Certainly, these Welsh folk
were readier to talk than we, and maybe the meats were more dainty
and the wines finer than ours, and in truth the Welsh mead was good
and the Welsh ale mighty, but men seemed to care little for the
sport that should come after the meal was over. Yet these harpers
sang well, and from them I learnt more about my foster father than
he had ever cared to tell me, for they sang of old deeds of his.
Doubtless they made the most of them, for it would seem from their
songs that he had fought with Cornish giants as an everyday thing,
and that he had been the bane of more than one dragon. But one
knows how to sift the words of the gleeman's song, and they told me
at least that Owen had been a great champion ere he left his home.
Still, I missed the bright fire on the hearth, and the ways of the
court were too stately for me here. Men seemed not to like the
cheerful noise of my honest house-carles, who jested and laughed as
they would have done in the hall of Ina, who loved to see and hear
that his men were merry. We should have thought that there was
something wrong if there had not been plenty of noise at the end of
the long tables below the salt.
Now, I will not say that there was not something very pleasant in
sitting here at the side of the king as the most honoured guest
next to my foster father, but there was a sadness at the back of it
all in the knowledge that it was likely that from henceforth our
ways must needs go apart more or less, and that I might see him
only from time to time.
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