Before going off on his mission the Hebrew paid a visit to his own residence, where he found Branwen busy with culinary operations. Sitting down on a stool, he looked at her with an expression of mingled amusement and perplexity.
“Come hither, my girl,” he said, “and sit beside me while I reveal the straits to which you have brought me. Verily, a short time ago I had deemed it impossible for any one to thrust me so near to the verge of falsehood as you have done!”
“I, Beniah?” exclaimed the maiden, with a look of surprise on her pretty face so ineffably innocent that it was obviously hypocritical—insomuch that Beniah laughed, and Branwen was constrained to join him.
“Yes—you and your father together, for the puzzling man has commissioned me to set out for the Hot Swamp, to tell Bladud that he is urgently wanted at home. And he would not even allow me to open my lips, when I was about to broach the subject of your disguises, although he almost certainly knows all about them—”
“What! my father knows?” interrupted Branwen, with raised eyebrows.
“Yes, and you know that he knows, and he knows that I know, and we all know that each other knows, and why there should be any objection that every one should know is more than I can—”
“Never mind, Beniah,” interrupted the girl, with the slightest possible smile. “You are a dear, good old creature, and I know you won’t betray me. Remember your solemn promise.”
“Truly I shall not forget it soon,” replied the Hebrew, “for the trouble it has cost me already to compose answers that should not be lies is beyond your light-hearted nature to understand.”
“Ah! yes, indeed,” rejoined Branwen, with a sigh of mock humility, “I was always very lighthearted by nature. The queen used frequently to tell me so—though she never said it was by ‘nature,’ and the king agreed with her—though by the way he used to laugh, I don’t think he thought light-heartedness to be very naughty. But come, Beniah, I am longing to hear what my father commissioned you to say or do.”
“Well, he was very particular in cautioning me not to tell what I know—”
“Ah! that knowledge, what a dreadful thing it is to have too much of it! Well, what more?”
“He told me what I have already told you, and bid me add from himself that he has fallen on the tracks of the lad Cormac, and that he is sure to be found in this neighbourhood.”
“That, at least, will be no lie,” suggested the maid.
“I’m not so sure of that, for the lad Cormac will never be found here or anywhere else, having no existence at all.”
Branwen laughed at this and expressed surprise. “It seems to me,” she said, “that age or recent worries must have touched your brain, Beniah, for if the lad Cormac has no existence at all, how is it possible that you could meet with him at the Hot Swamp, and even make a solemn promise to him.”
Beniah did not reply to this question, but rose to make preparation for his journey. Then, as if suddenly recollecting something that had escaped him, he returned to his seat.
“My child,” he said, “I have that to tell you which will make you sad—unless I greatly misunderstand your nature. Gunrig, your enemy, is dying.”
That the Hebrew had not misunderstood Branwen’s nature was evident, from the genuine look of sorrow and sympathy which instantly overspread her countenance.
“Call him not my enemy!” she exclaimed. “An enemy cannot love! But, tell me about him. I had heard the report that he was recovering.”
“It was the report of a sanguine mother who will not believe that his end is so near; but she is mistaken. I saw him two days ago. The arrow-head is still rankling in his chest, and he knows himself to be dying.”
“Is he much changed in appearance?” asked Branwen.
“Indeed he is. His great strength is gone, and he submits to be treated as a child—yet he is by no means childish. The manliness of his strong nature is left, but the boastfulness has departed, and he looks death in the face like a true warrior; though I cannot help thinking that if choice had been given him he would have preferred to fall by the sword of Bladud, or some doughty foe who could have given him a more summary dismissal from this earthly scene.”
“Beniah, I will visit him,” said Branwen, suddenly brushing back her hair with both hands, and looking earnestly into the Hebrew’s face.
“That will be hard for you to do and still keep yourself concealed.”
“Nothing will be easier,” replied the girl, with some impatience; “you forget the old woman’s dress. I will accompany you as far as his dwelling. It is only an easy day’s journey on foot from here.”
“But, my child, I go on horseback; and I am to be supplied with only one horse.”
“Well, my father, that is no difficulty; for I will ride and you shall walk. You will bring the horse here instead of starting straight from the palace. Then we will set off together, and I will gallop on in advance. When you reach Gunrig’s house in the evening, you will find the horse fed and rested, and ready for you to go on.”
“But how will you return, child?”
“By using my legs, man! As an old witch I can travel anywhere at night in perfect safety.”
According to this arrangement—to which the Hebrew was fain to agree—the pair started off a little after daybreak the following morning. Branwen galloped, as she had said, in advance, leaving her protector to make his slower way through the forest.
The sun was high when the domestics of Gunrig’s establishment were thrown into a state of great surprise and no little alarm at sight of a little old woman in grey bestriding a goodly horse and galloping towards the house. Dashing into the courtyard at full speed, and scattering the onlookers right and left, she pulled up with some difficulty, just in time to prevent the steed going through the parchment window of the kitchen.
“Help me down!” she cried, looking full in the face of a lumpish lad, who stood gazing at her with open eyes and mouth. “Don’t you see I am old and my joints are stiff? Be quick!”
There was a commanding tone in her shrill voice that brooked no delay. The lumpish lad shut his mouth, reduced his eyes, and, going shyly forward, held out his hand. The old woman seized it, and, almost before he had time to wink, stood beside him.
“Where is Gunrig’s room?” she demanded.
All the observers pointed to a door at the end of a passage.
“Take good care of my horse! Rub him well down; feed him. I shall know if you don’t!” she cried, as she entered the passage and knocked gently at the door.
It was opened by Gunrig’s mother, whose swollen eyes and subdued voice told their own tale.
“May I come in and see him, mother?” said Branwen, in her own soft voice.
“You are a strange visitor,” said the poor woman, in some surprise. “Do you want much to see him? He is but a poor sight now.”
“Yes—O yes!—I want very much to see him.”
“Your voice is kindly, old woman. You may come in.”
The sight that Branwen saw on entering was, indeed, one fitted to arouse the most sorrowful emotions of the heart; for there, on a rude couch of branches, lay the mere shadow of the once stalwart chief, the great bones of his shoulders showing their form through the garments which he had declined to take off; while his sunken cheeks, large glittering eyes, and labouring breath, told all too plainly that disease had almost completed the ruin of the body, and that death was standing by to liberate the soul.
“Who comes to disturb me at such a time, mother?” said the dying man, with a distressed look.
Branwen did not give her time to answer, but, hurrying forward, knelt beside the couch and whispered in his ear. As she did so there was a sudden rush of blood to the wan cheeks, and something like a blaze of the wonted fire in the sunken eyes.
“Mother,” he said, with something of his old strength of voice, “leave us for a short while. This woman has somewhat to tell me.”
“May I not stay to hear it, my son?”
“No. You shall hear all in a very short time. Just now—leave us!”
“Now, Branwen,” said the chief, taking her hand in his, “what blessed chance has sent you here?”
The poor girl did not speak, for when she looked at the great, thin, transparent hand which held hers, and thought of the day when it swayed the heavy sword so deftly, she could not control herself, and burst into tears.
“Oh! poor, poor Gunrig! I’m so sorry to see you like this!—so very, very sorry!”
She could say no more, but covered her face with both hands and wept.
“Nay, take not your hand from me,” said the dying man, again grasping the hand which she had withdrawn; “its soft grip sends a rush of joy to my sinking soul.”
“Say not that you are sinking, Gunrig,” returned the girl in pitying tones; “for it is in the power of the All-seeing One to restore you to health if it be His will.”
“If He is All-seeing, then there is no chance of His restoring me to health; for He has seen that I have lived a wicked life. Ah! Branwen, you do not know what I have been. If there is a place of rewards and punishment, as some tell us there is, assuredly my place will be that of punishment, for my life has been one of wrong-doing. And there is something within me that I have felt before, but never so strong as now, which tells me that there is such a place, and that I am condemned to it.”
“But I have heard from the Hebrew—who reads strange things marked on a roll of white cloth—that the All-seeing One’s nature is love, and that He has resolved Himself to come and save men from wrong-doing.”
“That would be good news indeed, Branwen, if it were true.”
“The Hebrew says it is true. He says he believes it, and the All-seeing One is a Redeemer who will save all men from wrong-doing.”
“Would that I could find Him, Branwen, for that is what I wish. I know not whether there shall be a hereafter or not, but if there is I shall hope for deliverance from wrong-doing. A place of punishment I care not much about, for I never shrank from pain or feared death. What I do fear is a hereafter, in which I shall live over again the old bad life—and I am glad it is drawing to a close with your sweet voice sounding in my ears. I believe it was that voice which first shot into my heart the desire to do right, and the hatred of wrong.”
“I am glad to hear that, Gunrig, though it never entered into my head, I confess, to do you such a good turn. And surely it must have been the All-seeing One who enabled me to influence you thus, and who now recalls to my mind what the Hebrew read to me—one of those sayings of the good men of his nation which are marked in the white roll I spoke of. It is this—‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’”
“That is a good word, if it be a true one,” returned the chief, “and I hope it is. Now, my end is not far off. I am so glad and thankful that you have forgiven me before the end. Another thing that comforts me is that Bladud and I have been reconciled.”
“Bladud!” exclaimed the girl.
“Ay, the prince with whom I fought at the games, you remember.”
“Remember! ay, right well do I remember. It was a notable fight.”
“It was,” returned the chief, with a faint smile, “and from that day I hated him and resolved to kill him till I met him at the Hot Swamp, where I got this fatal wound. He nursed me there, and did his best to save my life, but it was not to be. Yet I think that his tenderness, as well as your sweet voice, had something to do with turning my angry spirit round. I would see my mother now. The world is darkening, and the time is getting short.”
The deathly pallor of the man’s cheeks bore witness to the truth of his words. Yet he had strength to call his mother into the room.
On entering and beholding a beautiful girl kneeling, and in tears, where she had left a feeble old woman, she almost fell down with superstitious fear, deeming that an angel had been sent to comfort her son—and so indeed one had been sent, in a sense, though not such an one as superstition suggested.
A few minutes’ talk with Gunrig, however, cleared up the mystery. But the unwonted excitement and exertion had caused the sands of life to run more rapidly than might otherwise have been the case. The chief’s voice became suddenly much more feeble, and frequently he gasped for breath.
“Mother,” he said, “Branwen wants to get home without any one knowing that she has been here. You will send our stoutest man with her to-night, to guard her through the woods as far as the Hebrew’s cave. Let him not talk to her by the way, and bid him do whatever she commands.”
“Yes, my dear, dear son, what else can I do to comfort you?”
“Come and sit beside me, mother, and let me lay my head on your knee. You were the first to comfort me in this life, and I want you to be the last. Speak with Branwen, mother, after I am gone. She will comfort you as no one else can. Give me your hand, mother; I would sleep now as in the days gone by.”
The bronzed warrior laid his shaggy head on the lap where he had been so often fondled when he was a little child, and gently fell into that slumber from which he never more awoke.
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