"Aye, of that outlandish old forefather. If not, I can make it so. There is a man here--Meredith they call him--a bard and genealogist. I have a pair of thumb-screws, and I can spoil his harping forever unless he discover that the pretty wench whom I design for myself, to be my Baroness Caio, be lineally descended from--I cannot mind the name--and be, after Goronwy, the legitimate heir to all the tribal rights. Cadell, you can make a man say and swear to anything with the persuasion of thumb-screws. A rare institution." The chaplain said nothing to this. It was a proposition that did not admit of dispute. A good many of the Norman barons had taken the Welsh heiresses to them as a means of disarming the opposition they encountered, perhaps feeling a twinge of compunction at their methods of appropriation of lands by the sword. Gerald of Windsor, as we have seen, was married to a princess of the royal race of Dyfed, though not, indeed, an heiress. A knight occupying a subordinate position, if he chanced to secure as wife the heiress of some Welsh chief, at once claimed all her lands and rights, and sprang at once into the position of a great baron. "Come, sweetheart!" exclaimed Rogier boisterously, and went up to Morwen and caught her by the chin. "Look me in the face and say 'Aye!' and I will put a coronet of pearls on thy black hair." She shrank from him--not indeed, understanding his words, but comprehending that she was treated with disrespect. "Speak to her, you fool!" said Rogier angrily. "She must be told what I purpose. If not by you then by Pont l'Espec, whom I will call in. But by the Conqueror's paunch, I do not care to do my wooing through the mouth of a common serving-man." Cadell stood up from the seat into which he had lowered himself and approached Morwen. "Hark y'!" said the Norman; "no advice of thine own. I can see thou likest not my design. Say my words, give my message, and bear me back her reply--and thrust in naught of thy mind, and thy suasion." "What, then, shall I say?" "Tell her that I am not one to act with violence unless thwarted, and in this particular thwarted I will not be. Tell her that I desire that she shall be my wife; and say that I will make myself baron over this district of Caio--King Henry will deny me nothing I wot--and she shall rule and reign the rest of her days by a soldier's side, instead of by that of a cassocked clerk." Cadell translated the offer. Morwen's large deep eyes were fixed on him intently as he spoke, and her lips trembled. "I must give an answer," said the priest. Then Morwen rose and replied: "He will surely give me time to consider." "Aye, aye, till to-morrow," said Rogier when her words were translated to him. Thereupon Morwen bowed and left the house. Rogier took a step towards the door, but Cadell stayed him. "Give her till to-morrow to be alone." "Well," said he, "to-morrow shall settle it."