ought
You'd be harsh with me: yet even you've turned raspy ...
First "cannot," then ...

JUDITH:
Nay! I'll not have their home
Pulled down about their ears by any man;
And least of all by you--the home they've made ...

JIM:
Stolen, I'd say.

JUDITH:
Together, for themselves
And their three boys.

JIM:
Jim, granddad three times over?
It's well you broke it piecemeal: the old callant's
A waffly heart; and any sudden joy
Just sets it twittering: but the more the merrier!

JUDITH:
You shall not wreck their happiness. I'd not dreamed
Such happiness as theirs could be in this world.
Since it was built, there's not been such a home
At Krindlesyke: it's only been a house ...

JIM:
'Twas just about as homely as a hearse
In my young days: but my luck's turned, it seems.

JUDITH:
It takes more than four walls to make a home,
And such a home as Michael's made for Ruth.
Though she's a fendy lass; she's too like me,
And needs a helpmate, or she'll waste herself;
And, with another man, she might have wrecked,
Instead of building. She's got her man, her mate:
Husband and father, born, day in, day out,
He works to keep a home for wife and weans.
There's never been a luckier lass than Ruth:
Though she deserves it, too; and it's but seldom
Good lasses are the lucky ones; and few
Get their deserts in this life.

JIM:
True, egox!

JUDITH:
Few, good or bad. But Ruth has everything--
A home, a steady husband, and her boys.
There never were such boys.

JIM:
A pretty picture:
It takes my fancy: and the dear old grannie,
Why do you leave her out? And there's a corner
For granddad in it, surely--an armchair
On the other side of the ingle, with a pipe
And packet of twist, and a pot of nappy beer,
Hot-fettled four-ale, handy on the hob?
Ay: there's the chair: I'd best secure it now.

(_As he seats himself, with his back to the door, the head of BELL
HAGGARD, in her orange-coloured kerchief, peeps round the jamb: then
slowly withdraws, unseen of JIM or JUDITH._)

JIM:
Fetch up the swipes and shag. I can reach the cutty ...

(_He takes down MICHAEL's pipe from the mantel-shelf; and sticks it
between his teeth: but JUDITH snatches at it, breaking the stem, and
flings the bowl on the fire._)

JUDITH:
And you, to touch his pipe!

(_JIM stares at her, startled, as she stands before him, w