And in his dreams a horn was blown
And feathering hounds replied,
And all his wethers stood like stone
In rank on the hillside.
Then, while he struggled still with dreams,
He saw his wethers run
Before a pack cheered on with screams,
The thousand sheep as one.
So, leaping from his bed in fear,
He flung the window back,
And he heard a death-horn blowing clear
And the crying of a pack,
And the thundering of a thousand sheep,
All mad and running wild
To the stone-pit seven fathoms deep,
Whence all the town is tiled.
After them came the hounds of hell,
With hell’s own fury filled;
Into the pit the wethers fell,
And all but three were killed.
The hunter blew his horn a note
And laughed against the moon;
The farmer’s breath caught in his throat,
He fell into a swoon.
* * * *
The next night when the watch was set
A heavy rain came down,
The leaden gutters dripped with wet
Into the shuttered town.
So close the shutters were, the chink
Of lamplight scarcely showed;
The men at fireside heard no clink
Of horse-hoofs on the road.
They heard the creaking hinge complain,
And the mouse that gnawed the floor,
And the limping footsteps of the rain
On the stone outside the door.
And on the wold the rain came down
Till trickles streakt the grass:
A traveller riding to the town
Drew rein to let it pass.
The wind sighed in the fir-tree tops,
The trickles sobb’d in the grass,
The branches ran with showers of drops:
No other noise there was.
Till up the wold the traveller heard
A horn blow faint and thin;
He thought it was the curlew bird
Lamenting to the whin;