that's for Ruth to settle:
I'll be elsewhere. I've never knuckled down
To any man: and I'll be coffin-cold
Before I brook a master; so, good-night,
And pleasant dreams; and a long family
Of curly lambkins, bleating round the board.

RUTH:
Michael, you'll never let her go alone?
She's only talking wild, because she's jealous.
Mothers are always jealous, when their sons
Bring home a bride: though she needn't be uneasy:
I'd never interfere ...

BELL:
Too wise to put
Your fingers 'twixt the cleaver and the block?
Jealous--I wonder? Anyhow, it seems,
I've got a daughter, too. Alone, you say?
However long I stayed, I'd have to go
Alone, at last: and I'd as lief be gone,
While I can carry myself on my two pins.
Being buried with the Barrasfords is a chance
I've little mind to risk a second time:
I'm too much of a Haggard, to want to rise,
At the last trump, among a flock of bleaters.
If I've my way, there'll be stampeding hoofs
About me, startled at the crack of doom.

MICHAEL:
When you've done play-acting ...

BELL:
Play-acting? Ay: I'm through:
Exit the villain: ring the curtain down
On the happy ending--bride and bridegroom seated
On either side the poor, but pious, hearth.

MICHAEL:
I'd as soon argue with a weathercock
As with a woman ...

BELL:
Yet the weathervanes
Are always cocks, not hens.

MICHAEL:
You shall not go.

BELL:
Your naked hurdles cannot hold the wind.

MICHAEL:
Wind? Ay, I'm fairly tewed and hattered with words:
And yet, for all your wind, you shall not go.

BELL:
While you've a roof to shelter me, eh, son?
You mean so well; and understand so little.
Yours is a good thick fleece--no skin that twitches
When a breath tickles it. Sheep will be sheep,
And horses, horses, till the day of judgment.

MICHAEL:
Better a sound tup than a spavined nag.

BELL:
Ay, Ruth, you've kindled him! Good luck to you:
And may your hearthfire warm you to the end.

(_To MICHAEL._)

You've been a good son to me, in your way:
Only, our ways are different; and here they part.
For all my blether, there's no bitterness
On my side: I've long kenned 'twas bound to come:
And, in your heart, you know it's for the best,
For your sake, and for Ruth's sake, and for mine.
I couldn't obey, where I have bid; nor risk
My own son's fathering me in second childhood:
An