Part 17 (2/2)

JUDITH: You bear no malice: and she died of it!

JIM: Ay, ay: she showed some sense of decency In that, at least: though she got her sting in first Like an angry bee. But, Judith, doesn't it seem We two are tokened to end our days together?

Nothing can keep us parted, seemingly: So let bygones be bygones.

(_Catching sight of the cradle._)

What, another!

Have you always got a brat about you, Judith?

Last time you sprang a daughter on me, and now ...

But I'm forgetting how the years have flitted.

Don't tell me I'm a grandfather?

JUDITH: The boy Is Ruth's.

JIM: Well, I've come into a family, And no mistake--a happy family: And I was born to be a family-man.

They'll never turn against their bairn's granddad: And I'm in luck.

JUDITH: You cannot bide here, Jim.

JIM: And who the h.e.l.l are you, to say me nay?

JUDITH: The boy's grandmother.

JIM: Ay: and so the grandam's To sit in the ingleneuk, while granddad hoofs it?

JUDITH: When you left Krindlesyke, you quitted it For good and all.

JIM: And yet, I'm here again, Unless I'm dreaming. It seems we all come back To Krindlesyke, like martins to the byre-baulks: It draws us back--can't keep away, nohow.

Ay, first and last, the old gaol is my home.

You're surely forgetting ...

JUDITH: I'm forgetting nothing.

It's you've the knack of only recollecting What you've a mind to. How could you have come If you remembered all these walls have seen?

JIM: So walls have eyes as well as ears? I can't Get away from eyes ... But they'll not freeze my blood, Or stare me out of countenance: they've no tongues To t.i.ttle-tattle: they're no tell-tale-t.i.ts, No slinking skeadlicks, nosing and sniffing round, To wink and nod when I turn my back, colloguing, With heads together, to lay me by the heels.

Nay: I'm not fleyed of a bit of whitewashed plaister.

But you're a nice one to welcome home a traveller With ”cannots” and clavers of eyes. Why can't you let Things rest, and not hark back, routing things out, And casting them in my teeth? Why must you lug The dead to light--dead days? ... I'm not afraid Of corpses: the dead are dead: their eyes are shut: Leastways, they cannot glower when once the mould's Atop of them: though they follow a chap round the room, Seeking the coppers to clap them to ... dead eyes Can't wink: and twopence shuts their bravest stare.

So, ghosts won't trouble my rest at Krindlesyke.

I vowed that I'd sleep sound at Krindlesyke, When I ...

JUDITH: You cannot bide.

JIM: I bear no malice.

Why can't you let bygones be bygones? But that's A woman all over; must be raking up The ashes into a glow, and puffing them red, To roast a man for what he did, or didn't, Twenty-year syne. Why should you still bear malice?

JUDITH: I bear no malice: but you cannot bide.

JIM: Why do you keep cuckooing ”cannot, cannot”?

And who's to turn me out of Krindlesyke, Where I was born and bred, I'd like to ken?

You can't gainsay it's my home.

<script>