On old Cold Crendon’s windy tops
Grows wintrily Blown Hilcote Copse,
Wind-bitten beech with badger barrows,
Where brocks eat wasp-grubs with their marrows,
And foxes lie on short-grassed turf,
Nose between paws, to hear the surf
Of wind in the beeches drowsily.
There was our fox bred lustily
Three years before, and there he berthed,
Under the beech-roots snugly earthed,
With a roof of flint and a floor of chalk
And ten bitten hens’ heads each on its stalk,
Some rabbits’ paws, some fur from scuts,
A badger’s corpse and a smell of guts.
And there on the night before my tale
He trotted out for a point in the vale.
He saw, from the cover edge, the valley
Go trooping down with its droops of sally
To the brimming river’s lipping bend,
And a light in the inn at Water’s End.
He heard the owl go hunting by
And the shriek of the mouse the owl made die,
And the purr of the owl as he tore the red
Strings from between his claws and fed;
The smack of joy of the horny lips
Marbled green with the blob by strips.
He saw the farms where the dogs were barking,
Cold Crendon Court and Copsecote Larking;
The fault with the spring as bright as gleed,
Green-slash-laced with water-weed.
A glare in the sky still marked the town,
Though all folk slept and the blinds were down,
The street lamps watched the empty square,
The night-cat sang his evil there.
The fox’s nose tipped up and round,
Since smell is a part of sight and sound.
Delicate smells were drifting by,
The sharp nose flaired them heedfully;
Partridges in the clover stubble,
Crouched in a ring for the stoat to nubble.
Rabbit bucks beginning to box;
A scratching place for the pheasant cock
A hare in the dead grass near the drain,
And another smell like the spring again.
A faint rank taint like April coming,
It cocked his ears and his blood went drumming,
For somewhere out by Ghost Heath Stubs
Was a roving vixen wanting cubs.
Over the valley, floating faint
On a warmth of windflaw, came the taint;
He cocked his ears, he’ upped his brush,
And he went upwind like an April thrush
By the Roman Road to Braiches Ridge,
Where the fallen willow makes a bridge,
Over the brook by White Hart’s Thorn
To the acres thin with pricking corn,
Over the sparse green hair of the wheat,
By the Clench Brook Mill at Clench Brook Leat,
Through Cowfoot Pastures to Nonely Stevens,
And away to Poltrewood St. Jevons.
Past Tott Hill Down all snaked with meuses,
Past Clench St. Michael and Naunton Crucis,
Past Howle’s Oak Farm where the raving brain
Of a dog who heard him foamed his chain;
Then off, as the farmer’s window opened,
Past Stonepits Farm to Upton Hope End,
Over short sweet grass and worn flint arrows
And the three dumb hows of Tencombe Barrows.
And away and away with a rolling scramble,
Through the sally and up the bramble,
With a nose for the smells the night wind carried,
And his red fell clean for being married;
For clicketting time and Ghost Heath Wood
Had put the violet in his blood.
At Tencombe Rings near the Manor Linney
His foot made the great black stallion whinny,
And the stallion’s whinny aroused the stable
And the bloodhound ****es stretched their cable,
And the clink of the bloodhounds’ chain aroused
The sweet-breathed kye as they chewed and drowsed,
And the stir of the cattle changed the dream
Of the cat in the loft to tense green gleam.
The red-wattled black cock hot from Spain
Crowed from his perch for dawn again,
His breast-pufft hens, one-legged on perch,
Gurgled, beak-down, like men in church,
They crooned in the dark, lifting one red eye
In the raftered roost as the fox went by.
By Tencombe Regis and Slaughters Court,
Through the great grass square of Roman Fort,
By Nun’s Wood Yews and the Hungry Hill,
And the Corpse Way Stones all standing still.
By Seven Springs Mead to Deerlip Brook,
And a lolloping leap to Water Hook.
Then with eyes like sparks and his blood awoken,
Over the grass to Water’s Oaken,
And over the hedge and into the ride
In Ghost Heath Wood for his roving bride.
Before the dawn he had loved and fed,
And found a kennel, and gone to bed
On a shelf of grass in a thick of gorse
That would bleed a hound and blind a horse.
There he slept in the mild west weather
With his nose and brush well tuckt together,
He slept like a child, who sleeps yet hears
With the self who needs neither eyes nor ears.
He slept while the pheasant cock untucked
His head from his wing, flew down and kukked,
While the drove of the starlings whirred and wheeled
Out of the ash-trees into field,
While with great black flags that flogged and paddled
The rooks went out to the plough and straddled,
Straddled wide on the moist red cheese
Of the furrows driven at Uppat’s Leas.
Down in the village men awoke,
The chimneys breathed with a faint blue smoke;
The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches,
Due to his dreams, ran down his flitches.
The cows were milked and the yards were sluict,
And the cocks and hens let out of roost,
Windows were opened, mats were beaten,
All men’s breakfasts were cooked and eaten;
But out in the gorse on the grassy shelf
The sleeping fox looked after himself.
Deep in his dream he heard the life
Of the woodland seek for food or wife,
The hop of a stoat, a buck that thumped
The squeal of a rat as a weasel jumped,
The blackbird’s chackering scattering crying,
The rustling bents from the rabbits flying,
Cows in a byre, and distant men,
And Condicote church-clock striking ten.
At eleven o’clock a boy went past,
With a rough-haired terrier following fast.
The boy’s sweet whistle and dog’s quick yap
Woke the fox from out of his nap.
He rose and stretched till the claws in his pads
Stuck hornily out like long black gads.
He listened a while, and his nose went round
To catch the smell of the distant sound.
The windward smells came free from taint
They were rabbit, strongly, with lime-kiln, faint,
A wild-duck, likely, at Sars Holt Pond,
And sheep on the Sars Holt Down beyond.
The leeward smells were much less certain,
For the Ghost Heath Hill was like a curtain,
Yet vague, from the leeward, now and then,
Came muffled sounds like the sound of men.
He moved to his right to a clearer space,
And all his soul came into his face,
Into his eyes and into his nose,
As over the hill a murmur rose.
His ears were cocked and his keen nose flaired,
He sneered with his lips till his teeth were bared,
He trotted right and lifted a pad,
Trying to test what foes he had.
On Ghost Heath turf was a steady drumming
Which sounded like horses quickly coming,
It died as the hunt went down the dip,
Then Malapert yelped at Myngs’s whip.
A bright iron horseshoe clinkt on stone,
Then a man’s voice spoke, not one alone,
Then a burst of laughter, swiftly still,
Muffled away by Ghost Heath Hill.
Then, indistinctly, the clop, clip, clep,
On Brady Ride, of a horse’s step.
Then silence, then, in a burst, much clearer,
Voices and horses coming nearer,
And another noise, of a pit-pat beat
On the Ghost Hill grass, of foxhound feet.
He sat on his haunches listening hard,
While his mind went over the compass card.
Men were coming and rest was done,
But he still had time to get fit to run;
He could outlast horse and outrace hound,
But men were devils from Lobs’s Pound.
Scent was burning, the going good,
The world one lust for a fox’s blood,
The main earths stopped and the drains put to,
And fifteen miles to the land he knew.
But of all the ills, the ill least pleasant
Was to run in the light when men were present.
Men in the fields to shout and sign
For a lift of hounds to a fox’s line.
Men at the earth, at the long point’s end,
Men at each check and none his friend,
Guessing each shift that a fox contrives;
But still, needs must when the devil drives. .
He readied himself, then a soft horn blew,
Then a clear voice carolled, “Ed-hoick! Eleu! ”
Then the wood-end rang with the clear voice crying
And the crackle of scrub where hounds were trying.
Then the horn blew nearer, a hound’s voice quivered,
Then another, then more, till his body shivered,
He left his kennel and trotted thence
With his ears flexed back and his nerves all tense.
He trotted down with his nose intent
For a fox’s line to cross his scent,
It was only fair (he being a stranger)
That the native fox should have the danger.
Danger was coming! so swift, so swift,
That the pace of his trot began to lift.
The blue-winged Judas, a jay began
Swearing, hounds whimpered, air stank of man.
He hurried his trotting, he now felt frighted,
It was his poor body made hounds excited.
He felt as he ringed the great wood through
That he ought to make for the land he knew.
Then the hounds’ excitement quivered and quickened,
Then a horn blew death till his marrow sickened,
Then the wood behind was a crash of cry
For the blood in his veins; it made him fly.
They were on his line; it was death to stay.
He must make for home by the shortest way,
But with all this yelling and all this wrath
And all these devils, how find a path?
He ran like a stag to the wood’s north corner,
Where the hedge was thick and the ditch a yawner,
But the scarlet glimpse of Myngs on Turk,
Watching the woodside, made him shirk.
He ringed the wood and looked at the south.
What wind there was blew into his mouth.
But close to the woodland’s blackthorn thicket
Was Dansey, still as a stone, on picket.
At Dansey’s back were a twenty more
Watching the cover and pressing fore.
The fox drew in and flaired with his muzzle.
Death was there if he messed the puzzle.
There were men without and hounds within,
A crying that stiffened the hair on skin,
Teeth in cover and death without,
Both deaths coming, and no way out.
His nose ranged swjftly, his heart beat fast,
Then a crashing cry rose up in a blast,
Then horsehooves trampled, then horses’ flitches
Burst their way through the hazel switches.
Then the horn again made the hounds like mad,
And a man, quite near, said, “Found, by Gad! ”
And a man, quite near, said, “Now he’ll break.
Larks Ley bourne Copse is the line he’ll take.”
And men moved up with their talk and stink
And the traplike noise of the horseshoe clink.
Men whose coming meant death from teeth
In a worrying wrench, with him beneath.
The fox sneaked down by the cover side
(With his ears flexed back) as a snake would glide;
He took the ditch at the cover-end,
He hugged the ditch as his only friend.
The blackbird cock with the golden beak
Got out of his way with a jabbering shriek,
And the shriek told Tom on the raking bay
That for eighteen pence he was gone away.
He ran in the hedge in the triple growth
Of bramble and hawthorn, glad of both,
Till a couple of fields were past, and then
Came the living death of the dread of men.
Then, as he listened, he heard a “Hoy ! ”
Tom Danser’s horn and “A wa-wa-woy ! ”
Then all hounds crying with all their forces,
Then a thundering down of seventy horses.
Robin Dawe’s horn and halloos of ” Hey,
Hark Hollar, Hoik ! “and” Gone away! ”
“Hark Hollar, Hoik ! “and a smack of the whip”
A yelp as a tail hound caught the clip.
“Hark Hollar, Hark Hollar! ” then Robin made
Pip go crash through the cut and laid.
Hounds were over and on his line
With a head like bees upon Tipple Tine.
The sound of the nearness sent a flood
Of terror of death through the fox’s blood.
He upped his brush and he cocked his nose,
And he went upwind as a racer goes.
Bold Robin Dawe was over first,
Cheering his hounds on at the burst;
The field were spurring to be in it.
“Hold hard, sirs, give them half a minute,”
Came from Sir Peter on his white.
The hounds went romping with delight
Over the grass and got together,
The tail hounds galloped hell-for-leather
After the pack at Myngs’s yell.
A cry like every kind of bell
Rang from these rompers as they raced.
The riders, thrusting to be placed,
Jammed down their hats and shook their horses;
The hounds romped past with all their forces,
They crashed into the blackthorn fence.
The scent was heavy on their sense,
So hot, it seemed the living thing,
It made the blood within them sing;
Gusts of it made their hackles rise,
Hot gulps of it were agonies
Of joy, and thirst for blood and passion.
“Forrard ! ” cried Robin, ” that’s the fashion.”
He raced beside his pack to cheer.
The field’s noise died upon his ear,
A faint horn, far behind, blew thin
In cover, lest some hound were in.
Then instantly the great grass rise
Shut field and cover from his eyes,
He and his racers were alone.
“A dead fox or a broken bone,”
Said Robin, peering for his prey.
The rise, which shut the field away,
Showed him the vale’s great map spread out,
The down’s lean flank and thrusting snout,
Pale pastures, red-brown plough, dark wood,
Blue distance, still as solitude,
Glitter of water here and there,
The trees so delicately bare,
The dark green gorse and bright green holly.
“0 glorious God,” he said, “how jolly!”
And there downhill two fields ahead
The lolloping red dog-fox sped
Over Poor Pastures to the brook.
He grasped these things in one swift look,
Then dived into the bullfinch heart
Through thorns that ripped his sleeves apart
And skutched new blood upon his brow.
“His point’s Lark’s Leybourne Covers now,
“Said Robin, landing with a grunt.
“Forrard, my beautifuls ! ”
The hunt
Followed downhill to race with him,
White Rabbit, with his swallow’s skim,
Drew within hail. “Quick burst, Sir Peter,”
“A traveller. Nothing could be neater.
Making for Godsdown Clumps, I take it?”
“Lark’s Leybourne, sir, if he can make it.
Forrard !”
Bill Ridden thundered down,
His big mouth grinned beneath his frown,
The hounds were going away from horses.
He saw the glint of watercourses,
Yell Brook and Wittold’s Dyke, ahead,
His horseshoes sliced the green turf red.
Young Cothill’s chaser rushed and past him,
Nob Manor, running next, said ” Blast him!
The poet chap who thinks he rides.”
Hugh Colway’s mare made straking strides
Across the grass, the Colonel next,
Then Squire, volleying oaths, and vext,
Fighting his hunter for refusing;
Bell Ridden, like a cutter cruising,
Sailing the grass; then Cob on Warder;
Then Minton Price upon Marauder ;
Ock Gurney with his eyes intense,
Burning as with a different sense,
His big mouth muttering glad “By damns!”
Then Pete, crouched down from head to hams,
Rapt like a saint, bright focussed flame;
Bennett, with devils in his wame,
Chewing black cud and spitting slanting;
Copse scattering jests and Stukely ranting;
Sal Ridden taking line from Dansey;
(Long Robert forcing Necromancy;
A dozen more with bad beginnings;
Myngs riding hard to snatch an innings.
A wild last hound with high shrill yelps
Smacked forrard with some whipthong skelps.
Then last of all, at top of rise,
The crowd on foot, all gasps and eyes;
The run up hill had winded them.
They saw the Yell Brook like a gem
Blue in the grass a short mile on ;
They heard faint cries, but hounds were gone
A good eight fields and out of sight,
Except a rippled glimmer white
Going away with dying cheering,
And scarlet flappings disappearing,
And scattering horses going, going,
Going like mad, White Rabbit snowing
Far on ahead, a loose horse taking
Fence after fence with stirrups shaking,
And scarlet specks and dark specks dwindling.
Nearer, were twigs knocked into kindling,
A much-bashed fence still dropping stick,
Flung clods still quivering from the kick;
Cut hoof-marks pale in cheesy clay,
The horse-smell blowing clean away;
Birds flitting back into the cover.
One last faint cry, then all was over.
The hunt had been, and found, and gone.
At Neaking’s Farm three furlongs on,
Hounds raced across the Waysmore Road,
Where many of the riders slowed
To tittup down a grassy lane
Which led as hounds led in the main,
And gave no danger of a fall.
There as they tittupped one and all,
Big Twenty Stone came scattering by,
His great mare made the hoof-casts fly.
“By leave!” he cried. “Come on! Come up !
This fox is running like a tup ;
Let’s leave this lane and get to terms,
No sense in crawling here like worms.
Come, let me pass and let me start.
This fox is running like a hart,
And this is going to be a run.
Come on, I want to see the fun.
Thanky. By leave! Now, Maiden, do it.
“He faced the fence and put her through it,
Shielding his eyes lest spikes should blind him;
The crashing blackthorn closed behind him.
Mud-scatters chased him as he scudded;
His mare’s ears cocked, her neat feet thudded.
The kestrel cruising over meadow
Watched the hunt gallop on his shadow,
Wee figures, almost at a stand,
Crossing the multicoloured land,
Slow as a shadow on a dial. ,
Some horses, swerving at a trial,
Balked at a fence: at gates they bunched.
The mud about the gates was dunched
Like German cheese; men pushed for places,
And kicked the mud into the faces
Of those who made them room to pass.
The half-mile’s gallop on the grass
Had tailed them out and warmed their blood.
“His point’s the Banner Barton Wood.”
“That, or Goat’s Gorse.” “A stinger, this.”
“You’re right in that; by Jove, it is.”
“An upwind travelling fox, by George!”
“They say Tom viewed him at the forge.”
“Well, let me pass and let’s be on.”
They crossed the lane to Tolderton,
The hill-marl died to valley clay,
And there before them ran the grey
Yell Water, swirling as it ran,
The Yell Brook of the hunting man.
The hunters eyed it and were grim.
They saw the water snaking slim
Ahead, like silver; they could see
(Each man) his pollard willow-tree
Firming the bank; they felt their horses
Catch the gleam’s hint and gather forces;
They heard the men behind draw near.
Each horse was trembling as a spear
Trembles in hand when tense to hurl.
They saw the brimmed brook’s eddies curl;
The willow-roots like water-snakes;
The beaten holes the ratten makes.
They heard the water’s rush; they heard
Hugh Colway’s mare come like a bird;
A faint cry from the hounds ahead,
Then saddle-strain, the bright hooves’ tread,
Quick words, the splash of mud, the launch,
The sick hope that the bank be staunch,
Then Souse, with Souse to left and right.
Maroon across, Sir Peter’s white
Down but pulled up, Tom over, Hugh
Mud to the hat but over too,
Well splashed by Squire, who was in.
With draggled pink stuck close to skin
The Squire leaned from bank and hauled
His mired horse’s rein; he bawled
For help from each man racing by.
“What, help you pull him out? Not I.
What made you pull him in ? ” they said.
Nob Manor cleared and turned his head,
And cried, “Wade up. The ford’s upstream.”
“Ock Gurney in a cloud of steam
Stood by his dripping cob and wrung
The taste of brook mud from his tongue,
And scraped his poor cob’s pasterns clean.
“Lord, what a crowner we’ve a-been.
This jumping brook’s a mucky job.”
He muttered, grinning, “Lord, poor cob!
Now, sir, let me.” He turned to Squire
And cleared his hunter from the mire
By skill and sense and strength of arm.
Meanwhile the fox passed Nonesuch Farm,
Keeping the spinney on his right.
Hounds raced him here with all their might
Along the short firm grass, like fire.
The cowman viewed him from the byre
Lolloping on, six fields ahead,
Then hounds, still carrying such a head
It made him stare, then Rob on Pip,
Sailing the great grass like a ship,
Then grand Maroon in all his glory,
Sweeping his strides, his great chest hoary
With foam fleck and the pale hill-marl.
They strode the Leet, they flew the Snarl,
They knocked the nuts at Nonesuch Mill,
Raced up the spur of Gallows Hill
And viewed him there. The line he took
Was Tineton and the Pantry Brook,
Going like fun and hounds like mad.
Tom glanced to see what friends he had
Still within sight, before he turned
The ridge’s shoulder; he discerned,
One field away, young Cothill sailing
Easily up. Pete Gurney failing,
Hugh Colway quartering on Sir Peter,
Bill waiting on the mare to beat her,
Sal Ridden skirting to the right.
A horse, with stirrups flashing bright
Over his head at every stride,
Looked like the Major’s; Tom espied
Far back a scarlet speck of man
Running, and straddling as he ran.
Charles Copse was up, Nob Manor followed,
Then Bennett’s big-boned black that wallowed,
Clumsy, but with the strength of ten.
Then black and brown and scarlet men,
Brown horses, white and black and grey,
Scattered a dozen fields away.
The shoulder shut the scene away.
From the Gallows Hill to the Tineton Copse
There were ten ploughed fields, like ten full-stops,
All wet red clay, where a horse’s foot
Would be swathed, feet thick, like an ash-tree root.
The fox raced on, on the headlands firm,
Where his swift feet scared the coupling worm;
The rooks rose raving to curse him raw,
He snarled a sneer at their swoop and caw.
Then on, then on, down a half-ploughed field
Where a ship-like plough drove glitter-keeled,
With a bay horse near and a white horse leading,
And a man saying “Zook,” and the red earth bleeding.
He gasped as he saw the ploughman drop
The stilts and swear at the team to stop.
The plough man ran in his red clay clogs,
Crying, “Zick un, Towzer; zick, good dogs! ”
A couple of wire-haired lurchers lean
Arose from his wallet, nosing keen;
With a rushing swoop they were on his track,
Putting chest to stubble to bite his back.
He swerved from his line with the curs at heel,
The teeth as they missed him clicked like steel.
With a worrying snarl, they quartered on him,
While the ploughman shouted, “Zick; upon him.”
The lurcher dogs soon shot their bolt,
And the fox raced on by the Hazel Holt,
Down the dead grass tilt to the sandstone gash
Of the Pantry Brook at Tineton Ash.
The loitering water, flooded full,
Had yeast on its lip like raddled wool,
It was wrinkled over with Arab script
Of eddies that twisted up and slipt.
The stepping-stones had a rush about them,
So the fox plunged in and swam without them.
He crossed to the cattle’s drinking shallow,
Firmed up with rush and the roots of mallow;
He wrung his coat from his draggled bones
And romped away for the Sarsen Stones.
A sneaking glance with his ears flexed back
Made sure that his scent had failed the pack,
For the red clay, good for corn and roses,
Was cold for scent and brought hounds to noses.
He slackened pace by the Tineton Tree
(A vast hollow ash-tree grown in three),
He wriggled a shake and padded slow,
Not sure if the hounds were on or no.
A horn blew faint, then he heard the sounds
Of a cantering huntsman; lifting hounds;
The ploughman had raised his hat for sign,
And the hounds were lifted and on his line.
He heard the splash in the Pantry Brook,
And a man’s voice: “Thiccy’s the line he took.”
And a clear “Yoi doit !” and a whimpering quaver,
Though the lurcher dogs had dulled the savour.
The fox went off while the hounds made halt,
And the horses breathed and the field found fault,
But the whimpering rose to a crying crash
By the hollow ruin of Tineton Ash.
Then again the kettledrum horsehooves beat,
And the green blades bent to the fox’s feet,
And the cry rose keen not far behind
Of the ” Blood, blood, blood,” in the foxhounds’ mind.
The fox was strong, he was full of running,
He could run for an hour and then be cunning,
But the cry behind him made him chill,
They were nearer now and they meant to kill.
They meant to run him until his blood
Clogged on his heart as his brush with mud,
Till his back bent up and his tongue hung flagging,
And his belly and brush were filthed from dragging;
Till he crouched stone-still, dead-beat and dirty,
With nothing but teeth against the thirty.
And all the way to that blinding end
He would meet with men and have none his friend:
Men to holloa and men to run him,
With stones to stagger and yells to stun him;
Men to head him, with whips to beat him,
Teeth to mangle and mouths to eat him.
And all the way, that wild high crying,
To cold his blood with the thought of dying,
The horn and the cheer, and the drum-like thunder
Of the horsehooves stamping the meadows under.
He upped his brush and went with a will
For the Sarsen Stones on Wan Dyke Hill.
As he ran the meadow by Tineton Church
A christening party left the porch;
They stood stock still as he pounded by,
They wished him luck but they thought he’d die.
The toothless babe in his long white coat
Looked delicate meat, the fox took note;
But the sight of them grinning there, pointing finger,
Made him put on steam till he went a stinger.
Past Tineton Church, over Tineton Waste,
With the lolloping ease of a fox’s haste,
The fur on his chest blown dry with the air,
His brush still up and his cheek-teeth bare.
Over the Waste, where the ganders grazed,
The long swift lilt of his loping lazed,
His ears cocked up as his blood ran higher,
He saw his point, and his eyes took fire.
The Wan Dyke Hill with its fir-tree barren,
Its dark of gorse and its rabbit-warren,
The Dyke on its heave like a tightened girth,
And holes in the Dyke where a fox might earth.
He had rabbited there long months before,
The earths were deep and his need was sore;
The way was new, but he took a bearing,
And rushed like a blown ship billow-sharing.
Off Tineton Common to Tineton Dean,
Where the wind-hid elders pushed with green;
Through the Dean’s thin cover across the lane,
And up Midwinter to King of Spain.
Old Joe, at digging his garden grounds,
Said: “A fox, being hunted; where be hounds?
0 lord, my back, to be young again,
‘Stead a zellin’ zider in King of Spain!
0 hark! I hear’ em, 0 sweet, 0 sweet.
Why there be redcoat in Gearge’s wheat.
And there be redcoat, and there they gallop.
Thur go a browncoat down a wallop.
Quick, Ellen, quick! Come, Susan, fly !
Here’m hounds. I zeed the fox go by,
Go by like thunder, go by like blasting,
With his girt white teeth all looking ghasting.
Look, there come hounds.! Hark, hear ’em crying?
Lord, belly to stubble, ain’t they flying!
There’s huntsman, there. The fox come past
(As I was digging) as fast as fast.
He’s only been gone a minute by ;
A girt dark dog as pert as pye.”
Ellen and Susan came out scattering
Brooms and dustpans till all was clattering;
They saw the pack come head-to-foot
Running like racers, nearly mute;
Robin and Dansey quartering near,
All going gallop like startled deer.
A half-dozen flitting scarlets showing
In the thin green Dean where the pines were growing.
Blackcoats and browncoats thrusting and spurring,
Sending the partridge coveys whirring.
Then a rattle uphill and a clop up lane,
It emptied the bar of the King of Spain.
Tom left his cider, Dick left his bitter,
Granfer James left his pipe and spitter ;
Out they came from the sawdust floor.
They said, “They’m going.”They said, “0 Lor’ ! ”
The fox raced on, up the Barton Balks,
With a crackle of kex in the nettle stalks,
Over Hammond’s grass to the dark green line
Of the larch-wood smelling of turpentine.
Scratch Steven Larches, black to the sky,
A sadness breathing with one long sigh,
Grey ghosts of trees under funeral plumes,
A mist of twig over soft brown glooms.
As he entered the wood he heard the smacks,
Chip-jar, of the fir-pole feller’s axe.
He swerved to the left to a broad green ride,
Where a boy made him rush for the farther side.
He swerved to the left, to the Barton Road,
But there were the timberers come to load
Two timber-carts and a couple of carters
With straps round their knees instead of garters.
He swerved to the right, straight down the wood,
The carters watched him, the boy hallooed.
He leaped from the larch-wood into tillage,
The cobbler’s garden of Barton village.
The cobbler bent at his wooden foot,
Beating sprigs in a broken boot;
He wore old glasses with thick horn rim,
He scowled at his work, for his sight was dim.
His face was dingy, his lips were grey,
From primming sparrowbills day by day.
As he turned his boot he heard a noise
At his garden-end, and he thought, “It’s boys.”
He saw his cat nip up on the shed,
Where her back arched up till it touched her head;
He saw his rabbit race round and round
Its little black box three feet from ground.
His six hens cluckered and flocked to perch,
“That’s boys,” said cobbler,”so I’ll go search.”
He reached his stick and blinked in his wrath,
When he saw ‘a fox in his garden path.
The fox swerved left and scrambled out,
Knocking crinked green shells from the brussels-sprout,
He scrambled out through the cobbler’s paling,
And up Pill’s orchard to Purton’s Tailing,
Across the plough at the top of bent,
Through the heaped manure to kill his scent,
Over to Aldam’s, up to Cappell’s.
Past Nursery Lot with its whitewashed apples,
Past Colston’s Broom, past Gaunt’s, past Shere’s,
Past Foxwhelps’ Oasts with their hooded ears,
Past Monk’s Ash Clerewell, past Beggars’ Oak,
Past the great elms blue with the Hinton smoke.
Along Long Hinton to Hinton Green,
Where the wind-washed steeple stood serene
With its golden bird still sailing air.
Past Banner Barton, past Chipping Bare,
Past Madding’s Hollow, down Dundry Dip,
And up Goose Grass to the Sailing Ship.
The three black firs of the Ship stood still
On the bare chalk heave of the Dundry Hill.
The fox looked back as he slackened past
The scaled red-bole of the mizen-mast.
There they were coming, mute but swift
A scarlet smear in the blackthorn rift,
A white horse rising, a dark horse flying,
And the, hungry hounds too tense for crying.
Stormcock leading, his stern spear straight,
Racing as though for a piece of plate,
Little speck horsemen field on field;
Then Dansey viewed him and Robin squealed.
At the “View Halloo ! ” the hounds went frantic:
Back went Stormcock and up went Antic,
Up went Skylark as Antic sped,
It was zest to blood how they carried head.
Skylark drooped as Maroon drew by,
Their hackles lifted, they scored to cry.
The fox knew well that, before they tore him,
They should try their speed on the downs before him.
There were three more miles to the Wan Dyke Hill,
But his heart was high that he beat them still.
The wind of the downland charmed his bones,
So off he went for the Sarsen Stones.
The moan of the three great firs in the wind
And the “Ai ” of the foxhounds died behind;
Wind-dapples followed the hill-wind’s breath
On the Kill Down Gorge where the Danes found death.
Larks scattered up; the peewits feeding
Rose in a flock from the Kill Down Steeding.
The hare leaped up from her form and swerved
Swift left for the Starveall, harebell-turved.
On the wind-bare thorn some longtails prinking
Cried sweet as though wind-blown glass were chinking.
Behind came thudding and loud halloo,
Or a cry from hounds as they came to view.
The pure clean air came sweet to his lungs,
Till he thought foul scorn of those crying tongues.
In a three mile more he would reach the haven
In the Wan Dyke croaked on by the raven.
In a three mile more he would make his berth
On the hard cool floor of a Wan Dyke earth,
Too deep for spade, too curved for terrier,
With the pride of the race to make rest the merrier.
In a three mile more he would reach his dream,
So his game heart gulped and he put on steam.
Like a rocket shot to a ship ashore
The lean red bolt of his body tore,
Like a ripple of wind running swift on grass;
Like a shadow on wheat when a cloud blows past,
Like a turn at the buoy in a cutter sailing
When the bright green gleam lips white at the railing,
Like the April snake whipping back to sheath,
Like the gannets’ hurtle on fish beneath,
Like a kestrel chasing, like a sickle reaping,
Like all things swooping, like all things sweeping,
Like a hound for stay, like a stag for swift,
With his shadow beside like spinning drift.
Past the gibbet-stock all stuck with nails,
Where they hanged in chains what had hung at jails,
Past Ashmundshowe where Ashmund sleeps,
And none but the tumbling peewit weeps,
Past Curlew Calling, the gaunt grey corner
Where the curlew comes as a summer mourner,
Past Blowbury Beacon, shaking his fleece,
Where all winds hurry and none brings peace;
Then down on the mile-long green decline,
Where the turf’s like spring and the air’s like wine,
Where the sweeping spurs of the downland spill
Into Wan Brook Valley and Wan Dyke Hill.
On he went with a galloping rally
Past Maesbury Clump for Wan Brook Valley.
The blood in his veins went romping high,
“Get on, on, on, to the earth or die.”
The air of the downs went purely past .
Till he felt the glory of going fast,
Till the terror of death, though there indeed,
Was lulled for a while by his pride of speed. ‘”
He was romping away from hounds and hunt,
He had Wan Dyke Hill and his earth in front,
In a one mile more when his point was made
He would rest in safety from dog or spade;
Nose between paws he would hear the shout
Of the “Gone to earth! ” to the hounds without,
The whine of the hounds, and their cat-feet gadding,
Scratching the earth, and their breath pad-padding;
He would hear the horn call hounds away,
And rest in peace till another day.
In one mile more he would lie at rest,
So for one mile more he would go his best.
He reached the dip at the long droop’s end
And he took what speed he had still to spend.
So down past Maesbury beech-clump grey
That would not be green till the end of May,
Past Arthur’s Table, the white chalk boulder,
Where pasque flowers purple the down’s grey shoulder,
Past Quichelm’s Keeping, past Harry’s Thorn,
To Thirty Acre all thin with corn.
As he raced the corn towards Wan Dyke Brook
The pack had view of the way he took;
Robin hallooed from the downland’s crest,
He capped them on till they did their best.
The quarter-mile to the Wan Brook’s brink
Was raced as quick as a man can think.
And here, as he ran to the huntsman’s yelling,
The fox first felt that the pace was telling;
His body and lungs seemed all grown old,
His legs less certain, his heart less bold,
The hound-noise nearer, the hill-slope steeper,
The thud in the blood of his body deeper.
His pride in his speed, his joy in the race
Were withered away, for what use was pace?
He had run his best, and the hounds ran better,
Then the going worsened, the earth was wetter.
Then his brush drooped down till it sometimes dragged,
And his fur felt sick and his chest was tagged
With taggles of mud, and his pads seemed lead;
It was well for him he’d an earth ahead.
Down he went to the brook and over,
Out of the corn and into the clover,
Over the slope that the Wan Brook drains,
Past Battle Tump where they earthed the Danes,
Then up the hjll that the Wan Dyke rings
Where the Sarsen Stones stand grand like kings.
Seven Sarsens of granite grim,
As he ran them by they looked at him;
As he leaped the lip of their earthen paling
The hounds were gaining and he was failing.
He passed the Sarsens, he left the spur,
He pressed uphill to the blasted fir,
He slipped as he leaped the hedge; he slithered.
“He’s mine,” thought Robin. “He’s done; he’s dithered.”
At the second attempt he cleared the fence,
He turned half-right where the gorse was dense,
He was leading hounds by a furlong clear,
He was past his best, but his earth was near.
He ran up gorse to the spring of the ramp,
The steep green wall of the dead men’s camp,
He sidled up it and scampered down
To the deep green ditch of the Dead Men’s Town.
Within, as he reached that soft green turf,
The wind, blowing lonely, moaned like surf,
Desolate ramparts rose up steep
On either side, for the ghosts to keep.
He raced the trench, past the rabbit warren,
Close-grown with moss which the wind made barren;
He passed the spring where the rushes spread,
And there in the stones was his earth ahead.
One last short burst upon failing feet –
There life lay waiting, so sweet, so sweet,
Rest in a darkness, balm for aches.
The earth was stopped. It was barred with stakes.
With the hounds at head so close behind
He had to run as he changed his mind.
This earth, as he saw, was stopped, but still
There was one earth more on the Wan Dyke Hill-
A rabbit burrow a furlong on ;
He could kennel there till the hounds were gone.
Though his death seemed near he did not blench,
He upped his brush and he ran the trench.
He ran the trench while the wind moaned treble,
Earth trickled down, there were falls of pebble.
Down in the valley of that dark gash
The wind-withered grasses looked like ash.
Trickles of stones and earth fell down
In that dark alley of Dead Men’s Town.
A hawk arose from a fluff of feathers,
From a distant fold came a bleat of wethers.
He heard no noise from the hounds behind
But the hill-wind moaning like something blind.
He turned the bend in the hill, and there
Was his rabbit-hole with its mouth worn bare;
But there, with a gun tucked under his arm,
Was young Sid Kissop of Purlpit’s Farm,
With a white hob ferret to drive the rabbit
Into a net which was set to nab it.
And young Jack Cole peered over the wall,
And loosed a pup with a “Z’bite en, Saul! ”
The terrier pup attacked with a will,
So the fox swerved right and away downhill.
Down from the ramp of the Dyke he ran
To the brackeny patch where the gorse began,
Into the gorse, where the hill’s heave hid
The line he took from the eyes of Sid;
He swerved downwind and ran like a hare
For the wind-blown spinney below him there.
He slipped from the gorse to the spinney dark
(There were’curled grey growths on the oak-tree bark) ;
He saw no more of the terrier pup,
But he heard men speak and the hounds come up.
He crossed the spinney with ears intent
For the cry of hounds on the way he went;
His heart was thumping, the hounds were near now,
He could make no sprint at a cry and cheer now,
He was past his perfect, his strength was failing,
His brush sag-sagged and his legs were ailing.
He felt, as he skirted Dead Men’s Town,
That in one mile more they would have him down.
Through the withered oak’s wind-crouching tops
He saw men’s scarlet above the copse,
He heard men’s oaths, yet he felt hounds slacken,
In the frondless stalks of the brittle bracken.
He felt that the unseen link which bound
His spine to the nose of the leading hound
Was snapped, that the hounds no longer knew
Which way to follow nor what to do;
That the threat of the hound’s teeth left his neck,
They had ceased to run, they had come to check.
They were quartering wide on the Wan Hill’s bent.
The terrier’s chase had killed his scent.
He heard bits chink as the horses shifted,
He heard hounds cast, then he heard hounds lifted,
But there came no cry from a new attack;
His heart grew steady, his breath came back.
He left the spinney and ran its edge
By the deep dry ditch of the blackthorn hedge;
Then out of the ditch and down the meadow, ,
Trotting at ease in the blackthorn shadow,
Over the track called Godsdown Road,
To the great grass heave of the gods’ abode.
He was moving now upon land he knew:
Up Clench Royal and Morton Tew,
The Pol Brook, Cheddesdon, and East Stoke Church,
High Clench St. Lawrence and Tinker’s Birch.
Land he had roved on night by night,
For hot blood-suckage or furry bite.
The threat of the hounds behind was gone;
He breathed deep pleasure and trotted on.
While young Sid Kissop thrashed the pup
Robin on Pip came heaving up,
And found his pack spread out at check.
“I’d like to wring your terrier’s neck,”
He said, “you see? He’s spoiled our sport.
He’s killed the scent.” He broke off short,
And stared at hounds and at the valley.
No jay or magpie gave a rally,
Down in the copse, no circling rooks ,
Rose over fields; old Joyful’s looks
Were doubtful in the gorse, the pack
Quested both up and down and back.
He watched ‘each hound for each small sign.
They tried, but could not hit the line,
The scent was gone. The field took place
Out of the way of hounds. The pace
Had tailed them out; though four remained:
Sir Peter, on White Rabbit, stained
Red from the brooks, Bill Ridden cheery,
Hugh Colway with his mare dead weary,
The Colonel with Marauder beat.
They turned towards a thud of feet;
Dansey, and then young Cothill came
(His chestnut mare was galloped tame).
“There’s Copse a field behind,” he said.
“Those last miles put them all to bed.
They’re strung along the downs like flies.”
Copse and Nob Manor topped the rise.
“Thank God! A check,” they said, “at last.”
“They cannot own it; you must cast,”
Sir Peter said. The soft horn blew,
Tom turned the hounds upwind. They drew
Upwind, downhill, by spinney-side.
They tried the brambled ditch; they tried
The swamp, all choked with bright green grass
And clumps of rush, and pools like glass,
Long since the dead men’s drinking pond.
They tried the white-leaved oak beyond,
But no hound spoke to it or feathered.
The horse-heads drooped like horses tethered,
The men mopped brows. “An hour’s hard run.
Ten miles,” they said, “we must have done.
It’s all of six from Colston’s Gorses.”
The lucky got their second horses.
The time ticked by. “He’s lost,” they muttered.
A pheasant rose. A rabbit scuttered.
Men mopped their scarlet cheeks and drank.
They drew downwind along the bank
(The Wan Way) on the hill’s south spur,
Grown with dwarf oak and juniper,
Like dwarves alive, but no hound spoke.
The seepings made the ground one soak.
They turned the spur; the hounds were beat.
Then Robin shifted in his seat
Watching for signs, but no signs showed.
“I’ll lift across the Godsdown Road
Beyond the spinney,” Robin said.
Tom turned them; Robin went ahead.
Beyond the copse a great grass fallow
Stretched towards Stoke and Cheddesdon Mallow,
A rolling grass where hounds grew keen.
” Yoi do it, then! This is where he’s been,”
Said Robin, eager at their joy.
“Yooi, Joyful, lad! Yooi, Cornerboy !
They’re on to him.”
At his reminders
The keen hounds hurried to the finders.
The finding hounds began to hurry,
Men jammed their hats, prepared to scurry.
The “Ai, Ai,” of the cry began,
Its spirit passed to horse and man;
The skirting hounds romped to the cry.
Hound after hound cried “Ai, Ai, Ai,”
Till all were crying, running, closing,
Their heads well up and no heads nosing.
Joyful ahead with spear-straight stern
They raced the great slope to the burn,
Robin beside them, Tom behind
Pointing past Robin down the wind.
For there, two furlongs on, he viewed
On Holy Hill or Cheddesdon Rood,
Just where the plough land joined the grass,
A speck down the first furrow pass,
A speck the colour of the plough.
“Yonder he goes. We’ll have him now,”
He cried. The speck passed slowly on,
It reached the ditch, paused, and was gone.
Then down the slope and up the Rood
Went the hunt’s gallop. Godsdown Wood
Dropped its last oak-leaves at the rally.
Over the Rood to High Clench Valley
The gallop led: the redcoats scattered,
The fragments of the hunt were tattered
Over five fields, ev’n since the check.
“A dead fox or a broken neck,”
Said Robin Dawe. “Come up, the Dane.”
The hunter lent against the rein,
Cocking his ears; he loved to see
The hounds at cry. The hounds and he
The chiefs in all that feast of pace.
The speck in front began to race.
The fox heard hounds get on to his line,
And again the terror went down his spine;
Again the back of his neck felt cold,
From the sense of the hound’s teeth taking hold.
But his legs were rested, his heart was good,
He had breath to gallop to Mourne End Wood;
It was four miles more, but an earth at end,
So he put on pace down the Rood Hill Bend.
Down the great grass slope which the oak-trees dot,
With a swerve to the right from the keeper’s cot,
Over High Clench Brook in its channel deep,
To the grass beyond, where he ran to sheep.
The sheep formed line like a troop of horse,
They swerved, as he passed, to front his course.
From behind, as he ran, a cry arose:
“See the sheep there. Watch them. There he goes! ”
He ran the sheep that their smell might check
The hounds from his scent and save his neck,
But in two fields more he was made aware
That the hounds still ran ; Tom had viewed him there.
Tom had held them on through the taint of sheep;
They had kept his line, as they meant to keep.
They were running hard with a burning scent,
And Robin could see which way he went.
The pace that he went brought strain to breath,
He knew as he ran that the grass was death.
He ran the slope towards Morton Tew
That the heave of the hill might stop the view,
Then he doubled down to the Blood Brook red,
And swerved upstream in the brook’s deep bed.
He splashed the shallows, he swam the deeps,
He crept by banks as a moorhen creeps;
He heard the hounds shoot over his line,
And go on, on, on, towards Cheddesdon Zine.
In the minute’s peace he could slacken speed,
The ease from the strain was sweet indeed.
Cool to the pads the water flowed.
He reached the bridge on the Cheddesdon Road.
As he came to light from the culvert dim
Two boys on the bridge looked down on him;
They were young Bill Ripple and Harry Meun :
“Look, there be squirrel, a-swimmin’, see ‘un? ”
“Noa, ben’t a squirrel, be fox, be fox.
Now, Hal, get pebble, we’ll give ‘en socks.”
Get pebble, Billy, dub ‘un a plaster;
There’s for thy belly, I’ll learn ‘ee, master.”
The stones splashed spray in the fox’s eyes,
He raced from brook in a burst of shies,
He ran for the reeds in the withy car,
Where the dead flags shake and the wild-duck are.
He pushed through the reeds, which cracked at his passing,
To the High Clench Water, a grey pool glassing;
He heard Bill Ripple, in Cheddesdon Road,
Shout, “This way, huntsmen, it’s here he goed.”
Then “Leu, Leu, Leu,” went the soft horn’s laughter,
The hounds (they had checked) came romping after;
The clop of the hooves on the road was plain,
Then the crackle of reeds, then cries again.
A whimpering first, then Robin’s cheer,
Then the “Ai, Ai, Ai “; they were all too near;
His swerve had brought but a minute’s rest;
Now he ran again, and he ran his best.
With a crackle of dead dry stalks of reed
The hounds came romping at topmost speed;
The redcoats ducked as the great hooves skittered
The Blood Brook’s shallows to sheets that glittered;
With a cracking whip and a “Hoik, Hoik, Hoik,
Forrard !” Tom galloped. Bob shouted ” Yoick ! ”
Like a running fire the dead reeds crackled;
The hounds’ heads lifted, their necks were hackled.
Tom cried to Bob, as they thundered through,
“He is running short, we shall kill at Tew.”
Bob cried to Tom as they rode in team,
“I was sure, that time, that he turned upstream.
As the hounds went over the brook in stride
I saw old Daffodil fling to side,
So I guessed at once, when they checked beyond.”
The ducks flew up from the Morton Pond;
The fox looked up at their tailing strings,
He wished (perhaps) that a fox had wings,
Wings with his friends in a great V straining
The autumn sky when the moon is gaining;
For better the grey sky’s solitude
Than to be two miles from the Mourne End Wood
With the hounds behind, clean-trained to run,
And your strength half spent and your breath half done.
Better the reeds and the sky and water
Than that hopeless pad from a certain slaughter.
At the Morton Pond the fields began-
Long Tew’s green meadows; he ran, he ran.
First the six green fields that make a mile,
With the lip-ful Clench at the side the while,
With rooks above, slow-circling, showing
The world of men where a fox was going;
The fields all empty, dead grass, bare hedges,
And the brook’s bright gleam in the dark of sedges.
To all things else he was dumb and blind;
He ran with the hounds a field behind.
At the sixth green field came the long slow climb
To the Mourne End Wood, as old as time;
Yew woods dark, where they cut for bows,
Oak woods green with the mistletoes,
Dark woods evil, but burrowed deep
With a brock’s earth strong, where a fox might sleep.
He saw his point on the heaving hill,
He had failing flesh and a reeling will ;
He felt the heave of the hill grow stiff,
He saw black woods, which would shelter-if
Nothing else, but the steepening slope
And a black line nodding, a line of hope-
The line of the yews on the long slope’s brow,
A mile, three-quarters, a half-mile now.
A quarter-mile, but the hounds had viewed;
They yelled to have him this side the wood.
Robin capped them, Tom Dansey steered them;
With a “Yooi! Yooi! Yooi!” Bill Ridden cheered them.
Then up went hackles as Shatterer led.
“Mob him! ” cried Ridden, “the wood’s ahead.
Turn him, damn it! Yooi! beauties, beat him!
0 God, let them get him: let them eat him!
0 God! ” said Ridden, “I’ll eat him stewed,
If you’ll let us get him this side the wood.”
But the pace, uphill, made a horse like stone;
The pack went wild up the hill alone.
Three hundred yards and the worst was past,
The slope was gentler and shorter-grassed;
The fox saw the bulk of the woods grow tall
On the brae ahead, like a barrier-wall.
He saw the skeleton trees show sky
And the yew-trees darken to see him die,
And the line of the woods go reeling black:
There was hope in the woods-and behind, the pack.
Two hundred yards and the trees grew taller,
Blacker, blinder, as hope grew smaller;
Cry seemed nearer, the teeth seemed gripping,
Pulling him back; his pads seemed slipping.
He was all one ache, one gasp, one thirsting,
Heart on his chest-bones, beating, bursting;
The hounds were gaining like spotted pards,
And the wood hedge still was a hundred yards.
The wood hedge black was a two-year, quick
Cut-and-laid that had sprouted thjck
Thorns all over and strongly plied,
With a clean red ditch on the take-off side.
He saw it now as a redness, topped
With a wattle of thorn-work spiky cropped,
Spiky to leap on, stiff to force,
No safe jump for a failing horse;
But beyond it darkness of yews together,
Dark green plumes over soft brown feather,
Darkness of woods where scents were blowing-
Strange scents, hot scents, of wild things going,
Scents that might draw these hounds away.
So he ran, ran, ran to that clean red clay.
Still, as he ran, his pads slipped back,
All his strength seemed to draw, the pack,
The trees drew over him dark like Norns,
He was over the ditch and at the thorns.
I He thrust at the thorns, which would not yield;
He leaped, but fell, in sight of the field.
The hounds went wild as they saw him fall,
The fence stood stiff like a Bucks flint wall.
He gathered himself for a new attempt;
His life before was an old dream dreamt,
All that he was was a blown fox quaking,
Jumping at thorns too stiff for breaking,
While over the grass in crowd, in cry,
Came the grip teeth grinning to make him die,
The eyes intense, dull, smouldering red,
The fell like a ruff round each keen head,
The pace like fire, and scarlet men
Galloping, yelling, “Yooi, eat him, then! ”
He gathered himself, he leaped, he reached
The top of the hedge like a fish-boat beached.
He steadied a second and then leaped down
To the dark of the wood where bright things drown.
He swerved, sharp right, under young green firs.
Robin called on the Dane with spurs.
He cried, “Come, Dansey; if God’s not good,
We shall change our fox in this Mourne End Wood.”
Tom cried back as he charged like spate,
“Mine can’t jump that, I must ride to gate.”
Robin answered, “I’m going at him.
I’ll kill that fox, if it kills me, drat him!
We’ll kill in covert. Gerr on, now, Dane.”
He gripped him tight and he made it plain,
He slowed him down till he almost stood,
While his hounds went crash into Mourne End Wood.
Like a dainty dancer, with footing nice
The Dane turned side for a leap in twice.
He cleared the ditch to the red clay bank,
He rose at the fence as his quarters sank,
He barged the fence as the bank gave way,
And down he came in a fall of clay.
Robin jumped off him and gasped for breath,
He said, “That’s lost him as sure as death.
They’ve overrun him. Come up, the Dane.
We’ll kill him yet, if we ride to Spain.”
He scrambled up to his horse’s back,
He thrust through cover, he called his pack;
He cheered them on till they made it good,
Where the fox had swerved inside the wood.
The fox knew well as he ran the dark,
That the headlong hounds were past their mark:
They had missed his swerve and had overrun,
But their devilish play was not yet done.
For a minute he ran and he heard no sound,
Then a whimper came from a questing hound,
Then a “This way, beauties,” and then “Leu, Leu,”
The floating laugh of the horn that blew.
Then the cry again, and the crash and rattle
Of the shrubs burst back as they ran to battle,
Till the wood behind seemed risen from root,
Crying and crashing, to give pursuit,
Till the trees seemed hounds and the air seemed cry,
And the earth so far that he needs but die,
Die where he reeled in the woodland dim,
With a hound’s white grips in the spine of him;
For one more burst he could spurt, and then
Wait for the teeth, and the wrench, and men.
He made his spurt for the Mourne End rocks.
The air blew rank with the taint of fox;
The yews gave way to a greener space
Of great stones strewn in a grassy place.
And there was his earth at the great grey shoulder,
Sunk in the ground, of a granite boulder.
A dry, deep burrow with a rocky roof,
Proof against crowbars, terrier-proof,
Life to the dying, rest for bones.
The earth was stopped; it was filled with stones.
Then, for a moment, his courage failed,
His eyes looked up as his body quailed,
Then the coming of death, which all things dread,
Made him run for the wood ahead.
The taint of fox was rank on the air,
He knew, as he ran, there were foxes there.
His strength was broken, his heart was bursting,
His bones were rotten, his throat was thirsting;
His feet were reeling, his brush was thick
From dragging the mud, and his brain was sick.
He thought as he ran of his old delight
In the wood in the moon in an April night,
His happy hunting, his winter loving,
The smells of things in the midnight roving,
The look of his dainty-nosing, red,
Clean-felled dam with her footpad’s tread;
Of his sire, so swift, so game, so cunning,
With craft in his brain and power of running;
Their fights of old when his teeth drew blood,
Now he was sick, with his coat all mud.
He crossed the covert, he crawled the bank,
To a meuse in the thorns, and there he sank,
With his ears flexed back and his teeth shown white,
In a rat’s resolve for a dying bite.
And there, as he lay, he saw the vale,
That a struggling sunlight silvered pale:
The Deerlip Brook like a strip of steel,
The Nun’s Wood Yews where the rabbits squeal,
The great grass square of the Roman Fort,
And the smoke in the elms at Crendon Court.
And above the smoke in the elm-tree tops
Was the beech-clump’s blur, Blown Hilcote Copse
Where he and his mates had long made merry
In the bloody joys of the rabbit-herry.
And there as he lay and looked, the cry
Of the hounds at head came rousing by ;
He bent his bones in the blackthorn dim.
But the cry of the hounds was not for him.
Over the fence with a crash they went,
Belly to grass, with a burning scent;
Then came Dansey, yelling to Bob:
“They’ve changed! Oh, damn it! now here’s a job.”
And Bob yelled back: “Well, we cannot turn ’em,
It’s jumper and Antic, Tom, we’ll learn ’em!
We must just go on, and I hope we kill.”
They followed hounds down the Mourne End Hill.
The fox lay still in the rabbit-meuse,
On the dry brown dust of the plumes of yews.
In the bottom below a brook went by,
Blue, in a patch, like a streak of sky.
There one by one, with a clink of stone,
Came a red or dark coat on a horse half-blown.
And man to man with a gasp for breath
Said: “Lord, what a run! I’m fagged to death.”
After an hour no riders came,
The day drew by like an ending game;
A robin sang from a pufft red breast,
The fox lay quiet and took his rest.
A wren on a tree-stump carolled clear,
Then the starlings wheeled in a sudden sheer,
The rooks came home to the twiggy hive
In the elm-tree tops which the winds do drive.
Then the noise of the rooks fell slowly still,
And the lights came out in the Clench Brook Mill ;
Then a pheasant cocked, then an owl began,
With the cry that curdles the blood of man.
The stars grew bright as the yews grew black,
The fox rose stifly and stretched his back.
He flaired the air, then he padded out
To the valley below him, dark as doubt,
Winter-thin with the young green crops,
For old Cold Crendon and Hilcote Copse.
As he crossed the meadows at Naunton Larking
The dogs in town all started barking,
For with feet all bloody and flanks all foam,
The hounds and the hunt were limping home;
Limping home in the dark dead-beaten,
The hounds all rank from a fox they’d eaten.
Dansey saying to Robin Dawe :
“The fastest and longest I ever saw.”
And Robin answered: “Oh, Tom, ’twas good!
I thought they’d changed in the Mourne End Wood,
But now I feel that they did not change.
We’ve had a run that was great and strange;
And to kill in the end, at dusk, on grass!
We’ll turn to the Cock and take a glass,
For the hounds, poor souls! are past their forces;
And a gallon of ale for our poor horses,
And some bits of bread for the hounds, poor things!
After all they’ve done (for they’ve done like kings),
Would keep them going till we get in.
We had it alone from the Nun’s Wood Whin”.
Then Tom replied: “If they changed or not,
There’ve been few runs longer and none more hot.
We shall talk of to-day until we die.”
The stars grew bright in the winter sky,
The wind came keen with a tang of frost,
The brook was troubled for new things lost,
The copse was happy for old things found,
The fox came home and he went to ground.
And the hunt came home and the hounds were fed,
They climbed to their bench and went to bed;
The horses in stable loved their straw.
“Good-night, my beauties,” said Robin Dawe.
Then the moon came quiet and flooded full
Light and beauty on clouds like wool,
On a feasted fox at rest from hunting,
In the beech-wood grey where the brocks were grunting.
The beech-wood grey rose dim in the night
With moonlight fallen in pools of light,
The long dead leaves on the ground were rimed;
A clock struck twelve and the church-bells chimed.
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