Didst see a house below the hill,
Which the winds and the rains destroy?
'Twas then a farm where he did dwell,
And I remember it full well
When I was a growing boy.
And she was a poor parish girl
Who came up from the west;
From service hard she ran away,
And at that house in evil day,
Was taken in to rest.
The man he was a wicked man,
And an evil life he led;
Rage made his cheek grow deadly white,
And his gray eyes were large and light,
And in anger they grew red.
The man was bad, the mother worse,
Bad fruit of a bad stem;
"Twould make your hair to stand on end
If I should tell to you, my friend,
The things that were told of them!
Didst see an out-house, standing by?
The walls alone remain;
It was a stable then, but now
Its mossy roof has fallen through
All rotted by the rain.
The poor girl she had served with them
Some half-a-year or more,
When she was found hung up one day
Stiff as a corpse and cold as clay
Behind that stable door!
It is a wild and lonesome place,
No hut or house is near;
Should one meet a murderer there alone
'Twere vain to scream, and the dying groan
Would never reach mortal ear.
And there were strange reports about;
But still the coroner found
That she by her own hand had died,
And should buried be by the wayside,
And not in Christian ground.
This was the very place he chose,
Just where these four roads met,
And I was one among the throng
That hither followed them along,
I shall never the sight forget!
They carried her upon a board,
In the clothes in which she died;
I saw the cap blow off her head,
Her face was of a dark, dark red,
Her eyes were starting wide:
I think they could not have been closed
So widely did they strain.
I never saw so dreadful a sight,
And it often made me wake at night,
For I saw her face again.
They laid her here where four roads meet,
Beneath this very place.
The earth upon her corpse was prest,
This post is driven into her breast,
And a stone is on her face.
THE WELL OF ST. KEYNE.
I know not whether it be worth reporting, that there is in Cornwall, near the parish of St. Neots, a well arched over with the robes of four kinds of trees, withy, oak, elm, and ash, dedicated to St. Keyne. The reported virtue of the water is this, that whether husband or wife come first to drink thereof, they get the mastery thereby.-Fuller.
A WELL there is in the west-country,
And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a wife in the west-country
But has heard of the well of St. Keyne.
An oak and an elm tree stand beside,
And behind does an ash tree grow,
And a willow from the bank above
Droops to the water below.
A traveller came to the well of St. Keyne;
Pleasant it was to his eye,
For from cock-crow he had been travelling
And there was not a cloud in the sky.
He drank of the water so cool and clear,
For thirsty and hot was he,
And he sat down upon the bank,
Under the willow tree.
There came a man from the neighbouring town
At the well to fill his pail,
On the well-side he rested it,
And bade the stranger hail.
Now art thou a bachelor, stranger? quoth he,
For an if thou hast a wife,
The happiest draught thou hast drank this day
That ever thou didst in thy life.
Or has your good woman, if one you have,
In Cornwall ever been?
For an if she have, I'll venture life
She has drank of the well of St. Keyne.
I have left a good woman who never was here,
The stranger he made reply;
But that my draught should be better for that, I pray you answer me why.
St. Keyne, quoth the countryman, many a time
Drank of this crystal well,
And before the angel summoned her
She laid on the water a spell.
If the husband of this gifted well
Shall drink before his wife,
A happy man thenceforth is he,
For he shall be master for life.
But if the wife should drink of it first,
God help the husband then!
The stranger stoop'd to the well of St. Keyne,
And drank of the waters again.
You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes ?
He to the countryman said.
But the countryman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head.
I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch.
But i'faith she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church.
The story of the Pious Painter is related in the Fabliaux of Le Grand.
THERE once was a painter in Catholic days,
Like Job, who eschewed all evil;
Still on his Madonnas the curious may gaze
With applause and with pleasure, but chiefly his praise
And delight was in painting the devil.
They were angels, compared to the devils he drew,
Who besieged poor St. Anthony's cell;
Such burning hot eyes, such a damnable hue!
You could even smell brimstone, their breath was so blue,
He painted the devil so well.
And now had the artist a picture begun,
'Twas over the Virgin's church door;
She stood on the dragon embracing her son,
Many devils already the artist had done,
But this must out-do all before.
The old dragon's imps, as they fled through the air,
At seeing it paused on the wing,
For he had the likeness so just to a hair,
That they came as Apollyon himself had been there,
Every child at beholding it, shivered with dread,
And scream'd as he turn'd away quick.
Not an old woman saw it, but raising her head,
Dropt a bead, made a cross on her wrinkles, and said,
God keep me from ugly Old Nick!
What the painter so earnestly thought on by day,
He sometimes would dream of by night;
But once he was startled, as sleeping he lay,
'Twas no fancy, no dream, he could plainly survey
That the devil himself was in sight.
You rascally dauber! old Beelzebub cries,
Take heed how you wrong me again!
Though your caricatures for myself I despise,
Make me handsomer now in the multitude's eyes,
Or see if I threaten in vain!
Now the painter was bold, and religious beside,
And on faith he had certain reliance;
So earnestly he all his countenance eyed,
And thank'd him for sitting, with Catholic pride,
And sturdily bade him defiance.
Betimes in the morning the painter arose,
He is ready as soon as 'tis light.
Every look, every line, every feature he knows,
'Tis fresh in his eye, to his labours he goes,
And he has the old Wicked One quite.
Happy man! he is sure the resemblance can't fail,
The tip of the nose is red hot,
There's his grin and his fangs, his skin cover'd with scale,
And that the identical curl of his tail
Not a mark, not a claw is forgot.
He looks and retouches again with delight,
'Tis a portrait complete to his mind!
He touches again, and again feeds his sight,
He looks round for applause, and he sees with affright,
The original standing behind.
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