ack your gallows-jokes on your own sons--
And each the spit of the father that drove them wild,
With cockering them and cursing them; one moment,
Fooling them to their bent, the moment after,
Flogging them senseless, till their little bodies
Were one blue bruise.

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;