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REYNARD THE FOX
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[Illustration: Frontispiece: First colored plate _Courtesy Arthur
Ackermann and Son, New York_]
REYNARD THE FOX
BY
JOHN MASEFIELD
NEW EDITION WITH EIGHT PLATES IN COLOUR AND
MANY ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CARTON MOOREPARK
[Illustration: Ex libris Reynards]
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1919 AND 1920,
BY JOHN MASEFIELD.
New illustrated edition, October, 1920.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
INTRODUCTION
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.
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.
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.
This fact made the subject attractive. The fox hunt gave an opportunity
for a picture or pictures of the members of an English community.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have mentioned several reasons why fox hunting should be popular:
(_a_) 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; (_b_) 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; (_c_) 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; (_d_) 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.
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.
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.
The ideal run of 1750 might have been described thus:--
"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:--
"Well have we speeded, and o'er Hill and Dale
Forest and Field and Flood ...
As far as Indus east, Euphrates west."
"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.
"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.
"Now spoke the chearful Horn; and tuneful Hounds
Echoed, and Red Coats gallopped; stirring Scean,
Rude Health and Manly Wit together strive.
"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.
"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:--
"Now with attentive Nose the restless Hound
Endeavours on the Scent, now here, now there,
Scorning adulterat scents of lesser Prey.
Now gloomy care invades the Huntsman's Face;
And Sportsmen (jovial erst) on weary steeds
Sit pensive."
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.
On courtly Cock with all his household Train
Of Hens obsequious, by the Hen Wife mourned.
"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:
"Now o'er the glittering grass the sinewy Hound
Shakes from his Feet the Dew and makes ye Woods resound."
"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)
"Ye vixen hath laid up her Cubs
In snuggest Cave secure, when balmy Spring
Wakens ye Meadows."
"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."
Perhaps the ideal run of the present time would be described as
follows:--
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Some have asked when the poem was written. It was written between
January 1 and May 20, 1919.
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.
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.
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.
Old Baldy Hill, the game old cock,
Still wore knee-gaiters and a smock.
He bore a five foot ashen stick
All scarred and pilled from many a click
Beating in covert with his sons
To drive the pheasants to the guns.
His face was beaten by the weather
To wrinkled red like bellows leather
He had a cold clear hard blue eye.
His snares made many a rabbit die.
On moony nights he found it pleasant
To stare the woods for roosting pheasant
Up near the tree-trunk on the bough.
He never trod behind a plough.
He and his two sons got their food
From wild things in the field and wood,
By snares, by ferrets put in holes,
By ridding pasture-land of moles;
By keeping, beating, trapping, poaching
And spaniel-and-retriever-coaching.
He and his sons had special merits
In breeding and in handling ferrets
Full many a snaky hob and jill
Had bit the thumbs of Baldy Hill.
He had no beard, but long white hair.
He bent in gait. He used to wear
Flowers in his smock, gold-clocks and peasen;
And spindle-fruit in hunting season.
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.
LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY CARTON MOOREPARK
PAGE
The stables were alive with din 5
An old man with a gaunt, burnt face 16
All sport, from bloody war to craps 80
The Godsdown Tigress with her cub 96
A sea of moving heads, and sterns 120
His chief delight 128
He had a welcome and salute 144
The scarlet coats twixt tree and spray 153
And now they gathered to the gamble 162
He saw the farms where the dogs were barking 172
There he slept in the mild west weather 182
The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yaps 185
He faced the fence and put her through it 222
A white horse rising a dark horse flying 256
Then down the slope and up the road 291
He ran the sheep that their smell might check 295
With a cracking whip and "Hoik, Hoik, Hoik, Forrard" 303
He saw it now as a redness topped 313
And man to man with a gasp for breath 330
For with feet all bloody and flanks all foam 336
COLOR PLATES
First colored plate _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Second colored plate 28
Third colored plate 86
Fourth colored plate 150
Fifth colored plate 210
Sixth colored plate 236
Seventh colored plate 250
Eighth colored plate 338
PART I
THE MEET
REYNARD THE FOX,
OR
THE GHOST HEATH RUN
The meet was at "The Cock and Pye
By Charles and Martha Enderby,"
The grey, three-hundred-year-old inn
Long since the haunt of Benjamin
The highwayman, who rode the bay.
The tavern fronts the coaching way,
The mail changed horses there of old.
It has a strip of grassy mould
In front of it, a broad green strip.
A trough, where horses' muzzles dip,
Stands opposite the tavern front,
And there that morning came the hunt,
To fill that quiet width of road
As full of men as Framilode
Is full of sea when tide is in.
The stables were alive with din
From dawn until the time of meeting.
A pad-groom gave a cloth a beating,
Knocking the dust out with a stake.
Two men cleaned stalls with fork and rake,
And one went whistling to the pump,
The handle whined, ker-lump, ker-lump,
The water splashed into the pail,
And, as he went, it left a trail,
Lipped over on the yard's bricked paving.
Two grooms (sent on before) were shaving
There in the yard, at glasses propped
On jutting bricks; they scraped and stropped,
And felt their chins and leaned and peered,
A woodland day was what they feared
(As second horsemen), shaving there.
Then, in the stalls where hunters were,
Straw rustled as the horses shifted,
The hayseeds ticked and haystraws drifted
From racks as horses tugged their feed.
Slow gulping sounds of steady greed
Came from each stall, and sometimes stampings,
Whinnies (at well-known steps) and rampings
To see the horse in the next stall.
[Illustration:
The stables were alive with din
From dawn until the time of meeting.]
Outside, the spangled cock did call
To scattering grain that Martha flung.
And many a time a mop was wrung
By Susan ere the floor was clean.
The harness room, that busy scene,
Clinked and chinked from ostlers brightening
Rings and bits with dips of whitening,
Rubbing fox-flecks out of stirrups,
Dumbing buckles of their chirrups
By the touch of oily feathers.
Some, with stag's bones rubbed at leathers,
Brushed at saddle-flaps or hove
Saddle linings to the stove.
Blue smoke from strong tobacco drifted
Out of the yard, the passers snifft it,
Mixed with the strong ammonia flavour
Of horses' stables and the savour
Of saddle-paste and polish spirit
Which put the gleam on flap and tirrit.
The grooms in shirts with rolled-up sleeves,
Belted by girths of coloured weaves,
Groomed the clipped hunters in their stalls.
One said, "My dad cured saddle galls,
He called it Doctor Barton's cure;
Hog's lard and borax, laid on pure."
And others said, "Ge' back, my son,"
"Stand over, girl; now, girl, ha' done."
"Now, boy, no snapping; gently. Crikes,
He gives a rare pinch when he likes."
"Drawn blood? I thought he looked a biter."
"I give 'em all sweet spit of nitre
For that, myself: that sometimes cures."
"Now, Beauty, mind them feet of yours."
They groomed, and sissed with hissing notes
To keep the dust out of their throats.
[Illustration: The grooms in shirts with rolled-up sleeves]
There came again and yet again
The feed-box lid, the swish of grain,
Or Joe's boots stamping in the loft,
The hay-fork's stab and then the soft
Hay's scratching slither down the shoot.
Then with a thud some horse's foot
Stamped, and the gulping munch again
Resumed its lippings at the grain.
The road outside the inn was quiet
Save for the poor, mad, restless pyat
Hopping his hanging wicker-cage.
No calmative of sleep or sage
Will cure the fever to be free.
He shook the wicker ceaselessly
Now up, now down, but never out
On wind-waves, being blown about,
Looking for dead things good to eat.
His cage was strewn with scattered wheat.
At ten o'clock, the Doctor's lad
Brought up his master's hunting pad
And put him in a stall, and leaned
Against the stall, and sissed, and cleaned
The port and cannons of his curb.
He chewed a sprig of smelling herb.
He sometimes stopped, and spat, and chid
The silly things his master did.
THE PLOUGHMAN
At twenty past, old Baldock strode
His ploughman's straddle down the road.
An old man with a gaunt, burnt face;
His eyes rapt back on some far place,
Like some starved, half-mad saint in bliss
In God's world through the rags of this.
He leaned upon a stake of ash
Cut from a sapling: many a gash
Was in his old, full-skirted coat.
The twisted muscles in his throat
Moved, as he swallowed, like taut cord.
His oaken face was seamed and gored.
He halted by the inn and stared
On that far bliss, that place prepared
Beyond his eyes, beyond his mind.
[Illustration:
An old man with a gaunt, burnt face;
His eyes rapt back on some far place.]
Then Thomas Copp, of Cowfoot's Wynd
Drove up; and stopped to take a glass.
"I hope they'll gallop on my grass,"
He said, "My little girl does sing
To see the red coats galloping.
It's good for grass, too, to be trodden
Except they poach it, where it's sodden."
Then Billy Waldrist, from the Lynn,
With Jockey Hill, from Pitts, came in
And had a sip of gin and stout
To help the jockey's sweatings out.
"Rare day for scent," the jockey said.
A pony, like a feather bed
On four short sticks, took place aside.
The little girl who rode astride
Watched everything with eyes that glowed
With glory in the horse she rode.
At half-past ten, some lads on foot
Came to be beaters to a shoot
Of rabbits at the Warren Hill.
Rough sticks they had, and Hob and Jill,
Their ferrets, in a bag, and netting.
They talked of dinner-beer and betting;
And jeered at those who stood around.
They rolled their dogs upon the ground
And teased them: "Rats," they cried; "go fetch."
"Go seek, good Roxer; 'z bite, good betch.
What dinner-beer'll they give us, lad?
Sex quarts the lot last year we had.
They'd ought to give us seven this.
Seek, Susan; what a betch it is."
THE CLERGYMAN
[Illustration: The clergyman from Condicote]
A pommle cob came trotting up,
Round-bellied like a drinking-cup,
Bearing on back a pommle man
Round-bellied like a drinking-can.
The clergyman from Condicote.
His face was scarlet from his trot,
His white hair bobbed about his head
As halos do round clergy dead.
He asked Tom Copp, "How long to wait?"
His loose mouth opened like a gate
To pass the wagons of his speech,
He had a mighty voice to preach,
Though indolent in other matters,
He let his children go in tatters.
His daughter Madge on foot, flushed-cheekt,
In broken hat and boots that leakt,
With bits of hay all over her,
Her plain face grinning at the stir
(A broad pale face, snub-nosed, with speckles
Of sandy eyebrows sprinkt with freckles)
Came after him and stood apart
Beside the darling of her heart,
Miss Hattie Dyce from Baydon Dean;
A big young fair one, chiselled clean,
Brow, chin, and nose, with great blue eyes,
All innocence and sweet surprise,
And golden hair piled coil on coil
Too beautiful for time to spoil.
They talked in undertones together
Not of the hunting, nor the weather.
Old Steven, from Scratch Steven Place
(A white beard and a rosy face),
Came next on his stringhalty grey,
"I've come to see the hounds away,"
He said, "And ride a field or two.
We old have better things to do
Than breaking all our necks for fun."
He shone on people like the sun,
And on himself for shining so.
Three men came riding in a row:--
John Pyn, a bull-man, quick to strike,
Gross and blunt-headed like a shrike
Yet sweet-voiced as a piping flute;
Tom See, the trainer, from the Toot,
Red, with an angry, puzzled face
And mouth twitched upward out of place,
Sucking cheap grapes and spitting seeds;
And Stone, of Bartle's Cattle Feeds,
A man whose bulk of flesh and bone
Made people call him Twenty Stone.
He was the man who stood a pull
At Tencombe with the Jersey bull
And brought the bull back to his stall.
[Illustration: Three men came riding in a row]
Some children ranged the tavern-wall,
Sucking their thumbs and staring hard;
Some grooms brought horses from the yard.
Jane Selbie said to Ellen Tranter,
"A lot on 'em come doggin', ant her?"
"A lot on 'em," said Ellen, "look
There'm Mister Gaunt of Water's Hook.
They say he" ... (whispered). "Law," said Jane.
Gaunt flung his heel across the mane,
And slithered from his horse and stamped.
"Boots tight," he said, "my feet are cramped."
A loose-shod horse came clicking clack;
Nick Wolvesey on a hired hack
Came tittup, like a cup and ball.
One saw the sun, moon, stars, and all
The great green earth twixt him and saddle;
Then Molly Wolvesey riding straddle,
Red as a rose, with eyes like sparks.
Two boys from college out for larks
Hunted bright Molly for a smile
But were not worth their quarry's while.
[Illustration: Second colored plate _Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son,
New York_]
Two eyeglassed gunners dressed in tweed
Came with a spaniel on a lead
And waited for a fellow gunner.
The parson's son, the famous runner,
Came dressed to follow hounds on foot.
His knees were red as yew tree root
From being bare, day in day out;
He wore a blazer, and a clout
(His sweater's arms) tied round his neck.
His football shorts had many a speck
And splash of mud from many a fall
Got as he picked the slippery ball
Heeled out behind a breaking scrum.
He grinned at people, but was dumb,
Not like these lousy foreigners.
The otter-hounds and harriers
From Godstow to the Wye all knew him.
THE PARSON
And with him came the stock which grew him--
The parson and his sporting wife,
She was a stout one, full of life
With red, quick, kindly, manly face.
She held the knave, queen, king, and ace
In every hand she played with men.
She was no sister to the hen,
But fierce and minded to be queen.
She wore a coat and skirt of green,
Her waistcoat cut of bunting red,
Her tie pin was a fox's head.
The parson was a manly one,
His jolly eyes were bright with fun.
His jolly mouth was well inclined
To cry aloud his jolly mind
To everyone, in jolly terms.
He did not talk of churchyard worms,
But of our privilege as dust
To box a lively bout with lust
Ere going to Heaven to rejoice.
He loved the sound of his own voice.
His talk was like a charge of horse;
His build was all compact, for force,
Well-knit, well-made, well-coloured, eager,
He kept no Lent to make him meagre.
He loved his God, himself and man.
He never said "Life's wretched span;
This wicked world," in any sermon.
This body, that we feed the worm on,
To him, was jovial stuff that thrilled.
He liked to see the foxes killed;
But most he felt himself in clover
To hear "Hen left, hare right, cock over,"
At woodside, when the leaves are brown.
Some grey cathedral in a town
Where drowsy bells toll out the time
To shaven closes sweet with lime,
And wall-flower roots drive out of the mortar
All summer on the Norman Dortar,
Was certain some day to be his.
Nor would a mitre go amiss
To him, because he governed well.
His voice was like the tenor bell
When services were said and sung.
And he had read in many a tongue,
Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, Greek.
"JILL AND JOAN"
Two bright young women, nothing meek,
Rode up on bicycles and propped
Their wheels in such wise that they dropped
To bring the parson's son to aid.
Their cycling suits were tailor-made,
Smart, mannish, pert, but feminine.
The colour and the zest of wine
Were in their presence and their bearing;
Like spring, they brought the thought of pairing.
The parson's lady thought them pert.
And they could mock a man and flirt,
Do billiard tricks with corks and pennies,
Sing ragtime songs and win at tennis
The silver-cigarette-case-prize.
They had good colour and bright eyes,
Bright hair, bright teeth and pretty skin,
On darkened stairways after dances,
Which many lads had longed to win.
Their reading was the last romances,
And they were dashing hockey players.
Men called them, "Jill and Joan, the slayers."
They were as bright as fresh sweet-peas.
FARMER BENNETT
[Illustration: Old Farmer Bennett upon his big-boned savage black]
Old Farmer Bennett followed these
Upon his big-boned savage black
Whose mule-teeth yellowed to bite back
Whatever came within his reach.
Old Bennett sat him like a leech.
The grim old rider seemed to be
As hard about the mouth as he.
The beaters nudged each other's ribs
With "There he goes, his bloody Nibs.
He come on Joe and Anty Cop,
And beat 'em with his hunting crop
Like tho' they'd bin a sack of beans.
His pickers were a pack of queans,
And Joe and Anty took a couple,
He caught 'em there, and banged 'em supple.
Women and men, he didn't care
(He'd kill 'em some day, if he dare),
He beat the whole four nearly dead.
'I'll learn 'ee rabbit in my shed,
That's how my ricks get set afire.'
That's what he said, the bloody liar;
Old oaf, I'd like to burn his ricks,
Th' old swine's too free with fists and sticks.
He keeps that Mrs. Jones himselve."
Just like an axehead on its helve
Old Bennett sat and watched the gathering.
He'd given many a man a lathering
In field or barn, and women, too.
His cold eye reached the women through
With comment, and the men with scorn.
He hated women gently born;
He hated all beyond his grasp;
For he was minded like the asp
That strikes whatever is not dust.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Charles Copse, of Copse Hold Manor, thrust
Next into view. In face and limb
The beauty and the grace of him
Were like the golden age returned.
His grave eyes steadily discerned
The good in men and what was wise.
He had deep blue, mild-coloured eyes,
And shocks of harvest-coloured hair,
Still beautiful with youth. An air
Or power of kindness went about him;
No heart of youth could ever doubt him
Or fail to follow where he led.
He was a genius, simply bred,
And quite unconscious of his power.
He was the very red rose flower
Of all that coloured countryside.
Gauchos had taught him how to ride.
He knew all arts, but practised most
The art of bettering flesh and ghost
In men and lads down in the mud.
He knew no class in flesh and blood.
He loved his kind. He spent some pith
Long since, relieving Ladysmith.
Many a horse he trotted tame,
Heading commandos from their aim,
In those old days upon the veldt.
THE SQUIRE
[Illustration: His daughters, Carrie, Jane, and Lu, rode with him]
An old bear in a scarlet pelt
Came next, old Squire Harridew,
His eyebrows gave a man the grue
So bushy and so fierce they were;
He had a bitter tongue to swear.
A fierce, hot, hard, old, stupid squire,
With all his liver made of fire,
Small brain, great courage, mulish will.
The hearts in all his house stood still
When someone crossed the squire's path.
For he was terrible in wrath,
And smashed whatever came to hand.
Two things he failed to understand,
The foreigner and what was new.
His daughters, Carrie, Jane and Lu,
Rode with him, Carrie at his side.
His son, the ne'er-do-weel, had died
In Arizona, long before.
The Squire set the greatest store
By Carrie, youngest of the three,
And lovely to the blood was she;
Blonde, with a face of blush and cream,
And eyes deep violet in their gleam,
Bright blue when quiet in repose.
She was a very golden rose.
And many a man when sunset came
Would see the manor windows flame,
And think, "My beauty's home is there."
Queen Helen had less golden hair,
Queen Cleopatra paler lips,
Queen Blanche's eyes were in eclipse,
By golden Carrie's glancing by.
She had a wit for mockery
And sang mild, pretty senseless songs
Of sunsets, Heav'n and lover's wrongs,
Sweet to the Squire when he had dined.
A rosebud need not have a mind.
A lily is not sweet from learning.
Jane looked like a dark lantern, burning.
Outwardly dark, unkempt, uncouth,
But minded like the living truth,
A friend that nothing shook nor wearied.
She was not "Darling Jan'd," nor "dearie'd,"
She was all prickles to the touch,
So sharp, that many feared to clutch,
So keen, that many thought her bitter.
She let the little sparrows twitter.
She had a hard ungracious way.
Her storm of hair was iron-grey,
And she was passionate in her heart
For women's souls that burn apart,
Just as her mother's had, with Squire.
She gave the sense of smouldering fire.
She was not happy being a maid,
At home, with Squire, but she stayed
Enduring life, however bleak,
To guard her sisters who were weak,
And force a life for them from Squire.
And she had roused and stood his fire
A hundred times, and earned his hate,
To win those two a better state.
Long years before the Canon's son
Had cared for her, but he had gone
To Klondyke, to the mines, for gold,
To find, in some strange way untold
A foreign grave that no men knew.
No depth, nor beauty, was in Lu,
But charm and fun, for she was merry,
Round, sweet and little like a cherry,
With laughter like a robin's singing;
She was not kittenlike and clinging,
But pert and arch and fond of flirting,
In mocking ways that were not hurting,
And merry ways that women pardoned.
Not being married yet she gardened.
She loved sweet music; she would sing
Songs made before the German King
Made England German in her mind.
She sang "My lady is unkind,"
"The Hunt is up," and those sweet things
Which Thomas Campion set to strings,
"Thrice toss," and "What," and "Where are now?"
The next to come was Major Howe
Driv'n in a dog-cart by a groom.
The testy major was in fume
To find no hunter standing waiting;
The groom who drove him caught a rating,
The groom who had the horse in stable,
Was damned in half the tongues of Babel.
The Major being hot and heady
When horse or dinner was not ready.
He was a lean, tough, liverish fellow,
With pale blue eyes (the whites pale yellow),
Mustache clipped toothbrush-wise, and jaws
Shaved bluish like old partridge claws.
When he had stripped his coat he made
A speckless presence for parade,
New pink, white cords, and glossy tops
New gloves, the newest thing in crops,
Worn with an air that well expressed
His sense that no one else was dressed.
THE DOCTOR
[Illustration: Came Doctor Frome of Quickemshow]
Quick trotting after Major Howe
Came Doctor Frome of Quickemshow,
A smiling silent man whose brain
Knew all of every secret pain
In every man and woman there.
Their inmost lives were all laid bare
To him, because he touched their lives
When strong emotions sharp as knives
Brought out what sort of soul each was.
As secret as the graveyard grass
He was, as he had need to be.
At some time he had had to see
Each person there, sans clothes, sans mask,
Sans lying even, when to ask
Probed a tamed spirit into truth.
Richard, his son, a jolly youth
Rode with him, fresh from Thomas's,
As merry as a yearling is
In maytime in a clover patch.
He was a gallant chick to hatch
Big, brown and smiling, blithe and kind,
With all his father's love of mind
And greater force to give it act.
To see him when the scrum was packt,
Heave, playing forward, was a sight.
His tackling was the crowd's delight
In many a danger close to goal.
The pride in the three quarter's soul
Dropped, like a wet rag, when he collared.
He was as steady as a bollard,
And gallant as a skysail yard.
He rode a chestnut mare which sparred.
In good St. Thomas' Hospital,
He was the crown imperial
Of all the scholars of his year.
The Harold lads, from Tencombe Weir,
Came all on foot in corduroys,
Poor widowed Mrs. Harold's boys,
Dick, Hal and Charles, whose father died.
(Will Masemore shot him in the side
By accident at Masemore Farm.
A hazel knocked Will Masemore's arm
In getting through a hedge; his gun
Was not half-cocked, so it was done
And those three boys left fatherless.)
Their gaitered legs were in a mess
With good red mud from twenty ditches
Hal's face was plastered like his breeches,
Dick chewed a twig of juniper.
They kept at distance from the stir
Their loss had made them lads apart.
Next came the Colway's pony cart
From Coln St. Evelyn's with the party,
Hugh Colway jovial, bold and hearty,
And Polly Colway's brother, John
(Their horses had been both sent on)
And Polly Colway drove them there.
Poor pretty Polly Colway's hair.
The grey mare killed her at the brook
Down Seven Springs Mead at Water Hook,
Just one month later, poor sweet woman.
THE SAILOR
Her brother was a rat-faced Roman,
Lean, puckered, tight-skinned from the sea,
Commander in the _Canace_,
Able to drive a horse, or ship,
Or crew of men, without a whip
By will, as long as they could go.
His face would wrinkle, row on row,
From mouth to hair-roots when he laught
He looked ahead as though his craft
Were with him still, in dangerous channels.
He and Hugh Colway tossed their flannels
Into the pony-cart and mounted.
Six foiled attempts the watchers counted,
The horses being bickering things,
That so much scarlet made like kings,
Such sidling and such pawing and shifting.
THE MERCHANT'S SON
When Hugh was up his mare went drifting
Sidelong and feeling with her heels
For horses' legs and poshay wheels,
While lather creamed her neat clipt skin.
Hugh guessed her foibles with a grin.
He was a rich town-merchant's son,
A wise and kind man fond of fun,
Who loved to have a troop of friends
At Coln St. Eves for all week-ends,
And troops of children in for tea,
He gloried in a Christmas Tree.
And Polly was his heart's best treasure,
And Polly was a golden pleasure
To everyone, to see or hear.
Poor Polly's dying struck him queer,
He was a darkened man thereafter,
Cowed silent, he would wince at laughter
And be so gentle it was strange
Even to see. Life loves to change.
Now Coln St. Evelyn's hearths are cold
The shutters up, the hunters sold,
And green mould damps the locked front door.
But this was still a month before,
And Polly, golden in the chaise,
Still smiled, and there were golden days,
Still thirty days, for those dear lovers.
SPORTSMAN
The Riddens came, from Ocle Covers,
Bill Ridden riding Stormalong,
(By Tempest out of Love-me-long)
A proper handful of a horse,
That nothing but the Aintree course
Could bring to terms, save Bill perhaps.
All sport, from bloody war to craps,
Came well to Bill, that big-mouthed smiler;
They nick-named him "the mug-beguiler,"
For Billy lived too much with horses
In coper's yards and sharper's courses,
To lack the sharper-coper streak.
He did not turn the other cheek
When struck (as English Christians do),
He boxed like a Whitechapel Jew,
And many a time his knuckles bled
Against a race-course-gipsy's head.
For "hit him first and argue later"
Was truth at Billy's alma mater,
Not love, not any bosh of love.
His hand was like a chamois glove
And riding was his chief delight.
He bred the chaser Chinese-white,
From Lilybud by Mandarin.
And when his mouth tucked corners in,
And scent was high and hounds were going,
He went across a field like snowing
And tackled anything that came.
[Illustration:
All sport, from bloody war to craps,
Came well to Bill, that big-mouthed smiler.]
His wife, Sal Ridden, was the same,
A loud, bold, blonde abundant mare,
With white horse teeth and stooks of hair,
(Like polished brass) and such a manner
It flaunted from her like a banner.
Her father was Tom See the trainer;
She rode a lovely earth-disdainer
Which she and Billy wished to sell.
[Illustration: Behind them rode her daughter Bell]