human
I be come back--back home-along, brother Will, she said, very quietly.
gpt
I looked for mother to home, but found she weern't theer. An' I be sorry to the heart for all the sorrow I've brought 'e both. But it had to be. Strange thoughts an' voices was in me when Clem went, an' I had to hide myself or drown myself--so I went.
human
God's gudeness! Lucky I be made o' strong stuff, else I might have thought 'e a ghost an' no less. Come in out the night, an' I'll light a candle. But speak soft. Us must break this very gentle to mother.
gpt
Say you'll forgive me, will 'e? Can 'e do it? If you knawed half you'd say 'yes.' I'm grawed a auld, cold-hearted woman, wi' a grey hair here an' theer a'ready.
human
So've I got wan an' another, tu, along o' worse sorrow than yours. Leastways as bad as yourn. Forgive 'e? A thousand times, an' thank Heaven you'm livin'! Wheer ever have 'e bided? An' me an' Grimbal searched the South Hams, an' North, tu, inside out for 'e, an' he put notices in the papers--dozens of 'em.
gpt
Along with the gypsy folk for more 'n three year now. 'Twas the movin' an' rovin', and the opening my eyes on new things that saved me from gwaine daft. Sometimes us coined through Chagford, an' then I'd shut my eyes tight an' lie in the van, so's not to see the things his eyes had seen--so's not to knaw when us passed the cottage he lived in. But now I've got to feel I could come back again.
human
You might have writ to say how you was faring.
gpt
I didn't dare. You'd bin sure to find me, an' I didn't want 'e to then. 'Tis awver an' done, an' 'twas for the best.
human
You'm a woman, an' can say them silly words, an' think 'em true in your heart, I s'pose. 'For the best!' I caan't see much that happens for the best under my eyes. Will 'e have bite or sup?
gpt
No, nothin'. You get back to your bed. Us'll talk in the marnin'. I'll bide here. You an' Phoebe be well, an'--an' dear mother?
human
We'm well. You doan't ax me after the fust cheel Phoebe had.
gpt
I knaw. I put some violets theer that very night. We were camped just above Chagford, not far from here.
human
Theer's a li'l gal now, an' a bwoy as I'll tell'e about bimebye. A sheer miracle't was that falled out the identical day I buried my Willy. No natural fashion of words can explain it. But that'll keep. Now let me look at'e. Fuller in the body seemin'ly, an' gypsy-brown, by God! So brown as me, every bit. Well, well, I caan't say nothin'. I'm carried off my legs wi' wonder, an' joy, tu, for that matter. Next to Phoebe an' mother I allus loved 'e best. Gimme a kiss. What a woman, to be sure! Like a thief in the night you went; same way you've comed back. Why couldn't 'e wait till marnin'?
gpt
The childer--they grawed to love me that dear--also the men an' women. They've been gude to me beyond power o' words for faither's sake. They knawed I was gwaine, an' I left 'em asleep. 'T was how they found me when I runned away. I falled asleep from weariness on the Moor, an' they woke me, an' I thrawed in my lot with them from the day I left that pencil-written word for 'e on the window-ledge.
human
Me bein' in the valley lookin' for your drowned body the while! Women 'mazes me more the wiser I graw. Come this way, to the linhay. There's a sweet bed o' dry fern in the loft, and you must keep out o' sight till mother's told cunning. I'll hit upon a way to break it to her so soon as she's rose. An' if I caan't, Phoebe will. Come along quiet. An' I be gwaine to lock 'e in, Chris, if't is all the same to you. For why? Because you might fancy the van folks was callin' to 'e, an' grow hungry for the rovin' life again.
gpt
How be Mrs. Hicks, my Clem's mother?
human
Alive; that's all. A poor auld bed-lier now; just fading away quiet. But weak in the head as a baaby. Mother sees her now an' again. She never talks of nothin' but snuff. 'T is the awnly brightness in her life. She's forgot everythin' 'bout the past, an' if you went to see her, she'd hold out her hand an' say, 'Got a little bit o' snuff for a auld body, dearie? 'an' that's all.