BOOK VII.


THE WELCH KING.




CHAPTER I.


The sun had just cast his last beams over the breadth of water into
which Conway, or rather Cyn-wy, "the great river," emerges its winding
waves. Not at that time existed the matchless castle, which is now
the monument of Edward Plantagenet, and the boast of Wales. But
besides all the beauty the spot took from nature, it had even some
claim from ancient art. A rude fortress rose above the stream of
Gyffin, out of the wrecks of some greater Roman hold [159], and vast
ruins of a former town lay round it; while opposite the fort, on the
huge and ragged promontory of Gogarth, might still be seen, forlorn
and grey, the wrecks of the imperial city, destroyed ages before by
lightning.

All these remains of a power and a pomp that Rome in vain had
bequeathed to the Briton, were full of pathetic and solemn interest,
when blent with the thought, that on yonder steep, the brave prince of
a race of heroes, whose line transcended, by ages, all the other
royalties of the North, awaited, amidst the ruins of man, and in the
stronghold which nature yet gave, the hour of his doom.