And Israel laid down His sceptre and his crown, To brood on that River bank, Where the waters flashed and sank, And burrowed in earth and fell, And bided a season below; For reason that none might know, Save only Israel.
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.
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.