im's gone for good?

ELIZA:
For good and all: he's taken Peter's road.

EZRA:
And who's to tend the ewes? He couldn't go--
No herd could leave his sheep to an old wife's care:
For this old carcase, once counted the best herd's
In the countryside, is a useless bag of bones now.
Jim couldn't leave ...

ELIZA:
For all I ken or care,
He's taken them with him too.

EZRA:
You're havering!
Your sons aren't common thieves, I trust. And Jim
Would scarce have pluck to sneak a swede from the mulls
Of a hobbled ewe, much less make off with a flock--
Though his forbears lifted a wheen Scots' beasts in their time--
And Steel would have him by the heels before
He'd travelled a donkey's gallop, though he skelped along
Like Willie Pigg's dick-ass. But how do you ken
The gawky's gone for good? He couldn't leave ...

ELIZA:
I found a paper in the empty chest,
Scrawled with a bit of writing in his hand:
"Tell dad I've gone to look for his lost wits:
And he'll not see me till he gets new eyes
To seek me himself."

EZRA:
Eyes or no eyes, I'll break
The foumart's back, in this world or the next:
He'll not escape. He thinks he's the laugh of me;
But I've never let another man laugh last.
Though he should take the short cut to the gallows,
I'll have him, bibbering on his bended knees
Before me yet, even if I have to wait
Till I find him, brizzling on the coals of hell.
But, what do you say--the empty chest--what chest?

ELIZA:
The kist beneath the bed.

EZRA:
But, that's not empty!
How could you open it, when I'd the key
Strung safely on a bootlace next my skin?

ELIZA:
The key--you should have chained the kist, itself,
As a locket round your neck, if you'd have kept
Your precious hoard from your own flesh and blood.

EZRA:
To think a man begets the thieves to rob him!
But, how ...

ELIZA:
I had no call to open it.
I caught my foot against the splintered lid,
When I went to make the bed.

EZRA:
The splintered lid!
And the kist--the kist! You say 'twas empty?

ELIZA:
Not quite:
The paper was in.

EZRA:
But the money, you dam of thieves--
Where was the money?

ELIZA:
It wasn't in the box--
Not a brass farthing.

EZRA:
The money gone--all gone?
Why didn't you tell me