A Prince of Cornwall | Page 6

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 trunk, and drew his heavy seax, putting his staff alongside him, where he could reach it at once if it was needed. It was light enough, with the clear frosty starlight on the snow.
Then I heard the swift patter of feet over the crisp surface, and the grey beast came and halted suddenly not three yards from us, and on his haunches he sat up and howled, and I heard the answering yells in no long space of time coming whence we had come. His eyes glowed green with a strange light of their own as he stared at my friend, and for a moment I looked to see him come fawning to his master's feet.
Suddenly he