ANNIE. Steve, you’ve had a poor, rough time, I know, but I’ll do my best
for to smooth it like for you, I will.
STEVE. See here, Annie—I be comed out of the rain and into the sun once
more.
DORRY. [_Leading_ GEORGE _forward_.] See how fine Mr. Davis do
look—see, isn’t he grand? O, Miss Sims, see how nice the flower do look
what Rosie has pinned in his coat! See, Gran’ma.
JANE. I’ve enough to do putting away all these glasses which have been
messed up. What I wants to know is when I shall get off to bed this
night, seeing as ’tis late already and you none of you gone off yet.
DORRY. O, let us be off, let us be off—and what am I to put over my
dress, Gran’ma, so as the snow shan’t get to it?
JANE. If you go careful and don’t drop it in the snow may be as I’ll
wrap my big shawl around of you, Dorry, what’s hanging behind the door.
ROSE. Give me my cloak, Steve—O, how I do love a bit of dancing, don’t
you, Mr. Davis?
GEORGE. I be about as much use in the ball room as one of they great
drag horses, Miss Rose.
ROSE. O, get on, Mr. Davis! I don’t believe half what you do say, no
more does Annie.
ANNIE. If Mr. Davis don’t know how to dance right, you’re the one to
learn him, Rose. Come, Dorry, you take hold of my hand, and I’ll look
after you on the way. Good-night, Mrs. Browning. Good-night, Mrs. Reed.
DORRY. Why, Granny’s sound asleep, Miss Sims, you know.
JANE. And about time, too. ’Tis to be hoped as we shan’t have no more
trouble with her till morning.
DORRY. [_Her eyes raised to the door latch_.] Just look, why the latch
is up.
ANNIE. Whoever’s that, I wonder?
ROSE. ’Tis very likely someone with a horse what’s lost a shoe, Steve.
JANE. I guess as ’tis a coffin wanted sudden, George Davis.
STEVE. I bain’t a-going to shoe no horses this time of night, not if
’twas the King hisself what stood at the door.
GEORGE. If ’tis a corpse, I guess her’ll have to wait till the dancing’s
finished, then.
[VASHTI _groans in her sleep and turns over in the chair_, _her face to
the fire_.
STEVE. [_Going to the door and speaking loudly_.] Who’s there?
GEORGE. Us’ll soon see.
[GEORGE _unbolts the door and opens it_, _first a little way_, _and then
wide_. MAY _is seen standing in the doorway_. _Her shawl is drawn over
head and the lower part of her face_.
GEORGE. Here’s someone what’s missed their way, I count.
ROSE. Why, ’tis like the poor thing we seed beneath the hedge, I do
believe.
ANNIE Whatever can she want a-coming-in here at this time of night!
JANE. [_Advancing firmly_.] ’Tis one of they dirty roadsters what
there’s too many of all about the country. Here, I’ll learn you to come
to folks’ houses this time of night, disturbing of a wedding party. You
take and get gone. We don’t want such as you in here, we don’t.
[MAY _looks fixedly into_ JANE’S _face_.
GEORGE. I count ’tis very nigh starved by the cold as she be.
STEVE. Looks like it, and wetted through to the bone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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