On the height called Pen-y-Dinas (or "Head of the City") forming one
of the summits of Penmaen-mawr, and in the heart of that supposed
fortress which no eye in the Saxon camp had surveyed [163], reclined
Gryffyth, the hunted King. Nor is it marvellous that at that day
there should be disputes as to the nature and strength of the supposed
bulwark, since, in times the most recent, and among antiquaries the
most learned, the greatest discrepancies exist, not only as to
theoretical opinion, but plain matter of observation, and simple
measurement. The place, however, I need scarcely say, was not as we
see it now, with its foundations of gigantic ruin, affording ample
space for conjecture; yet, even then, a wreck as of Titans, its date
and purpose were lost in remote antiquity.
The central area (in which the Welch King now reclined) formed an oval
barrow of loose stones: whether so left from the origin, or the relics
of some vanished building, was unknown even to bard and diviner.
Round this space were four strong circumvallations of loose stones,
with a space about eighty yards between each; the walls themselves
generally about eight feet wide, but of various height, as the stones
had fallen by time and blast. Along these walls rose numerous and
almost countless circular buildings, which might pass for towers,
though only a few had been recently and rudely roofed in. To the
whole of this quadruple enclosure there was but one narrow entrance,
now left open as if in scorn of assault; and a winding narrow pass
down the mountain, with innumerable curves, alone led to the single
threshold. Far down the hill, walls again were visible; and the whole
surface of the steep soil, more than half way in the descent, was
heaped with vast loose stones, as if the bones of a dead city. But
beyond the innermost enclosure of the fort (if fort, or sacred
enclosure, be the correcter name), rose, thick and frequent, other
mementos of the Briton; many cromlechs, already shattered and
shapeless; the ruins of stone houses; and high over all, those
upraised, mighty amber piles, as at Stonehenge, once reared, if our
dim learning be true, in honour to Bel, or Bal-Huan [164], the idol of
the sun. All, in short, showed that the name of the place, "the Head
of the City," told its tale; all announced that, there, once the Celt
had his home, and the gods of the Druid their worship. And musing
amidst these skeletons of the past, lay the doomed son of Pen-Dragon.
Beside him a kind of throne had been raised with stones, and over it
was spread a tattered and faded velvet pall. On this throne sat
Aldyth the Queen; and about the royal pair was still that mockery of a
court which the jealous pride of the Celt king retained amidst all the
horrors of carnage and famine. Most of the officers indeed
(originally in number twenty-four), whose duties attached them to the
king and queen of the Cymry, were already feeding the crow or the
worm. But still, with gaunt hawk on his wrist, the penhebogydd (grand
falconer) stood at a distance; still, with beard sweeping his breast,
and rod in hand, leant against a projecting shaft of the wall, the
noiseless gosdegwr, whose duty it was to command silence in the King's
hall; and still the penbard bent over his bruised harp, which once had
thrilled, through the fair vaults of Caerleon and Rhaldan, in high
praise of God, and the King, and the Hero Dead. In the pomp of gold
dish and vessel [165] the board was spread on the stones for the King
and Queen; and on the dish was the last fragment of black bread, and
in the vessel full and clear, the water from the spring that bubbled
up everlastingly through the bones of the dead city.
Beyond this innermost space, round a basin of rock, through which the
stream overflowed as from an artificial conduit, lay the wounded and
exhausted, crawling, turn by turn, to the lips of the basin, and happy
that the thirst of fever saved them from the gnawing desire of food.
A wan and spectral figure glided listlessly to and fro amidst those
mangled, and parched, and dying groups. This personage, in happier
times, filled the office of physician to the court, and was placed
twelfth in rank amidst the chiefs of the household. And for cure of
the "three deadly wounds," the cloven skull, or the gaping viscera, or
the broken limb (all three classed alike), large should have been his
fee [166]. But feeless went he now from man to man, with his red
ointment and his muttered charm; and those over whom he shook his lean
face and matted locks, smiled ghastly at that sign that release and
death were near. Within the enclosures, either lay supine, or stalked
restless, the withered remains of the wild army. A sheep, and a
horse, and a clog, were yet left them all to share for the day's meal.
And the fire of flickering and crackling brushwood burned bright from
a hollow amidst the loose stones; but the animals were yet unslain,
and the dog crept by the fire, winking at it with dim eyes.
But over the lower part of the wall nearest to the barrow, leant three
men. The wall there was so broken, that they could gaze over it on
that grotesque yet dismal court; and the eyes of the three men, with a
fierce and wolfish glare, were bent on Gryffyth.
Three princes were they of the great old line; far as Gryffyth they
traced the fabulous honours of their race, to Hu-Gadarn and Prydain,
and each thought it shame that Gryffyth should be lord over him! Each
had had throne and court of his own; each his "white palace" of peeled
willow wands--poor substitutes, O kings, for the palaces and towers
that the arts of Rome had bequeathed your fathers! And each had been
subjugated by the son of Llewellyn, when, in his day of might, he re-
united under his sole sway all the multiform principalities of Wales,
and regained, for a moment's splendour, the throne of Roderic the
Great.
"Is it," said Owain, in a hollow whisper, "for yon man, whom heaven
hath deserted, who could not keep his very torque from the gripe of
the Saxon, that we are to die on these hills, gnawing the flesh from
our bones? Think ye not the hour is come?"
"The hour will come, when the sheep, and the horse, and the dog are
devoured," replied Modred, "and when the whole force, as one man, will
cry to Gryffyth, 'Thou a king!--give us bread!'"
"It is well," said the third, an old man, leaning on a wand of solid
silver, while the mountain wind, sweeping between the walls, played
with the rags of his robe,--"it is well that the night's sally, less
of war than of hunger, was foiled even of forage and food. Had the
saints been with Gryffyth, who had dared to keep faith with Tostig the
Saxon."
Owain laughed, a laugh hollow and false.
"Art thou Cymrian, and talkest of faith with a Saxon? Faith with the
spoiler, the ravisher and butcher? But a Cymrian keeps faith with
revenge; and Gryffyth's trunk should be still crownless and headless,
though Tostig had never proffered the barter of safety and food.
Hist! Gryffyth wakes from the black dream, and his eyes glow from
under his hair."
And indeed at this moment the King raised himself on his elbow, and
looked round with a haggard and fierce despair in his glittering eyes.
"Play to us, Harper; sing some song of the deeds of old!" The bard
mournfully strove to sweep the harp, but the chords were broken, and
the note came discordant and shrill as the sigh of a wailing fiend.
"O King!" said the bard, "the music hath left the harp."
"Ha!" murmured Gryffyth, "and Hope the earth! Bard, answer the son of
Llewellyn. Oft in my halls hast thou sung the praise of the men that
have been. In the halls of the race to come, will bards yet unborn
sweep their harps to the deeds of thy King? Shall they tell of the
day of Torques, by Llyn-Afangc, when the princes of Powys fled from
his sword as the clouds from the blast of the wind? Shall they sing,
as the Hirlas goes round, of his steeds of the sea, when no flag came
in sight of his prows between the dark isle of the Druid [167] and the
green pastures of Huerdan? [168] Or the towns that he fired, on the
lands of the Saxon, when Rolf and the Nortbmen ran fast from his
javelin and spear? Or say, Child of Truth, if all that is told of
Gryffyth thy King shall be his woe and his shame?"
The bard swept his hand over his eyes, and answered:
"Bards unborn shall sing of Gryffyth the son of Llewellyn. But the
song shall not dwell on the pomp of his power, when twenty sub-kings
knelt at his throne, and his beacon was lighted in the holds of the
Norman and Saxon. Bards shall sing of the hero, who fought every inch
of crag and morass in the front of his men,--and on the heights of
Penmaen-mawr, Fame recovers thy crown!"
"Then I have lived as my fathers in life, and shall live with their
glory in death!" said Gryffyth; "and so the shadow hath passed from my
soul." Then turning round, still propped upon his elbow, he fixed his
proud eye upon Aldyth, and said gravely, "Wife, pale is thy face, and
gloomy thy brow; mournest thou the throne or the man?"
Aldyth cast on her wild lord a look of more terror than compassion, a
look without the grief that is gentle, or the love that reveres; and
answered:
"What matter to thee my thoughts or my sufferings? The sword or the
famine is the doom thou hast chosen. Listening to vain dreams from
thy bard, or thine own pride as idle, thou disdainest life for us
both: be it so; let us die!"
A strange blending of fondness and wrath troubled the pride on
Gryffyth's features, uncouth and half savage as they were, but still
noble and kingly.
"And what terror has death, if thou lovest me?" said he.
Aldyth shivered and turned aside. The unhappy King gazed hard on that
face, which, despite sore trial and recent exposure to rough wind and
weather, still retained the proverbial beauty of the Saxon women--but
beauty without the glow of the heart, as a landscape from which
sunlight has vanished; and as he gazed, at the colour went and came
fitfully over his swarthy cheeks whose hue contrasted the blue of his
eye and the red tawny gold of his shaggy hair.
"Thou wouldst have me," he said at length, "send to Harold thy
countryman; thou wouldst have me, me--rightful lord of all Britain--
beg for mercy, and sue for life. Ah, traitress, and child of robber-
sires, fair as Rowena art thou, but no Vortimer am I! Thou turnest in
loathing from the lord whose marriage-gift was a crown; and the sleek
form of thy Saxon Harold rises up through the clouds of the carnage."
All the fierce and dangerous jealousy of man's most human passion--
when man loves and hates in a breath--trembled in the Cymrian's voice,
and fired his troubled eye; for Aldyth's pale cheek blushed like the
rose, but she folded her arms haughtily on her breast, and made no
reply.
"No," said Gryffyth, grinding teeth, white [169] and strong as those
of a young hound. "No, Harold in vain sent me the casket; the jewel
was gone. In vain thy form returned to my side; thy heart was away
with thy captor: and not to save my life (were I so base as to seek
it), but to see once more the face of him to whom this cold hand, in
whose veins no pulse answers my own, had been given, if thy House had
consulted its daughter, wouldst thou have me crouch like a lashed dog
at the feet of my foe! Oh Shame! shame! shame! Oh worst perfidy of
all! Oh sharp--sharper than Saxon sword or serpent's tooth, is--is--"
Tears gushed to those fierce eyes, and the proud King dared not trust
to his voice.
Aldyth rose coldly. "Slay me if thou wilt--not insult me. I have
said, 'Let us die!'"
With these words, and vouchsafing no look on her lord, she moved away
towards the largest tower or cell, in which the single and rude
chamber it contained had been set apart for her.
Gryffyth's eye followed her, softening gradually as her form receded,
till lost to his sight. And then that peculiar household love, which
in uncultivated breasts often survives trust and esteem, rushed back
on his rough heart, and weakened it, as woman only can weaken the
strong to whom Death is a thought of scorn.
He signed to his bard, who, during the conference between wife and
lord, had retired to a distance, and said, with a writhing attempt to
smile:
"Was there truth, thinkest thou, in the legend, that Guenever was
false to King Arthur?"
"No," answered the bard, divining his lord's thought, for Guenever
survived not the King, and they were buried side by side in the Vale
of Avallon."
"Thou art wise in the lore of the heart, and love hath been thy study
from youth to grey hairs. Is it love, is it hate, that prefers death
for the loved one, to the thought of her life as another's?" A look
of the tenderest compassion passed over the bard's wan face, but
vanished in reverence, as he bowed his head and answered:
"O King, who shall say what note the wind calls from the harp, what
impulse love wakes in the soul--now soft and now stern? But," he
added, raising his form, and, with a dread calm on his brow, "but the
love of a king brooks no thought of dishonour; and she who hath laid
her head on his breast should sleep in his grave."
"Thou wilt outlive me," said Gryffyth, abruptly. "This carn be my
tomb!"
"And if so," said the bard, "thou shalt sleep not alone. In this carn
what thou lovest best shall be buried by thy side; the bard shall
raise his song over thy grave, and the bosses of shields shall be
placed at intervals, as rises and falls the sound of song. Over the
grave of two shall a new mound arise, and we will bid the mound speak
to others in the fair days to come. But distant yet be the hour when
the mighty shall be laid low! and the tongue of thy bard may yet chant
the rush of the lion from the toils and the spears. Hope still!"
Gryffyth, for answer, leant on the harper's shoulder, and pointed
silently to the sea, that lay, lake-like at the distance, dark-studded
with the Saxon fleet. Then turning, his hands stretched over the
forms that, hollow-eyed and ghost-like, flitted between the walls, or
lay dying, but mute, around the waterspring. His hand then dropped,
and rested on the hilt of his sword.
At this moment there was a sudden commotion at the outer entrance of
the wall; the crowd gathered to one spot, and there was a loud hum of
voices. In a few moments one of the Welch scouts came into the
enclosure, and the chiefs of the royal tribes followed him to the carn
on which the King stood.
"Of what tellest thou?" said Gryffyth, resuming on the instant all the
royalty of his bearing.
"At the mouth of the pass," said the scout, kneeling, "there are a
monk bearing the holy rood, and a chief, unarmed. And the monk is
Evan, the Cymrian, of Gwentland; and the chief, by his voice, seemeth
not to be Saxon. The monk bade me give thee these tokens" (and the
scout displayed the broken torque which the King had left in the grasp
of Harold, together with a live falcon belled and blinded), "and bade
me say thus to the King: Harold the Earl greets Gryffyth, son of
Llewellyn, and sends him, in proof of good will, the richest prize he
hath ever won from a foe; and a hawk, from Llandudno;--that bird which
chief and equal give to equal and chief. And he prays Gryffyth, son
of Llewellyn, for the sake of his realm and his people, to grant
hearing to his nuncius."
A murmur broke from the chiefs--a murmur of joy and surprise from all,
save the three conspirators, who interchanged anxious and fiery
glances. Gryffyth's hand had already closed, while he uttered a cry
that seemed of rapture, on the collar of gold; for the loss of that
collar had stung him, perhaps more than the loss of the crown of all
Wales. And his heart, so generous and large, amidst all its rude
passions, was touched by the speech and the tokens that honoured the
fallen outlaw both as foe and as king. Yet in his face there was
still seen a moody and proud struggle; he paused before he turned to
the chiefs.
"What counsel ye--ye strong in battle, and wise in debate?" said he.
With one voice all, save the Fatal Three, exclaimed: "Hear the monk, O
King!"
"Shall we dissuade?" whispered Modred to the old chief, his
accomplice.
"No; for so doing, we shall offend all:--and we must win all."
Then the bard stepped into the ring. And the ring was hushed, for
wise is ever the counsel of him whose book is the human heart.
"Hear the Saxons," said he, briefly, and with an air of command when
addressing others, which contrasted strongly his tender respect to the
King; "hear the Saxons, but not in these walls. Let no man from the
foe see our strength or our weakness. We are still mighty and
impregnable, while our dwelling is in the realm of the Unknown. Let
the King, and his officers of state, and his chieftains of battle,
descend to the pass. And behind, at the distance, let the spearmen
range from cliff to cliff, as a ladder of steel; so will their numbers
seem the greater."
"Thou speakest well," said the King.
Meanwhile the knight and the monk waited below at that terrible pass
[170], which then lay between mountain and river, and over which the
precipices frowned, with a sense of horror and weight. Looking up,
the knight murmured:
"With those stones and crags to roll down on a marching army, the
place well defies storm and assault; and a hundred on the height would
overmatch thousands below."
He then turned to address a few words, with all the far-famed courtesy
of Norman and Frank, to the Welch guards at the outpost. They were
picked men; the strongest and best armed and best fed of the group.
But they shook their heads and answered not, gazing at him fiercely,
and showing their white teeth, as dogs at a bear before they are
loosened from the band.
"They understand me not, poor languageless savages!" said Mallet de
Graville, turning to the monk, who stood by with the lifted rood;
"speak to them in their own jargon."
"Nay," said the Welch monk, who, though of a rival tribe from South
Wales, and at the service of Harold, was esteemed throughout the land
for piety and learning, "they will not open mouth till the King's
orders come to receive or dismiss us unheard."
"Dismiss us unheard!" repeated the punctilious Norman; "even this poor
barbarous King can scarcely be so strange to all comely and gentle
usage, as to put such insult on Guillaume Mallet de Graville. But,"
added the knight, colouring, "I forgot that he is not advised of my
name and land; and, indeed, sith thou art to be spokesman, I marvel
why Harold should have prayed my service at all, at the risk of
subjecting a Norman knight to affronts contumelious."
"Peradventure," replied Evan, "peradventure thou hast something to
whisper apart to the King, which, as stranger and warrior, none will
venture to question; but which from me, as countryman and priest,
would excite the jealous suspicions of those around him."
"I conceive thee," said De Graville. "And see, spears are gleaming
down the path; and per pedes Domini, yon chief with the mantle, and
circlet of gold on his head, is the cat-king that so spitted and
scratched in the melee last night."
"Heed well thy tongue," said Evan, alarmed; "no jests with the leader
of men."
"Knowest thou, good monk, that a facete and most gentil Roman (if the
saintly writer from whom I take the citation reports aright--for,
alas! I know not where myself to purchase, or to steal, one copy of
Horatius Flaccus) hath said 'Dulce est desipere in loco.' It is sweet
to jest, but not within reach of claws, whether of kaisars or cats."
Therewith the knight drew up his spare but stately figure, and
arranging his robe with grace and dignity, awaited the coming chief.
Down the paths, one by one, came first the chiefs, privileged by birth
to attend the King; and each, as he reached the mouth of the pass,
drew on the upper side, among the stones of the rough ground. Then a
banner, tattered and torn, with the lion ensign that the Welch princes
had substituted for the old national dragon, which the Saxon of Wessex
had appropriated to themselves [171], preceded the steps of the King.
Behind him came his falconer and bard, and the rest of his scanty
household. The King halted in the pass, a few steps from the Norman
knight; and Mallet de Graville, though accustomed to the majestic mien
of Duke William, and the practised state of the princes of France and
Flanders, felt an involuntary thrill of admiration at the bearing of
the great child of Nature with his foot on his father's soil.
Small and slight as was his stature, worn and ragged his mantle of
state, there was that in the erect mien and steady eye of the Cymrian
hero, which showed one conscious of authority, and potent in will; and
the wave of his hand to the knight was the gesture of a prince on his
throne. Nor, indeed, was that brave and ill-fated chief without some
irregular gleams of mental cultivation, which under happier auspices,
might have centred into steadfast light. Though the learning which
had once existed in Wales (the last legacy of Rome) had long since
expired in broil and blood, and youths no longer flocked to the
colleges of Caerleon, and priests no longer adorned the casuistical
theology of the age, Gryffyth himself, the son of a wise and famous
father [172], had received an education beyond the average of Saxon
kings. But, intensely national, his mind had turned from all other
literature, to the legends, and songs, and chronicles of his land; and
if he is the best scholar who best understands his own tongue and its
treasures, Gryffyth was the most erudite prince of his age.
His natural talents, for war especially, were considerable; and judged
fairly--not as mated with an empty treasury, without other army than
the capricious will of his subjects afforded, and amidst his bitterest
foes in the jealous chiefs of his own country, against the disciplined
force and comparative civilisation of the Saxon--but as compared with
all the other princes of Wales, in warfare, to which he was
habituated, and in which chances were even, the fallen son of
Llewellyn had been the most renowned leader that Cymry had known since
the death of the great Roderic.
So there he stood; his attendants ghastly with famine, drawn up on the
unequal ground; above, on the heights, and rising from the stone
crags, long lines of spears artfully placed; and, watching him with
deathful eyes, somewhat in his rear, the Traitor Three.
"Speak, father, or chief," said the Welch King in his native tongue;
"what would Harold the Earl of Gryffyth the King?"
Then the monk took up the word and spoke.
"Health to Gryffyth-ap-Llewellyn, his chiefs and his people! Thus
saith Harold, King Edward's thegn: By land all the passes are
watched; by sea all the waves are our own. Our swords rest in our
sheaths; but famine marches each hour to gride and to slay. Instead
of sure death from the hunger, take sure life from the foe. Free
pardon to all, chiefs and people, and safe return to their homes,--
save Gryffyth alone. Let him come forth, not as victim and outlaw,
not with bent form and clasped hands, but as chief meeting chief, with
his household of state. Harold will meet him, in honour, at the gates
of the fort. Let Gryffyth submit to King Edward, and ride with Harold
to the Court of the Basileus. Harold promises him life, and will
plead for his pardon. And though the peace of this realm, and the
fortune of war, forbid Harold to say, 'Thou shalt yet be a king;' yet
thy crown, son of Llewellyn, shall at least be assured in the line of
thy fathers, and the race of Cadwallader shall still reign in Cymry."
The monk paused, and hope and joy were in the faces of the famished
chiefs; while two of the Traitor Three suddenly left their post, and
sped to tell the message to the spearmen and multitudes above.
Modred, the third conspirator, laid his hand on his hilt, and stole
near to see the face of the King;--the face of the King was dark and
angry, as a midnight of storm.
Then, raising the cross on high, Evan resumed.
"And I, though of the people of Gwentland, which the arms of Gryffyth
have wasted, and whose prince fell beneath Gryffyth's sword on the
hearth of his hall--I, as God's servant, the brother of all I behold,
and, as son of the soil, mourning over the slaughter of its latest
defenders--I, by this symbol of love and command, which I raise to the
heaven, adjure thee, O King, to give ear to the mission of peace,--to
cast down the grim pride of earth. And instead of the crown of a day,
fix thy hopes on the crown everlasting. For much shall be pardoned to
thee in thine hour of pomp and of conquest, if now thou savest from
doom and from death the last lives over which thou art lord."
It was during this solemn appeal that the knight, marking the sign
announced to him, and drawing close to Gryffyth, pressed the ring into
the King's hand, and whispered:
"Obey by this pledge. Thou knowest Harold is true, and thy head is
sold by thine own people."
The King cast a haggard eye at the speaker, and then at the ring, over
which his hand closed with a convulsive spasm. And at that dread
instant the man prevailed over the King; and far away from people and
monk, from adjuration and duty, fled his heart on the wings of the
storm--fled to the cold wife he distrusted: and the pledge that should
assure him of life, seemed as a love-token insulting his fall:--Amidst
all the roar of roused passions, loudest of all was the hiss of the
jealous fiend.
As the monk ceased, the thrill of the audience was perceptible, and a
deep silence was followed by a general murmur, as if to constrain the
King.
Then the pride of the despot chief rose up to second the wrath of the
suspecting man. The red spot flushed the dark cheek, and he tossed
the neglected hair from his brow.
He made one stride towards the monk, and said, in a voice loud, and
deep, and slow, rolling far up the hill:
"Monk, thou hast said; and now hear the reply of the son of Llewellyn,
the true heir of Roderic the Great, who from the heights of Eryri saw
all the lands of the Cymrian sleeping under the dragon of Uther. King
was I born, and king will I die. I will not ride by the side of the
Saxon to the feet of Edward, the son of the spoiler. I will not, to
purchase base life, surrender the claim, vain before men and the hour,
but solemn before God and posterity--the claim of my line and my
people. All Britain is ours--all the island of Pines. And the
children of Hengist are traitors and rebels--not the heirs of
Ambrosius and Uther. Say to Harold the Saxon, Ye have left us but the
tomb of the Druid and the hills of the eagle; but freedom and royalty
are ours, in life and in death--not for you to demand them, not for us
to betray. Nor fear ye, O my chiefs, few, but unmatched in glory and
truth; fear not ye to perish by the hunger thus denounced as our doom,
on these heights that command the fruits of our own fields! No, die
we may, but not mute and revengeless. Go back, whispering warrior; go
back, false son of Cymry--and tell Harold to look well to his walls
and his trenches. We will vouchsafe him grace for his grace--we will
not take him by surprise, nor under cloud of the night. With the
gleam of our spears and the clash of our shields, we will come from
the hill: and, famine-worn as he deems us, hold a feast in his walls
which the eagles of Snowdon spread their pinions to share!"
"Rash man and unhappy!" cried the monk; "what curse drawest thou down
on thy head! Wilt thou be the murtherer of thy men, in strife
unavailing and vain? Heaven holds thee guilty of all the blood thou
shalt cause to be shed."
"Be dumb!--hush thy screech, lying raven!" exclaimed Gryffyth, his
eyes darting fire and, his slight form dilating. "Once, priest and
monk went before us to inspire, not to daunt; and our cry, Alleluia!
was taught us by the saints of the Church, on the day when Saxons,
fierce and many as Harold's, fell on the field of Maes-Garmon. No,
the curse is on the head of the invader, not on those who defend
hearth and altar. Yea, as the song to the bard, the CURSE leaps
through my veins, and rushes forth from my lips. By the land they
have ravaged; by the gore they have spilt; on these crags, our last
refuge; below the carn on yon heights, where the Dead stir to hear
me,--I launch the curse of the wronged and the doomed on the children
of Hengist! They in turn shall know the steel of the stranger--their
crown shall be shivered as glass, and their nobles be as slaves in the
land. And the line of Hengist and Cerdic shall be rased from the roll
of empire. And the ghosts of our fathers shall glide, appeased, over
the grave of their nation. But we--WE, though weak in the body, in
the soul shall be strong to the last! The ploughshare may pass over
our cities, but the soil shall be trod by our steps, and our deeds
keep our language alive in the songs of our bards. Nor in the great
Judgment Day, shall any race but the race of Cymry rise from their
graves in this corner of earth, to answer for the sins of the brave!"
[173]
So impressive the voice, so grand the brow, and sublime the wild
gesture of the King, as he thus spoke, that not only the monk himself
was awed; not only, though he understood not the words, did the Norman
knight bow his head, as a child when the lightning he fears as by
instinct flashes out from the cloud,--but even the sullen and wide-
spreading discontent at work among most of the chiefs was arrested for
a moment. But the spearmen and multitude above, excited by the
tidings of safety to life, and worn out by repeated defeat, and the
dread fear of famine, too remote to hear the King, were listening
eagerly to the insidious addresses of the two stealthy conspirators,
creeping from rank to rank; and already they began to sway and move,
and sweep slowly down towards the King.
Recovering his surprise, the Norman again neared Gryffyth, and began
to re-urge his mission of peace. But the chief waved him back
sternly, and said aloud, though in Saxon:
"No secrets can pass between Harold and me. This much alone, take
thou back as answer: I thank the Earl, for myself, my Queen, and my
people. Noble have been his courtesies, as foe; as foe I thank him--
as king, defy. The torque he hath returned to my hand, he shall see
again ere the sun set. Messengers, ye are answered. Withdraw, and
speed fast, that we may pass not your steps on the road."
The monk sighed, and cast a look of holy compassion over the circle;
and a pleased man was he to see in the faces of most there, that the
King was alone in his fierce defiance. Then lifting again the rood,
he turned away, and with him went the Norman.
The retirement of the messengers was the signal for one burst of
remonstrance from the chiefs--the signal for the voice and the deeds
of the Fatal Three. Down from the heights sprang and rushed the angry
and turbulent multitudes; round the King came the bard and the
falconer, and some faithful few.
The great uproar of many voices caused the monk and the knight to
pause abruptly in their descent, and turn to look behind. They could
see the crowd rushing down from the higher steeps; but on the spot
itself which they had so lately left, the nature of the ground only
permitted a confused view of spear points, lifted swords, and heads
crowned with shaggy locks, swaying to and fro.
"What means all this commotion?" asked the knight, with his hand on
his sword.
"Hist!" said the monk, pale as ashes, and leaning for support upon the
cross.
Suddenly, above the hubbub, was heard the voice of the King, in
accents of menace and wrath, singularly distinct and clear; it was
followed by a moment's silence--a moment's silence followed by the
clatter of arms, a yell, and a howl, and the indescribable shock of
men.
And suddenly again was heard a voice that seemed that of the King, but
no longer distinct and clear!--was it laugh?--was it groan?
All was hushed; the monk was on his knees in prayer; the knight's
sword was bare in his hand. All was hushed--and the spears stood
still in the air; when there was again a cry, as multitudinous, but
less savage than before. And the Welch came down the pass, and down
the crags.
The knight placed his back to a rock. "They have orders to murther
us," he murmured; "but woe to the first who come within reach of my
sword!"
Down swarmed the Welchmen, nearer and nearer; and in the midst of them
three chiefs--the Fatal Three. And the old chief bore in his hand a
pole or spear, and on the top of that spear, trickling gore step by
step, was the trunkless head of Gryffyth the King.
"This," said the old chief, as he drew near, "this is our answer to
Harold the Earl. We will go with ye."
"Food! food!" cried the multitude.
And the three chiefs (one on either side the trunkless head that the
third bore aloft) whispered, "We are avenged!"