"Come, friend Flammock," said the Welshman, "frame not thyself more unapprehensive than nature hath formed thee. The glen is dark, but a sunbeam can light the side of it. Thy utmost efforts cannot prevent the fall of this castle; but thou mayst hasten it, and the doing so shall avail thee much." Thus speaking, he drew close up to Wilkin, and sunk his voice to an insinuating whisper, as he said, "Never did the withdrawing of a bar, or the raising of a portcullis, bring such vantage to Fleming as they may to thee, if thou wilt." "I only know," said Wilkin, "that the drawing the one, and the dropping the other, have cost me my whole worldly subsistence." "Fleming, it shall be compensated to thee with an overflowing measure. The liberality of Gwenwyn is as the summer rain." "My whole mills and buildings have been this morning burnt to the earth--" "Thou shalt have a thousand marks of silver, man, in the place of thy goods," said the Welshman; but the Fleming continued, without seeming to hear him, to number up his losses. "My lands are forayed, twenty kine driven off, and--" "Threescore shall replace them," interrupted Jorworth, "chosen from the most bright-skinned of the spoil." "But my daughter--but the Lady Eveline"--said the Fleming, with some slight change in his monotonous voice, which seemed to express doubt and perplexity--"You are cruel conquerors, and--" "To those who resist us we are fearful," said Jorworth, "but not to such as shall deserve clemency by surrender. Gwenwyn will forget the contumelies of Raymond, and raise his daughter to high honour among the daughters of the Cymry. For thine own child, form but a wish for her advantage, and it shall be fulfilled to the uttermost. Now, Fleming, we understand each other." "I understand thee, at least," said Flammock. "And I thee, I trust?" said Jorworth, bending his keen, wild blue eye on the stolid and unexpressive face of the Netherlander, like an eager student who seeks to discover some hidden and mysterious meaning in a passage of a classic author, the direct import of which seems trite and trivial. "You believe that you understand me," said Wilkin; "but here lies the difficulty,--which of us shall trust the other?" "Darest thou ask?" answered Jorworth. "Is it for thee, or such as thee, to express doubt of the purposes of the Prince of Powys?" "I know them not, good Jorworth, but through thee; and well I wot thou art not one who will let thy traffic miscarry for want of aid from the breath of thy mouth." "As I am a Christian man," said Jorworth, hurrying asseveration on asseveration--"by the soul of my father--by the faith of my mother--by the black rood of--" "Stop, good Jorworth--thou heapest thine oaths too thickly on each other, for me to value them to the right estimate," said Flammock; "that which is so lightly pledged, is sometimes not thought worth redeeming. Some part of the promised guerdon in hand the whilst, were worth an hundred oaths."