From the thickets issued a boy about his own age, with a huge faggot of dead wood on his back. He was barefooted and barelegged, and what little clothing he had was sorely tattered and soiled; but the wholesome brown of his tanned face, and the springy lightness of his step under that heavy burden, told that his rough life agreed with him. It was plain, however, from the wandering look of his eyes, and the bird-like restlessness of all his movements, that he was one of the poor half-witted creatures so numerous then in every part of France, and pretty common even now in some remote parts of it.
At sight of the young noble (whose grim features had certainly nothing reassuring in them at the first glance) the simpleton came to a sudden halt, and looked not a little scared. Nor was this surprising; for so many and so tyrannical were the privileges claimed by the landed gentry in an age when all France was divided into beasts of prey called nobles and beasts of burden called peasants, that (though among the sturdy Bretons there was happily less of the frightful oppression that disgraced France proper) this poor lad could not tell that he might not have committed, by picking up these dry sticks in a wood that virtually belonged to no one, some offence rendering him liable to punishment; and punishment was no trifle in the fourteenth century, whether inflicted by the law or against it.
But ere a word could be spoken on either side, there came a sudden and startling interruption.
Fully occupied with his supposed enemy in front, the wood-boy knew nothing of the far worse peril that menaced him from the rear. He never heard, poor lad, the warning rustle in the thicket behind him, nor saw the hungry gleam of the cruel greenish-yellow eye that glared at him through the tangled boughs; but all at once came a crackle and crash of broken twigs—a fierce yell, a stifled cry, a heavy fall—and the forest-lad lay face downward on the earth, struggling beneath the weight of a huge grey wolf, ravenous from its winter fast!
BERTRAND GRAPPLES WITH THE WOLF
Luckily for the poor boy, the furious beast was hampered for a moment by the projecting sticks of the huge fagot, on which its first rush had fallen. But an instant more would have seen the helpless lad fearfully mangled, if not killed outright, when, just as all seemed over, rescue came.
The moment the young noble caught sight of the springing monster, he looked round for the hunting-knife that he had flung down in the grass and ferns; but not finding it, he whirled up the broken bough like a flail, and dealt a crushing blow at the wolf’s head with all his might and main.
Had that blow fallen as it was meant, the brute would never have moved again; but a quick jerk of the long, gaunt body foiled the stroke, which, missing its head, hit the fore paw and snapped the bone like a reed. With a sharp howl of pain, the savage beast let go its prey and flew at its enemy.
But that sullen, hard-featured lad was one whom no peril, no matter how sudden and terrific, ever found unprepared. Dropping his now useless club, he sprang upon the wolf in turn and fastened both hands on its lean, sinewy throat with a grip like a smith’s vice.