For Alice, though she loved me well,
Would praise him, and would say
Red Hugh should bring the flowers next year
And crown her Queen of May;
And when I left her sore displeased,
And Hugh would come elate,
She struck him dumb with scornful frown
And mocked his forward glances down;
And so she earned his hate.

Me too he held his enemy,
In that I overthrew
The triumph of his braggart strength:
Men spoke no more of Hugh,
Nor vaunted now his quarter-staff
Nor what his heart could dare.
He hated me that I was strong,
And her, that she was fair;
In his dull anger, many a day
He vow'd a deadly deed should each—
My stronger arm, her sharper speech—
Most bitterly repay.

He knew how Rumour's tying tongue
Would spread his harmful tales.
He feign'd rough pity for her youth;
And evil never fails
To spread, like fire upon the moor
When autumn winds are strong.
He whisper'd strange and direful words,
To do her wicked wrong.

If he but outwardly had shown
His wish to work her harm,
His evil features soon had borne
The vengeance of my arm;
But still he kept a kindly guise,
And shrank from open strife;
And while I knew that words could kill,
I could not face the nameless ill
That shadow'd all her life.

Before the half-averted glance,
The beck of silent scorn,
She droop'd: her form grew slighter,
Her features pale and worn.
When bolder grew the whispers,
And Slander wagg'd its tongue,
Long nights she passed in prayers and tears
Beneath the weight of wrong.

And one day flashed her anger,
When, struck with sudden pain
At what our small world mutter'd,
She spoke with slow disdain:
"Were I a man, and love of mine
Were slander'd thus, I trow
I'd brand the coward where he stood,
And, ere he made his vile words good,
There should be Liar writ in blood
Upon the coward's brow!"

No knight in ages olden
Had blither heart than mine,
When I made oath to seek Red Hugh,
Since Alice gave the sign;
And there, before her father,
I swore with lusty breath
To bind Red Hugh to silence
Or face the grip of death.

I sought him at the harvesting
I did not find him there.
I sought him at the ale-house bench
Where oft he would repair.
His boon companions answer'd,
Lounging about the door,
"Red Hugh is wont to wander
About the Ravenmoor:

"To day he had his bag and gun,
Haply in quest of game."
And forth for Ravenmoor I set,
My eager heart aflame.
The morning turn'd to noon that burn'd
Its arrows in my soul,
And ere the fainting August heat
Had melted into evening sweet
O'er gorse and fern, I set my feet
Upon the tardy goal.

We stood upon a lofty crag,
A black tarn underneath.
A careless foot, or crumbling rock,
Had plunged us into death.
"By all the fiends that sent thee here,"
He cried, "a ball of lead
I'd drive, if but my gun were charged,
Into thy lovesick head!"

And by its shining barrel
The gunstock brandishing,
Madly he sprang upon me;
But I withstood his spring.
We closed. No word was utter'd,
But, deadly foe to foe,
Throats clutched, hot hands, and hotter breath,
A space we struggled. Black as death
Gloom'd the abyss. His strength was spent,
And, with one wavering shriek, he went
Down to the tarn below.

There came an awful silence
On all the hills around,
And, save the rustle of the leaves,
I never heard a sound.
I saw the circles in the tarn,

That broaden'd till they died.
I felt the ancient curse of Cain;
And, but for love of Alice Rayne,
I could have wish'd Red Hugh again
Were standing at my side.

Yet, nerving courage to the task,
I sought the place beneath,
All trembling lest mine eyes should see
Red Hugh in grasp of death.
The dark tarn had a smooth, blank face,
And not a thing was there
To tell of what my hand had done,
Or save me from despair.

The heavy hand that God has laid
On murderers from the first
Lay on my soul that night. I stray'd
Into the further North, afraid
To know the fearful worst—
To know if they had found the corse
In sluggish water by the gorse,
(Dread secret Night had nurst!)
Or if he lay there still death-pale.
Thus on— by flowering rise and vale
I roam'd, a man accurst.

Months past. A hunger to behold
Her winsome face once more,
To Ferndale village brought me back.
I stood beside her door.