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Page 77
He is Lord of the Last--
The Fifth, most wonderful, Flood.
He hears Her thunder past
And Her song is in his blood.
He can foresay: 'She will fall,'
For he knows which fountain dries
Behind which desert-belt
A thousand leagues to the South.
He can foresay: 'She will rise.'
He knows what far snows melt;
Along what mountain-wall
A thousand leagues to the North.
He snuffs the coming drought
As he snuffs the coming rain,
He knows what each will bring forth,
And turns it to his gain.
A Prince without a Sword,
A Ruler without a Throne;
Israel follows his quest.
In every land a guest,
Of many lands a lord,
In no land King is he.
But the Fifth Great River keeps
The secret of Her deeps
For Israel alone,
As it was ordered to be.
The Treasure and the Law
Now it was the third week in November, and the woods rang with the noise
of pheasant-shooting. No one hunted that steep, cramped country except
the village beagles, who, as often as not, escaped from their kennels
and made a day of their own. Dan and Una found a couple of them towling
round the kitchen-garden after the laundry cat. The little brutes were
only too pleased to go rabbiting, so the children ran them all along the
brook pastures and into Little Lindens farm-yard, where the old sow
vanquished them--and up to the quarry-hole, where they started a fox. He
headed for Far Wood, and there they frightened out all the pheasants,
who were sheltering from a big beat across the valley. Then the cruel
guns began again, and they grabbed the beagles lest they should stray
and get hurt.
'I wouldn't be a pheasant--in November--for a lot,' Dan panted, as he
caught _Folly_ by the neck. 'Why did you laugh that horrid way?'
'I didn't,' said Una, sitting on _Flora_, the fat lady-dog. 'Oh, look!
The silly birds are going back to their own woods instead of ours, where
they would be safe.'
'Safe till it pleased you to kill them.' An old man, so tall he was
almost a giant, stepped from behind the clump of hollies by Volaterrae.
The children jumped, and the dogs dropped like setters. He wore a
sweeping gown of dark thick stuff, lined and edged with yellowish fur,
and he bowed a bent-down bow that made them feel both proud and ashamed.
Then he looked at them steadily, and they stared back without doubt or
fear.
'You are not afraid?' he said, running his hands through his splendid
grey beard. 'Not afraid that those men yonder'--he jerked his head
towards the incessant pop-pop of the guns from the lower woods--'will do
you hurt?'
'We-ell'--Dan liked to be accurate, especially when he was shy--'old
Hobd--a friend of mine told me that one of the beaters got peppered last
week--hit in the leg, I mean. You see, Mr Meyer _will_ fire at rabbits.
But he gave Waxy Garnett a quid--sovereign, I mean--and Waxy told Hobden
he'd have stood both barrels for half the money.'
'He doesn't understand,' Una cried, watching the pale, troubled face.
'Oh, I wish----'
She had scarcely said it when Puck rustled out of the hollies and spoke
to the man quickly in foreign words. Puck wore a long cloak too--the
afternoon was just frosting down--and it changed his appearance
altogether.
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