But the beggar gave me a jolly clap—­
“Come, let us pledge each other,
For all the wide world is dead beside,
And we are brother and brother—­
I’ve a yearning for thee in my heart,
As if we had come of one mother.”

XI.

“I’ve a yearning for thee in my heart
That almost makes me weep,
For as I pass’d from town to town
The folks were all stone-asleep,—­
But when I saw thee sitting aloft,
It made me both laugh and leap!”

XII.

Now a curse (I thought) be on his love,
And a curse upon his mirth,—­
An it were not for that beggar man
I’d be the King of the earth,—­
But I promis’d myself, an hour should come
To make him rue his birth!—­

XIII.

So down we sat and bons’d again
Till the sun was in mid-sky,
When, just as the gentle west-wind came,
We hearken’d a dismal cry: 
“Up, up, on the tree,” quoth the beggar man,
“Till those horrible dogs go by!”

XIV.

And, lo! from the forest’s far-off skirts,
They came all yelling for gore,
A hundred hounds pursuing at once,
And a panting hart before,
Till he sunk adown at the gallows’ foot,
And there his haunches they tore!

XV.

His haunches they tore, without a horn
To tell when the chase was done;
And there was not a single scarlet coat
To flaunt it in the sun!—­
I turn’d, and look’d at the beggar man,
And his tears dropt one by one!

XVI.

And with curses sore he chid at the hounds,
Till the last dropt out of sight,
Anon saith he, “Let’s down again,
And ramble for our delight,
For the world’s all free, and we may choose
A right cozie barn for to-night!”

XVII.

With that, he set up his staff on end,
And it fell with the point due West;
So we far’d that way to a city great,
Where the folks had died of the pest—­
It was fine to enter in house and hall,
Wherever it liked me best!—­

XVIII.

For the porters all were stiff and cold,
And could not lift their heads;
And when we came where their masters lay,
The rats leapt out of the beds:—­
The grandest palaces in the land
Were as free as workhouse sheds.

XIX.

But the beggar man made a mumping face,
And knocked at every gate: 
It made me curse to hear how he whined,
So our fellowship turn’d to hate,
And I bade him walk the world by himself,
For I scorn’d so humble a mate!