The Inn he kept at the crossroads shone
A lantern, out on the street,
The only sign it was still alive
To the few its doors would greet,
Its passageway was in shadow once
You entered and closed the door,
And that was the way he wanted it,
The owner, Titus Claw.

For Titus was a hideous man
With a face like a railway wreck,
A scar cut deep with the fleshy burn
From a rope around his neck,
They said he’d cheated the hangman twice
With a neck like a coiled spring,
They’d hung on each of his legs in vain
For he never felt a thing.

The rope had broken under the strain
And dropped them all on the floor,
And he was the first to rise again
As he croaked, ‘I’m Titus Claw!’
They backed away as his form had swayed
With the hood still over his head,
‘There isn’t a rope can cope with me,
If there was, then I’d be dead!’

They tried again, he began to spin
As the rope became undone,
The strands unravelling faster than
The ropemaker had spun,
The hangman turned and he crossed himself
As he said, ‘I’m done with him!
If you want to hang this miserable wretch
Go find the Brothers Grimm!’

The Warden suffered a heart attack,
The jailers fled when they saw,
The Judge hid under the drop and cried,
‘He’s surely the Devil’s spore!
Release him now so our souls are safe
From the reach of the evil one,
It’s not his time for an early grave,
But God help everyone!’

So Titus went to manage the place
He called ‘The Devil’s Drop Inn’,
That sat way out on the crossroads
With a sign that creaked in the wind,
Whole families would avert their eyes
As they passed, and cross themselves,
For the only patrons came by night
And they called them, ‘Satan’s Elves’.

They came with their hats pulled over their eyes,
Their collars hiding their cheeks,
Then slide on into the passageway
And wouldn’t come out for weeks,
No lights were seen through the pebble glass
For the insides lay in gloom,
No drunken revellers came outside
It was silent as the tomb.

But once a month when the Moon was full
And the wind soughed up in the eaves,
A passer-by might hear a cry
Or a howl on the midnight breeze,
But nobody thought to check inside
They’d wear their hood like a cowl,
Then turn and suddenly rush away
When they heard an animal growl.

The storms would come and rattle the tiles,
As the sign would swing and creak,
And hail would shatter the window panes,
Three times in a week,
Til one dark shuddering winter’s night
With the good folk in their cots,
The lightning struck on the Devil’s peak
And shattered the chimney pots.

The fire began in the topmost room
And it raced on down the stair,
Gobbling up the dry rot that
It found most everywhere.
It made its way to the basement ‘til
The whole Inn was ablaze,
The pebble glass was exploding
And the walls themselves were razed.

A couple of passers-by have sworn
That all they saw were cats,
Rushing out of the passageway
And followed by tawny rats,
But in the glow of the embers, heading
Over the hill, they saw,
A shadowy figure, slinking away
The image of Titus Claw!

David Lewis Paget