The earl was really affected.

As Cuthbert rode up he held out both arms, and as his page alighted he embraced him as a father.
"My dear Cuthbert!" he exclaimed.

"What anxiety have we not suffered.
Had you been my own son, I could not have felt more your loss.

We did not doubt for an instant that you had fallen into the hands of some of the retainers of that villain count; and from all we could learn, and from the absence of any dead body by the side of that of Cnut, I imagined that you must have been carried off.

It was clear that your chance of life, if you fell into the hands of that evil page, or his equally vile master, was small indeed.