lettuce, onions, and
mushrooms. "Behold a feast!" said Richard. He noted then that she
carried also a blue pitcher filled with thin wine and two cups of
oak-bark. She thanked him for last night's performance, and drank a
mouthful of wine to his health.

"Decidedly, I shall be sorry to have done with shepherding," said
Richard as he ate.

Branwen answered, "I too shall be sorry, lord, when the masquerade is
ended." And it seemed to Richard that she sighed, and he was the
happier.

But he only shrugged. "I am the wisest person unhanged, since I
comprehend my own folly. And so, I think, was once the minstrel of old
time that sang: 'Over wild lands and tumbling seas flits Love, at will,
and maddens the heart and beguiles the senses of all whom he attacks,
whether his quarry be some monster of the ocean or some wild denizen of
the forest, or man; for thine, O Love, thine alone is the power to make
playthings of us all.'"

"Your bard was wise, no doubt, yet it was not in similar terms that
Gwyllem sang of this passion. Lord," she demanded shyly, "how would
you sing of love?"

Richard was replete and quite contented with the world. He took up the
lute, in full consciousness that his compliance was in large part
cenatory. "In courtesy, thus--"

Sang Richard:

"_The gods in honor of fair Branwen's worth
Bore gifts to her--and Jove, Olympus' lord,
Co-rule of Earth and Heaven did accord,
And Venus gave her slender body's girth,
And Mercury the lyre he framed at birth,
And Mars his jewelled and resistless sword,
And wrinkled Plutus all the secret hoard
And immemorial treasure of mid-earth,--_

"_And while the puzzled gods were pondering
Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was,
Dan Cupid came among them carolling
And proffered unto her a looking-glass,
Wherein she gazed and saw the goodliest thing
That Earth had borne, and Heaven might not surpass._"

"Three sounds are rarely heard," said Branwen; "and these are the song
of the birds of Rhiannon, an invitation to feast with a miser, and a
speech of wisdom from the mouth of a Saxon. The song you have made of
courtesy is tinsel. Sing now in verity."

Richard laughed, though he was sensibly nettled and perhaps a shade
abashed; and presently he sang again.

Sang Richard:

"_Catullus might have made of words that seek
With rippling sound, in soft recurrent ways,
The perfect song, or in the old