ly he keeps but a hundred and fifty chosen
men with him. But, were his beacon fires to be lighted, there would in
a few hours be ten thousand men on the mountain. Then again, as the
whole population are with him, were I to start with five hundred men
from here, the news would reach him, by means of smokes on the hills,
before I had marched five miles away. 'Tis a warfare in which there is
no credit to be gained, and much loss to be sustained; and I see not
that, with anything less than an army large enough to march through
Wales from end to end, burning the towns and villages, and putting to
the sword all who resist, the affair can be brought to an end.

"It was only thus that Harold brought Wales to reason, and that so
strongly that it was two generations ere they ventured again to cross
the border. It was so that Edward finally stamped out their rebellions,
and methinks that the work will have to be done again, in the same
manner. So far from doing good, the king's invasion last autumn has but
encouraged them; for, though so numerous, his army effected nothing,
and showed the Welsh how powerless the troops were to enter the
mountains, or to take the offensive anywhere save on level ground."

Oswald's life, at Ludlow, differed in no way from that at Alnwick. He
took his meals at the high table, sitting below the knights, with Sir
Edmund's squires. He practised arms with them; tilted in the courtyard
of the castle; occasionally rode out, hunting and hawking, with a party
of knights and ladies; helped to drill the bodies of tenants who, a
hundred at a time, came in to swell the garrison. Sometimes he carried
Mortimer's orders to the governors of the castles, or rode with a
strong party into Hereford or Radnor.

A short time after his arrival, Montgomery was taken by storm by
Glendower; and all Englishmen, and Welshmen suspected of friendship for
the English, slain. Shortly afterwards, the suburbs of Welshpool were
burnt by him, to the great loss of the Earl of Powys; whose annoyance
was all the greater, since most of his own tenants were under arms,
with Glendower. Following hard upon these pieces of bad news came word
that he had fallen upon the Abbey of Cwmhir, six miles from Rhayader,
in Radnorshire, which he entirely destroyed. The news caused great
indignation, and the reason for this sacrilegious act was warmly
discussed at the castle.

"The reason, methinks," Sir Edmund said, after he had listened to the
knigh