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.
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.
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.