Krindlesyke | Page 4

she'd big rabbit-teeth,?Might prove gey ill to live with; ay, and a swarm?Of little sandy moppies like their doe,?Buck-teeth and freckled noses and saucer-eyes,?Gaping and squealing round the table at dinner,?And calling me their dad, as likely as not:?Though little her mug would matter, now I'm blind;?And by this there'll scarce be a stump in her yellow gums,?And not a red hair to her nodding poll--?That shock of flame a shrivelled, grizzled wisp?Like bracken after a heathfire; that creamy skin,?Like a plucked hen's. But she'd a merry eye,?The giglet; and that coppertop of hers?Was good to think on of a nippy morning:?While you--but you were young then ...
ELIZA:
Young and daft.
EZRA:?Nay, not so gite; for I was handsome then.
ELIZA:?Ay, the braw birkie of that gairishon?Of menseless slubberdegullions: and I trusted?My eyes, and other people's tongues, in those days:?And you'd a tongue to glaver a guff of a girl,?The devil's own; and whatever's gone from you,?You've still a tongue, though with a difference:?Now it's all edge.
EZRA:
The knife that spreads the butter?Will slice the loaf. But it's sharper than my teeth.
ELIZA:?Ay, tongues cut deeper than any fang can bite,?Sore-rankling wounds.
EZRA:
You talk of tongues! I'm deaf:?But, for my sins, I cannot be deaf to yours,?Nattering me into my grave; and, likely, your words?Will flaffer about my lugs like channering peesweeps,?When I lie cold.
ELIZA:
Yes, I was young, and agape?For your wheedling flum, till it fleeched my self from me.?There's something in a young girl seems to work?Against her better sense, and gives her up,?Almost in spite of her.
EZRA:
It's nature.
ELIZA:
Then?Nature has more than enough to answer for.?Young, ay! And you, as gallant as the stallion,?With ribboned tail and mane, that pranced to the crack?Of my father's whip, when first I saw you gaping,?Kenspeckle in that clamjamfrey of copers.
EZRA:?Love at first sight!
ELIZA:
And I was just as foolish?As you were braw.
EZRA:
Well, we'd our time of it,?Fools, or no fools. And you could laugh in those days,?And didn't snigger like the ginger fizgig.?Your voice was a bird's: but you laugh little now;?And--well, maybe, your voice is still a bird's.?There's birds and birds. Then, 'twas a cushy-doo's?That's brooding on her nest, while the red giglet's?Was a gowk's at the end of June. Do you call to mind?We sat the livelong day in a golden carriage,?Squandering a fortune, forby the tanner I dropt??They wouldn't stop to let me pick it up;?And when we alighted from the roundabout,?Some skunk had pouched it: may he pocket it?Red-hot in hell through all eternity!?If I'd that fortune now safe in my kist!?But I was a scatterpenny: and you were bonnie--?Pink as a dog-rose were your plump cheeks then:?Your hair'd the gloss and colour of clean straw:?And when, at darkening, the naphtha flares were kindled,?And all the red and blue and gold aglitter--?Drums banging, trumpets braying, rattles craking;?And we were rushing round and round, the music--?The music and the dazzle ...
ELIZA:
Ay: that was it--?The rushing and the music and the dazzle.?Happen 'twas on a roundabout that Jim?Won Phoebe Martin.
EZRA:
And when you were dizzy,?And all a hazegaze with the hubblyshew;?You cuddled up against me, snug and warm:?And round and round we went--the music braying?And beating in my blood: the gold aglitter ...
ELIZA:?And there's been little dazzle since, or music.
EZRA:?But I was merry, till I fetched you home,?To swarm the house with whinging wammerels.
ELIZA:?You fetched me from my home. If I'd but known?Before I crossed the threshold. I took my arles,?And had to do my darg. And another bride?Comes now. They'll soon be here: the train was due?At half-past one: they'd walk it in two hours,?Though bride and groom.
EZRA:
I wish he'd married Judith.?Cow-eyed, you called the wench; but cows have horns,?And, whiles, they use them when you least expect.?'Twould be no flighty heifer you'd to face,?If she turned mankeen. But, I liked the runt.?Jim might do worse.
ELIZA:
You liked ... But come, I'll set?Your chair outside, where you can feel the sun;?And hearken to the curlew; and be the first?To welcome Jim and Phoebe as man and wife.?Come!
EZRA:
Are the curlew calling?
ELIZA:
Calling? Ay!?And they've been at it all the blessed day,?As on the day I came to Krindlesyke.?Likely the new bride--though 'twasn't at the time?I noticed them: too heedless and new-fangled.?She may be different: she may hear them now:?They're noisy enough.
EZRA:
I cannot catch a note:?I'm getting old, and deaved as well as darkened.?When I was young, I liked to hear the whaups?Calling to one another down the slacks:?And I could whistle, too, like any curlew.?'Twas an ancient bird wouldn't answer my call: and now?I'm ancient myself--an old, blind, doddering heron,?Dozing his day out in a syke, while minnows?Play tiggy round his shanks and nibble his toes;?And the hawk hangs overhead. But then the blood?Was hot, and I'd a relish--such a relish!?Keen as a kestrel ... and now ...
ELIZA:
It's Jim and Phoebe--?The music and the dazzle in their heads:?And they'll be