The Blackguard

(The Tale that the Old Soak Told)

by George Albert Leddy

We meet strange things in the walks of life,

‘Mid the moil, the toil, the hardships and strife;

And I always have found, as I trod the rough road,
That a heartbroken wretch, seeks the mine camp abode.

And such is the tale that you’re going to hear,
Of a man who had lived in the camp for a year.

He was toil-worn, and hardened, grisly and old;
And this is his story, as I heard it told.

⸺

A drink? Well, I never refuse it—‘though I haven't the money to buy.

I’m now what I once deemed a Sponger—a cheap, drunken, rum-soak, am I.

There once was a day I’d refuse it, without I’d the means to repay;

And I’d do it now with a shame-face, but thirst takes that feeling away.

Failed in all claims I’ve prospected, and yet, I don’t feel it in vain.

If someone will blow for a grubstake—tomorrow, I’ll try it again.

The Gold? No, ‘twas not Gold that brought me; I sort’o fell in, don’t you see.

I lived, and I had to live somewhere; so I wandered up here to be free.

Free from the Hounds and their servants, Hounds of a civilized Law;

Hounds who would tear you to pieces, lapping the blood from their paw.

Law! That’s not Law by a damn-sight; it’s Hell, and no judgment is known.

But I blocked them; yes, damn them, I blocked them—when they came for my hide, I had flown.

Yes, that was a long time ago, boys; but to me, it is only a day.

This haggard old face was a boy’s then, this heavy old heart was gay;

This gray knotted mat on my head was, a cluster of golden brown curls;

Those horny old bunches of knuckles, were as soft and as white as a girls;

And the voice was so soft and so airy, and the smile was so sweet and so kind.

God! It don’t seem that time could have changed so, such a life—to a wrecked life like mine.

We lived in a small country village, where people are few but all friends;

Where a man’s life is built upon merit, and a girl’s life on honor depends.

There came into my life in my school days, a face I now see in my dreams;

A face so like that of a fairy’s, a grace so like that of a queen.

Together, we’d bundle our books up; together, we’d stroll down the lane;

To the little old school on the hillside; and together, we’d stroll back again.

I oft’ tried to tell her, I loved her; she would smilingly push me away.

But I read in her eyes the whole story, and I patiently waited the day.

Waited the day when in manhood, I would tell her the story again;

For the day she would lie on my bosom—Oh God! but I waited in vain.

And the years have passed by all unnumbered, since the heart was crushed out of the child;

And my heart has grown hard with the hardships, in the heart of the Great Silent Wild.

She was only sixteen when it happened; you see, in the spring of the year;

The folks of the city would come there, and stay till the autumn was near.

One cottage was built on the hillside, where a Master and servants did dwell;

His rich summer-home in the country, but his home in the future is Hell.

With his fine city ways and his money; his ponies, his dogs, and his gun;

And the stories he often would tell us; oh, we thought him a wonderful one.

A change had come over my Darling, she’d pass me with never a smile;

My heart, it would pound like the windlass, a-hoisting the muck to the pile.

My young blood flowed swift as the Yukon, my heart felt like sixty-below;

My thoughts were as wild as the mountains, and then came the terrible blow.

He had gone, and had taken her with him; gone, and I couldn’t tell where;

Gone, and no good-byes were spoken; gone, but left love everywhere;

A love that was hell in its burning, a love that gnawed into the soul;

A love that was maddening, stinging, bitter, damning, and cold.

Like the wretch that rots with scurvy, the man rotted out of my breast;

A fiend filled with fires of vengeance, my hatred was never at rest.

Dead to my ears was her laughter, dead to my heart was her smile;

Dead to my eyes was her beauty, but the hated-love clung all the while.

I took to the lone-trail to find her, a trail filled with hardship and pain.

Till a spirit-crushed broken-down hobo, I returned to the old Home again.

She’d returned, she was there—Did I see her? Ah no—but I knelt by her grave.

The hatred that burned in my heart then, was a hate that was cowardly brave;

A hate that’s not quenched by murder, a hate that must glory in pain;

Must list’ to the moaning and groaning, must lash in the blood of the slain.

To search him it meant, I must leave her; but I stayed by her grave for a day.

I kissed the green sod and I whispered, “Oh Loved One, just show me the way . . .”

I passed down the streets of a city; to me, ‘twas a wild raging sea;

The turmoil, the hurry, the worry; the crowding as if to be free.

Each face seemed the story of trouble, that rode on the restless wave,

Then vanished away like a bubble, a mass moving on to the grave.

As I thought of my Love that was sleeping, in that little green grave far away;

I was caught in the whirl and jostled, through the door of a swell cabaret.

Well I sank to a chair by a table—Oh God! but I’ll never forget;

I sat face-to-face with my victim, o’er my brow came a cold clammy wet.

He smiles as he passes the bottle, I grin with a devilish glee;

My plain haggard face is a disguise, my hatred my victim can’t see.

I laugh as I fill up the glasses, I laugh—see his head’s sinking low;

I laugh and I laugh as I take him—to his cab that is waiting below.

Now I whisper “Home” to the driver: we are there, we are entering in;

Entering now where she entered, to a beautiful Home-of-sin.

I search out the silks and the laces, she bought with her honor and life;

And wore for a while as his Mistress—Ah no, she was never a Wife.

I’ve found them, I don them, I’m waiting; he moves, see he opens his eyes:

Ah! ‘Tis her that he sees, how he trembles; how wild are the rum-reddened eyes.

His breath, see he chokes, he is frightened; his voice, yet no words, just a moan;

He wreaths like a snake, he’s a serpent; he growls like a dog with a bone.

He swoons, then the smell of the brandy; his eyes, they are opened again;

He sees her still standing before him—a victim of immoral sin!

He tears out his hair in his anguish; see him gnash at his flesh, see the blood;

He is mad, see a wild-raging madman; now he falls to the floor with a thud . . .

And that is a long twenty-years, boys; he’s never known naught since that day;

There he grovels and crawls like a serpent, and snarls like a panther at bay.

And that is the reason I’m dodging—a Law that would sentence me tight;

If vengeance was mine in the reck’ning—please God—I have done naught but right.

*****