Then I thought of the lives in peril, and what might have been their fate Had I sprung to the points that evening a tenth of a tick too late; And a cold and ghastly shiver ran icily through my frame As I fancied the public clamor, the trial, and bitter shame. I could see the bloody wreckage--I could see the mangled slain-- And the picture was seared for ever, blood-red, on my heated brain. That moment my nerve was shattered, for I couldn't shut out the thought Of the lives I held in my keeping, and the ruin that might be wrought.
That night in our little cottage, as I kissed our sleeping child, My wife looked up from her sewing, and told me, as she smiled, That Johnny had made his mind up--he'd be a pointsman, too. "He says when he's big, like daddy, he'll work in the box with you." I frowned, for my heart was heavy, and my wife she saw the look; Lord bless you! my little Alice could read me like a book. I'd to tell her of what had happened, and I said that I must leave, For a pointsman's arm ain't trusty when terror lurks in his sleeve.
But she cheered me up in a minute, and that night, ere we went to sleep, She made me give her a promise, which I swore that I'd always keep-- It was always to do my duty. "Do that, and then, come what will, You'll have no worry." said Alice, "if things go well or ill. There's something that always tells us the thing that we ought to do"-- My wife was a bit religious, and in with the chapel crew. But I knew she was talking reason, and I said to myself, says I, "I won't give in like a coward, it's a scare that'll soon go by."
Now, the very next day the missus had to go to the market town; She'd the Christmas things to see to, and she wanted to buy a gown. She'd be gone for a spell, for the Parley didn't come back till eight, And I knew, on a Christmas Eve, too, the trains would be extra late. So she settled to leave me Johnny, and then she could turn the key-- For she'd have some parcels to carry, and the boy would be safe with me. He was five, was our little Johnny, and quiet, and nice, and good-- He was mad to go with daddy, and I'd often promised he should.
It was noon when the missus started,--her train went by my box; She could see, as she passed my window, her darling's curly locks, I lifted him up to mammy, and he kissed his little hand, Then sat, like a mouse, in the corner, and thought it was fairyland. But somehow I fell a-thinking of a scene that would not fade, Of how I had slept on duty, until I grew afraid; For the thought would weigh upon me, one day I might come to lie In a felon's cell for the slaughter of those I had doomed to die.