The day was delightful. Two young theows, whose fathers had gone to the war, but who had been left behind as being too young to share its dangers, although in the flush of early youth, accompanied them, and were soon loaded with the lighter game their masters had killed, while a deer they had slain was hung in the trees, where a wolf could not reach it, and where wayfarers were not likely to pass until the sportsmen should return for their own. Onward they wandered until the sun was declining, and then, having some few miles of forest to thread, and the deer to send for, they turned on their homeward way.
No thought of any danger was on their minds that day. The Danes were too far distant. They were more than a hundred miles from the seat of war, and a hundred miles in those days meant more than five hundred would mean now.
About the hour of five they rested and bathed in a tributary of the Avon. Bertric's spirits were very high: he laughed and talked like one whose naturally ardent temperament was stimulated by the bracing atmosphere and the exercise. His active and handsome frame, bright with all the attractions of youth, was equal to any amount of woodland toil; and Alfgar, who was, as we have said, deeply attached to his companion, felt proud of his younger brother, as he delighted to call him, and Bertric loved to be called so. Alfgar trusted some day to have a yet better claim to the title.
Leaving the bathing place while there was yet time to reach home before dark, they came at last to a ford across the stream, the only spot where it could be safely forded, and as such known to the natives of the vicinity; when their dogs began to whine, and to run with their noses to the ground, as if they had found something unusual to attract their attention.
The two theows who were in front paused at the ford till their lords came up, and then pointed to the ground with a terrified aspect. Alfgar gazed and started, as did Bertric. There were the footmarks of a large number of horses, evidently belonging to a body of horsemen who must have crossed the ford since they passed it in the morning.
"Can my father have returned unexpectedly?" said Bertric. "He said he should get an early leave of absence."
Alfgar did not answer for a moment. He was evidently very much alarmed.
"Look," he said, "at the footmarks, where some have dismounted."
Bertric looked, and comprehended the terror of his companion. The armed heels, which had sunk deeply into the mud, had left traces utterly unlike the marks to which they were accustomed in similar cases.
The stories they had both heard of predatory bands of Danes who had wandered far from their main body, and had sought gratification for their lust for plunder and blood in remote spots where the inhabitants dwelt in fancied security, came to their minds, and also the inquiries which had been made in the Danish camp concerning their home and the circumstances of St. Brice's fatal night.