-wood ...
Coffins? Who muttered coffins? Let's not talk
Of coffins, Judith ... Shut in a black box!
They couldn't keep old Ezra in: the lid
Flew off; and old granddaddy sat up, girning ...
They had to screw him down ... And Solomon
Slept with his fathers ... I wonder he could sleep,
After the razzle-dazzle ... Concubines!
'Twould take a pyramid to keep him down!
And me ... That tumble's cracked the bell ... not stopt
The crazy clapper, seemingly ... But, coffins--
Let's talk no more of coffins: what have I
To do with coffins? Let us talk of fires:
I've always loved a fire: I'd set the world
Alow for my delight, if it would burn.
It's such a soggy, sodden world to-day,
I'm duberous I could kindle it with an izle:
It might just smoulder with muckle funeral-plumes
Of smoke, like coffin-elder ... And the blaze--
The biggest flare-up ever I set eyes on,
It was a kind of funeral, you might say--
A fiery, flaming, roaring funeral,
A funeral such as I ... but no such luck
For me in this world--likely, in the next!
And anyway, it wouldn't be much fun,
If I couldn't watch it, myself ... Ay, Long Nick Salkeld,
And his old woman, Zillah, died together,
The selfsame day, within an hour or so.
'Twas on Spadeadam Waste we'd camped that time ...
And kenning how they loved their caravan,
And how they'd hate to leave it, or be parted
From one another, even by a foot of earth,
We laid them out, together, side by side,
In the van, as they'd slept in it, night after night,
For hard on fifty-year. We took naught out,
And shifted naught: just burnished up the brasses,
Till they twinkled as Zillah'd kept them, while she could ...
And so, with not a coffin-board betwixt them,
At dead of night we fired the caravan ...
The flames leapt up; and roaring to the stars,
As we stood round ... The flames leapt up, and roaring ...
I hear them roaring now ... the flames ... I hear ...
Flames roaring in my head ... I hear ... I hear ...
And flying izles ... falling sparks ... I hear
Flames roaring ... roaring ... roaring ...

(_She sways forward, but JUDITH catches her in her arms._)

Where am I? Judith, is that you?
How did I come here, honey? But, now I mind--
I fell ... He must have hidden in the heather
To trip me up ... He kicked me, as I lay--
The harrygad!

JUDITH:
Jim!

BELL:
Nay! What am I saying?
I stumbled, Judith: you must stick to that,
Whatever they may say ... I stumbled, Judith.
Thin