Georgian Poetry 1913-15 Part 45

I'll try for that; but they are not good jokes; Though there's a kind of monkey-look about them.

Mrs Huff:

They thinking I'ld be near one or the other After this night! Will I be made no more Than clay that children puddle to their minds, Moulding it what they fancy?--Shale was brave: He made a bogy and defied it, till He frightened of his work and ran away.

But Huff!--Huff was for modelling wickedly.

Huff:

Who told you that?

Mrs Huff:

I need no one's telling.

I was your wife once. Don't I know your goodness?

A stupid heart gone sour with jealousy, To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning.-- Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had No notion how, and flung the clay aside.-- O they were gaudy colours both! But now Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank, Fear of a loon that cried, End of the World!

Huff:

Shale, do you know what we're to do?

Shale:

I'ld like To have the handling of that dowser-man.

Huff:

Just that, my lad, just that!

Warp:

And your fired rick.

Huff:

Let it be blazes! Quick, Shale, after him!

I'll tramp the night out, but I'll take the rogue.

Shale (to the others):

You wait, and see us haul him by the ears, And swim the blatherer in Huff's farm-yard pond.

[As HUFF and SHALE go out, they see the comet before them.]

Huff:

The devil's own star is that!

Shale:

And floats as calm As a pike basking.

Huff:

There shouldn't be such stars!

Shale:

Neither such dowsers, and we'll learn him that.

[They go off together.]

Sollers:

Why, the star's dwindling now, surely!

Merrick:

O, small And dull now to the glowing size it was.

Vine:

But is it certain there'll be nothing smasht?

Not even a house knockt roaring down in crumbles?

--And I did think, I'ld open my wife's mouth With envy of the dreadful things I'd seen!

CURTAIN.