May.  For ’twas wild as I was in the time gone by.  Wild after pleasuring and the noise in the town, and men a-looking at the countenance of I, and a-turning back for to look again.  But, hark you here, ’tis powerful changed as I be now.

Harry.  Ah, I count as you be.  Be changed from a young woman into an old one.

May.  I’m finished with the road journeying and standing about in the streets on market days and the talk with men in the drinking places—­ Men what don’t want to look more nor once on I now, and what used to follow if ’twasn’t only a bit of eyelid as I’d lift on them, times that is gone.

Harry.  Ah, ’twould take a lot of looking to see you as you was.

May.  Yes, I be finished with all of it now, and willing for to bide quiet at the fireside and to stay with the four walls round I and the door shut.

Harry.  I reckon as you be.

May.  And I’m thinking as they’ll be rare pleased for to have I in the house again.  ’Twill be another pair of hands to the work like.  And when I was young, ’twas not on work as I was set much.

Harry.  Ah, I did guess as much.

May.  But when I gets a bit over this here nasty cough, ’tis a strong arm as them’ll have working for they; Steve, th’ old woman what’s his mother, and little Dorry, too.

Harry.  Dorry?  I han’t heard tell of she.

May.  That’s my little baby as was, Harry Moss.  I left she crawling on the floor, and now I count as she be growed into a rare big girl.  Bless the innocent heart of her!

Harry.  Whatever led you to do such a thing, I can’t think!  You must have been drove to it like, wasn’t you?

May.  ’Twas summat inside of me as drove I, then.  ’Twas very likely the blood of they gipsies which did leap in I, so that when I was tied up to Steve, ’twas as if they had got I shut in a box.  ’Twas the bridle on my head and the bit in the mouth of I; and to be held in where once I had gone free. [A short pause.

May.  And I turned wild, Harry, for the very birds seemed to be calling I from the hedges to come out along of they, and the berries tossing in the wind, and the leaves blowing away quick from where they’d been stuck all summer.  All of it spoke to I, and stirred I powerful, so that one morning when the sun was up and the breeze running, I comed out into the air, Harry, and shut the door behind I. And ’twas done—­so ’twas.

Harry.  And didn’t they never try for to stop you, nor for to bring you back, May?

May.  No, Harry, they did not.

Harry.  And where was it you did go to, May, once you was out and the door shut ahind of you?

May.  Ah—­where!  To the east, to the south, every part.  ’Twas morning with I in that time, and the heart of I was warm.  And them as went along of I on the road, did cast but one look into the countenance of I. Then ’twas the best as they could give as I might take; and ’twas for no lodging as I did want when dark did come falling.