MAY. Yes, I be finished with all of it now, and willing for to bide
quiet at the fireside and to stay with the four walls round I and the
door shut.
HARRY. I reckon as you be.
MAY. And I’m thinking as they’ll be rare pleased for to have I in the
house again. ’Twill be another pair of hands to the work like. And when
I was young, ’twas not on work as I was set much.
HARRY. Ah, I did guess as much.
MAY. But when I gets a bit over this here nasty cough, ’tis a strong arm
as them’ll have working for they; Steve, th’ old woman what’s his mother,
and little Dorry, too.
HARRY. Dorry? I han’t heard tell of she.
MAY. That’s my little baby as was, Harry Moss. I left she crawling on
the floor, and now I count as she be growed into a rare big girl. Bless
the innocent heart of her!
HARRY. Whatever led you to do such a thing, I can’t think! You must
have been drove to it like, wasn’t you?
MAY. ’Twas summat inside of me as drove I, then. ’Twas very likely the
blood of they gipsies which did leap in I, so that when I was tied up to
Steve, ’twas as if they had got I shut in a box. ’Twas the bridle on my
head and the bit in the mouth of I; and to be held in where once I had
gone free. [_A short pause_.
MAY. And I turned wild, Harry, for the very birds seemed to be calling I
from the hedges to come out along of they, and the berries tossing in the
wind, and the leaves blowing away quick from where they’d been stuck all
summer. All of it spoke to I, and stirred I powerful, so that one
morning when the sun was up and the breeze running, I comed out into the
air, Harry, and shut the door behind I. And ’twas done—so ’twas.
HARRY. And didn’t they never try for to stop you, nor for to bring you
back, May?
MAY. No, Harry, they did not.
HARRY. And where was it you did go to, May, once you was out and the
door shut ahind of you?
MAY. Ah—where! To the east, to the south, every part. ’Twas morning
with I in that time, and the heart of I was warm. And them as went along
of I on the road, did cast but one look into the countenance of I. Then
’twas the best as they could give as I might take; and ’twas for no
lodging as I did want when dark did come falling.
HARRY. And yet, look you here, you be brought down terrible low, May.
MAY. The fine looks of a woman be as grass, Harry, and in the heat of
the day they do wither and die. And that what has once been a grand
flower in the hand of a man is dropped upon the ground and spat upon,
maybe. So ’twas with I.
[_She bows her head on her knees_, _and for a moment is shaken with
sudden grief_.
HARRY. Don’t you take on so, May. Look you here, you be comed to the
end of your journeying this day, and that you be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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