about her head, her skirt kilted to the knee, and her arms full of withered bracken. She enters, humming: but stops, with a start, on seeing Judith; drops the bracken; whips off her kerchief; and lets down her skirt; and so appears as an ordinary cottage-wife.
Judith:
You’re Mistress Barrasford?
Bell:
Ay; so they call me.
Judith:
I knocked; but no one answered; so, I’ve taken
The liberty of stepping in to rest.
I’m Judith Ellershaw.
Bell: