There’s one that in the church-yard lies For whom the bell did toll; He lies in consecrated ground, But for all the wealth in Bristol town I would not be with his soul! Did’st see a house below the hill That the winds and the rains destroy? ’Twas then a farm where he did dwell, And I remember it full well When I was a growing boy. And she was a poor parish girl That came up from the west, From service hard she ran away And at that house in evil day Was taken in to rest. The man he was a wicked man And an evil life he led; Rage made his cheek grow deadly white And his grey eyes were large and light, And in anger they grew red. The man was bad, the mother worse, Bad fruit of a bad stem, ’Twould make your hair to stand-on-end If I should tell to you my friend The things that were told of them! Did’st see an out-house standing by? The walls alone remain; It was a stable then, but now Its mossy roof has fallen through All rotted by the rain. The poor girl she had serv’d with them Some half-a-year, or more, When she was found hung up one day Stiff as a corpse and cold as clay Behind that stable door! It is a very lonesome place, No hut or house is near; Should one meet a murderer there alone ’Twere vain to scream, and the dying groan Would never reach mortal ear. And there were strange reports about That the coroner never guest. So he decreed that she should lie Where four roads meet in infamy, With a stake drove in her breast. Upon a board they carried her To the place where four roads met, And I was one among the throng That hither followed them along, I shall never the sight forget! They carried her upon a board In the cloaths in which she died; I saw the cap blow off her head, Her face was of a dark dark red Her eyes were starting wide: I think they could not have been closed So widely did they strain. I never saw so dreadful a sight, And it often made me wake at night, For I saw her face again. They laid her here where four roads meet. Beneath this very place, The earth upon her corpse was prest, This post is driven into her breast, And a stone is on her face. The Sailor who had served in the Slave Trade In September, 1798, a Dissenting Minister of Bristol, discovered a Sailor in the neighbourhood of that City, groaning and praying in a hovel. The circumstance that occasioned his agony of mind is detailed in the annexed Ballad, without the slightest addition or alteration. By presenting it as a Poem the story is made more public, and such stories ought to be made as public as possible. He stopt,—it surely was a groan That from the hovel came! He stopt and listened anxiously Again it sounds the same. It surely from the hovel comes! And now he hastens there, And thence he hears the name of Christ Amidst a broken prayer. He entered in the hovel now, A sailor there he sees, His hands were lifted up to Heaven And he was on his knees.