Part 5 (1/2)

'She sleeps: let us too, let all evil, sleep.

He also sleeps--another sleep than ours.

He can do no more wrong: forgive him, dear, And I shall sleep the sounder!'

Then the man, 'His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come.

Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: I do forgive him!'

'Thanks, my love,' she said, 'Your own will be the sweeter,' and they slept.

THE GRANDMOTHER.

THE GRANDMOTHER.

I.

And w.i.l.l.y, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne?

Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man.

And w.i.l.l.y's wife has written: she never was over-wise, Never the wife for w.i.l.l.y: he would n't take my advice.

II.

For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to save, Had n't a head to manage, and drank himself into his grave.

Pretty enough, very pretty! but I was against it for one.

Eh!--but he would n't hear me--and w.i.l.l.y, you say, is gone.

III.

w.i.l.l.y, my beauty, my eldest-born, the flower of the flock; Never a man could fling him: for w.i.l.l.y stood like a rock.

'Here's a leg for a babe of a week!' says doctor; and he would be bound, There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round.

IV.

Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue!

I ought to have gone before him: I wonder he went so young.

I cannot cry for him, Annie: I have not long to stay; Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away.

V.

Why do you look at me, Annie? you think I am hard and cold; But all my children have gone before me, I am so old: I cannot weep for w.i.l.l.y, nor can I weep for the rest; Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best.

VI.

For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my dear, All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear.

I mean your grandfather, Annie: it cost me a world of woe, Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago.

VII.

For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well That Jenny had tript in her time: I knew, but I would not tell.

And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar!

But the tongue is a fire as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire.

VIII.

And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.