EZRA: I never larruped enough, But let the varmints off too easily: That was the mischief. They should have had my dad-- An arm like a bullock-walloper, and a fist Could fell a stot; and faiks, but he welted me Skirlnaked, yarked my hurdies till I yollered, In season and out, and made me the man I am. Ay, he’d have garred the young eels squirm. ELIZA: And yet, My sons, as well: though I lost my hold of each Almost before he was off my lap, with you To egg them on against me. Peter went first: And Jim’s the lave. But he may settle down. God kens where you’d be, if you’d not wed young. EZRA: And the devil where you’d be, if we hadn’t met That hiring-day at Hexham, on the minute. I’d spent last hiring with another wench, A giggling red-haired besom; and we were trysted To meet at the Shambles: and I was awaiting her, When I caught the glisk of your eye: but she was late; And you were a sonsy lassie, fresh and pink; Though little pink about you now, I’d fancy. ELIZA: Nay, forty-year of Krindlesyke, and all! EZRA: Young carroty-pow must have been in a fine fantigue, When she found I’d mizzled. Yet, if she’d turned up In time, poor mealy-face, for all your roses, You’d never have clapped eyes on Krindlesyke: This countryside and you would still be strangers. ELIZA: In time! EZRA: A narrow squeak. ELIZA: If she’d turned up, The red-haired girl had lived at Krindlesyke, Instead of me, this forty-year: and I-- I might ... But we must dree our weird. And yet, To think what my life might have been, if only-- The difference! EZRA: Ay, and hers, “if ifs and ans!” But I’m none certain she’d have seen it, either. I could have had her without wedding her, And no mistake, the nickering, red-haired baggage. Though she was merry, she’d big rabbit-teeth, Might prove gey ill to live with; ay, and a swarm Of little sandy moppies like their doe, Buck-teeth and freckled noses and saucer-eyes, Gaping and squealing round the table at dinner, And calling me their dad, as likely as not: Though little her mug would matter, now I’m blind; And by this there’ll scarce be a stump in her yellow gums, And not a red hair to her nodding poll-- That shock of flame a shrivelled, grizzled wisp Like bracken after a heathfire; that creamy skin, Like a plucked hen’s. But she’d a merry eye, The giglet; and that coppertop of hers Was good to think on of a nippy morning: While you--but you were young then ... ELIZA: Young and daft. EZRA: Nay, not so gite; for I was handsome then. ELIZA: Ay, the braw birkie of that gairishon Of menseless slubberdegullions: and I trusted My eyes, and other people’s tongues, in those days: And you’d a tongue to glaver a guff of a girl, The devil’s own; and whatever’s gone from you, You’ve still a tongue, though with a difference: Now it’s all edge.