Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/101

 'Thou art she', said Kilhugh, 'whom I have loved. Come away with me.'

'I cannot,' Olwen said, 'for I have promised my father not to go without his counsel, for his life will last only until the day of my marriage. But go, ask my father for me. Whatever he shall ask of thee grant him, and thou shalt obtain me.'

Then she rose up and walked before them to the castle. Kilhugh and his companions slew the nine porters at the nine gates in silence, and the nine watchdogs without a bark. They entered the hall and greeted Uspathadden as he sat there like a strange crag beheld suddenly at a sharp turn in a road among the mountains when night is falling.

'The greeting of Heaven and of man to thee, Uspathadden Penkower,' they said.

'Why are you here?' he asked.

'To seek thy daughter Olwen as a wife for Kilhugh.'

'Raise up my eyebrows,' said Uspathadden to his pages and attendants, 'that I may see this son-in-law.'

They raised his eyebrows from over his eyes with forks, and he said:

'Come to-morrow for an answer.'

As they were going, he seized a poisoned dart and threw it after them. But Bedwyr caught it and flung it back, piercing Uspathadden's knee and making him say:

'A cursed ungentle son-in-law, truly. I shall limp for this. The poisoned iron stings like a gadfly. Cursed be the smith who forged it and the anvil where it was wrought.'

Next day at dawn Kilhugh and the others went again to the castle and asked for Olwen. But said Uspathadden: