The Hot Swamp - Robert Michael Ballantyne (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

by him, to the secret satisfaction of Hafrydda, and the open amusement of the king.

But Branwen did not appear at the games, nor did she appear again during the remainder of that day, and poor Bladud was obliged to restrain his anxiety, for he felt constrained to remain beside his father, and, somehow, he failed in his various attempts to have a few words of conversation with his mother.

At last, like all sublunary things, the games came to an end, and the prince hastened to his sister's room.

"May I come in?" he asked, knocking.

"Yes, brother."

There was a peculiar tone in her voice, and a curious expression in her eyes, that the prince did not fail to note.

"Hafrydda," he exclaimed, eagerly, "there is _no_ Cormac?"

"True, brother, there is no Cormac--there never was. Branwen and Cormac are one!"

"And you knew it--and _she_ knew it, all along. Oh, why did you agree to deceive me?"

"Nay, brother, I did not mean to deceive you--at least not at first. Neither did Branwen. I knew nothing about it till she came home, after being with you at the Swamp, and told me that she was impelled by sheer pity to follow you, intending to nurse you; thinking at first that we had let you go to die alone. Then she was caught in the woods by robbers, and she only escaped from them by putting on a boy's dress and running away. They gave chase, however, caught her up, and, had it not been for you, would have recaptured her. The rest you know. But now, brother, I am jealous for my dear friend. She has expressed fear that, in her great pity for you, she may be thought to have acted an unwomanly part, and that you will perhaps despise her."

"Unwomanly! despise!" exclaimed Bladud in amazement. "Hafrydda, do you regard me as a monster of ingratitude?"

"Nay, brother, that do I not. I think that you could never despise one who has felt such genuine pity for you as to risk and endure so much."

"Hafrydda, do you think there is no stronger feeling than pity for me in the heart of Branwen?" asked Bladud in a subdued, earnest voice.

"That you must find out for yourself, brother," answered the princess. "Yet after all, if you are only fond of Cormac, what matters the feeling that may be in the heart of Branwen? Are you in love with her already, Bladud, after so short an acquaintance?"

"In love with her!" exclaimed the prince. "There is no Cormac. There is but one woman in the wide world now--"

"That is not complimentary to your mother and myself, I fear," interrupted his sister.

"But," continued the prince, paying no regard to the interruption, "is there any chance--any hope--of--of--something stronger than pity being in her heart?"

"I say again, ask that of herself, Bladud; but now I think of it," added the princess, leaping up in haste, "I am almost too late to keep an appointment with Dromas!"

She went out hurriedly, and the prince, full of new-born hopes mingled with depressing anxieties, went away into the neighbouring woods to meditate--for, in the haste of her departure, Hafrydda had neglected to tell him where Branwen was to be found, and he shrank from mentioning her name to any one else.

But accident--as we call it--sometimes brings about what the most laboured design fails to accomplish.

Owing to a feeling of anxiety which she could not shake off, Branwen had gone out that evening to cool her fevered brow in the woods, just a few minutes before the prince entered them. It was a strange coincidence; but are not all coincidences strange?

Seating herself on a fallen tree she cast up her eyes towards the sky where a solitary star, like a beacon of hope, was beginning to twinkle. She had not been there more than a few minutes when a rustle in the neighbouring thicket startled her. Almost before she had time to look round the prince stood before her. She trembled, for now she felt that the decisive hour had come--whether for good or evil.

Seating himself beside her, the prince took one of her hands in his and looked steadily into her downcast face.

"Corm--Bran--" he began, and stopped.

She looked up.

"Branwen," he said, in a low, calm voice, "will it pain you very much to know that I am glad--inexpressibly glad--that there is no youth Cormac in all the wide world?"

Whether she was pained or not the girl did not say, but there was a language in her eyes which induced Bladud to slip his disengaged arm round--well, well, there are some things more easily conceived than described. She seemed about to speak, but Bladud stopped her mouth-- how, we need not tell--not rudely, you may be sure--suffice to say that when the moon arose an hour later, and looked down into the forest that evening she saw the prince and Branwen still seated, hand in hand, on the fallen tree, gazing in rapt attention at the stars.


CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.


THE LAST.

When Bladud walked out to the Hebrew's hut next day and informed him of what had taken place, that long-suffering man heaved a deep sigh and expressed his intense relief that the whole affair was at last cleared up and had come to an end.

"I cannot view matters in the same light that you do, Beniah," said the prince, "for, in my opinion, things have only now come to a satisfactory beginning. However, I suppose that you are thinking of the strange perplexities in which you have been involved so long."

"I would not style them perplexities, prince, but intrigues--obvious and unjustifiable intrigues--in which innocent persons have been brought frequently to the verge of falsehood--if they have not, indeed, been forced to overstep the boundary."

"Surely, Beniah, circumstances, against which none of us had power to contend, had somewhat to do with it all, as well as intrigue."

"I care not," returned the Hebrew, "whether it was the intrigues of your court or the circumstances of it, which were the cause of all the mess in which I and others have been involved, but I am aweary of it, and have made up my mind to leave the place and retire to a remote part of the wilderness, where I may find in solitude solace to my exhausted spirit, and rest to my old bones."

"That will never do, Beniah," said the prince, laughing. "You take too serious a view of the matter. There is no fear of any more intrigues or circumstances arising to perplex you for some time to come. Besides, I want your services very much--but, before broaching that point, let me ask why you have invited me to come to see you here. Hafrydda gave me your message--"

"My message!" repeated the Hebrew in surprise.

"Yes--to meet you here this forenoon on urgent business. If it is anything secret you have to tell me, I hope you have not got your wonderful old witch in the back cave, for she seems to have discovered as thorough a cure for deafness as I found for leprosy at the Hot Swamp."

"Wonderful old witch!" repeated Beniah, with a dazed look, and a tone of exasperation that the prince could not account for. "Do you, then, not know about that old woman?"

"Oh! yes, I know only too much about her," replied Bladud. "She has been staying at the palace for some time, as you know, and rather a lively time the old hag has given us. She went in to see my mother one day and threw her into convulsions, from which, I think, she has hardly recovered yet. Then she went to my father's room--the chief Gadarn and I were with him at the time--and almost before she had time to speak they went into fits of laughter at her till the tears ran down their cheeks. I must say it seemed to me unnecessarily rude and unkind, for, although the woman is a queer old thing, and has little more of her face visible than her piercing black eyes, I could see nothing to laugh at in her shrivelled-up, bent little body. Besides this, she has kept the domestics in a state of constant agitation, for most of them seem to think her a limb of the evil spirit. But what makes you laugh so?"

"Oh! I see now," returned the Hebrew, controlling himself by a strong effort. "I understand now why the old woman wished to be present at our interview. Come forth, thou unconscionable hag!" added Beniah, in the voice of a stentor, "and do your worst. I am past emotion of any kind whatever now."

As he spoke he gazed, with the resigned air of a martyr, at the inner end of his cavern. Bladud also looked in that direction. A moment later and the little old woman with the grey shawl appeared; thrust out the plank bridge; crossed over, and tottered towards them.

"Dearie me! Beniah, there's no need to yell so loud. You know I've got back my hearing. What want ye with me? I'm sure I have no wish to pry into the secrets of this young man or yourself. What d'ye want?"

But Beniah stood speechless, a strange expression on his face, his lips firmly compressed and his arms folded across his breast.

"Have you become as dumb as I was deaf, old man?" asked the woman, petulantly.

Still the Hebrew refused to speak.

"Have patience with him, old woman," said Bladud, in a soothing tone. "He is sometimes taken with unaccountable fits--"

"Fits!" interrupted the old woman. "I wish he had the fits that I have sometimes. Perhaps they would cure him of his impudence. They would cure you too, young man, of your stupidity."

"Stupidity!" echoed Bladud, much amused. "I have been credited with pride and haste and many other faults in my day, but never with stupidity."

"Was it not stupid of you to go and ask that silly girl to wed you--that double-faced thing that knows how to cheat and deceive and--"

"Come, come, old woman," said the prince, repressing with difficulty a burst of indignation. "You allow your old tongue to wag too freely. I suppose," he added, turning to Beniah, "that we can conclude our conversation outside?"

But the Hebrew still remained immovable and sternly dumb.

Unable to understand this, Bladud turned again to the old woman, but, lo! the old woman was gone, and in her place stood Branwen, erect, with the grey shawl thrown back, and a half-timid smile on her face.

To say that Bladud was thunderstruck is not sufficient to indicate his condition. He stood as if rooted to the spot with his whole being concentrated in his wide-open blue eyes.

"Is my presumption too great, Bladud?" asked the girl, hesitatingly. "I did but wish to assure you that I have no other deceptions to practise. That I fear--I hope--that--"

The prince, recovering himself, sprang forward and once again stopped her mouth--not with his hand; oh! by no means!--while Beniah, with that refinement of wisdom which is the prerogative of age, stepped out to ascertain whether it happened to be rain or