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 tittle-tattle: they’re no tell-tale-tits, 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. JUDITH: Not your home now. JIM: Then who the devil’s home ... JUDITH: It’s Ruth’s and Michael’s. JIM: My daughter’s and her man’s: their home’s my home. JUDITH: You shall not stay. JIM: It’s got to “shall not” now? The cuckoo’s changed his tune; but I can’t say I like the new note better: it’s too harsh: The gowk’s grown croupy. But, lass, I never thought You’d be harsh with me: yet even you’ve turned raspy ... First “cannot,” then ... JUDITH: Nay! I’ll not have their home Pulled down about their ears by any man; And least of all by you--the home they’ve made ... JIM: Stolen, I’d say. JUDITH: Together, for themselves And their three boys. JIM: Jim, granddad three times over? It’s well you broke it piecemeal: the old callant’s A waffly heart; and any sudden joy Just sets it twittering: but the more the merrier! JUDITH: You shall not wreck their happiness. I’d not dreamed Such happiness as theirs could be in this world. Since it was built, there’s not been such a home At Krindlesyke: it’s only been a house ... JIM: ’Twas just about as homely as a hearse In my young days: but my luck’s turned, it seems.