“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 heartbeat, 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 today a napkin, some garlic, a ham, and a small soft cheese; some shallots, 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 pinprick 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
