"There were two in that place where I stopped falling."

The ealdorman and I stared at him in wonder. It amazed us that in
such a moment a man should think of this trifle. And now he was
turning his soiled pouch inside out and wiping it with a tuft of
grass, grumbling the while. It was plain that the danger had made
no impression on him.

"Were not you frightened when you found how nearly you had fallen
from the cliff?" I asked him.

"No; why should I be? I did not fall from it. I was feared enough
when I thought that I was going, and I thought I was at the bottom
when I came to myself. But as I had not gone so far, there was an
end."

I minded the story of the Huntsman's Leap, and how I had felt when
I knew my escape. It was plain that this forest-bred Erpwald, with
his cool head, and lack of power to picture what might have been,
would make a good warrior, so far as dogged fearlessness goes, and
that is a long way.

Now the ealdorman kept what else he might have to say until we were
at home, for it was time for us to be off. So we brushed Erpwald
down and hid his cut under a cap that the good franklin of the
house lent him, for his own was gone, as he said, to make a bird's
nest somewhere on the cliffs; and then Elfrida came from the
cottage, looking a little white and shaken with her fright, but
otherwise none the worse, and we started.