down. It sounded indeed like the blow of a smith's hammer upon an anvil."

"Fortunately, my steel cap saved my head somewhat," Cnut said, "and the
head itself is none of the thinnest; but it tried it sorely, I confess.
However, now that you are back I shall, doubt not, soon be as strong as
ever I was. I think that fretting for your absence has kept me back more
than the inflammation from the wound itself--but there is the Earl at the
door of his tent."

Through the foresters and retainers who had at Cnut's shout of joy
crowded up, Cuthbert made his way, shaking hands right and left with the
men, among whom he was greatly loved, for they regarded him as being in a
great degree the cause of their having been freed from outlawry, and
restored to civil life again. The earl was really affected. As Cuthbert
rode up he held out both arms, and as his page alighted he embraced him
as a father.

"My dear Cuthbert!" he exclaimed. "What anxiety have we not suffered. Had
you been my own son, I could not have felt more your loss. We did not
doubt for an instant that you had fallen into the hands of some of the
retainers of that villain Count; and from all we could learn, and from
the absence of any dead body by the side of that of Cnut, I imagined that
you must have been carried off. It was clear that your chance of life, if
you fell into the hands of that evil page, or his equally vile master,
was small indeed. The very day that Cnut was brought in, I visited the
French camp, and accused him of having been the cause of your
disappearance and Cnut's wounds. He affected the greatest astonishment at
the charge. He had not, as he said, been out of the camp for two days. My
accusation was unfounded and malicious, and I should answer this as well
as the previous outrage, when the vow of the Crusaders to keep peace