He had taken to scavenging the countryside for food wild fruit, roots - anything he could find. He had to be careful, because they could shoot you if they found you on the lord's land. He kept, as much as possible, to the uncultivated places. And he set traps for small animals. Sometimes he caught a rabbit or a hare and took it home to his mother. She gave him a tight, worried look, but she never asked where he got it from. It was meat for the pot and not to be scorned.
Then one day he found the tracks of the wild boar. It had been raining and the ground was soft. They had come further down the mountain than usual. He could see their tracks coming down and going back up, and he could see where they had stopped at a particular tree. It looked like they had stopped there many times. The gr
