Anything fallen again? nay--what was there left to fall? I have taken them home, I have numbered the bones, I have hidden them all. What am I saying? and what are _you_? do you come as a spy? Falls? what falls? who knows? As the tree falls so must it lie.
Who let her in? how long has she been? you--what have you heard? Why did you sit so quiet? you never have spoken a word. O--to pray with me--yes--a lady--none of their spies-- But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my eyes.
Ah--you, that have lived so soft, what should _you_ know of the night, The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the fright? I have done it, while you were asleep--you were only made for the day. I have gathered my baby together--and now you may go your way.
Nay--for it's kind of you, Madam, to sit by an old dying wife. But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life. I kissed my boy in the prison, before he went out to die. "They dared me to do it," he said, and he never has told me a lie. I whipt him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child-- "The farmer dared me to do it," he said; he was always so wild-- And idle--and couldn't be idle--my Willy--he never could rest. The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his best.
But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let him be good; They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that he would: And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was done He flung it among his fellows--I'll none of it, said my son.
I came into court to the Judge and the lawyers. I told them my tale, God's own truth--but they killed him, they killed him for robbing the mail. They hanged him in chains for a show--we had always borne a good name-- To be hanged for a thief--and then put away--isn't that enough shame? Dust to dust--low down--let us hide! but they set him so high That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by. God 'ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air, But not the black heart of the lawyer who killed him and hanged him there.
And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my last good-bye; They had fastened the door of his cell. "O mother!" I heard him cry. I couldn't get back tho' I tried, he had something further to say, And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away.