For there came a day when a ruffian crowd,

With stones, and bludgeons, and hootings loud,

Surrounded old Nanny’s hovel door,

Led on by a drunken brute, who swore,

In blasphemous oaths, and in language wild,

She had stolen a necklace from off his child.

Crouched in a corner, dumb with fear,

The old hag sat, with her grandchild near,

As the furious mob of boys and men,

Yelling, entered her dingy den.