Like a cleaver to a flagstone: they’ll have to lift
The hearth, to get me out of Krindlesyke.
I’ve had enough of travelling the turnpike,
Houffling and hirpling like a cadging faa:
And, but for you and your brat, I’d settled down,
A respectable married man, this twenty-year.
But you shan’t drive me from my home again.

JUDITH:
We drove you?

JIM:
You began it, anyway--
Made me an April-gowk and laughing-stock,
Till I couldn’t face the neighbours’ fleers. By joes!
You diddled me out of house and home, among you:
And settled yourselves couthily in my calfyard,
Like maggots in a muckheap, while I went cawdrife.
But I’ve had my fill of it, Judith, Hexham-measure:
I’m home for good: and isn’t she my daughter?
You stole her from me once, when you made off
With hoity-toity Phœbe--ay, I ken
She died: I learned it at the time--you sneaked
My only bairn: I cannot mind her name,
If ever I heard it: you kept even that
From me, her dad. But, anyway, she’s mine:
I’ve only her and you to turn to now:
A poor, lone widower I’ve been any time
This twenty-year: that’s what’s been wrong with me,
Though it hadn’t entered my noddle till this minute.