LITMIR.BIZ

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sat down beneath a young oak and twisted four or five blades of grass between his fingers while he meditated. Undoubtedly he would kill this squinting Henry of Lancaster with a clear conscience and even with a certain relish, much as one crushes the uglier sort of vermin, but, hand upon heart, Richard was unable to avow any particularly ardent desire for the scoundrel's death. Thus crudely to demolish the knave's adroit and year-long schemings savored actually of grossness. The spider was venomous, and his destruction laudable; granted, but in crushing him you ruined his web, a miracle of patient machination, which, despite yourself, compelled hearty admiring and envy. True, the process would recrown a certain Richard, but then, as Richard recalled it, being King was rather tedious. Richard was not now quite sure that he wanted to be King, and, in consequence, be daily plagued by a host of vexatious and ever-squabbling barons. "I shall miss the little huzzy, too," he thought.

      "Heigho!" said Richard, "I shall console myself with purchasing all beautiful things that can be touched and handled. Life is a flimsy vapor which passes and is not any more: presently Branwen will be married to this Gwyllem and will be grown fat and old, and I shall be remarried to little Dame Isabel, and shall be King of England: and a trifle later all four of us shall be dead. Pending this deplorable consummation a wise man will endeavor to amuse himself."

      Next day he despatched Caradawc to Owain Glyndwyr to bid the latter send the promised implements to Caer Idion. Richard, returning to the hut the same evening, found Alundyne there, alone, and grovelling at the threshold. Her forehead was bloodied when she raised it and through tearless sobs told of what had happened. A half-hour earlier, while she and Branwen were intent upon their milking, Gwyllem had ridden up, somewhat the worse for liquor. Branwen had called him sot, had bidden him go home. "That I will do," said Gwyllem and suddenly caught up the girl. Alundyne sprang for him, and with clenched fist Gwyllem struck her twice full in the face, and laughing, rode away with Branwen.

      Richard made no observation. In silence he fetched his horse, and did not pause to saddle it. Quickly he rode to Gwyllem's house, and broke in the door. Against the farther wall stood lithe Branwen fighting silently: her breasts and shoulders were naked, where Gwyllem had torn away her garments. He wheedled, laughed, swore, and hiccoughed, turn by turn, but she was silent.

      "On guard!" Richard barked. Gwyllem wheeled. His head twisted toward his left shoulder, and one corner of his mouth convulsively snapped upward, so that his teeth were bared. There was a knife at Richard's girdle, which he now unsheathed and flung away. He stepped eagerly toward the snarling Welshman, and with both hands seized the thick and hairy throat. What followed was brutal.

      For many minutes Branwen stood with averted face, shuddering. She very dimly heard the sound of Gwyllem's impotent fists as they beat against the countenance and body of Richard, and heard the thin splitting vicious noise of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic and tore it many times. Richard did not utter any articulate word, and Gwyllem could not. There was entire silence for a heart-beat, and the thudding fall of something ponderous and limp.

      "Come!" Richard said then. Through the hut's twilight he came, as glorious in her eyes as Michael fresh from that primal battle with old Satan. Tall Richard came to her, his face all blood, and lifted her in his arms lest Branwen's skirt be soiled by the demolished thing which sprawled across their path. She never spoke. She could not speak. In his arms she rode homeward, passive, and content. The horse trod with deliberation. In the east the young moon was taking heart as the darkness thickened, and innumerable stars awoke. Branwen noted these things incuriously.

      Richard was horribly afraid. He it had been, in sober verity it had been Richard of Bordeaux, that some monstrous force had seized, and had lifted, and had curtly utilized as its handiest implement. He had been, and in the moment had known himself to be, the thrown spear as yet in air, about to kill and quite powerless to refrain from killing. It was a full three minutes before he had got the better of his bewilderment and laughed, very softly, lest he disturb this Branwen, who was so near his heart....

      Next day she came to him at noon, bearing as always the little basket. It contained to-day a napkin, some garlic, a ham, and a small soft cheese; some shalots, salt, nuts, wild apples, lettuce, onions, and mushrooms. "Behold a feast!" said Richard. He noted then that she carried also a blue pitcher filled with thin wine, and two cups of oak-bark. She thanked him for last night's performance, and drank a mouthful of wine to his health.

      "Decidedly, I shall be sorry to have done with shepherding," said Richard as he ate.

      Branwen answered, "I too shall be sorry, lord, when the masquerade is ended." And it seemed to Richard that she sighed, and he was the happier.

      But he only shrugged. "I am the wisest person unhanged, since I comprehend my own folly. Yet I grant you that he was wise, too, the minstrel of old time that sang: 'Over wild lands and tumbling seas flits Love, at will, and maddens the heart and beguiles the senses of all whom he attacks, whether his quarry be some monster of the ocean or some fierce denizen of the forest, or man; for thine, O Love, thine alone is the power to make playthings of us all.'"

      "Your bard was wise, no doubt, yet it was not in such terms that Gwyllem sang of this passion. Lord," she demanded shyly, "how would you sing of love?"

      Richard was replete and contented with the world. He took up the lute, in full consciousness that his compliance was in large part cenatory. "In courtesy, thus--"

      Sang Richard:

      "The gods in honor of fair Branwen's worth Bore gifts to her:--and Jove, Olympus' lord, Co-rule of Earth and Heaven did accord, And Hermes brought that lyre he framed at birth, And Venus her famed girdle (to engirth A fairer beauty now), and Mars his sword, And wrinkled Plutus half the secret hoard And immemorial treasure of mid-earth;--

      "And while the careful gods were pondering Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was, Young Cupid came among them carolling And proffered unto her a looking-glass, Wherein she gazed, and saw the goodliest thing That Earth had borne, and Heaven might not surpass."

      "Three sounds are rarely heard," said Branwen; "and these are the song of the birds of Rhiannon, an invitation to feast with a miser, and a speech of wisdom from the mouth of a Saxon. The song you have made of courtesy is tinsel. Sing now in verity."

      Richard laughed, though he was sensibly nettled and perhaps a shade abashed. Presently he sang again.

      Sang Richard:

      "Catullus might have made of words that seek With rippling sound, in soft recurrent ways, The perfect song, or in remoter days Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek; But I am not as they,--and dare not speak Of you unworthily, and dare not praise Perfection with imperfect roundelays, And desecrate the prize I dare to seek.

      "I do not woo you, then, by fashioning Vext analogues 'twixt you and Guenevere, Nor do I come with agile lips that bring The sugared periods of a sonneteer, And bring no more--but just with, lips that cling To yours, in murmuring, 'I love you, dear!'"

      Richard had resolved that Branwen should believe him. Tinsel, indeed! then here was yet more tinsel which she must receive as gold. He was very angry, because his vanity was hurt, and the pin-prick spurred him to a counterfeit so specious that consciously he gloried in it. He was superb, and she believed him now; there was no questioning the fact, he saw it plainly, and with exultant cruelty; then curt as lightning came the knowledge that what Branwen believed was the truth.

      Richard had taken just two strides toward this fair girl. Branwen stayed motionless, her lips a little parted. The affairs of earth and heaven were motionless throughout the moment, attendant, it seemed to him; and to him his whole life was like a wave that trembled now at full height, and he was aware of a new world all made of beauty and of pity. Then the lute fell from his spread out hands, and Richard sighed, and shrugged.

      "There is a task set me," he said--"it is God's work, I think.

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