Reynard the Fox Part 15

"DONE"

For a minute he ran and heard no sound, Then a whimper came from a questing hound, Then a "This way, beauties," and then "Leu Leu,"

The floating laugh of the horn that blew.

Then the cry again and the crash and rattle Of the shrubs burst back as they ran to battle.

Till the wood behind seemed risen from root, Crying and cras.h.i.+ng to give pursuit, Till the trees seemed hounds and the air seemed cry, And the earth so far that he needs but die, Die where he reeled in the woodland dim With a hound's white grips in the spine of him; For one more burst he could spurt, and then Wait for the teeth, and the wrench, and men.

He made his spurt for the Mourne End rocks, The air blew rank with the taint of fox; The yews gave way to a greener s.p.a.ce Of great stones strewn in a gra.s.sy place.

And there was his earth at the great grey shoulder, Sunk in the ground, of a granite boulder A dry deep burrow with rocky roof, Proof against crowbars, terrier-proof, Life to the dying, rest for bones.

The earth was stopped; it was filled with stones.

Then, for a moment, his courage failed, His eyes looked up as his body quailed, Then the coming of death, which all things dread, Made him run for the wood ahead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: There were foxes there]

The taint of fox was rank on the air, He knew, as he ran, there were foxes there.

His strength was broken, his heart was bursting, His bones were rotten, his throat was thirsting, His feet were reeling, his brush was thick From dragging the mud, and his brain was sick.

He thought as he ran of his old delight In the wood in the moon in an April night, His happy hunting, his winter loving, The smells of things in the midnight roving; The look of his dainty-nosing, red Clean-felled dam with her footpad's tread, Of his sire, so swift, so game, so cunning With craft in his brain and power of running, Their fights of old when his teeth drew blood.

Now he was sick, with his coat all mud.

He crossed the covert, he crawled the bank, To a meuse in the thorns and there he sank, With his ears flexed back and his teeth shown white, In a rat's resolve for a dying bite.

PRIZE

And there, as he lay, he saw the vale, That a struggling sunlight silvered pale, The Deerlip Brook like a strip of steel, The Nun's Wood Yews where the rabbits squeal, The great gra.s.s square of the Roman Fort, And the smoke in the elms at Crendon Court.

And above the smoke in the elm-tree tops, Was the beech-clump's blue, Blown Hilcote Copse, Where he and his mates had long made merry In the b.l.o.o.d.y joys of the rabbit-herry.

And there as he lay and looked, the cry Of the hounds at head came rousing by; He bent his bones in the blackthorn dim.

But the cry of the hounds was not for him, Over the fence with a crash they went, Belly to gra.s.s, with a burning scent, Then came Dansey, yelling to Bob, "They've changed, O d.a.m.n it, now here's a job."

And Bob yelled back, "Well, we cannot turn 'em, It's Jumper and Antic, Tom; we'll learn 'em.

We must just go on, and I hope we kill."

They followed hounds down the Mourne End Hill.

The fox lay still in the rabbit-meuse, On the dry brown dust of the plumes of yews.

In the bottom below a brook went by, Blue, in a patch, like a streak of sky.

There, one by one, with a clink of stone, Came a red or dark coat on a horse half blown.

And man to man with a gasp for breath Said, "Lord, what a run. I'm f.a.gged to death."

[Ill.u.s.tration: And man to man with a gasp for breath Said, "Lord, what a run. I'm f.a.gged to death."]

After an hour, no riders came, The day drew by like an ending game; A robin sang from a pufft red breast, The fox lay quiet and took his rest.

A wren on a tree-stump carolled clear, Then the starlings wheeled in a sudden sheer, The rooks came home to the twiggy hive In the elm-tree tops which the winds do drive.

Then the noise of the rooks fell slowly still, And the lights came out in the Clench Brook Mill Then a pheasant c.o.c.ked, then an owl began With the cry that curdles the blood of man.

The stars grew bright as the yews grew black, The fox rose stiffly and stretched his back.

He flaired the air, then he padded out To the valley below him dark as doubt, Winter-thin with the young green crops, For Old Cold Crendon and Hilcote Copse.

HOME

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

As he crossed the meadows at Naunton Larking, The dogs in the town all started barking, For with feet all b.l.o.o.d.y and flanks all foam, The hounds and the hunt were limping home: Limping home in the dark, dead-beaten, The hounds all rank from a fox they'd eaten, Dansey saying to Robin Dawe, "The fastest and longest I ever saw."

And Robin answered, "O Tom, 'twas good, I thought they'd changed in the Mourne End Wood, But now I feel that they did not change.

We've had a run that was great and strange; And to kill in the end, at dusk, on gra.s.s.

We'll turn to the c.o.c.k and take a gla.s.s, For the hounds, poor souls, are past their forces.

And a gallon of ale for our poor horses, And some bits of bread for the hounds, poor things, After all they've done (for they've done like kings), Would keep them going till we get in.

We had it alone from Nun's Wood Whin."

Then Tom replied, "If they changed or not, There've been few runs longer and none more hot, We shall talk of to-day until we die."

[Ill.u.s.tration: For with feet all b.l.o.o.d.y and flanks all foam, The hounds and the hunt were limping home.]

The stars grew bright in the winter sky, The wind came keen with a tang of frost, The brook was troubled for new things lost, The copse was happy for old things found, The fox came home and he went to ground.

And the hunt came home and the hounds were fed, They climbed to their bench and went to bed, The horses in stable loved their straw.

"Good-night, my beauties," said Robin Dawe.

Then the moon came quiet and flooded full Light and beauty on clouds like wool, On a feasted fox at rest from hunting, In the beech wood grey where the brocks were grunting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eighth colored plate _Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York_]

The beech wood grey rose dim in the night With moonlight fallen in pools of light, The long dead leaves on the ground were rimed.

A clock struck twelve and the church-bells chimed.