University of Virginia Library

Act I.

Sc. I

Enter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.
T.
What is it, Gwen, my girl? why do you hover and haunt me?

W.
You came by Caerwys, sir?

T.
I came by Caerwys.

W.
There
Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle.

T.
Your uncle met the messenger—met me; and this the message:
Lord Beuno comes to-night.

W.
To-night, sir!

T.
Soon, now: therefore
Have all things ready in his room.

W.
There needs but little doing.

T.
Let what there needs be done. Stay! with him one companion,
His deacon, Dirvan Warm: twice over must the welcome be,
But both will share one cell.—This was good news, Gwenvrewi.

W.
Ah yes!

T.
Why, get thee gone then; tell thy mother I want her. Exit Winefred.

No man has such a daughter. The fathers of the world
Call no such maiden ‘mine’. The deeper grows her dearness
And more and more times laces round and round my heart,
The more some monstrous hand gropes with clammy fingers there,
Tampering with those sweet bines, draws them out, strains them, strains them;
Meantime some tongue cries ‘What, Teryth! what, thou poor fond father!
How when this bloom, this honeysuckle, that rides the air so rich about thee,
Is all, all sheared away, thus!’ Then I sweat for fear.
Or else a funeral, and yet 'tis not a funeral,
Some pageant which takes tears and I must foot with feeling that
Alive or dead my girl is carried in it, endlessly
Goes marching thro' my mind. What sense is this? It has none.
This is too much the father; nay the mother. Fanciful!
I here forbid my thoughts to fool themselves with fears.

Enter Gwenlo.
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