THE CLERGYMAN

A pommle cob came trotting up,

Round-bellied like a drinking-cup,

Bearing on back a pommle man

Round-bellied like a drinking-can.

The clergyman from Condicote.

His face was scarlet from his trot,

His white hair bobbed about his head

As halos do round clergy dead.

He asked Tom Copp, “How long to wait?”

His loose mouth opened like a gate

To pass the wagons of his speech,

He had a mighty voice to preach,

Though indolent in other matters,

He let his children go in tatters.

His daughter Madge on foot, flushed-cheekt,

In broken hat and boots that leakt,

With bits of hay all over her,

Her plain face grinning at the stir

( A broad pale face, snub-nosed, with speckles

Of sandy eyebrows sprinkt with freckles )

Came after him and stood apart

Beside the darling of her heart,

Miss Hattie Dyce from Baydon Dean;

A big young fair one, chiselled clean,

Brow, chin, and nose, with great blue eyes,

All innocence and sweet surprise,

And golden hair piled coil on coil

Too beautiful for time to spoil.

They talked in undertones together

Not of the hunting, nor the weather.

Old Steven, from Scratch Steven Place

( A white beard and a rosy face ),

Came next on his stringhalty grey,

“I've come to see the hounds away,”

He said, “And ride a field or two.

We old have better things to do

Than breaking all our necks for fun.”

He shone on people like the sun,

And on himself for shining so.

Three men came riding in a row:—

John Pyn, a bull-man, quick to strike,

Gross and blunt-headed like a shrike

Yet sweet-voiced as a piping flute;

Tom See, the trainer, from the Toot,

Red, with an angry, puzzled face

And mouth twitched upward out of place,

Sucking cheap grapes and spitting seeds;

And Stone, of Bartle's Cattle Feeds,

A man whose bulk of flesh and bone

Made people call him Twenty Stone.

He was the man who stood a pull

At Tencombe with the Jersey bull

And brought the bull back to his stall.

Some children ranged the tavern-wall,

Sucking their thumbs and staring hard;

Some grooms brought horses from the yard.

Jane Selbie said to Ellen Tranter,

“A lot on‘ em come doggin’, ant her?”

“A lot on‘ em,” said Ellen, “look

There'm Mister Gaunt of Water's Hook.

They say he”... ( whispered ). “Law,” said Jane.

Gaunt flung his heel across the mane,

And slithered from his horse and stamped.

“Boots tight,” he said, “my feet are cramped.”

A loose-shod horse came clicking clack;

Nick Wolvesey on a hired hack

Came tittup, like a cup and ball.

One saw the sun, moon, stars, and all

The great green earth twixt him and saddle;

Then Molly Wolvesey riding straddle,

Red as a rose, with eyes like sparks.

Two boys from college out for larks

Hunted bright Molly for a smile

But were not worth their quarry's while.

Two eyeglassed gunners dressed in tweed

Came with a spaniel on a lead

And waited for a fellow gunner.

The parson's son, the famous runner,

Came dressed to follow hounds on foot.

His knees were red as yew tree root

From being bare, day in day out;

He wore a blazer, and a clout

( His sweater's arms ) tied round his neck.

His football shorts had many a speck

And splash of mud from many a fall

Got as he picked the slippery ball

Heeled out behind a breaking scrum.

He grinned at people, but was dumb,

Not like these lousy foreigners.

The otter-hounds and harriers

From Godstow to the Wye all knew him.