Outside,
Hostelry sign swings in the storm,
A creak….. The door opening,
Wick in tallow guttering,
Sputtering, as cold air greets warm.
Footsteps ‘cross a silent room,
Except for the old man in the corner,
Pulling on his clay pipe,
Muttering in the gloom.
First a whisper then two, then a laugh and talking,
Clump clump, as two flintlocks are laid on the bar,
Twas and will always be the same when he comes,
Looking alive, but almost, a dead man walking.
For he will likely one day be caught by the law,
And by the rope, and by the courts,
The gentry relieved,
A wigg'd hangin’ judge will even the score.
But for now a hearty meal, a whiskey dram,
A buxom wench,
A pipe with tobacco from the bottom draw
To satisfy the legend and the man.


"So here’s to the free wind as it crosses the moor,
Here’s to you and here’s to me,
To the damned taxman and the Royalty,
Two yards of rope on the hangin’ tree,
And to the day I don’t come through that door".