BELL: Pat it comes: You’ve just to twitch the wire and the bell rings: You’ll learn the trick, soon, Ruth. (_To MICHAEL_) Bat, don’t you see I’ve just put on my nightcap, ready for bed-- Grannie’s frilled mutch? I leave you, Michael? Son, The time came, as it comes to every man, When you’d to make a choice betwixt two women. You’ve made your choice: and chosen well: but I, Who’ve always done the choosing, and never yet Tripped to the beck of any man, or bobbed To any living woman--I’m free to follow My own bent, now that that old witch’s fingers Have slackened their cold clutch; and your dead grannie Has gained her ends, and seen you settled down At Krindlesyke: and from this on I, too, Am dead to you. You’ll soon enough forget me: The world would end if a man could not forget His mother’s deathbed in his young wife’s arms-- I’m far from corpse-cold yet; and it may be years Before they pluck Bell Haggard’s kerchief off, To tie her chin up with, and ripe her pockets Of her last pennies to shut up her eyes. Even then, they’ll have to tug the chin-clout tight, To keep her tongue from wagging. Well, my son, So, it’s good-bye till doomsday. MICHAEL: You’re not going? I thought you only havered. You can’t go. Do you think I’d let you go, and ... BELL: Hearken, Ruth: That’s the true husband’s voice: for husbands think, If only they are headstrong and high-handed, They’re getting their own way: they charge, head-down, At their own image in the window-glass; And don’t come to their senses till their carcase Is spiked with smarting splinters. But I’m your mother, Not your tame wife, lad: and I’ll go my gait. MICHAEL: You shall not go, for all your crazy cackle-- My mother, on the road, a tinker’s baggage, While I’ve a roof to shelter her! BELL: You pull The handle downwards towards you, and the beer Spouts out. No hope for you, Ruth: lass, you’re safe-- Safe as a linnet in a cage, for life: No need to read your hand, to tell your fortune: No gallivanting with the dark-eyed stranger, Calleevering over all the countryside, When the owls are hooting to the hunter’s moon, For the wife of Michael Barrasford. Well, boy, What if I choose to be a tinker’s baggage? It was a tinker’s baggage mothered you-- For tying a white apron round the waist Has never made a housewife of a gipsy-- And a tinker’s baggage went out of her way To set you well on yours: and now she turns. MICHAEL: You shall not go, I say. I’m master here: And I won’t let you shame me. I’ve been decent; And have always done my duty by the sheep, Working to keep a decent home together To bring a wife to: and, for all your jeers, There are worse things for a woman than a home And husband and a lawful family. You shall not go. You say I ken my mind ...