At Ghost Heath Wood on Ghost Heath Down,
The hounds went crackling through the brown
Dry stalks of bracken killed by frost.
The wood stood silent in its host
Of halted trees all winter bare.
The boughs, like veins that suck the air,
Stretched tense, the last leaf scarcely stirred.
There came no song from any bird;
The darkness of the wood stood still
Waiting for fate on Ghost Heath Hill.
The whips crept to the sides to view;
The Master gave the nod, and "Leu,
Leu in, Ed-hoick, Ed-hoick, Leu in,"
Went Robin, cracking through the whin
And through the hedge-gap into cover.
The binders crashed as hounds went over,
And cock-cock-cock the pheasants rose.
Then up went stern and down went nose,
And Robin's cheerful tenor cried,
Through hazel-scrub and stub and ride,
"O wind him, beauties, push him out,
Yooi, onto him, Yahout, Yahout,
O push him out, Yooi, wind him, wind him."
The beauties burst the scrub to find him,
They nosed the warren's clipped green lawn,
The bramble and the broom were drawn,
The covert's northern end was blank.
[Illustration:
And now they gathered to the gamble
At Ghost Heath Wood on Ghost Heath Down.]
They turned to draw along the bank
Through thicker cover than the Rough
Through three-and-four-year understuff
Where Robin's forearm screened his eyes.
"Yooi, find him, beauties," came his cries.
"Hark, hark to Daffodil," the laughter
Faln from his horn, brought whimpers after,
For ends of scents were everywhere.
He said, "This Hope's a likely lair.
And there's his billets, grey and furred.
And George, he's moving, there's a bird."
A blue uneasy jay was chacking.
(A swearing screech, like tearing sacking)
From tree to tree, as in pursuit,
He said "That's it. There's fox afoot.
And there, they're feathering, there she speaks.
Good Daffodil, good Tarrybreeks,
Hark there, to Daffodil, hark, hark."
The mild horn's note, the soft flaked spark
Of music, fell on that rank scent.
From heart to wild heart magic went.
The whimpering quivered, quavered, rose.
"Daffodil has it. There she goes.
O hark to her." With wild high crying
From frantic hearts, the hounds went flying
To Daffodil for that rank taint.
A waft of it came warm but faint,
In Robin's mouth, and faded so.
"First find a fox, then let him go,"
Cried Robin Dawe. "For any sake.
Ring, Charley, till you're fit to break."
He cheered his beauties like a lover
And charged beside them into cover.
PART TWO--THE FOX
[Illustration: Reynard the fox]
[Illustration: And there on the night before my tale he trotted out]
On old Cold Crendon's windy tops
Grows wintrily Blown Hilcote Copse,
Wind-bitten beech with badger barrows,
Where brocks eat wasp-grubs with their marrows,
And foxes lie on short-grassed turf,
Nose between paws, to hear the surf
Of wind in the beeches drowsily.
There was our fox bred lustily
Three years before, and there he berthed
Under the beech-roots snugly earthed,
With a roof of flint and a floor of chalk
And ten bitten hens' heads each on its stalk,
Some rabbits' paws, some fur from scuts,
A badger's corpse and a smell of guts.
And there on the night before my tale
He trotted out for a point in the vale.
He saw, from the cover edge, the valley
Go trooping down with its droops of sally
To the brimming river's lipping bend,
And a light in the inn at Water's End.
He heard the owl go hunting by
And the shriek of the mouse the owl made die,
And the purr of the owl as he tore the red
Strings from between his claws and fed;
The smack of joy of the horny lips
Marbled green with the blobby strips.
He saw the farms where the dogs were barking,
Cold Crendon Court and Copsecote Larking;
The fault with the spring as bright as gleed,
Green-slash-laced with water weed.
A glare in the sky still marked the town,
Though all folk slept and the blinds were down,
The street lamps watched the empty square,
The night-cat sang his evil there.
The fox's nose tipped up and round
Since smell is a part of sight and sound.
Delicate smells were drifting by,
The sharp nose flaired them heedfully:
Partridges in the clover stubble,
Crouched in a ring for the stoat to nubble.
Rabbit bucks beginning to box;
A scratching place for the pheasant cocks;
A hare in the dead grass near the drain,
And another smell like the spring again.
A faint rank taint like April coming,
It cocked his ears and his blood went drumming,
For somewhere out by Ghost Heath Stubs
Was a roving vixen wanting cubs.
[Illustration:
He saw the farms where the dogs were barking,
Cold Crendon Court and Copsecote Larking.]
THE ROVING
Over the valley, floating faint
On a warmth of windflaw came the taint,
He cocked his ears, he upped his brush,
And he went up wind like an April thrush.
By the Roman Road to Braiches Ridge
Where the fallen willow makes a bridge,
Over the brook by White Hart's Thorn,
To the acres thin with pricking corn.
Over the sparse green hair of the wheat,
By the Clench Brook Mill at Clench Brook Leat,
Through Cowfoot Pastures to Nonely Stevens,
And away to Poltrewood St. Jevons.
Past Tott Hill Down all snaked with meuses,
Past Clench St. Michael and Naunton Crucis,
Past Howle's Oak Farm where the raving brain
Of a dog who heard him foamed his chain,
Then off, as the farmer's window opened,
Past Stonepits Farm to Upton Hope End;
Over short sweet grass and worn flint arrows,
And the three dumb hows of Tencombe Barrows;
And away and away with a rolling scramble,
Through the blackthorn and up the bramble,
With a nose for the smells the night wind carried,
And his red fell clean for being married.
For clicketting time and Ghost Heath Wood
Had put the violet in his blood.
[Illustration: A dog who heard him foamed his chain]
At Tencombe Rings near the Manor Linney,
His foot made the great black stallion whinny,
And the stallion's whinny aroused the stable
And the bloodhound bitches stretched their cable,
And the clink of the bloodhound's chain aroused
The sweet-breathed kye as they chewed and drowsed,
And the stir of the cattle changed the dream
Of the cat in the loft to tense green gleam.
The red-wattled black cock hot from Spain
Crowed from his perch for dawn again,
His breast-pufft hens, one-legged on perch,
Gurgled, beak-down, like men in church,
They crooned in the dark, lifting one red eye
In the raftered roost as the fox went by.
By Tencombe Regis and Slaughters Court,
Through the great grass square of Roman Fort,
By Nun's Wood Yews and the Hungry Hill,
And the Corpse Way Stones all standing still,
By Seven Springs Mead to Deerlip Brook,
And a lolloping leap to Water Hook.
Then with eyes like sparks and his blood awoken
Over the grass to Water's Oaken,
And over the hedge and into ride
In Ghost Heath Wood for his roving bride.
Before the dawn he had loved and fed
And found a kennel and gone to bed
On a shelf of grass in a thick of gorse
That would bleed a hound and blind a horse.
There he slept in the mild west weather
With his nose and brush well tucked together,
He slept like a child, who sleeps yet hears
With the self who needs neither eyes nor ears.
[Illustration:
There he slept in the mild west weather
With his nose and brush well tucked together.]
He slept while the pheasant cock untucked
His head from his wing, flew down and kukked,
While the drove of the starlings whirred and wheeled
Out of the ash-trees into field.
While with great black flags that flogged and paddled
The rooks went out to the plough and straddled,
Straddled wide on the moist red cheese
Of the furrows driven at Uppat's Leas.
Down in the village, men awoke,
The chimneys breathed with a faint blue smoke,
The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches,
Due to his dreams, ran down his flitches.
[Illustration: The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches]
The cows were milked and the yards were sluict,
And the cocks and hens let out of roost,
Windows were opened, mats were beaten,
All men's breakfasts were cooked and eaten,
But out in the gorse on the grassy shelf,
The sleeping fox looked after himself.
Deep in his dream he heard the life
Of the woodland seek for food or wife,
The hop of a stoat, a buck that thumped,
The squeal of a rat as a weasel jumped,
The blackbird's chackering scattering crying,
The rustling bents from the rabbits flying,
Cows in a byre, and distant men,
And Condicote church-clock striking ten.
At eleven o'clock a boy went past,
With a rough-haired terrier following fast.
The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yap
Woke the fox from out of his nap.
[Illustration:
The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yap
Woke the fox from out of his nap.]
SCENT
He rose and stretched till the claws in his pads
Stuck hornily out like long black gads,
He listened a while, and his nose went round
To catch the smell of the distant sound.
The windward smells came free from taint
They were rabbit, strongly, with lime-kiln, faint,
A wild-duck, likely, at Sars Holt Pond,
And sheep on the Sars Holt Down beyond.
The lee-ward smells were much less certain
For the Ghost Heath Hill was like a curtain,
Yet vague, from the lee-ward, now and then,
Came muffled sounds like the sound of men.
He moved to his right to a clearer space,
And all his soul came into his face,
Into his eyes and into his nose,
As over the hill a murmur rose.
His ears were cocked and his keen nose flaired,
He sneered with his lips till his teeth were bared,
He trotted right and lifted a pad
Trying to test what foes he had.
SOUND
On Ghost Heath turf was a steady drumming
Which sounded like horses quickly coming,
It died as the hunt went down the dip,
Then Malapert yelped at Myngs's whip.
A bright iron horseshoe clinkt on stone,
Then a man's voice spoke, not one alone,
Then a burst of laughter, swiftly still,
Muffled away by Ghost Heath Hill.
Then, indistinctly, the clop, clip, clep,
On Brady Ride, of a horse's step.
Then silence, then, in a burst, much clearer,
Voices and horses coming nearer,
And another noise, of a pit-pat beat
On the Ghost Hill grass, of foxhound feet.
He sat on his haunches listening hard,
While his mind went over the compass card,
Men were coming and rest was done,
But he still had time to get fit to run;
He could outlast horse and outrace hound,
But men were devils from Lobs's Pound.
Scent was burning, the going good
The world one lust for a fox's blood,
The main earths stopped and the drains put-to,
And fifteen miles to the land he knew.
But of all the ills, the ill least pleasant
Was to run in the light when men were present.
Men in the fields to shout and sign
For a lift of hounds to a fox's line.
Men at the earth at the long point's end,
Men at each check and none his friend,
Guessing each shift that a fox contrives,
But still, needs must when the devil drives.
[Illustration: Men at the earth at the long point's end]
He readied himself, then a soft horn blew,
Then a clear voice carolled "Ed-hoick. Eleu."
Then the wood-end rang with the clear voice crying
And the crackle of scrub where hounds were trying.
[Illustration: He trotted down with his nose intent]
Then, the horn blew nearer, a hound's voice quivered,
Then another, then more, till his body shivered,
He left his kennel and trotted thence
With his ears flexed back and his nerves all tense.
He trotted down with his nose intent
For a fox's line to cross his scent,
It was only fair (he being a stranger)
That the native fox should have the danger.
Danger was coming, so swift, so swift,
That the pace of his trot began to lift
The blue-winged Judas, a jay, began
Swearing, hounds whimpered, air stank of man.
He hurried his trotting, he now felt frighted,
It was his poor body made hounds excited,
He felt as he ringed the great wood through
That he ought to make for the land he knew.
Then the hounds' excitement quivered and quickened,
Then a horn blew death till his marrow sickened
Then the wood behind was a crash of cry
For the blood in his veins; it made him fly.
They were on his line; it was death to stay,
He must make for home by the shortest way,
But with all this yelling and all this wrath
And all these devils, how find a path?
He ran like a stag to the wood's north corner,
Where the hedge was thick and the ditch a yawner,
But the scarlet glimpse of Myngs on Turk,
Watching the woodside, made him shirk.
He ringed the wood and looked at the south.
What wind there was blew into his mouth.
But close to the woodland's blackthorn thicket
Was Dansey, still as a stone, on picket.
At Dansey's back were a twenty more
Watching the cover and pressing fore.
[Illustration: The fox drew in]
The fox drew in and flaired with his muzzle.
Death was there if he messed the puzzle.
There were men without and hounds within,
A crying that stiffened the hair on skin,
Teeth in cover and death without,
Both deaths coming, and no way out.
FOUND
His nose ranged swiftly, his heart beat fast,
Then a crashing cry rose up in a blast,
Then horse hooves trampled, then horses' flitches
Burst their way through the hazel switches,
Then the horn again made the hounds like mad,
And a man, quite near, said "Found, by Gad,"
And a man, quite near, said "Now he'll break.
Lark's Leybourne Copse is the line he'll take."
And the men moved up with their talk and stink
And the traplike noise of the horseshoe clink.
Men whose coming meant death from teeth
In a worrying wrench with him beneath.
The fox sneaked down by the cover side,
(With his ears flexed back) as a snake would glide,
He took the ditch at the cover-end,
He hugged the ditch as his only friend.
The blackbird cock with the golden beak
Got out of his way with a jabbering shriek,
And the shriek told Tom on the raking bay
That for eighteen pence he was gone away.
[Illustration: The blackbird got out of his way with a jabbering shriek]
He ran in the hedge in the triple growth
Of bramble and hawthorn, glad of both,
Till a couple of fields were past, and then
Came the living death of the dread of men.
Then, as he listened, he heard a "Hoy,"
Tom Dansey's horn and "Awa-wa-woy."
Then all hounds crying with all their forces,
Then a thundering down of seventy horses.
Robin Dawe's horn and halloos of "Hey
Hark Hollar, Hoik" and "Gone away,"
"Hark Hollar Hoik," and the smack of a whip,
A yelp as a tail hound caught the clip.
"Hark Hollar, Hark Hollar"; then Robin made
Pip go crash through the cut-and-laid,
Hounds were over and on his line
With a head like bees upon Tipple Tine.
The sound of the nearness sent a flood
Of terror of death through the fox's blood.
He upped his brush and he cocked his nose,
And he went up wind as a racer goes.
AWAY
[Illustration: The hounds went romping with delight]
Bold Robin Dawe was over first,
Cheering his hounds on at the burst;
The field were spurring to be in it,
"Hold hard, sirs, give them half a minute,"
Came from Sir Peter on his white.
The hounds went romping with delight
Over the grass and got together;
The tail hounds galloped hell-for-leather
After the pack at Myngs's yell;
A cry like every kind of bell
Rang from these rompers as they raced.
The riders thrusting to be placed,
Jammed down their hats and shook their horses,
The hounds romped past with all their forces,
They crashed into the blackthorn fence;
The scent was heavy on their sense,
So hot it seemed the living thing,
It made the blood within them sing,
Gusts of it made their hackles rise,
Hot gulps of it were agonies
Of joy, and thirst for blood, and passion.
[Illustration: Fifth colored plate _Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son,
New York_]
"Forrard," cried Robin, "that's the fashion."
He raced beside his pack to cheer.
The field's noise died upon his ear,
A faint horn, far behind, blew thin
In cover, lest some hound were in.
Then instantly the great grass rise
Shut field and cover from his eyes,
He and his racers were alone.
"A dead fox or a broken bone,"
Said Robin, peering for his prey.
The rise, which shut his field away,
Shewed him the vale's great map spread out,
The downs' lean flank and thrusting snout,
Pale pastures, red-brown plough, dark wood,
Blue distance, still as solitude,
Glitter of water here and there,
The trees so delicately bare.
The dark green gorse and bright green holly.
"O glorious God," he said, "how jolly."
And there, down hill, two fields ahead,
The lolloping red dog-fox sped
Over Poor Pastures to the brook.
He grasped these things in one swift look
Then dived into the bulfinch heart
Through thorns that ripped his sleeves apart
And skutched new blood upon his brow.
"His point's Lark's Leybourne Covers now,"
Said Robin, landing with a grunt,
"Forrard, my beautifuls."
The hunt
Followed down hill to race with him,
White Rabbit with his swallow's skim,
Drew within hail, "Quick burst, Sir Peter."
"A traveller. Nothing could be neater.
Making for Godsdown clumps, I take it?"
"Lark's Leybourne, sir, if he can make it.
Forrard."
THE FIELD
Bill Ridden thundered down;
His big mouth grinned beneath his frown,
The hounds were going away from horses.
He saw the glint of water-courses,
Yell Brook and Wittold's Dyke ahead,
His horse shoes sliced the green turf red.
Young Cothill's chaser rushed and passt him,
Nob Manor, running next, said "Blast him,
That poet chap who thinks he rides."
Hugh Colway's mare made straking strides
Across the grass, the Colonel next:
Then Squire volleying oaths and vext,
Fighting his hunter for refusing:
Bell Ridden like a cutter cruising
Sailing the grass, then Cob on Warder,
Then Minton Price upon Marauder;
Ock Gurney with his eyes intense,
Burning as with a different sense,
His big mouth muttering glad "by damns";
Then Pete crouched down from head to hams,
Rapt like a saint, bright focussed flame.
Bennett with devils in his wame
Chewing black cud and spitting slanting;
Copse scattering jests and Stukely ranting;
Sal Ridden taking line from Dansey;
Long Robert forcing Necromancy;
A dozen more with bad beginnings;
Myngs riding hard to snatch an innings,
A wild last hound with high shrill yelps,
Smacked forrard with some whip-thong skelps.
Then last of all, at top of rise,
The crowd on foot all gasps and eyes
The run up hill had winded them.
They saw the Yell Brook like a gem
Blue in the grass a short mile on,
They heard faint cries, but hounds were gone
A good eight fields and out of sight
Except a rippled glimmer white
Going away with dying cheering
And scarlet flappings disappearing,
And scattering horses going, going,
Going like mad, White Rabbit snowing
Far on ahead, a loose horse taking,
Fence after fence with stirrups shaking,
And scarlet specks and dark specks dwindling.
[Illustration: Far on ahead, a loose horse taking fence after fence]
Nearer, were twigs knocked into kindling,
A much bashed fence still dropping stick,
Flung clods, still quivering from the kick,
Cut hoof-marks pale in cheesy clay,
The horse-smell blowing clean away.
Birds flitting back into the cover.
One last faint cry, then all was over.
The hunt had been, and found, and gone.
[Illustration:
He faced the fence and put her through it
Shielding his eyes lest spikes should blind him.]
At Neakings Farm, three furlongs on,
Hounds raced across the Waysmore Road,
Where many of the riders slowed
To tittup down a grassy lane,
Which led as hounds led in the main
And gave no danger of a fall.
There, as they tittupped one and all,
Big Twenty Stone came scattering by,
His great mare made the hoof-casts fly.
"By leave," he cried. "Come on. Come up,
This fox is running like a tup;
Let's leave this lane and get to terms.
No sense in crawling here like worms.
Come, let me past and let me start,
This fox is running like a hart,
And this is going to be a run.
Come on. I want to see the fun.
Thanky. By leave. Now, Maiden; do it."
He faced the fence and put her through it
Shielding his eyes lest spikes should blind him,
The crashing blackthorn closed behind him.
Mud-scatters chased him as he scudded.
His mare's ears cocked, her neat feet thudded.
THE RUN
The kestrel cruising over meadow
Watched the hunt gallop on his shadow,
Wee figures, almost at a stand,
Crossing the multi-coloured land,
Slow as a shadow on a dial.
[Illustration: Some horses, swerving at a trial]
Some horses, swerving at a trial,
Baulked at a fence: at gates they bunched.
The mud about the gates was dunched.
Like German cheese; men pushed for places,
And kicked the mud into the faces
Of those who made them room to pass.
The half-mile's gallop on the grass,
Had tailed them out, and warmed their blood.
[Illustration: At gates they bunched]
"His point's the Banner Barton Wood."
"That, or Goat's Gorse." "A stinger, this."
"You're right in that; by Jove it is."
"An up-wind travelling fox, by George."
"They say Tom viewed him at the forge."
"Well, let me pass and let's be on."
They crossed the lane to Tolderton,
The hill-marl died to valley clay,
And there before them ran the grey
Yell Water, swirling as it ran,
The Yell Brook of the hunting man.
The hunters eyed it and were grim.
They saw the water snaking slim
Ahead, like silver; they could see
(Each man) his pollard willow tree
Firming the bank, they felt their horses
Catch the gleam's hint and gather forces;
They heard the men behind draw near.
Each horse was trembling as a spear
Trembles in hand when tense to hurl,
They saw the brimmed brook's eddies curl.
The willow-roots like water-snakes;
The beaten holes the ratten makes,
They heard the water's rush; they heard
Hugh Colway's mare come like a bird;
A faint cry from the hounds ahead,
Then saddle-strain, the bright hooves' tread,
Quick words, the splash of mud, the launch,
The sick hope that the bank be staunch,
Then Souse, with Souse to left and right.
Maroon across, Sir Peter's white
Down but pulled up, Tom over, Hugh
Mud to the hat but over, too,
Well splashed by Squire who was in.
With draggled pink stuck close to skin,
The Squire leaned from bank and hauled
His mired horse's rein; he bawled
For help from each man racing by.
"What, help you pull him out? Not I.
What made you pull him in?" they said.
Nob Manor cleared and turned his head,
And cried "Wade up. The ford's upstream."
Ock Gurney in a cloud of steam
Stood by his dripping cob and wrung
The taste of brook mud from his tongue
And scraped his poor cob's pasterns clean.
"Lord, what a crowner we've a been,
This jumping brook's a mucky job."
He muttered, grinning, "Lord, poor cob.
Now sir, let me." He turned to Squire
And cleared his hunter from the mire
By skill and sense and strength of arm.
FULL CRY
Meanwhile the fox passed Nonesuch Farm,
Keeping the spinney on his right.
Hounds raced him here with all their might
Along the short firm grass, like fire.
The cowman viewed him from the byre
Lolloping on, six fields ahead,
Then hounds, still carrying such a head,
It made him stare, then Rob on Pip,
Sailing the great grass like a ship,
Then grand Maroon in all his glory
Sweeping his strides, his great chest hoary
With foam fleck and the pale hill-marl.
They strode the Leet, they flew the Snarl,
They knocked the nuts at Nonesuch Mill,
Raced up the spur of Gallows Hill
And viewed him there. The line he took
Was Tineton and the Pantry Brook,
Going like fun and hounds like mad.
Tom glanced to see what friends he had
Still within sight, before he turned
The ridge's shoulder; he discerned,
One field away, young Cothill sailing
Easily up. Pete Gurney failing,
Hugh Colway quartering on Sir Peter,
Bill waiting on the mare to beat her,
Sal Ridden skirting to the right.
A horse, with stirrups flashing bright
Over his head at every stride,
Looked like the Major's; Tom espied
Far back, a scarlet speck of man
Running, and straddling as he ran.
Charles Copse was up, Nob Manor followed,
Then Bennett's big-boned black that wallowed
Clumsy, but with the strength of ten.
Then black and brown and scarlet men,
Brown horses, white and black and grey
Scattered a dozen fields away.
The shoulder shut the scene away.
[Illustration: Sixth colored plate _Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son,
New York_]