Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/143

Rh had me, and held me, Hrethel the king, with food and fee, faithful in kinship. Ne’er, while I lived there, he loathlier found me, bairn in the burg, than his birthright sons, Herebeald and Hæthcyn and Hygelac mine. For the eldest of these, by unmeet chance, by kinsman’s deed, was the death-bed strewn, when Hæthcyn killed him with horny bow, his own dear liege laid low with an arrow, missed the mark and his mate shot down, one brother the other, with bloody shaft. A feeless fight and a fearful sin, horror to Hrethel; yet, hard as it was, unavenged must the atheling die! Too awful it is for an agéd man to bide and bear, that his bairn so young