Page:A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (3rd ed.).djvu/155

 

I've said, 'twas night, returning from a friend's,
(So ever joy, with some sad sorrow blends,)
We had been spending a gay happy night,
My head, my heart, my pockets—all were light.
Prudence had whisper'd of the coming day,
And so, unknown to all, I stole away;
My gun—(I had been shooting on that day,)
(Would it had been ten thousand miles away,)
I carried loaded!—oh most dire mishap,
That e'er I made in Foden's fence a gap.
To make the distance less, my way I took
Over the fields by way of Brockley's brook;
When crossing Vincent's close, before me stood
Between the Gibbet-lane and Wadley's wood,
The figure of a man!—his outstretch'd arms
To intercept me, raised my worst alarms.
Behind me, too, quick hurrying steps came on,
I felt, all hope of an escape was gone!
What fiend impelled—what monster coined the thought?
Enough to tell—the fatal gun I caught.
Raised to my shoulder, and—my eye-balls start—
I fired the murderous charge right through his heart!
As I supposed; but truth demands these words—
It was a scarecrow, set to frighten birds!
The coming steps I'd heard, with shame I must confess,
Was Allen's drunken cowman—neither more nor less,
Who having joined me, said, as homeward we were walking,
"I say, what made you shoot at Mr. Vincent's mawkin?"