d you'd not care to have me like old Ezra,
A dothering haiveril in your chimney corner,
Babbling of vanished gold? I read my fortune
In the flames just now: and I'll not rot to death:
It's time enough to moulder, underground.
My death'll come quick and chancy, as I'd have had
Each instant of life: but still there are risky years
Before me, and a sudden, unlooked-for ending.
And I'll not haunt you: ghosts enough, with Ezra,
Counting his ghostly sovereigns all night long,
And old Eliza, darning ghostly stockings.
My ghost will ride a broomstick....

(_As she speaks, the inner door opens, and RUTH and MICHAEL, turning
sharply at the click of the latch, gaze, dumbfounded, at JUDITH
ELLERSHAW, standing in the doorway._)

BELL:
Fee-fo-fum!
The barguest bays; and boggles, brags, and bo-los
Follow the hunt. How's that for witchcraft, think you?
Hark, how the lych-owl screeches!

RUTH (_running to her mother's arms_):
Mother, you!

BELL:
Now there's a sweet, domestic picture for you!
My cue's to vanish in a puff of smoke
And reek of brimstone, like the witch I am.
I'm coming, hoolet, my old cat with wings!
It's time I was away: there never yet
Was room for two grandmothers in one house.
I'm through with Krindlesyke. Good-bye, old gaol!

(_While MICHAEL still gazes at RUTH and her mother in amazement, BELL
HAGGARD slips out of the door, unnoticed, and away through the bracken
in the gathering dusk. An owl hoots._)

PART III

_A wet afternoon in May, six years later. The table is already set for
tea. JUDITH ELLERSHAW sits, knitting, by the hearth; a cradle with a
young baby in it by her side. The outer door is closed, but unlatched.
Presently the unkempt head of a man appears furtively at the window;
then vanishes. The door is pushed stealthily open: and JIM BARRASFORD,
ragged and disreputable (and some twenty years older than when he
married PHOEBE MARTIN) stands on the threshold a moment, eyeing
JUDITH's unconscious back in silence: then he speaks, limping
towards her chair._

JIM:
While the cat calleevers the hills of Back-o'-Beyont,
The rats make free of the rick: and so, you doubled,
As soon as my hurdies were turned on Krindlesyke,
And settled yourself in the ingle?

JUDITH (_starting up, and facing him_):
Jim!

JIM:
Ay, Jim--
No o