BELL: While you’ve a roof to shelter me, eh, son? You mean so well; and understand so little. Yours is a good thick fleece--no skin that twitches When a breath tickles it. Sheep will be sheep, And horses, horses, till the day of judgment. MICHAEL: Better a sound tup than a spavined nag. BELL: Ay, Ruth, you’ve kindled him! Good luck to you: And may your hearthfire warm you to the end. (_To MICHAEL._) You’ve been a good son to me, in your way: Only, our ways are different; and here they part. For all my blether, there’s no bitterness On my side: I’ve long kenned ’twas bound to come: And, in your heart, you know it’s for the best, For your sake, and for Ruth’s sake, and for mine. I couldn’t obey, where I have bid; nor risk My own son’s fathering me in second childhood: And you’d not care to have me like old Ezra, A dothering haiveril in your chimney corner, Babbling of vanished gold? I read my fortune In the flames just now: and I’ll not rot to death: It’s time enough to moulder, underground. My death’ll come quick and chancy, as I’d have had Each instant of life: but still there are risky years Before me, and a sudden, unlooked-for ending. And I’ll not haunt you: ghosts enough, with Ezra, Counting his ghostly sovereigns all night long, And old Eliza, darning ghostly stockings. My ghost will ride a broomstick.... (_As she speaks, the inner door opens, and RUTH and MICHAEL, turning sharply at the click of the latch, gaze, dumbfounded, at JUDITH ELLERSHAW, standing in the doorway._) BELL: Fee-fo-fum! The barguest bays; and boggles, brags, and bo-los Follow the hunt. How’s that for witchcraft, think you? Hark, how the lych-owl screeches! RUTH (_running to her mother’s arms_): Mother, you! BELL: Now there’s a sweet, domestic picture for you! My cue’s to vanish in a puff of smoke And reek of brimstone, like the witch I am. I’m coming, hoolet, my old cat with wings! It’s time I was away: there never yet Was room for two grandmothers in one house. I’m through with Krindlesyke. Good-bye, old gaol! (_While MICHAEL still gazes at RUTH and her mother in amazement, BELL HAGGARD slips out of the door, unnoticed, and away through the bracken in the gathering dusk. An owl hoots._) PART III _A wet afternoon in May, six years later. The table is already set for tea. JUDITH ELLERSHAW sits, knitting, by the hearth; a cradle with a young baby in it by her side. The outer door is closed, but unlatched. Presently the unkempt head of a man appears furtively at the window; then vanishes. The door is pushed stealthily open: and JIM BARRASFORD, ragged and disreputable (and some twenty years older than when he married PHŒBE MARTIN) stands on the threshold a moment, eyeing JUDITH’s unconscious back in silence: then he speaks, limping towards her chair._