Reynard the Fox Part 9

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 m.u.f.fled sounds like the sound of men.

He moved to his right to a clearer s.p.a.ce, 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 c.o.c.ked 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, m.u.f.fled 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 gra.s.s, of foxhound feet.

He sat on his haunches listening hard, While his mind went over the compa.s.s 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 l.u.s.t 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 s.h.i.+ft that a fox contrives, But still, needs must when the devil drives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He trotted down with his nose intent]

Then, the horn blew nearer, a hound's voice quivered, Then another, then more, till his body s.h.i.+vered, 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 s.h.i.+rk.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cras.h.i.+ng 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 c.o.c.k 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 c.o.c.ked his nose, And he went up wind as a racer goes.

AWAY

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 gra.s.s and got together; The tail hounds galloped h.e.l.l-for-leather After the pack at Myngs's yell; A cry like every kind of bell Rang from these rompers as they raced.