"There is no saying," said the Widow Griffiths, pausing in her task of choosing calico for her Dame School children, to shake her head ominously, and add in mysterious tones: "I call to mind the last time I saw the late lord ride by, as I stood at my school-door at the Three Cross Roads--a matter of six years ago--and never a word of him since, save only the passing-bell a few weeks after." "And he a great favourite of King James, whatever," said the miller; "a fine man, verily, to look upon, and as good a friend of our king as any noble gentleman in Wales." "The love of the king stood him not in much good stead," said Master Jones with a Puritanical sneer, "since forsooth he must needs go the way of all his forbears, and die ere he had reached the age of fifty, with the same cloud of mystery hanging over his death-bed! Who knows but that the young man, his son, may not likewise be dead ere now? It is long since we have known him to be at the castle." "He may perchance be there now, for all we know!" said his wife, glancing half askance up the steep greensward; "for who has ever known when the lords of Bryn Afon have come and gone, save for those shriekings and wailings ever heard while they are within yon walls?" "And those times when the shriekings and wailings were at their worst were ever quickly followed by the master's death," said Dame Griffiths. "Verily the curse hangeth heavily, and I for one marvel not that the young lord remains away." "The last time I saw him," said Jack the boatman, who had listened without speaking, "was seven years gone by, when he tarried some long while at the castle, and was wont to spend many an hour with me, salmon-fishing. A light-hearted young man, with pretty, fair-spoken ways, and many a story to tell of the ways of the Court, and the fondness the king had for his father. How my little girl used to listen, and prick up her ears at the fine tales!" "It had been better for her," said Master Jones, "as I said in my discourse at the chapel after her untimely decease, that she had shown less vain curiosity about the ways of this wicked world. For what was it but an idle curiosity that led her into the subterranean passage, where her end overtook her as a thief in the night?" "Peace, prithee, good neighbours," said Jack wearily; "the child is in another world, where it may be her fault will not be too harshly judged. But I would fain see the curse removed, and the lords of Bryn Afon dwelling among their people, and ruling them for their good, as surely our betters were meant to do. Will it ever be taken away, think you?"