The Hot Swamp Part 44

"I care not," returned the Hebrew, "whether it was the intrigues of your court or the circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sure 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 sunshine that ruled at the time. Curiously enough he found that it was the latter.

That evening the doctor of the royal household was summoned by an affrighted servitor to the apartment of Gadarn, who had been overheard choking. The alarmed man of medicine went at once, and, bursting into the room without knocking, found the great northern chief sitting on the edge of his couch purple in the face and with tears in his eyes. The exasperated man leaped up intending to kick the doctor out, but, changing his mind, he kicked the horrified servitor out instead, and, taking the doctor into his confidence, related to him an anecdote which had just been told to him by Bladud.

"It will be the death of the king," said Gadarn. "You had better go to him. He may need your services."

But the king was made of sterner stuff than his friend imagined. He put strong constraint upon himself, and, being not easily overcome by feeling--or anything else under the sun--he lived to relate the same anecdote to his wife and daughter.

The day following, Bladud resumed with the Hebrew the conversation that had been interrupted by Branwen.

"I was going to have said to you, Beniah, that I want your services very much."

"You had said that much, prince, before Bran--I mean Cor--that is, the old woman--interrupted us. How can I serve you?"

"By going back with me to the Hot Swamp and helping to carry out a grand scheme that I have in my brain."

The Hebrew shook his head.

"I love not your grand schemes," he said, somewhat sternly. "The last grand scheme that your father had was one which, if successfully carried out, would have added a large portion of Albion to his dominions, and would have swept several tribes off the face of the earth. As it was, the mere effort to carry it out cost the lives of many of the best young men on both sides, and left hundreds of mothers, wives, sisters, and children to mourn their irreparable losses, and to wonder what all the fighting was about. Indeed, there are not a few grey-bearded men who share that wonder with the women and children, and who cannot, by any effort of their imagination, see what advantage is gained by either party when the fight is over."

"These grey-beards must be thick-skulled, then," replied the prince with a smile, "for does not the victor retain the land which he has conquered?"

"Yea, truly, and he also retains the tombs of the goodly young men who have been slain, and also the widows and sweethearts, and the national loss resulting from the war--for all which the land gained is but a paltry return. Moreover, if the All-seeing One cared only for the victors, there might be some understanding of the matter--though at the cost of justice--but, seeing that He cares for the vanquished quite as much as for the victorious, the gain on one side is counterbalanced by the loss on the other side, while the world at large is all the poorer, first, by the loss of much of its best blood, second, by the creation of a vast amount of unutterable sorrow and bitter hatred, and, third, by a tremendous amount of misdirected energy.

"Look, for instance, at the Hot Swamp. Before the late war it was the abode of a happy and prosperous population. Now, it is a desolation.

Hundreds of its youth are in premature graves, and nothing whatever has been gained from it by your father that I can see."

"But surely men must defend themselves and their women and children against foes?" said Bladud.

"Verily, I did not say they should not," replied Beniah. "Self-defence is a duty; aggressive war, in most cases (I do not say in all), is a blunder or a sin."

"I think that my mind runs much on the same line with yours, Beniah, as to these things, but I am pretty sure that a good many years will pa.s.s over us before the warriors of the present day will see things in this light."

One is apt to smile at Bladud's prophetic observation, when one reflects that about two thousand seven hundred years have elapsed since that day, and warriors, as well as many civilians, have not managed to see it in this light yet!

"However," continued the prince, "the scheme which runs in my head is not one of war--aggressive or defensive--but one of peace, for the betterment of all mankind. As you know, I have begun to build a city at the Hot Swamp, so that all who are sick may go to that beautiful country and find health, as I did. And I want your help in this scheme."

"That is well, prince, but I see not how I can aid you. I am not an engineer, who could carry out your devices, nor an architect who could plan your dwellings. And I am too old for manual labour--though, of course, it is not for that you want me."

"You are right, Beniah. It is not for that. I have as many strong and willing hands to work as I require, but I want wise heads, full of years and experience, which may aid me in council and guard me from the blunders of youth and inexperience. Besides, man was not, it seems to me, put into this world merely to enjoy himself. If he was, then are the brutes his superiors, for they have no cares, no anxieties about food or raiment, or housing, and they enjoy themselves to the full as long as their little day lasts. There is surely some n.o.bler end for man, and as you have given much study to the works and ways and reputed words of the All-seeing One, I want you to aid me in helping men to look upward--to soar like the eagle above the things of earth, as well as to consider the interests of others, and so, as far as may be, unlearn selfishness. Will you join me for this end?"

"That will I, with joy," answered the Hebrew with kindling eye; "but your ambition soars high, prince. Have you spoken to Branwen on these subjects?"

"Of course I have, and she, like a true woman, enters heartily into my plans. Like myself, she does not think that being wedded and happy is the great end of life, but only the beginning of it. When the wedding is over, our minds will then be set free to devote ourselves to the great work before us."

"And what duties in the work will fall to the lot of Branwen?" asked Beniah, with an amused look.

"The duties of a wife, of course," returned the prince. "She will lend a sympathetic ear to all plans and proposals; her ingenious imagination will suggest ideas that might escape my grosser mind; her brilliant fancy will produce combinations that my duller brain would never think of; her hopeful spirit will encourage me to perseverance where accident or disaster has a tendency to demoralise, and her loving spirit will comfort me should failure, great or small, be permitted to overtake me.

All this, I admit, sounds very selfish, but you asked me what part Branwen should play in regard to _my_ schemes. If you had asked me what part I am to play in her life and work, the picture might be inverted to some extent--for our lives will be mutual--though, of course, I can never be to her what she will be to me."

With this exalted idea of the married state, Prince Bladud looked forward to his wedding. Whether Dromas was imbued with similar ideas we cannot tell; but of this we are sure, that he was equally devoted to the princess--as far as outward appearance went--and he entered with keenest zest and appreciation into the plans and aspirations of his friend, with regard to the welfare of mankind in general, and the men of Albion in particular.

Not many days after that there was a double wedding at Hudibras town, which created a tremendous sensation throughout all the land. For, although news travelled slowly in those days, the fame of Bladud and his wonderful cure, and his great size and athletic powers, coupled with his Eastern learning, and warlike attainments and peaceful proclivities, not to mention the beauty and romantic adventures of his bride, had made such an impression on what may be styled the whole nation, that noted chiefs came from all parts far and near, to his wedding, bringing as many of their distinguished followers with them as they deemed necessary to safe travelling in an unsettled country. Some even came from the great western island called Erin, and others from the remote isle of the north which lay beyond Gadarn's country, and was at a later period named Ultima Thule.

"I wonder when they're going to stop coming," remarked Gadarn to King Hudibras, as the self-invited guests came pouring in.