Krindlesyke | Page 3

heel: you came at the first "Isca!"
ELIZA:?Who kens what a lass runs away from, crazed to quit?Home, at all hazards, little realizing?It's life, itself, she's trying to escape;?And plodging deeper.
EZRA:
Trust a wench for kenning.?I've to meet the wife who'd be a maid again:?Once in the fire, no wife, though she may crackle?On the live coals, leaps back to the frying-pan.?It's against nature.
ELIZA:
Maybe: and yet, somehow,?Phoebe seemed different.
EZRA:
I've found little difference?Betwixt one gimmer and another gimmer,?When the ram's among them. But, where does she hail from?
ELIZA:?Allendale way. Jim met her at Martinmas fair.
EZRA:?We met ...
ELIZA:
Ay, fairs have much to answer for.
EZRA:?I thought 'twas Judith Ellershaw.
ELIZA:
God forbid?'Twas Judith I'd to share with: though Jim fancied?The lass, at one time. He's had many fancies:?Light come, light go, it's always been with Jim.
EZRA:?And I was gay when I was young--as brisk?As a yearling tup with the ewes, till I'd the pains,?Like red-hot iron, clamping back and thighs.?My heart's a younker's still; but even love?Gives in, at last, to rheumatics and lumbago.?Now, I'm no better than an old bell-wether,?A broken-winded, hirpling tattyjack?That can do nothing but baa and baa and baa.?I'd just to whistle for a wench at Jim's age:?And Jim's ...
ELIZA:
His father's son.
EZRA:
He's never had?My spirit. No woman's ever bested me.?For all his bluster, he's a gaumless nowt,?With neither guts nor gall. He just butts blindly--?A woolly-witted ram, bashing his horns,?And spattering its silly brains out on a rock:?No backbone--any trollop could twiddle him?Round her little finger: just the sort a doxy,?Or a drop too much, sets dancing, heels in air:?He's got the gallows' brand. But none of your sons?Has a head for whisky or wenches; and not one?Has half my spunk, my relish. I'd not trust?Their judgment of a ewe, let alone a woman:?But I could size a wench up, at a glance;?And Judith ...
ELIZA:
Ay: but Krindlesyke would be?A muckheap-lie-on, with that cloffy slut?For mistress. But she flitted one fine night.
EZRA:?Rarely the shots of the flock turn lowpy-dyke;?Likelier the tops have the spunk to run ramrace;?And I think no worse ...
ELIZA:
Her father turned her out,?'Twas whispered; and he's never named her, since:?And no one's heard a word. I couldn't thole?The lass. She'd big cow-eyes: there's little good?In that sort. Jim's well shot of her; he'll not?Hear tell of her: that sort can always find?Another man to fool: they don't come back:?Past's past, with them.
EZRA:
I liked ...
ELIZA:
Ay, you're Jim's dad.?But now he's settling down, happen I'll see?Bairn's bairns at Krindlesyke, before I die.?Six sons--and only the youngest of the bunch?Left in the old home to do his parents credit.
EZRA:?Queer, all went wild, your sons, like collies bitten?With a taste for mutton bleeding-hot. Cold lead?Cures dogs of that kidney, peppering them one fine night?From a chink in a stell; but, when they're two-legged curs, They've a longer run; and, in the end, the gallows?Don't noose them, kicking and squealing like snarled rabbits, Dead-certain, as 'twould do in the good old days.
ELIZA:?You crack your gallows-jokes on your own sons--?And each the spit of the father that drove them wild,?With cockering them and cursing them; one moment,?Fooling them to their bent, the moment after,?Flogging them senseless, till their little bodies?Were one blue bruise.
EZRA:
I never larruped enough,?But let the varmints off too easily:?That was the mischief. They should have had my dad--?An arm like a bullock-walloper, and a fist?Could fell a stot; and faiks, but he welted me?Skirlnaked, yarked my hurdies till I yollered,?In season and out, and made me the man I am.?Ay, he'd have garred the young eels squirm.
ELIZA:
And yet,?My sons, as well: though I lost my hold of each?Almost before he was off my lap, with you?To egg them on against me. Peter went first:?And Jim's the lave. But he may settle down.?God kens where you'd be, if you'd not wed young.
EZRA:?And the devil where you'd be, if we hadn't met?That hiring-day at Hexham, on the minute.?I'd spent last hiring with another wench,?A giggling red-haired besom; and we were trysted?To meet at the Shambles: and I was awaiting her,?When I caught the glisk of your eye: but she was late;?And you were a sonsy lassie, fresh and pink;?Though little pink about you now, I'd fancy.
ELIZA:?Nay, forty-year of Krindlesyke, and all!
EZRA:?Young carroty-pow must have been in a fine fantigue,?When she found I'd mizzled. Yet, if she'd turned up?In time, poor mealy-face, for all your roses,?You'd never have clapped eyes on Krindlesyke:?This countryside and you would still be strangers.
ELIZA:?In time!
EZRA:
A narrow squeak.
ELIZA:
If she'd turned up,?The red-haired girl had lived at Krindlesyke,?Instead of me, this forty-year: and I--?I might ... But we must dree our weird. And yet,?To think what my life might have been, if only--?The difference!
EZRA:
Ay, and hers, "if ifs and ans!"?But I'm none certain she'd have seen it, either.?I could have had her without wedding her,?And no mistake, the nickering, red-haired baggage.?Though she was merry,