And when the far horn blew again,
He thought an owl hallooed,
Or a rabbit gave a shriek of pain
As the stoat leapt in the wood.
But when the horn blew next, it blew
A trump that split the air,
And hounds gave cry to an Halloo!
The hunt of hell was there.
“Black” (said the traveller), “black and swift,
Those running devils came;
Scoring to cry with hackles stifft,
And grin-jowls dropping flame.”
They settled to the sightless scent,
And up the hill a cry
Told where the frightened quarry went,
Well knowing it would die.
Then presently a cry rang out,
And a mort blew for the kill;
A shepherd with his throat torn out
Lay dead upon the hill.
* * * *
When this was known, the shepherds drove
Their flocks into the town;
No man, for money or for love,
Would watch them on the down.
But night by night the terror ran,
The townsmen heard them still;
Nightly the hell-hounds hunted man
And the hunter whooped the kill.
The men who lived upon the moor
Would waken to the scratch
Of hounds’ claws digging at the door
Or scraping at the latch.
And presently no man would go
Without doors after dark,
Lest hell’s black hunting horn should blow,
And hell’s black bloodhounds mark.
They shivered round the fire at home,
While out upon the bent
The hounds with black jowls dropping foam
Went nosing to the scent.
Men let the hay crop run to seed
And the corn crop sprout in ear,
And the root crop choke itself in weed,
That hell-hound hunting year.