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.