JESSIE. I know which that is. "Tis a pretty song. Sing it, Georgie.
GEORGE. Nay--sing it yourself, Miss Jessie.
JESSIE. "Tis like this at the beginning.--[she sings or repeats] -
"Through bushes and through briars I lately took my way, All for to hear the small birds sing And the lambs to skip and play."
CLARA. That is the song I was thinking of, Jessie.
GEORGE. Can you go on with it, Miss Jessie.
JESSIE. I can"t say any more.
CLARA. [Gently singing or speaking.]
I overheard my own true love, Her voice it was so clear.
"Long time I have been waiting for The coming of my dear."
GEORGE. [Heaving a sigh.] That"s it.
JESSIE. Go on, Joan, I do like the sound of it.
CLARA. Shall I go on with the song, George?
GEORGE. As you please.
CLARA.
"Sometimes I am uneasy And troubled in my mind, Sometimes I think I"ll go to my love And tell to him my mind."
"And if I would go to my love My love he will say nay If I show to him my boldness He"ll ne"er love me again."
JESSIE. When her love was hid a-hind of the bushes and did hear her a-singing so pitiful, what did he do then?
CLARA. I don"t know, Jessie.
JESSIE. I reckon as he did come out to show her as he knowed all what she did keep in her mind.
CLARA. Very likely the briars were so thick between them, Jess, that he never got to the other side for her to tell him.
GEORGE. Yes, that"s how "twas, I count.
JESSIE. [Running up to ROBIN.] I"m going to look at your book along of you, Robin.
ROBIN. But I"m the one to turn the leaves, remember. [The children sit side by side looking at the picture book. CLARA sews. GEORGE goes on with the potatoes. As the last one is finished and tossed into the water, he looks at CLARA for the first time. A long silence.
GEORGE. Miss Clara and me was good friends once on a time.
CLARA. Tell me how it was then, George.
GEORGE. I did used to put her on the horse"s back, and we would go down to the water trough in the evening time and -
CLARA. What else did you and Miss Clara do together, George?
GEORGE. Us would walk in the woods aside of one another--And I would lift she to a high branch in a tree--and pretend for to leave her there.
CLARA. And then?
GEORGE. Her would call upon me pitiful--and I would come back from where I was hid.
CLARA. And did her crying cease?
GEORGE. She would take and spring as though her was one of they little wild squirrels as do dance about in the trees.
CLARA. Where would she spring to, George?
GEORGE. I would hold out my two arms wide to her, and catch she.
CLARA. And did she never fall, whilst springing from the tree, George?
GEORGE. I never let she fall, nor get hurted by naught so long as her was in the care of me.
CLARA. [Slowly, after a short pause.] I do not think she can have forgotten those days, George.
GEORGE. [Getting up and speaking harshly.] They"re best forgot.
Put them away. There be briars and brambles and thorns and sommat of all which do hurt the flesh of man atween that time and this"n.
[CLARA turns her head away and furtively presses her handkerchief to her eyes. GEORGE looks gloomily on the floor. EMILY enters.
EMILY. George, what are you at sitting at the kitchen table I"d like to know?
[GEORGE gets hastily off. Both children look up from their book.
EMILY. [Looking freezingly at CLARA.] "Tis plain as a turnpike what you"ve been after, young person. If you was my serving wench, "tis neck and crop as you should be thrown from the door.
CLARA. What for, mistress?
EMILY. What for? You have the impudence to ask what for? I"ll soon tell you. For making a fool of George and setting your cap at him and scandalising of my innocent children in their own kitchen.
GEORGE. This be going a bit too far, missis. I"ll not have things said like that.
EMILY. Then you may turn out on to the roads where you were took from--a grizzling little roadsters varmint. You do cost more"n what you eats nor what we get of work from out of your body, you great hulk.
CLARA. [Springing up angrily.] O I"ll not hear such things said.
I"ll not.
EMILY. Who asked you to speak? Get you upstairs and pull your mistress out of bed--and curl the ringlets of her hair and dust the flour on to her face. "Tis about all you be fit for.
CLARA. [Angrily going to the stair door.] Very well. "Tis best that I should go. I might say something you would not like.