Ticket-o'-Leave. By G. R. Sims.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1935, 29 November 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Ticket-o'-Leave. By G. R. Sims.

A VILMAGE DUAMA. Who's getting married this morning ? Some o' the big folks? No! Leastways, not aa you'd call such as now-a-days big folks go. It's only a common wedding— old Bradley's j daughter Eve Is a-sajing "I will" in yonder, and the bridegroom's " Ticket- o'-Leave." Yon thought 'twas a big folk's wedding because of the crowd, maybe ; 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, air, and all round here " Ticket-o-Leave " we've called him for as nigh as maybe a year ; For he came back here from a prison— this is his native place, And that was the gibe as his neighbors flung in his haggard face. 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 lothHe had kissed the girl when she told him, and promised to help them both. But Jack, hia son, was his idol — a rackety, scapegrace lad ; Though to Bpeak e'er a word again him was to drive the old chap mad. He worshipped the boy — God help him !—! — the dearest to him on earth ; The wife of his early manhood had died in giving him birth. To him Jack was juat an angel ; but over the village ale The gossips who knew) his capers could tell a different tale. There were whispers of more than folly— of drinking bouts and of debt, Aud of company Jack was keeping into which it was bad to get. Ned heard it all at the alehouse, smoking Mb pipe one night, And he struck his fist on the table, and it them left and right ; He was it was lies, and dared ijiem to breathe a word 'gin the lad — He feared it might reach the farmer I 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 shalli ne'er forget it, for it came like a thunderclap — The news came into the village as they'd found a pedlar 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, not as he could ha' been the man, But one of our chaps had caught him just as be turned and ran — Had caught Ned there red-handed, with a gun and the pedlar's gold, And we went in a crowd to the station, where the rest of the tale waß told. The facts agin Ned were damning. When they got the pedlar 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 had a quarrel with Ned, And he'd gone away and had left them, and praps he would'nt come back — Old Bradley said he was sorry, then asked for his boy, his Jack. And Jack, white-faced and trembling, he crept to his father's side, And was scarcely away from the homestead till after the old man 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 hia 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 I " 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 baok here as an outcast— out on his 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 dootor'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. " Tickei-o'-Leave " they called him he came back here : God knows what he did for a livin '—he must ha' 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 fox a twelvemonth. Then suddenly came t a tale. „ . „.:/ > That a man-ftom out of iour yillage^had^beeri flick in, the bounty- gSpW- - ' ' " ; A-: T" Sick tmto ( a&StU,,and, dying; he Hadieijjea.tiif,

soul of a sin, Hoping by that atonement some mercy above to win. We knew it all on Sunday, for the parson, right out in church, He 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 pedlar, 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 Ned kept to himself to aave, For tho 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 suffered in silence, all through the weary years, The felon's shame and the prison, and' the merciless taunts and jeers. Hark I there's the organ peeling. See how the crowd divides I Room for the best of fellows !— room for the queen of brides ! Look at the happy faces ! Three cheers for the faithful Eve 1 And three times three and another for Ned, the " Tioket-o'-Leave ! "