Back he spurred like a madman,shrieking a curse to the sky
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high
Blood red were his spurs i' the golden noon;wine red was his velvet coat
When they shot him down on the highway, down like a dog on the highway!
And he lay in his blood on the highway with a bunch of lace at his throat
Hopefully a little closer to my original attempt.
Great scene where Davie meets a crazy old woman sitting under the gallows on his way into Edinburgh to give evidence in the Appin murder . . . .
Here I got a fresh direction for Pilrig, my destination; and a little beyond, on the wayside, came by a gibbet and two men hanged in chains. They were dipped in tar, as the manner is; the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the birds hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks and cried. The sight coming on me suddenly, like an illustration of my fears, I could scarce be done with examining it and drinking in discomfort. And, as I thus turned and turned about the gibbet, what should I strike on, but a weird old wife, that sat behind a leg of it, and nodded, and talked aloud to herself with becks and courtesies.Who are these two, mother? I asked, and pointed to the corpses.
A blessing on your precious face! she cried. Twa joes omine: just two o my old joes, my hinny dear.
What did they suffer for? I asked.
Ou, just for the guid cause, said she. Aften I spaed to them the way that it would end. Twa shillin Scots: no pickle mair; and there are twa bonny callants hingin for t! They took it frae a wean belanged to Brouchton.
Ay! said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, and did they come to such a figure for so poor a business? This is to lose all indeed.
Gies your loof, hinny, says she, and let me spae your weird to ye.
No, mother, said I, I see far enough the way I am. Its an unco thing to see too far in front.
I read it in your bree, she said. Theres a bonnie lassie that has bricht een, and theres a wee man in a braw coat, and a big man in a pouthered wig, and theres the shadow of the wuddy, joe, that lies braid across your path. Gies your loof, hinny, and let Auld Merren spae it to ye bonny.
The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter of James More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch creature, casting her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play with under the moving shadows of the hanged.
On moonlit heath and lonesome bank
The sheep beside me graze;
And yon the gallows used to clank
Fast by the four cross ways.
A careless shepherd once would keep
The flocks by moonlight there,
And high amongst the glimmering sheep
The dead man stood on air.
They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:
The whistles blow forlorn,
And trains all night groan on the rail
To men that die at morn.
There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,
Or wakes, as may betide,
A better lad, if things went right,
Than most that sleep outside.
And naked to the hangman's noose
The morning clocks will ring
A neck God made for other use
Than strangling in a string.
And sharp the link of life will snap,
And dead on air will stand
Heels that held up as straight a chap
As treads upon the land.
So here I'll watch the night and wait
To see the morning shine,
When he will hear the stroke of eight
And not the stroke of nine;
And wish my friend as sound a sleep
As lads' I did not know,
That shepherded the moonlit sheep
A hundred years ago.
A.E. Housman