[Illustration: Miner with pick, pan and gravel]
What though the day
Be dull and grey,
The earth bestrewn with ashes—
Hope’s magic lamp
Lights up his camp
With rainbow-tinted flashes!
His eyes, with some unwonted beam,
Grow soft as any feather,
Since Luck slid through
The kipsy flue,
To smile on “Hell for Leather”!
The jade and he,
Since ’Ninety-three,
Had not so much as spoken:
The goods she sold
Were gilt—not gold—
And promises were broken;
But “Hell for Leather” scratched along
As desperation scratches,
A harlequin,
Beclobbered in
A rig of shreds and patches!
When Hunger grim
Shaped up to him,
He’d scorn to take it sitting;
But answered back,
With crack for crack,
Nor ever thought of quitting;
And oft he’d say, though buckled belt
And backbone came together,
“Some day, I’ll bet,
Will Fortune yet
Chum in with ‘Hell for Leather’!”
His frame was lean:
His eyes shone keen
Beneath their shaggy awning:
Somewhere ahead,
He always said,
A brighter day was dawning!
And oft, around the hatter’s camp,
Would fact with fancy scamper,
What time he’d munch
His frugal lunch
Of potted dog and damper.
But years, at last,
Must win the cast,
And locks grow white and whiter;
For Time is tough
To belt and cuff,
Though sturdy be the fighter:
Yet so it happed, ere Winter fell,
Like frost on Highland heather,
Good luck slid through
His chimney flue,
To smile on “Hell for Leather”!
And so the tale
With cakes and ale
Is garnished, ere ’tis ended;
And so the stress
And bitterness
With soothing oil are blended;
And far away, by out-back pads,
Where battlers stretch the tether,
And starve or roast,
They’ll drink the toast
Of “Good old ‘Hell for Leather’!”