EPILOGUE
The Crime of Count Blackheart:
A Broadside Ballad
- Old Dancy was a Lord
- A Lord of High Degree
- All mighty with the sword
- As he was thought to be.
- A Count from o’er the water
- To Dancy Castle came;
- Black-hearted was his nature
- And Blackheart was his name.
- Young Lady Elinor Dancy
- She had a beauty rare.
- Count Blackheart took a fancy
- To have her, then and there.
- He went into her chamber
- Where she lay fast in bed
- And straight away did blame her.
- ‘I am bewitched,’ he said.
- ‘Your beauty makes me do this.
- Your beauty makes me sin.
- It’s you that drives me to this.’
- And straight he did begin.
- But now the door did open,
- Old Dancy strode inside,
- Saw Elinor’s honour broken
- And heard how Elinor cried.
- ‘Oh foul and fell Count Blackheart,’
- He said, ‘unclasp my wife
- And come with me apart,
- For I must take your life.
- Black your blood will flow,
- Black will be its clots,
- And black will be the crow
- That on your gibbet squats.’
- ‘Old man, speak not too soon,’
- The Count did straight declare.
- ‘Come with me to your doom.
- Come down the winding stair.’
- And so they both descended
- Into the castle court
- And there the pair contended
- A battle bruised and fraught.
- The castle walls resounded
- As Blackheart’s ball and chain
- Lord Dancy’s scutcheon pounded
- Again and again and again.
- Lord Dancy strove to answer
- Count Blackheart’s fierce attack.
- He feinted like a dancer
- While turning not his back.
- He strove with all his might
- To give the Count reply
- And with a swingeing smite,
- He made his helmet fly.
- But his old sword was blunted,
- His breath would soon abate.
- ‘Old man,’ Count Blackheart grunted,
- ‘Prepare to meet your fate.’
- Elinor at the casement
- A hundred feet above
- Looked downward in amazement
- And feared for the man she loved.
- She leaned out in alarm
- As tiring Dancy dodged
- Then all at once her arm
- A potted herb dislodged.
- It toppled off the sill
- And fell at a rapid rate
- Down through the air until
- It smashed on Blackheart’s pate.
- The Count spoke not nor cried
- Nor gave a deathly rattle.
- He just fell down and died
- And so ended the battle.
- Lord Dancy he was spent
- It took him half an hour
- To gather up the strength
- To climb again the tower.
- But then, with tears and laughter,
- The husband hugged his wife,
- And happy ever after
- They lived and loved their life.