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 passed 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 grass,
A speck down the first furrow pass,
A speck the colour of the plough.
"Yonder he goes. We'll have him now,"
He cried. The speck passed slowly on,
It reached the ditch, paused, and was gone.
Then down the slope and up the Rood,
Went the hunt's gallop. Godsdown 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.
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,
Cocking 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.
