Throughout the whole basin all was trouble. The armed men, servants of the bishop, for the most part Normans or Englishmen, but some Welshmen who had taken service under the oppressors of their countrymen, were dispersed through the district. Ostensibly they were engaged in numbering the hearths, for the exaction of the fine, but with this they did not content themselves. They entered every house, and conducted themselves therein as masters, aware that they were not likely to be called to order for the grossest outrages by either Rogier or by the bishop. They demanded food and drink, they ransacked the habitations and plundered them. They wasted what they could not consume, and destroyed what they did not take. The men they treated with contumely and the women with insult. A farmer who had a _hafod_, a summer byre, as well as a _hendre_, a winter residence, must pay for both. The poorest squatter would be forced to contribute as well as the wealthiest proprietor. "A mark of silver for a house," said Rogier; "settle it among you how the money is to be extracted. The rich will pay for the poor. In a fortnight we shall have every hearth registered." One wretched man, whose hovel had been broken into, set fire to it. "This," said he, "shall not be counted. I have no house now, no roof, no hearth. Therefore it shall not be reckoned in." "It was recorded before you set it in flames," was the answer. "It pays all the same." A father attempting to defend his daughter against one of the dissolute soldiers received a blow on his head which cut it open and cast him senseless on the ground. He lay in a precarious condition; and the girl had been carried off. A lone woman, aged, and a widow dependent on the charity of the neighbors, through their dispersion, or through forgetfulness, had died in solitude, by starvation. Several well to-do men, landowners, in attempting to resist the plunderers had been unmercifully beaten. It was an open secret that Rogier was seeking in all directions for the beautiful Morwen; but Tall Howel had the cunning to evade his search, by moving her about from house to house. On Sunday, with the exception of some of the soldiers, hardly any natives appeared in the church. The few who did show were some old women. It transpired that the inhabitants of the Caio district had gone for their religious duties to some of the chapels, of which there were at least six, scattered over the territory of the tribe, where they had been ministered to by the assistant clergy. When this came to Cadell's ears, he had his horse saddled, and attended by some of the men-at-arms, rode to the residences of these vicars, dismissed them from their offices, and had them removed by the bishop's retainers and thrust over the borders, with a threat of imprisonment should they return. On the following Sunday the church of Cynwyl was as deserted as before. "He has deprived us of our pastors," said the people. "He cannot rob us of our God."