CIAN OF THE CHARIOTS

Beside the night-fire on the hill-top they matched well in minstrelsy; although Llywarch touched the harp to his own lays, Dynan, as he said, to those of many others. But they were every way strange to his companion, and some had an elfin revelry to make one stare. Questioning drew only a laughing answer. Whatever the truth might be, such melody suited well the slender lance of fortune, his nimble wayward wit, his flitting unexpectedness, his unvanquishable gayety. Surely he might well be half akin to the wild wee people of the hollowed hills, driven from the sunlight to the moonlight, yet whirling their dances and pealing their elfish laughter in the face of an iron fate.
One day these twain came suddenly upon three hostile men, who would have been called felon-knights in later days; very dirty, stout vagabonds, in armor which was green with verdigris, who lived mainly by robbing lone houses, and picking up what they might between town and town. They showed fight, being the stronger party as it seemed, and also hungry, but did little damage except to the harp-strings which were hanging from Llywarch's saddle-bow. After that there was voice-music only, but it answered; and this was their only adventure on the way to Argoed.
It was a bright morning when they entered the head of one of its lesser branching valleys. From a

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