I want a plate of pork and beans.~ Where'er he went, whate'er he did, And when, once more at home, his eyes He doffed his hat, and cried, “Thank God, TICKET O' LEAVE.-GEORGE R. SIMS. Who's getting married this morning,-some o' the big folk? No! Leastways not as you'd call such as nowadays big folks go. It's only a common wedding,-old Bradley's daughter Eve Is a-saying "I will" in yonder, and the bridegroom's "Ticket o' Leave." You thought 'twas a big folks' wedding, because o' the crowd may be. Well, it's one as the whole o' the village has come to the church to see. You needn't say you're a stranger; if you wasn't you'd know their tale, For to find another as didn't you might search ten mile and fail. "Ticket o' Leave" did I call him?—I did, sir, and all round here "Ticket o' Leave" we've called him for as nigh as may be a year. For he came back here from a prison; this is his native place, And that was the jibe as his neighbors flung in his haggard face. It's ten year ago since it happened,—that as brought all the shame, That as gave decent people the right to shrink at his name. He was right-hand man to old Bradley, was Ned,-that is "Ticket o' Leave," He was more like a son to the farmer, and he loved his daughter Eve. Eve was the village beauty, with half the lads at her feet, But she only gave 'em the chaff, sir, it was Ned as got all the wheat. They were sweethearts trothed and plighted, for old Bradley was nothing loath, He had kissed the girl when she told him, and promised to help them both. But Jack, his son, was his idol,—a racketty, scapegrace lad; Though to speak e'er a word agen him was to drive the old chap mad. He worshiped the boy, God help him, the dearest to him on earth; The wife of his early manhood had died in giving him birth. And of company Jack was keeping, into which it was bad to get. Ned heard it all at the alehouse, smoking his pipe one night, And he struck his fist on the table, and gave it them left and right. He said it was lies, and dared them to breathe a word 'gen the lad; He feared it might reach the farmer, but Ned knew as the boy was bad. Old Bradley was weak and ailing, the doctor had whispered Ned That a sudden shock would kill him; that he held his life by a thread. So that made Ned more than anxious to keep the slanders back That were running rife in the village about the scapegrace Jack. One night I shall ne'er forget it, for it came like a thunder clap The news came into the village as they'd found a peddler chap Smothered in blood, and senseless, shot and robbed on the green, And they brought Ned back here handcuffed, two constables between. At first we couldn't believe it as he could ha' been the man, But one of our chaps had caught him just as he turned and ran, Had caught Ned there red-handed, with a gun and the peddler's gold, And we went in a crowd to the station, where the rest of the tale was told. The facts against Ned were damning. When they got the peddler round, His wound was probed, and a bullet that fitted Ned's gun was found. He'd been shot from behind a hedgerow, and had fallen and swooned away, And Ned must have searched his victim, and have robbed him as he lay. They kept it back from the farmer, who had taken at last to his bed. Eve came, red-eyed, and told him that she'd had a quarrel with Ned, And he'd gone away, had left them, and perhaps he wouldn't come back. Old Bradley said he was sorry,-then asked for his boy, his Jack. And Jack, white-faced and trembling, he crept to the old man's side, And was scarcely away from the homestead till after the farmer died. On the night that death crossed the threshold, one last long, lingering look At the face that was his dead darling's the poor old farmer took. As the shadows of twilight deepened the long ago came back, And his weak voice faintly whispered: "Lean over and kiss me, Jack; Let me take your kiss to heaven, to the mother who died for you." And Eve sobbed out as she heard him: "Thank God, he never knew." In his lonely cell a felon heard of the old man's end In a letter his faithful sweetheart had conquered her grief to send; And the load of his pain was lightened as he thought of what might have been, Had Jack, and not he, been taken that night upon Parson's green! Five years went over the village, and then one mid-summer eve Came Ned back here as an outcast,-out on a ticket o' leave. And all of the people shunned him, the Bradleys had moved away, For Jack had squandered the money in drink and in vice and play. Poor Eve was up at the doctor's,-his housekeeper grave and staid; There was something about her manner that made her old flames afraid. Not one of them went a-wooing, they said that her heart was dead, That it died on the day the Judges sentenced her sweetheart, Ned. "Ticket o' Leave" they called him after he came back here. God knows what he did for a living, he must have been starved pretty near; But he clung to the village somehow, got an odd job now and then, But whenever a farmer took him there was grumbling among the men. He was flouted like that a twelvemonth, then suddenly came a tale That a man out of our village had been sick in the county gaol. Sick unto death, and dying, he had eased his mind of a sin, Hoping by that atonement some mercy above to win. We knew it all that Sunday,-for the parson right out in church, Had wiped away in a moment from Ned the felon smirch. He told us his noble story how following Jack that night He had seen him shoot at the peddler, and rob him and take to flight. He had seized the gun and the money from the rascal's trembling hand. Jack fled at the sound of footsteps, and the rest you can understand. The word that he might have spoken he kept to himself to save, For the sake of the dying father, the pitiful thief and knave. He knew that the blow would hasten the death of one who had done More for him than a father, who had treated him as a son. And so he had suffered in silence, all through the weary years, The felon's shame and the prison, and the merciless taunts and jeers. Hark! there's the organ pealing, see how the crowd divides; Room for the best of fellows,-room for the Queen of Brides. Look at their happy faces-three cheers for the faithful Eve, And three times three and another for Ned, the "Ticket o' Leave." HOW THE PARSON BROKE THE SABBATH. On the grave of Parson Williams The grass is brown and bleached; It is more than fifty winters Since he lived and laughed and preached. But his memory in New England And among those treasured legends He was midway in a sermon, Most orthodox, on grace, When a sound of distant thunder Now the meadow of the Crosby's As he glanced from out the window And the green and fragrant haycocks Not a meadow like the deacon's Quick and loud the claps of thunder "Now, my brethren," called the parson, |