Brian heard of the matter; it penetrated through the castle. He gave orders to hang the servitor, but the poor wretch took sanctuary in time; and then he rode over to Cwichelm's Hlawe himself.
What was his object?
To inquire after his progeny.
One son, a beautiful boy, had escaped the fatal curse, but it was not the child of his wife. Brian had loved a fair English girl, whom he had wooed rather by violence than love. He carried her away from her home, a thing too common in those lawless days to excite much comment. She died in giving birth to a fair boy, and was buried in the adjacent graveyard.
After he lost his other two children by leprosy, Brian became devoted to this child; the reader has heard how he lost him.
And to inquire whether, perchance, the child, whose body had never been found, yet lived, Brian first rode to Cwichelm's Hlawe.
"Have I given the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" was his bitter cry. "Doth the child yet live?"
The supposed sorceress, after incantations dire, intended to impress the mind, replied in the affirmative.
"But where?"
"Beware; the day when thou dost regain him it will be the bitterest of thy life."