on me. I send it back to you roughly done into rhyme. I don't know
whether it will carry; for, outside your telling of it, "Johnnie Kigarrow"
is not a name of heroic sound. What touches me as so strangely complete
about it is that you should have got that impression and momentary
romantic delusion as a child, and now hear, years after, of his
disappearing out of life thus fittingly and mysteriously, so that his name
will fix its legend to the countryside for many a long day. I would like
to go there some day with you, and standing on Twloch Hill imagine all the
country round as the burial-place of the strong man on whose knees my
beloved used to play when a child.
It must have been soon after this that your brother died: truly,
dearest, from now, and strangely, this Johnnie Kigarrow will seem more
to me than him; touching a more heroic strain of idea, and stiffening
fibers in your nature that brotherhood, as a rule, has no bearing on.
A short letter to-day, Beloved, because what goes with it is so long.
This is the first time I have come before your eyes as anything but a
letter-writer, and I am doubtful whether you will care to have so much
all about yourself. Yet for that very reason think how much I loved
doing it! I am jealous of those days before I knew you, and want to have
all their wild-honey flavor for myself. Do remember more, and tell me!
Dearest heart, it was to me you were coming through all your scampers
and ramblings; no wonder, with that unknown good running parallel, that
my childhood was a happy one. May long life bless you, Beloved!
( Inclosure. )
My brother and I were down in Wales,
And listened by night to the Welshman's tales;
He was eleven and I was ten.
We sat on the knees of the farmer's men
After the whole day's work was done:
And I was friends with the farmer's son.
His hands were rough as his arms were strong,
His mouth was merry and loud for song;
Each night when set by the ingle-wall
He was the merriest man of them all.
I would catch at his beard and say
All the things I had done in the day
Tumbled bowlders over the force,
Swum in the river and fired the gorse
"Half the side of the hill!" quoth I:
"Ah!" cried he, "and didn't you die?"
"Chut!" said he, "but the squeak was narrow!
Didn't you meet with Johnnie Kigarrow?"
"No!" said I, "and who will he be?
And what will be Johnnie Kigarrow to me?"
The farmer's son said under his breath,
"Johnnie Kigarrow may be your death
Listen you here, and keep you still
Johnnie Kigarrow bides under the hill;
Twloch barrow stands over his head;
He shallows the river to make his bed;
Bowlders roll when he stirs a limb;
And the gorse on the hills belongs to him!
And if so be one fires his gorse,
He's out of his bed, and he mounts his horse.
Off he sets: with the first long stride
He is halfway over the mountain side:
With his second stride he has crossed the barrow,
And he has you fast, has Johnnie Kigarrow!"
Half I laughed and half I feared;
I clutched and tugged at the strong man's beard,
And bragged as brave as a boy could be
"So? but, you see, he didn't catch me!"
Fear caught hold of me: what had I done?
High as the roof rose the farmer's son:
How the sight of him froze my marrow!
"I," he cried, "am Johnnie Kigarrow!"
Well, you wonder, what was the end?
Never forget; he had called me "friend"!
Mighty of limb, and hard, and blown;
Quickly he laughed and set me down.
"Heh!" said, he, "but the squeak was narrow,
Not to be caught by Johnnie Kigarrow!"
Now, I hear, after years gone by,
Nobody knows how he came to die.
He strode out one night of storm:
"Get you to bed, and keep you warm!"
Out into darkness so went he:
Nobody knows where his bones may be.
Only I think if his tongue let go
Truth that once, how perhaps I know.
Twloch river, and Twloch barrow,
Do you cover my Johnnie Kigarrow?
continued below....
