For a long while Richard lay at his ease in the lengthening shadows of the afternoon.
"I love her. She thinks me an elderly imbecile with a flat and reedy singing-voice, and she is perfectly right. She has never even entertained the notion of loving me. That is well, for to-morrow, or, it may be, the day after, we must part forever. I would not have the parting make her sorrowful—or not, at least, too unalterably sorrowful. It is very well that Branwen does not love me.
"How should she? I am almost twice her age, an old fellow now, battered and selfish and too indolent to love her—say, as Gwyllem did. I did well to kill that Gwyllem. I am profoundly glad I killed him, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it; but, after all, the man loved her in his fashion, and to the uttermost reach of his gross nature. I love her in a rather more decorous and acceptable fashion, it is true, but only a half of me loves her; and the other half of me remembers that I am aging, that Caradawc's hut is leaky, that, in fine, bodily comfort is the single luxury of which one never tires. I am a very contemptible creature, the handsome scabbard of a man, precisely as Owain said." This settled, Richard whistled to his dog.
The sun had set, but it was not more than dusk. There were no shadows anywhere as Richard and his sheep went homeward, but on every side the colors of the world were more sombre. Twice his flock roused a covey of partridges which had settled for the night. The screech-owl had come out of his hole, and bats were already blundering about, and the air was more cool. There was as yet but one star in the green and cloudless heaven, and this was very large, like a beacon, and it appeared to him symbolical that he trudged away from it.
Next day the Welshmen came, and now the trap was ready for Henry of Lancaster.
It befell just two days later, about noon, that while Richard idly talked with Branwen a party of soldiers, some fifteen in number, rode down the river's bank from the ford above. Their leader paused, then gave an order. The men drew rein. He cantered forward.
"God give you joy, fair sir," said Richard, when the cavalier was at his elbow.
The new-comer raised his visor. "God give you eternal joy, my fair cousin," he said, "and very soon. Now send away this woman before that happens which must happen."
"You design murder?" Richard said.