By Dead Man’s Thorn, while setting wires, Who should come up but Billy Myers, A friend of mine, who used to be As black a sprig of hell as me, With whom I’d planned, to save encroachin’, Which fields and coverts each should poach in. Now when he saw me set my snare, He tells me ’Get to hell from there. This field is mine,’ he says, ’by right; If you poach here, there’ll be a fight. Out now,’ he says, ’and leave your wire; It’s mine.’ ’It ain’t.’ ’You put.’ ’You liar.’ ’You closhy put.’ ’You bloody liar.’ ’This is my field.’ ’This is my wire.’ ’I’m ruler here.’ ’You ain’t.’ ’I am.’ ’I’ll fight you for it.’ ’Right, by damn. Not now, though, I’ve a-sprained my thumb, We’ll fight after the harvest hum. And Silas Jones, that bookie wide, Will make a purse five pounds a side.’ Those were the words, that was the place By which God brought me into grace. On Wood Top Field the peewits go Mewing and wheeling ever so; And like the shaking of a timbrel Cackles the laughter of the whimbrel. In the old quarry-pit they say Head-keeper Pike was made away. He walks, head-keeper Pike, for harm, He taps the windows of the farm; The blood drips from his broken chin, He taps and begs to be let in. On Wood Top, nights, I’ve shaked to hark The peewits wambling in the dark Lest in the dark the old man might Creep up to me to beg a light. But Wood Top grass is short and sweet And springy to a boxer’s feet; At harvest hum the moon so bright Did shine on Wood Top for the fight. When Bill was stripped down to his bends I thought how long we two’d been friends, And in my mind, about that wire, I thought ’He’s right, I am a liar, As sure as skilly’s made in prison The right to poach that copse is his’n. I’ll have no luck to-night,’ thinks I. ’I’m fighting to defend a lie. And this moonshiny evening’s fun Is worse than aught I ever done.’ And thinking that way my heart bled so I almost stept to Bill and said so. And now Bill’s dead I would be glad If I could only think I had. But no. I put the thought away For fear of what my friends would say. They’d backed me, see? O Lord, the sin Done for the things there’s money in.