I may be duplicating some of your comments on the latest bit of text but here are my thoughts.
First let me say, I have a tough time understanding the father's words. Lawrence writes in such an accent that it took me a while to get some of it, and I still may be wrong.
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'Ah,' went on the grey man. 'It wor our Alfred scared him off, back your life. He must'a flyed ower t'valley. Tha ma' thank thy stars as 'e wor fun, Maggie. 'E'd a bin froze.
Now the whole Alfred/Joey rivalry is interesting. I'm not sure we are given a rationale for it, but one can assume there is some sort of psychic drama being played. Some sort of unconscious hatred in Alfred that is being expressed. Otherwise why?
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They a bit nesh, you know,' he concluded to me.
"Nesh?" What is that supposed to say? I can't understand it.
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'No, it isna,' replied Mr. Goyte. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, quietly, as if the soft pedal were always down in his voice. He looked at his daughter-in-law as she crouched, flushed and dark, before the peacock, which would lay its long blue neck for a moment along her lap. In spite of his grey moustache and thin grey hair, the elderly man had a face young and almost delicate, like a young man's. His blue eyes twinkled with some inscrutable source of pleasure, his skin was fine and tender, his nose delicately arched. His grey hair being slightly ruffled, he had a debonair look, as of a youth who is in love.
That is a typical Lawrece hero who is comfortable with the world and sexuality. There are sexually loaded words throughout that passage: Maggie being "flushed and dark, before the peacock," and old man looking young and vital at the lady.
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'We mun tell 'im it's come,' he said slowly, and turning he called: 'Alfred--Alfred! Wheer's ter gotten to?'
Then he turned again to the group.
'Get up then, Maggie, lass, get up wi' thee. Tha ma'es too much o' th'bod.'
Very strange passage. "We mun tell 'im it's come"? What's he referring to? What's come? And he tells Maggie she makes too much of the bird. There's a lot being suggested there.
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A young man approached, wearing rough khaki and kneebreeches. He was Danish looking, broad at the loins.
Alfred's loins are constantly being highlighted. :D
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The son looked at me. He had a devil-may-care bearing, his cap on one side, his hands stuck in the front pockets of his breeches. But he said nothing.
Lots of Lawrentian characters are "devil-may-care." And again, emphasis on his crotch.
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'Tha'lt rouse thysen up a bit again, now, Maggie,' the father-in-law said--and then to me: ''ers not bin very bright sin' Alfred came whoam, an' the bod flyed awee. 'E come whoam a Wednesday night, Alfred did. But ay, you knowed, didna yer. Ay, 'e comed 'a Wednesday--an' I reckon there wor a bit of a to-do between 'em, worn't there, Maggie?'
He twinkled maliciously to his daughter-in-law, who was flushed, brilliant and handsome. 'Oh, be quiet, father. You're wound up, by the sound of you,' she said to him, as if crossly. But she could never be cross with him.
"A bit of to-do," another reference to sex, and maggie is flushed again. That's at least three times already lawrence has used that word in referring to her.
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''Ers got 'er colour back this mornin',' continued the father-in-law slowly. 'It's bin heavy weather wi' 'er this last two days. Ay--'er's bin northeast sin 'er seed you a Wednesday.'
Can someone translate that for me? I can't understand it.
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''E's got th' monkey on 'is back ower this letter job,' said the father secretly to me. 'Mother, 'er knows nowt about it. Lot o' tom-foolery, isn't it?
Ay! What's good o' makkin' a peck o' trouble over what's far enough off, an' ned niver come no nigher. No--not a smite o' use. That's what I tell 'er. 'Er should ta'e no notice on't. Ty, what can y' expect.'
Whatever it is he's saying, it's supposed to show the old man's wisdom.
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The mother came in again, and the talk became general. Maggie flashed her eyes at me from time to time, complacent and satisfied, moving among the men. I paid her little compliments, which she did not seem to hear. She attended to me with a kind of sinister, witch-like graciousness, her dark head ducked between her shoulders, at once humble and powerful. She was happy as a child attending to her father-in-law and to me. But there was something ominous between her eyebrows, as if a dark moth were settled there--and something ominous in her bent, hulking bearing.
Very interesting. I don't know what Lawrence is suggesting. Maggie has grown powerful here among the men
