"By my dogs and my horns and my leashes! King Gwrtheyrn," said Eliseg, "we seek not to meddle impertinently, Dyfnwal and I, look you. But I have served you four and thirty years, and Dyfnwal thirty, day in and day out, in storm and shine, and we would not, for the love we bear you, that ye should now ride for a fall." "We speak as your friends," Dyfnwal grunted. "It is a dangerous reptile ye have sheltered," continued the other. "Dreaded is he throughout the land of Dyfed for his unfathomable deeds. He has all the art of the Druids; and he is the last of the brood, God be praised! The days of darkness are over, my king: men will no longer take succour from the wiles of devils, thanks be to the Lord Christ and to Mary the dear Lady of mankind!" "Will ye hold your peace?" stormed the King. "Get you gone, both of you, or I will have your tongues slit for you! What next, what next, I ask you?" "The tantrums of him!" said Eliseg, when they two were outside the door. "Dyfnwal, look you, I fear that this fellow will bring peril upon the King. He was never up to good from the hour wherein he first drew breath. He is up and down the country, about and about, each day, questioning every gaffer and goodwife, every lad, lass, and babe that will waste the precious hours talking with him. Already Lord Gwrtheyrn is never from the metheglin. We must let nothing escape us, lest our master be undone." "I have eyes," said Dyfnwal. "I use them." "Hist! I see him," exclaimed the huntsman. "Grows there gold in the villeins' hay-meadow, think you?" Within the hall, Gwrtheyrn raged and muttered. When his wrath began to cool, he felt the want of the congenial society of Mogneid. This King's life was a lonely one. The Queen spent hours at spinning and carding, weaving and embroidery; and although she would listen, nodding and smiling, at any time to her husband's remarks, she seldom spoke, and her thoughts seemed always far away, at rest upon things serene and pleasant. So it came about that he seldom sought her company. Why must his kinsman tarry so long from him? wondered Gwrtheyrn. He gulped down a cupful of metheglin, and then another, and subsided into a chair, to wait. Mogneid came up the hill, smiling to himself. He knew the lie of the country of Gwrtheyrnion well by now, and the disposition of its people. He entered the castle hall. To his surprise, early in the day though it was, Gwrtheyrn sat propping himself nicely in his chair of state: a gold cup, relic of the sack of some Romano-British villa, lay at his feet, and there were splashes of metheglin on the floor. The King's mood was benign and expansive. "Want thee--tell me," he greeted him. "Old preaching devil! Alleluia! and they all ran away! Whatshisname?" "Garmon, perhaps," answered Mogneid. Affecting indifference, he watched his kinsman narrowly.