And never will be heard of more. Now is she high upon the down, Alone amid a prospect wide; There's neither Johnny nor his Horse Among the fern or in the gorse; There's neither Doctor nor his Guide. 'O saints! what is become of him? Perhaps he's climbed into an oak, Where he will stay till he is dead; Or, sadly he has been misled, And joined the wandering gipsy-folk. 'Or him that wicked Pony's carried To the dark cave, the goblin's hall; Or in the castle he's pursuing Among the ghosts his own undoing; Or playing with the waterfall.' At poor old Susan then she railed, While to the town she posts away; 'If Susan had not been so ill, Alas! I should have had him still, My Johnny, till my dying day.' Poor Betty, in this sad distemper, The Doctor's self could hardly spare: Unworthy things she talked, and wild; Even he, of cattle the most mild, The Pony had his share. But now she's fairly in the town, And to the Doctor's door she hies; Tis silence all on every side; The town so long, the town so wide, Is silent as the skies. And now she's at the Doctor's door, She lifts the knocker, rap, rap, rap; The Doctor at the casement shows His glimmering eyes that peep and doze! And one hand rubs his old night-cap. 'O Doctor! Doctor! where's my Johnny?' 'I'm here, what is't you want with me?' 'O Sir! you know I'm Betty Foy, And I have lost my poor dear Boy, You know him-him you often see; 'He's not so wise as some folks be:' 'The devil take his wisdom!' said The Doctor, looking somewhat grim, 'What, Woman! should I know of him?' And, grumbling, he went back to bed! 'O woe is me! О woe is me! Here will I die; here will I die; I thought to find my lost one here, But he is neither far nor near, Oh! what a wretched Mother I!' She stops, she stands, she looks about; Which way to turn she cannot tell. Poor Betty! it would ease her pain If she had heart to knock again; — The clock strikes three — a dismal knell! Then up along the town she hies, No wonder if her senses fail; This piteous news so much it shocked her, She quite forgot to send the Doctor, To comfort poor old Susan Gale. And now she's high upon the down, And she can see a mile of road: 'O cruel! I'm almost threescore; Such night as this was ne'er before, There's not a single soul abroad.' She listens, but she cannot hear The foot of horse, the voice of man; The streams with softest sound are flowing, The grass you almost hear it growing, You hear it now, if e'er you can.
