An illness followed this sudden attack; and during the course of it
the stout old knight, in the midst of his delirious ravings, did not
cease to affirm confidently that he must and should recover. He
laughed proudly when his fever-fits came on, and rebuked them for
daring to attack him so needlessly. Then he murmured to himself,
"That was not the right one yet; there must still be another one out
in the cold mountains."

Always at such words Sintram involuntarily shuddered; they seemed to
strengthen his notion that he who had ridden with him, and he who had
sat at table in the castle, were two quite distinct persons; and he
knew not why, but this thought was inexpressibly awful to him. Biorn
recovered, and appeared to have entirely forgotten his adventure with
the palmer. He hunted in the mountains; he carried on his usual wild
warfare with his neighbours; and Sintram, as he grew up, became his
almost constant companion; whereby each year a fearful strength of
body and spirit was unfolded in the youth. Every one trembled at the
sight of his sharp pallid features, his dark rolling eyes, his tall,
muscular, and somewhat lean form; and yet no one hated him--not even
those whom he distressed or injured in his wildest humours. This
might arise in part out of regard to old Rolf, who seldom left him
for long, and who always held a softening influence over him; but
also many of those who had known the Lady Verena while she still
lived in the world affirmed that a faint reflection of her heavenly
expression floated over the very unlike features of her son, and that
by this their hearts were won.

Once, just at the beginning of spring, Biorn and his son were hunting
in the neighbourhood of the sea-coast, over a tract of country which
did not belong to them; drawn thither less by the love of sport than