] -- Strip it off now, or walk down upon
the road.
MARTIN DOUL -- [bitterly.] -- Oh, God help me! (He begins taking
off his coat.) I've heard tell you stripped the sheet from your
wife and you putting her down into the grave, and that there
isn't the like of you for plucking your living ducks, the short
days, and leaving them running round in their skins, in the great
rains and the cold. (He tucks up his sleeves.) Ah, I've heard a
power of queer things of yourself, and there isn't one of them
I'll not believe from this day, and be telling to the boys.
TIMMY -- [pulling over a big stick.] -- Let you cut that now, and
give me rest from your talk, for I'm not heeding you at all.
MARTIN DOUL -- [taking stick.] -- That's a hard, terrible stick,
Timmy; and isn't it a poor thing to be cutting strong timber the
like of that, when it's cold the bark is, and slippy with the
frost of the air?
TIMMY -- [gathering up another armful of sticks.] -- What way
wouldn't it be cold, and it freezing since the moon was changed?
[He goes into forge.]
MARTIN DOUL -- [querulously, as he cuts slowly.] -- What way,
indeed, Timmy? For it's a raw, beastly day we do have each day,
till I do be thinking it's well for the blind don't be seeing
them gray clouds driving on the hill, and don't be looking on
people with their noses red, the like of your nose, and their
eyes weeping and watering, the like of your eyes, God help you,
Timmy the smith.
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