JASPAR.--
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ome! Home, at last! Who’s there? Anyone there?What? Nobody? No fire? Oh, bitter cold----It feels like death! (_Fumbles for match-box_) Here, fool, give me a light!Light, can’t yer? Ah, what’s that, what’s that, what’s that?Who are yer? What for are you lying there?Get up! Get up! What makes ’e be so cold?So clammed? (_Strikes a light_) What the,--! My wife! It be my wife!Wife! Don’t ’e hear me? It be I, come back,Jaspar come back--Jaspar come home again----Jaspar--why don’t ’e answer? There, now there!Have that to warm yer. Oh, ye’ll soon come round,Ye’ve starved yerself, ye--! Ah--she’s dead, she’s dead! (_He lifts her onto the chair by the hearth and now holds thecandle to her face, then draws away with a growing fear of whatother deaths may be there. He advances to the crib, and looksin on the sleeping children. He assures himself that they arealive. It startles him to fresh hope; he turns back to hiswife_) No, she ain’t dead, she can’t be, they’re alive!She wouldn’t leave ’em. No, she can’t be dead.Wife, do ’e hear? The children be alive.You wouldn’t go and leave ’em, no, not you----’Twouldn’t be like yer. There, my--there, come, come!Take warmth o’ me,--out of my ’eart and soul!I’ll make ye warm. (_He takes her to his heart_) Why, I was coming ’ome.I’d ’a been yere before, but I lost my way,Got buried in the snow. Then I ’eard youA-callin’ me! I thought I saw your face,Then it all went, and then, my feet grew strong,Life come to me, and warmth, and here I be!Can’t ’e speak to me? Be ye gone so farAs ’e can’t ’ear me? Not the word I’d sayTo tell ’e how I loved ’e?Ah, now I be in ’ell, I be in ’ell!And ’a won’t never know. (_Her hand falls out across chair, pointing toward the crib_) What’s that to say?Oh, the dear hand. Yes, I’ll look after ’em.They shan’t know want--and I won’t go away----The way I’d wish to go. I’ll bear my lifeAnd all the burden of it. There, there, my lass,Rest ye in peace, I’ll do my best by ’em!I’ll do my best. (_He bends and kisses her on the lips. The Snowman makes a passtoward her with his hand. She moves, and opens her eyes, alldazed and dreaming_) JOAN. Who’s that, who’s that got hold o’ me? Let go! I must go to ’im. JASPAR. No, no, bide ’e still. Here’s Jaspar! JOAN. Jaspar! JASPAR. Oh, you be alive! (_He sinks down broken, with his head onher breast. She takes his head in her hands stroking it softly. TheSnowman moves slowly to the door, fades through it, and disappears_) JOAN. So you’ve come back, I knew you’d come--some day. What’s this?(_She touches the coat_) JASPAR. My coat. I found you lyin’ there cold, so I put it round yer.But you made no sign--until I thought as yer was dead. JOAN. Dead? Would I leave ’em? Leave my little ’uns? JASPAR. Ah, there you do get home. It’s a true charge. It’s what I done. JOAN. You ’ad the roving blood. You couldn’t ’elp it. JASPAR. It ain’t brought me no joy.
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