Reynard the Fox Part 13

[Ill.u.s.tration: They had ceased to run, they had come to check]

Through the withered oak's wind-crouching tops He saw men's scarlet above the copse, He heard men's oaths, yet he felt hounds slacken In the frondless stalks of the brittle bracken.

He felt that the unseen link which bound His spine to the nose of the leading hound, Was snapped, that the hounds no longer knew Which way to follow nor what to do; That the threat of the hound's teeth left his neck, They had ceased to run, they had come to check, They were quartering wide on the Wan Hill's bent.

The terrier's chase had killed his scent.

He heard bits c.h.i.n.k as the horses shifted, He heard hounds cast, then he heard hounds lifted, But there came no cry from a new attack, His heart grew steady, his breath came back.

He left the spinney and ran its edge, By the deep dry ditch of the blackthorn hedge, Then out of the ditch and down the meadow, Trotting at ease in the blackthorn shadow Over the track called G.o.dsdown Road, To the great gra.s.s heave of the G.o.ds' abode, He was moving now upon land he knew Up Clench Royal and Morton Tew, The Pol Brook, Cheddesdon and East Stoke Church, High Clench St. Lawrence and Tinker's Birch, Land he had roved on night by night, For hot blood suckage or furry bite, The threat of the hounds behind was gone; He breathed deep pleasure and trotted on.

While young Sid Kissop thrashed the pup, Robin on Pip came heaving up, And found his pack spread out at check.

"I'd like to wring your terrier's neck,"

He said, "You see? He's spoiled our sport.

He's killed the scent." He broke off short, And stared at hounds and at the valley.

No jay or magpie gave a rally Down in the copse, no circling rooks Rose over fields; old Joyful's looks Were doubtful in the gorse, the pack Quested both up and down and back.

He watched each hound for each small sign.

They tried, but could not hit the line, The scent was gone. The field took place Out of the way of hounds. The pace Had tailed them out; though four remained:

Sir Peter, on White Rabbit stained Red from the brooks, Bill Ridden cheery, Hugh Colway with his mare dead weary.

The Colonel with Marauder beat.

They turned towards a thud of feet; Dansey, and then young Cothill came (His chestnut mare was galloped tame).

"There's Copse, a field behind," he said.

"Those last miles put them all to bed.

They're strung along the downs like flies."

Copse and n.o.b Manor topped the rise.

"Thank G.o.d, a check," they said, "at last."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Thank G.o.d, a check," they said, "at last."

"They cannot own it; you must cast."]

"They cannot own it; you must cast,"

Sir Peter said. The soft horn blew, Tom turned the hounds up wind; they drew Up wind, down hill, by spinney side.

They tried the brambled ditch; they tried The swamp, all choked with bright green gra.s.s And clumps of rush and pools like gla.s.s, Long since, the dead men's drinking pond.

They tried the White Leaved Oak beyond, But no hound spoke to it or feathered.

The horse heads drooped like horses tethered, The men mopped brows. "An hour's hard run.

Ten miles," they said, "we must have done.

It's all of six from Colston's Gorses."

The lucky got their second horses.

The time ticked by. "He's lost," they muttered.

A pheasant rose. A rabbit scuttered.

Men mopped their scarlet cheeks and drank.

They drew down wind along the bank, (The Wan Way) on the hill's south spur, Grown with dwarf oak and juniper Like dwarves alive, but no hound spoke.

The seepings made the ground one soak.

They turned the spur; the hounds were beat.

Then Robin shifted in his seat Watching for signs, but no signs shewed.

"I'll lift across the G.o.dsdown Road, Beyond the spinney," Robin said.

Tom turned them; Robin went ahead.

Beyond the copse a great gra.s.s fallow Stretched towards Stoke and Cheddesdon Mallow, A rolling gra.s.s where hounds grew keen.

"Yoi doit, then; this is where he's been,"

Said Robin, eager at their joy.

"Yooi, Joyful, lad, yooi, Cornerboy.

They're on to him."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reynard the fox]

"ON"

At his reminders The keen hounds hurried to the finders.

The finding hounds began to hurry, Men jammed their hats prepared to skurry, The Ai Ai of the cry began.

Its spirit pa.s.sed to horse and man, The skirting hounds romped to the cry.

Hound after hound cried Ai Ai Ai, Till all were crying, running, closing, Their heads well up and no heads nosing, Joyful ahead with spear-straight stern.

They raced the great slope to the burn.

Robin beside them, Tom behind, Pointing past Robin down the wind.

For there, two furlongs on, he viewed On Holy Hill or Cheddesdon Rood Just where the ploughland joined the gra.s.s, A speck down the first furrow pa.s.s, A speck the colour of the plough.

"Yonder he goes. We'll have him now,"

He cried. The speck pa.s.sed slowly on, It reached the ditch, paused, and was gone.

Then down the slope and up the Rood, Went the hunt's gallop. G.o.dsdown Wood Dropped its last oak-leaves at the rally.

Over the Rood to High Clench Valley The gallop led; the red-coats scattered, The fragments of the hunt were tattered Over five fields, ev'n since the check.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Then down the slope and up the Rood, Went the hunt's gallop.]

"A dead fox or a broken neck,"

Said Robin Dawe, "Come up, the Dane."

The hunter leant against the rein, c.o.c.king his ears, he loved to see The hounds at cry. The hounds and he The chiefs in all that feast of pace.

The speck in front began to race.

The fox heard hounds get on to his line, And again the terror went down his spine, Again the back of his neck felt cold, From the sense of the hound's teeth taking hold.

But his legs were rested, his heart was good, He had breath to gallop to Mourne End Wood, It was four miles more, but an earth at end, So he put on pace down the Rood Hill Bend.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The fox heard hounds get on to his line]

Down the great gra.s.s slope which the oak trees dot With a swerve to the right from the keeper's cot, Over High Clench brook in its channel deep, To the gra.s.s beyond, where he ran to sheep.

The sheep formed line like a troop of horse, They swerved, as he pa.s.sed, to front his course From behind, as he ran, a cry arose, "See the sheep, there. Watch them. There he goes."

He ran the sheep that their smell might check The hounds from his scent and save his neck, But in two fields more he was made aware That the hounds still ran; Tom had viewed him there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He ran the sheep that their smell might check The hounds from his scent and save his neck.]

Tom had held them on through the taint of sheep, They had kept his line, as they meant to keep, They were running hard with a burning scent, And Robin could see which way he went.

The pace that he went brought strain to breath, He knew as he ran that the gra.s.s was death.