Jean and Angus did not appear to hear them.
I knew that I only heard them because I had been listening.
Out of the mist they rode a company of wild-looking men wearing garments such as I had never seen before.

Most of them were savage and uncouth, and their clothes were disordered and stained as if with hard travel and fight.

I did not know--or even ask myself--why they did not frighten me, but they did not.

Suddenly I seemed to know that they were brave men and had been doing some brave, hard thing.

Here and there among them I caught sight of a broken and stained sword, or a dirk with only a hilt left.