A Trampwoman's Tragedy
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From Wynyard's Gap the livelong day,The livelong day,We beat afoot the northward wayWe had travelled times before.The sun-blaze burning on our backs,Our shoulders sticking to our packs,By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracksWe skirted sad Sedge-Moor. IIFull twenty miles we jaunted on,We jaunted on, —My fancy-man, and jeering John,And Mother Lee, and I.And, as the sun drew down to west,We climbed the toilsome Polden crest,And saw, of landskip sights the best,The inn that beamed thereby. IIIFor months we had padded side by side,Ay, side by sideThrough the Great Forest, Blackmoor wide,And where the Parret ran.We'd faced the gusts on Mendip ridge,Had crossed the Yeo unhelped by bridge,Been stung by every Marshwood midge,I and my fancy-man. IVLone inns we loved, my man and I,My man and I;'King's Stag', 'Windwhistle' high and dry,'The Horse' on Hintock Green,The cosy house at Wynyard's Gap,'The Hut', renowned on Bredy Knap,And many another wayside tapWhere folk might sit unseen. VO deadly day,O deadly day! —I teased my fancy man in playAnd wanton idleness.I walked alongside jeering John,I laid his hand my waist upon;I would not bend my glances onMy lover's dark distress. VIThus Poldon top at last we won,At last we won,And gained the inn at sink of sunFar-famed as 'Marshal's Elm'.Beneath us figured tor and lea,From Mendip to the western sea —I doubt if any finer sight there beWithin this royal realm. VIIInside the settle all a-row —All four a-rowWe sat, I next to John, to showThat he had wooed and won.And then he took me on his knee,And swore it was his turn to beMy favoured mate, and Mother LeePassed to my former one. VIIIThen in a voice I had never heard,I had never heard,My only love to me: 'One word,My lady, if you please!Whose is the child you are like to bear? —His? After all my months o' care?'Gods knows 'twas not! But, O despair!I nodded — still to tease. IXThen he sprung, and with his knife —And with his knife,He let out jeering Johnny's life,Yes; there at set of sun.The slant ray through the window nighGilded John's blood and glazing eye,Ere scarcely Mother Lee and IKnew that the deed was done. XThe taverns tell the gloomy tale,The gloomy tale,How that at Ivel-Chester jailMy love, my sweetheart swung;Though stained till now by no misdeedSave one horse ta'en in time of need;(Blue Jimmy stole right many a steedEre his last fling he flung.) XIThereaft I walked the world aloneAlone, alone!On his death-day I gave my groanAnd dropt his dead-born child.'Twas nigh the jail, beneath a tree,None tending me; for Mother LeeHad died at Glaston, leaving meUnfriended on the wild. XIIAnd in the night as I lay weak,As I lay weak,The leaves a-falling on my cheek,The red moon low declined —The ghost of him I'd die to kissRose up and said: 'Ah, tell me this!Was the child mine, or was it his?Speak, that I my rest may find!' XIIIO doubt but I told him then,I told him then,That I had kept me from all menSince we joined lips and swore.Whereat he smiled, and thinned awayAs the wind stirred to call up day...— 'Tis past! And here alone I strayHaunting the Western Moor.
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