Part 1 (2/2)

She had lived at Plaister's End a year or two; At Callow's cottage, renting half an acre; She was a hen-wife and a perfume-maker.

Secret she was; she lived in reputation; But secret unseen threads went floating out: Her smile, her voice, her face, were all temptation, All subtle flies to trouble man the trout; Man to entice, entrap, entangle, flout...

To take and spoil, and then to cast aside: Gain without giving was the craft she plied.

And she complained, poor lonely widowed soul, How no one cared, and men were rutters all; While true love is an ever-burning goal Burning the brighter as the shadows fall.

And all love's dogs went hunting at the call, Married or not she took them by the brain, Sucked at their hearts and tossed them back again.

Like the straw fires lit on Saint John's Eve, She burned and dwindled in her fickle heart; For if she wept when Harry took his leave, Her tears were lures to beckon Bob to start.

And if, while loving Bob, a tinker's cart Came by, she opened window with a smile And gave the tinker hints to wait a while.

She pa.s.sed for pure; but, years before, in Wales, Living at Mountain Ash with different men, Her less discretion had inspired tales Of certain things she did, and how, and when.

Those seven years of youth; we are frantic then.

She had been frantic in her years of youth, The tales were not more evil than the truth.

She had two children as the fruits of trade Though she drank bitter herbs to kill the curse, Both of them sons, and one she overlaid, The other one the parish had to nurse.

Now she grew plump with money in her purse, Pa.s.sing for pure a hundred miles, I guess, From where her little son wore workhouse dress.

There with the Union boys he came and went, A parish b.a.s.t.a.r.d fed on bread and tea, Wearing a bright tin badge in furthest Gwent, And no one knowing who his folk could be.

His mother never knew his new name: she,-- She touched the l.u.s.t of those who served her turn, And chief among her men was Shepherd Ern.

A moody, treacherous man of bawdy mind, Married to that mild girl from Ercall Hill, Whose gentle goodness made him more inclined To hotter sauces sharper on the bill.

The new l.u.s.t gives the lecher the new thrill, The new wine scratches as it slips the throat, The new flag is so bright by the old boat.

Ern was her man to buy her bread and meat, Half of his weekly wage was hers to spend, She used to mock 'How is your wife, my sweet?'

Or wail, 'O, Ernie, how is this to end?'

Or coo, 'My Ernie is without a friend, She cannot understand my precious life,'

And Ernie would go home and beat his wife.

So the four souls are ranged, the chess-board set, The dark, invisible hand of secret Fate Brought it to come to being that they met After so many years of lying in wait.

While we least think it he prepares his Mate.

Mate, and the King's p.a.w.n played, it never ceases Though all the earth is dust of taken pieces.

II

October Fair-time is the time for fun, For all the street is hurdled into rows Of pens of heifers blinking at the sun, And Lemster sheep which pant and seem to doze, And stalls of hardbake and galanty shows, And cheapjacks smas.h.i.+ng crocks, and trumpets blowing, And the loud organ of the horses going.

There you can buy blue ribbons for your girl Or take her in a swing-boat tossing high, Or hold her fast when all the horses whirl Round to the steam pipe whanging at the sky, Or stand her c.o.c.ks.h.i.+es at the cocoa-shy, Or buy her brooches with her name in red, Or Queen Victoria done in gingerbread.

Then there are rifle shots at tossing b.a.l.l.s, 'And if you hit you get a good cigar.'

And strength-whackers for lads to lamm with mauls, And Ches.h.i.+re cheeses on a greasy spar.

The country folk flock in from near and far, Women and men, like blow-flies to the roast, All love the fair; but Anna loved it most.

Anna was all agog to see the fair; She made Ern promise to be there to meet her, To arm her round to all the pleasures there, And buy her ribbons for her neck, and treat her, So that no woman at the fair should beat her In having pleasure at a man's expense.

She planned to meet him at the chapel fence.

<script>