MSTed: Return of the Native, Ch. 3, Part 2

[Jess Nevins]

Mike: A propensity for crepe?

neigbbour Fairway, that age will cure."

"I heard that they were coming home tonight.

Tom: Jon Voight and Jane Fonda in Coming Home 2: The Final
Destruction of Jared Zin.

By this time they must have come.

Crow: On a wedding night? Oh, yeah.

What besides?"

"The next thing is for us to go and wish 'em joy, I suppose?"

"Well, no."

Mike (Cantle voice): Fairway, you bitch.

"No? Now, I thought we must. I must, or 'twould be very unlike me--the
first in every spree that's going!

"Do thou' put on' a fri'-ar's coat',
And I'll' put on' a-no'-ther,
And we' will to' Queen Ele'anor go',
Like Fri'ar and' his bro'ther.

Tom (Timothy voice): Is this man's nurse anywhere near?

I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt,

Crow (Timothy): Oh yeah? Well, I knew the bride when she used to
rock and roll!

last night, and she told me that her son Clym was coming home a'
Christmas. Wonderful clever, 'a believe--ah, I should like to have all
that's
under that young man's hair.

Mike: What, his scalp?
Tom: Did the scene somehow shift to the Iroquois Nation while I
wasn't looking?

Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry way, and she said,

Tom (old lady voice): Go to bed, old man!

'O that what's shaped so venerable should talk like a fool!'--

Crow: Go, woman! Speak it! Testify!

that's what she said to me. I don't care for her, be jowned if I do,
and so I
told her. 'Be jowned if I care for 'ee,' I said. I had her there--hey?"

Mike (old man voice): Hey, don't go away! I'm not done with my
story yet!

"I rather think she had you," said Fairway.

Tom: Agreed.

"No," said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging. "'Tisn't
so
bad as that with me?"

Crow: Yes, actually, it is.

"Seemingly 'tis, however, is it because of the wedding that Clym is
coming
home a' Christmas--to make a new arrangement because his mother is now
left in the house alone?"

Tom: Which house - of mirth or the one with seven gables?
Crow: There's no mirth here, so it must be the seven gables, then.
Tom: And all seven of them don't give a damn, my dear.

"Yes, yes--that's it. But, Timothy, hearken to me," said the Grandfer
earnestly. "Though known as such a joker,

Mike (Grandfer voice): I'm also a smoker and a midnight toker.

I be an understanding man if you catch me serious, and I am serious now.

Tom (Grandfer voice): I wet `em.

I can tell 'ee lots about the married couple.

Crow (Grandfer voice): Thanks to the camera & microphone I set
up in the honeymoon suite.

Yes, this morning at six o'clock they went up the country to do the job,

Mike: Never has the act of love been so beautifully expressed.

and neither vell nor mark have been seen of 'em since, though I reckon
that
this afternoon has brought 'em home again man and woman--wife, that is.

Tom (Grandpa Simpson voice): With an onion tied to their belts,
which is the fashion of the time....

Isn't it spoke like a man, Timothy, and wasn't Mis'ess Yeobright wrong
about me?"

Crow (Timothy voice): Yes - you aren't that well shaped.

"Yes, it will do. I didn't know the two had walked together since last
fall,

Mike (Mike Myers voice): Lothar of the Hill People has walked
with many women since last fall!

when her aunt forbad the banns.

Tom: Then how does she drive in Germany?
Crow: Horribly - ha!

How long has this new set-to been in mangling then? Do you know,
Humphrey?"

Crow: It's Bogart! Bogart's here!
Mike and Tom imitate audience cheering sounds.

"Yes, how long?"

Mike (Terry Jones voice): That's a rather personal question, sir!

said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise turning to Humphrey. "I ask that
question."

"Ever since her aunt altered her mind,

Tom: Scanners, by Jane Austen.
Crow: Based on a screenplay by Charlotte Bronte and Brian De Palma.

and said she might have the man after all," replied Humphrey, without
removing his eyes from the fire. He was a somewhat solemn young fellow,
and carried the hook and leather gloves of a furze-cutter,

Crow: Furze-cutter? I loved him as the bad guy in _Mad Max_.

his legs, by reason of that occupation, being sheathed in bulging
leggings as
stiff as the Philistine's greaves of brass.

Mike: Greaves of Brass was by Walt Whitman, not some guy
named Phil!

"That's why they went away to be married, I count. You see, after
kicking
up such a nunny-watch and forbidding the banns 'twould have made Mis'ess
Yeobright seem foolish-like to have a banging wedding

Tom, Mike and Crow audibly clear their throats.

in the same parish all as if she'd never gainsaid it."

"Exactly--seem foolish-like; and that's very bad for the poor things
that be
so, though I only guess as much, to be sure," said Grandfer Cantle,
still
strenuously preserving a sensible bearing and mien.

Tom: There's nothing sensible about the Fibonacci Series.
Mike: Not the Golden Mean, Tom, the Sensible Mien.
Tom: So he's not talking about 1:1.618?

"Ah, well, I was at church that day," said Fairway, "which was a very
curious thing to happen."

Crow (Fairway voice): Me being the Antichrist and all.

"If 'twasn't my name's Simple,"

Mike (Sean Connery voice): The name's Simple. Aimee Simple
MacPherson. I take my religions shaken, not stirred.

said the Grandfer emphatically. "I ha'n't been there to-year; and now
the
winter is a-coming on I won't say I shall."

"I ha'n't been these three years," said Humphrey; "for I'm so dead
sleepy of
a Sunday; and 'tis so terrible far to get there; and when you do get
there
'tis such a mortal poor chance that you'll be chose for up above, when
so many
bain't, that I bide at home and don't go at all."

Tom: Mike, will you kill me now?
Crow: Yeah, kill me too, Mike!

"I not only happened to be there," said Fairway, with a fresh collection
of
emphasis, "but I was sitting in the same pew as Mis'ess Yeobright. And
though you may not see it as such, it fairly made my blood run cold to
hear
her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but it made my blood run cold, for I
was
close at her elbow."

Crow (Fairway voice): And man, does she reek!

The speaker looked round upon the bystanders, now drawing closer to hear
him, with his lips gathered tighter than ever in the rigorousness of his
descriptive moderation.

Mike: So he looked like a constipated George Bush?
Tom: You mean, he looked like George Bush?
Mike: Ba-da-bing!

"Tis a serious job to have things happen to 'ee there," said a woman
behind.

Tom: As opposed to the male behinds, which rarely talk.

"'Ye are to declare it,' was the parson's words," Fairway continued.
"And
then up stood a woman at my side--a-touching of me.

Crow (Fairway voice): And I need not tell you that *that's* never
happened before.

'Well, be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I said
to
myself.

Mike (Fairway voice): And sober, too!

Yes, neighbours, though I was in the temple of prayer that's what I
said.

Tom (Fairway): And _then_ I said, "Motherf--"
Mike puts his hand over Tom's mouth. "That'll do, Tom."

'Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in company, and I hope any
woman here will overlook it. Still what I did say I did say, and
'twould be
a lie if I didn't own it."

"So 'twould, neighbour Fairway."

Crow: How many strokes do you think Fairway takes?
Mike: I really don't want to know, Crow.

"'Be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I said,"
the
narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the same passionless
severity of face as before, which proved how entirely necessity and not
gusto had to do with the iteration.

Mike: Well, sure, that proves...huh?

"And the next thing I heard was, 'I forbid the banns,'

Tom: Spoken like an anti-agriculture Kennedy.

from her. 'I'll speak to you after the service,' said the parson, in
quite a
homely way--yes, turning all at once into a common man no holier than
you
or I. Ah, her face was pale! Maybe you can call to mind that monument in
Weatherbury church--

Crow (Fairway voice): The one we got from India, with the houris
with the big--
Mike: Crow, I'm not gonna warn you again.
Crow: Oh, bite me, Nelson.

the cross-legged soldier that have had his arm knocked away by the
schoolchildren? Well, he would about have matched that woman's face,
when she said, 'I forbid the banns.'"

The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the
fire, not
because these deeds were urgent, but to

Mike: Try to make Fairway think he's being ignored, so he'll go
away.

give themselves time to weigh the moral of the story.

Tom: What, that mothers are against marrying for love? What kind
of a moral is that?

"I'm sure when I heard they'd been forbid I felt as glad as if anybody
had
gied me sixpence," said an earnest voice--that of Olly Dowden,

Crow: Oily Darden? Wasn't he part of the Simpson case?

a woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms.

Mike: You can earn a living by making bosoms? Do Czaplinski and
Singman know about this?

Her nature was to be civil to enemies as well as to friends, and
grateful to
all the world for letting her remain alive.

Tom: The world might snickersnag on her a lot, and make her run
around naked, but at least it let her live.

"And now the maid have married him just the same," said Humphrey.

Crow (Bogart voice): See, the maid must have found the
strawberries....

"After that Mis'ess Yeobright came round

Mike: To Joe's Garage?
Tom: Yup - she was off to Montana to be a rubber band tycoon.

and was quite agreeable," Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to
show
that his words were no appendage to Humphrey's, but the result of

Tom: Centuries of inbreeding by the British.

independent reflection.

"Supposing they were ashamed,

Crow (commercial voice): And suppose someone brought you
some beer - wouldn't that be great?

I don't see why they shouldn't have done it here-right,"

Mike: A sense of decency?
Tom: Mike, this is the British we're talking about.
Mike: Oh, yeah.

said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked like shoes whenever she
stooped or turned.

Tom: Wasn't she the German woman in _Bagdad Cafe_?

"'Tis well to call the neighbours together and to hae a good racket once
now
and then; and it may as well be when there's a wedding as at
tide-times. I don't care for close ways."

Crow: She probably can't fit through them.

"Ah, now, you'd hardly believe it, but I don't care for gay weddings,"

Mike: Oh, but Martin Mull and Fred Willard looked so cute on that
episode of Roseanne!

said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round. "I hardly blame
Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet,

Tom: Wildeve, for when the British don't feel so fresh?

if I must own it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by
the hour;

Crow: This is a euphemism with which I'm not familiar.

and they do a man's legs no good when he's over forty."

"True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay to being one in
a
jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself worth
your
victuals."

Mike: He's not speaking from experience, is he?

"You be bound to dance at Christmas because

Tom: There's nothing else to do during midnight Mass.

'tis the time o' year; you must dance at weddings because

Crow: The liquor tells you to.

'tis the time o' life. At christenings folk will even

Mike: Dropkick the baby, they're so drunk!

smuggle in a reel or two, if 'tis no further on than the first or second
chiel.
And this is not naming the songs you've got to sing....

Tom (Cantle voice): Kids these days - the songs they sing! And the
groups - Red Hot Pearl Nirvana...I just don't know...

For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything.

Crow (Fairway voice): Especially when you get to cook and eat the
dead guy.

You've as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties, and even
better.
And it don't wear your legs to stumps

Mike (Fairway voice): You do that to the other guy.

in talking over a poor fellow's ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes."

"Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far to dance then, I
suppose?" suggested Grandfer Cantle.

Tom (Cantle voice, muttering): I'll dance at *your* funeral,
Fairway...

"'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the mug
have
been round a few times."

Crow (Fairway voice): But I can quit drinking any time I want to.

"Well, I can't understand a quiet ladylike little body like Tamsin
Yeobright
caring to be married in such a mean way," said Susan Nunsuch, the wide
woman, who preferred the original subject. "'Tis worse than the poorest
do.

Mike: And after all, flaunting your wealth is what a wedding is all
about.

And I shouldn't have cared about the man, though some may say he's
good-looking."

"To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his way--a'most as
clever as Clym Yeobright used to be.

Tom (Nunsuch voice): Before the accident with the sheep and the
leather truss, I mean.

He was brought up to better things than keeping the Quiet Woman.

Crow (lame comedian voice): Is such a thing even possible?

An engineer--that's what the man was, as we know;

Mike (Nunsuch voice): And therefore completely unsuitable for
love.

but he threw away his chance, and so 'a took a public house to live.
His
learning was no use to him at all."

Tom: He must have gone to State, then.

"Very often the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people
do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use to
make a
round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names now

Mike: And even write books named "Return of the Native."

without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot--what do
I
say?--why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows
upon."

Crow: Oh, how I long for the cast of _Deliverance_ or _Dawn Of
The Dead_ to make an appearance right now...

"True--'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to," said
Humphrey.

Mike: Well, John Paul *is* the Pope, after all.

"Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals

Tom: Came up with that name yourselves, did you?

(as we was called), in the year four," chimed in Grandfer Cantle
brightly, "I
didn't know no more what the world was like than the commonest man
among ye. And now, jown it all, I won't say what I bain't fit for,
hey?"

Crow (Nunsuch): You don't have to. We already know.

"Couldst sign the book, no doubt,"

Mike: But who would want an autographed copy of _Grandfer
Cantle's Erotic Memoirs_?

said Fairway, "if wast young enough to join hands with a woman again,
like
Wildeve and Mis'ess Tamsin, which is more than Humph there could do,

Tom: I think we all know what he's _really_ saying here.

for he follows his father in learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when
I
was married how I zid thy father's mark staring me in the face as I went
to
put down my name.