bode for some three
weeks. There was in this place only Caradawc (the former shepherd),
his wife Alundyne, and their sole daughter Branwen. They gladly
perceived Sire Richard was no more a peasant than he was a curmudgeon;
as Caradawc observed: "It is perfectly apparent that the robe of Padarn
Beisrudd would fit him as a glove does the hand, but we will ask no
questions, since it is not wholesome to dispute the orderings of Owain
Glyndwyr."

They did not; and later day by day would Richard Holland drive the
flocks to pasture near the 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 its long solitudes, grateful with the warm odors
of growing things and with poignant bird-noises, and the tranquillity
of these meadows, that were always void of hurry, bedrugged the man
through many fruitless and incurious hours.

Each day at noon would Branwen bring his dinner, and sometimes chat
with him while he ate. After supper he would discourse to Branwen of
remote kingdoms, wherethrough he had ridden at adventure, as the wind
veers, among sedate and alien peoples who adjudged him a madman; and
she, in turn, would tell him many curious tales from the _Red Book of
Hergest_--as of Gwalchmai, and Peredur, and Geraint, in each one of
whom she had presently discerned an inadequate forerunnership of
Richard's existence.

This Branwen was a fair wench, slender as a wand, and, in a harmless
way, of a bold demeanor twin to that of a child who is ignorant of evil
and in consequence of suspicion. Happily, though, had she been named
for that unhappy lady of old, the wife of King Matholwch, for this
Branwen, too, had a white, thin, wistful face, like that of an empress
on a silver coin which is a little worn. Her eyes were large and
brilliant, colored like clear emeralds, and her abundant hair was so
much cornfloss, only more brightly yellow and of immeasurably finer
texture. In full sunlight her cheeks were frosted like the surface of
a peach, but the underlying cool pink of them was rather that of a
cloud, Richard decided. In all, a taking morsel! though her shapely
hands were hard with labor, and she rarely laughed; for, as in
recompense, her heart was tender and ignorant of discontent, and she
rarely ceased to smile as over some peculiar and wonderful secret which
she intended, in due time, to share with you alone. Branwen had many
lovers, and prefer