r," emerges its winding waves.
Not at that time existed the matchless castle, which is now the monument
of Edward Plantagenet, and the boast of Wales. But besides all the
beauty the spot took from nature, it had even some claim from ancient
art. A rude fortress rose above the stream of Gyffin, out of the wrecks
of some greater Roman hold [159], and vast ruins of a former town lay
round it; while opposite the fort, on the huge and ragged promontory of
Gogarth, might still be seen, forlorn and grey, the wrecks of the
imperial city, destroyed ages before by lightning.

All these remains of a power and a pomp that Rome in vain had bequeathed
to the Briton, were full of pathetic and solemn interest, when blent with
the thought, that on yonder steep, the brave prince of a race of heroes,
whose line transcended, by ages, all the other royalties of the North,
awaited, amidst the ruins of man, and in the stronghold which nature yet
gave, the hour of his doom.

But these were not the sentiments of the martial and observant Norman,
with the fresh blood of a new race of conquerors.

"In this land," thought he, "far more even than in that of the Saxon,
there are the ruins of old; and when the present can neither maintain nor
repair the past, its future is subjection or despair."

Agreeably to the peculiar uses of Saxon military skill, which seems to
have placed all strength in dykes and ditches, as being perhaps the
cheapest and readiest outworks, a new trench had been made round the
fort, on two sides, connecting it on the third and fourth with the
streams of Gyffin and the Conway. But the boat was rowed up to the very
walls, and the Norman, springing to land, was soon ushered into the
presence of the Earl.

Harold was seated before a rude table, and bending over a rough map of
the great mountain of Penmaen; a lamp of iron stood beside the map,
though the air was yet clear.

The Earl rose, as De Graville, entering with the proud but easy grace
habitual to his countrymen, said, in his best Saxon:

"Hail to Earl Harold! William Mallet de Graville, the Norman, greets
him, and brings him news from beyond the seas."

There was only one seat in that bare room--the seat from which the Earl
had risen. He placed it with simple courtesy before his visitor, and
leaning, himself, against the table, said, in the Norman tongue, which he
spoke fluently:

"It is no slight thanks that I owe to the Sire de Graville, that he hath
unde