Her eyes were fixed on the despairing woman, from whose lips issued a low moan, and whose bosom heaved with long-drawn, laborious breaths. Morwen was well aware what sacrifices the tribe was making and would have to make for her husband's safety, and this gave inexpressible pain to her.
The moans of the poor woman cut her to the heart. At length, unable to endure it longer, she went to her, put her arms round her, and drew her to herself. Then, all at once, with a cry, the wife of Howel shook herself free, and found words—
"Monday! It is on Monday that he must die, and that is our thirtieth wedding-day? For all these years we have been together, as one soul, and it will tear the heart out of my body—and to be hung on the gallows—the shame, the loss—and Howel so clever, so shrewd! Where has been his wit that he could not get free? He always had a cunning above other men. And on our wedding-day!" She ran to a coffer and opened it, and drew forth a knitted garment, such as we should nowadays call a jersey.
"See, see!" cried the wretched woman. "I have been fashioning this; a thought of him is knitted into every loop I have made, and I have kissed it—kissed it a thousand times because it was for him. He feels the cold in the long winters, and I made this for him that he might be warm, and wherever he was remember me, and bear my kisses and my finger-work about him. And he must die, and shiver, and be cold in the grave! Nay, shiver and be cold hanging on the gallows, and the cold winds sway him. He shall wear my knitted garment. They will let me pass to him, and I will draw it over him."
Then in at the door came the old man, who had been left when his son was taken. He was supporting that son's wife, and at the same time was carrying her child, which she was incapable of sustaining. She was frantic with grief.
"I have brought one sorrowful woman to another," said the old man. "This is Sheena. She must not see it. They are taking my son now to ——. Keep her here, she is mad. She will run there, and if she sees, she will die. For the child's sake, pity her, make her live—calm her."
She had been allowed an hour with her husband in their house, and then the soldiers had led him away, bound his hands behind his back, and had conducted him towards the church.
She had followed with the child, crying, plucking at her hair with the one free hand, thrusting from her the old man who would hold her back, striving to reach, to retain her husband, her eyes blinded with terror and tears, her limbs giving way under her.
The five men confined within the court-house heard her piercing cries, her entreaties to be allowed once more to kiss her husband, her screams as she was repulsed by the guards. They shuddered and put their hands to their ears; but one, the foxfaced man, whose name was Madoc, burst into a torrent of curses and of blasphemy till Morgan the Sacristan went to him in reproof, and then the wretched man turned on him with imprecations.
"Come now, man," said the smith, "why shouldst thou take on so frantically? We leave wives that we love and that love us; but thy old cat, good faith! I should esteem it a welcome release to be freed from her tongue and nails."