Chivalry: Dizain des Reines

  _The Story of the Scabbard_

  In the year of grace 1400 (Nicolas begins) King Richard, the secondmonarch of that name to rule in England, wrenched his own existence,and nothing more, from the close wiles of his cousin, Harry of Derby,who was now sometimes called Henry of Lancaster, and sometimesBolingbroke. The circumstances of this evasion having been recorded inthe preceding tale, it suffices here to record that this Henry waspresently crowned King of England in Richard's place. All persons,saving only Owain Glyndwyr and Henry of Lancaster, believed KingRichard dead at that period when Richard attended his own funeral, asa proceeding taking to the fancy, and, among many others, saw the bodyof Edward Maudelain interred with every regal ceremony in the chapelat Langley Bower. Then alone Sire Richard crossed the seas, and atthirty-three set out to inspect a transformed and gratefullyuntrammelling world wherein not a foot of land belonged to him.

  Holland was the surname he assumed, the name of his half-brothers; andto detail his Asian wanderings would be tedious and unprofitable. Butat the end of each four months would come to him a certain messengerfrom Glyndwyr, supposed by Richard to be the imp Orvendile, whonotoriously ran every day around the world upon the Welshman'sbusiness. It was in the Isle of Taprobane, where the pismires are asgreat as hounds, and mine and store the gold of which the inhabitantsafterward rob them through a very cunning device, that this emissarybrought the letter which read simply, "Now is England fit pasture forthe White Hart." Presently Richard Holland was in Wales, and then herode to Sycharth.

  There, after salutation, Glyndwyr gave an account of his longstewardship. It was a puzzling record of obscure and tirelessmachinations with which we have no immediate concern: in brief, thebarons who had ousted King Log had been the very first to find theirsquinting King Stork intolerable; and Northumberland, Worcester,Douglas, Mortimer, and so on, were already pledged and in open revolt."By the God I do not altogether serve," Owain ended, "you have but todeclare yourself, sire, and within the moment England is yours."

  Richard spoke with narrowed eyes. "You forget that while Henry ofLancaster lives no other man can ever hope to reign tranquilly inthese islands. Come then! the hour strikes; and we will coax the devilfor once in a way to serve God."

  "Oh, but there is a boundary appointed," Glyndwyr moodily returned."You, too, forget that in cold blood this Henry stabbed my best-lovedson. But I do not forget this, and I have tried divers methods whichwe need not speak of,--I who can at will corrupt the air, and causesickness and storms, raise heavy mists, and create plagues and firesand shipwrecks; yet the life itself I cannot take. For there is aboundary appointed, sire, and beyond that frontier the Master of ourSabbaths cannot serve us even though he would."

  Richard crossed himself. "You horribly mistake my meaning. Yourpractices are your own affair, and in them I decline to dabble. Imerely design to trap a tiger with his appropriate bait. For you havea fief at Caer Idion, I think?--Very well! I intend to herd your sheepthere, for a week or two, after the honorable example of Apollo. It isyour part to see that Henry knows I am living disguised anddefenceless at Caer Idion."

  The gaunt Welshman chuckled. "Yes, squinting Henry of Lancaster wouldcross the world, much less the Severn, to make quite sure of Richard'sdeath. He would come in his own person with at most some twentytrustworthy followers. I will have a hundred there; and certain agingscores will then be settled in that place." Glyndwyr meditatedafterward, very evilly. "Sire," he said without prelude, "I do notrecognize Richard of Bordeaux. You have garnered much in travelling!"

  "Why, look you," Richard returned, "I have garnered so much that I donot greatly care whether this scheme succeed or no. With age I beginto contend even more indomitably that a wise man will consider nothingvery seriously. You barons here believe it an affair of importance whomay chance to be the King of England, say, this time next year; youtake sides between Henry and me. I tell you frankly that neither ofus, that no man in the world, by reason of innate limitations, canever rule otherwise than abominably, or, ruling, can create anythingsave discord. Nor can I see how this matters either, since thediscomfort of an ant-village is not, after all, a planet-wreckingdisaster. No, Owain, if the planets do indeed sing together, it is,depend upon it, to the burden of _Fools All_. For I am as liberallyendowed as most people; and when I consider my abilities, myperformances, my instincts, and so on, quite aloofly, as I wouldappraise those of another person, I can only shrug: and to conceivethat common-sense, much less Omnipotence, would ever concern itselfabout the actions of a creature so entirely futile is, to me at least,impossible."

  "I have known the thought," said Owain,--"though rarely since I foundthe Englishwoman that was afterward my wife, and never since my son,my Gruffyd, was murdered by a jesting man. He was more like me thanthe others, people said.... You are as yet the empty scabbard,powerless alike for help or hurt. Ey, hate or love must be the sword,sire, that informs us here, and then, if only for a little while, weare as gods."

  "Pardie! I have loved as often as Salomon, and in fourteen kingdoms."

  "We of Cymry have a saying, sire, that when a man loves par amours thesecond time he may safely assume that he has never been in love atall."

  "--And I hate Henry of Lancaster as I do the devil."

  "I greatly fear," said Owain with a sigh, "lest it may be yourirreparable malady to hate nothing, not even that which you dislike.No, you consider things with both eyes open, with an unmanlyrationality: whereas Sire Henry views all matters with that heroicsquint which came into your family from Poictesme."

  "Be off with your dusty scandals!" said Richard, laughing.

  So then Glyndwyr rode south to besiege and burn the town of Caerdyf,while at Caer Idion Richard Holland abode tranquilly for some threeweeks. There was in this place only Caradawc (the former shepherd),his wife Alundyne, and their sole daughter Branwen. They gladlyperceived Sire Richard was no more a peasant than he was a curmudgeon;as Caradawc observed: "It is perfectly apparent that the robe ofPadarn Beisrudd, which refuses to adjust itself to any save highbornpersons, would fit him as a glove does the hand; but we will ask noquestions, since it is not wholesome to dispute the orderings of OwainGlyndwyr."

  Now day by day would Richard Holland drive the flocks to pasture nearthe Severn, and loll there in the shade, and make songs to his lute.He grew to love this leisured life of bright and open spaces; and itslong solitudes, grateful with the warm odors of growing things andwith poignant bird-noises; and the tranquillity of these meadows, thatwere always void of hurry, bedrugged the man through many fruitlessand contented hours.

  Each day at noon Branwen would bring his dinner, and she wouldsometimes chat with him while he ate. After supper he would discourseto Branwen of remote kingdoms, through which, as aimlessly as a windveers, he had ridden at adventure, among sedate and alien peoples whoadjudged him a madman; and she, in turn, would tell him curious talesfrom the _Red Book of Hergest_,--telling of Gwalchmai, and Peredur,and Geraint, in each one of which fine heroes she had presentlydiscerned an inadequate forerunnership of Richard's existence.

  This Branwen was a fair wench, slender and hardy. She had the bolddemeanor of a child who is ignorant of evil and in consequence ofsuspicion. Happily, though, had she been named for that unhappy ladyof old, the wife of King Matholwch, for this Branwen, too, had awhite, thin, wistful face, like that of an empress on a silver coinwhich is a little worn. Her eyes were large and brilliant, coloredlike clear emeralds, and her abundant hair was so much cornfloss, onlyit was more brightly yellow and was of immeasurably finer texture. Infull sunlight her cheeks were frosted like the surface of a peach, butthe underlying cool pink of them was rather that of a cloud just aftersunset, Richard decided. In all, a taking morsel! though her shapelyhands were hard with labor, and she rarely laughed; for, as if inrecompense, her heart was tender, and she rarely ceased to smile asthough she were thinking of some peculiar and wonderful secret whichshe intended, in due time, to share with you and with nobody else.Branwen had many lovers, and preferred
among them young Gwyllem apLlyr, a portly lad, who was handsome enough, though he had tiny andpiggish eyes, and who sang divinely.

  One day this Gwyllem came to Richard with two quarter-staves. "Saxon,"he said, "you appear a stout man. Take your pick of these, then, andhave at you."

  "Such are not the weapons I would have named," Richard answered: "yetin reason, Messire Gwyllem, I can deny you nothing that means nothingto me."

  With that they laid aside their coats and fell to exercise. In theseunaccustomed bouts Richard was soundly drubbed, as he had anticipated,but he found himself the stronger man of the two, and he managedsomehow to avoid an absolute overthrow. By what method he contrivedthis he never ascertained.

  "I have forgotten what we are fighting about," he observed, after tenminutes of heroic thumps and hangings; "or, to be perfectly exact, Inever knew. But we will fight no more in this place. Come and go withme to Welshpool, Messire Gwyllem, and there we will fight to aconclusion over good sack and claret."

  "Content!" cried Gwyllem; "but only if you yield me Branwen."

  "Have we indeed wasted a whole half-hour in squabbling over a woman?"Richard demanded; "like two children in a worldwide toyshop over anyone particular toy? Then devil take me if I am not heartily ashamed ofmy folly! Though, look you, Gwyllem, I would speak naught savecommendation of these delicate and livelily-tinted creatures so longas one is able to approach them in a becoming spirit of levity: it isonly their not infrequent misuse which I would condemn; and in myopinion the person who elects to build a shrine for any one of themhas only himself to blame if his chosen goddess will accept noburnt-offering except his honor and happiness. Yet since time's youthhave many fine men been addicted to this insane practice, as, forexample, were Hercules and Merlin to their illimitable sorrow; and,indeed, the more I reconsider the old gallantries of Salomon, and ofother venerable and sagacious potentates, the more profoundly am Iashamed of my sex."

  Gwyllem said: "This lazy gabbling of yours is all very fine. Perhapsit is also reasonable. Only when you love you do not reason."

  "I was endeavoring to prove that," said Richard gently. Then they wentto Welshpool, ride and tie on Gwyllem's horse. Tongue loosened by theclaret, Gwyllem raved aloud of Branwen, like a babbling faun, while toeach rapture Richard affably assented. In his heart he likened the boyto Dionysos at Naxos, and could find no blame for Ariadne. Moreover,the room was comfortably dark and cool, for thick vines hung about thewindows, rustling and tapping pleasantly, and Richard was content.

  "She does not love me?" Gwyllem cried. "It is well enough. I do notcome to her as one merchant to another, since love was never bartered.Listen, Saxon!" He caught up Richard's lute. The strings shriekedbeneath Gwyllem's fingers as he fashioned his rude song.

  Sang Gwyllem:

  "Love me or love me not, it is enough That I have loved you, seeing my whole life is Uplifted and made glad by the glory of Love,-- My life that was a scroll bescrawled and blurred With tavern-catches, which that pity of his Erased, and wrote instead one lonely word, O Branwen!

  "I have accorded you incessant praise And song and service, dear, because of this; And always I have dreamed incessantly Who always dreamed, when in oncoming days This man or that shall love you, and at last This man or that shall win you, it must be That, loving him, you will have pity on me When happiness engenders memory And long thoughts, nor unkindly, of the past, O Branwen!

  "Of this I know not surely, who am sure That I shall always love you while I live, And that, when I am dead, with naught to give Of song or service, Love will yet endure, And yet retain his last prerogative, When I lie still, and sleep out centuries, With dreams of you and the exceeding love I bore you, and am glad dreaming thereof, And give God thanks for all, and so find peace, O Branwen!"

  "Now, were I to get as tipsy as that," Richard enviously thought,midway in a return to his stolid sheep, "I would simply go to sleepand wake up with a headache. And were I to fall as many fathoms deepin love as this Gwyllem ventures, or, rather, as he hurls himself witha splurge, I would perform--I wonder, now, what miracle?"

  For he was, though vaguely, discontent. This Gwyllem was so young, soearnest over every trifle, and above all, was so untroubled byforethought: each least desire controlled him, as varying winds sportwith a fallen leaf, whose frank submission to superior vagaries theboy appeared to emulate. Richard saw that in a fashion Gwyllem wassuperb. "And heigho!" said Richard, "I am attestedly a greater foolthan he, but I begin to weary of a folly so thin-blooded."

  The next morning came a ragged man, riding upon a mule. He declaredhimself a tinker. He chatted out an hour with Richard, who perfectlyrecognized him as Sir Walter Blount; and then this tinker crossed overinto England.

  Richard whistled. "Now my cousin will be quite sure, and now myanxious cousin will come to speak with Richard of Bordeaux. And now,by every saint in the calendar! I am as good as King of England."

  He sat down beneath a young oak and twisted four or five blades ofgrass between his fingers while he meditated. Undoubtedly he wouldkill this squinting Henry of Lancaster with a clear conscience andeven with a certain relish, much as one crushes the uglier sort ofvermin, but, hand upon heart, Richard was unable to avow anyparticularly ardent desire for the scoundrel's death. Thus crudely todemolish the knave's adroit and year-long schemings savored actuallyof grossness. The spider was venomous, and his destruction laudable;granted, but in crushing him you ruined his web, a miracle of patientmachination, which, despite yourself, compelled hearty admiring andenvy. True, the process would recrown a certain Richard, but then, asRichard recalled it, being King was rather tedious. Richard was notnow quite sure that he wanted to be King, and, in consequence, bedaily plagued by a host of vexatious and ever-squabbling barons. "Ishall miss the little huzzy, too," he thought.

  "Heigho!" said Richard, "I shall console myself with purchasing allbeautiful things that can be touched and handled. Life is a flimsyvapor which passes and is not any more: presently Branwen will bemarried to this Gwyllem and will be grown fat and old, and I shall beremarried to little Dame Isabel, and shall be King of England: and atrifle later all four of us shall be dead. Pending this deplorableconsummation a wise man will endeavor to amuse himself."

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

  Richard made no observation. In silence he fetched his horse, and didnot pause to saddle it. Quickly he rode to Gwyllem's house, and brokein the door. Against the farther wall stood lithe Branwen fightingsilently: her breasts and shoulders were naked, where Gwyllem had tornaway her garments. He wheedled, laughed, swore, and hiccoughed, turnby turn, but she was silent.

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

  For many minutes Branwen stood with averted face, shuddering. She verydimly heard the sound of Gwyllem's impotent fists as they beat againstthe countenance and body of Richard, and heard the thin splittingvicious noise of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic andtore it many times. Richard did not utter any articulate word, andGwyllem could not. There was entire silence for a heart-beat, and thethudding fall of something ponderous and limp.
r />   "Come!" Richard said then. Through the hut's twilight he came, asglorious in her eyes as Michael fresh from that primal battle with oldSatan. Tall Richard came to her, his face all blood, and lifted her inhis arms lest Branwen's skirt be soiled by the demolished thing whichsprawled across their path. She never spoke. She could not speak. Inhis arms she rode homeward, passive, and content. The horse trod withdeliberation. In the east the young moon was taking heart as thedarkness thickened, and innumerable stars awoke. Branwen noted thesethings incuriously.

  Richard was horribly afraid. He it had been, in sober verity it hadbeen Richard of Bordeaux, that some monstrous force had seized, andhad lifted, and had curtly utilized as its handiest implement. He hadbeen, and in the moment had known himself to be, the thrown spear asyet 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 hisbewilderment 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 softcheese; some shalots, salt, nuts, wild apples, lettuce, onions, andmushrooms. "Behold a feast!" said Richard. He noted then that shecarried also a blue pitcher filled with thin wine, and two cups ofoak-bark. She thanked him for last night's performance, and drank amouthful of wine to his health.

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

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

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

  "Your bard was wise, no doubt, yet it was not in such terms thatGwyllem sang of this passion. Lord," she demanded shyly, "how wouldyou 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 songof the birds of Rhiannon, an invitation to feast with a miser, and aspeech of wisdom from the mouth of a Saxon. The song you have made ofcourtesy is tinsel. Sing now in verity."

  Richard laughed, though he was sensibly nettled and perhaps a shadeabashed. 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 wasvery angry, because his vanity was hurt, and the pin-prick spurred himto a counterfeit so specious that consciously he gloried in it. He wassuperb, and she believed him now; there was no questioning the fact,he saw it plainly, and with exultant cruelty; then curt as lightningcame the knowledge that what Branwen believed was the truth.

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

  "There is a task set me," he said--"it is God's work, I think. But Ido not know--I only know that you are very beautiful, Branwen," hesaid, and in the name he found a new and piercing loveliness.

  And he said also: "Go! For I have loved many women, and, God help me!I know that I have but to wheedle you and you, too, will yield! Yonderis God's work to be done, and within me rages a commonwealth ofdevils. Child! child!" he cried, "I am, and ever was, a coward, tootimid to face life without reserve, and always I laughed because I wasafraid to concede that anything is serious!"

  For a long while Richard lay at his ease in the lengthening shadows ofthe afternoon.

  "I love her. She thinks me an elderly imbecile with a flat and reedysinging-voice, and she is perfectly right. She has never evenentertained the notion of loving me. That is well, for to-morrow, or,it may be, the day after, we must part forever. I would not have theparting make her sorrowful--or not, at least, too unalterablysorrowful. It is very well that Branwen does not love me.

  "Why should she? I am almost twice her age, an aging fellow now,battered and selfish and too indolent to love her--say, as Gwyllemloved her. I did well to kill that Gwyllem. I am profoundly glad Ikilled him, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it; but, after all, the manloved her in his fashion, and to the uttermost reach of his grossnature. I love her in a rather more decorous and acceptable fashion,it is true, but only a half of me loves her. The other half of meremembers that I am aging, that Caradawc's hut is leaky, that, infine, bodily comfort is the single luxury of which one never tires. Iam a very contemptible creature, the empty scabbard of a man,precisely as Owain said." This settled, Richard whistled to his dog.

  The sun had set. There were no shadows anywhere as Richard and hissheep went homeward, but on every side the colors of the world weremore sombre. Twice his flock roused a covey of partridges which hadsettled for the night. The screech-owl had come out of his hole, andbats were already blundering about, and the air was cooling. There wasas yet but one star in the green and cloudless heaven, and this wasvery large, like a beacon: it appeared to him symbolical that hetrudged away from this star.

  Next morning the Welshmen came, and now the trap was ready for Henryof Lancaster.

  It befell just two days later, about noon, that while Richard idlytalked with Branwen a party of soldiers, some fifteen in number, rodedown the river's bank from the ford above. Their leader paused, thengave an order. The men drew rein. He cantered forward.

  "God give you joy, fair sir," said Richard, when the cavalier was nearhim.

  The new-comer raised his visor. "God give you eternal joy, my faircousin," he said, "and very soon. Now send away this woman before thathappens which must happen."

  "Do you plan," said Richard, "to disfigure the stage of our quietpastorals with murder?"

  "I design my own preservation," King Henry answered, "for while youlive my rule is insecure."

  "I am sorry," Richard said, "that in part my blood is yours."

  Twice he sounded his horn, and everywhere from rustling underwoodsarose the half-naked Welshmen. Said Richard: "You should read historymore carefully, Cousin Henry. You might have profited, as I have done,by considering the trick which our grandfather, old Edward Longshanks,played on the French King at Mezelais.
As matters stand, your men areone to ten. You are impotent. Now, now we balance our accounts! Thesepersons here will first deal with your followers. Then they willconduct you to Glyndwyr, who has long desired to deal with youhimself, in privacy, since that Whit-Monday when you murdered hisson."

  The King began, "In mercy, sire--!" and Richard laughed a little,saying:

  "That virtue is not overabundant among us of Oriander's blood, as weboth know. No, cousin, Fate and Time are merry jesters. See, now,their latest mockery! You the King of England ride to Sycharth to yourdeath, and I the tender of sheep depart into London, without anyhindrance, to reign henceforward over these islands. To-morrow you areworm's-meat, Cousin Henry: to-morrow, as yesterday, I am King ofEngland."

  Then Branwen gave one sharp, brief cry, and Richard forgot all thingssaving this girl, and strode to her. He had caught up her hard, lithehands; against his lips he strained them close and very close.

  "Branwen--!" he said. His eyes devoured her.

  "Yes, King," she answered. "O King of England! O fool that I have beento think you less!"

  In a while Richard said: "Well, I at least am not fool enough to thinkof making you a king's whore. So I must choose between a peasant wenchand England. Now I choose, and how gladly! Branwen, help me to be morethan King of England!"

  Low and very low he spoke, and long and very long he gazed at her, andneither seemed to breathe. Of what she thought I cannot tell you; butin Richard there was no power of thought, only a great wonderment.Why, between this woman's love and aught else there was no choice forhim, he knew upon a sudden. Perhaps he would thus worship her always,he reflected: and then again, perhaps he would be tired of her beforelong, just as all other persons seemed to abate in these infatuations:meanwhile it was certain that he was very happy. No, he could not goback to the throne and to the little French girl who was in law hiswife.

  And, as if from an immense distance, came to Richard the dogged voiceof Henry of Lancaster. "It is of common report in these islands that Ihave a better right to the throne than you. As much was told ourgrandfather, King Edward of happy memory, when he educated you and hadyou acknowledged heir to the crown, but his love was so strong for hisson the Prince of Wales that nothing could alter his purpose. Andindeed if you had followed even the example of the Black Prince youmight still have been our King; but you have always acted socontrarily to his admirable precedents as to occasion the rumor to begenerally believed throughout England that you were not, after all,his son--"

  Richard had turned impatiently. "For the love of Heaven, truncate yourabominable periods. Be off with you. Yonder across that river is thethrone of England, which you appear, through some lunacy, to considera desirable possession. Take it, then; for, praise God! the sword hasfound its sheath."

  The King answered: "I do not ask you to reconsider your dismissal,assuredly--Richard," he cried, a little shaken, "I perceive that untilyour death you will win contempt and love from every person."

  "Yes, yes, for many years I have been the playmate of the world," saidRichard; "but to-day I wash my hands, and set about another and morelaudable business. I had dreamed certain dreams, indeed--but what hadI to do with all this strife between the devil and the tiger? No,Glyndwyr will set up Mortimer against you now, and you two must fightit out. I am no more his tool, and no more your enemy, mycousin--Henry," he said with quickening voice, "there was a time whenwe were boys and played together, and there was no hatred between us,and I regret that time!"

  "As God lives, I too regret that time!" the bluff, squinting Kingreplied. He stared at Richard for a while wherein each understood."Dear fool," Sire Henry said, "there is no man in all the world buthates me saving only you." Then the proud King clapped spurs to hisproud horse and rode away.

  More lately Richard dismissed his wondering marauders. Now he andBranwen were alone and a little troubled, since each was afraid ofthat oncoming moment when their eyes must meet.

  So Richard laughed. "Praise God!" he wildly cried, "I am the greatestfool unhanged!"

  She answered: "I am the happier for your folly. I am the happiest ofGod's creatures."

  And Richard meditated. "Faith of a gentleman!" he declared; "but youare nothing of the sort, and of this fact I happen to be quitecertain." Their lips met then and afterward their eyes; and each ofthese ragged peasants was too glad for laughter.

  THE END OF THE EIGHTH NOVEL