d she, so hale; while I was crutched and crippled.
I haven't looked on her face for eleven-year:
But she was bonnie, when I saw her first,
That morning at the fair--so fresh and pink.

BELL:
She must have died alone. It's an ill thing
To die alone, folk say; but I don't know.
She'd hardly die more lonely than she lived:
For every woman's lonely in her heart.
I never looked on a lonelier face.

PETER:
Come, Bell:
We'd best be making tracks: there's nothing here:
So let's be going.

BELL:
Going, Peter, where?

PETER:
There's nothing to bide here for: we're too late.
Jim's stolen a march on us: there's no loot left.

BELL:
And you would leave a woman, lying dead;
And an old blind cripple who cannot do a hand's-turn,
With no one to look after them--and they,
Your father and mother?

PETER:
Little enough I owe them:
What can we do for them, anyway? We can't
Bring back the dead to life: and, sooner or later,
Someone will come from Rawridge to see to the sheep:
And dad won't hurt, meanwhile: he's gey and tough.

BELL:
And you would leave your mother, lying dead,
With none but strangers' hands to lay her out--
No soul of her kin to tend her at the last?

(_She goes to the dresser and looks in the drawers, taking out an apron
and tying it round her waist._)

EZRA:
I never guessed she'd go, and leave me alone.
How did she think I could get along without her?
She kenned I could do nothing for myself:
And yet she's left me alone, to starve to death--
Just sit in my chair, and starve. It wasn't like her.
And the breath's scarce out of her body, before the place
Is overrun with a plague of thieving rats.
They'll eat me out of house and home: my God,
I've come to this--an old blind crippled dobby,
Forsaken of wife and bairns; and left to die--
To be nibbled to death by rats: de'il scart the vermin!

BELL:
Time's drawn your teeth, but hasn't dulled your tongue's edge.

PETER:
Come, woman: what the devil are you up to?
What's this new game?

BELL:
Peter, I'm biding here.

PETER:
You're biding here?

BELL:
And you are staying, too.

PETER:
By crikey, no! You'll not catch me: I cannot--
With thon in the other room. I never could bear ...

BELL:
You'll stop, till Michael's old enough to manage
The sheep without your aid: then you may spurt
To overtake Jim on the road to the gallows