...

But you 've heard all my stories... Let me see, Did I never tell you how the smuggler murder'd The woman down at Pill?

HARRY.

No.. never! never!

GRANDMOTHER.

Not how he cut her head off in the stable?

HARRY.

Oh... now!... do tell us that!

GRANDMOTHER.

You must have heard

Your mother, children! often tell of her.

She used to weed in the garden here, and worm Your uncle's dogs*, and serve the house with coal; And glad enough she was in winter time

To drive her asses here! It was cold work

To follow the slow beasts through sleet and snow;
And here she found a comfortable meal

And a brave fire to thaw her, for poor Moll
Was always welcome.

HARRY.

Oh! 't was blear-eyed Moll The collier woman,.. a great ugly woman;

I've heard of her.

* I know not whether this cruel and stupid custom is common in other parts of England. It is supposed to prevent the dogs from doing any mischief, should they afterwards become mad.

GRANDMOTHER.

Ugly enough, poor soul!
At ten yards' distance you could hardly tell
If it were man or woman, for her voice

Was rough as our old mastiff's, and she wore
A man's old coat and hat:.. and then her face!

There was a merry story told of her,

How when the press-gang came to take her husband
As they were both in bed, she heard them coming,
Drest John up in her night-cap, and herself
Put on his clothes and went before the captain.

JANE.

And so they prest a woman!

GRANDMOTHER.

'T was a trick

She dearly loved to tell; and all the country
Soon knew the jest, for she was used to travel
For miles around. All weathers and all hours
She cross'd the hill, as hardy as her beasts,
Bearing the wind and rain and drifting snow.
And if she did not reach her home at night,
She laid her down in the stable with her asses,
And slept as sound as they did.

HARRY.

With her asses!

GRANDMOTHER.

Yes; and she loved her beasts. For though, poor wretch,

She was a terrible reprobate, and swore

Like any trooper, she was always good

To the dumb creatures; never loaded them
Beyond their strength; and rather, I believe,
Would stint herself than let the poor beasts want,
Because, she said, they could not ask for food.
I never saw her stick fall heavier on them

Than just with its own weight. She little thought
This tender-heartedness would cause her death!
There was a fellow who had oftentimes,

As if he took delight in cruelty,

Ill-used her beasts. He was a man who lived
By smuggling, and, .. for she had often met him,
Crossing the down at night,.. she threaten'd him,
If ever he abused them more, to inform

Of his unlawful ways. Well.. so it was..
'Twas what they both were born to! he provoked her :
She laid an information; and one morning

They found her in the stable, her throat cut
From ear to ear, till the head only hung
Just by a bit of skin.

JANE.

Oh dear! oh dear!

HARRY.

I hope they hung the man!

GRANDMOTHER.

They took him up;

There was no proof, no one had seen the deed,

And he was set at liberty. But God,

Whose eye beholdeth all things, He had seen

The murder; and the murderer knew that God
Was witness to his crime. He fled the place, ..
But nowhere could he fly the avenging hand
Of Heaven,..but nowhere could the murderer rest;..
A guilty conscience haunted him; by day,
By night, in company, in solitude,

Restless and wretched, did he bear upon him
The weight of blood. Her cries were in his ears;
Her stifled groans, as when he knelt upon her,
Always he heard; always he saw her stand
Before his eyes; even in the dead of night
Distinctly seen as though in the broad sun,
She stood beside the murderer's bed, and yawn'd
Her ghastly wound; till life itself became
A punishment at last he could not bear,
And he confess'd it all, and gave himself
To death; so terrible, he said, it was
To have a guilty conscience!

HARRY.

Was he hung, then?

GRANDMOTHER.

Hung and anatomized. Poor wretched man,
Your uncles went to see him on his trial;
He was so pale, so thin, so hollow-eyed,
And such a horror in his meagre face,

They said he look'd like one who never slept.
He begg'd the prayers of all who saw his end,
And met his death with fears that well might warn
From guilt, though not without a hope in Christ.

Westbury, 1798.

III.

HANNAH.

PASSING across a green and lonely lane
A funeral met our view. It was not here
A sight of every day, as in the streets
Of some great city, and we stopt and ask'd
Whom they were bearing to the grave.
A girl,
They answer'd, of the village, who had pined
Through the long course of eighteen painful months
With such slow wasting, that the hour of death
Came welcome to her We pursued our way
To the house of mirth, and with that idle talk
Which passes o'er the mind and is forgot,
We wore away the time. But it was eve
When homewardly I went, and in the air
Was that cool freshness, that discolouring shade
Which makes the eye turn inward: hearing then
Over the vale the heavy toll of death

Sound slow, it made me think upon the dead;
I question'd more, and learnt her mournful tale.

She bore unhusbanded a mother's pains, And he who should have cherish'd her, far off Sail'd on the seas. Left thus, a wretched one, Scorn made a mock of her, and evil tongues Were busy with her name. She had to bear The sharper sorrow of neglect from him Whom she had loved too dearly. Once he wrote But only once that drop of comfort came To mingle with her cup of wretchedness;