ROSE. [_Putting her arm in_ ROBERT’S.] Well, we have nothing to do with anything more of it now, dear Robert. ROBERT. You’re about right, my true love, we’ll get us off to the church. JEREMY. Ah, coach have been waiting a smartish while, I reckon. ’Tis on master as expense’ll fall. [ROSE _and_ ROBERT _with cold glances at_ LUBIN _and_ ISABEL, _pass out of the door_. JOHN. [_Giving his arm to_ MARY.] Now, Mary—now, Kitty. [_They pass out_. LIZ. Now, Jeremy, sister and me bain’t going off all alone. JEREMY. [_Offering an arm to each_.] No further than the church door, I say. I’ve better things to do nor a-giving of my arm to females be they never so full of wiles. And you two do beat many what bain’t near so long in the tusk, ah, that you does. [JEREMY _goes out with the sisters_. LUBIN. [_To_ ISABEL.] And shall we go off into the meadows, Isabel, seeing that we are quite forgot? ISABEL. No—’tis through these faithless ones as us have learnt to understand the hearts within of we. Let’s bide and get the marriage dinner ready for them first. [_She stretches both her hands towards_ LUBIN, _who takes them reverently in his as the Curtain falls_. THE NEW YEAR CHARACTERS STEVE BROWNING, _a Blacksmith_, _also Parish Clerk_. GEORGE DAVIS, _a Carpenter_. HARRY MOSS, _a young Tramp_. MAY BROWNING. JANE BROWNING. DORRY BROWNING, _aged twelve_. ANNIE SIMS. ROSE SIMS. VASHTI REED. ACT I.—Scene 1. _A country roadside_. _It is late afternoon and already dusk_. MAY BROWNING _with_ HARRY MOSS _come slowly forward_. _Close to a stile which is a little off the road_, MAY _stops_. MAY. There, you don’t need to come no further with I, Harry Moss. You get on quick towards the town afore the night be upon you, and the snow, too. HARRY. I don’t care much about leaving you like this on the roadside, May. And that’s the truth, ’tis. MAY. Don’t you take no more thought for I, Harry. ’Tis a good boy as you’ve been to I since the day when we fell in together. But now there bain’t no more need for you to hold back your steps, going slow and heavy when you might run spry and light. For ’tis home as I be comed to now, I be. You go your way. HARRY. I see naught of any house afore us or behind. ’Tis very likely dusk as is upon us, or may happen ’tis the fog getting up from the river. MAY. [_Coughing_.] Look you across that stile, Harry. There be a field path, bain’t there? HARRY. [_Taking a few steps to the right and peering through the gloom_.] Ah, and that there be. MAY. And at t’other end of it a house what’s got a garden fence all round. HARRY. Ah—and ’tis so. And now as I comes to look there be a light shining from out the windows of it, too, though ’tis shining dim-like in the mist. MAY. ’Tis that yonder’s my home, Harry. There’s the door where I must stand and knock. [_For a moment she draws the shawl over her face and is shaken with weeping_. HARRY. I wouldn’t take on so, if ’twas me.