The Lilac Fairy Book Part 42

'What dost thou here?' she asked, laying her hand on the bowl, and as she spoke she too stuck fast, and was not able to utter a word. Then thunder was heard and a veil of darkness descended upon them, and the castle vanished and they with it.

When Kicva, the wife of Pryderi, found that neither her husband nor his mother returned to her, she was in such sorrow that she cared not whether she lived or died. Manawyddan was grieved also in his heart, and said to her:

'It is not fitting that we should stay here, for we have lost our dogs and cannot get food. Let us go into England--it is easier for us to live there.' So they set forth.

'What craft wilt thou follow?' asked Kicva as they went along.

'I shall make shoes as once I did,' replied he; and he got all the finest leather in the town and caused gilded clasps to be made for the shoes, till everyone flocked to buy, and all the shoemakers in the town were idle and banded together in anger to kill him. But luckily Manawyddan got word of it, and he and Kicva left the town one night and proceeded to Narberth, taking with him a sheaf of wheat, which he sowed in three plots of ground. And while the wheat was growing up, he hunted and fished, and they had food enough and to spare. Thus the months pa.s.sed until the harvest; and one evening Manawyddan visited the furthest of his fields of wheat; and saw that it was ripe.

'To-morrow I will reap this,' said he; but on the morrow when he went to reap the wheat he found nothing but the bare straw.

Filled with dismay he hastened to the second field, and there the corn was ripe and golden.

'To-morrow I will reap this,' he said, but on the morrow the ears had gone, and there was nothing but the bare straw.

'Well, there is still one field left,' he said, and when he looked at it, it was still fairer than the other two. 'To-night I will watch here,' thought he, 'for whosoever carried off the other corn will in like manner take this, and I will know who it is.' So he hid himself and waited.

The hours slid by, and all was still, so still that Manawyddan well-nigh dropped asleep. But at midnight there arose the loudest tumult in the world, and peeping out he beheld a mighty host of mice, which could neither be numbered nor measured. Each mouse climbed up a straw till it bent down with its weight, and then it bit off one of the ears, and carried it away, and there was not one of the straws that had not got a mouse to it.

Full of wrath he rushed at the mice, but he could no more come up with them than if they had been gnats, or birds of the air, save one only which lingered behind the rest, and this mouse Manawyddan came up with.

Stooping down he seized it by the tail, and put it in his glove, and tied a piece of string across the opening of the glove, so that the mouse could not escape. When he entered the hall where Kicva was sitting, he lighted a fire, and hung the glove up on a peg.

'What hast thou there?' asked she.

'A thief,' he answered, 'that I caught robbing me.'

'What kind of a thief may it be which thou couldst put in thy glove?'

said Kicva.

'That I will tell thee,' he replied, and then he showed her how his fields of corn had been wasted, and how he had watched for the mice.

'And one was less nimble than the rest, and is now in my glove.

To-morrow I will hang it, and I only wish I had them all.'

'It is a marvel, truly,' said she, 'yet it would be unseemly for a man of thy dignity to hang a reptile such as this. Do not meddle with it, but let it go.'

'Woe betide me,' he cried, 'if I would not hang them all if I could catch them, and such as I have I will hang.'

'Verily,' said she, 'there is no reason that I should succour this reptile, except to prevent discredit unto thee.'

'If I knew any cause that I should succour it, I would take thy counsel,' answered Manawyddan, 'but as I know of none, I am minded to destroy it.'

'Do so then,' said Kicva.

So he went up a hill and set up two forks on the top, and while he was doing this he saw a scholar coming towards him, whose clothes were tattered. Now it was seven years since Manawyddan had seen man or beast in that place, and the sight amazed him.

'Good day to thee, my lord,' said the scholar.

'Good greeting to thee, scholar. Whence dost thou come?'

'From singing in England; but wherefore dost thou ask?'

'Because for seven years no man hath visited this place.'

'I wander where I will,' answered the scholar. 'And what work art _thou_ upon?'

'I am about to hang a thief that I caught robbing me!'

'What manner of thief is that?' inquired the scholar. 'I see a creature in thy hand like unto a mouse, and ill does it become a man of thy rank to touch a reptile like this. Let it go free.'

'I will not let it go free,' cried Manawyddan. 'I caught it robbing me, and it shall suffer the doom of a thief.'

'Lord!' said the scholar, 'sooner than see a man like thee at such a work, I would give thee a pound which I have received as alms to let it go free.'

'I will not let it go free, neither will I sell it.'

'As thou wilt, lord,' answered the scholar, and he went his way.

Manawyddan was placing the cross-beam on the two forked sticks, where the mouse was to hang, when a priest rode past.

'Good-day to thee, lord; and what art thou doing?'

'I am hanging a thief that I caught robbing me.'

'What manner of thief, lord?'

'A creature in the form of a mouse. It has been robbing me, and it shall suffer the doom of a thief.'

'Lord,' said the priest, 'sooner than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom.'

'I will neither sell it nor set it free.'

'It is true that a mouse is worth nothing, but rather than see thee defile thyself with touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three pounds for it.'

'I will not take any price for it. It shall be hanged as it deserves.'

'Willingly, my lord, if it is thy pleasure.' And the priest went his way.

Then Manawyddan noosed the string about the mouse's neck, and was about to draw it tight when a bishop, with a great following and horses bearing huge packs, came by.

'What work art thou upon?' asked the bishop, drawing rein.

'Hanging a thief that I caught robbing me.'

'But is not that a _mouse_ that I see in thine hand?' asked the bishop.