Krindlesyke Part 17

Happen I look a wee bit muggerishlike-- A ragtag hipplety-clinch: but I've been travelling Mischancy roads; and I'm fair muggert-up.

Yet, why should that stagnate you? Where's the sense Of expecting a mislucket man like me To be as snod and spruce as a young shaver?

But I'm all right: there's naught amiss with Jim, Except too much of nothing in his belly.

A good square meal, and a pipe, and a decent night's rest, And I'll be fit as a fiddle. I've hardly slept ...

Well, now I'm home, I'll make myself at home.

(_He seizes the loaf of bread from the table; hacks off a hunch with his jack-knife; and wolfs it ravenously._)

JUDITH: Home? You've come home, Jim?

JIM: Nay, I'm my own fetch!

G.o.d's truth! there's little else but skin and bone Beneath these tatters: just a two-legged boggart, With naught but wind to fill my waim--small wonder You're maiselt, to see a scarecrow stottering in-- For plover's eggs and heather-broth don't sleek A wrinkled hide or swell a scrankit belly.

But still, what should there be to flabbergast you About a man's returning to his home?

Naught wrong in coming home, I hope? By gox, A poor lad can't come home, but he's cross-questioned, And stared at like ... Why do you stare like that?

It's I should be agape, to find you here: But no, I'm not surprised: you can't surprise me: I'm a travelled man: I've seen the world; and so, Don't look for grat.i.tude. My eyes were opened, Once and for all, by Phbe and you, that day-- Nigh twenty-year since: and they've not been shut ...

By gum, that's so! it seems like twenty-year Since I'd a wink of sleep ... And, anyway, I've heard the story, all the goings-on; And a pretty tale it is: for I'd a drink, A sappy-crack with that old windywallops, Sep Shanks, in a bar at Bellingham: and he let out How you'd crawled back to Krindlesyke with your daughter-- Our daughter, I should say: and she, no less, Married to Peter's son: though how the deuce You picked him up, is more that I can fas.h.i.+on.

Sep had already had his fill of cheerers, Before I met him; and that last rum-hot Was just the drop too much: and he got fuddled.

Ay, Sep was mortal-clay, the addled egg: And I couldn't make head or tail of his hiccuping, Though he tried to make himself plain: he did his best, Did Sep: I'll say that for him--tried so hard To make himself plain, he got us both chucked out: And I left him in the gutter, trying still.

JUDITH: You've come from Bellingham hiring?

JIM: I couldn't stand The dindum: felt fair-clumpered in that cluther-- Such a hubblyshew of gowks and flirtigigs, Craking and cackling like a gabble of geese: And folk kept looking: I might have been a bizen, The way they gaped: so I thought I'd just win home For a little peace and quiet. Where's my daughter, And this young cuckoo, calls himself my nephew, And has made himself free and easy of my nest?

Ay, but you've fettled things nicely, the lot of you, While I tramped the hungry roads. He's pinched my job: But I bear no grudge: it's not a job I'm after, Since I've a married daughter I can live with.

I've seen the world, a sight too much: and I mean To settle down, and end my days in peace In my old home.

JUDITH: Your home? But you can't stay here.

JIM: You'll see! Now that I'm home, I mean to clag Like a cleaver to a flagstone: they'll have to lift The hearth, to get me out of Krindlesyke.

I've had enough of travelling the turnpike, Houffling and hirpling like a cadging faa: And, but for you and your brat, I'd settled down, A respectable married man, this twenty-year.

But you shan't drive me from my home again.

JUDITH: We drove you?

JIM: You began it, anyway-- Made me an April-gowk and laughing-stock, Till I couldn't face the neighbours' fleers. By joes!

You diddled me out of house and home, among you: And settled yourselves couthily in my calfyard, Like maggots in a muckheap, while I went cawdrife.

But I've had my fill of it, Judith, Hexham-measure: I'm home for good: and isn't she my daughter?

You stole her from me once, when you made off With hoity-toity Phbe--ay, I ken She died: I learned it at the time--you sneaked My only bairn: I cannot mind her name, If ever I heard it: you kept even that From me, her dad. But, anyway, she's mine: I've only her and you to turn to now: A poor, lone widower I've been any time This twenty-year: that's what's been wrong with me, Though it hadn't entered my noddle till this minute.

But where's the canny couple?

JUDITH: Ruth and Michael Are at the hiring.

JIM: Well, I'll not deny That suits my book. I'd a notion, Judith la.s.s, I'd find you alone, and make my peace with you, Before I tackled the young folk. Poor relations Aren't made too welcome in this ungrateful world-- Least so, by those who've taken the bread from their mouths, And beggared them of bit and brat: and so I thought 'twould be more couthy-like with you, Just having a crack and talking old times over, Till I was more myself. I don't like strangers, Not even when they're my own flesh and blood: They've got a trick of staring at a man: And all I want is to be let alone-- Just let alone ... By G.o.d, why can't they let me Alone! But you are kind and comfortable: And you won't heckle me and stare at me: For I'm not quite myself: I'll own to that-- I'm not myself ... Though who the devil I am I hardly ken ... I've been that hunted and harried.

JUDITH: Hunted?

JIM: Ay, Judith--in a manner of speaking, Hunted's the word: and I'm too old for the sport.

I'm getting on in years: and you're no younger Than when I saw you last--you mind the day, My wedding-day? A fine fligarishon You made of it between you, you and Phbe: And wasn't she the high and mighty madam, The niffy-naffy don't-come-nigh-me nonesuch?

But I've forgiven her: I bear no malice.

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.