A Prince of Cornwall | Page 6

I had no fear of
dogs, and I called him again cheerily, and at that he sank on his
haunches and set back his head and howled and yelled as I had never

heard any dog give tongue before. And presently from a long way off I
heard the like howls, as if all the dogs of some village answered him,
and I thought their tongue was strange also.
Then came the shout of a man, even as I expected, and there was the
noise of one who tears his way through briers and brambles in haste;
but at that shout the dog turned and fled like a grey shadow into the
farther thickets, and was gone.
"Who calls?" one said loudly, and from the hillside climbed hastily into
the open a tall man, bearded and strong, and with a pleasant-looking,
anxious face. He was dressed in leather like our shepherds, and like
them carried but quarterstaff and seax for weapons. I suppose that I was
in some shadow, for at first he did not see me.
"Surely I heard a child's voice," he said out loud--"or was it some pixy
playing with the grey beast of the wood?"
"Here I am," I cried, running to him; "take me home, shepherd, for I
think that I am lost."
He caught me up in haste, looking round him the while.
"Child," he said, "how came you here--and to what were you calling?"
"I was calling your dog," I answered, "but he is not friendly. Does he
look for a beating? for he ran away yonder when he heard you coming."
"Ay, sorely beaten will that dog be if he comes near me just now," the
man said grimly. "Never mind him, but tell me how you came here, and
where you belong."
So I told him that I was Oswald, the son of Aldred, the thane of
Eastdean, thinking, of course, that all men would know of us, and so I
bade him take me home quickly.
"I have been hunting," I said, showing him my unsavoury prey, which
by this time was frozen stiff in my belt. "Then I followed the hare this
was after, and I cannot tell how far I have come."
All this while the man had me in his strong arms, and he had looked at
the track of the dog in the snow, and now was walking swiftly from it,
through the beech trees, looking up at their branches as if wondering at
the way the great trunks shot up smooth and bare from the snow at their
roots before they reached the first forking, fathoms skyward.
"I am a stranger, Oswald, the thane's son," he said. "I do not rightly
know in which direction your home may lie."
I know now that he was himself as lost as I, but that he did not tell me,

for my sake. It is an easy thing for a stranger to go astray in the
Andredsweald. But I could not tell him more than that I knew that I had
left the sea always behind me so long as I knew where it lay. So he
turned southwards at once when he heard that, and went on swiftly.
Then I heard the howl of his dog again, and I laughed, for the other
howls that answered him were nearer.
"Listen, shepherd," I said. "Your dog is making his comrades howl for
him, and the beating that is to come.
"Are you cold?"
For he had shivered suddenly, and his pace quickened. He had heard
the howl of the single wolf that has found its quarry, and calls the
answering pack to follow. But he did not tell me of my mistake.
"I am not cold overmuch," he answered. "Let us run and warm me."
Then he ran until we came to the top of a hill whence the last glimmer
of the sea over Selsea was plain before him, and there I asked him to
set me down lest I tired him.
"Nay, but you keep me warm," he said. "Tell me, are there oak trees as
one goes seaward?"
"Ay, many and great ones in some places."
Then he ran down the hill, and the sway of his even stride lulled me so
that I dozed a little. I roused when he stayed suddenly.
"Sit here, Oswald, for a moment, and fear nought while I rest me," he
said in a strange voice.
We were halfway up a long slope and among fresh trees. Then he lifted
me and set me on the curved arm of a great oak tree, some eight feet
from the ground, asking me if I was safe there. And when I laughed and
answered that I was, he set his back against the