160 MELTON AND HOMESPUN 



The fair wide road became a lane, and to a cart-track 



shrank amain 



A cart-track, and at that not plain 

 And fretful men were they ; 

 Each in his glum foreboding shut, 

 Through fields forlorn they filed, 

 And followed till the grass-grown rut, by wains of Early 



England cut, 

 Was lost in empty wild. 

 And empty, wild, were HARBOTTLE, SILLITOE, 

 GRIGGS and BRIGGS and BULLER-BROWN, and GRUMBY 

 on the grey. 



And now with caution, now with haste, now South, now 



North, now East they faced ; 

 Now madly spurring through the waste 

 (For frantic men were they), 

 Anon they thundered unawares 

 Upon a guilty man 

 A simple rustic setting snares. Image of Evil sowing 



tares, 



He leapt, and looked, and ran ; 

 And after him rode HARBOTTLE, SILLITOE, 

 GRIGGS and BRIGGS and BULLER-BROWN, and GRUMBY 

 on the grey. 



Dark visions of a felon's jail, his wife's despair, his 



children's wail 



Were lifted from him as a veil. 

 When questioned, blown, at bay. 

 His red right hand out straight he threw : 

 " Hare Park? " he mused, " Hare Park? " 



