5.  Llewellyn gazed with surprise at the unusual appearance of his dog.  On going into the apartment where he had left his infant son and heir asleep, he found the bed-clothes all in confusion, the cover rent, and stained with blood.

6.  He called on his child, but no answer was made, from which he hastily concluded that the dog must have devoured him; and, giving vent to his rage, plunged his sword to the hilt in Gelert’s side.

7.  The noble animal fell at his feet, uttering a dying yell, which awoke the infant, who was sleeping beneath a mingled heap of the bed-clothes, while beneath the bed lay a great wolf covered with gore, which the faithful and gallant hound had destroyed.

8.  Llewellyn, smitten with sorrow and remorse for the rash and frantic deed which had deprived him of so faithful an animal, caused an elegant marble monument, with an appropriate inscription, to be erected over the spot where Gelert was buried, to commemorate his fidelity and unhappy fate.  The place, to this day, is called Beth-Gelert, or The Grave of the Greyhound.

LESSON XXV.

Knock Again.—­CHILD’S COMPANION.

1.  I remember having been sent, when I was a very little boy, with a message from my father to a particular friend of his, who resided in the suburbs of the town in which my parents then lived.

2.  This gentleman occupied an old-fashioned house, the door of which was approached by a broad flight of stone steps of a semi-circular form.  The brass knocker was an object of much interest to me, in those days; for the whim of the maker had led him to give it the shape of an elephant’s head, the trunk of the animal being the movable portion.

3.  Away, then, I scampered, in great haste; and having reached the house, ran up the stone steps as usual; and, seizing the elephant’s trunk, made the house reecho to my knocking.  No answer was returned.

4.  At this my astonishment was considerable, as the servants, in the times I write of, were more alert and attentive than they are at present.  However, I knocked a second time.  Still no one came.

5.  At this I was much more surprised.  I looked at the house.  It presented no appearance of a desertion.  Some of the windows were open to admit the fresh air, for it was summer; others of them were closed.  But all had the aspect of an inhabited dwelling.

6.  I was greatly perplexed; and looked around, to see if any one was near who could advise me how to act.  Immediately a venerable old gentleman, whom I had never seen before, came across the way, and, looking kindly in my face, advised me to knock again.

7.  I did so without a moment’s hesitation, and presently the door was opened, so that I had an opportunity of delivering my message.  I afterward learned that the servants had been engaged in removing a heavy piece of furniture from one part of the house to the other; an operation which required their united strength, and prevented them from opening the door.