Hepborne lifted him up, all streaming with blood, and, carrying him to a fountain a few paces off, bathed his head and his gaping wounds, with the vain hope that the water might revive him; but life was extinct. Sir Patrick laid him on the ground, and wept over him as if he had been a friend.
The sound of the horns now came nearer, the yell of the dogs approached, and by and by some of the hounds appeared, and ran in upon their already inanimate prey. Immediately behind them came Sir Patrick Hepborne the elder, a powerful, noble-looking man, in full vigour of life, mounted on a gallant grey, and with a crowd of foresters at his back. He took off his hunting hat to wipe his brow as he halted, and though he displayed a bald forehead, the hinder part of his head was covered with luxuriant black hair, on which age’s winter had not yet shed a single particle of snow. His beard and moustaches were of the same raven hue; and his eyes, though mild, were lofty and penetrating in their expression.
“How now, young man,” said he to his son, as he reined up his steed, “what, hast thou killed the wolf?”
“My father!” cried the younger Sir Patrick, starting up and running to his stirrup.
“My son!” exclaimed the delighted and astonished Sir Patrick the elder; and, vaulting from his horse, they were immediately locked in each other’s arms.
It was some minutes before either father or son could articulate anything but broken sentences. The minds of both reverted to the overwhelming loss they had sustained since they last saw each other, and they both wept bitterly.
“My dear boy, forgive me,” said the father; “but these tears are—we have lost—but yet I see thou hast already gathered the sad intelligence. ’Tis now three months—Oh, bitter affliction!—but she is a saint above, my dear Patrick.”
Again they enclasped each other, and, giving way to their feelings, the two warriors wept on each other’s bosoms, till the [[96]]rude group of foresters around them were melted into tears at the spectacle. Sir Patrick the elder was the first to regain command of himself, and the first use he made of the power of speech was to put a thousand questions to his son. The younger knight satisfied him as to everything, and concluded by giving him the history of his accident, and the glorious but afflicting death of his faithful old allounde.
“Poor fellow,” said the elder Sir Patrick, going up to the spot where he lay, and dropping a tear of gratitude over him—“poor fellow, he has died as a hero ought to do—nobly, in stark stoure in the field. Let him be forthwith yirded, dost hear me, on the spot where he fell; I shall have a stone erected over him, in grateful memorial of his having died for his master.”
Some of the foresters, who had implements for digging out the vermin of the chase, instantly executed this command, and the two knights tarried until they had themselves laid his body in the grave dug for him.