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. Empty to heaven lay the wold, Village and church grew green; The courtyard flagstones spread with mould, And weeds sprang up between. And sometimes when the cock had crowed, And the hillside stood out grey, Men saw them slinking up the road All sullen from their prey. A hooded horseman on a black, With nine black hounds at heel, After the hell-hunt going back All bloody from their meal. And in men’s minds a fear began That hell had over-hurled The guardians of the soul of man, And come to rule the world. With bitterness of heart by day, And terror in the night, And the blindness of a barren way And withering of delight. * * * * * St. Withiel lived upon the moor, Where the peat-men live in holes; He worked among the peat-men poor, Who only have their souls. He brought them nothing but his love And the will to do them good, But power filled him from above, His very touch was food. Men told St. Withiel of the hounds, And how they killed their prey. He thought them far beyond his bounds, So many miles away. Then one whose son the hounds had killed Told him the tale at length; St. Withiel pondered why God willed That hell should have such strength. Then one, a passing traveller, told How, since the hounds had come, The church was empty on the wold, And all the priests were dumb. St. Withiel rose at this, and said: “This priest will not be dumb; My spirit will not be afraid Though all hell’s devils come.” He took his stick and out he went, The long way to the wold, Where the sheep-bells clink upon the bent And every wind is cold.