As he entered a wild shout of joy was heard, and Cnut ran forward with many gestures of delight.
"My dear Cuthbert, my dear Cuthbert!" he exclaimed.

"Can it be true that you have escaped?
We all gave you up; and although I did my best, yet had you not survived it I should never have forgiven myself, believing that I might have somehow done better, and have saved you from the cutthroats who attacked us." "Thanks, thanks, my good Cnut," Cuthbert cried.

"I have been through a time of peril, no doubt; but as you see, I am hale and well--better, methinks, than you are, for you look pale and ill; and I doubt not that the wound which I received was a mere scratch to that which bore you down.

It sounded indeed like the blow of a smith's hammer upon an anvil." "Fortunately, my steel cap saved my head somewhat," Cnut said, "and the head itself is none of the thinnest; but it tried it sorely, I confess.
However, now that you are back I shall, doubt not, soon be as strong as ever I was.

I think that fretting for your absence has kept me back more than the inflammation from the wound itself--but there is the earl at the door of his tent." Through the foresters and retainers who had at Cnut's shout of joy crowded up, Cuthbert made his way, shaking hands right and left with the men, among whom he was greatly loved, for they regarded him as being in a great degree the cause of their having been freed from outlawry, and restored to civil life again.