It made me angry to see his face,
It had such a jesting look;
But while I made up my mind to speak,
A small case-bottle he took:
Quoth he, “though I gather the green water-cress
My drink is not of the brook!”
Full manners-like he tender’d the dram;
Oh, it came of a dainty cask!
But, whenever it came to his turn to pull,
“Your leave, good Sir, I must ask;
But I always wipe the brim with my sleeve,
When a hangman sups at my flask!”
And then he laugh’d so loudly and long,
The churl was quite out of breath;
I thought the very Old One was come
To mock me before my death,
And wish’d I had buried the dead men’s bones
That were lying about the heath!
But the beggar gave me a jolly clap—
“Come, let us pledge each other,
For all the wide world is dead beside,
And we are brother and brother—
I’ve a yearning for thee in my heart,
As if we had come of one mother.
“I’ve a yearning for thee in my heart
That almost makes me weep,
For as I pass’d from town to town
The folks were all stone-asleep,—
But when I saw thee sitting aloft,
It made me both laugh and leap!”
Now a curse (I thought) be on his love,
And a curse upon his mirth,—
An’ it were not for that beggar man
I’d be the King of the earth,—
But I promis’d myself an hour should come
To make him rue his birth—
So down we sat and bous’d again
Till the sun was in mid-sky,
When, just as the gentle west-wind came,
We hearken’d a dismal cry;
“Up, up, on the tree,” quoth the beggar man,
“Till these horrible dogs go by!”
And, lo! from the forest’s far off skirts,
They came all yelling for gore,
A hundred hounds pursuing at once,
And a panting hart before,
Till he sunk adown at the gallows’ foot,
And there his haunches they tore!
His haunches they tore, without a horn
To tell when the chase was done;
And there was not a single scarlet coat
To flaunt it in the sun!—
I turn’d, and look’d at the beggar man,
And his tears dropt one by one!
And with curses sore he chid at the hounds
Till the last dropt out of sight,
Anon, saith he, “let’s down again,
And ramble for our delight,
For the world’s all free, and we may choose
A right cozie barn for to-night!”