A Prince of Cornwall | Page 8

his voice
as he stilled the dogs and cried to ask if the boy was found.
"Ay, Thane, he is here, and safe," my friend answered, and he set me
down in the midst of the court, while the dogs leapt and fawned round
me.
Then I ran to the arms that were held out for me, forgetting for the
moment the one who had brought me back to them, and left him
standing there.
Then the man who had saved me turned after one long look at that
meeting, and I think that he was going his way in silence, content with
that he had done, but my father saw it and called to him:
"Friend, stay, for I have not thanked you, and I hold that there is reward
due to you for what you have brought back to me."
"It was a chance meeting, Thane, and I am glad to have been of use. No
need to speak of reward, for it is indeed enough to have seen the boy
home safely."
"Why, then," said my father, "I cannot have a stranger pass my hall at
this time in the evening, when it is too late to reach the town in safety.
Here you must at least lodge for the night, or Eastdean will be shamed.
Your voice tells me that you are a stranger--but maybe you have your

men waiting for you at hand? There will be room for them also."
For there was that in the tones of the voice of this man which told my
father that here he had no common wanderer.
"I am alone," my friend said. "But your men seek the little one even yet
in the forest. Will you not call them in?"
My father looked at the man for a moment, and smiled.
"Ay, I forgot in my joy. They are well-nigh as anxious as I have been."
Then he took down the great horn that hung by the door, and wound the
homing call that brings all within its hearing back to the hall, and its
hoarse echoes went across the silent woods until it was answered by the
other horns that passed on the message until the last sounds came but
faintly to us. I heard men cheering also, for they knew by the token that
all was well. My father had me in his arms all this time, standing in the
door.
"There would have been sorrow enough had he been lost indeed," my
father said. "He is the last of the old line, and the fathers of those men
whom you hear have followed his fathers since the days of Ella. Come
in, and they will thank you also. Where did you find him?"
Then as he turned and went into the hall the light flashed red on my
jerkin suddenly, and he cried, "Here is blood on his clothing!--Is he
hurt?"
"No," I said stoutly; "maybe it is the blood of the stoat I slew, or else it
has come off the shepherd's sleeves. He hewed off the wolf's head and
hung it on the tree."
Then my father understood what my peril had been--even that which he
and all the village had feared for me, and his face paled, and he held out
his hand to the man, drawing in his breath sharply.
"Woden!" he cried, "what is this, friend? Are you hurt, yourself? For
the wolf must be slain ere his head can be hefted, as we say."
"No hurt to any but the wolf," the man said, smiling a little. "We did
but meet with one who called the pack on us. So I even hung his head
on a tree, that the pack when it came might stay to leap at it. They were
all we had to fear, and maybe that saved us."
"I marvel that you are not even now in the tree, yourself--with the boy."
"Nay, but the frost is cruel, and he would have been sorely feared with
the leaping and howls of the beasts. There were always trees at hand as
we fled, if needs were to take to them. It was in my mind that it were

best to try to get him home, or near it."
Then said my father, gripping the hand that met his: "There is more that
I would say, but I cannot set thoughts into words well. Only, I know
that I have a man before me. Tell me your name, that neither I nor the
boy may ever forget it."
"Here, in the Saxon lands, men call me Owen the Briton," he answered
simply.
"I thought your voice had somewhat of the Welsh tone," my father said.
"And your English is of Mercia. I have heard that there are Britons