“But see, Assueton,” said Hepborne, “there are the outer towers and gateway of the Castle, and behold how its proud barbicans rise beyond them. As I live, there is Flo, my faithful old wolf-dog, lying sunning himself against the wall. He is the fleetest allounde in all these parts for taking down the deer at a view. What ho, boy, Flo, Flo! What means the brute, he minds me not?” continued Hepborne, riding up to him: “I wot he was never wont to be so litherly; he used to fly at my voice with all the swiftness of the arrow, which he is named after. Ah! now I see, he is half-blind; and peraunter he is deaf too, for he seems as if he heard me not. But, fool that I am, I forget that some years have passed away sith I saw him last, and that old age must ere this have come upon him. ’Twas but a week before I left home, Assueton, that he killed a wolf. But [[87]]let us hasten in, I am impatient to embrace my father, and my dear mother, and my sister Isabelle.”
Loud rang the bugle-blast in the court-yard of the Castle. Throwing his reins to his esquire, Hepborne sprang from his horse, and running towards the doorway, whence issued a crowd of domestics, alarmed by the summons, he grasped the hand of an old white-headed man, who presented the feeble remains of having been once tall and powerful, but who was now bent and tottering with age.
“My worthy Gabriel,” said he in an affectionate tone and manner, and with a tear trembling in his eye, “dost thou not know me? How fares my father, my mother, and my sister, the Lady Isabelle?”
The old man looked at him for some moments, with his hand held up as a pent-house to his dim eyes.
“Holy St. Giles!” exclaimed he at last, “art thou indeed my young master? Art thou then alive and sound? Well, who would hae thought, they that saw me last winter, when I was so ill, that I would hae lived to hae seen this blessed day!”
“But tell me, Gabriel,” cried Hepborne, interrupting him, “tell me where are they all; I suppose I shall find them in the banquet hall above?”
“Stop thee, stop thee, Sir Patrick,” said the old seneschal, “thy father and the Lady Isabelle rode to the green-wood this morning. There was a great cry about a route of wolves that have been wrecking doleful damage on the shepens; they do say, that some of the flocks hae been sorely herried by them; so my master and the Lady Isabelle rode forth with the sleuth-hounds, and the alloundes, and the foresters; and this morning, ere the sun saw the welkin, my boy rode away to lay out the rethes and the pankers. I wot, thou remembers thee of my son Robert? He is head forester now. Thy noble father, Heaven’s blessing and the Virgin’s be about him, did that for him; may long life and eternal joy be his guerdon for all his good deeds to me and mine! And Ralpho Proudfoot was but ill content to see my Rob get the place aboon him; so Ralpho yode his ways, and hath oft sithes threatened some malure to Rob; but as to that——”
“Nay, my good Gabriel,” said Hepborne, impatiently interrupting him, “but where, I entreat thee, is my mother?”
A cloud instantly overcast the face of the venerable domestic; he hesitated and stammered—
“Nay, then, my dear young master, thou hast not heard of the doleful tidings?” [[88]]