Part 3 (2/2)

ELIZA: When you talked of weddings, you'd hit the truth: And Jim brings home his bride to-day. Even now ...

JUDITH: And Jim brings home ...

ELIZA: I looked for them by this: But you've still time ...

JUDITH: The bride comes home to-day.

Brides should come home: it's right a man should bring His bride home--ay! And we must go, my wean, To spare her blushes. We're no company For bride and bridegroom. Happen, we should meet them, You must not cry to him: I must not lift My eyes to his. We're nothing now to him.

Your cry might tell her heart too much: my eyes Might meet her eyes, and tell ... It isn't good For a bride to know too much. So, we must hide In the ditch, as they pa.s.s by, if we should chance To meet them on the road--their road and ours-- The same road, though we're travelling different ways.

The bride comes home. Brides come home every day.

And you and I ...

ELIZA: There's nothing else for it.

JUDITH: There's nothing else?

ELIZA: Nay, la.s.s! How could you bide?

They'll soon ... But, you'll not meet them, if you go ...

JUDITH: Go, where?

ELIZA: And how should I ken where you're bound for?

I thought you might be making home.

JUDITH: Home--home!

I might be making home? And where's my home-- Ay, and my bairn's home, if it be not here?

ELIZA: Here? You'd not stay?

JUDITH: Why not? Have I no right?

ELIZA: If you'll not go for my sake, go for Jim's.

If you were fond ...

JUDITH: And, think you, I'd be here, If I had not been fond of Jim? And yet, Why should I spare him? He's not spared me much, Who gave him all a woman has to give.

ELIZA: But, think of her, the bride, and her home-coming.

JUDITH: I'll go.

ELIZA: You lose but little: too well I ken How little--I, who've dwelt this forty-year At Krindlesyke.

JUDITH: Happen you never loved.

ELIZA: I, too, was young, once, daughter.

JUDITH: Ay: and yet, You've never tramped the road I've had to travel.

G.o.d send it stretch not forty-year!

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