They heard the worrying of the hounds
About the dead beast’s bones;
Then came the horn, and then the sounds
Of horse-hoofs treading stones.
“What hounds are these that hunt the night?”
The shepherds asked in fear.
“Look, there are calkins clinking bright;
They must be coming here.”
The calkins clinkered to a spark,
The hunter called the pack;
The sheep-dogs’ fells all bristled stark
And all their lips went back.
“Lord God!” the shepherds said, “they come;
And see what hounds he has:
All dripping bluish fire, and dumb,
And nosing to the grass,
“And trotting scatheless through the gorse,
And bristling in the fell.
Lord, it is Death upon the horse,
And they’re the hounds of hell!”
They shook to watch them as they sped,
All black against the sky;
A horseman with a hooded head
And great hounds padding by.
When daylight drove away the dark
And larks went up and thrilled,
The shepherds climbed the wold to mark
What beast the hounds had killed.
They came to where the hounds had fed,
And in that trampled place
They found a pedlar lying dead,
With horror in his face.
* * * *
There was a farmer on the wold
Where all the brooks begin,
He had a thousand sheep from fold
Out grazing on the whin.
The next night, as he lay in bed,
He heard a canterer come
Trampling the wold-top with a tread
That sounded like a drum.
He thought it was a post that rode,
So turned him to his sleep;
But the canterer in his dream abode
Like horse-hoofs running sheep.