"
Now day by day would Richard Holland drive the flocks to pasture near
the Severn, and loll there in the shade, and make songs to his lute.
He grew to love this leisured life of bright and open spaces; and its
long solitudes, grateful with the warm odors of growing things and
with poignant bird-noises; and the tranquillity of these meadows, that
were always void of hurry, bedrugged the man through many fruitless
and contented hours.
Each day at noon Branwen would bring his dinner, and she would
sometimes chat with him while he ate. After supper he would discourse
to Branwen of remote kingdoms, through which, as aimlessly as a wind
veers, he had ridden at adventure, among sedate and alien peoples who
adjudged him a madman; and she, in turn, would tell him curious tales
from the _Red Book of Hergest_,--telling of Gwalchmai, and Peredur,
and Geraint, in each one of which fine heroes she had presently
discerned an inadequate forerunnership of Richard's existence.
This Branwen was a fair wench, slender and hardy. She had the bold
demeanor of a child who is ignorant of evil and in consequence of
suspicion.
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