assive they are, though they seem here as airy as roasts, and
as dwarfish as landmarks."

"On that hill-top, and in those towers, is Gryffyth, the Welch king, with
the last of his force. He cannot escape us; our ships guard all the
coasts of the shore; our troops, as here, surround every pass. Spies,
night and day, keep watch. The Welch moels (or beacon-rocks) are manned
by our warders. And, were the Welch King to descend, signals would blaze
from post to post, and gird him with fire and sword. From land to land,
from hill to hill, from Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford,
from Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say,
by the fiends or the giants,--through defile and through forest, over
rock, through morass, we have pressed on his heels. Battle and foray
alike have drawn the blood from his heart; and thou wilt have seen the
drops yet red on the way, where the stone tells that Harold was victor."

"A brave man and true king, then, this Gryffyth," said the Norman, with
some admiration; "but," he added in a colder tone, "I confess, for my own
part, that though I pity the valiant man beaten, I honour the brave man
who wins; and though I have seen but little of this rough land as yet, I
can well judge from what I have seen, that no captain, not of patience
unwearied, and skill most consummate, could conquer a bold enemy in a
country where every rock is a fort."

"So I fear," answered Godrith, "that thy countryman Rolf found; for the
Welch beat him sadly, and the reason was plain. He insisted on using
horses where no horses could climb, and attiring men in full armour to
fight against men light and nimble as swallows, that skim the earth, then
are lost in clouds. Harold, more wise, turned our Saxons into Welchmen,
flying as they flew, climbing where they climbed; it has been as a war of
the birds. And now there rests but the eagle, in his last lonely eyrie."

"Thy battles have improved thy eloquence much, Messire Godree," said the
Norman, condescendingly. "Nevertheless, I cannot but think a few light
horse----"

"Could scale yon mountain-brow?" said Godrith, laughing, and pointing to
Penmaen-mawr.

The Norman looked and was silent, though he thought to himself, "That
Sexwolf was no such dolt after all!"

BOOK VII.
THE WELCH KING.

CHAPTER I.

The sun had just cast his last beams over the breadth of water into which
Conway, or rather Cyn-wy, "the great rive