This Baron rarely changed his posture, except
to administer to Richard the medicine or refreshments which none
of his less favoured attendants could persuade the impatient
monarch to take; and there was something affecting in the kindly
yet awkward manner in which he discharged offices so strangely
contrasted with his blunt and soldierly habits and manners.
The pavilion in which these personages were, had, as became the
time, as well as the personal character of Richard, more of a
warlike than a sumptuous or royal character. Weapons offensive
and defensive, several of them of strange and newly-invented
construction, were scattered about the tented apartment, or
disposed upon the pillars which supported it. Skins of animals
slain in the chase were stretched on the ground, or extended
along the sides of the pavilion; and upon a heap of these silvan
spoils lay three ALANS, as they were then called (wolf-
greyhounds, that is), of the largest size, and as white as snow.
Their faces, marked with many a scar from clutch and fang, showed
their share in collecting the trophies upon which they reposed;
and their eyes, fixed from time to time with an expressive
stretch and yawn upon the bed of Richard, evinced how much they
marvelled at and regretted the unwonted inactivity which they
were compelled to share.
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