“They welcomed me like a prince, like a brother,” Dewi said, “when I told them I came from you—I, who deserved so ill of them! The dog’s welcome was what I deserved!” he added in a choking voice.
“You risked your life to serve us and them,” said Ethne; “and what welcome could be too warm and thankful for that?”
Dewi acknowledged that he had run many risks, and had many toilsome journeys, but on these he would not dwell. He had seen Patrick also, the great Bishop Patrick. He had received his pardon and his blessing, and he had brought Patrick’s blessing for them, their father’s and mother’s blessing, and Patrick’s.
“Did they say what they would have us do?” Baithene asked.
“They long above all to see your faces once more, but they know how perilous the journey is, even if you could be free. And they entreated you for their sake, and your own, and your people’s, not to come unless it is safe.”
“But we are not free!” said Baithene; “do they know that? Do they think any toils or perils could ever have kept us from them if we were free to go?”
Dewi’s eyes sparkled with a consciousness of having good tidings to bring, a remedy, as he thought, for all their woes.
“When you open the packet and empty the bag,” said he, “you will see that you have freedom in your own hands.” And he began to untwist the ropes around the packet, while Baithene opened the bag. In the bag there were coins, gold, silver, and copper; in the packet were costly silks, and store of fine linen and woollen raiment. Finally Dewi drew from another hiding-place a box, which he presented to Ethne; it contained her mother’s jewels, carefully wrought gold and silver torques and bracelets and armlets, with clasps of gems and precious stones.
When Ethne saw the precious things she had clasped around her mother’s neck, and her mother around her own from childhood, she hid her face on her brother’s shoulder and burst into a passion of weeping. When she could speak she turned to Dewi, fearing to seem ungrateful to him.
“You have been all but starved many a time, I know,” she said, “whilst you were keeping sacredly all these treasures to bring to us!”