Bertric was now about sixteen--a handsome, attractive boy, full of life and fire, yet still possessing that devotion which Father Cuthbert had remarked in him as a boy of twelve. As the heir to the lands of Aescendune, and the only son, he would have been in much danger of being spoiled had he been less genuine and manly than he was. He and Alfgar were inseparable; they seemed to revive again the traditional love of Nisus and Euryalus, or Orestes and Pylades.