BELL: She must have died alone. It’s an ill thing To die alone, folk say; but I don’t know. She’d hardly die more lonely than she lived: For every woman’s lonely in her heart. I never looked on a lonelier face. PETER: Come, Bell: We’d best be making tracks: there’s nothing here: So let’s be going. BELL: Going, Peter, where? PETER: There’s nothing to bide here for: we’re too late. Jim’s stolen a march on us: there’s no loot left. BELL: And you would leave a woman, lying dead; And an old blind cripple who cannot do a hand’s-turn, With no one to look after them--and they, Your father and mother? PETER: Little enough I owe them: What can we do for them, anyway? We can’t Bring back the dead to life: and, sooner or later, Someone will come from Rawridge to see to the sheep: And dad won’t hurt, meanwhile: he’s gey and tough. BELL: And you would leave your mother, lying dead, With none but strangers’ hands to lay her out-- No soul of her kin to tend her at the last? (_She goes to the dresser and looks in the drawers, taking out an apron and tying it round her waist._) EZRA: I never guessed she’d go, and leave me alone. How did she think I could get along without her? She kenned I could do nothing for myself: And yet she’s left me alone, to starve to death-- Just sit in my chair, and starve. It wasn’t like her. And the breath’s scarce out of her body, before the place Is overrun with a plague of thieving rats. They’ll eat me out of house and home: my God, I’ve come to this--an old blind crippled dobby, Forsaken of wife and bairns; and left to die-- To be nibbled to death by rats: de’il scart the vermin! BELL: Time’s drawn your teeth, but hasn’t dulled your tongue’s edge. PETER: Come, woman: what the devil are you up to? What’s this new game? BELL: Peter, I’m biding here. PETER: You’re biding here? BELL: And you are staying, too. PETER: By crikey, no! You’ll not catch me: I cannot-- With thon in the other room. I never could bear ... BELL: You’ll stop, till Michael’s old enough to manage The sheep without your aid: then you may spurt To overtake Jim on the road to the gallows; And race, the pair of you, neck and neck, for hell: But not till I’m done with you. PETER: Nay, I’ll be jiggered ... BELL: Truth slips out. PETER: I’ve a mind ... BELL: She’s gone to earth. PETER: Just hold your gob, you ...