He readied himself, then a soft horn blew, Then a clear voice carolled, “Ed-hoick! Eleu!” Then the wood-end rang with the clear voice crying And the crackle of scrub where hounds were trying. Then the horn blew nearer, a hound’s voice quivered, Then another, then more, till his body shivered, He left his kennel and trotted thence With his ears flexed back and his nerves all tense. He trotted down with his nose intent For a fox’s line to cross his scent, It was only fair (he being a stranger) That the native fox should have the danger. Danger was coming, so swift, so swift, That the pace of his trot began to lift The blue-winged Judas, a jay began Swearing, hounds whimpered, air stank of man. * * * * * He hurried his trotting, he now felt frighted, It was his poor body made hounds excited. He felt as he ringed the great wood through, That he ought to make for the land he knew. * * * * * Then the hounds’ excitement quivered and quickened, Then a horn blew death till his marrow sickened, Then the wood behind was a crash of cry For the blood in his veins; it made him fly. * * * * * They were on his line; it was death to stay. He must make for home by the shortest way, But with all this yelling and all this wrath And all these devils, how find a path? * * * * * He ran like a stag to the wood’s north corner, Where the hedge was thick and the ditch a yawner, But the scarlet glimpse of Myngs on Turk, Watching the woodside, made him shirk. * * * * * He ringed the wood and looked at the south. What wind there was blew into his mouth. But close to the woodland’s blackthorn thicket Was Dansey, still as a stone, on picket. At Dansey’s back were a twenty more Watching the cover and pressing fore. * * * * * The fox drew in and flaired with his muzzle. Death was there if he messed the puzzle. There were men without and hounds within, A crying that stiffened the hair on skin, Teeth in cover and death without, Both deaths coming, and no way out. * * * * * His nose ranged swiftly, his heart beat fast, Then a crashing cry rose up in a blast, Then horse-hooves trampled, then horses’ flitches Burst their way through the hazel switches. Then the horn again made the hounds like mad, And a man, quite near, said, “Found, by Gad!” And a man, quite near, said, “Now he’ll break. Lark’s Leybourne Copse is the line he’ll take.” And men moved up with their talk and stink And the traplike noise of the horseshoe clink. Men whose coming meant death from teeth In a worrying wrench, with him beneath.