When Bertrand entered the hall, the expectant group started at the change that a few hours had wrought in him. Whether from the effect of the wonderful revelation made to him that day, or from the encouraging sense of having achieved a feat of which the best of those who despised him might have been proud, he seemed to have grown all at once from a rude, passionate, uncouth boy into a calm, fearless, self-reliant man. His once drooping head was now proudly erect; his heavy figure had an upright, manly bearing that half redeemed its clumsiness; and his harsh features wore a look of power and command that froze into wondering silence the jeers that rose to the lips of his handsome, scornful cousins.
The first to speak was the old knight, who, more ashamed of his momentary tenderness toward his lost son than of his former unjust harshness to him, relieved his feelings in the usual gentlemanly style of that age—with a burst of oaths worthy of a street-rough.
“Honoured father and lady mother,” said Bertrand, as he knelt to kiss the hands of his parents, seemingly not a whit discomposed by the verbal piquancy of his loving sire, “it grieves me much that ye have been ill at ease on my account. I had been here long since, had I not missed my way in the forest.”
His hearers, who had expected him to boast of having slain the wolf, or at least make some allusion to it, exchanged glances of mute surprise.
“And what of this?” asked Sir Yvon, pointing to the gaunt grey carcass on the floor.
“It was not I who slew him,” said the boy, with that innate modesty that in after years set off so strikingly the great deeds which he did. “He fell upon a half-crazed lad whom I met in the wood, and I, having let fall my knife by mischance, took him by the throat and strove to throttle him, in which grappling the boy came to my aid, and slew the beast with mine own knife.”
There was another pause of silent amazement; and perhaps even the haughty youths who listened felt a passing twinge of shame at the thought that they had been mocking and despising one who could face such a monster with his bare hands, and well-nigh master it too.
“We will hear the rest of thy tale anon,” said his father at last, “for, as the old saying goes, it is ill talk between a full man and a fasting. Ho, there, fellows, bring hither some food straightway!”
He was at once obeyed; and Bertrand, hungry as a hawk after his late battle, fell to with a will, secretly pleased to find his rigid father relaxing for once the strictness of his oft-quoted rule—
“They who came not at the first call