“It will be the death of the king,” said Gadarn. “You had better go to him. He may need your services.”
But the king was made of sterner stuff than his friend imagined. He put strong constraint upon himself, and, being not easily overcome by feeling—or anything else under the sun—he lived to relate the same anecdote to his wife and daughter.
The day following, Bladud resumed with the Hebrew the conversation that had been interrupted by Branwen.
“I was going to have said to you, Beniah, that I want your services very much.”
“You had said that much, prince, before Bran—I mean Cor—that is, the old woman—interrupted us. How can I serve you?”
“By going back with me to the Hot Swamp and helping to carry out a grand scheme that I have in my brain.”
The Hebrew shook his head.
“I love not your grand schemes,” he said, somewhat sternly. “The last grand scheme that your father had was one which, if successfully carried out, would have added a large portion of Albion to his dominions, and would have swept several tribes off the face of the earth. As it was, the mere effort to carry it out cost the lives of many of the best young men on both sides, and left hundreds of mothers, wives, sisters, and children to mourn their irreparable losses, and to wonder what all the fighting was about. Indeed, there are not a few grey-bearded men who share that wonder with the women and children, and who cannot, by any effort of their imagination, see what advantage is gained by either party when the fight is over.”
“These grey-beards must be thick-skulled, then,” replied the prince with a smile, “for does not the victor retain the land which he has conquered?”
“Yea, truly, and he also retains the tombs of the goodly young men who have been slain, and also the widows and sweethearts, and the national loss resulting from the war—for all which the land gained is but a paltry return. Moreover, if the All-seeing One cared only for the victors, there might be some understanding of the matter—though at the cost of justice—but, seeing that He cares for the vanquished quite as much as for the victorious, the gain on one side is counterbalanced by the loss on the other side, while the world at large is all the poorer, first, by the loss of much of its best blood, second, by the creation of a vast amount of unutterable sorrow and bitter hatred, and, third, by a tremendous amount of misdirected energy.