I will conclude with a portrait of old Baldy Hill, the earth-stopper, who in the darkness of the early morning gads about on a pony, to "stop" or "put to" all earths, in which a hard-pressed fox might hide. In the poem, he enters when the hunt is about to start, but he is an important figure in a hunting community, and deserves a portrait. He may come here, at the beginning, for Baldy Hill is at the beginning of all fox hunts. He dates from the beginning of Man. I have seen many a Baldy Hill in my life; he never fails to give me the feeling that he is Primitive Man survived. Primitive Man lived like that, in the woods, in the darkness, outwitting the wild things, while the rain dripped, and the owl cried, and the ghost came out from the grave. Baldy Hill stole the last litter of the last she-wolf to cross them with the King's hounds. He was in at the death of the last wild-boar. Sometimes, in looking at him, I think that his ashen stake must have a flint head, with which, on moony nights, he still creeps out, to rouse, it may be, the mammoth in his secret valley, or a sabretooth tiger, still caved in the woods. Life may and does shoot out into exotic forms, which may and do flower and perish. Perhaps when all the other forms of English life are gone, the Baldy Hill form, the stock form, will abide, still striding, head bent, with an ashen stake, after some wild thing, that has meat, or fur, or is difficult or dangerous to tackle. Old Baldy Hill, the game old cock, Still wore knee-gaiters and a smock. He bore a five foot ashen stick All scarred and pilled from many a click Beating in covert with his sons To drive the pheasants to the guns. His face was beaten by the weather To wrinkled red like bellows leather He had a cold clear hard blue eye. His snares made many a rabbit die. On moony nights he found it pleasant To stare the woods for roosting pheasant Up near the tree-trunk on the bough. He never trod behind a plough. He and his two sons got their food From wild things in the field and wood, By snares, by ferrets put in holes, By ridding pasture-land of moles; By keeping, beating, trapping, poaching And spaniel-and-retriever-coaching. He and his sons had special merits In breeding and in handling ferrets Full many a snaky hob and jill Had bit the thumbs of Baldy Hill. He had no beard, but long white hair. He bent in gait. He used to wear Flowers in his smock, gold-clocks and peasen; And spindle-fruit in hunting season. I hope that he may live to wear spindle-fruit for many seasons to come. Hunting makes more people happy than anything I know. When people are happy together, I am quite certain that they build up something eternal, something both beautiful and divine, which weakens the power of all evil things upon this life of men and women. LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY CARTON MOOREPARK