kitchen-conclaves, over our own wine!)      Him had no eye seen since he issued forth As curfew sounded. “Call me lying knave”—      He of the venison-pasty had the word—      “And let me nevermore dip beak in ale Or sit at trencher with good smoking meat, If I heard not, in middle of the night, The cock crow thrice, and took it for a sign.”       “So, marry, 't was—that thou wert drunk again.”       But no one laughed save he that made the jest, Which often happens. The long hours wore on, And gloaming fell. Then came another day, And then another, until seven dawns In Time's slow crucible ran ruddy gold And overflowed the gray horizon's edge;      And yet no hosts at table—an ill thing! And now 't was on the eve of Michaelmas. What could it mean? From out their lethargy At last awaking, searchers in hot haste, Some in the saddle, some afoot with hounds, Scoured moor and woodland, dragged the neighboring weirs And salmon-streams, and watched the wily hawk Slip from his azure ambush overhead, With ever a keen eye for carrion:      But no man found, nor aught that once was man. By land they went not; went they water-ways? Might be, from Bideford or Ilfracombe. Mayhap they were in London, who could tell? God help us! do men melt into the air? Yet one there was whose dumb unlanguaged love Had all revealed, had they but given heed. Across the threshold of the armor-room The savage mastiff stretched himself, and starved. Now where lags he, upon what alehouse bench      'Twixt here and London, who shall lift this weight? Were he not slain upon the Queen's highway Ere he reached Town, or tumbled into ford With too much sack-and-sugar under belt, Then was his face set homeward this same hour, Why lingers he? Ill news, 't is said, flies fast, And good news creeps; then his must needs be good That lets the tortoise pass him on the road. Ride, Dawkins, ride! by flashing tarn and fen And haunted hollow! Look not where in chains On Hounslow heath the malefactor hangs, A lasting terror! Give thy roan jade spur, And spare her not! All Devon waits for thee, Thou, for the moment, most important man! A sevennight later, when the rider sent To Town drew rein before The Falcon inn Under the creaking of the windy sign, And slipped from saddle with most valorous call For beer to wash his throat out, then confessed He brought no scrap of any honest news, The last hope died, and so the quest was done.      “They far'd afoot,” quoth one, “but where God wot.”         The blackthorn bloomed anew, and the long grass Was starred with 

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