Courtesy Arthur Ackermann and Son, New York
From the Gallows Hill to the Tineton Copse
There were ten ploughed fields like ten full stops,
All wet red clay where a horse's foot
Would be swathed, feet thick, like an ash-tree root.
The fox raced on, on the headlands firm,
Where his swift feet scared the coupling worm,
The rooks rose raving to curse him raw
He snarled a sneer at their swoop and caw.
Then on, then on, down a half ploughed field
Where a ship-like plough drave glitter-keeled,
With a bay horse near and a white horse leading,
And a man saying "Zook" and the red earth bleeding.
He gasped as he saw the ploughman drop
The stilts and swear at the team to stop.
The ploughman ran in his red clay clogs
Crying "Zick un, Towzer; zick, good dogs."
A couple of wire-haired lurchers lean
Arose from his wallet, nosing keen;
With a rushing swoop they were on his track,
Putting chest to stubble to bite his back.
He swerved from his line with the curs at heel,
The teeth as they missed him clicked like steel,
With a worrying snarl, they quartered on him,
While the ploughman shouted "Zick; upon him."
The lurcher dogs soon shot their bolt,
And the fox raced on by the Hazel Holt,
Down the dead grass tilt to the sandstone gash
Of the Pantry Brook at Tineton Ash.
The loitering water, flooded full,
Had yeast on its lip like raddled wool,
It was wrinkled over with Arab script
Of eddies that twisted up and slipt.
The stepping stones had a rush about them
So the fox plunged in and swam without them.
He crossed to the cattle's drinking shallow
Firmed up with rush and the roots of mallow,
He wrung his coat from his draggled bones
And romped away for the Sarsen Stones.
A sneaking glance with his ears flexed back,
Made sure that his scent had failed the pack,
For the red clay, good for corn and roses,
Was cold for scent and brought hounds to noses.
He slackened pace by the Tineton Tree,
(A vast hollow ash-tree grown in three),
He wriggled a shake and padded slow,
Not sure if the hounds were on or no.
A horn blew faint, then he heard the sounds
Of a cantering huntsman, lifting hounds,
The ploughman had raised his hat for sign,
And the hounds were lifted and on his line.
He heard the splash in the Pantry Brook,
And a man's voice: "Thiccy's the line he took,"
And a clear "Yoi doit" and a whimpering quaver,
Though the lurcher dogs had dulled the savour.
The fox went off while the hounds made halt,
And the horses breathed and the field found fault,
But the whimpering rose to a crying crash
By the hollow ruin of Tineton Ash.
Then again the kettle drum horse hooves beat,
And the green blades bent to the fox's feet
And the cry rose keen not far behind
Of the "Blood, blood, blood" in the fox-hounds' mind.
The fox was strong, he was full of running,
He could run for an hour and then be cunning,
But the cry behind him made him chill,
They were nearer now and they meant to kill.
They meant to run him until his blood
Clogged on his heart as his brush with mud,
Till his back bent up and his tongue hung flagging,
And his belly and brush were filthed from dragging.
Till he crouched stone still, dead-beat and dirty,
With nothing but teeth against the thirty.
And all the way to that blinding end
He would meet with men and have none his friend.
Men to holloa and men to run him,
With stones to stagger and yells to stun him,
Men to head him, with whips to beat him,
Teeth to mangle and mouths to eat him.
And all the way, that wild high crying,
To cold his blood with the thought of dying,
The horn and the cheer, and the drum-like thunder,
Of the horse hooves stamping the meadows under.
He upped his brush and went with a will
For the Sarsen Stones on Wan Dyke Hill.