Part 10
You found me lost in the dirt: I was with Huff. You lifted me from there; and there again, Like a frightened urchin, you're for throwing me.
Shale:
Let it be that! I'm firm Not to have you about me, when the thing, Whatever it is, that's standing now behind The burning of the world, comes out on us.
Huff:
The way men cheat! This windle-stalk was he Would hold a show of spirit for the world To study while it ruined!--Make what you please Of your short wrangle here, but leave me out. I have my thoughts--O far enough from this.
[Turning away.]
Shale (seizing him):
You shall not put me off. I tell you, Huff, You are to take her back now.
Huff:
Take her back! And what has she to do with what I want?
Shale:
Isn't she yours? I must be quit of her; I'll not be in the risk of keeping her. She's yours!
Huff:
And what's the good of her now to me? What's the good of a woman whom I've married?
[During this, WARP the molecatcher has come in.]
Warp:
Shale and Huff at their old pother again!
Merrick:
The molecatcher.
Sollers:
Warp, have you travelled far? Is it through frenzy and ghastly crowds you've come?
Vine:
Have you got dreadful things to tell us, Warp?
Warp:
Why, no. But seemingly you'ld have had news for me, If I'd come later. Is Huff to murder Shale, Or Shale for murdering Huff? One way or 'tother, 'Tis time 'twas settled surely.--Mrs Huff, They're neither of them worth you: here's your health.
[Draws and drinks.]
Huff:
Where have you been? Are you not new from folk That throng together in a pelting horror?
Warp:
Do you think the whole land hearkens to the flurry Of an old dog biting at a young dog's throat?
Merrick:
No, no! Not their shrill yapping; you've not heard The world's near to be blasted?
Warp:
No mutter of it. I am from walking the whole ground I trap, And there's no likeness of it, but the moles I've turned up dead and dried out of three counties.
Sollers:
Why, but the fire that's eating the whole earth; The breath of it is scarlet in the sky! You must have seen that?
Warp:
But what's taken you? You are like boys that go to hunt for ghosts, And turn the scuttle of rats to a roused demon Crawling to shut the door of the barn they search. Fire? Yes, fire is playing a pretty game Yonder, and has its golden fun to itself, Seemingly.
Sollers:
You don't know what 'tis that burns?
Warp:
Call me a mole and not a molecatcher If I do not. It is a rick that burns; And a strange thing I'll count it if the rick Be not old Huff's.
Sollers:
That flare a fired stack?
Huff:
Only one of my ricks alight? O Glory! There may be chance for me yet.
Merrick:
Best take the train To Droitwich, Huff.
Vine (at the door):
It would be like a stack, But for the star.
Sollers (to WARP):
Yes, as you're so clever, You can talk down maybe yon brandishing star!
Warp:
O, 'tis the star has flickt your brains? Indeed, The tail swings long enough to-night for that. Well, look your best at it; 'tis off again To go its rounds, they tell me, from now on; And the next time it swaggers in our sky, The moles a long while will have tired themselves Of having their easy joke with me.
[A pause.]
Merrick:
You mean The flight of the star is from us?
Sollers:
But the world, The whole world reckons on it battering us!
Warp:
Who told you that?
Sollers:
A dowser.
Merrick:
Where's he gone?
Warp:
A dowser! say a tramping conjurer. You'll believe aught, if you believe a dowser.
Sollers:
I had it in me to be doubting him.
Merrick:
The noise you made was like that! But I knew You'ld laugh at me, so sure you were the world Would shiver like a bursting grindlestone: Else I'ld have said out loud, 'twas a fool's whimsy.
Vine:
Where are you now? What am I now to think? Your minds run round in puzzles, like chased hares. I cannot sight them.
Merrick:
Think of going to bed.
Sollers:
And dreaming prices for your pigs.
Merrick:
O Warp, You should have seen Vine crying! The moon, he said, The silver moon! Just like an onion 'twas To stir the water in his eyes.
Sollers:
He's left A puddle of his tears where he was droopt Over the table.
Vine:
There's to be no ruin?-- But what's the word of a molecatcher, to crow So ringing over a dowser's word?
Warp:
I'll tell you. These dowsers live on lies: my trade's the truth. I can read moles, and the way they've dug their journeys, Where you'ld not see a wrinkle.
Vine:
And he knows The buried water.
Warp:
There's always buried water, If you prod deep enough. A dowser finds Because the whole earth's floating, like a raft. What does he know? A twitching in his thews; A dog asleep knows that much. What I know I've learnt, and if I'd learnt it wrong, I'ld starve. And if I'm right about the grubbing moles, Won't I be right for news of walking men?
Merrick:
Of course you're right. Let's put the whole thing by, And have a pleasant drink.
Shale (to Mrs HUFF):
You must be tired With all this story. Shall we be off for home?
Huff:
You brass! You don't go now with her! She's mine: You gave her up.
Shale:
And you made nothing of her.
(To Mrs Huff)
Come on.
Mrs Huff:
Warp, will you do a thing for me?
Warp:
A hundred things.
Mrs Huff:
Then slap me these cur-dogs.
Warp:
I will. Where will I slap them, and which first?
Mrs Huff:
Maybe 'twill do if you but laugh at them.
Warp:
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.