Part II
They took her down our twisted stair,
Great their haste and scant their care,
And laid her by the stairfoot there.
Quick and short was their task in truth,
Yet might they, so meseems, in sooth
To threescore years have shown some ruth!
Murrough, they took to our Trysting Tree,
They hanged him there for all to see,
He, who had nursed me on his knee!
Jolt, jolt, jolt, across the plain,
They jolted us in wind and rain,
Those jolts still beat inside my brain!
With eyes uplifted to the sky,
Like some carved image did she lie,
Betimes I hoped that she might die!
The third night out there came a sound
Just as the dawn was stealing round,
I crept towards her o’er the ground.
Out i’ the straw she raised her head,
“Daughter, a priest!” was all she said,
Then lay again as she were dead.
Sound, sound asleep lay half a score,
I crept betwixt them, crossed the floor,
And shortly gained the outer door.
No snood, no shoe I stayed to snatch;
The lintel all but touched the thatch
As with great heed I raised the latch.
The plain spread all around me soon,
Swathed and dim as in a swoon,
To eastward slipped a young pale moon.
And close at hand a crooked lane
’Twixt low thatched roofs all wet with rain,
Nought else only the silent plain.
Four women. Was it fear or cold
Made them so tremble? I grew bold
And swiftly had mine errand told.
Three stared wild-eyed as at the dead,
The fourth rose up; no word she said—
She motioned to me with her head.
She led me on along the path
To where it crossed a low brown rath,
Then paused, and spake one word—“Soggarth!”
“Soggarth!” The word was like a spell,
Sainted and sweet like some church bell,
Lifting the soul to heaven from hell!
Rough were the stones and cold the ground,
As swift I climbed that low brown mound,
Then paused atop, and gazed around.
The rath spread round me brown and bare,
Only a few sparse thorns grew there,
No cross, no shrine, no sign of prayer.
Down to the earth like any stone
Sudden I fell, and lay there prone,
Heart-broken, desolate, alone!
And surely then I must have died,
But scoopèd in the rath I spied,
A low brown hole in its low brown side.
Brambles and briars, else was nought,
Toothed were the thorns as I strove and wrought,
With bleeding fingers toiled and fought.
Sudden they yielded, I espied,
A hole wherein a man might hide,
Tall stones there were on either side.
And straight my lips gave forth a cry,
“Help! Or unshriven she’ll surely die!”
There was no answer but a sigh.
Scooped in the great stone’s dripping face,
Three feet or less about its space—
A deep dark, awesome, noisome place.
Yet for a surety one lay there,
Wrapped in black weeds of coarsest wear.
My knees knocked, and I breathed a prayer.
A priest! Most old, most worn, most frail,
With lint-white hair, and visage pale.
I fell on my knees, and told my tale.
He listened with a pitying face,
“God’s hand,” he said, “in this I trace.
Lead, daughter, lead me to the place.”
I led him back across the rath,
The thorn-trees all but closed the path,
And once methought a sound—“Soggarth!”
I heeded not, and hurried by,
My soul afire lest she should die
Unshriven; help being now so nigh!
Cold and wide in open day
The plain spread under that narrow way,
We had all but reached the place where she lay—
When over me like a stream in flood,
There swept the thought that those men of blood
Would seize and slay him. So I stood.
And turning swiftly round I spake,
“Father, thy life they’ll surely take!
Turn back, turn back, for Jesu’s sake!”
He stood a moment silently,
Dimly he looked on earth and sky—
And said—“The times are good to die!”