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I promised that my beauty should last until the tall flag reeds and the long green rushes grow in his hall." Amazed at her story, Wyland drew in his breath. "And this promise, I have kept. It is already fulfilled. Your spell and mine are both completed. Yours brought to him the peace of the dead. Mine made the river floods rush in.
The little craft shot ahead like an arrow, but Tom knew that when they went about there would be trouble. They were fully a mile from either rock-bound shore. Wyland Island was a good two miles before them, and home seven miles to the rear. A biggish sea was rolling and the sky was clouding threateningly.
The table in the great banqueting hall was spread with the most delicious viands, the lights were magnificent, and the music gay. But Wyland, the monk, was a man of magic and could see through things. He noticed that some secret grief was preying upon the Prince's mind. He discerned that, amidst all this splendor, he, Benlli, the lord of the castle, was the most miserable person within its walls.
Then the monk Wyland took his book, leather bound, and kept shut by means of metal clasps, and hid himself in the cranny of a rock near the Giant's Cave, from which there was entrance down into Fairyland. He had not long to wait, for soon, with a crown on her head, a lady, royally arrayed, passed by out of the silvery moonlight into the dark cave.
"And you never knew?" Farwell gave an ugly laugh. "Well, I carried the ball and chain without a whimper, I can say that for myself. Pine is my ball and chain. Because he isn't all devil, because he knows I am not, he went off to play on Wyland Island. You know they kill the devil there the second week in June. Have you forgotten?
"Take me to thy bosom, monk Wyland," she shrieked, laughing hideously and showing what looked like green snags in her mouth. "For I am the wife you are sworn to wed. Thirty years ago, I was Benlli's blooming bride. When my beauty left me, his love flew out of the window. Now I am a foul ogress, but magic makes me young again every seventh night.
So Wyland went home, resolved to call again and find out what was the trouble. When they met, some days later, Wyland's greeting was this: "Christ save thee, Benlli! What secret sorrow clouds thy brow? Why so gloomy?" Benlli at once burst out with the story of how he met the Maid of the Green Forest, and how she became his wife on three conditions. "Think of it," said Benlli, groaning aloud.
She and Mary Terhune did the cooking; a bevy of clean, young Indian girls from Wyland Island served as waitresses and maids, their quaint, keen reserve was charming, and no better public house could have been found on the Little or Big Bay. Priscilla drifted to the Lodge as naturally as a flower turns to the sun.
Despite all my wealth, and my strong castle, with feasting and music by night and hunting by day, I am the most miserable man in Cymric land. No beggar is more wretched than I." Wyland, the monk, listened and his eyes glittered. There came into his head the idea of enriching the monastery. He saw his chance, and improved it at once. He could make money by solving the secret for a troubled soul.
The following day was cloudy and threatening, and why Mary McAdam should take that time for suggesting that her boys go over to Wyland Island and buy their winter suits, she herself could not have told.
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