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.
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