God send you home; and then A long, (Not like this beldam clattering in the long trail; We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. 20 kitchen, That never trims a lamp nor sweeps the Leaving me in the dark, and short of fire? Silent, they drift away over the glimmer- And where's my pipe? 'Tis lucky I've a ing sand. And I've just pulled the terrier out and left A sharp-nosed cub-face blinking there and snapping, Then in a moment seen him mobbed and torn To strips in the baying hurly of the pack. I picture it so clear: the dusty sunshine On bracken, and the men with spades, that wipe Red faces: one tilts up a mug of ale. And, having stooped to clean my gory hands, I whistle the jostling beauties out o' the wood. 40 I'm but a daft old fool! I often wish The Squire were back again-ah, he was a man! They don't breed men like him these days; he'd come This Hell and Heaven; and when the clergy hoick 69 For sure, and sit and talk and suck his And holloa from their pulpits, I'm asleep, briar However hard I listen; and when they pray Till the old wife brings up a dish of tea. Aye, those were days, when I was serving Squire! I never knowed such sport as '85, The winter afore the one that snowed us silly. Because he knows I'm mortal fond of On a young huntsman keen to show some The farmers were all plowing their old pasture And bellowing at me when I rode their beans To cast for beaten fox, or galloped on With hounds to a lucky view. I'd lost my voice 100 When foxes ran down wind and scent was catchy! And that light lemon bitch of the Squire's, old Dorcas, She were a marvelous hunter, were old Dorcas! Although I shouted fit to burst my guts, Aye, oft I've thought: 'If there were And couldn't blow my horn. hounds in Heaven, Though many I've met were jolly chaps, Clean-shaved and gray, with shrewd, kind |