GHOST GAL: The Wild Hunt (18 page)

Like horse-hoofs running sheep.

And in his dreams a horn was blown

And feathering hounds replied,

And all his wethers stood like stone

In rank on the hillside.

Then, while he struggled still with dreams.

He saw his wethers run

Before a pack cheered on with screams,

The thousand sheep as one.

So, leaping from his bed in fear,

He flung the window back,

And he heard a death-horn blowing clear

And the crying of a pack,

And the thundering of a thousand sheep,

All mad and running wild

To the stone-pit seven fathoms deep,

Whence all the town is tiled.

After them came the hounds of hell,

With hell's own fury filled;

Into the pit the wethers fell,

And all but three were killed.

The hunter blew his horn a note

And laughed against the moon;

The farmer's breath caught in his throat,

He fell into a swoon.

The next night when the watch was set

A heavy rain came down,

The leaden gutters dripped with wet

Into the shuttered town.

So close the shutters were, the chink

Of lamplight scarcely showed;

The men at fireside heard no clink

Of horse-hoofs on the road.

They heard the creaking hinge complain,

And the mouse that gnawed the floor,

And the limping footsteps of the rain

On the stone outside the door.

And on the wold the rain came down

Till trickles streakt the grass:

A traveller riding to the town

Drew rein to let it pass.

The wind sighed in the fir-tree tops,

The trickles sobb'd in the grass,

The branches ran with showers of drop:

No other noise there was.

Till up the wold the traveller heard

A horn blow faint and thin;

He thought it was the curlew bird

Lamenting to the whin;

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.

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.

He passed the rivers running red

And the mountains standing bare;

At last the wold-land lay ahead,

Un-yellowed by the share.

All in the brown October time

He clambered to the weald;

The plum lay purpled into slime,

The harvest lay in field.

Trampled by many-footed rain

The sunburnt corn lay dead;

The myriad finches in the grain

Rose bothering at his tread.

The myriad finches took a sheer

And settled back to food:

A man was not a thing to fear

In such a solitude.

The hurrying of their wings died out,

A silence took the hill;

There was no dog, no bell, no shout,

The windmill's sails were still.

The gate swung creaking on its hasp,

The pear splashed from the tree,

In the rotting apple's heart the wasp

Was drunken drowsily.

The grass upon the cart-wheel ruts

Had made the trackways dim;

The rabbits ate and hopped their scuts,

They had no fear of him.

The sunset reddened in the west;

The distant depth of blue

Stretched out and dimmed; to twiggy nest

The rooks in clamour drew.

The oakwood in his mail of brass

Bowed his great crest and stood;

The pine-tree saw St. Withiel pass,

His great bole blushed like blood.

Then tree and wood alike were dim,

Yet still St. Withiel strode;

The only noise to comfort him

Were his footsteps on the road.

The crimson in the west was smoked,

The west wind heaped the wrack,

Each tree seemed like a murderer cloaked

To stab him in the back.

Darkness and desolation came

To dog his footsteps there;

The dead leaves rustling called his name,

The death-moth brushed his hair.

The murmurings of the wind fell still;

He stood and stared around:

He was alone upon the hill,

On devil-haunted ground.

What was the whitish thing which stood

In front, with one arm raised,

Like death a-grinning in a hood?

The saint stood still and gazed.

"What are you?" said St. Withiel. "Speak!"

Not any answer came

But the night-wind making darkness bleak,

And the leaves that called his name.

A glow shone on the whitish thing,

It neither stirred nor spoke:

In spite of faith, a shuddering

Made the good saint to choke.

He struck the whiteness with his staff —

It was a withered tree;

An owl flew from it with a laugh,

The darkness shook with glee.

The darkness came all round him close

And cackled in his ear;

The midnight, full of life none knows,

Was very full of fear.

The darkness cackled in his heart

That things of hell were there,

That the startled rabbit played a part

And the stoat's leap did prepare —

Prepare the stage of night for blood,

And the mind of night for death,

For a spirit trembling in the mud

In an agony for breath.

A terror came upon the saint,

It stripped his spirit bare;

He was sick body standing faint,

Cold sweat and stiffened hair.

He took his terror by the throat

And stamped it underfoot;

Then, far away, the death-horn's note

Quailed like a screech-owl's hoot.

Still far away that devil's horn

Its quavering death-note blew,

But the saint could hear the crackling thorn

That the hounds trod as they drew.

"Lord, it is true," St. Withiel moaned,

"And the hunt is drawing near!

Devils that Paradise disowned,

They know that I am here.

"And there, O God, a hound gives tongue,

And great hounds quarter dim" —

The saint's hands to his body clung,

He knew they came for him.

Then close at hand the horn was loud,

Like Peter's cock of old

For joy that Peter's soul was cowed,

And Jesus' body sold.

Then terribly the hounds in cry

Gave answer to the horn;

The saint in terror turned to fly

Before his flesh was torn.

After his body came the hounds,

After the hounds the horse;

Their running crackled with the sounds

Of fire that runs in gorse.

The saint's breath failed, but still they came:

The hunter cheered them on,

Even as a wind that blows a flame

In the vigil of St. John.

And as St. Withiel's terror grew,

The crying of the pack

Bayed nearer, as though terror drew

Those grip teeth to his back.

No hope was in his soul, no stay,

Nothing but screaming will

To save his terror-stricken clay

Before the hounds could kill.

The laid corn tripped, the bramble caught,

He stumbled on the stones —

The thorn that scratched him, to his thought,

Was hell's teeth at his bones.

His legs seemed bound as in a dream,

The wet earth held his feet,

He screamed aloud as rabbits scream

Before the stoat's teeth meet.

A black thing struck him on the brow,

A blackness loomed and waved;