d egg:
And I couldn't make head or tail of his hiccuping,
Though he tried to make himself plain: he did his best,
Did Sep: I'll say that for him--tried so hard
To make himself plain, he got us both chucked out:
And I left him in the gutter, trying still.

JUDITH:
You've come from Bellingham hiring?

JIM:
I couldn't stand
The dindum: felt fair-clumpered in that cluther--
Such a hubblyshew of gowks and flirtigigs,
Craking and cackling like a gabble of geese:
And folk kept looking: I might have been a bizen,
The way they gaped: so I thought I'd just win home
For a little peace and quiet. Where's my daughter,
And this young cuckoo, calls himself my nephew,
And has made himself free and easy of my nest?
Ay, but you've fettled things nicely, the lot of you,
While I tramped the hungry roads. He's pinched my job:
But I bear no grudge: it's not a job I'm after,
Since I've a married daughter I can live with.
I've seen the world, a sight too much: and I mean
To settle down, and end my days in peace
In my old home.

JUDITH:
Your home? But you can't stay here.

JIM:
You'll see! Now that I'm home, I mean to clag
Like a cleaver to a flagstone: they'll have to lift
The hearth, to get me out of Krindlesyke.
I've had enough of travelling the turnpike,
Houffling and hirpling like a cadging faa:
And, but for you and your brat, I'd settled down,
A respectable married man, this twenty-year.
But you shan't drive me from my home again.

JUDITH:
We drove you?

JIM:
You began it, anyway--
Made me an April-gowk and laughing-stock,
Till I couldn't face the neighbours' fleers. By joes!
You diddled me out of house and home, among you:
And settled yourselves couthily in my calfyard,
Like maggots in a muckheap, while I went cawdrife.
But I've had my fill of it, Judith, Hexham-measure:
I'm home for good: and isn't she my daughter?
You stole her from me once, when you made off
With hoity-toity Phoebe--ay, I ken
She died: I learned it at the time--you sneaked
My only bairn: I cannot mind her name,
If ever I heard it: you kept even that
From me, her dad. But, anyway, she's mine:
I've only her and you to turn to now:
A poor, lone widower I've been any time
This twenty-year: that's what's been wrong with me,
Though it hadn't entered my noddle till this minute.
But where's the canny couple?

JUDITH:
Ruth and Michael
Are at the hiring.