Martin Relph

My grandfather says he remembers he saw, when a youngster long ago,
On a bright May day, a strange old man, with a beard as white as
snow,
Stand on the hill outside our town like a monument of woe,
And, striking his bare bald head the while, sob out the
reason--so!

If I last as long as Methuselah I shall never forgive myself:
But--God forgive me, that I pray, unhappy Martin Relph,
As coward, coward I call him--him, yes, him! Away from me!
Get you behind the man I am now, you man that I used to be!

What can have sewed my mouth up, set me a-stare, all eyes, no
tongue?
People have urged, "You visit a scare too hard on a lad so young!
You were taken aback, poor boy," they urge, "no time to regain your
wits:
Besides it had maybe cost your life." Ay, there is the cap which
fits!

So, cap me, the coward,--thus! No fear! A cuff on the brow does
good:
The feel of it hinders a worm inside which bores at the brain for
food.
See now, there certainly seems excuse: for a moment, I trust, dear
friends,
The fault was but folly, no fault of mine, or if mine, I have made
amends!

For, every day that is first of May, on the hill-top, here stand I,
Martin Relph, and I strike my brow, and publish the reason why,
When there gathers a crowd to mock the fool. No fool, friends, since
the bite
Of a worm inside is worse to bear: pray God I have balked him quite!

I 'll tell you. Certainly much excuse! It came of the way they
cooped
Us peasantry up in a ring just here, close huddling because
tight-hooped
By the red-coats round us villagers all: they meant we should see
the sight
And take the example,--see, not speak, for speech was the Captain's
right.

"You clowns on the slope, beware!" cried he: "This woman about to
die
Gives by her fate fair warning to such acquaintance as play the spy.
Henceforth who meddle with matters of state above them perhaps will
learn
That peasants should stick to their ploughtail, leave to the King
the King's concern.

"Here 's a quarrel that sets the land on fire, between King George
and his foes:
What call has a man of your kind--much less, a woman--to interpose?
Yet you needs must be meddling, folk like you, not foes--so much the
worse!
The many and loyal should keep themselves unmixed with the few
perverse.

"Is the counsel hard to follow? I gave it you plainly a month ago,
And where was the good? The rebels have learned just all that they
need to know.
Not a month since in we quietly marched: a week, and they had the
news,
From a list complete of our rank and file to a note of our caps and
shoes.

"All about all we did and all we were doing and like to do!
Only, I catch a letter by luck, and capture who wrote it, too.
Some of you men look black enough, but the milk-white face demure
Betokens the finger foul with ink: 't is a woman who writes, be
sure!

"Is it 'Dearie, how much I miss your mouth!'--good natural stuff,
she pens?
Some sprinkle of that, for a blind, of course: with talk about cocks
and hens,
How 'robin has built on the apple-tree, and our creeper which came
to grief
Through the frost, we feared, is twining afresh round casement in
famous leaf.'

"But all for a blind! She soon glides frank into 'Horrid the place
is grown
With Officers here and Privates there, no nook we may call our own:
And Farmer Giles has a tribe to house, and lodging will be to seek
For the second Company sure to come ('t is whispered) on Monday
week.'

'And so to the end of the chapter! There! The murder, you see, was
out:
Easy to guess how the change of mind in the rebels was brought
about!
Safe in the trap would they now lie snug, had treachery made no
sign:
But treachery meets a just reward, no matter if fools malign!

"That traitors had played us false, was proved--sent news which
fell so pat:
And the murder was out--this letter of love, the sender of this sent
that!
'T is an ugly job, though, all the same--a hateful, to have to deal
With a case of the kind, when a woman 's in fault: we soldiers need
nerves of steel!

"So, I gave her a chance, despatched post-haste a message to Vincent
Parkes
Whom she wrote to; easy to find he was, since one of the King's own
clerks,
Ay, kept by the King's own gold in the town close by where the
rebels camp:
A sort of a lawyer, just the man to betray our sort--the scamp!

"'If her writing is simple and honest and only the lover-like stuff
it looks,
And if you yourself are a loyalist, nor down in the rebels' books,
Come quick,' said I, 'and in person prove you are each of you clear
of crime,
Or martial law must take its course: this day next week 's the
time!'

"Next week is now: does he come? Not he! Clean gone, our clerk, in a
trice!
He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch: no need of a warning
twice!
His own neck free, but his partner's fast in the noose still, here
she stands
To pay for her fault. 'T is an ugly job: but soldiers obey commands.

"And hearken wherefore I make a speech! Should any acquaintance
share
The folly that led to the fault that is now to be punished, let
fools beware!
Look black, if you please, but keep hands white: and, above all
else, keep wives--
Or sweethearts or what they may be--from ink! Not a word now, on
your lives!"

Black? but the Pit's own pitch was white to the Captain's face--the
brute
With the bloated cheeks and the bulgy nose and the bloodshot eyes to
suit!
He was muddled with wine, they say: more like, he was out of his
wits with fear;
He had but a handful of men, that 's true,--a riot might cost him
dear.

And all that time stood Rosamund Page, with pinioned arms and face
Bandaged about, on the turf marked out for the party's firing-place.
I hope she was wholly with God: I hope 't was his angel stretched a
hand
To steady her so, like the shape of stone you see in our
church-aisle stand.

I hope there was no vain fancy pierced the bandage to vex her eyes,
No face within which she missed without, no questions and no
replies--
"Why did you leave me to die?"--"Because" ... Oh, fiends, too soon
you grin
At merely a moment of hell, like that--such heaven as hell ended in!

Let mine end too! He gave the word, up went the guns in a line.
Those heaped on the hill were blind as dumb,--for, of all eyes, only
mine
Looked over the heads of the foremost rank. Some fell on their knees
in prayer,
Some sank to the earth, but all shut eyes, with a sole exception
there.

That was myself, who had stolen up last, had sidled behind the
group:
I am highest of all on the hill-top, there stand fixed while the
others stoop!
From head to foot in a serpent's twine am I tightened: I touch
ground?
No more than a gibbet's rigid corpse which the fetters rust around!

Can I speak, can I breathe, can I burst--aught else but see, see,
only see?
And see I do--for there comes in sight--a man, it sure must be!--
Who staggeringly, stumblingly rises, falls, rises, at random flings
his weight
On and on, anyhow onward--a man that's mad he arrives too late!

Else why does he wave a something white high-flourished above his
head?
Why does not he call, cry,--curse the fool!--why throw up his arms
instead?
O take this fist in your own face, fool! Why does not yourself shout
"Stay!
Here's a man comes rushing, might and main, with something he 's mad
to say"?

And a minute, only a moment, to have hell-fire boil up in your
brain,
And ere you can judge things right, choose heaven,--time 's over,
repentance vain!
They level: a volley, a smoke and the clearing of smoke: I see no
more
Of the man smoke hid, nor his frantic arms, nor the something white
he bore.

But stretched on the field, some half-mile off, is an object. Surely
dumb,
Deaf, blind were we struck, that nobody heard, not one of us saw him
come!
Has he fainted through fright? One may well believe! What is it he
holds so fast?
Turn him over, examine the face! Heyday! What, Vincent Parkes at
last?

Dead! dead as she, by the selfsame shot: one bullet has ended both,
Her in the body and him in the soul. They laugh at our plighted
troth.
"Till death us do part?" Till death us do join past parting--that
sounds like
Betrothal indeed! O Vincent Parkes, what need has my fist to strike?

I helped you: thus were you dead and wed: one bound, and your soul
reached hers!
There is clenched in your hand the thing, signed, sealed, the paper
which plain avers
She is innocent, innocent, plain as print, with the King's Arms
broad engraved:
No one can hear, but if any one high on the hill can see, she 's
saved!

And torn his garb and bloody his lips with heart-break--plain it
grew
How the week's delay had been brought about: each guess at the end
proved true.
It was hard to get at the folk in power: such waste of time! and
then
Such pleading and praying, with, all the while, his lamb in the
lions' den!

And at length when he wrung their pardon out, no end to the stupid
forms--
The license and leave: I make no doubt--what wonder if passion warms
The pulse in a man if you play with his heart?--he was something
hasty in speech;
Anyhow, none would quicken the work: he had to beseech, beseech!

And the thing once signed, sealed, safe in his grasp,--what followed
but fresh delays?
For the floods were out, he was forced to take such a roundabout of
ways!
And 't was "Halt there!" at every turn of the road, since he had to
cross the thick
Of the redcoats: what did they care for him and his "Quick, for
God's sake, quick!"

Horse? but he had one: had it how long? till the first knave smirked
"You brag
Yourself a friend of the King's? then lend to a King's friend here
your nag!"
Money to buy another? Why, piece by piece they plundered him still,
With their "Wait you must,--no help: if aught can help you, a guinea
will!"

And a borough there was--I forget the name--whose Mayor must have
the bench
Of Justices ranged to clear a doubt: for "Vincent," thinks he,
sounds French!
It well may have driven him daft, God knows! all man can certainly
know
Is--rushing and falling and rising, at last he arrived in a
horror--so!

When a word, cry, gasp, would have rescued both! Ay, bite me! The
worm begins
At his work once more. Had cowardice proved--that only--my sin of
sins!
Friends, look you here! Suppose ... suppose ... But mad I am, needs
must be!
Judas the Damned would never have dared such a sin as I dream! For,
see!

Suppose I had sneakingly loved her myself, my wretched self, and
dreamed
In the heart of me "She were better dead than happy and his!"--while
gleamed
A light from hell as I spied the pair in a perfectest embrace,
He the savior and she the saved,--bliss born of the very
murder-place!

No! Say I was scared, friends! Call me fool and coward, but nothing
worse!
Jeer at the fool and gibe at the coward! 'T was ever the coward's
curse
That fear breeds fancies in such: such takes their shadow for
substance still,
--A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes,--loved Vincent, if you
will!

And her--why, I said "Good morrow" to her, "Good even," and nothing
more:
The neighborly way! She was just to me as fifty had been before.
So, coward it is and coward shall be! There's a friend, now! Thanks!
A drink
Of water I wanted: and now I can walk, get home by myself, I think.