re was someone lying on the bed,
Asleep, I think.

BELL:
You think?

PETER:
I only saw
A hunched-up shoulder, poking through the curtain.

BELL:
A woman?

PETER:
Ay, my mother, or her fetch.
I couldn't take my eyes from that hunched shoulder--
It looked so queer--till you called my name.

BELL:
You said
Your mother was out. But, we've no time to potter.
To think I've borne a son to a calf that's fleyed
Of a sleeping woman's back--his minney's, and all!
Collops and chitterlings, if she's asleep,
The job's the easier done. There's not a woman,
Or a woman's fetch, would scare me from good gold.
I'll get the box.

(_She steals softly into the other room, and is gone for some time.
The others await her expectantly in silence. Presently she comes out
bareheaded and empty-handed. Without a word, she goes to the window,
and pulls down the blind; then closes the outer door: PETER and
MICHAEL watching her in amazement._)

EZRA:
So Jim, the fox, has cheated Peter, the fox--
And vixen and cub, to boot! But, he made off
Only this morning: and the scent's still fresh.
You'll ken the road he'd take, the fox's track--
A thief to catch a thief! He's lifted all:
But, if you cop him, I'll give you half, although
'Twill scarcely leave enough to bury us
With decency, when we have starved to death,
Your mother and I. Run, lad: there's fifty-sovereign!
And mind you clout and clapperclaw the cull:
Spanghew his jacket, when you've riped his pockets--
The scurvy scrunt!

BELL:
Silence, old misery:
There's a dead woman lying in the house--
And you can prate of money!

PETER:
Dead!

EZRA:
Eliza!

BELL:
I found the body, huddled on the bed,
Already cold and stiffening.

EZRA:
I thought I heard ...
Yet, she set out for Rawridge, to fetch a man ...
I felt her passing, in my very bones.
I knew her foot: you cannot hear a step
For forty-year, and mistake it, though the spring's
Gone out of it, and it's turned to a shuffle, it's still
The same footfall. Why didn't she answer me?
She chattered enough, before she went--such havers!
Words tumbling from her lips in a witless jumble.
Contrary, to the last, she wouldn't answer:
But crept away, like a wounded pheasant, to die
Alone. She's gone before me, after all--
An