He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch: no need of a warning twice! His own neck free, but his partner's fast in the noose still, here she stands To pay for her fault. 'Tis an ugly job: but soldiers obey commands. "And hearken wherefore I make a speech! Should any acquaintance share The folly that led to the fault that is now to be punished, let fools beware! Look black, if you please, but keep hands white: and above all else, keep wives 70 Or sweethearts or what they may be-from ink! Not a word now, on your lives!" Black? but the Pit's own pitch was white to the Captain's face-the brute With the bloated cheeks and the bulgy nose and the bloodshot eyes to suit! 75 He was muddled with wine, they say: more like, he was out of his wits with fear; He had but a handful of men, that's true,-8 riot might cost him dear. And all that time stood Rosamund Page, with pinioned arms and face Bandaged about, on the turf marked out for the party's firing-place. I hope she was wholly with God: I hope 'twa His angel stretched a hand To steady her so, like the shape of stone you see in our church-aisle stand. "Why did you leave me to die?"-"Be Oh, fiends, too soon you grin At merely a moment of hell, like that such heaven as hell ended in! Let mine end too! He gave the word, up went the guns in a line. 85 Those heaped on the hill were blind as dumb,for, of all eyes, only mine Looked over the heads of the foremost rank. That was myself, who had stolen up last, had sidled behind the group: I am highest of all on the hill-top, there stand fixed while the others stoop! From head to foot in a serpent's twine am I tightened: I touch ground? No more than a gibbet's rigid corpse which the fetters rust around! Can I speak, can I breathe, can I burst-aught else but see, see, only see? And see I do-for there comes in sight-a mar, it sure must be!— Who staggeringly, stumblingly, rises, falk rises, at random flings his weight 95 110 Her in the body and him in the soul. They laugh at our plighted troth. "Till death us do part?" Till death us do join past parting-that sounds like: Betrothal indeed! O Vincent Parkes, what need has my fist to strike? I helped you: thus were you dead and wed: one bound and your soul reached hers! There is clenched in your hand the thing, signed, sealed, the paper which plain avers She is innocent, innocent, plain as print, with the King's Arms broad engraved: No one can hear, but if any one high on the hill can see, she's saved! 115 And at length when he wrung their pardon out, no end to the stupid forms The license and leave: I make no doubt-what wonder if passion warms The pulse in a man if you play with his heart?— he was something hasty in speech; Anyhow, none would quicken the work; he had to beseech, beseech! And the thing once signed, sealed, safe in his grasp,-what followed but fresh delays? For the floods were out, he was forced to take such a roundabout of ways! 126 And 'twas "Halt there!" at every turn of the road, since he had to cross the thick Of the red-coats: what did they care for him and his "Quick, for God's sake, quick!" Horse? but he had one: had it how long? till the first knave smirked "You brag 130 Yourself a friend of the King's? then lend to a With their "Wait you must-no help: if aught can help you, a guinea will!" Jeer at the fool and jibe at the coward! 'Twas ever the coward's curse: That fear breeds fancies in such: such take their shadow for substance still, -A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes,loved Vincent, if you will! And her why, I said "Good morrow" to her, "Good even," and nothing more: The neighborly way! She was just to me as fifty had been before. 150 So, coward it is and coward shall be! There's a friend, now! Thanks! A drink Of water I wanted: and now I can walk, get home by myself, I think. CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON 5 Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint To meet the flints? At least it may be said, |