and why didst thou hail us as if we
were wanted?"

"You are wanted," answered Griffeth, speaking so that all the brothers
might hear his words. "The mother herself bid me go in search of you,
and it is well you come home laden with meat, for we shall need to make
merry tonight. There are guests come to the castle today. Wenwynwyn was
stringing his harp even as I came away, to let them hear his skill in
music. They are to be lodged for so long as they will stay; but the
manner of their errand I know not."

"Guests!" echoed all three brothers in a breath, and very eagerly; "why,
that is good hearing, for perchance we may now learn some news. Come
these strangers from the north? Perchance we shall hear somewhat of our
noble Prince Llewelyn, who is standing out so boldly for the rights of
our nation. Say they not that the English tyrant is on our borders now,
summoning him to pay the homage he repudiates with scorn? Oh, I would
that this were a message summoning all true Welshmen to take up arms in
his quarrel! Would not I fly to his standard, boy though I be! And would
I not shed the last drop of my blood in the glorious cause of liberty!"

Llewelyn was the speaker, and his black eyes were glowing fiercely under
their straight bushy brows. His face was the least boyish of any of the
four, and his supple, sinewy frame had much of the strength of manhood
in it. The free, open-air life that all these lads had lived, and the
training they had received in all martial and hardy exercises, had given
them strength and height beyond their years. It was no idle boast on the
part of Llewelyn to speak of his readiness to fight. He would have
marched against the foe with the stoutest of his father's men-at-arms,
and doubtless have acquitted himself as well as any; for what the lads
lacked in strength they made up in their marvellous quickness and agility.

The love of fighting seemed born in all these hardy sons of Wales, and
something of warfare was known to them even now, from the never-ending
struggles between themselves, and their resistance of the authority,
real or assumed, of the Lords of the Marches. But petty forays and
private feuds with hostile kinsmen was not the kind of fighting these
brothers longed to see and share. They had their own ideas and
aspirations, and eager glances were turned upon Griffeth, lest he might
be the bearer of some glorious piece of news that would mean open
warfare with England.

But the boy's