's.
If you were fond ...

JUDITH:
And, think you, I'd be here,
If I had not been fond of Jim? And yet,
Why should I spare him? He's not spared me much,
Who gave him all a woman has to give.

ELIZA:
But, think of her, the bride, and her home-coming.

JUDITH:
I'll go.

ELIZA:
You lose but little: too well I ken
How little--I, who've dwelt this forty-year
At Krindlesyke.

JUDITH:
Happen you never loved.

ELIZA:
I, too, was young, once, daughter.

JUDITH:
Ay: and yet,
You've never tramped the road I've had to travel.
God send it stretch not forty-year!

ELIZA:
I've come
That forty-year. We're out on the selfsame road,
The three of us: but, she's the stoniest bit
To travel still--the bride just setting out,
And stepping daintily down the lilylea.
We've known the worst.

JUDITH:
But, she can keep the highway,
While I must slink in the ditch, among the nettles.

ELIZA:
I've kept the hard road, daughter, forty-year:
The ditch may be easier going, after all:
Nettles don't sting each other.

JUDITH:
Nay: but I'm not
A ditch-born nettle, but, among the nettles,
Only a woman, naked to every sting:
And there are slugs and slithery toads and paddocks
In the ditch-bottom; and their slimy touch
Is worse to bear than any nettle ...

ELIZA:
Ay--
The pity of it! A maid blooms only once:
And then, that a man should ruin ... But, you've your bairn:
And bairns, while we can hold them safe in our arms,
And they still need the breast, make up for much:
For there's a kind of comfort in their clinging,
Though they only cling till they can stand alone.
But yours is not a son. If I'd only had
One daughter ...

JUDITH:
Well, you'll have a daughter now.
But we must go our way to--God kens where!
Before Jim brings the bride home. You've your wish:
Jim brings you home a daughter ...

(_As she speaks, a step is heard, and EZRA BARRASFORD appears in the
doorway. Turning to go, JUDITH meets him. She tries to pass him, but
he clutches her arm; and she stands, dazed, while his fingers grope
over her._)

EZRA:
So Jim's back:
And has slipped by his old dad without a word?
I caught no footfall, though once I'd hear an adder
Slink through the bent. I'm deafer than