For all his keeping company with swine.
But, what should I do with a daughter, lad?
Do you fancy, if I’d had a mind for daughters,
I couldn’t have had a dozen of my own?
One petticoat’s enough in any house:
And who are you, to bring your mother a daughter?

MICHAEL:
Her husband. Ruth’s my bride. Ruth Ellershaw
She was till ten o’clock: Ruth Barrasford,
Till doomsday, now.

BELL:
When did I give you leave
To bring strange lasses to disturb my peace,
Just as I’m getting used to Krindlesyke?
To think you’d wed, without a word!

MICHAEL:
Leave, say you?
You’ll always have your jest. I said no word:
For words breed words: and I’d not have a swarm
Of stinging ants bumming about my lugs
For days beforehand.

BELL:
Ants? They’d need be kaids,
To burrow through your fleece, and prog your skin.

MICHAEL: