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.
IX.
And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day;
And all things look’d half-dead, tho’ it was the middle of May.
Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been!
But soiling another, Annie, will never make oneself clean.
X.
And I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an evening late
I climb’d to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate.
The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale,
And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale.
XI.
All of a sudden he stopt: there past by the gate of the farm,
Willy,—he didn’t see me,—and Jenny hung on his arm.
Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew how;
Ah, there’s no fool like the old one—it makes me angry now.
XII.
Willy stood up like a man, and look’d the thing that he meant;
Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking courtsey and went.
And I said, “Let us part: in a hundred years it’ll all be the same,
You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good name.”
XIII.
And he turn’d, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet moonshine:
“Sweetheart, I love you so well that your good name is mine.
And what do I came for Jane, let her speak of you well or ill;
But marry me out of hand: we two shall be happy still.”
XIV.
“Marry you, Willy!” said I, “but I needs must speak my mind,
I fear you will listen to tales, be jealous and hard and unkind.”
But he turn’d and claspt me in his arms, and answer’d, “No, love, no;”
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago.
XV.
So Willy and I were wedded: I wore a lilac gown;
And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a crown.
But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born,
Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn.
XVI.
That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death.
There lay the sweet little body that never had drawn a breath.
I had not wept, little Anne, not since I had been a wife;
But I wept like a child that day, for the babe had fought for his life.
