University of Virginia Library

Aye, aye! but afore the next Mheillea
There was wonderful news of Tommy, I tell ye—
Just so! just so! aw, hould your luff!
Wonderful, wonderful, sure enough!
Well now, this is the way it was—
Nelly's father, ye see, was lost
Off the Shellags one night, with Illiam Crowe,
One-eyed Illiam? exactly so.
And the widda come down most terrible,
And all the mouths she had to fill—
I don't know the number—and it's hard for such,
And Nelly helpin', but it wasn' much—
What could she do? aw, a reg'lar battle,
And executions, and I don't know what all,
And the bed goin' sellin' from under them,
And all to that, till at last it came
She had to give in. And Nelly took heart
To ax this Cain to take their part,
Just, you know, to spake to the Coroner
For the mother, poor soul! that he wouldn' be purrin' her
To the road altogether, and no expense,
And did. But Tommy's tould me since
That Nelly was sayin' she'll never forget
The way he looked when she axed him that—
Poor thing! poor thing! but I'll be bail—
Bless ye! looks'll mean a dale,
A dale will looks: but helped them though;
And then the widda thought she'd go
To Douglas, to live with a sisther theer;
And so the Coroner got them clear,
Or clear of them. And so Mrs. Quine
Off to the sisther—but—very fine!
Sisthers! will they? Not a bit o' them!
Showed her the door, and all the kit o' them!
And too proud to go back—you know, the disgrace—
And Douglas is hardly a Christian place:
Bless ye! Douglas, of rule,
Is just as bad as Liverpool.