The abstraction of age was upon David; he sat gazing at and through the kneeling youth.
Lily approached him, carrying something square wrapped in a cloth.
"What wouldst thou say, my servant?" the bishop murmured. "Well, well, indeed, what hast thou there?"
"My father's official," answered Lily. He removed the cloth, and disclosed a book, with cover worn and water-stained, and laid it upon his master's knees.
David turned the pages, caressing them with his numb old fingers.
"Once I was harsh with a boy,"[ [11] said he. "And my harshness was because of this blemished volume. I thank thee, Lily, for bringing that sin of anger to my mind. The child, whom I had permitted to read my office-book, left it out of doors upon a rainy day. For penance I sent him to lie at full length upon the sand of the shore at Porth Mawr; and in the press of business I forgot for many hours where I had bidden him bide. When at last I ran to find him, the waves were licking his body, and half-drowned was he…. My son," the saint continued, addressing Cynyr, "hast thou not told me that the direst of thy assailant demons is a living woman, and no bloodless spirit?"
"Indeg daughter of Maenarch pesters and torments me, so that the thought of her is an ever-present temptation. Great hate and scorn has she for me, and her strength she spends in striving for my downfall. She does come bringing bannuts,[ [12] for she knows I love to eat them!"
"My father," Lily interposed, "they say that the girl is here."
"Well, indeed, now," said David, "let her come forth."
Several women pushed a maiden into the middle of the ring formed by the assembly. She seemed to have been weeping, for her eyelids were flushed; she shook her dark hair over her face, and clutched her hands together and plucked at a ring she wore.