About three miles beyond the outskirts of King Hudibras’ town—the name of which has now, like many other things, been lost in the proverbial mists of antiquity—an old man dwelt in a sequestered part of the forest. His residence was a dry cave at the foot of a cliff, or, rather, a rude hut which, resting against the cliff, absorbed the cave, so to speak, into its rear premises.
The old man had a somewhat aquiline nose, a long white beard, and a grave, but kindly, expression of countenance. He was one of the sons of Israel—at that time not a despised race. Although aged he was neither bowed nor weak, but bore himself with the uprightness and vigour of a man in his prime. When at home, this man seemed to occupy his time chiefly in gathering firewood, cooking food, sleeping, and reading in a small roll of Egyptian papyrus which he carried constantly in his bosom.
He was well known, far and near, as Beniah the merchant, who trafficked with the Phoenician shipmen; was a sort of go-between with them and the surrounding tribes, and carried his wares from place to place far and wide through the land. He was possessed of a wonderful amount of curious knowledge, and, although he spoke little, he contrived in the little he said to make a favourable impression on men and women. Being obliging as well as kind, and also exceedingly useful, people not only respected Beniah, but treated him as a sort of semi-sacred being who was not to be interfered with in any way. Even robbers—of whom there were not a few in those days—respected the Hebrew’s property; passed by his hut with looks of solemnity, if not of awe, and allowed him to come and go unchallenged.
Most people liked Beniah. A few feared him, and a still smaller number—cynics, who have existed since the days of Adam—held him to be in league with evil spirits. He was a tall, stalwart man, and carried a staff of oak about six feet long, as a support during his travels. It had somehow come to be understood that, although Beniah was pre-eminently a man of peace, it was nevertheless advisable to treat him with civility or to keep well out of the range of that oaken staff. Possibly this opinion may have been founded on the fact that, on one occasion, three big runaway Phoenician seamen, who thought they would prefer a life in the woods to a life on the ocean wave, had one evening been directed to Beniah’s hut as a place where strangers were never refused hospitality when they asked it with civility. As those three seamen made their appearance in the town that same evening, in a very sulky state of mind, with three broken heads, it was conjectured that they had omitted the civility—either on purpose or by accident. Be this as it may, Beniah and his six-foot staff had become objects of profound respect.
Evening was drawing on and Beniah was sitting on a stool beside his open door, enjoying the sunshine that penetrated his umbrageous retreat, and reading the papyrus scroll already referred to, when the figure of a woman approached him with timid, hesitating steps. At first the Hebrew did not observe her, but, as she drew nearer, the crackling of branches under her light footsteps aroused him. He looked up quickly, and the woman, running forward, stood before him with clasped hands.
“Oh! sir,” she exclaimed, “have pity on me! I come to claim your protection.”
“Such protection as you need and I can give you shall have, my daughter; but it is a strange request to make of such a man, in such a place, and at such a time. Moreover, your voice is not quite strange to me,” added the old man with a perplexed look. “Surely I have heard it before?”
“Ay, Beniah, you know my voice and have seen my face,” said the woman, suddenly removing her shawl and revealing to the astonished eyes of the old man the pretty head and face of Branwen with her wealth of curling auburn hair.
“Child,” exclaimed the Hebrew, rising and letting fall his roll, while he took her hand in both of his, “what folly have you been guilty of, for surely nothing but folly could move you thus to forsake the house of your friends?”
“Ay, father, you say truth,” returned the girl, her courage returning as she noted the kindly tone of the old man’s voice. “Folly is indeed the cause of it, but it is the folly of man, not of women.”
Branwen then gave him a detailed account of the duel between Bladud and Gunrig, as well as of the subsequent proceedings of the latter, with regard to herself.
The face of the old man elongated as she proceeded with her narration, and as it was long by nature—the face, not the narration—its appearance when she had concluded was solemnising in the extreme.
“Assuredly you are right, my child, for it is amazing folly in such a man as Gunrig to suppose he is a fitting mate for you,—though it is no folly in him to wish to get you for a wife,—and it is no folly in you to flee from such an undesirable union. But how to help you in this matter is more difficult to conceive than anything that has puzzled my brain since the day I left Tyre.”
“Can you not conceal me here till we have time to think what is best to be done?” asked Branwen simply, “for I will die rather than wed this—this monster Gunrig!”
The Hebrew smiled pitifully, for he saw in the maiden’s face and bearing evidence of a brave, resolute spirit, which would not condescend to boasting, and had no thought of using exaggerated language.
“Truly I will conceal you—for a time. But I cannot leave you here alone when I go on my wanderings. Besides, the king will send out his hunters all over the land—men who are trained to note the slightest track of bear, deer, and wolf, and they will find it easy work to discover your little footprints. No doubt, near the town, and even here where many wanderers come and go, they will fail to pick up the trail, but if you venture into the lonely woods the footmarks will certainly betray you, and if I go with you, my doom will be fixed, for my big sandal is as well known to the king’s hunters as the big nose on my face, or the white beard on my chin.”
Poor Branwen became, and looked, very miserable on hearing this, for the idea of hunters and footprints had not once occurred to her.
“Oh what, then, is to be done?” she asked with a helpless yet eager look.
For some time the old man sat in silence, with closed eyes as if in meditation. Then he said, with a sad smile, that he supposed there was nothing for it but to reveal one of his secrets to her.
“I have not many secrets, Branwen,” he said, “but the one which I am about to reveal to you is important. To make it known would be the ruin of me. Yet I feel that I may trust you, for surely you are a good girl.”
“No, I’m not,” cried Branwen, with a look of firmness, yet of transparent honesty, that amused her companion greatly; “at least,” she continued in a quieter tone, “I don’t feel good, and the queen often tells me that I am very naughty, though I sometimes think she doesn’t mean it. But when I think of that—that monster and his insult to my dear Hafrydda, and his impudence in wanting me. Oh! I could tear him limb from limb, and put the bits in the fire so that they could never come together again!”
“My dear child,” returned Beniah remonstratively, while she paused with flashing eyes and parted lips, as though she had not yet given vent to half her wrath, “whatever other folk may say or think of you, you are good enough in my esteem, but it is wrong to give way thus to wrath. Come, I will reveal my little secret, and it behoves us to be quick, for they will soon miss you and send the hunters on your track.”
As he spoke the Hebrew led the refugee through his hut and into the cave beyond, the darkness at the further end of which was so great, that it would have been impossible to see but for a stone lamp which stood in a recess in the wall. This revealed the fact that the place was used as a kitchen.
“That is my chimney,” said Beniah, taking up the lamp and holding it so that a large natural hole or crack could be seen overhead, it formed an outlet to the forest above—though the opening was beyond the reach of vision. The same crack extended below in the form of a yawning chasm, five or six feet wide. There seemed to be nothing on the other side of this chasm except the wall of the cliffs; but on closer inspection, a narrow ledge was seen with a small recess beyond. Across the chasm lay a plank which rested on the ledge.
“This is my secret—at least part of it,” said the Hebrew, pointing to the plank which bridged the chasm. “Give me your hand; we must cross it.”
Branwen possessed a steady as well as a pretty head. Placing her hand unhesitatingly in that of her guide, she quickly stood on the ledge, close to a short narrow passage, by which they reached a smaller cave or natural chamber in the solid rock. Here, to the girl’s intense surprise, she found herself surrounded by objects, many of which she had never seen before, while others were familiar enough. Against the wall were piled webs of cloth of brilliant colours, and garments of various kinds. In one corner was a heap of bronze and iron weapons, shields and other pieces of Eastern armour, while in a recess lay piled in a confused heap many Phoenician ornaments of gold, silver, and bronze, similar to those which were worn by the warriors and chief men of King Hudibras’ court. It was, in fact, the stock in trade of the Hebrew—the fount at which he replenished his travelling pack; a pack which was a great mystery to most of his friends, for, however much they might purchase out of it, there seemed to be no end to its inexhaustible power of reproduction.
“Here,” said Beniah, amused at the girl’s gaze of astonishment, “ye will be safe from all your foes till a Higher Power directs us what shall be done with you, for, to say truth, at this moment my mind is a blank. However, our present duty is not action but concealment. Water and dried fruit you will find in this corner. Keep quiet. Let not curiosity tempt you to examine these things—they might fall and cause noise that would betray us. When danger is past, I will come again. Meanwhile, observe now what I am about to do, and try to imitate me.”
He returned to the entrance, and, taking up the plank-bridge, drew it into the passage, guiding its outer end on a slight branch, which seemed to have fallen across the chasm accidentally, but which in reality had been placed there for this purpose. Then, sliding it out again, he refixed it in position.
“Is that too hard for you? Try.”
Branwen obeyed, and succeeded so well, that old Beniah commended her on her aptitude to learn.
“Now be careful,” he added, when about to re-cross the bridge. “Your life may depend on your attention to my instructions.”
“But what if I should let the plank slip?” said she in sudden anxiety.
“There is another in the cave on the floor. Besides, I have two or three planks in the forest ready against such a mishap. Fear not, but commit yourself to the All-seeing One.”
He crossed over alone, leaving the girl on the other side, and waited till she had withdrawn the bridge, when he returned to the mouth of the outer cave, and sat down to continue the perusal of his roll. Branwen meanwhile returned to the inner cave, or store, and sat down to meditate on thoughts which had been awakened by the Hebrew’s reference to the All-seeing One. She wondered if there was an All-seeing One at all, and, if there was, did He see all the wickedness that was done by men—ay, and even by women! and did He see the thoughts of her mind and the feelings of her heart?
It will be gathered from this, that the maiden was considerably in advance of the uncivilised age in which she lived, for the ancient inhabitants of Albion were not addicted to the study of theology, either natural or speculative.
“If I but knew of such an All-seeing One,” she murmured, “I would ask Him to help me.”
Raising her eyes as she spoke, she observed the goods piled round the walls, and the light of the lamp—which had been left with her—glittered on the trinkets opposite. This was too much for her. It must be remembered that, besides living in a barbarous age, she was an untutored maiden, and possessed of a large share of that love for “pretty things,” which is—rightly or wrongly—believed to be a peculiar characteristic of the fair sex. Theology, speculative and otherwise, vanished, she leaped up and, forgetting her host’s warning, began to inspect the goods.
At first conscience—for she had an active little one—remonstrated.
“But,” she replied, silently, with a very natural tendency to self-justification, “although Beniah told me not to touch things, I did not promise not to do so?”
“True, but your silence was equivalent to a promise,” said something within her.
“No, it wasn’t,” she replied aloud.
“Yes, it was,” retorted the something within her in a tone of exasperating contradiction.
This was much too subtle a discussion to be continued. She brushed it aside with a laugh, and proceeded to turn over the things with eager admiration on her expressive face. Catching up a bright blue-and-scarlet shawl, large enough to cover her person, she threw it over her and made great, and not quite successful, efforts to see her own back. Suddenly she became motionless, and fixed her lustrous brown eyes on the roof with almost petrified attention.
A thought had struck her! And she resolved to strike it back in the sense of pursuing it to a conclusion.
“The very thing,” she said, recovering from petrification, “and I’ll do it!”
The preliminary step to doing it seemed to be a general turn over of the Hebrew’s shawls, all of which, though many were beautiful, she rejected one after another until she found an old and considerably worn grey one. This she shook out and examined with approving nods, as if it were the finest fabric that ever had issued from the looms of Cashmere. Tying her luxuriant hair into a tight knot behind, and smoothing it down on each side of her face, and well back so as not to be obtrusive, she flung the old shawl over her head, induced a series of wrinkles to corrugate her fair brow; drew in her lips so as to conceal her teeth, and, by the same action, to give an aquiline turn to her nose; bowed her back, and, in short, converted herself into a little old woman!
At court, Branwen had been celebrated for her powers of mimicry, and had been a source of great amusement to her companions in the use—sometimes the abuse—of these powers; but this was the first occasion on which she had thought of personating an old woman.
Having thus metamorphosed herself, she looked eagerly round as if in search of a mirror. It need scarcely be said that glass had not been heard of by the natives of the Tin Islands or of Albion at that time, nevertheless, mirrors were not unknown. Espying in a corner, a great bronze shield, that might once have flashed terror at the siege of Troy—who knows—she set it up against the wall. It was oval in shape, and presented her face with such a wide expanse of cheeks, that she laughed lightly and turned it the other way. This arrangement gave her visage such lengthened astonishment of expression, that she laughed again, but was not ill pleased at her appearance on the whole.
To make the illusion perfect, she sought and found an article of dress, of which the Albionic name has been forgotten, but which is known to modern women as a petticoat. It was reddish brown in colour, and, so far, in keeping with the grey old shawl.
While she was busy tying on this garment, and otherwise completing her costume, almost quite forgetful in her amusement of the danger which had driven her to that strange place, she heard voices in the outer cave, and among them one which turned her cheeks pale, and banished every thought of fun out of her heart. It was the voice of Gunrig!
That doughty warrior—after having partially regained the equanimity which he had sat down on the fallen tree to recover—arose, and returned to his apartment in the palace for the double purpose of feeding and meditation. Being a robust man, he did not feel much the worse for the events of the morning, and attacked a rib of roast beef with gusto. Hearing, with great surprise, that his late antagonist was no other than Bladud, the long-lost son of the king, he comforted himself with another rib of roast beef, and with the reflection that a prince, not less than a man-at-arms, is bound to fight a duel when required to do so. Having finished his meal, he quaffed a huge goblet of spring water, and went out to walk up and down with his hands behind his back.
Doubtless, had he lived in modern days, he would have solaced himself with a glass of bitter and a pipe, but strong drink had not been discovered in those islands at the time, and smoking had not been invented. Yet it is generally believed, though we have no authentic record of the fact, that our ancestors got on pretty well without these comforts. We refrain, however, from dogmatising on the point, but it is our duty to state that Gunrig, at all events, got on swimmingly without them. It is also our duty to be just to opponents, and to admit that a pipe might possibly have soothed his wrath.
Of course, on hearing of Branwen’s flight, the indignant king summoned his hunters at once, and, putting the enraged Gunrig himself at the head of them, sent him fuming into the woods in search of the runaway. They did not strike the trail at once, because of, as already explained, the innumerable footprints in the neighbourhood of the town.
“We can’t be long of finding them now,” remarked the chief to the principal huntsman, as they passed the entrance to Beniah’s retreat.
“It may be as well to run up and ask the old man who lives here if he has seen her,” replied the huntsman. “He is a man with sharp eyes for his years.”
“As you will,” said Gunrig sternly, for his wrath had not yet been appreciably toned down by exercise.
They found the Hebrew reading at his door.
“Ho! Beniah, hast seen the girl Branwen pass this way to-day?” cried Gunrig as he came up.
“I have not seen her pass,” replied the Hebrew, in a tone so mild that the angry chief suspected him.
“She’s not in your hut, I suppose?” he added sharply.
“The door is open, you may search it if you doubt me,” returned the Hebrew with a look of dignity, which he knew well how to assume.
The chief entered at once, and, after glancing sharply round the outer room entered the kitchen. Here Beniah showed him the chimney, pointed out the yawning chasm below, and commented on the danger of falling into it in the dark.
“And what is there beyond, Hebrew?” asked the chief.
Beniah held up the lamp.
“You see,” he said, “the rock against which my poor hut rests.”
Then the old man referred to the advantages of the situation for supplying himself with food by hunting in the forest, as well as by cultivating the patch of garden beside the hut, until his visitor began to show signs of impatience, when he apologised for intruding his domestic affairs at such a time, and finally offered to join and aid the search party.
“Aid us!” exclaimed Gunrig in contempt. “Surely we need no aid from you, when we have the king’s head-huntsman as our guide.”
“That may be true, chief, nevertheless in the neighbourhood of my own hut I could guide you, if I chose, to secret and retired spots, which it would puzzle even the head-huntsman to find. But I will not thrust my services upon you.”
“You are over-proud for your station,” returned the chief angrily, “and were it not for your years I would teach you to moderate your language and tone.”
For a moment the eyes of the old man flashed, and his brows contracted, as he steadily returned the gaze of Gunrig. In his youth he had been a man of war, and, as we have said, his strength was not yet much abated by age, but years and deep thought had brought wisdom to some extent. With an evident effort he restrained himself, and made no reply. The chief, deeming his silence to be the result of fear, turned contemptuously away, and left the hut with his followers.
During this colloquy, poor Branwen had stood in the dark passage, listening and trembling lest her hiding-place should be discovered. She was a strange compound of reckless courage and timidity—if such a compound be possible. Indignation at the man who had slighted her bosom friend Hafrydda, besides insulting herself, caused her to feel at times like a raging lion. The comparative weakness of her slight and graceful frame made her at other times feel like a helpless lamb. It was an exasperating condition! When she thought of Gunrig, she wished with all her heart and soul that she had been born a big brawny man. When she thought of Bladud, nothing could make her wish to be other than a woman!
As she stood there listening, there occurred a slight desire to clear her throat, and she almost coughed. The feeling came upon her like a shock—what if she had let it out! But a sneeze! It was well known that sneezes came even to people the most healthy, and at moments the most inopportune, and well she knew from experience that to repress a sneeze would ensure an explosion fit to blow the little nose off her face. If a sneeze should come at that moment, she was lost!
But a sneeze did not come. The olfactory nerves remained placid, until the visitors had departed. Then she retreated to the inner cave, drew the grey shawl over her head, and awaited the development of her plans.
Presently she heard footsteps, and the voice of the Hebrew calling to her softly, but she took no notice. After a moment or two it sounded again, somewhat louder.
Still no answer.
Then Beniah shouted, with just a shade of anxiety, “Branwen!”
Receiving no reply, he ran in much alarm for one of his spare planks; thrust it over the chasm; crossed, and next moment stood in the inner cave the very embodiment of astonished consternation, for Branwen was gone, and in her place stood a little old woman, with a bowed form, and a puckered-up mouth, gazing at him with half-closed but piercingly dark eyes!
The Hebrew was almost destitute of superstition, and a man of great courage, but this proved too much for him. His eyes opened with amazement; so did his mouth, and he grew visibly pale.
The tables were turned at this point. The man’s appearance proved too much for the girl. Her eyes opened wide, her brilliant teeth appeared, and, standing erect, she burst into a fit of merry laughter.
“Child!” exclaimed Beniah, his usually grave mouth relaxing into a broad smile, which proved that his teeth were not less sound than his constitution, “you have shown to me that fear, or something marvellously like it, is capable of lurking within my old heart. What mean you by this?”
“I mean that there is an idea come into my head which I shall carry out—if you will allow me. I had thought at first of staying with you as your grand-daughter or your niece, but then it came into my head that I could not live long here in such a character without some one who knew me seeing me and finding me out—though, let me tell you, it would not be easy to find me out, for I can change my look and voice so that none but those who know me well could discover me. Then the idea of being an old woman came into my head, and—you can speak to my success. There is nothing more natural than that you should have an old woman to take care of your house while you go on your travels; so I can stay till you go and see my father and tell him to send for me.”
“Your father lives very far from here,” returned the Hebrew, with the lines of perplexity still resting on his brow.
“That is true; but Beniah’s legs are long and his body is strong. He can soon let my father know of his daughter’s misfortune. You know that my father is a powerful chief, though his tribe is not so strong in numbers as the tribe of King Hudibras, or that—that fiend Gunrig. But his young men and my brothers are very brave.”
“Well, let it be as you say, for the present, my child, and you may consider this cave your private chamber while you remain in my house. But let me advise you to keep close when I am absent, and do not be tempted to prove the strength of your disguise. It may not be as perfect as you think, and your voice may betray you.”
Having agreed upon this temporary plan, the Hebrew departed to make preparations for a long journey, while Branwen busied herself in arranging the apartment in which, for some time at least, she hoped to remain in hiding.
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