_] Let me alone. I don't want no chicken soup.
OLD HILSE
That's right, mother. An' I want none, an' least of all that sort. An'
let me say this much to you, Baumert: The devil stands on his head for
joy when he hears the old ones jabberin' and talkin' as if they was
infants. An' to you all I say--to every one of you: Me and you, we've got
nothing to do with each other. It's not with my will that you're here. In
law an' justice you've no right to be in my house.
A VOICE
Him that's not with us is against us.
JAEGER
[_Roughly and threateningly._] You're on the wrong track, old chap, I'd
have you remember that we're not thieves.
A VOICE
We're hungry men, that's all.
FIRST YOUNG WEAVER
We wants to _live_--that's all. An' so we've cut the rope we was hung up
with.
JAEGER
And we was in our right! [_Holding his fist in front of the old man's
face_.] Say another word, and I'll give you one between the eyes.
BECKER
Come, now, Jaeger, be quiet. Let the old man alone.--What we say to
ourselves, father Hilse, is this: Better dead than begin the old life
again.
OLD HILSE
Have I not lived that life for sixty years an' more?
BECKER
That doesn't help us--there's _got_ to be a change.
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