ef, hot-foot for the gallows,
I hear his footsteps echoing in my head.
He'd hirple it barefoot on the coals of hell,
With a red-hot prong at his hurdies to prog him on,
If I'd my way with him: de'il scart the hanniel!

(_He sits, brooding: and some time has passed, when the head of a tramp,
shaggy and unkempt, is thrust in at the door; and is followed by the
body of PETER BARRASFORD, who steps cautiously in, and stealing up to
the old man's chair, stands looking down upon him with a grin._)

EZRA (_stirring uneasily_):
A step, for sure! You're back? Though how you've travelled
So quickly, Eliza, I can't think. And when's
John Steel to turn us out, to follow Jim
And the other vagabonds? And who's he sending?
He's not a man to spare ... But, sheep are sheep:
Someone must tend them, though all else go smash.
I've given my life to sheep, spent myself for them:
And now, I'm not the value of a dead sheep
To any farmer--a rackle of bones for the midden!
A bitter day, 'twill be, when I turn my back
On Krindlesyke. I little reckoned to go,
A blind old cripple, hobbling on two sticks.
Pride has a fall, they say: and I was proud--
Proud as a thistle; and a donkey's cropt
The thistle's prickly pride. Why don't you speak?
I'm not mistaken this time: I heard you come:
I feel you standing over me.

(_He pokes round with his stick, catching PETER on the shin with it._)

PETER (_wresting the stick from EZRA's grasp_):
Easy on!
Peter's no lad to take a leathering, now.
Your time's come round for breeches down, old boy:
But don't be scared; for I'm no walloper--
Too like hard work! My son's a clean white skin:
He's never skirled, as you made me. By gox,
You gave me gip: my back still bears the stripes
Of the loundering I got the night I left.
But I bear no malice, you old bag-of-bones:
And where's the satisfaction in committing
Assault and battery on a blasted scarecrow?
'Twas basting hot young flesh that you enjoyed:
I still can hear you smack your lips with relish,
To see the blue weals rising, as you laid on,
Until the tawse was bloody. Not juice enough
In your geyzened carcase to raise one weal: and I never
Could bear the sound of cracking bones: and you're
All nobs and knuckles, like the parson's pig.
To think I feared you once, old spindleshanks!
But I'm not here for paying compliments:
I've other pressing business on that brings me
To the God-forsaken gaol where I was born.
If I make sense of your doting, mo