BELL: Nay: my pernicketty, fine gentleman, But I’ll not drag you down: you’re free of me: I’ve slipt my apron off; and you’re tied now To your wife’s apron-strings: for menfolk seem Uneasy on the loose, and never happy Unless they’re clinging to some woman’s skirt. I’m out of place in any decent house, As a kestrel in a hencoop. Ay, you’re decent: But, son, remember a man’s decency Depends on his braces; and it’s I who’ve sewn Your trouser-buttons on; so, when you fasten Your galluses, give the tinker’s baggage credit. She’s done her best for you; and scrubbed and scoured, Against the grain, for all these years, to keep Your home respectable; though, in her heart, Thank God, she’s never been respectable-- No dry-rot in her bones, while she’s alive: Time and to spare for decency in the grave. So, you can do your duty by the sheep, While I go hunting with the jinneyhoolets-- Birds of a feather--ay, and fleece with fleece: And when I’m a toothless, mumbling crone, you’ll be So proper a gentleman, ’twill be hard to tell The shepherd from the sheep. Someone must rear The mutton and wool, to keep us warm and fed; But that’s not my line: please to step this way For the fancy goods and fakish faldalals, Trinkets and toys and fairings. Son, you say, You’re master here: well, that’s for Ruth to settle: I’ll be elsewhere. I’ve never knuckled down To any man: and I’ll be coffin-cold Before I brook a master; so, good-night, And pleasant dreams; and a long family Of curly lambkins, bleating round the board. RUTH: Michael, you’ll never let her go alone? She’s only talking wild, because she’s jealous. Mothers are always jealous, when their sons Bring home a bride: though she needn’t be uneasy: I’d never interfere ... BELL: Too wise to put Your fingers ’twixt the cleaver and the block? Jealous--I wonder? Anyhow, it seems, I’ve got a daughter, too. Alone, you say? However long I stayed, I’d have to go Alone, at last: and I’d as lief be gone, While I can carry myself on my two pins. Being buried with the Barrasfords is a chance I’ve little mind to risk a second time: I’m too much of a Haggard, to want to rise, At the last trump, among a flock of bleaters. If I’ve my way, there’ll be stampeding hoofs About me, startled at the crack of doom. MICHAEL: When you’ve done play-acting ... BELL: Play-acting? Ay: I’m through: Exit the villain: ring the curtain down On the happy ending--bride and bridegroom seated On either side the poor, but pious, hearth. MICHAEL: I’d as soon argue with a weathercock As with a woman ... BELL: Yet the weathervanes Are always cocks, not hens. MICHAEL: You shall not go. BELL: Your naked hurdles cannot hold the wind. MICHAEL: Wind? Ay, I’m fairly tewed and hattered with words: And yet, for all your wind, you shall not go.