There came a man to the midwife’s door

Through the dark and wind and rain

And bade her come where a fine lady

Lay taken with her pain.

He bound a cloth around her eyes

She swore she never would tell

Then he took and led her by the hand

To the Littlecote House Hotel.

In sore travail the lady lay

A mask upon her face

And that good woman plied her skill

With courtesy and haste.

But though the lady wept and pled

Soon as her babe she bore

Its father cast it in the fire

Until it wept no more.

The midwife swift and subtilly

A piece of the curtain tore

The villain bound her eyes again

And led her to her door.

Her silence long the midwife kept

In horror and in fear

Till dying, she confessed the tale

That burned each gentle ear.

Suspicion fell on the hotel lord

Will Darrell was his name

And the linen that the midwife kept

His torn curtain fit the same.

He gave the court his sacred oath

He gave his earnest plea

He gave the judge a palm of gold

And rode away all free.

Though witness die and judgment fail

The wronged soul does not forget

And he who spilt his own kin’s blood

His own cruel flames he met.

For as he crossed the courthouse field

His fine horse shrieked and reared

Before the fall that broke his neck

His murdered babe appeared.