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+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Reynard the Fox, by John Masefield.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Reynard the Fox, by John Masefield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Reynard the Fox
+
+Author: John Masefield
+
+Illustrator: Carton Moorepark
+
+Release Date: November 18, 2011 [EBook #38052]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REYNARD THE FOX ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Wirawan, Juliet Sutherland, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="557" alt="Cover" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h1>REYNARD THE FOX</h1>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<img src="images/colophon.jpg" width="200" height="65" alt="Publisher's emblem" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">new york &middot; boston &middot; chicago &middot; dallas<br />
+atlanta &middot; san fransisco</span></h4>
+
+
+<h4>MACMILLAN &amp; CO., <span class="smcap">Limited<br />
+
+london &middot; bombay &middot; calcutta<br />
+melbourne</span></h4>
+
+
+<h4>THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="smcap">Ltd.<br />
+
+toronto</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Frontispiece" id="Frontispiece"></a>&nbsp;</span>
+<img src="images/illus004.jpg" width="600" height="454" alt="Frontispiece: First colored plate" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 19em;"><small><i>Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York</i></small></span></span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>REYNARD THE FOX</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>JOHN MASEFIELD</h2>
+
+<h5>NEW EDITION WITH EIGHT PLATES IN COLOUR AND<br />
+MANY ILLUSTRATIONS BY</h5>
+
+<h3>CARTON MOOREPARK</h3>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 195px;">
+<img src="images/illus005.jpg" width="195" height="250" alt="Ex libris Reynards" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h4>New York<br />
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />
+1920<br />
+<i>All rights reserved</i></h4>
+
+<h5><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1919 and 1920,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> JOHN MASEFIELD.</h5>
+
+<h5>New illustrated edition, October, 1920.</h5>
+
+
+<h5>Norwood Press<br />
+J. S. Cushing Co.&mdash;Berwick &amp; Smith Co.<br />
+Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+
+<p>I have been asked to write why I wrote this poem of "Reynard
+the Fox." As a man grows older, life becomes more interesting
+but less easy to know; for, late in life, even the strongest yields
+to the habit of his compartment. When he cannot range through
+all society, from the court to the gutter, a man must go where
+all society meets, as at the Pilgrimage, the Festival or the Game.
+Here in England the Game is both a festival and an occasion of
+pilgrimage. A man wanting to set down a picture of the society
+of England will find his models at the games.</p>
+
+<p>What are the English games? The man's game is Association
+football; the woman's game, perhaps, hockey or lacrosse. Golf
+I regard more as a symptom of a happy marriage than a game.
+Cricket, which was once widely popular among both sexes has lost
+its hold, except among the young. The worst of all these games
+is that few can play them at a time.</p>
+
+<p>But in the English country, during the autumn, winter and
+early spring of each year, the main sport is fox hunting, which
+is not like cricket or football, a game for a few and a spectacle
+for many, but something in which all who come may take a part,
+whether rich or poor, mounted or on foot. It is a sport loved and
+followed by both sexes, all ages and all classes. At a fox hunt,
+and nowhere else in England, except perhaps at a funeral, can
+you see the whole of the land's society brought together, focussed
+for the observer, as the Canterbury pilgrims were for Chaucer.</p>
+
+<p>This fact made the subject attractive. The fox hunt gave an
+opportunity for a picture or pictures of the members of an English
+community.</p>
+
+<p>Then to all Englishmen who have lived in a hunting country,
+hunting is in the blood, and the mind is full of it. It is the most
+beautiful and the most stirring sight to be seen in England. In
+the ports, as at Falmouth, there are ships under sail, under way,
+coming or going, beautiful unspeakably. In the country, especially
+on the great fields on the lower slopes of the Downland, the
+teams of the ploughmen may be seen bowing forward on a sky-line,
+and this sight can never fail to move one by its majesty of
+beauty. But in neither of these sights of beauty is there the
+bright colour and swift excitement of the hunt, nor the thrill of
+the horn, and the cry of the hounds ringing into the elements of
+the soul. Something in the hunt wakens memories hidden in the
+marrow, racial memories, of when one hunted for the tribe, animal
+memories, perhaps, of when one hunted with the pack, or was
+hunted.</p>
+
+<p>Hunting has always been popular here in England. In ancient
+times it was necessary. Wolves, wild boar, foxes and deer had
+to be kept down. To hunt was then the social duty of the mounted
+man, when he was not engaged in war. It was also the opportunity
+of all other members of the community to have a good time in
+the open, with a feast or a new fur at the end, to crown the
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Since arms of precision were made, hunting on horseback with
+hounds has perhaps been unnecessary everywhere, but it is not
+easy to end a pleasure rooted in the instincts of men. Hunting
+has continued, and probably will continue, in this country and
+in Ireland. It is rapidly becoming a national sport in the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>Some have written, that hunting is the sport of the wealthy
+man. Some wealthy men hunt, no doubt, but they are not the
+backbone of the sport, so much as those who love and use horses.
+Parts of this country, of Ireland and of the United States are more
+than ordinarily good pasture, fitted for the breeding of horses,
+beyond most other places in the world. Hardly anywhere else
+is the climate so equable, the soil so right for the feet of colts and
+the grass so good. Where these conditions exist, men will breed
+horses and use them. Men who breed good horses will ride,
+jump and test them, and will invent means of riding, jumping
+and testing them, the steeplechase, the circus, the contests at
+fairs and shows, the point-to-point meeting, and they will preserve,
+if possible, any otherwise dying sport which offers such means.</p>
+
+<p>I have mentioned several reasons why fox hunting should be
+popular: (<i>a</i>) that it is a social business, at which the whole community
+may and does attend in vast numbers in a pleasant mood of
+goodwill, good humour and equality, and during which all may
+go anywhere, into ground otherwise shut to them; (<i>b</i>) that it is
+done in the winter, at a season when other social gatherings are
+difficult, and in country districts where no buildings, except the
+churches, could contain the numbers assembled; (<i>c</i>) that it is
+most beautiful to watch, so beautiful that perhaps very few of
+the acts of men can be so lovely to watch nor so exhilarating.
+The only thing to be compared with it, in this country, is the
+sword dance, the old heroical dancing of the young men, still
+practised, in all its splendour of wild beauty, in some country places;
+(<i>d</i>) that we are a horse-loving people who have loved horses as
+we have loved the sea, and have made, in the course of generations,
+a breed of horse, second to none in the world, for beauty
+and speed.</p>
+
+<p>But besides all these reasons, there is another that brings many
+out hunting. This is the delight in hunting, in the working of
+hounds, by themselves, or with the huntsmen, to find and kill
+their fox. Though many men and women hunt in order to ride,
+many still ride in order to hunt.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this delight in hunting was more general in the mid-eighteenth
+century, when hounds were much slower than at
+present. Then, the hunt was indeed a test of hounds and huntsman.
+The fox was not run down but hunted down. The great
+run then was that in which hounds and huntsman kept to their
+fox. The great run now is perhaps that in which some few riders
+keep with the hounds.</p>
+
+<p>The ideal run of 1750 might have been described thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Being in the current of Writing, I cannot but acquaint your
+Lorp of ye great Hunt there was, this Tuesday last there was a
+a Week. Sure so great a day has not been seen here since The
+Day your Lorp's Father broke his Collar Bone at ye Park Wall.
+As Milton says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Well have we speeded, and o'er Hill and Dale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forest and Field and Flood ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As far as Indus east, Euphrates west."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"We had but dismle Weather of it, and so cold, as made Sir
+Harry observe, that it was an ill wind blew no-one any good.
+We met at ye Tailings. I had out my brown Horse. There was
+present Sir Anthony Smoaker; Mr. Jarvis of Copse Stile; William
+Travis; John Hawbuck; your Lorp's Friend, Dick Fancowe, and
+two of ye Red Coats from ye Barracks. Ye fair Sex was dismayed,
+it was said, by ye rudeness of ye Elements; they did not
+venture it.</p>
+
+<p>"On coming to draw Tailings Wood, Glider spoke to it, and
+Tom viewed him away for the Valley, being the old Dog Fox,
+with the white Mask, that beat us at Fubb's Field, the day your
+Lorp road Bluebell.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Now spoke the chearful Horn; and tuneful Hounds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Echoed, and Red Coats gallopped; stirring Scean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rude Health and Manly Wit together strive.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"We went with the extream of Violence from Tailings Wood
+to ye small Coppice at Nap Hill where a Fellow put him from his
+Point, which gave Occasion to Sir Anthony to correct him. Ye
+little magpie Hound made it out in ye bog at ye back of ye Coppice,
+when again Hounds went at head through Long Stone Pastures
+as far as Tainton. Here we was delayed in ye Dear Park,
+the effluvia of ye Dear being extream strong and doubtless puzzling
+to the Noses of ye Hounds. And here I cannot but remark the
+skill with which ye Hounds worked it out till they had hit it
+off, a sight, as Mr. Jarvis remarked to me, worthy of the Admiration
+of an antient Philosopher, and of the eloquence of a most
+elegant Wit, or Poet. Leaving ye Dear Park, He made for Norton
+Cross, which he left on his left Hand, as though deciding for ye
+Hill. Crossing ye Hill, in Spite of ye Sheep, he was a little staggered
+by his being run by one of ye Shepherd's Doggs, a part of
+Creation that should not be tolerated, except in ye vision of ye
+Poet, as in a Pastoral or so. Here Joe Phillips, our Huntsman,
+made unavailing Casts, but by lifting to the Vineyard recovered
+him, when Hounds run him to Cow's Crookham, on your Lorp's
+Aston Estate.</p>
+
+<p>"By this Time, your Lorp will understand our Distress. Dick
+Fancowe was in ye Brook at Norton, Mr. Jarvis' grey Horse had
+cast a Shoe, and one of ye Red Coats had broak his Liver in falling
+at a Fence. For a time we went about to recover him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Now with attentive Nose the restless Hound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Endeavours on the Scent, now here, now there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scorning adulterat scents of lesser Prey.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now gloomy care invades the Huntsman's Face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Sportsmen (jovial erst) on weary steeds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sit pensive."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Here might well be seen the Advantages of a judicious Breeding in
+Hounds, that neglects not the intellectual Part, but aims rather
+at a complete Animal than alone at Sinews and Corporeal Structure.
+That Blood of the Old Berkshire Glorious, which your
+Lorp's Father was wont to observe, was what he most stood by,
+next to our Constitution and the Protestant Succession, here
+stood us in good stead, for it was to Glorious ye Ninth, as well
+as to Growler and Glider (all of ye same royal strain) that we
+was indebted to ye happy Conclusion. They pushed him out of
+ye Stubbings at Cow's Crookham, where it seems he had taken
+Refuge in the Hollow of a decayed Tree. We chac't him thence
+upon ye Grass to Shepherd's Hey. Here he began to run short,
+being not a little apprehensive, lest his Foes should triumph, and
+snatch from him that Life, which he had so long nefariously
+pampered.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">On courtly Cock with all his household Train<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Hens obsequious, by the Hen Wife mourned.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"The Sun, coming out from among ye Clouds, where he had been
+too long hid, made (as was elegantly pretended by Sir Anthony), a
+Brightness, animating indeed to us, who carried the Sword of
+Justice, but, to the Criminal of our Pursuit, infinitely distressing.
+Then had your Lorp seen the gay Ardor of the Pack, as they came
+to the View, which they did about Stonepits, your Lorp would
+have said with the late elegant Poet:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Now o'er the glittering grass the sinewy Hound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shakes from his Feet the Dew and makes ye Woods resound."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"To be brief, we killed in the Back Yard of ye Rummer and Glass
+after two and three quarters Hours of a Hunt such as (all are
+agreed) is not lightly to be parallelled. There was present at
+ye Death, beside Joe Phillips and Tom, Sir A. Smoaker, Mr. Wm. Travis
+and myself, all so extream distresst, Men and Beasts, that
+it was observed, it was a Marvel ye Horses were not dead. Such
+an Hunt, it was agreed, should be celebrated by an annual Dinner,
+at which the Toast of ye Chase might be rendered more than
+ordinary. Ye Hunt was upwards of Fifteen Miles in Length, and
+hath been the Subject of a Song, by a Member of Ye Hunt,
+which, as it would take long to transcribe, I forbear, hoping that
+we may sing it to your Lorp before (as ye Poet says)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Ye vixen hath laid up her Cubs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In snuggest Cave secure, when balmy Spring<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wakens ye Meadows."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"But to pass now from Celestial Pleasures to Worldly Cares, I
+have to acquaint your Lorp that your Lorp's Sister's Son, Mr.
+Parracombe, hath been killed by a Fall from his Horse, after
+Dinner with some Gentlemen, his particular Friends, an Affliction
+indeed great, humanly regarded, were it not also considered, how
+much happier his Lot must be, than in this Vale of Tears, etc.
+Ye Young Hounds thrive apace, and it is thought the forward
+Season will be very favourable for their future Prey. I am, your
+Lorp's most obedient, Charles Cothill."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the ideal run of the present time would be described
+as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A large field attended the Templecombe on Tuesday last at
+the popular meet at Heydigates. Will Mynors, late of the Parratts,
+carried the horn, in place of Tom Carling, now with
+Mr. Fletchers. A little time was spent in running through the
+shrubberies in the garden at Heydigates and then the word was
+given for the Cantlows. Will had no sooner put hounds into
+this famous cover than the dog pack proclaimed the joyous news.
+The fox, a traveller, was at once viewed away for the Three Oaks,
+across the rather heavy going of the pasture land. Coming to
+the Knock Brook, he swam it near Parson's Pleasure, going at
+a pace that let the knowing ones know that they were in for something
+out of the common. Keeping Snib's Farm on his right, he
+ran dead straight for Gallow's Wood, where some woodmen with
+their teams disturbed him. Swinging to his left, he went up the
+hill, through Bloody Lane, as though towards Dinsmore, but was
+again deflected by woodmen. Turning down the hill, he ran
+for the valley, passing Enderton Schoolhouse, the scholars of
+which were much cheered by the near prospect of the hunt. It
+was now evident that he was going for the Downs. Some of
+the less daring began to express the hope that he might be headed.</p>
+
+<p>"Scent from the first was burning and the pace a cracker.
+After leaving Enderton he made straight for the Danesway, past
+Snub's Titch and the Curlews, the green meadows of the pasture
+being sprinkled for miles with the relics of the field. He crossed
+the Roman Road at Orm's Oak and at once entered the Danesway,
+going at a pace which all thought could not last.</p>
+
+<p>"At the summit of the Danesway, known as the Gallows Point,
+hounds were brought to their noses, owing to the crossing of the
+line by sheep. A man working nearby was able to give the line
+and Will, lifting beyond the Lynchets, at once hit him off, and
+the hounds resumed their rush. From this point, they went almost
+exactly straight from the head of the Danesway to the fir copse
+by Arthur's Table. All this part of the run being across a rolling
+grass land, was at top speed, such as no horse could live with.
+At Arthur's Table, he was put from his earth by shooters who
+were netting the warren. As he could not get through them nor
+across the highway, then busy with traffic, He doubled down across
+the Starvings, where Will, the only man up at this point, although
+now three hundred yards behind hounds, caught sight of him on
+the opposite slope, romping away from hounds as though he would
+never grow old. On coming to the level, past Spinney's End,
+some of those who had been left at the Lynchets were able to
+rejoin, but were soon again cast out by the extreme violence of
+the going, which continued back across the Downs on a line obliquely
+parallel with his former track though a mile further to the
+south. It was supposed that he was going for the main earth
+in Bloody Acre Copse. Some workers in the strip at the edge of
+the copse headed him from this point. He swung left-handed past
+Staves acre, and so down to the valley by the shelving ground
+near Monk's Charwell. Here, for some unaccountable reason,
+the scent, which had been breast high, became catchy, and hounds
+lost their fox in the Osier cars at Charwell Springs. Later in the
+afternoon, while jogging home, a second fox was chopped in Mr.
+Parsloe's cover at Prince's Charwell. Hounds then went home.</p>
+
+<p>"The run from the Cantlows was not remarkable for any quality
+of hunting, but extremely so for pace and length. The distance
+run, from Cantlows Wood to the Osiers cannot have been less than
+thirteen miles, most of it indeed on the best going in the world,
+but at a racing pace, with nothing that can be called a check,
+the whole way. Some wished that the hounds might have been
+rewarded and others that Will Mynors might have crowned his
+opening gallop with a kill, but the general feeling was one of
+satisfaction that so game a fox escaped."</p>
+
+<p>My own interest in fox hunting began at a very early age.
+I was born in a good hunting country, partly woodland, partly
+pasture. My home, during my first seven years, was within
+half a mile of the kennels. I saw hounds on most days of my life.
+Hounds and hunting filled my imagination. I saw many meets,
+each as romantic as a circus. The huntsman and whipper-in
+seemed, then, to be the greatest men in the world, and those
+mild slaves, the hounds, the loveliest animals.</p>
+
+<p>Often, as a little child, I saw and heard hounds hunting in and
+near a covert within sight of my old home. Once, when I was,
+perhaps, five years old, the fox was hunted into our garden, and
+those glorious beings in scarlet, as well as the hounds, were all
+about my lairs, like visitants from Paradise. The fox, on this
+occasion, went through a woodshed and escaped.</p>
+
+<p>Later in my childhood, though I lived less near to the kennels,
+I was still within a mile of them, and saw hounds frequently at
+all seasons. In that hunting country, hunting was one of the
+interests of life; everybody knew about it, loved, followed,
+watched and discussed it. I went to many meets, and followed
+many hunts on foot. Each of these occasions is now distinct in
+my mind, with the colour and intensity of beauty. I saw many
+foxes starting off upon their runs, with the hounds close behind
+them. It was then that I learned to admire the ease and beauty
+of the speed of the fresh fox. That leisurely hurry, which romps
+away from the hardest trained and swiftest fox hounds without a
+visible effort, as though the hounds were weighted with lead,
+is the most lovely motion I have seen in an animal.</p>
+
+<p>No fox was the original of my Reynard, but as I was much in
+the woods as a boy I saw foxes fairly often, considering that they
+are night-moving animals. Their grace, beauty, cleverness, and
+secrecy always thrilled me. Then that kind of grin which the
+mask wears made me credit them with an almost human humour.
+I thought the fox a merry devil, though a bloody one. Then he
+is one against many, who keeps his end up, and lives, often snugly,
+in spite of the world. The pirate and the nightrider are nothing
+to the fox, for romance and danger. This way of life of his makes
+it difficult to observe him in a free state at close quarters.</p>
+
+<p>Once in the early spring in the very early morning, I saw a
+vixen playing with her cubs in the open space below a beech tree.
+Once I came upon a big dog-fox in a wheel-wright's yard, and
+watched him from within a few paces for some minutes. Twice
+I have watched half-grown cubs stalking rabbits. Twice out hunting,
+the fox has broken cover within three yards of me. These are
+the only free foxes which I have seen at close quarters. Foxes
+are night-moving animals. To know them well one should have
+cat's eyes and foxes' habits. By the imagination alone can men
+know foxes.</p>
+
+<p>When I was about halfway through my poem, I found a dead
+dog-fox in a field near Cumnor Hurst. He was a fine full-grown
+fox in perfect condition; he must have picked up poison, for he
+had not been hunted, nor shot. On the pads of this dead fox, I
+noticed for the first time, the length and strength of a fox's claws.</p>
+
+<p>Some have asked, whether the Ghost Heath Run is founded on
+any recorded run of any real Hunt. It is not. It is an imaginary
+run, in a country made up of many different pieces of country,
+some of them real, some of them imaginary. These real and
+imaginary fields, woods and brooks are taken as they exist, from
+Berkshire, where the fox lives, from Herefordshire where he was
+found, from Trapalanda, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, Herefordshire,
+Worcestershire and Berkshire, where he ran, from Trapalanda,
+where he nearly died, and from a wild and beautiful
+corner in Berkshire where he rests from his run.</p>
+
+<p>Some have asked when the poem was written. It was written
+between January 1 and May 20, 1919.</p>
+
+<p>Some have asked, whether hunting will soon be abolished.
+I cannot tell, but I think it unlikely. People do not willingly
+resign their pleasures; men who breed horses will want to gallop
+them across country; hunting is a pleasure, as well as an opportunity
+to gallop; it is also an instinct in man. Some have thought
+that if "small holdings," that is "produce gardens," intensively
+cultivated, of about an acre apiece, became common, so that the
+country became more rigidly enclosed than at present, hunting
+would be made almost impossible. The small holding is generally
+the property of the small farmer (like the French cultivateur) who
+fences permanently with wire and cannot take down the wire
+during the hunting season, as most English farmers do at present.
+Small holdings will probably increase in number near towns, but
+farmers seem agreed that they can never become the national
+system of farming. The big farm, that can treat the great tract
+with machines, seems likely to be the farm of the future.</p>
+
+<p>Even if the small holdings system were to prevail, it would
+hardly prevail over the sporting instincts of the race. Beauty
+and delight are stronger than the will to work. I am pretty sure
+that a pack of hounds, coming feathery by, at the heels of a whip's
+horse, while the field takes station and the huntsman, drawing
+his horn, prepares to hunt, would shake the resolve of most small
+holders, digging in their lots with thrift, industry and self-control.
+And then, if the huntsman were to blow his horn, and the hounds
+to feather on it and give tongue, and find, and go away at head,
+I am pretty sure that most of the small holders of this race would
+follow them. It is in this race to hunt.</p>
+
+<p>I will conclude with a portrait of old Baldy Hill, the earth-stopper,
+who in the darkness of the early morning gads about on
+a pony, to "stop" or "put to" all earths, in which a hard-pressed
+fox might hide. In the poem, he enters when the hunt is about
+to start, but he is an important figure in a hunting community,
+and deserves a portrait. He may come here, at the beginning,
+for Baldy Hill is at the beginning of all fox hunts. He dates from
+the beginning of Man. I have seen many a Baldy Hill in my life;
+he never fails to give me the feeling that he is Primitive Man
+survived. Primitive Man lived like that, in the woods, in the
+darkness, outwitting the wild things, while the rain dripped, and
+the owl cried, and the ghost came out from the grave. Baldy
+Hill stole the last litter of the last she-wolf to cross them with the
+King's hounds. He was in at the death of the last wild-boar.
+Sometimes, in looking at him, I think that his ashen stake must
+have a flint head, with which, on moony nights, he still creeps
+out, to rouse, it may be, the mammoth in his secret valley, or
+a sabretooth tiger, still caved in the woods. Life may and does
+shoot out into exotic forms, which may and do flower and perish.
+Perhaps when all the other forms of English life are gone, the
+Baldy Hill form, the stock form, will abide, still striding, head
+bent, with an ashen stake, after some wild thing, that has meat,
+or fur, or is difficult or dangerous to tackle.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Old Baldy Hill, the game old cock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still wore knee-gaiters and a smock.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He bore a five foot ashen stick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All scarred and pilled from many a click<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beating in covert with his sons<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To drive the pheasants to the guns.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">His face was beaten by the weather<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To wrinkled red like bellows leather<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had a cold clear hard blue eye.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His snares made many a rabbit die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On moony nights he found it pleasant<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To stare the woods for roosting pheasant<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up near the tree-trunk on the bough.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He never trod behind a plough.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He and his two sons got their food<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From wild things in the field and wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By snares, by ferrets put in holes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By ridding pasture-land of moles;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By keeping, beating, trapping, poaching<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spaniel-and-retriever-coaching.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He and his sons had special merits<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In breeding and in handling ferrets<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full many a snaky hob and jill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had bit the thumbs of Baldy Hill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had no beard, but long white hair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He bent in gait. He used to wear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flowers in his smock, gold-clocks and peasen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spindle-fruit in hunting season.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I hope that he may live to wear spindle-fruit for many seasons
+to come. Hunting makes more people happy than anything I
+know. When people are happy together, I am quite certain
+that they build up something eternal, something both beautiful
+and divine, which weakens the power of all evil things upon this
+life of men and women.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">PART ONE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE MEET</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE PLOUGHMAN</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE CLERGYMAN</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE PARSON</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"JILL AND JOAN"</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">FARMER BENNETT</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE GOLDEN AGE</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE SQUIRE</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE DOCTOR</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE SAILOR</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE MERCHANT'S SON</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">SPORTSMAN</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE EXQUISITE</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE SOLDIER</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE COUNTRY'S HOPE</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">COUNTRYMEN</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE HOUNDS</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE WHIP</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE HUNTSMAN</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE MASTER</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE START</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"COVER"</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">PART TWO</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE FOX</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE ROVING</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">SCENT</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">SOUND</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">FOUND</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">AWAY</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE FIELD</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE RUN</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">FULL CRY</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">VIEW HALLOO</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">LAST HOPE</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">CHECKED</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"ON"</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE LIFTING HORN</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">MOURNE END WOOD</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_307">307</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"DONE"</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">PRIZE</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_325">325</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">HOME</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_333">333</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">By Carton Moorepark</span></h4>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="Full Page Illustrations">
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The stables were alive with din</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_6">5</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">An old man with a gaunt, burnt face</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">16</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">All sport, from bloody war to craps</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_81">80</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Godsdown Tigress with her cub</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_97">96</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A sea of moving heads, and sterns</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_121">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">His chief delight</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">He had a welcome and salute</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_142">144</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The scarlet coats twixt tree and spray</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_155">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">And now they gathered to the gamble</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_163">162</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">He saw the farms where the dogs were barking</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_173">172</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">There he slept in the mild west weather</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_181">182</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yaps</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_186">185</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">He faced the fence and put her through it</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_223">222</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A white horse rising a dark horse flying</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_255">256</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Then down the slope and up the road</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_291">291</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">He ran the sheep that their smell might check</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_294">295</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">With a cracking whip and "Hoik, Hoik, Hoik, Forrard"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_304">303</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">He saw it now as a redness topped</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">And man to man with a gasp for breath</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_329">330</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">For with feet all bloody and flanks all foam</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_337">336</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>COLOR PLATES</h2>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="Color Plates">
+<tr><td align="left">First colored plate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><span class="smcap">facing page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Second colored plate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Third colored plate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_87">86</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Fourth colored plate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_149">150</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Fifth colored plate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Sixth colored plate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_237">236</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Seventh colored plate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_252">250</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Eighth colored plate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PART I</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE MEET</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1><br />
+REYNARD THE FOX,</h1>
+
+<h4>OR</h4>
+
+<h2>THE GHOST HEATH RUN</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The meet was at "The Cock and Pye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Charles and Martha Enderby,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The grey, three-hundred-year-old inn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long since the haunt of Benjamin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The highwayman, who rode the bay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tavern fronts the coaching way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mail changed horses there of old.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It has a strip of grassy mould<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In front of it, a broad green strip.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A trough, where horses' muzzles dip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stands opposite the tavern front,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And there that morning came the hunt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To fill that quiet width of road<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As full of men as Framilode<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is full of sea when tide is in.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The stables were alive with din<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From dawn until the time of meeting.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A pad-groom gave a cloth a beating,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knocking the dust out with a stake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two men cleaned stalls with fork and rake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one went whistling to the pump,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The handle whined, ker-lump, ker-lump,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The water splashed into the pail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, as he went, it left a trail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lipped over on the yard's bricked paving.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two grooms (sent on before) were shaving<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">There in the yard, at glasses propped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On jutting bricks; they scraped and stropped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And felt their chins and leaned and peered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A woodland day was what they feared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(As second horsemen), shaving there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, in the stalls where hunters were,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straw rustled as the horses shifted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hayseeds ticked and haystraws drifted<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From racks as horses tugged their feed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slow gulping sounds of steady greed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came from each stall, and sometimes stampings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whinnies (at well-known steps) and rampings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see the horse in the next stall.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus033.jpg" width="400" height="475" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>The stables were alive with din<br />
+From dawn until the time of meeting.</small></span></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Outside, the spangled cock did call<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To scattering grain that Martha flung.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a time a mop was wrung<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Susan ere the floor was clean.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The harness room, that busy scene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clinked and chinked from ostlers brightening<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rings and bits with dips of whitening,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rubbing fox-flecks out of stirrups,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dumbing buckles of their chirrups<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the touch of oily feathers.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some, with stag's bones rubbed at leathers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brushed at saddle-flaps or hove<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saddle linings to the stove.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blue smoke from strong tobacco drifted<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of the yard, the passers snifft it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mixed with the strong ammonia flavour<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of horses' stables and the savour<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of saddle-paste and polish spirit<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Which put the gleam on flap and tirrit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The grooms in shirts with rolled-up sleeves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Belted by girths of coloured weaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Groomed the clipped hunters in their stalls.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One said, "My dad cured saddle galls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He called it Doctor Barton's cure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hog's lard and borax, laid on pure."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And others said, "Ge' back, my son,"<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">"Stand over, girl; now, girl, ha' done."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Now, boy, no snapping; gently. Crikes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gives a rare pinch when he likes."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Drawn blood? I thought he looked a biter."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I give 'em all sweet spit of nitre<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For that, myself: that sometimes cures."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Now, Beauty, mind them feet of yours."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They groomed, and sissed with hissing notes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To keep the dust out of their throats.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus036.jpg" width="400" height="219" alt="The grooms in shirts with rolled-up sleeves" title="The grooms in shirts with rolled-up sleeves" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">There came again and yet again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The feed-box lid, the swish of grain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or Joe's boots stamping in the loft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hay-fork's stab and then the soft<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hay's scratching slither down the shoot.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then with a thud some horse's foot<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Stamped, and the gulping munch again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Resumed its lippings at the grain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The road outside the inn was quiet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save for the poor, mad, restless pyat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hopping his hanging wicker-cage.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No calmative of sleep or sage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will cure the fever to be free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He shook the wicker ceaselessly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now up, now down, but never out<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On wind-waves, being blown about,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looking for dead things good to eat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His cage was strewn with scattered wheat.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">At ten o'clock, the Doctor's lad<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought up his master's hunting pad<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And put him in a stall, and leaned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against the stall, and sissed, and cleaned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The port and cannons of his curb.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He chewed a sprig of smelling herb.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sometimes stopped, and spat, and chid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The silly things his master did.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE PLOUGHMAN</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At twenty past, old Baldock strode<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His ploughman's straddle down the road.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An old man with a gaunt, burnt face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyes rapt back on some far place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like some starved, half-mad saint in bliss<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In God's world through the rags of this.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He leaned upon a stake of ash<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cut from a sapling: many a gash<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was in his old, full-skirted coat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The twisted muscles in his throat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Moved, as he swallowed, like taut cord.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His oaken face was seamed and gored.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He halted by the inn and stared<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">On that far bliss, that place prepared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond his eyes, beyond his mind.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus044.jpg" width="400" height="473" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>An old man with a gaunt, burnt face;<br />
+His eyes rapt back on some far place.</small></span></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Then Thomas Copp, of Cowfoot's Wynd<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Drove up; and stopped to take a glass.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I hope they'll gallop on my grass,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said, "My little girl does sing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see the red coats galloping.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's good for grass, too, to be trodden<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Except they poach it, where it's sodden."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Billy Waldrist, from the Lynn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Jockey Hill, from Pitts, came in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And had a sip of gin and stout<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To help the jockey's sweatings out.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Rare day for scent," the jockey said.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A pony, like a feather bed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On four short sticks, took place aside.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little girl who rode astride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watched everything with eyes that glowed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With glory in the horse she rode.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">At half-past ten, some lads on foot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came to be beaters to a shoot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of rabbits at the Warren Hill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rough sticks they had, and Hob and Jill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their ferrets, in a bag, and netting.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They talked of dinner-beer and betting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And jeered at those who stood around.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They rolled their dogs upon the ground<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And teased them: "Rats," they cried; "go fetch."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Go seek, good Roxer; 'z bite, good betch.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">What dinner-beer'll they give us, lad?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sex quarts the lot last year we had.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They'd ought to give us seven this.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seek, Susan; what a betch it is."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE CLERGYMAN</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus051.jpg" width="400" height="272" alt="The clergyman from Condicote" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A pommle cob came trotting up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round-bellied like a drinking-cup,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bearing on back a pommle man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round-bellied like a drinking-can.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clergyman from Condicote.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">His face was scarlet from his trot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His white hair bobbed about his head<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As halos do round clergy dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He asked Tom Copp, "How long to wait?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His loose mouth opened like a gate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To pass the wagons of his speech,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had a mighty voice to preach,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though indolent in other matters,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He let his children go in tatters.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">His daughter Madge on foot, flushed-cheekt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In broken hat and boots that leakt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With bits of hay all over her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her plain face grinning at the stir<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(A broad pale face, snub-nosed, with speckles<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of sandy eyebrows sprinkt with freckles)<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Came after him and stood apart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beside the darling of her heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Miss Hattie Dyce from Baydon Dean;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A big young fair one, chiselled clean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brow, chin, and nose, with great blue eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All innocence and sweet surprise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And golden hair piled coil on coil<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Too beautiful for time to spoil.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They talked in undertones together<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not of the hunting, nor the weather.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old Steven, from Scratch Steven Place<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(A white beard and a rosy face),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came next on his stringhalty grey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I've come to see the hounds away,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said, "And ride a field or two.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We old have better things to do<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Than breaking all our necks for fun."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He shone on people like the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on himself for shining so.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three men came riding in a row:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">John Pyn, a bull-man, quick to strike,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gross and blunt-headed like a shrike<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet sweet-voiced as a piping flute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom See, the trainer, from the Toot,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Red, with an angry, puzzled face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mouth twitched upward out of place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sucking cheap grapes and spitting seeds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Stone, of Bartle's Cattle Feeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man whose bulk of flesh and bone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made people call him Twenty Stone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was the man who stood a pull<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At Tencombe with the Jersey bull<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And brought the bull back to his stall.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus054.jpg" width="400" height="235" alt="Three men came riding in a row" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Some children ranged the tavern-wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sucking their thumbs and staring hard;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some grooms brought horses from the yard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jane Selbie said to Ellen Tranter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A lot on 'em come doggin', ant her?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A lot on 'em," said Ellen, "look<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">There'm Mister Gaunt of Water's Hook.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They say he" ... (whispered). "Law," said Jane.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gaunt flung his heel across the mane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And slithered from his horse and stamped.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Boots tight," he said, "my feet are cramped."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A loose-shod horse came clicking clack;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nick Wolvesey on a hired hack<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came tittup, like a cup and ball.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One saw the sun, moon, stars, and all<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The great green earth twixt him and saddle;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Molly Wolvesey riding straddle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Red as a rose, with eyes like sparks.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two boys from college out for larks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hunted bright Molly for a smile<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But were not worth their quarry's while.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus057.jpg" width="600" height="461" alt="" title="Second colored plate" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 19em;"><small><i>Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York</i></small></span></span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Two eyeglassed gunners dressed in tweed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came with a spaniel on a lead<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And waited for a fellow gunner.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The parson's son, the famous runner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came dressed to follow hounds on foot.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His knees were red as yew tree root<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From being bare, day in day out;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wore a blazer, and a clout<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(His sweater's arms) tied round his neck.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His football shorts had many a speck<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And splash of mud from many a fall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Got as he picked the slippery ball<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heeled out behind a breaking scrum.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He grinned at people, but was dumb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not like these lousy foreigners.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The otter-hounds and harriers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Godstow to the Wye all knew him.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE PARSON</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And with him came the stock which grew him&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The parson and his sporting wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was a stout one, full of life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With red, quick, kindly, manly face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She held the knave, queen, king, and ace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every hand she played with men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was no sister to the hen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But fierce and minded to be queen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She wore a coat and skirt of green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her waistcoat cut of bunting red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her tie pin was a fox's head.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The parson was a manly one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His jolly eyes were bright with fun.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">His jolly mouth was well inclined<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To cry aloud his jolly mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To everyone, in jolly terms.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He did not talk of churchyard worms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of our privilege as dust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To box a lively bout with lust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere going to Heaven to rejoice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He loved the sound of his own voice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His talk was like a charge of horse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His build was all compact, for force,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well-knit, well-made, well-coloured, eager,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He kept no Lent to make him meagre.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He loved his God, himself and man.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He never said "Life's wretched span;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This wicked world," in any sermon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This body, that we feed the worm on,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">To him, was jovial stuff that thrilled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He liked to see the foxes killed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But most he felt himself in clover<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hear "Hen left, hare right, cock over,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At woodside, when the leaves are brown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some grey cathedral in a town<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where drowsy bells toll out the time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shaven closes sweet with lime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wall-flower roots drive out of the mortar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All summer on the Norman Dortar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was certain some day to be his.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor would a mitre go amiss<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To him, because he governed well.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His voice was like the tenor bell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When services were said and sung.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he had read in many a tongue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, Greek.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>"JILL AND JOAN"</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Two bright young women, nothing meek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rode up on bicycles and propped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their wheels in such wise that they dropped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bring the parson's son to aid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their cycling suits were tailor-made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smart, mannish, pert, but feminine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The colour and the zest of wine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were in their presence and their bearing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like spring, they brought the thought of pairing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The parson's lady thought them pert.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they could mock a man and flirt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do billiard tricks with corks and pennies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sing ragtime songs and win at tennis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The silver-cigarette-case-prize.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">They had good colour and bright eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright hair, bright teeth and pretty skin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On darkened stairways after dances,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which many lads had longed to win.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their reading was the last romances,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they were dashing hockey players.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men called them, "Jill and Joan, the slayers."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were as bright as fresh sweet-peas.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>FARMER BENNETT</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus073.jpg" width="400" height="232" alt="Old Farmer Bennett upon his big-boned savage black" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Old Farmer Bennett followed these<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon his big-boned savage black<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose mule-teeth yellowed to bite back<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whatever came within his reach.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old Bennett sat him like a leech.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The grim old rider seemed to be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As hard about the mouth as he.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The beaters nudged each other's ribs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With "There he goes, his bloody Nibs.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He come on Joe and Anty Cop,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beat 'em with his hunting crop<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like tho' they'd bin a sack of beans.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His pickers were a pack of queans,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Joe and Anty took a couple,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He caught 'em there, and banged 'em supple.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Women and men, he didn't care<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(He'd kill 'em some day, if he dare),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He beat the whole four nearly dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'I'll learn 'ee rabbit in my shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That's how my ricks get set afire.'<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">That's what he said, the bloody liar;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old oaf, I'd like to burn his ricks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Th' old swine's too free with fists and sticks.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He keeps that Mrs. Jones himselve."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Just like an axehead on its helve<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old Bennett sat and watched the gathering.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He'd given many a man a lathering<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In field or barn, and women, too.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His cold eye reached the women through<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With comment, and the men with scorn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He hated women gently born;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He hated all beyond his grasp;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he was minded like the asp<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That strikes whatever is not dust.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE GOLDEN AGE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Charles Copse, of Copse Hold Manor, thrust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Next into view. In face and limb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The beauty and the grace of him<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were like the golden age returned.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His grave eyes steadily discerned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The good in men and what was wise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had deep blue, mild-coloured eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shocks of harvest-coloured hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still beautiful with youth. An air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or power of kindness went about him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No heart of youth could ever doubt him<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or fail to follow where he led.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a genius, simply bred,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And quite unconscious of his power.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He was the very red rose flower<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all that coloured countryside.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gauchos had taught him how to ride.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knew all arts, but practised most<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The art of bettering flesh and ghost<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In men and lads down in the mud.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knew no class in flesh and blood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He loved his kind. He spent some pith<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long since, relieving Ladysmith.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Many a horse he trotted tame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heading commandos from their aim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In those old days upon the veldt.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE SQUIRE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus083.jpg" width="400" height="234" alt="His daughters, Carrie, Jane, and Lu, rode with him" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">An old bear in a scarlet pelt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came next, old Squire Harridew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyebrows gave a man the grue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So bushy and so fierce they were;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had a bitter tongue to swear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fierce, hot, hard, old, stupid squire,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">With all his liver made of fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Small brain, great courage, mulish will.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hearts in all his house stood still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When someone crossed the squire's path.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he was terrible in wrath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And smashed whatever came to hand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two things he failed to understand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The foreigner and what was new.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">His daughters, Carrie, Jane and Lu,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rode with him, Carrie at his side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His son, the ne'er-do-weel, had died<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Arizona, long before.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Squire set the greatest store<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Carrie, youngest of the three,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lovely to the blood was she;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Blonde, with a face of blush and cream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And eyes deep violet in their gleam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright blue when quiet in repose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was a very golden rose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a man when sunset came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would see the manor windows flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And think, "My beauty's home is there."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Queen Helen had less golden hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Queen Cleopatra paler lips,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Queen Blanche's eyes were in eclipse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By golden Carrie's glancing by.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She had a wit for mockery<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sang mild, pretty senseless songs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of sunsets, Heav'n and lover's wrongs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet to the Squire when he had dined.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A rosebud need not have a mind.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A lily is not sweet from learning.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jane looked like a dark lantern, burning.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Outwardly dark, unkempt, uncouth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But minded like the living truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A friend that nothing shook nor wearied.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was not "Darling Jan'd," nor "dearie'd,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was all prickles to the touch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So sharp, that many feared to clutch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So keen, that many thought her bitter.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She let the little sparrows twitter.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She had a hard ungracious way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her storm of hair was iron-grey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she was passionate in her heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For women's souls that burn apart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just as her mother's had, with Squire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She gave the sense of smouldering fire.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">She was not happy being a maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At home, with Squire, but she stayed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enduring life, however bleak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To guard her sisters who were weak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And force a life for them from Squire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she had roused and stood his fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hundred times, and earned his hate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To win those two a better state.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long years before the Canon's son<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had cared for her, but he had gone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Klondyke, to the mines, for gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find, in some strange way untold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A foreign grave that no men knew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">No depth, nor beauty, was in Lu,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But charm and fun, for she was merry,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Round, sweet and little like a cherry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With laughter like a robin's singing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was not kittenlike and clinging,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But pert and arch and fond of flirting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In mocking ways that were not hurting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And merry ways that women pardoned.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not being married yet she gardened.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She loved sweet music; she would sing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Songs made before the German King<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made England German in her mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She sang "My lady is unkind,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The Hunt is up," and those sweet things<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which Thomas Campion set to strings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Thrice toss," and "What," and "Where are now?"<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The next to come was Major Howe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Driv'n in a dog-cart by a groom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The testy major was in fume<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find no hunter standing waiting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The groom who drove him caught a rating,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The groom who had the horse in stable,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was damned in half the tongues of Babel.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Major being hot and heady<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When horse or dinner was not ready.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a lean, tough, liverish fellow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With pale blue eyes (the whites pale yellow),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mustache clipped toothbrush-wise, and jaws<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shaved bluish like old partridge claws.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he had stripped his coat he made<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A speckless presence for parade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">New pink, white cords, and glossy tops<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">New gloves, the newest thing in crops,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Worn with an air that well expressed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His sense that no one else was dressed.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE DOCTOR</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus093.jpg" width="400" height="233" alt="Came Doctor Frome of Quickemshow" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Quick trotting after Major Howe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came Doctor Frome of Quickemshow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A smiling silent man whose brain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knew all of every secret pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every man and woman there.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Their inmost lives were all laid bare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To him, because he touched their lives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When strong emotions sharp as knives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought out what sort of soul each was.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As secret as the graveyard grass<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was, as he had need to be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At some time he had had to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each person there, sans clothes, sans mask,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sans lying even, when to ask<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Probed a tamed spirit into truth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Richard, his son, a jolly youth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rode with him, fresh from Thomas's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As merry as a yearling is<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In maytime in a clover patch.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a gallant chick to hatch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Big, brown and smiling, blithe and kind,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">With all his father's love of mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And greater force to give it act.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see him when the scrum was packt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heave, playing forward, was a sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His tackling was the crowd's delight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In many a danger close to goal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pride in the three quarter's soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dropped, like a wet rag, when he collared.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was as steady as a bollard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gallant as a skysail yard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He rode a chestnut mare which sparred.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In good St. Thomas' Hospital,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was the crown imperial<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all the scholars of his year.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The Harold lads, from Tencombe Weir,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came all on foot in corduroys,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor widowed Mrs. Harold's boys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dick, Hal and Charles, whose father died.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Will Masemore shot him in the side<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By accident at Masemore Farm.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hazel knocked Will Masemore's arm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In getting through a hedge; his gun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was not half-cocked, so it was done<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And those three boys left fatherless.)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their gaitered legs were in a mess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With good red mud from twenty ditches<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hal's face was plastered like his breeches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dick chewed a twig of juniper.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They kept at distance from the stir<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their loss had made them lads apart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Next came the Colway's pony cart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Coln St. Evelyn's with the party,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Hugh Colway jovial, bold and hearty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Polly Colway's brother, John<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Their horses had been both sent on)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Polly Colway drove them there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor pretty Polly Colway's hair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The grey mare killed her at the brook<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down Seven Springs Mead at Water Hook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just one month later, poor sweet woman.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE SAILOR</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Her brother was a rat-faced Roman,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lean, puckered, tight-skinned from the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Commander in the <i>Canace</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Able to drive a horse, or ship,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or crew of men, without a whip<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By will, as long as they could go.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His face would wrinkle, row on row,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From mouth to hair-roots when he laught<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He looked ahead as though his craft<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were with him still, in dangerous channels.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He and Hugh Colway tossed their flannels<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the pony-cart and mounted.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Six foiled attempts the watchers counted,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The horses being bickering things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That so much scarlet made like kings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such sidling and such pawing and shifting.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MERCHANT'S SON</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">When Hugh was up his mare went drifting<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sidelong and feeling with her heels<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For horses' legs and poshay wheels,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While lather creamed her neat clipt skin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hugh guessed her foibles with a grin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a rich town-merchant's son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wise and kind man fond of fun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who loved to have a troop of friends<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At Coln St. Eves for all week-ends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And troops of children in for tea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gloried in a Christmas Tree.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Polly was his heart's best treasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Polly was a golden pleasure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To everyone, to see or hear.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor Polly's dying struck him queer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a darkened man thereafter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cowed silent, he would wince at laughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And be so gentle it was strange<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even to see. Life loves to change.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Now Coln St. Evelyn's hearths are cold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shutters up, the hunters sold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And green mould damps the locked front door.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But this was still a month before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Polly, golden in the chaise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still smiled, and there were golden days,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still thirty days, for those dear lovers.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SPORTSMAN</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The Riddens came, from Ocle Covers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bill Ridden riding Stormalong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(By Tempest out of Love-me-long)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A proper handful of a horse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That nothing but the Aintree course<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could bring to terms, save Bill perhaps.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All sport, from bloody war to craps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came well to Bill, that big-mouthed smiler;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They nick-named him "the mug-beguiler,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Billy lived too much with horses<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In coper's yards and sharper's courses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lack the sharper-coper streak.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He did not turn the other cheek<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When struck (as English Christians do),<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He boxed like a Whitechapel Jew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a time his knuckles bled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against a race-course-gipsy's head.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For "hit him first and argue later"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was truth at Billy's alma mater,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not love, not any bosh of love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His hand was like a chamois glove<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And riding was his chief delight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He bred the chaser Chinese-white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Lilybud by Mandarin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when his mouth tucked corners in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scent was high and hounds were going,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He went across a field like snowing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tackled anything that came.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus110.jpg" width="400" height="473" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>All sport, from bloody war to craps,<br />
+Came well to Bill, that big-mouthed smiler.</small></span></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">His wife, Sal Ridden, was the same,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A loud, bold, blonde abundant mare,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">With white horse teeth and stooks of hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Like polished brass) and such a manner<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It flaunted from her like a banner.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her father was Tom See the trainer;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She rode a lovely earth-disdainer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which she and Billy wished to sell.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus112.jpg" width="400" height="207" alt="Behind them rode her daughter Bell" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Behind them rode her daughter Bell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A strange shy lovely girl whose face<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Was sweet with thought and proud with race,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bright with joy at riding there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was as good as blowing air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But shy and difficult to know.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The kittens in the barley-mow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The setter's toothless puppies sprawling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blackbird in the apple calling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All knew her spirit more than we,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So delicate these maidens be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In loving lovely helpless things.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The Manor set, from Tencombe Rings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came, with two friends, a set of six.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ed Manor with his cockerel chicks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nob, Cob and Bunny as they called them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(God help the school or rule which galled them;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They carried head) and friends from town.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus114.jpg" width="400" height="174" alt="The Manor set, from Tencombe Rings" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Ed Manor trained on Tencombe Down.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He once had been a famous bat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had that stroke, "the Manor-pat,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which snicked the ball for three, past cover.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He once scored twenty in an over,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But now he cricketed no more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He purpled in the face and swore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At all three sons, and trained, and told<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long tales of cricketing of old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he alone had saved his side.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Drink made it doubtful if he lied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Drink purpled him, he could not face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fences now, nor go the pace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He brought his friends to meet; no more.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">His big son Nob, at whom he swore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swore back at him, for Nob was surly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tall, shifty, sullen-smiling, burly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quite fearless, built with such a jaw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That no man's rule could be his law<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor any woman's son his master.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Boxing he relished. He could plaster<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All those who boxed out Tencombe way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A front tooth had been knocked away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two days before, which put his mouth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A little to the east of south.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And put a venom in his laughter.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Cob was a lighter lad, but dafter;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just past eighteen, while Nob was twenty.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nob had no nerves but Cob had plenty<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So Cobby went where Nobby led.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had no brains inside his head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was fearless, just like Nob, but put<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some clog of folly round his foot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Nob put will of force or fraud;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He spat aside and muttered Gawd<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When vext; he took to whiskey kindly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And loved and followed Nobby blindly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rode as in the saddle born.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Bun looked upon the two with scorn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was the youngest, and was wise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He too was fair, with sullen eyes,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He too (a year before) had had<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A zest for going to the bad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Cob and Nob. He knew the joys<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of drinking with the stable-boys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or smoking while he filled his skin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With pints of Guinness dashed with gin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Cobby yelled a bawdy ditty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or cutting Nobby for the kitty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And damning peoples' eyes and guts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or drawing evening-church for sluts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knew them all and now was quit.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus117.jpg" width="600" height="381" alt="Third colored plate" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 19em;"><small><i>Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York</i></small></span></span></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Sweet Polly Colway managed it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Bunny changed. He dropped his drink<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(The pleasant pit's seductive brink),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He started working in the stable,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And well, for he was shrewd and able.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He left the doubtful female friends<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Picked up at Evening-Service ends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gave up cards and swore no more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nob called him "the Reforming Whore,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The Soul's Awakening," or "The Text,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nob being always coarse when vext.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Ed Manor's friends were Hawke and Sladd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old college friends, the last he had,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rare horsemen, but their nerves were shaken<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By all the whiskey they had taken.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hawke's hand was trembling on his rein.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyes were dead-blue like a vein,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His peaked sad face was touched with breeding,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His querulous mind was quaint from reading,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">His piping voice still quirked with fun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Many a mad thing he had done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Riding to hounds and going to races.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A glimmer of the gambler's graces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wit, courage, devil, touched his talk.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus121.jpg" width="400" height="236" alt="Ed Manor&#39;s friends were Hawke and Sladd" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Sladd's big fat face was white as chalk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mind went wondering, swift yet solemn,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Twixt winning-post and betting column,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The weights and forms and likely colts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said "This road is full of jolts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shall be seasick riding here.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O damn last night with that liqueur."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Len Stokes rode up on Peterkin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He owned the Downs by Baydon Whin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And grazed some thousand sheep; the boy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grinned round at men with jolly joy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At being alive and being there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His big round face and mop of hair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone, his great teeth shone in his grin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clean blood in his clear tanned skin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ran merry, and his great voice mocked<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His young friends present till they rocked.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Steer Harpit came from Rowell Hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A small, frail man, all heart and will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sailor as his voice betrayed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He let his whip-thong droop and played<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At snicking off the grass-blades with it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">John Hankerton, from Compton Lythitt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was there with Pity Hankerton,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Mike, their good-for-little son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back, smiling, from his seventh job.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joan Urch was there upon her cob.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom Sparsholt on his lanky grey.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">John Restrop from Hope Goneaway.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Vaughan, the big black handsome devil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Loose-lipped with song and wine and revel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All rosy from his morning tub<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE EXQUISITE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The Godsdown tigress with her cub<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Lady and Tommy Crowmarsh) came.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The great eyes smouldered in the dame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wit glittered, too, which few men saw.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was more beauty there than claw.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tommy in bearing, horse and dress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was black, fastidious, handsomeness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Choice to his trimmed soul's fingertips.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heredia's sonnets on his lips.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A line undrawn, a plate not bitten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A stone uncut, a phrase unwritten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That would be perfect, made his mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A choice pull, from a rare print, signed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was Tommy. He collected plate,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">(Old sheffield) and he owned each state<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all the Meryon Paris etchings.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus128.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>The Godsdown Tigress with her cub<br />
+(Lady and Tommy Crowmarsh) came.</small></span></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Colonel Sir Button Budd of Fletchings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was there; Long Robert Thrupp was there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Three yards of him men said there were),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long as the King of Prussia's fancy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He rode the longlegged Necromancy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A useless racehorse that could canter.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">George Childrey with his jolly banter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was there, Nick Childrey, too, come down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The night before from London town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hunt and have his lungs blown clean.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Ilsley set from Tuttocks Green<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was there (old Henry Ilsley drove),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Carlotta Ilsley brought her love<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">A flop-jowled broker from the city.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men pitied her, for she was pretty.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Some grooms and second horsemen mustered.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A lot of men on foot were clustered<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round the inn-door, all busy drinking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One heard the kissing glasses clinking<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In passage as the tray was brought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two terriers (which they had there) fought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There on the green, a loud, wild whirl.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bell stopped them like a gallant girl.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hens behind the tavern clucked.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE SOLDIER</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus133.jpg" width="400" height="251" alt="Came Minton-Price of th&#39; Afghan border" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Then on a horse which bit and bucked<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(The half-broke four-year-old Marauder)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came Minton-Price of th' Afghan border,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lean, puckered, yellowed, knotted, scarred,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tough as a hide-rope twisted hard,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Tense tiger-sinew knit to bone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange-wayed from having lived alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Kafir, Afghan and Beloosh<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In stations frozen in the Koosh<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where nothing but the bullet sings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mind had conquered many things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Painting, mechanics, physics, law,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">White-hot, hand-beaten things to draw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Self-hammered from his own soul's stithy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His speech was blacksmith-sparked and pithy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Danger had been his brother bred;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stones had often been his bed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In bickers with the border-thieves.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE COUNTRY'S HOPE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A chestnut mare with swerves and heaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came plunging, scattering all the crowd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She tossed her head and laughed aloud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bickered sideways past the meet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From pricking ears to mincing feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was all tense with blood and quiver,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You saw her clipt hide twitch and shiver<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over her netted cords of veins.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She carried Cothill, of the Sleins;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A tall, black, bright-eyed handsome lad.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great power and great grace he had.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men hoped the greatest things of him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His grace made people think him slim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he was muscled like a horse<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">A sculptor would have wrought his torse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In bronze or marble for Apollo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He loved to hurry like a swallow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For miles on miles of short-grassed sweet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blue-harebelled downs where dewy feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of pure winds hurry ceaselessly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He loved the downland like a sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The downland where the kestrels hover;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The downland had him for a lover.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every other thing he loved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In which a clean free spirit moved.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">So beautiful, he was, so bright.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He looked to men like young delight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gone courting April maidenhood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That has the primrose in her blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He on his mincing lady mare.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>COUNTRYMEN</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus141.jpg" width="400" height="226" alt="Ock Gurney and old Pete were there" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Ock Gurney and old Pete were there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Riding their bonny cobs and swearing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ock's wife had giv'n them both a fairing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A horse-rosette, red, white and blue.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their cheeks were brown as any brew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every comer to the meet<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Said "Hello, Ock," or "Morning, Pete;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be you a going to a wedding?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Why, noa," they said, "we'm going a bedding;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now ben't us, uncle, ben't us, Ock?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pete Gurney was a lusty cock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turned sixty-three, but bright and hale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A dairy-farmer in the vale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Much like a robin in the face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Much character in little space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With little eyes like burning coal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mouth was like a slit or hole<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In leather that was seamed and lined.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had the russet-apple mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That betters as the weather worsen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a manly English person,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kind to the core, brave, merry, true;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">One grief he had, a grief still new,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That former Parson joined with Squire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In putting down the Playing Quire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In church, and putting organ in.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Ah, boys, that was a pious din<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Quire was; a pious praise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The noise was that we used to raise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I and my serpent, George with his'n,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Easter Day in He is Risen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or blessed Christmas in Venite;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how the trombone came in mighty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Alleluias from the heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pious, for each man played his part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not like 'tis now." Thus he, still sore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For changes forty years before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When all (that could) in time and tune,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Blew trumpets to the new&euml; moon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a bachelor, from choice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He and his nephew farmed the Boyce<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prime pasture land for thirty cows.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ock's wife, Selina Jane, kept house,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And jolly were the three together.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ock had a face like summer weather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A broad red sun, split by a smile.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He mopped his forehead all the while,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said "By damn," and "Ben't us, Unk?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyes were close and deeply sunk.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cursed his hunter like a lover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Now blast your soul, my dear, give over.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Woa, now, my pretty, damn your eyes."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like Pete he was of middle size,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dean-oak-like, stuggy, strong in shoulder,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He stood a wrestle like a boulder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had a back for pitching hay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His singing voice was like a bay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In talk he had a sideways spit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each minute, to refresh his wit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cracked Brazil nuts with his teeth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He challenged Cobbett of the Heath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Weight-lifting champion) once, but lost.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hunting was what he loved the most,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Next to his wife and Uncle Pete.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With beer to drink and cheese to eat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rain in May to fill the grasses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This life was not a dream that passes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Ock, but like the summer flower.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE HOUNDS</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">But now the clock had struck the hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And round the corner, down the road<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bob-bob-bobbing serpent flowed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With three black knobs upon its spine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three bobbing black-caps in a line.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A glimpse of scarlet at the gap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Showed underneath each bobbing cap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And at the corner by the gate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One heard Tom Dansey give a rate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Hep, Drop it, Jumper; have a care,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There came a growl, half-rate, half-swear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A spitting crack, a tuneful whimper<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sweet religion entered Jumper.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">There was a general turn of faces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The men and horses shifted places,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And round the corner came the hunt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those feathery things, the hounds, in front,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Intent, wise, dipping, trotting, straying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smiling at people, shoving, playing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nosing to children's faces, waving<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their feathery sterns, and all behaving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One eye to Dansey on Maroon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their padding cat-feet beat a tune,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And though they trotted up so quiet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their noses brought them news of riot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wild smells of things with living blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hot smells, against the grippers good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of weasel, rabbit, cat and hare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose feet had been before them there,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose taint still tingled every breath;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Dansey on Maroon was death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So, though their noses roved, their feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Larked and trit-trotted to the meet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Bill Tall and Ell and Mirtie Key<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Aged fourteen years between the three)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were flooded by them at the bend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They thought their little lives would end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For grave sweet eyes looked into theirs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cold noses came, and clean short hairs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tails all crumpled up like ferns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sea of moving heads and sterns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All round them, brushing coat and dress;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One paused, expecting a caress.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The children shrank into each other,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Shut eyes, clutched tight and shouted "Mother"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With mouths wide open, catching tears.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus152.jpg" width="400" height="467" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>A sea of moving heads and sterns,<br />
+All round them, brushing coat and dress.</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Sharp Mrs. Tall allayed their fears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Err out the road, the dogs won't hurt 'ee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There now, you've cried your faces dirty.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More cleaning up for me to do.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What? Cry at dogs, great lumps like you?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She licked her handkerchief and smeared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their faces where the dirt appeared.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The hunt trit-trotted to the meeting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom Dansey touching cap to greeting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slow-lifting crop-thong to the rim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No hunter there got more from him<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Except some brightening of the eye.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He halted at the Cock and Pye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds drew round him on the green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arrogant, Daffodil and Queen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Closest, but all in little space.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some lolled their tongues, some made grimace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yawning, or tilting nose in quest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All stood and looked about with zest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were uneasy as they waited.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their sires and dams had been well-mated,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were a lovely pack for looks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their forelegs drumsticked without crooks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straight, without overtread or bend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Muscled to gallop to the end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With neat feet round as any cat's.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great chested, muscled in the slats,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright, clean, short-coated, broad in shoulder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With stag-like eyes that seemed to smoulder.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The heads well-cocked, the clean necks strong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brows broad, ears close, the muzzles long;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all like racers in the thighs;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their noses exquisitely wise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their minds being memories of smells;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their voices like a ring of bells;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their sterns all spirit, cock and feather;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their colours like the English weather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Magpie and hare, and badger-pye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like minglings in a double dye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some smutty-nosed, some tan, none bald;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their manners were to come when called,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their flesh was sinew knit to bone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their courage like a banner blown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their joy, to push him out of cover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hunt him till they rolled him over.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were as game as Robert Dover.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE WHIP</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Tom Dansey was a famous whip<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trained as a child in horsemanship.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Entered, as soon as he was able,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As boy at Caunter's racing stable;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There, like the other boys, he slept<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In stall beside the horse he kept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Snug in the straw; and Caunter's stick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought morning to him all too quick.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He learned the high quick gingery ways<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of thoroughbreds; his stable days<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made him a rider, groom and vet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He promised to be too thickset<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For jockeying, so left it soon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now he was whip and rode Maroon.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus160.jpg" width="400" height="470" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>His chief delight<br />
+Was hunting fox from noon to night.</small></span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He was a small, lean, wiry man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With sunk cheeks weathered to a tan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scarred by the spikes of hawthorn sprays<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dashed thro', head down, on going days,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In haste to see the line they took.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was a beauty in his look,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was intent. His speech was plain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maroon's head, reaching to the rein,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had half his thought before he spoke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His "gone away," when foxes broke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was like a bell. His chief delight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was hunting fox from noon to night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His pleasure lay in hounds and horses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He loved the Seven Springs water-courses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those flashing brooks (in good sound grass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where scent would hang like breath on glass).<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He loved the English countryside;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wine-leaved bramble in the ride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lichen on the apple-trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The poultry ranging on the lees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The farms, the moist earth-smelling cover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His wife's green grave at Mitcheldover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where snowdrops pushed at the first thaw.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Under his hide his heart was raw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With joy and pity of these things.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The second whip was Kitty Myngs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still but a lad but keen and quick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Son of old Myngs who farmed the Wick),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A horse-mouthed lad who knew his work.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He rode the big black horse, the Turk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And longed to be a huntsman bold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had the horse-look, sharp and old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With much good-nature in his face.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">His passion was to go the pace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His blood was crying for a taming.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was the Devil's chick for gaming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a rare good lad to box.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sometimes had a main of cocks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down at the Flags. His job with hounds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At present kept his blood in bounds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From rioting and running hare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom Dansey made him have a care.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He worshipped Dansey heart and soul.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To be a huntsman was his goal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To be with hounds, to charge full tilt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blackthorns that made the gentry wilt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was his ambition and his hope.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a hot colt needing rope,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was too quick to speak his passion<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To suit his present huntsman's fashion.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE HUNTSMAN</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus167.jpg" width="400" height="234" alt="He smiled and nodded and saluted to those who hailed him" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The huntsman, Robin Dawe, looked round,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sometimes called a favourite hound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gently, to see the creature turn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Look happy up and wag his stern.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He smiled and nodded and saluted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To those who hailed him, as it suited.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And patted Pip's, his hunter's neck.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His new pink was without a speck;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was a red-faced smiling fellow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His voice clear tenor, full and mellow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyes, all fire, were black and small.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had been smashed in many a fall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyebrow had a white curved mark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Left by the bright shoe of The Lark,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down in a ditch by Seven Springs.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His coat had all been trod to strings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His ribs laid bare and shoulder broken<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Being jumped on down at Water's Oaken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The time his horse came down and rolled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His face was of the country mould<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such as the mason sometimes cutted<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On English moulding-ends which jutted<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of the church walls, centuries since.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as you never know the quince,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How good he is, until you try,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So, in Dawe's face, what met the eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was only part, what lay behind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was English character and mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great kindness, delicate sweet feeling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Most shy, most clever in concealing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its depth) for beauty of all sorts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great manliness and love of sports,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A grave wise thoughtfulness and truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A merry fun, outlasting youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A courage terrible to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mercy for his enemy.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He had a clean-shaved face, but kept<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">A hedge of whisker neatly clipt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A narrow strip or picture frame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Old Dawe, the woodman, did the same),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Under his chin from ear to ear.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MASTER</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">But now the resting hounds gave cheer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joyful and Arrogant and Catch-him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smelt the glad news and ran to snatch him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Master's dogcart turned the bend.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Damsel and Skylark knew their friend;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A thrill ran through the pack like fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And little whimpers ran in quire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The horses cocked and pawed and whickered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Young Cothill's chaser kicked and bickered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stood on end and struck out sparks.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joyful and Catch-him sang like larks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was the Master in the trap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clutching old Roman in his lap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old Roman, crazy for his brothers,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And putting frenzy in the others,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To set them at the dogcart wheels,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With thrusting heads and little squeals.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The Master put old Roman by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And eyed the thrusters heedfully,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He called a few pet hounds and fed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three special friends with scraps of bread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then peeled his wraps, climbed down and strode<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through all those clamourers in the road,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saluted friends, looked round the crowd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saw Harridew's three girls and bowed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then took White Rabbit from the groom.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus176.jpg" width="400" height="481" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>He had a welcome and salute<br />
+For all, on horse or wheel or foot.</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He was Sir Peter Bynd, of Coombe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past sixty now, though hearty still,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">A living picture of good-will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An old, grave soldier, sweet and kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A courtier with a knightly mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who felt whatever thing he thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His face was scarred, for he had fought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Five wars for us. Within his face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Courage and power had their place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rough energy, decision, force.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He smiled about him from his horse.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had a welcome and salute<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For all, on horse or wheel or foot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whatever kind of life each followed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His tanned, drawn cheeks looked old and hollowed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But still his bright blue eyes were young,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when the pack crashed into tongue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And staunch White Rabbit shook like fire,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He sent him at it like a flier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lived with hounds while horses could.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"They'm lying in the Ghost Heath Wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sir Peter," said an earth-stopper,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Old Baldy Hill), "You'll find 'em there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Z I come'd across I smell 'em plain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's one up back, down Tuttock's drain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, Lord, it's just a bog, the Tuttocks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hounds would be swallered to the buttocks.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heath Wood, Sir Peter's best to draw."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE START</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Sir Peter gave two minutes' law<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Kingston Challow and his daughter;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said, "They're late. We'll start the slaughter.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ghost Heath, then, Dansey. We'll be going."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Now, at his word, the tide was flowing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Off went Maroon, off went the hounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down road, then off, to Chols Elm Grounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across soft turf with dead leaves cleaving<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hillocks that the mole was heaving.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mild going to those trotting feet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">After the scarlet coats, the meet<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Came clopping up the grass in spate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They poached the trickle at the gate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their horses' feet sucked at the mud;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Excitement in the horses' blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cocked forward every ear and eye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They quivered as the hounds went by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They trembled when they first trod grass;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They would not let another pass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They scattered wide up Chols Elm Hill.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus183.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="Fourth colored plate" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 19em;"><small><i>Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York</i></small></span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The wind was westerly but still;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sky a high fair-weather cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like meadows ridge-and-furrow ploughed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just glinting sun but scarcely moving.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blackbirds and thrushes thought of loving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Catkins were out; the day seemed tense<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">It was so still. At every fence<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cow-parsley pushed its thin green fern.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">White-violet-leaves shewed at the burn.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus185.jpg" width="400" height="235" alt="Young Cothill let his chaser go round Chols Elm Field" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Young Cothill let his chaser go<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round Chols Elm Field a turn or so<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To soothe his edge. The riders went<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chatting and laughing and content<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">In groups of two or three together.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds, a flock of shaking feather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bobbed on ahead, past Chols Elm Cop.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The horses' shoes went clip-a-clop,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along the stony cart-track there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little spinney was all bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in the earth-moist winter day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scarlet coats twixt tree and spray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glistening horses pressing on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The brown faced lads, Bill, Dick and John,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the hurry to arrive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were beautiful, like Spring alive.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds melted away with Master<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tanned lads ran, the field rode faster,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The chatter joggled in the throats<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of riders bumping by like boats,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">"We really ought to hunt a bye day."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Fine day for scent," "A fly or die day."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"They chopped a bagman in the check,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had a collar round his neck."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Old Ridden's girl's a pretty flapper."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"That Vaughan's a cad, the whipper-snapper."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I tell 'ee, lads, I seed 'em plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down in the Rough at Shifford's Main,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old Squire stamping like a Duke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So red with blood I thought he'd puke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In appleplexie, as they do.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Miss Jane stood just as white as dew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heard him out in just white heat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then she trimmed him down a treat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About Miss Lou it was, or Carrie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(She'd be a pretty peach to marry)."<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">"Her'll draw up-wind, so us'll go<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down by the furze, we'll see 'em so."<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus187.jpg" width="400" height="465" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>The scarlet coats twixt tree and spray,<br />
+The glistening horses pressing on,<br />
+<span style="letter-spacing:2em;">&middot;&middot;&middot;&middot;&middot;&middot;&middot;</span><br />
+And all the hurry to arrive,<br />
+Were beautiful, like Spring alive.</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">"Look, there they go, lad."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i8">There they went,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the brook and up the bent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Primrose Wood, past Brady Ride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along Ghost Heath to cover side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bobbing scarlet, trotting pack,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turf scatters tossed behind each back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some horses blowing with a whinny,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A jam of horses in the spinney,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Close to the ride-gate; leather straining,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saddles all creaking; men complaining,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chaffing each other as they pass't,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">On Ghost Heath turf they trotted fast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now as they neared the Ghost Heath Wood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some riders grumbled, "What's the good:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's shot all day and poached all night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We shall draw blank and lose the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lose the scent, and lose the day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why can't he draw Hope Goneaway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or Tuttocks Wood, instead of this?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's no fox here, there never is."<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img src="images/illus190.jpg" width="250" height="116" alt="Reynard the fox" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">But as he trotted up to cover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin was watching to discover<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What chance there was, and many a token<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Told him, that though no hound had spoken,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Most of them stirred to something there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old hounds' muzzles searched the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thin ghosts of scents were in their teeth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From foxes which had crossed the Heath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not very many hours before.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"We'll find," he said, "I'll bet a score."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along Ghost Heath they trotted well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hoof-cuts made the bruised earth smell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shaken brambles scattered drops,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stray pheasants kukkered out of copse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cracking the twigs down with their knockings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And planing out of sight with cockings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A scut or two lopped white to bramble.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>"COVER"</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">And now they gathered to the gamble<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At Ghost Heath Wood on Ghost Heath Down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds went crackling through the brown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dry stalks of bracken killed by frost.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wood stood silent in its host<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of halted trees all winter bare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The boughs, like veins that suck the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stretched tense, the last leaf scarcely stirred.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There came no song from any bird;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The darkness of the wood stood still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Waiting for fate on Ghost Heath Hill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The whips crept to the sides to view;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Master gave the nod, and "Leu,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leu in, Ed-hoick, Ed-hoick, Leu in,"<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Went Robin, cracking through the whin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And through the hedge-gap into cover.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The binders crashed as hounds went over,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cock-cock-cock the pheasants rose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then up went stern and down went nose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Robin's cheerful tenor cried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through hazel-scrub and stub and ride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"O wind him, beauties, push him out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yooi, onto him, Yahout, Yahout,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O push him out, Yooi, wind him, wind him."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The beauties burst the scrub to find him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They nosed the warren's clipped green lawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bramble and the broom were drawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The covert's northern end was blank.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus196.jpg" width="400" height="479" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>And now they gathered to the gamble<br />
+At Ghost Heath Wood on Ghost Heath Down.</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">They turned to draw along the bank<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through thicker cover than the Rough<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Through three-and-four-year understuff<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Robin's forearm screened his eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Yooi, find him, beauties," came his cries.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Hark, hark to Daffodil," the laughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faln from his horn, brought whimpers after,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ends of scents were everywhere.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said, "This Hope's a likely lair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there's his billets, grey and furred.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And George, he's moving, there's a bird."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A blue uneasy jay was chacking.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(A swearing screech, like tearing sacking)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From tree to tree, as in pursuit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said "That's it. There's fox afoot.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there, they're feathering, there she speaks.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Good Daffodil, good Tarrybreeks,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Hark there, to Daffodil, hark, hark."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mild horn's note, the soft flaked spark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of music, fell on that rank scent.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From heart to wild heart magic went.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The whimpering quivered, quavered, rose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Daffodil has it. There she goes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O hark to her." With wild high crying<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From frantic hearts, the hounds went flying<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Daffodil for that rank taint.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A waft of it came warm but faint,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Robin's mouth, and faded so.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"First find a fox, then let him go,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cried Robin Dawe. "For any sake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ring, Charley, till you're fit to break."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cheered his beauties like a lover<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And charged beside them into cover.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PART TWO&mdash;THE FOX</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/illus201.jpg" width="200" height="198" alt="Reynard the fox" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus203.jpg" width="400" height="241" alt="And there on the night before my tale he trotted out" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">On old Cold Crendon's windy tops<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grows wintrily Blown Hilcote Copse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wind-bitten beech with badger barrows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where brocks eat wasp-grubs with their marrows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And foxes lie on short-grassed turf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nose between paws, to hear the surf<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of wind in the beeches drowsily.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was our fox bred lustily<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three years before, and there he berthed<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Under the beech-roots snugly earthed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a roof of flint and a floor of chalk<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ten bitten hens' heads each on its stalk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some rabbits' paws, some fur from scuts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A badger's corpse and a smell of guts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there on the night before my tale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He trotted out for a point in the vale.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw, from the cover edge, the valley<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go trooping down with its droops of sally<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the brimming river's lipping bend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a light in the inn at Water's End.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard the owl go hunting by<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the shriek of the mouse the owl made die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the purr of the owl as he tore the red<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strings from between his claws and fed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The smack of joy of the horny lips<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Marbled green with the blobby strips.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw the farms where the dogs were barking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cold Crendon Court and Copsecote Larking;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fault with the spring as bright as gleed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Green-slash-laced with water weed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A glare in the sky still marked the town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though all folk slept and the blinds were down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The street lamps watched the empty square,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The night-cat sang his evil there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox's nose tipped up and round<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since smell is a part of sight and sound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Delicate smells were drifting by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sharp nose flaired them heedfully:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Partridges in the clover stubble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crouched in a ring for the stoat to nubble.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rabbit bucks beginning to box;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">A scratching place for the pheasant cocks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hare in the dead grass near the drain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And another smell like the spring again.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A faint rank taint like April coming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It cocked his ears and his blood went drumming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For somewhere out by Ghost Heath Stubs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was a roving vixen wanting cubs.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus205.jpg" width="400" height="469" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>He saw the farms where the dogs were barking,<br />
+Cold Crendon Court and Copsecote Larking.</small></span>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE ROVING</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Over the valley, floating faint<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On a warmth of windflaw came the taint,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cocked his ears, he upped his brush,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he went up wind like an April thrush.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the Roman Road to Braiches Ridge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the fallen willow makes a bridge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the brook by White Hart's Thorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the acres thin with pricking corn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the sparse green hair of the wheat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the Clench Brook Mill at Clench Brook Leat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through Cowfoot Pastures to Nonely Stevens,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And away to Poltrewood St. Jevons.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Tott Hill Down all snaked with meuses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Clench St. Michael and Naunton Crucis,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Howle's Oak Farm where the raving brain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of a dog who heard him foamed his chain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then off, as the farmer's window opened,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Stonepits Farm to Upton Hope End;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over short sweet grass and worn flint arrows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the three dumb hows of Tencombe Barrows;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And away and away with a rolling scramble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the blackthorn and up the bramble,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">With a nose for the smells the night wind carried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his red fell clean for being married.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For clicketting time and Ghost Heath Wood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had put the violet in his blood.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus212.jpg" width="400" height="239" alt="A dog who heard him foamed his chain" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">At Tencombe Rings near the Manor Linney,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His foot made the great black stallion whinny,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the stallion's whinny aroused the stable<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the bloodhound bitches stretched their cable,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the clink of the bloodhound's chain aroused<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sweet-breathed kye as they chewed and drowsed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the stir of the cattle changed the dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the cat in the loft to tense green gleam.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The red-wattled black cock hot from Spain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crowed from his perch for dawn again,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">His breast-pufft hens, one-legged on perch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gurgled, beak-down, like men in church,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They crooned in the dark, lifting one red eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the raftered roost as the fox went by.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">By Tencombe Regis and Slaughters Court,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the great grass square of Roman Fort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Nun's Wood Yews and the Hungry Hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the Corpse Way Stones all standing still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Seven Springs Mead to Deerlip Brook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a lolloping leap to Water Hook.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then with eyes like sparks and his blood awoken<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the grass to Water's Oaken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And over the hedge and into ride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Ghost Heath Wood for his roving bride.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the dawn he had loved and fed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And found a kennel and gone to bed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On a shelf of grass in a thick of gorse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That would bleed a hound and blind a horse.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There he slept in the mild west weather<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his nose and brush well tucked together,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He slept like a child, who sleeps yet hears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the self who needs neither eyes nor ears.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus216.jpg" width="400" height="465" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>There he slept in the mild west weather<br />
+With his nose and brush well tucked together.</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He slept while the pheasant cock untucked<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His head from his wing, flew down and kukked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the drove of the starlings whirred and wheeled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of the ash-trees into field.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While with great black flags that flogged and paddled<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The rooks went out to the plough and straddled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straddled wide on the moist red cheese<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the furrows driven at Uppat's Leas.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Down in the village, men awoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The chimneys breathed with a faint blue smoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Due to his dreams, ran down his flitches.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus218.jpg" width="400" height="241" alt="The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The cows were milked and the yards were sluict,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the cocks and hens let out of roost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Windows were opened, mats were beaten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All men's breakfasts were cooked and eaten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But out in the gorse on the grassy shelf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sleeping fox looked after himself.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Deep in his dream he heard the life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the woodland seek for food or wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hop of a stoat, a buck that thumped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The squeal of a rat as a weasel jumped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blackbird's chackering scattering crying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rustling bents from the rabbits flying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cows in a byre, and distant men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Condicote church-clock striking ten.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">At eleven o'clock a boy went past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a rough-haired terrier following fast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Woke the fox from out of his nap.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus219.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>The boy&#39;s sweet whistle and dog&#39;s quick yap<br />
+Woke the fox from out of his nap.</small></span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SCENT</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He rose and stretched till the claws in his pads<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stuck hornily out like long black gads,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He listened a while, and his nose went round<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To catch the smell of the distant sound.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The windward smells came free from taint<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were rabbit, strongly, with lime-kiln, faint,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wild-duck, likely, at Sars Holt Pond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sheep on the Sars Holt Down beyond.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lee-ward smells were much less certain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the Ghost Heath Hill was like a curtain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet vague, from the lee-ward, now and then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came muffled sounds like the sound of men.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He moved to his right to a clearer space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all his soul came into his face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into his eyes and into his nose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As over the hill a murmur rose.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">His ears were cocked and his keen nose flaired,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sneered with his lips till his teeth were bared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He trotted right and lifted a pad<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trying to test what foes he had.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SOUND</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">On Ghost Heath turf was a steady drumming<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which sounded like horses quickly coming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It died as the hunt went down the dip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Malapert yelped at Myngs's whip.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A bright iron horseshoe clinkt on stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a man's voice spoke, not one alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a burst of laughter, swiftly still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Muffled away by Ghost Heath Hill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, indistinctly, the clop, clip, clep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Brady Ride, of a horse's step.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then silence, then, in a burst, much clearer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Voices and horses coming nearer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And another noise, of a pit-pat beat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the Ghost Hill grass, of foxhound feet.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He sat on his haunches listening hard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While his mind went over the compass card,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men were coming and rest was done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he still had time to get fit to run;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He could outlast horse and outrace hound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But men were devils from Lobs's Pound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scent was burning, the going good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world one lust for a fox's blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The main earths stopped and the drains put-to,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fifteen miles to the land he knew.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of all the ills, the ill least pleasant<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was to run in the light when men were present.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men in the fields to shout and sign<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a lift of hounds to a fox's line.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men at the earth at the long point's end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men at each check and none his friend,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Guessing each shift that a fox contrives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But still, needs must when the devil drives.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus229.jpg" width="400" height="232" alt="Men at the earth at the long point&#39;s end" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He readied himself, then a soft horn blew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a clear voice carolled "Ed-hoick. Eleu."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the wood-end rang with the clear voice crying<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the crackle of scrub where hounds were trying.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus230.jpg" width="400" height="241" alt="He trotted down with his nose intent" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Then, the horn blew nearer, a hound's voice quivered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then another, then more, till his body shivered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He left his kennel and trotted thence<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his ears flexed back and his nerves all tense.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He trotted down with his nose intent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a fox's line to cross his scent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was only fair (he being a stranger)<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">That the native fox should have the danger.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Danger was coming, so swift, so swift,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the pace of his trot began to lift<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blue-winged Judas, a jay, began<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swearing, hounds whimpered, air stank of man.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He hurried his trotting, he now felt frighted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was his poor body made hounds excited,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He felt as he ringed the great wood through<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That he ought to make for the land he knew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Then the hounds' excitement quivered and quickened,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a horn blew death till his marrow sickened<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the wood behind was a crash of cry<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the blood in his veins; it made him fly.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">They were on his line; it was death to stay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He must make for home by the shortest way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But with all this yelling and all this wrath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all these devils, how find a path?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He ran like a stag to the wood's north corner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the hedge was thick and the ditch a yawner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the scarlet glimpse of Myngs on Turk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watching the woodside, made him shirk.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He ringed the wood and looked at the south.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What wind there was blew into his mouth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But close to the woodland's blackthorn thicket<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was Dansey, still as a stone, on picket.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At Dansey's back were a twenty more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watching the cover and pressing fore.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus233.jpg" width="400" height="239" alt="The fox drew in" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The fox drew in and flaired with his muzzle.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Death was there if he messed the puzzle.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There were men without and hounds within,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A crying that stiffened the hair on skin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Teeth in cover and death without,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both deaths coming, and no way out.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>FOUND</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">His nose ranged swiftly, his heart beat fast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a crashing cry rose up in a blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then horse hooves trampled, then horses' flitches<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burst their way through the hazel switches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the horn again made the hounds like mad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a man, quite near, said "Found, by Gad,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a man, quite near, said "Now he'll break.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lark's Leybourne Copse is the line he'll take."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the men moved up with their talk and stink<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the traplike noise of the horseshoe clink.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men whose coming meant death from teeth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a worrying wrench with him beneath.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The fox sneaked down by the cover side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(With his ears flexed back) as a snake would glide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He took the ditch at the cover-end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He hugged the ditch as his only friend.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blackbird cock with the golden beak<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Got out of his way with a jabbering shriek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the shriek told Tom on the raking bay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That for eighteen pence he was gone away.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus238.jpg" width="400" height="239" alt="The blackbird got out of his way with a jabbering shriek" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He ran in the hedge in the triple growth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of bramble and hawthorn, glad of both,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till a couple of fields were past, and then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came the living death of the dread of men.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Then, as he listened, he heard a "Hoy,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom Dansey's horn and "Awa-wa-woy."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then all hounds crying with all their forces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a thundering down of seventy horses.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin Dawe's horn and halloos of "Hey<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hark Hollar, Hoik" and "Gone away,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Hark Hollar Hoik," and the smack of a whip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A yelp as a tail hound caught the clip.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Hark Hollar, Hark Hollar"; then Robin made<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pip go crash through the cut-and-laid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hounds were over and on his line<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">With a head like bees upon Tipple Tine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sound of the nearness sent a flood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of terror of death through the fox's blood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He upped his brush and he cocked his nose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he went up wind as a racer goes.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>AWAY</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus243.jpg" width="400" height="236" alt="The hounds went romping with delight" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Bold Robin Dawe was over first,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cheering his hounds on at the burst;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The field were spurring to be in it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Hold hard, sirs, give them half a minute,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came from Sir Peter on his white.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds went romping with delight<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the grass and got together;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tail hounds galloped hell-for-leather<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">After the pack at Myngs's yell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A cry like every kind of bell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rang from these rompers as they raced.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The riders thrusting to be placed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jammed down their hats and shook their horses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds romped past with all their forces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They crashed into the blackthorn fence;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scent was heavy on their sense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So hot it seemed the living thing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It made the blood within them sing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gusts of it made their hackles rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hot gulps of it were agonies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of joy, and thirst for blood, and passion.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus245.jpg" width="600" height="457" alt="Fifth colored plate" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 19em;"><small><i>Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York</i></small></span></span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">"Forrard," cried Robin, "that's the fashion."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He raced beside his pack to cheer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The field's noise died upon his ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A faint horn, far behind, blew thin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In cover, lest some hound were in.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then instantly the great grass rise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shut field and cover from his eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He and his racers were alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A dead fox or a broken bone,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said Robin, peering for his prey.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rise, which shut his field away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shewed him the vale's great map spread out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The downs' lean flank and thrusting snout,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pale pastures, red-brown plough, dark wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blue distance, still as solitude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glitter of water here and there,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The trees so delicately bare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dark green gorse and bright green holly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"O glorious God," he said, "how jolly."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there, down hill, two fields ahead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lolloping red dog-fox sped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over Poor Pastures to the brook.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He grasped these things in one swift look<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then dived into the bulfinch heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through thorns that ripped his sleeves apart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And skutched new blood upon his brow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"His point's Lark's Leybourne Covers now,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said Robin, landing with a grunt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Forrard, my beautifuls."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i12">The hunt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Followed down hill to race with him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">White Rabbit with his swallow's skim,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Drew within hail, "Quick burst, Sir Peter."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A traveller. Nothing could be neater.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Making for Godsdown clumps, I take it?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Lark's Leybourne, sir, if he can make it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forrard."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE FIELD</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i5">Bill Ridden thundered down;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His big mouth grinned beneath his frown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds were going away from horses.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw the glint of water-courses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yell Brook and Wittold's Dyke ahead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His horse shoes sliced the green turf red.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Young Cothill's chaser rushed and passt him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nob Manor, running next, said "Blast him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That poet chap who thinks he rides."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hugh Colway's mare made straking strides<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the grass, the Colonel next:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Squire volleying oaths and vext,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fighting his hunter for refusing:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bell Ridden like a cutter cruising<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Sailing the grass, then Cob on Warder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Minton Price upon Marauder;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ock Gurney with his eyes intense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burning as with a different sense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His big mouth muttering glad "by damns";<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Pete crouched down from head to hams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rapt like a saint, bright focussed flame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bennett with devils in his wame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chewing black cud and spitting slanting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Copse scattering jests and Stukely ranting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sal Ridden taking line from Dansey;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long Robert forcing Necromancy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A dozen more with bad beginnings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Myngs riding hard to snatch an innings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wild last hound with high shrill yelps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smacked forrard with some whip-thong skelps.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Then last of all, at top of rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crowd on foot all gasps and eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The run up hill had winded them.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">They saw the Yell Brook like a gem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blue in the grass a short mile on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They heard faint cries, but hounds were gone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A good eight fields and out of sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Except a rippled glimmer white<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Going away with dying cheering<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scarlet flappings disappearing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scattering horses going, going,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Going like mad, White Rabbit snowing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far on ahead, a loose horse taking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fence after fence with stirrups shaking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scarlet specks and dark specks dwindling.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus256.jpg" width="400" height="238" alt="Far on ahead, a loose horse taking fence after fence" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Nearer, were twigs knocked into kindling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A much bashed fence still dropping stick,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flung clods, still quivering from the kick,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cut hoof-marks pale in cheesy clay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The horse-smell blowing clean away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Birds flitting back into the cover.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One last faint cry, then all was over.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hunt had been, and found, and gone.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus258.jpg" width="400" height="478" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>He faced the fence and put her through it<br />
+Shielding his eyes lest spikes should blind him.</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">At Neakings Farm, three furlongs on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hounds raced across the Waysmore Road,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where many of the riders slowed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tittup down a grassy lane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which led as hounds led in the main<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gave no danger of a fall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There, as they tittupped one and all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Big Twenty Stone came scattering by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His great mare made the hoof-casts fly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"By leave," he cried. "Come on. Come up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This fox is running like a tup;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let's leave this lane and get to terms.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No sense in crawling here like worms.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come, let me past and let me start,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This fox is running like a hart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this is going to be a run.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Thanky. By leave. Now, Maiden; do it."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He faced the fence and put her through it<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shielding his eyes lest spikes should blind him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crashing blackthorn closed behind him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mud-scatters chased him as he scudded.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mare's ears cocked, her neat feet thudded.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE RUN</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The kestrel cruising over meadow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watched the hunt gallop on his shadow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wee figures, almost at a stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crossing the multi-coloured land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slow as a shadow on a dial.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus264.jpg" width="400" height="229" alt="Some horses, swerving at a trial" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Some horses, swerving at a trial,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Baulked at a fence: at gates they bunched.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mud about the gates was dunched.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like German cheese; men pushed for places,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And kicked the mud into the faces<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of those who made them room to pass.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The half-mile's gallop on the grass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had tailed them out, and warmed their blood.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus265.jpg" width="400" height="231" alt="At gates they bunched" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">"His point's the Banner Barton Wood."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"That, or Goat's Gorse." "A stinger, this."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"You're right in that; by Jove it is."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"An up-wind travelling fox, by George."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"They say Tom viewed him at the forge."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Well, let me pass and let's be on."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">They crossed the lane to Tolderton,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hill-marl died to valley clay,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And there before them ran the grey<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yell Water, swirling as it ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Yell Brook of the hunting man.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hunters eyed it and were grim.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They saw the water snaking slim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ahead, like silver; they could see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Each man) his pollard willow tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Firming the bank, they felt their horses<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Catch the gleam's hint and gather forces;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They heard the men behind draw near.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each horse was trembling as a spear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trembles in hand when tense to hurl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They saw the brimmed brook's eddies curl.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The willow-roots like water-snakes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The beaten holes the ratten makes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They heard the water's rush; they heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hugh Colway's mare come like a bird;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A faint cry from the hounds ahead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then saddle-strain, the bright hooves' tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quick words, the splash of mud, the launch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sick hope that the bank be staunch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Souse, with Souse to left and right.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maroon across, Sir Peter's white<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down but pulled up, Tom over, Hugh<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Mud to the hat but over, too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well splashed by Squire who was in.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">With draggled pink stuck close to skin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Squire leaned from bank and hauled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mired horse's rein; he bawled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For help from each man racing by.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"What, help you pull him out? Not I.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What made you pull him in?" they said.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nob Manor cleared and turned his head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cried "Wade up. The ford's upstream."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ock Gurney in a cloud of steam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stood by his dripping cob and wrung<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The taste of brook mud from his tongue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scraped his poor cob's pasterns clean.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Lord, what a crowner we've a been,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">This jumping brook's a mucky job."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He muttered, grinning, "Lord, poor cob.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now sir, let me." He turned to Squire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cleared his hunter from the mire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By skill and sense and strength of arm.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>FULL CRY</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Meanwhile the fox passed Nonesuch Farm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Keeping the spinney on his right.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hounds raced him here with all their might<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along the short firm grass, like fire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cowman viewed him from the byre<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lolloping on, six fields ahead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then hounds, still carrying such a head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It made him stare, then Rob on Pip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sailing the great grass like a ship,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then grand Maroon in all his glory<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweeping his strides, his great chest hoary<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With foam fleck and the pale hill-marl.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They strode the Leet, they flew the Snarl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They knocked the nuts at Nonesuch Mill,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Raced up the spur of Gallows Hill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And viewed him there. The line he took<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was Tineton and the Pantry Brook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Going like fun and hounds like mad.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom glanced to see what friends he had<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still within sight, before he turned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ridge's shoulder; he discerned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One field away, young Cothill sailing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Easily up. Pete Gurney failing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hugh Colway quartering on Sir Peter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bill waiting on the mare to beat her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sal Ridden skirting to the right.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A horse, with stirrups flashing bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over his head at every stride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looked like the Major's; Tom espied<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far back, a scarlet speck of man<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Running, and straddling as he ran.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Charles Copse was up, Nob Manor followed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Bennett's big-boned black that wallowed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clumsy, but with the strength of ten.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then black and brown and scarlet men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brown horses, white and black and grey<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scattered a dozen fields away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shoulder shut the scene away.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus273.jpg" width="600" height="383" alt="Sixth colored plate" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 19em;"><small><i>Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York</i></small></span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">From the Gallows Hill to the Tineton Copse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There were ten ploughed fields like ten full stops,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All wet red clay where a horse's foot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would be swathed, feet thick, like an ash-tree root.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox raced on, on the headlands firm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where his swift feet scared the coupling worm,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The rooks rose raving to curse him raw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He snarled a sneer at their swoop and caw.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then on, then on, down a half ploughed field<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where a ship-like plough drave glitter-keeled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a bay horse near and a white horse leading,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a man saying "Zook" and the red earth bleeding.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gasped as he saw the ploughman drop<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stilts and swear at the team to stop.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ploughman ran in his red clay clogs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crying "Zick un, Towzer; zick, good dogs."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A couple of wire-haired lurchers lean<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arose from his wallet, nosing keen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a rushing swoop they were on his track,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Putting chest to stubble to bite his back.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He swerved from his line with the curs at heel,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The teeth as they missed him clicked like steel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a worrying snarl, they quartered on him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the ploughman shouted "Zick; upon him."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lurcher dogs soon shot their bolt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the fox raced on by the Hazel Holt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down the dead grass tilt to the sandstone gash<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the Pantry Brook at Tineton Ash.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The loitering water, flooded full,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Had yeast on its lip like raddled wool,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was wrinkled over with Arab script<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of eddies that twisted up and slipt.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stepping stones had a rush about them<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So the fox plunged in and swam without them.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus277.jpg" width="400" height="239" alt="He swerved from his line with the curs at heel" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He crossed to the cattle's drinking shallow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Firmed up with rush and the roots of mallow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wrung his coat from his draggled bones<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And romped away for the Sarsen Stones.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A sneaking glance with his ears flexed back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made sure that his scent had failed the pack,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the red clay, good for corn and roses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was cold for scent and brought hounds to noses.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He slackened pace by the Tineton Tree,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">(A vast hollow ash-tree grown in three),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wriggled a shake and padded slow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not sure if the hounds were on or no.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A horn blew faint, then he heard the sounds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of a cantering huntsman, lifting hounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ploughman had raised his hat for sign,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the hounds were lifted and on his line.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard the splash in the Pantry Brook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a man's voice: "Thiccy's the line he took,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a clear "Yoi doit" and a whimpering quaver,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though the lurcher dogs had dulled the savour.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The fox went off while the hounds made halt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the horses breathed and the field found fault,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the whimpering rose to a crying crash<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">By the hollow ruin of Tineton Ash.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then again the kettle drum horse hooves beat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the green blades bent to the fox's feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the cry rose keen not far behind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the "Blood, blood, blood" in the fox-hounds' mind.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img src="images/illus280.jpg" width="250" height="195" alt="Reynard the fox" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The fox was strong, he was full of running,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He could run for an hour and then be cunning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the cry behind him made him chill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were nearer now and they meant to kill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They meant to run him until his blood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clogged on his heart as his brush with mud,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Till his back bent up and his tongue hung flagging,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his belly and brush were filthed from dragging.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till he crouched stone still, dead-beat and dirty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With nothing but teeth against the thirty.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the way to that blinding end<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He would meet with men and have none his friend.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men to holloa and men to run him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With stones to stagger and yells to stun him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men to head him, with whips to beat him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Teeth to mangle and mouths to eat him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the way, that wild high crying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To cold his blood with the thought of dying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The horn and the cheer, and the drum-like thunder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the horse hooves stamping the meadows under.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He upped his brush and went with a will<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the Sarsen Stones on Wan Dyke Hill.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">As he ran the meadow by Tineton Church,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A christening party left the porch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They stood stock still as he pounded by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They wished him luck but they thought he'd die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The toothless babe in his long white coat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looked delicate meat, the fox took note;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the sight of them grinning there, pointing finger,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made him put on steam till he went a stinger.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Past Tineton Church over Tineton Waste,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the lolloping ease of a fox's haste,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fur on his chest blown dry with the air,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">His brush still up and his cheek-teeth bare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the Waste where the ganders grazed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The long swift lilt of his loping lazed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His ears cocked up as his blood ran higher,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw his point, and his eyes took fire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Wan Dyke Hill with its fir tree barren,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its dark of gorse and its rabbit warren.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Dyke on its heave like a tightened girth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And holes in the Dyke where a fox might earth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had rabbitted there long months before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The earths were deep and his need was sore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The way was new, but he took a vearing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rushed like a blown ship billow-sharing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Off Tineton Common to Tineton Dean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the wind-hid elders pushed with green;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the Dean's thin cover across the lane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And up Midwinter to King of Spain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old Joe at digging his garden grounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said "A fox, being hunter; where be hounds?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O lord, my back, to be young again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Stead a zellin zider in King of Spain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O hark, I hear 'em, O sweet, O sweet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why there be redcoat in Gearge's wheat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there be redcoat, and there they gallop.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thur go a browncoat down a wallop.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quick, Ellen, quick, come Susan, fly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here'm hounds. I zeed the fox go by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go by like thunder, go by like blasting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his girt white teeth all looking ghasting.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Look there come hounds. Hark, hear 'em crying.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lord, belly to stubble, ain't they flying.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">There's huntsmen, there. The fox come past<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(As I was digging) as fast as fast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He's only been gone a minute by;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A girt dark dog as pert as pye."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Ellen and Susan came out scattering<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brooms and dustpans till all was clattering;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They saw the pack come head to foot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Running like racers nearly mute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin and Dansey quartering near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All going gallop like startled deer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A half dozen flitting scarlets shewing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the thin green Dean where the pines were growing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Black coats and brown coats thrusting and spurring<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Sending the partridge coveys whirring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a rattle up hill and a clop up lane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It emptied the bar of the King of Spain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Tom left his cider, Dick left his bitter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ganfer James left his pipe and spitter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out they came from the sawdust floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They said, "They'm going." They said "O Lor."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The fox raced on, up the Barton Balks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a crackle of kex in the nettle stalks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over Hammond's grass to the dark green line<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the larch-wood smelling of turpentine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scratch Steven Larches, black to the sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sadness breathing with one long sigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grey ghosts of treen under funeral plumes,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">A mist of twig over soft brown glooms.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he entered the wood he heard the smacks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chip-jar, of the fir pole feller's axe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He swerved to the left to a broad green ride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where a boy made him rush for the further side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He swerved to the left, to the Barton Road,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But there were the timberers come to load.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two timber carts and a couple of carters<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With straps round their knees instead of garters.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He swerved to the right, straight down the wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The carters watched him, the boy hallooed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He leaped from the larch wood into tillage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cobbler's garden of Barton village.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The cobbler bent at his wooden foot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beating sprigs in a broken boot;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He wore old glasses with thick horn rim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He scowled at his work for his sight was dim.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His face was dingy, his lips were grey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From primming sparrowbills day by day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he turned his boot he heard a noise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At his garden-end and he thought, "It's boys."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw his cat nip up on the shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where her back arched up till it touched her head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw his rabbit race round and round<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its little black box three feet from ground.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His six hens cluckered and flucked to perch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"That's boys," said cobbler, "so I'll go search."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He reached his stick and blinked in his wrath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he saw a fox in his garden path.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox swerved left and scrambled out<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Knocking crinked green shells from the Brussels Sprout,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He scrambled out through the cobbler's paling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And up Pill's orchard to Purton's Tailing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the plough at the top of bent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the heaped manure to kill his scent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over to Aldams, up to Cappells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Nursery Lot with its white-washed apples,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Colston's Broom, past Gaunts, past Sheres,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Foxwhelps Oasts with their hooded ears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Monk's Ash Clerewell, past Beggars Oak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past the great elms blue with the Hinton smoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along Long Hinton to Hinton Green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the wind-washed steeple stood serene<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With its golden bird still sailing air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Banner Barton, past Chipping Bare,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Maddings Hollow, down Dundry Dip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And up Goose Grass to the Sailing Ship.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus289.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="Seventh colored plate" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 19em;"><small><i>Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York</i></small></span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The three black firs of the Ship stood still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the bare chalk heave of the Dundry Hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox looked back as he slackened past<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scaled red-hole of the mizzen-mast.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>VIEW HALLOO</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">There they were coming, mute but swift,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A scarlet smear in the blackthorn rift,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A white horse rising, a dark horse flying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the hungry hounds too tense for crying.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stormcock leading, his stern spear-straight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Racing as though for a piece of plate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Little speck horsemen field on field;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Dansey viewed him and Robin squealed<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus296.jpg" width="400" height="478" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>A white horse rising, a dark horse flying.</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">At the View Halloo the hounds went frantic,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back went Stormcock and up went Antic,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up went Skylark as Antic sped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was zest to blood how they carried head.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Skylark dropped as Maroon drew by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their hackles lifted, they scored to cry.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The fox knew well, that before they tore him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They should try their speed on the downs before him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There were three more miles to the Wan Dyke Hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But his heart was high, that he beat them still.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wind of the downland charmed his bones<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So off he went for the Sarsen Stones.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The moan of the three great firs in the wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the Ai of the foxhounds died behind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wind-dapples followed the hill-wind's breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the Kill Down gorge where the Danes found death;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Larks scattered up; the peewits feeding<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose in a flock from the Kill Down Steeding.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hare leaped up from her form and swerved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swift left for the Starveall harebell-turved.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the wind-bare thorn some longtails prinking<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cried sweet, as though wind blown glass were chinking.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behind came thudding and loud halloo<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or a cry from hounds as they came to view.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The pure clean air came sweet to his lungs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till he thought foul scorn of those crying tongues,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a three mile more he would reach the haven<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the Wan Dyke croaked on by the raven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a three mile more he would make his berth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the hard cool floor of a Wan Dyke earth,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Too deep for spade, too curved for terrier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the pride of the race to make rest the merrier.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a three mile more he would reach his dream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So his game heart gulped and he put on steam.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a rocket shot to a ship ashore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lean red bolt of his body tore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a ripple of wind running swift on grass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a shadow on wheat when a cloud blows past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a turn at the buoy in a cutter sailing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the bright green gleam lips white at the railing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the April snake whipping back to sheath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the gannet's hurtle on fish beneath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a kestrel chasing, like a sickle reaping,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like all things swooping, like all things sweeping,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a hound for stay, like a stag for swift,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his shadow beside like spinning drift.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past the gibbet-stock all stuck with nails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where they hanged in chains what had hung at jails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Ashmundshowe where Ashmund sleeps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And none but the tumbling peewit weeps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Curlew Calling, the gaunt grey corner<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the curlew comes as a summer mourner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Blowbury Beacon shaking his fleece,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Where all winds hurry and none brings peace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then down, on the mile-long green decline<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the turf's like spring and the air's like wine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the sweeping spurs of the downland spill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into Wan Brook Valley and Wan Dyke Hill.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/illus300.jpg" width="200" height="194" alt="Reynard the fox" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">On he went with a galloping rally<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Maesbury Clump for Wan Brook Valley,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blood in his veins went romping high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Get on, on, on to the earth or die."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The air of the downs went purely past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till he felt the glory of going fast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the terror of death, though there indeed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was lulled for a while by his pride of speed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was romping away from hounds and hunt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had Wan Dyke Hill and his earth in front,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">In a one mile more when his point was made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He would rest in safety from dog or spade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nose between paws he would hear the shout<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the "gone to earth" to the hounds without,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The whine of the hounds, and their cat feet gadding.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scratching the earth, and their breath pad-padding,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He would hear the horn call hounds away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rest in peace till another day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In one mile more he would lie at rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So for one mile more he would go his best.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He reached the dip at the long droop's end<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he took what speed he had still to spend.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">So down past Maesbury beech clump grey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That would not be green till the end of May,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Arthur's Table, the white chalk boulder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where pasque flowers purple the down's grey shoulder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Quichelm's Keeping, past Harry's Thorn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Thirty Acre all thin with corn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he raced the corn towards Wan Dyke Brook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pack had view of the way he took,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin hallooed from the downland's crest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He capped them on till they did their best.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The quarter mile to the Wan Brook's brink<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was raced as quick as a man can think.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And here, as he ran to the huntsman's yelling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox first felt that the pace was telling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His body and lungs seemed all grown old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His legs less certain, his heart less bold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hound-noise nearer, the hill slope steeper,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The thud in the blood of his body deeper,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His pride in his speed, his joy in the race<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were withered away, for what use was pace?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had run his best, and the hounds ran better.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the going worsened, the earth was wetter.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then his brush drooped down till it sometimes dragged,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his fur felt sick and his chest was tagged<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">With taggles of mud, and his pads seemed lead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was well for him he'd an earth ahead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down he went to the brook and over,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of the corn and into the clover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the slope that the Wan Brook drains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past Battle Tump where they earthed the Danes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then up the hill that the Wan Dyke rings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the Sarsen Stones stand grand like kings.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus304.jpg" width="400" height="241" alt="Then his brush drooped down till it sometimes dragged" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Seven Sarsens of granite grim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he ran them by they looked at him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he leaped the lip of their earthen paling<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds were gaining and he was failing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He passed the Sarsens, he left the spur,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He pressed up hill to the blasted fir,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He slipped as he leaped the hedge; he slithered;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"He's mine," thought Robin. "He's done; he's dithered."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the second attempt he cleared the fence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He turned half right where the gorse was dense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was leading hounds by a furlong clear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was past his best, but his earth was near.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ran up gorse, to the spring of the ramp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The steep green wall of the dead men's camp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sidled up it and scampered down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the deep green ditch of the dead men's town.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Within, as he reached that soft green turf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wind, blowing lonely, moaned like surf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Desolate ramparts rose up steep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On either side, for the ghosts to keep.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He raced the trench, past the rabbit warren,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Close grown with moss which the wind made barren,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He passed the spring where the rushes spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there in the stones was his earth ahead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One last short burst upon failing feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There life lay waiting, so sweet, so sweet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rest in a darkness, balm for aches.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The earth was stopped. It was barred with stakes.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LAST HOPE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 136px;">
+<img src="images/illus309.jpg" width="136" height="250" alt="A mask" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">With hounds at head so close behind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had to run as he changed his mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This earth, as he saw, was stopped, but still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was one earth more on the Wan Dyke Hill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A rabbit burrow a furlong on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He could kennel there till the hounds were gone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though his death seemed near he did not blench<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He upped his brush and he ran the trench.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He ran the trench while the wind moaned treble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth trickled down, there were falls of pebble.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down in the valley of that dark gash<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wind-withered grasses looked like ash.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trickles of stones and earth fell down<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">In that dark valley of dead men's town.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hawk arose from a fluff of feathers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From a distant fold came a bleat of wethers.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard no noise from the hounds behind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the hill-wind moaning like something blind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He turned the bend in the hill and there<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was his rabbit-hole with its mouth worn bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But there with a gun tucked under his arm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was young Sid Kissop of Purlpits Farm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a white hob ferret to drive the rabbit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into a net which was set to nab it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And young Jack Cole peered over the wall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And loosed a pup with a "Z'bite en, Saul,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The terrier pup attacked with a will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So the fox swerved right and away down hill.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Down from the ramp of the Dyke he ran<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the brackeny patch where the gorse began,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the gorse, where the hill's heave hid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The line he took from the eyes of Sid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He swerved down wind and ran like a hare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the wind-blown spinney below him there.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He slipped from the Gorse to the spinney dark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(There were curled grey growths on the oak tree bark)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw no more of the terrier pup.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he heard men speak and the hounds come up.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He crossed the spinney with ears intent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the cry of hounds on the way he went,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His heart was thumping, the hounds were near now,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He could make no sprint at a cry and cheer now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was past his perfect, his strength was failing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His brush sag-sagged and his legs were ailing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He felt as he skirted Dead Men's Town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That in one mile more they would have him down.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 167px;">
+<img src="images/illus314.jpg" width="167" height="200" alt="Reynard the fox's shield" title="" />
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHECKED</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus317.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="They had ceased to run, they had come to check" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Through the withered oak's wind-crouching tops<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw men's scarlet above the copse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard men's oaths, yet he felt hounds slacken<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the frondless stalks of the brittle bracken.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He felt that the unseen link which bound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His spine to the nose of the leading hound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was snapped, that the hounds no longer knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which way to follow nor what to do;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the threat of the hound's teeth left his neck,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They had ceased to run, they had come to check,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were quartering wide on the Wan Hill's bent.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The terrier's chase had killed his scent.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He heard bits chink as the horses shifted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard hounds cast, then he heard hounds lifted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But there came no cry from a new attack,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His heart grew steady, his breath came back.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He left the spinney and ran its edge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the deep dry ditch of the blackthorn hedge,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Then out of the ditch and down the meadow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trotting at ease in the blackthorn shadow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the track called Godsdown Road,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the great grass heave of the gods' abode,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was moving now upon land he knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up Clench Royal and Morton Tew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Pol Brook, Cheddesdon and East Stoke Church,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High Clench St. Lawrence and Tinker's Birch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Land he had roved on night by night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For hot blood suckage or furry bite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The threat of the hounds behind was gone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He breathed deep pleasure and trotted on.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While young Sid Kissop thrashed the pup,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin on Pip came heaving up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And found his pack spread out at check.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I'd like to wring your terrier's neck,"<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He said, "You see? He's spoiled our sport.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He's killed the scent." He broke off short,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stared at hounds and at the valley.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No jay or magpie gave a rally<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down in the copse, no circling rooks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose over fields; old Joyful's looks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were doubtful in the gorse, the pack<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quested both up and down and back.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He watched each hound for each small sign.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They tried, but could not hit the line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scent was gone. The field took place<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of the way of hounds. The pace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had tailed them out; though four remained:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Sir Peter, on White Rabbit stained<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Red from the brooks, Bill Ridden cheery,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Hugh Colway with his mare dead weary.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Colonel with Marauder beat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They turned towards a thud of feet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dansey, and then young Cothill came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(His chestnut mare was galloped tame).<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"There's Copse, a field behind," he said.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Those last miles put them all to bed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They're strung along the downs like flies."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Copse and Nob Manor topped the rise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Thank God, a check," they said, "at last."<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus322.jpg" width="400" height="472" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>&quot;Thank God, a check,&quot; they said, &quot;at last.&quot;<br />
+&quot;They cannot own it; you must cast.&quot;</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">"They cannot own it; you must cast,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sir Peter said. The soft horn blew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom turned the hounds up wind; they drew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up wind, down hill, by spinney side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They tried the brambled ditch; they tried<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The swamp, all choked with bright green grass<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And clumps of rush and pools like glass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long since, the dead men's drinking pond.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They tried the White Leaved Oak beyond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But no hound spoke to it or feathered.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The horse heads drooped like horses tethered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The men mopped brows. "An hour's hard run.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ten miles," they said, "we must have done.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's all of six from Colston's Gorses."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lucky got their second horses.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The time ticked by. "He's lost," they muttered.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A pheasant rose. A rabbit scuttered.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men mopped their scarlet cheeks and drank.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">They drew down wind along the bank,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(The Wan Way) on the hill's south spur,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grown with dwarf oak and juniper<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like dwarves alive, but no hound spoke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The seepings made the ground one soak.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They turned the spur; the hounds were beat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Robin shifted in his seat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watching for signs, but no signs shewed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I'll lift across the Godsdown Road,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond the spinney," Robin said.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom turned them; Robin went ahead.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Beyond the copse a great grass fallow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stretched towards Stoke and Cheddesdon Mallow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A rolling grass where hounds grew keen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Yoi doit, then; this is where he's been,"<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Said Robin, eager at their joy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Yooi, Joyful, lad, yooi, Cornerboy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They're on to him."<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 154px;">
+<img src="images/illus325.jpg" width="154" height="250" alt="Reynard the fox" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>"ON"</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i8">At his reminders<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The keen hounds hurried to the finders.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The finding hounds began to hurry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men jammed their hats prepared to skurry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Ai Ai of the cry began.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its spirit passed to horse and man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The skirting hounds romped to the cry.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hound after hound cried Ai Ai Ai,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till all were crying, running, closing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their heads well up and no heads nosing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joyful ahead with spear-straight stern.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They raced the great slope to the burn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin beside them, Tom behind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pointing past Robin down the wind.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">For there, two furlongs on, he viewed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Holy Hill or Cheddesdon Rood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just where the ploughland joined the grass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A speck down the first furrow pass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A speck the colour of the plough.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Yonder he goes. We'll have him now,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cried. The speck passed slowly on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It reached the ditch, paused, and was gone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Then down the slope and up the Rood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Went the hunt's gallop. Godsdown Wood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dropped its last oak-leaves at the rally.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the Rood to High Clench Valley<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gallop led; the red-coats scattered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fragments of the hunt were tattered<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over five fields, ev'n since the check.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus331.jpg" width="400" height="467" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>Then down the slope and up the Rood,<br />
+Went the hunt&#39;s gallop.</small></span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">"A dead fox or a broken neck,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said Robin Dawe, "Come up, the Dane."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hunter leant against the rein,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cocking his ears, he loved to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds at cry. The hounds and he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The chiefs in all that feast of pace.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The speck in front began to race.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox heard hounds get on to his line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And again the terror went down his spine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Again the back of his neck felt cold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the sense of the hound's teeth taking hold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But his legs were rested, his heart was good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had breath to gallop to Mourne End Wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was four miles more, but an earth at end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So he put on pace down the Rood Hill Bend.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus333.jpg" width="400" height="222" alt="The fox heard hounds get on to his line" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Down the great grass slope which the oak trees dot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a swerve to the right from the keeper's cot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over High Clench brook in its channel deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the grass beyond, where he ran to sheep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sheep formed line like a troop of horse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They swerved, as he passed, to front his course<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From behind, as he ran, a cry arose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"See the sheep, there. Watch them. There he goes."<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He ran the sheep that their smell might check<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds from his scent and save his neck,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in two fields more he was made aware<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the hounds still ran; Tom had viewed him there.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus335.jpg" width="400" height="467" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>He ran the sheep that their smell might check<br />
+The hounds from his scent and save his neck.</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Tom had held them on through the taint of sheep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They had kept his line, as they meant to keep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were running hard with a burning scent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Robin could see which way he went.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pace that he went brought strain to breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knew as he ran that the grass was death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ran the slope towards Morton Tew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the heave of the hill might stop the view,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then he doubled down to the Blood Brook red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And swerved upstream in the brook's deep bed.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He splashed the shallows, he swam the deeps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He crept by banks as a moorhen creeps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard the hounds shoot over his line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And go on, on, on towards Cheddesdon Zine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">In the minute's peace he could slacken speed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ease from the strain was sweet indeed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cool to the pads the water flowed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He reached the bridge on the Cheddesdon road.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">As he came to light from the culvert dim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two boys on the bridge looked down on him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were young Bill Ripple and Harry Meun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Look, there be squirrel, a-swimmin', see 'un."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Noa, ben't a squirrel, be fox, be fox.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, Hal, get pebble, we'll give en socks."<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">"Get pebble, Billy, dub un a plaster;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's for thy belly, I'll learn ee, master."<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus337.jpg" width="400" height="240" alt="He raced from brook in a burst of shies" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The stones splashed spray in the fox's eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He raced from brook in a burst of shies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ran for the reeds in the withy car,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the dead flags shake and the wild-duck are.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He pushed through the reeds which cracked at his passing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the High Clench Water, a grey pool glassing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard Bill Ripple in Cheddesdon road<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shout, "This way, huntsman, it's here he goed."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE LIFTING HORN</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The Leu Leu Leu went the soft horn's laughter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds (they had checked) came romping after,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clop of the hooves on the road was plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the crackle of reeds, then cries again.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">A whimpering first, then Robin's cheer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the Ai Ai Ai; they were all too near;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His swerve had brought but a minute's rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now he ran again, and he ran his best.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">With a crackle of dead dry stalks of reed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds came romping at topmost speed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The redcoats ducked as the great hooves skittered<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Blood Brook's shallows to sheets that glittered;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">With a cracking whip and a "Hoik, Hoik, Hoik,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forrard," Tom galloped. Bob shouted "Yoick."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a running fire the dead reeds crackled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds' heads lifted, their necks were hackled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom cried to Bob as they thundered through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"He is running short, we shall kill at Tew."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bob cried to Tom as they rode in team,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I was sure, that time, that he turned up-stream.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the hounds went over the brook in stride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw old Daffodil fling to side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So I guessed at once, when they checked beyond."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ducks flew up from the Morton Pond.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox looked up at their tailing strings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wished (perhaps) that a fox had wings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wings with his friends in a great V straining<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The autumn sky when the moon is gaining;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">For better the grey sky's solitude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than to be two miles from the Mourne End Wood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the hounds behind, clean-trained to run,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And your strength half spent and your breath half done.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better the reeds and the sky and water<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than that hopeless pad from a certain slaughter.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the Morton Pond the fields began,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long Tew's green meadows; he ran; he ran.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus343.jpg" width="400" height="473" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>With a cracking whip and a &quot;Hoik, Hoik, Hoik,<br />
+Forrard,&quot; Tom galloped. Bob shouted &quot;Yoick.&quot;</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">First the six green fields that make a mile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the lip-full Clench at the side the while,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the rooks above, slow-circling, shewing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world of men where a fox was going;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fields all empty, dead grass, bare hedges,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And the brook's bright gleam in the dark of sedges.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To all things else he was dumb and blind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ran, with the hounds a field behind.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MOURNE END WOOD</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">At the sixth green field came the long slow climb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the Mourne End Wood as old as time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yew woods dark, where they cut for bows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oak woods green with the mistletoes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dark woods evil, but burrowed deep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a brock's earth strong, where a fox might sleep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw his point on the heaving hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had failing flesh and a reeling will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He felt the heave of the hill grow stiff,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw black woods, which would shelter&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nothing else, but the steepening slope,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a black line nodding, a line of hope,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The line of the yews on the long slope's brow,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">A mile, three-quarters, a half-mile now.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A quarter-mile, but the hounds had viewed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They yelled to have him this side the wood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin capped them, Tom Dansey steered them<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a "Yooi, Yooi, Yooi," Bill Ridden cheered them.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then up went hackles as Shatterer led,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Mob him," cried Ridden, "the wood's ahead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turn him, damn it; Yooi, beauties, beat him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O God, let them get him; let them eat him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O God," said Ridden, "I'll eat him stewed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If you'll let us get him this side the wood."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">But the pace, uphill, made a horse like stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pack went wild up the hill alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three hundred yards, and the worst was past,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The slope was gentler and shorter-grassed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox saw the bulk of the woods grow tall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the brae ahead like a barrier-wall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw the skeleton trees show sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the yew trees darken to see him die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the line of the woods go reeling black,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was hope in the woods, and behind, the pack.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Two hundred yards, and the trees grew taller,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blacker, blinder, as hope grew smaller<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cry seemed nearer, the teeth seemed gripping<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pulling him back, his pads seemed slipping.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was all one ache, one gasp, one thirsting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heart on his chest-bones, beating, bursting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds were gaining like spotted pards<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wood-hedge still was a hundred yards.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wood-hedge black was a two year, quick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cut-and-laid that had sprouted thick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thorns all over, and strongly plied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a clean red ditch on the take-off side.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He saw it now as a redness, topped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a wattle of thorn-work spiky cropped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spiky to leap on, stiff to force,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No safe jump for a failing horse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But beyond it, darkness of yews together,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dark green plumes over soft brown feather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Darkness of woods where scents were blowing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange scents, hot scents, of wild things going,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scents that might draw these hounds away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So he ran, ran, ran to that clean red clay.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus353.jpg" width="400" height="475" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>He saw it now as a redness, topped<br />
+With a wattle of thorn-work spiky cropped.</small></span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Still, as he ran, his pads slipped back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All his strength seemed to draw the pack,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The trees drew over him dark like Norns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was over the ditch and at the thorns.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He thrust at the thorns, which would not yield,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He leaped, but fell, in sight of the field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds went wild as they saw him fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fence stood stiff like a Bucks flint wall.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He gathered himself for a new attempt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His life before was an old dream dreamt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All that he was was a blown fox quaking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jumping at thorns too stiff for breaking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While over the grass in crowd, in cry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came the grip teeth grinning to make him die,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The eyes intense, dull, smouldering red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fell like a ruff round each keen head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pace like fire, and scarlet men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Galloping, yelling, "Yooi, eat him, then."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gathered himself, he leaped, he reached<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The top of the hedge like a fish-boat beached,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He steadied a second and then leaped down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the dark of the wood where bright things drown.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He swerved, sharp right, under young green firs.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin called on the Dane with spurs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cried "Come, Dansey: if God's not good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We shall change our fox in this Mourne End wood."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom cried back as he charged like spate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Mine can't jump that, I must ride to gate."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robin answered, "I'm going at him.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll kill that fox, if he kills me, drat him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll kill in covert. Gerr on, now, Dane."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gripped him tight and he made it plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He slowed him down till he almost stood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While his hounds went crash into Mourne End Wood.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Like a dainty dancer with footing nice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Dane turned side for a leap in twice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cleared the ditch to the red clay bank,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He rose at the fence as his quarters sank,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He barged the fence as the bank gave way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And down he came in a fall of clay.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Robin jumped off him and gasped for breath;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said, "That's lost him, as sure as death.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">They've over-run him. Come up, the Dane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I'll kill him yet, if we ride to Spain."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He scrambled up to his horse's back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He thrust through cover, he called his pack,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cheered them on till they made it good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the fox had swerved inside the wood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox knew well, as he ran the dark,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the headlong hounds were past their mark.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They had missed his swerve and had overrun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But their devilish play was not yet done.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>"DONE"</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">For a minute he ran and heard no sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a whimper came from a questing hound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a "This way, beauties," and then "Leu Leu,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The floating laugh of the horn that blew.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the cry again and the crash and rattle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the shrubs burst back as they ran to battle.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the wood behind seemed risen from root,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crying and crashing to give pursuit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the trees seemed hounds and the air seemed cry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the earth so far that he needs but die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Die where he reeled in the woodland dim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a hound's white grips in the spine of him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For one more burst he could spurt, and then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wait for the teeth, and the wrench, and men.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He made his spurt for the Mourne End rocks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The air blew rank with the taint of fox;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The yews gave way to a greener space<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of great stones strewn in a grassy place.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there was his earth at the great grey shoulder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sunk in the ground, of a granite boulder<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A dry deep burrow with rocky roof,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proof against crowbars, terrier-proof,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life to the dying, rest for bones.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The earth was stopped; it was filled with stones.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Then, for a moment, his courage failed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyes looked up as his body quailed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the coming of death, which all things dread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made him run for the wood ahead.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus363.jpg" width="400" height="236" alt="There were foxes there" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The taint of fox was rank on the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knew, as he ran, there were foxes there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His strength was broken, his heart was bursting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His bones were rotten, his throat was thirsting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His feet were reeling, his brush was thick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From dragging the mud, and his brain was sick.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He thought as he ran of his old delight<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">In the wood in the moon in an April night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His happy hunting, his winter loving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The smells of things in the midnight roving;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The look of his dainty-nosing, red<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clean-felled dam with her footpad's tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of his sire, so swift, so game, so cunning<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With craft in his brain and power of running,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their fights of old when his teeth drew blood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now he was sick, with his coat all mud.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">He crossed the covert, he crawled the bank,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To a meuse in the thorns and there he sank,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his ears flexed back and his teeth shown white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a rat's resolve for a dying bite.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PRIZE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">And there, as he lay, he saw the vale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That a struggling sunlight silvered pale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Deerlip Brook like a strip of steel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Nun's Wood Yews where the rabbits squeal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The great grass square of the Roman Fort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the smoke in the elms at Crendon Court.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">And above the smoke in the elm-tree tops,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was the beech-clump's blue, Blown Hilcote Copse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where he and his mates had long made merry<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the bloody joys of the rabbit-herry.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">And there as he lay and looked, the cry<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the hounds at head came rousing by;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He bent his bones in the blackthorn dim.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">But the cry of the hounds was not for him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the fence with a crash they went,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Belly to grass, with a burning scent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then came Dansey, yelling to Bob,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"They've changed, O damn it, now here's a job."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Bob yelled back, "Well, we cannot turn 'em,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's Jumper and Antic, Tom; we'll learn 'em.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We must just go on, and I hope we kill."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They followed hounds down the Mourne End Hill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox lay still in the rabbit-meuse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the dry brown dust of the plumes of yews.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the bottom below a brook went by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blue, in a patch, like a streak of sky.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There, one by one, with a clink of stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came a red or dark coat on a horse half blown.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And man to man with a gasp for breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said, "Lord, what a run. I'm fagged to death."<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus370.jpg" width="400" height="475" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>And man to man with a gasp for breath<br />
+Said, &quot;Lord, what a run. I&#39;m fagged to death.&quot;</small></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">After an hour, no riders came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The day drew by like an ending game;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A robin sang from a pufft red breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox lay quiet and took his rest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wren on a tree-stump carolled clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the starlings wheeled in a sudden sheer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rooks came home to the twiggy hive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the elm-tree tops which the winds do drive.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the noise of the rooks fell slowly still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the lights came out in the Clench Brook Mill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then a pheasant cocked, then an owl began<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the cry that curdles the blood of man.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The stars grew bright as the yews grew black,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox rose stiffly and stretched his back.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He flaired the air, then he padded out<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the valley below him dark as doubt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Winter-thin with the young green crops,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Old Cold Crendon and Hilcote Copse.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>HOME</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 260px;">
+<img src="images/illus375.jpg" width="260" height="100" alt="Reynard the fox" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">As he crossed the meadows at Naunton Larking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dogs in the town all started barking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For with feet all bloody and flanks all foam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds and the hunt were limping home:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Limping home in the dark, dead-beaten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hounds all rank from a fox they'd eaten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dansey saying to Robin Dawe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The fastest and longest I ever saw."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Robin answered, "O Tom, 'twas good,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">I thought they'd changed in the Mourne End Wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But now I feel that they did not change.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We've had a run that was great and strange;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to kill in the end, at dusk, on grass.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll turn to the Cock and take a glass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the hounds, poor souls, are past their forces.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a gallon of ale for our poor horses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some bits of bread for the hounds, poor things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">After all they've done (for they've done like kings),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would keep them going till we get in.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We had it alone from Nun's Wood Whin."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Tom replied, "If they changed or not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There've been few runs longer and none more hot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We shall talk of to-day until we die."<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus376.jpg" width="400" height="469" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><small>For with feet all bloody and flanks all foam,<br />
+The hounds and the hunt were limping home.</small></span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The stars grew bright in the winter sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wind came keen with a tang of frost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The brook was troubled for new things lost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The copse was happy for old things found,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fox came home and he went to ground.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the hunt came home and the hounds were fed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They climbed to their bench and went to bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The horses in stable loved their straw.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Good-night, my beauties," said Robin Dawe.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">Then the moon came quiet and flooded full<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light and beauty on clouds like wool,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On a feasted fox at rest from hunting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the beech wood grey where the brocks were grunting.<br /></span>
+</div><br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus379.jpg" width="600" height="457" alt="Eighth colored plate" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 19em;"><small><i>Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York</i></small></span></span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><br />
+<span class="i0">The beech wood grey rose dim in the night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With moonlight fallen in pools of light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The long dead leaves on the ground were rimed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A clock struck twelve and the church-bells chimed.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h5><br />Printed in the United States of America.</h5>
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/endpaper.jpg" width="600" height="271" alt="Endpaper" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="tnotes"><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+
+<div class="tnote"><p>All author's punctuations retained.</p></div>
+
+<div class="tnote"><p>All apparent printer's errors and variable spellings retained, including
+variable usage of hyphen (e.g. "goodwill" and "good-will") and any other
+variable spellings.</p></div>
+
+<div class="tnote"><p>Table of Content added.</p></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Reynard the Fox, by John Masefield
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