"'Twas mist and rain, and storm and rain: And then the wind! in sooth,1 it was I looked around, I thought I saw A jutting crag,—and off I ran, Head-foremost, through the driving rain, And, as I am a man, Instead of jutting crag, I found XVIII "I did not speak-I saw her face; And there she sits, until the moon Through half the clear blue sky will go ; The waters of the pond to shake, As all the country know, 1 1845. She shudders, and you hear her cry, 'Oh misery! oh misery!'" 170 175 180 185 190 195 The edition of 1815 returns to the text of 1798. XIX "But what's the Thorn? and what the pond? And what the creeping breeze that comes 1 “I cannot tell; but some will say 200 She hanged her baby on the tree; Some say she drowned it in the pond, 205 But all and each agree, The little Babe was buried there, Beneath that hill of moss so fair. XX “I've heard, the moss is spotted red 2 I do not think she could! Some say, if to the pond you go, The shadow of a babe you trace, Whene'er you look on it, 'tis plain XXI "And some had sworn an oath that she 210 215 220 1 But instantly the hill of moss The grass-it shook upon the ground! The little Babe lies 3 buried there, Beneath that hill of moss so fair. 225 230 235 By day, and in the silent night, When all the stars shone clear and bright, 'Oh misery! oh misery! Oh woe is me! oh misery!'" 240 Compare The Heart of Midlothian (vol. iii. chap. v. edition of 1818). "Are ye sure ye ken the way ye are taking us?" said Jeanie, who began to imagine that she was getting deeper into the woods, and more remote from the highroad. "Do I ken the road? Wasna I mony a day living here, and what for shouldna I ken the road? I might hae forgotten, too, for it was afore my accident; but there are some things ane can never forget, let them try it as muckle as they like." By this time they had gained the deepest part of a patch of woodland. The trees were a little separated from each other, and at the foot of one of them, a beautiful poplar, was a hillock of moss, such as the poet of Grasmere has described in the motto to our chapter. So soon as she arrived at this spot, Madge Wildfire, joining her hands above her head, with a loud scream that resembled laughter, flung herself all at once upon the spot, and remained there lying motionless. Jeanie's first idea was to take the opportunity of flight; but her desire to escape yielded for a moment to apprehension for the poor insane being, who, she thought, might perish for want of relief. With an effort, which, in her circumstances, might be termed heroic, she stooped down, spoke in a soothing tone, and tried to raise up the forlorn creature. She effected this with difficulty, and as she placed her against the tree in a sitting posture, she observed with surprise, that her complexion, usually florid, was now deadly pale, and that her face was bathed in tears. Notwithstanding her own extreme danger, Jeanie was affected by the situation of her companion; and the rather that, through the whole train of her wavering and inconsistent state of mind and line of conduct, she discerned a general colour of kindness towards herself, for which she felt gratitude. "Let me alane !-let me alane!" said the poor young woman, as her paroxysm of sorrow began to abate. "Let me alane; it does me good to weep. I canna shed tears but maybe anes or twice a-year, and I aye come to wet this turf with them, that the flowers may grow fair, and the grass may be green. "But what is the matter with you?" said Jeanie. "Why do you weep so bitterly?" "There's matter enow," replied the lunatic; "mair than ae puir mind can bear, I trow. Stay a bit, and I'll tell you a' about it; for I like ye, Jeanie Deans; a'body spoke weel about ye when we lived in the Pleasaunts. And I mind aye the drink o' milk ye gae me yon day, when I had been on Arthur's Seat for four-and-twenty hours, looking for the ship that somebody was sailing in."--ED. GOODY BLAKE AND HARRY GILL A TRUE STORY Composed 1798.-Published 1798 [Written at Alfoxden. The incident from Dr. Darwin's Zoonomia.-I. F.] See Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia, vol. iv. pp. 68-69, ed. 1801. It is the story of a man named Tullis, narrated by an Italian, Signor L. Storgosi, in a work called Il Narratore Italiano. "I received good information of the truth of the following case, which was published a few years ago in the newspapers. A young farmer in Warwickshire, finding his hedges broke, and the sticks carried away during a frosty season, determined to watch for the thief. He lay many cold hours under a haystack, and at length an old woman, like a witch in a play, approached, and began to pull up the hedge; he waited till she had tied up her bundle of sticks, and was carrying them off, that he might convict her of the theft, and then springing from his concealment, he seized his prey with violent threats. After some altercation, in which her load was left upon the ground, she kneeled upon her bundle of sticks, and raising her arms to Heaven, beneath the bright moon then at the full, spoke to the farmer, already shivering with cold, Heaven grant that thou mayest never know again the blessing to be warm.' plained of cold all the next day, and wore an upper coat, and in a few days another, and in a fortnight took to his bed, always saying nothing made him warm; he covered himself with many blankets, and had a sieve over his face as he lay; and from this one insane idea he kept his bed above went years for fear of the cold air, till at length he died." 6 He com In the "Advertisement" to the first edition of " Lyrical Ballads," Wordsworth says, "The tale of Goody Blake and Harry Gill is founded on a well-authenticated fact which happened in Warwickshire." The following curious letter appeared in the Ipswich Magazine of April 1799:— |