some great and solemn undertaking. I cannot well express in words
the feeling which possessed me--ay, and Bertrand too--for we began
to speak of the matter one with another--but it seemed to us both
as though a high and holy task lay before us, for which we must
needs prepare ourselves with fasting and prayer; I wondered if,
perhaps, it was thus that knights and men in days of old felt when
they had taken the Red Cross, and had pledged themselves to some
Crusade in the East.

Well, thus matters went on, quietly enough outwardly, till the
Feast of the Nativity had come and gone, and with that feast came a
wonderful change in the weather. The frost yielded, the south wind
blew soft, the snow melted away one scarce knew how, and a breath
of spring seemed already in the air, though we did not dare to hope
that winter was gone for good and all.

It was just when the year had turned that we heard a rumour in the
town, and it was in this wise that it reached our ears. De
Baudricourt had been out with his dogs, chasing away the wolves
back into their forest lairs. He had left us some business to
attend to for him within the Castle, else should we doubtless have
been of the party. But he was the most sagacious huntsman of the
district, and a rare day's sport they did have, killing more than a
score of wolves, to the great joy of the townsfolk and of the
country people without the walls. It was dark ere he got home, and
he came in covered with mud from head to foot; the dogs, too, were
so plastered over, that they had to be given to the servants to
clean ere they could take their wonted places beside the fire; and
some of the poor beasts had ugly wounds which needed to be washed
and dressed.