Krindlesyke

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Krindlesyke, by Wilfrid Wilson
Gibson
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Title: Krindlesyke
Author: Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
Release Date: July 3, 2006 [EBook #18743]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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KRINDLESYKE ***
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KRINDLESYKE
BY WILFRID GIBSON

Macmillan And Co., Limited
St. Martin's Street, London
1922
Copyright
Printed in Great Britain
To
CATHERINE and LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE
NOTE
On the occasion of an obscure dramatic presentation, an early and
rudimentary draft of Book I. was published in 1910. It has since been
entirely re-written. Book II., written 1919-22, has not been printed
hitherto. Though the work was not conceived with a view to
stage-production, the author reserves the acting rights.
It may be added that, while "Krindlesyke" is not in dialect, it has been
flavoured with a sprinkling of local words; but as these are, for the
most part, words expressive of emotion, rather than words conveying
information, the sense of them should be easily gathered even by the
south-country reader.
W. G.
PRELUDE
Four bleak stone walls, an eaveless, bleak stone roof,
Like a squared
block of native crag, it stands,
Hunched, on skirlnaked, windy fells,
aloof:
Yet, was it built by patient human hands:
Hands, that have
long been dust, chiselled each stone,
And bedded it secure; and from
the square
Squat chimneystack, hither and thither blown,
The reek
of human fires still floats in air,
And perishes, as life on life burns
through.
Squareset and stark to every blast that blows,
It bears the
brunt of time, withstands anew
Wildfires of tempest and
league-scouring snows,
Dour and unshaken by any mortal doom,

Timeless, unstirred by any mortal dream:
And ghosts of reivers
gather in the gloom
About it, muttering, when the lych-owls scream.

"From one generation to another."

BOOK I
PHOEBE BARRASFORD

BOOK I
PHOEBE BARRASFORD
_Krindlesyke is a remote shepherd's cottage on the Northumbrian fells,
at least three miles from any other habitation. It consists of two rooms,
a but and a ben. EZRA BARRASFORD, an old herd, blind and
decrepit, sits in an armchair in the but, or living-room, near the open
door, on a mild afternoon in April. ELIZA BARRASFORD, his wife, is
busy, making griddle-cakes over the peat fire._
ELIZA (_glancing at the wag-at-the-wa'_):
It's hard on three o'clock,
and they'll be home
Before so very long now.
EZRA:
Eh, what's that?
ELIZA:
You're growing duller every day. I said
They'd soon be
home now.
EZRA:
They? And who be they?
ELIZA:
My faith, you've got a memory like a milk-sile!
You've
not forgotten Jim's away to wed?
You're not that dull.
EZRA:

We cannot all be needles:
And some folk's tongues are sharper than
their wits.
Yet, till thon spirt of hot tar blinded me,
No chap was
cuter in all the countryside,
Or better at a bargain; and it took
A
nimble tongue to bandy words with mine.
You'd got to be up betimes
to get round Ezra:
And none was a shrewder judge of ewes, or
women.
My wits just failed me once, the day I married:
But, you're
an early riser, and your tongue
Is always up before you, and with an
edge,
Unblunted by the dewfall, and as busy
As a scythe in the
grass at Lammas. So Jim's away
To wed, is he, the limb? I thought
he'd gone
For swedes; though now, I mind some babblement
About
a wedding: but, nowadays, words tumble
Through my old head like
turnips through a slicer;
And naught I ken who the bowdykite's to
wed--
Some bletherskite he's picked up in a ditch,
Some fond
fligary flirtigig, clarty-fine,
Who'll turn a slattern-shrew and a
cap-river
Within a week, if I ken aught of Jim.
Unless ... Nay, sure,
'twas Judith Ellershaw.
ELIZA:
No, no; you're dull, indeed. It's Phoebe Martin.
EZRA:
Who's Phoebe Martin? I ken naught of her.
ELIZA:
And I, but little.
EZRA:
Some trapsing tatterwallops,
I'll warrant. Well, these days, the lads
are like
The young cockgrouse, who doesn't consult his dad
Before
he mates. In my--yet, come to think,
I didn't say overmuch. My dad
and mammy
Scarce kenned her name when I sprung my bride on
them;
Just loosed on them a gisseypig out of a poke
They'd heard
no squeak of. They'd to thole my choice,
Lump it or like it. I'd the
upper hand then:
And well they kenned their master. No tawse to
chide,
Nor apron-strings to hold young Ezra then:
His turn had
come; and he was cock of