While they were departing, the Queen and her women rose and withdrew. The foster-children went out into the twilit courtyard to play; the servants, after removing the dishes and the victuals, one by one left the room. Mogneid drew his seat closer to that of Gwrtheyrn.
"Ticklish fellows, these mongrel Romans," he observed.
The King was drinking deeply; the veins of his forehead still throbbed with rage and shame. By and by he put down his cup, and began to talk, with much gesticulation.
"Romans! Romans! Romans! Curse them all, high and low, up and down!… Ambrosius their tyrant, to the lousiest beggar's brat—and——What good are they to the clans of Britain?—with their fine habits and their sickly vices? What good to me was my wife Severa, Maxen's daughter? Ye see what sons she brought me—Gwrthefyr, and Cyndeyrn, and Pascent—cleave to Ambrosius, and forsake their own father! Here, in the west, are men mightier and taller and braver than all their enfeebled town-dwellers. Good fighting Goidels…."
"All men do know as much," said the other. "For my part, I would that my kinsmen were the chief men of the land."
"God!" panted Gwrtheyrn. "What is gone is gone—for ever." He looked upon his companion with a watery eye. "Thou art verily welcome, good Mogneid. A man is always glad to gossip with one of his own blood, especially after long time of dreariness. Few guests knock at my castle-gate—we are out of the run of life nowadays, alas! alas!"
The monotony and the squalor were all too evident.
"It were surely unjust," said Mogneid, in soothing tones, "that Buallt should be taken from thee."
"And shall I suffer it? I have my favourite hunting-lodge in that lordship. They are my lands—my lands! It pleases me to dwell there!" Gwrtheyrn shouted with maudlin vehemence.
"What is your purpose, O King?"