the walls. The castle is Harold's name, which no Walloon will
dare to confront; and the walls are the heaps of the slain which lie in
every valley around." So saying, he wound his horn, which was speedily
answered, and led the way over a plank which admitted across the trench.

"Not even a drawbridge!" groaned the knight.

Sexwolf exchanged a few words with one who seemed the head of the small
garrison, and then regaining the Norman, said: "The Earl and his men have
advanced into the mountainous regions of Snowdon; and there, it is said,
the blood-lusting Gryffyth is at length driven to bay. Harold hath left
orders that, after as brief a refreshment as may be, I and my men, taking
the guide he hath left for us, join him on foot. There may now be danger:
for though Gryffyth himself may be pinned to his heights, he may have met
some friends in these parts to start up from crag and combe. The way on
horse is impassable: wherefore, master Norman, as our quarrel is not
thine nor thine our lord, I commend thee to halt here in peace and in
safety, with the sick and the prisoners."

"It is a merry companionship, doubtless," said the Norman; "but one
travels to learn, and I would fain see somewhat of thine uncivil
skirmishings with these men of the mountains; wherefore, as I fear my
poor mules are light of the provender, give me to eat and to drink. And
then shalt thou see, should we come in sight of the enemy, if a Norman's
big words are the sauce of small deeds."

"Well spoken, and better than I reckoned on," said Sexwolf, heartily.

While De Graville, alighting, sauntered about the village, the rest of
the troop exchanged greetings with their countrymen. It was, even to the
warrior's eye, a mournful scene. Here and there, heaps of ashes and
ruin-houses riddled and burned--the small, humble church, untouched
indeed by war, but looking desolate and forlorn--with sheep grazing on
large recent mounds thrown over the brave dead, who slept in the
ancestral spot they had defended.

The air was fragrant with spicy smells of the gale or bog myrtle; and the
village lay sequestered in a scene wild indeed and savage, but prodigal
of a stern beauty to which the Norman, poet by race, and scholar by
culture, was not insensible. Seating himself on a rude stone, apart from
all the warlike and murmuring groups, he looked forth on the dim and vast
mountain peaks, and the rivulet that rushed below, intersecting the
village, and lost a