ing ... roaring ...
The heather's all turned gold ... and golden showers--
Izles and flying embers and falling stars ...
Great flakes of fire ... They've set the world alow ...
It's all about me ... blood-red in my eyes ...
I'm burning ... What have I to do with worms!
Burning ... burning ... burning ...

(_Her voice sinks to a low moaning, which goes on for some time, then
stops abruptly. After a while, JUDITH comes into the living-room,
fills a basin of water from a bucket, and carries it into the other
room. She returns with BELL's orange-coloured kerchief, which she
throws on the fire, where it burns to a grey wisp. She then takes a
nightdress and a white mutch from a drawer in the dresser, and carries
them into the other room, where she stays for some time. The baby in
the cradle wakens, and begins to whimper till JUDITH comes out,
shutting the door behind her, and takes it in her arms._)

JUDITH:
Whisht, whisht, my canny hinny, my bonnie boy!
Your wee warm body's good to cuddle after ...
Whisht, whisht! (_Gazing in the fire._)
First, Phoebe--and then, Bell ... Oh, Jim!

_Steps are heard on the threshold, and MICHAEL and RUTH enter, carrying
their sleeping sons, NICHOLAS, aged five, and RALPH, aged three. They
put down the children on the settle by the hearth, where they sit,
dazed and silent, sleepily rubbing their eyes._

RUTH:
Well, I'm not sorry to be home again:
My arms are fairly broken.

MICHAEL:
Ay: they're heavy.
The hoggerel you lift up turns a sheep
Before you set it down again. Well, Judith,
You've had a quiet day of it, I warrant?

JUDITH (_in a low voice_):
Michael, your mother's here.

MICHAEL:
My mother here?

RUTH:
I always fancied she'd turn up again,
In spite of all her raivelling--Michael, you mind,
About the mutch with frills, and all thon havers?
But where we are to put her I can't think:
There's not a bed for her.

JUDITH:
She's on my bed.

RUTH:
Your bed? But you ...

JUDITH:
She's welcome to my bed,
As long as she has need. She'll not lie long,
Before they lift her.

MICHAEL:
Judith!

RUTH:
She's not dead?

JUDITH:
Ay, son: she breathed her last an hour ago.

RUTH:
So, after all, the poor old soul crept back
To Krindlesyke to die.

(_MICHAEL BARRASFORD, w