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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42011 ***
+
+                        PABO, THE PRIEST
+
+                            A Novel
+
+                       BY S. BARING GOULD
+
+    Author of "Domitia," "The Broom-Squire," "Bladys," "Mehalah," Etc.
+
+    NEW YORK
+    FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+    PUBLISHERS
+
+    Copyright, 1899,
+    BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+   CHAPTER                                         PAGE
+
+        I. GERALD                                    1
+
+       II. NEST                                     14
+
+      III. THE SEVEN DEGREES                        23
+
+       IV. A HWYL                                   38
+
+        V. THE FIRST BLOOD                          48
+
+       VI. THE SCROLL                               58
+
+      VII. GRIFFITH OF RHYS                         66
+
+     VIII. PREPARING FOR THE EVIL DAY               74
+
+       IX. WHAT MUST BE                             83
+
+        X. THE CELL ON MALLAEN                      93
+
+       XI. A MIRACLE                               104
+
+      XII. GORONWY                                 117
+
+     XIII. IT MUST BE MAINTAINED                   129
+
+      XIV. THE FALL OF THE LOT                     140
+
+       XV. TWO PEBBLES                             152
+
+      XVI. A SUMMONS                               162
+
+     XVII. BETRAYED                                172
+
+    XVIII. CAREG CENNEN                            183
+
+      XIX. FORGOTTEN                               194
+
+       XX. THE BRACELET OF MAXEN                   206
+
+      XXI. SANCTUARY                               217
+
+     XXII. IN OGOFAU                               228
+
+    XXIII. AURI MOLES PRÆGRANDIS                   238
+
+     XXIV. THE PYLGAIN OF DYFED                    251
+
+      XXV. THE WHITE SHIP                          261
+
+
+
+
+PABO, THE PRIEST
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+GERALD
+
+
+King Henry sat in a great chair with a pillow under each arm, and one
+behind his head resting on the lofty chair-back. He was unwell,
+uncomfortable, irritable.
+
+In a large wicker-work cage at the further end of the room was a
+porcupine. It had been sent him as a present by the King of Denmark.
+
+Henry Beauclerk was fond of strange animals, and the princes that
+desired his favor humored him by forwarding such beasts and birds as
+they considered to be rare and quaint.
+
+The porcupine was a recent arrival, and it interested the King as a new
+toy, and drew his thoughts away from himself.
+
+He had occasion to be irritable. His leech had ordered him to eat salt
+pork only.
+
+By his hand, on the table, stood a ewer and a basin, and ever and anon
+Henry poured water out of the ewer into the basin, and then with a huge
+wooden spoon ladled the liquid back into the receiver. The reason of the
+proceeding was this--
+
+He had for some time been troubled with some internal discomfort--not
+serious, but annoying; one which we, nowadays, would interpret very
+differently from the physicians of the twelfth century. We should say
+that he was suffering from dyspepsia; but the Court leech, who diagnosed
+the condition of the King, explained it in other fashion.
+
+He said that Henry had inadvertently drunk water that contained the
+spawn of a salamander. It had taken many months for the spawn to develop
+into a sort of tadpole, and the tadpole to grow into a salamander. Thus
+the reptile had attained large size, and was active, hungry, and
+rampageous. Beauclerk had a spotted salamander within him, which could
+not be extracted by a forceps, as it was out of reach; it could not be
+poisoned, as that medicament which would kill the brute might also kill
+the King. It must, therefore, be cajoled to leave its prison. Unless
+this end were achieved the son of the Conqueror of England would succumb
+to the ravages of this internal monster.
+
+The recipe prescribed was simple, and commended itself to the meanest
+intelligence. Henry was to eat nothing but highly salted viands, and was
+to drink neither wine, water, nor ale. However severely he might suffer
+from thirst he could console himself with the reflection that the
+sufferings of the salamander within him were greater--a poor comfort,
+yet one that afforded a measure of relief to a man of a vindictive mind.
+
+Not only was he to eat salt meat, but he was also to cause the splash of
+water to be heard in his insides. Therefore he was to pour water
+forwards and backwards between the ewer and the basin; and this was to
+be done with gaping mouth, so that the sound might reach the reptile,
+and the salamander would at length be induced to ascend the throat of
+the monarch and make for the basin, so as to drink. Immediately on the
+intruder leaving the body of the King, Henry was to snap it up with a
+pair of tongs, laid ready to hand, and to cast it into the fire.
+
+Although the season was summer and the weather was warm, there burned
+logs on the hearth, emitting a brisk blaze.
+
+There were in the room in the palace of Westminster others besides the
+King and the imprisoned salamander. Henry had sent into South Wales for
+Gerald de Windsor and his wife Nest. These two were now in the chamber
+with the sick King.
+
+"There, Nest," said he, "look at yon beast. Study it well. It is called
+a porcupine. Plinius asserts--I think it is Plinius--that when angered
+he sets all his quills in array and launches one at the eyes of such as
+threaten or assail him. Therefore, when I approach the cage, I carry a
+bolster before me as a buckler."
+
+"Prithee, Sire, when thou didst go against the Welsh last year, didst
+thou then as well wear a bolster?"
+
+"Ah," said the King, "you allude to the arrow that was aimed at me, and
+which would have transfixed me but for my hauberk. That was shot by no
+Welshman."
+
+"Then by whom?"
+
+"Odds life, Nest, there be many who would prefer to have the light and
+lax hand of Robert over them than mine, which is heavy, and grips
+tightly."
+
+"Then I counsel, when thou warrest against the Welsh, wear a pillow
+strapped behind as well as one before."
+
+"Nest! Thy tongue is sharp as a spine of the porcupine. Get thee gone
+into the embrasure, and converse with the parrot there. Gerald and I
+have some words to say to each other, and when I have done with him,
+then I will speak with thee."
+
+The lady withdrew into the window. She was a beautiful woman, known to
+be the most beautiful in Wales. She was the daughter of Rhys, King of
+Dyfed--that is, South Wales, and she had been surrendered when quite
+young as a hostage to Henry. He had respected neither her youth nor her
+helpless position away from her natural protectors. Then he had thrust
+her on Gerald of Windsor, one of the Norman adventurers who were turned
+loose on Wales to be the oppressors, the plunderers, and the butchers of
+Nest's own people.
+
+Nest had profuse golden hair, and a wonderful complexion of lilies and
+roses, that flashed, even flamed with emotion. Her eyes were large and
+deep, under dark brows, and with long dark lashes that swept her cheeks
+and veiled her expressive eyes when lowered. She was tall and willowy,
+graceful in her every movement. In her eyes, usually tremulous and sad,
+there scintillated a lurking fire--threats of a blaze, should she be
+angered. When thrown into the arms of Gerald, her wishes had not been
+consulted. Henry had desired to be rid of her, as an encumbrance, as
+soon as he resolved on marrying Mathilda, the heiress of the Saxon
+kings, daughter of Malcolm of Scotland, and niece to Edgar Etheling. At
+one time he had thought of conciliating the Welsh by making Nest his
+wife. Their hostility would cease when the daughter of one of their
+princes sat on the English throne. But on further consideration, he
+deemed it more expedient for him to attach to him the English, and so
+rally about him a strong national party against the machinations of his
+elder brother, Robert. This concluded, he had disposed of Nest,
+hurriedly, to the Norman Gerald.
+
+Meanwhile, her brother, Griffith, despoiled of his kingdom, a price set
+on his head, was an exile and a refugee at the Court of the King of
+Gwynedd, or North Wales, at Aberfraw in Anglesey.
+
+"Come now, Gerald, what is thy report? How fares it with the
+pacification of Wales?"
+
+"Pacification, Lord King! Do you call that pacifying a man when you
+thrash his naked body with a thorn-bush?"
+
+"If you prefer the term--subjugation."
+
+"The word suits. Sire, it was excellent policy, as we advanced, to fill
+in behind us with a colony of Flemings. The richest and fattest land has
+been cleared of the Welsh and given to foreigners. Moreover, by this
+means we have cut them off from access to the sea, from their great
+harbors. It has made them mad. Snatch a meal from a dog, and he will
+snarl and bite. Now we must break their teeth and cut their claws. They
+are rolled back among their tangled forests and desolate mountains."
+
+"And what advance has been made?"
+
+"I have gone up the Towy and have established a castle at Carreg Cennen,
+that shall check Dynevor if need be."
+
+"Why not occupy Dynevor, and build there?"
+
+Gerald looked askance at his wife. The expression of his face said more
+than words. She was trifling with the bird, and appeared to pay no
+attention to what was being said.
+
+"I perceive," spoke Henry, and chuckled.
+
+Dynevor had been the palace in which Nest's father, the King of South
+Wales, had held court. It was from thence that her brother Griffith had
+been driven a fugitive to North Wales.
+
+"In Carreg Cennen there is water--at Dynevor there is none," said
+Gerald, with unperturbed face.
+
+"A good reason," laughed Henry, and shifted the pillow behind his head.
+"Hey, there, Nest! employ thy energies in catching of flies. Methinks
+were I to put a bluebottle in my mouth, the buzzing might attract the
+salamander, and I would catch him as he came after it." Then to Gerald,
+"Go on with thine account."
+
+"I have nothing further to say--than this."
+
+He put forth his hand and took a couple of fresh walnuts off a leaf that
+was on the table. Then, unbidden, he seated himself on a stool, with his
+back to the embrasure, facing the King. Next he cracked the shells in
+his fist, and cast the fragments into the fire. He proceeded leisurely
+to peel the kernels, then extended his palm to Henry, offering one, but
+holding his little and third finger over the other.
+
+"I will have both," said Beauclerk.
+
+"Nay, Sire, I am not going to crack all the nutshells, and you eat all
+the kernels."
+
+"What mean you?"
+
+"Hitherto I and other adventurers have risked our lives, and shed our
+blood in cracking the castles of these Welsh fellows, and now we want
+something more, some of the flesh within. Nay, more. We ask you to help
+us. You have done nothing."
+
+"I led an army into Wales last summer," said Henry angrily.
+
+"And led it back again," retorted Windsor drily. "Excuse my bluntness.
+That was of no advantage whatsoever to us in the south. Your forces were
+not engaged. It was a promenade through Powys. As for us in the south,
+we have looked for help and found none since your great father made a
+pilgrimage to St. David. Twice to Dewi is as good as once to Rome, so
+they say. He went once to look around him and to overawe those mountain
+wolves."
+
+"What would you have done for you?" inquired Henry surlily.
+
+"Not a great thing for you; for us--everything."
+
+"And that?"
+
+"At this moment a chance offers such as may not return again in our
+time. If what I propose be done, you drive a knife into the heart of the
+enemy, and that will be better than cutting off his fingers and toes and
+slicing away his ears. It will not cost you much, Sire--not the risk of
+an arrow. Naught save the stroke of a pen."
+
+"Say what it is."
+
+"The Bishop of St. David's is dead, a Welsh prelate, and the Church
+there has chosen another Welshman, Daniel, to succeed him. Give the see
+to an Englishman or a Norman, it matters not which--not a saint, but a
+fellow on whom you can rely to do your work and ours."
+
+"I see not how this will help you," said Henry, with his eye on the hard
+face of Gerald, which was now becoming animated, so that the bronze
+cheek darkened.
+
+"How this will help us!" echoed Windsor. "It will be sovereign as help.
+See you, Sire! We stud the land with castles, but we cannot be
+everywhere. The Welsh have a trick of gathering noiselessly in the woods
+and glens and drawing a ring about one of our strongholds, and letting
+no cry for assistance escape. Then they close in and put every
+Englishman therein to the sword--if they catch a Fleming, him they hang
+forthwith. We know not that a castle has been attacked and taken till we
+see the clouds lit up with flame. When we are building, then our convoys
+are intercepted, our masons are harassed, our limekilns are destroyed,
+our cattle carried off, our horses houghed, and our men slaughtered."
+
+"But what will a bishop avail you in such straits?"
+
+"Attend! and you shall hear. A bishop who is one of ourselves and not a
+Welshman drains the produce of the land into English pockets. He will
+put an Englishman into every benefice, that in every parish we may have
+a spy on their actions, maintained by themselves. There is the joke of
+it. We will plant monasteries where we have no castles, and stuff them
+with Norman monks. A bishop will find excuses, I warrant you, for
+dispossessing the native clergy, and of putting our men into their
+berths. He will do more. He will throw such a net of canon law over the
+laity as to entangle them inextricably in its meshes, and so enable us,
+without unnecessary bloodshed, to arrogate their lands to ourselves."
+
+Henry laughed.
+
+"Give us the right man. No saint with scruples."
+
+"'Sdeath!" exclaimed the King; "I know the very man for you."
+
+"And he is?"
+
+"Bernard, the Queen's steward."
+
+"He is not a clerk!"
+
+"I can make him one."
+
+"He is married!"
+
+"He can cast off his wife--a big-mouthed jade. By my mother's soul, he
+will be glad to purchase a bishopric so cheap."
+
+"He is no saint?"
+
+"He has been steward to one," mocked Henry. "My Maude postures as a
+saint, gives large alms to needy clerks, washes the feet of beggars,
+endows monasteries, and grinds her tenants till they starve, break out
+into revolt, and have to be hung as an example. She lavishes coin on
+foreign flattering minstrels--and for that the poor English churl must
+be put in the press. It is Bernard, and ever Bernard, who has to turn
+the screw and add the weights and turn the grindstone."
+
+"And he scruples not?"
+
+"Has not a scruple in his conscience. He cheats his mistress of a third
+of what he raises for her to lavish on the Church and the trumpeters of
+her fame."
+
+"That is the man we require. Give us Bernard, and, Sire, you will do
+more to pacify Wales--pacify is your word--than if you sent us an army.
+Yet it must be effected speedily, before the Welsh get wind of it, or
+they will have their Daniel consecrated and installed before we shall be
+ready with our Bernard."
+
+"It shall be accomplished at once--to-morrow. Go, Gerald, make inquiry
+what bishops are in the city, and send one or other hither. He shall
+priest him to-morrow, and Bernard shall be consecrated bishop the same
+day. Take him back with you. If you need men you shall have them.
+Enthrone him before they are aware. They have been given Urban at
+Llandaff, and, death of my soul! he has been belaboring his flock with
+his crook, and has shorn them so rudely that they are bleeding to death.
+There is Hervey, another Norman we have thrust into St. Asaph, and, if I
+mistake not, his sheep have expelled their shepherd. So, to support
+Bernard, force will be required. Let him be well sustained."
+
+"I go," said Gerald. "When opposition is broken we shall eat our walnuts
+together, Sire."
+
+"Aye--but Bernard will take the largest share."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+NEST
+
+
+King Henry folded his hands over his paunch, leaned back and laughed
+heartily.
+
+"'Sdeath!" said he. "But I believe the salamander has perished: he could
+not endure the mirth of it. Odds blood! But Bernard will be a veritable
+salamander in the rude bowels of Wales."
+
+Before him stood Nest, with fire erupting from her dark eyes.
+
+Henry looked at her, raised his brows, settled himself more easily in
+his chair, but cast aside the pillows on which his arms had rested. "Ha!
+Nest, I had forgotten thy presence. Hast caught me a bluebottle? My
+trouble is not so acute just now. How fares our boy, Robert?"
+
+She swept the question aside with an angry gesture of the hand.
+
+"And what sort of housekeeping do you have with Gerald?" he asked.
+
+Again she made a movement of impatience.
+
+"Odds life!" said he. "When here it was ever with thee Wales this, and
+Wales that. We had no mountains like thy Welsh Mynyddau--that is the
+silly word, was it not? And no trees like those in the Vale of Towy, and
+no waters that brawled and foamed like thy mountain brooks, and no music
+like the twanging of thy bardic harps, and no birds sang so sweet, and
+no flowers bloomed so fair. Pshaw! now thou art back among them all
+again. I have sent thee home--art content?"
+
+"You have sent me back to blast and destroy my people. You have coupled
+my name with that of Gerald, that the curses of my dear people when they
+fall on him may fall on me also."
+
+"Bah!" said the King. "Catch me a bluebottle, and do not talk in such
+high terms."
+
+"Henry," she said, in thrilling tones, "I pray you----"
+
+"You were forever praying me at one time to send you back to Wales. I
+have done so, and you are not content."
+
+"I had rather a thousand times have buried my head--my shamed, my
+dishonored head"--she spoke with sternness and concentrated wrath--"in
+some quiet cloister, than to be sent back with a firebrand into my own
+land to lay its homesteads in ashes."
+
+"You do pretty well among yourselves in that way," said Henry
+contemptuously. "When were you ever known to unite? You are forever
+flying at each other's throats and wasting each other's lands. Those who
+cannot combine must be broken."
+
+Nest drew a long breath. She knitted her hands together.
+
+"Henry," she said, "I pray you, reconsider what Gerald has advised, and
+withhold consent."
+
+"Nay, it was excellent counsel."
+
+"It was the worst counsel that could be given. Think what has been done
+to my poor people. You have robbed them of their corn-land and have
+given it to aliens. You have taken from them their harbors, and they
+cannot escape. You have driven away their princes, and they cannot
+unite. You have crushed out their independence, and they cease to be
+men. They have but one thing left to them as their very own--their
+Church. And now you will plunder them of that--thrust yourselves in
+between them and God. They have had hitherto their own pastors, as they
+have had their own princes. They have followed the one in war and the
+other in peace. Their pastors have been men of their own blood, of their
+own speech, men who have suffered with them, have wept with them, and
+have even bled with them. These have spoken to them when sick at heart,
+and have comforted them when wounded in spirit. And now they are to be
+jostled out of their places, to make room for others, aliens in blood,
+ignorant of our language, indifferent to our woes; men who cannot advise
+nor comfort, men from whom our people will receive no gift, however
+holy. Deprived of everything that makes life endurable, will you now
+deprive them of their religion?"
+
+She paused, out of breath, with flaming cheek, and sparkling
+eyes--quivering, palpitating in every part of her body.
+
+"Nest," said the King, "you are a woman--a fool. You do not understand
+policy."
+
+"Policy!" she cried scornfully. "What is policy? My people have their
+faults and their good qualities."
+
+"Faults! I know them, I trow. As to their good qualities, I have them to
+learn." He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
+
+"You know their faults alone," pursued Nest passionately, "because you
+seek to find them that you may foster and trade on them. That is policy.
+Policy is to nurture the evil and ignore the good. None know better
+their own weaknesses than do we. But why not turn your policy to helping
+us to overcome them and be made strong?"
+
+"It is through your own inbred faults that we have gained admission into
+your mountains. Brothers with you cannot trust brothers----"
+
+"No more than you or Robert can trust each other, I presume," sneered
+Nest. "An arrow was aimed at you from behind. Who shot it? Not a
+Welshman, but Robert, or a henchman of Robert. On my honor, you set us a
+rare example of fraternal affection and unity!"
+
+Henry bit his lips.
+
+"It is through your own rivalries that we are able to maintain our hold
+upon your mountains."
+
+"And because we know you as fomenters of discord--doers of the devil's
+work--that is why we hate you. Give up this policy, and try another
+method with us."
+
+"Women cannot understand. Have done!"
+
+"Justice, they say, is figured as a woman; for Justice is pitiful
+towards feebleness and infirmity. But with you is no justice at all,
+only rank tyranny--tyranny that can only rule with the iron rod, and
+drive with the scourge."
+
+"Be silent! My salamander is moving again."
+
+But she would not listen to him. She pursued--
+
+"My people are tender-hearted, loving, loyal, frank. Show them trust,
+consideration, regard, and they will meet you with open arms. We know
+now that our past has been one of defeat and recoil, and we also know
+why it has been so. Divided up into our little kingdoms, full of
+rivalries, jealousies, ambitions, we have not had the wit to cohere. Who
+would weave us into one has made a rope of sand. It was that, not the
+superior courage or better arms of the Saxon, that drove us into
+mountains and across the sea. It is through playing with, encouraging
+this, bribing into treachery, that you are forcing your way among us
+now. But if in place of calling over adventurers from France and boors
+from Flanders to kill us and occupy our lands, you come to us with the
+olive branch, and offer us your suzerainty and guarantee us against
+internecine strife--secure to us our lands, our laws, our
+liberties--then we shall become your devoted subjects, we shall look up
+to you as to one who raises us, whereas now we regard you as one who
+casts us down to trample on us. We have our good qualities, and these
+qualities will serve you well if you will encourage them. But your
+policy is to do evil, and evil only."
+
+Henry Beauclerk, with a small mallet, struck a wooden disk, and an
+attendant appeared.
+
+"Call Gerald Windsor back," said he; then, to himself, "this woman is an
+offense to me."
+
+"Because I utter that which you cannot understand. I speak of justice,
+and you understand only tyranny."
+
+"Another word, Nest, and I shall have you forcibly removed."
+
+She cast herself passionately at the King's feet.
+
+"I beseech thee--I--I whom thou didst so cruelly wrong when a poor
+helpless hostage in thy hands--I, away from father and mother--alone
+among you--not knowing a word of your tongue. I have never asked for
+aught before. By all the wrongs I have endured from thee--by thy hopes
+for pardon at the great Day when the oppressed and fatherless will be
+righted--I implore thee--withhold thy consent."
+
+"It is idle to ask this," said Henry coldly, "Leave me. I will hear no
+more." Then taking the ewer, he began again to pour water into the
+basin, and next to ladle it back into the vessel whence he had poured
+it.
+
+"Oh, you beau clerk!" exclaimed Nest, rising to her feet. "So skilled in
+books, who knowest the qualities of the porcupine through Plinius, and
+how to draw forth a salamander, as instructed by Galen! A beau clerk
+indeed, who does not understand the minds of men, nor read their hearts;
+who cannot understand their best feelings, whose only thought is that of
+the churl, to smash, and outrage, and ruin. A great people, a people
+with more genius in its little finger than all thy loutish Saxons in
+their entire body, thou wilt oppress, and turn their good to gall, their
+sweetness to sour, and nurture undying hate where thou mightest breed
+love."
+
+"Begone! I will strike and summon assistance, and have thee removed."
+
+"Then," said Nest, "I appeal unto God, that He may avenge the injured
+and the oppressed. May He smite thee where thou wilt most painfully feel
+the blow! May He break down all in which thou hast set thy hopes, and
+level with the dust that great ambition of thine!" She gasped. "Sire,
+when thou seest thy hopes wrecked and thyself standing a stripped and
+blasted tree--then remember Wales!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE SEVEN DEGREES
+
+
+The river Cothi, that after a lengthy course finally discharges into the
+Towy, so soon as it has quitted the solitudes of moor and mountain,
+traverses a broad and fertile basin that is a gathering-place of many
+feeders. From this basin it issues by a narrow glen, almost a ravine.
+
+The sides of this great bowl are walled in by mountains, though not of
+the height, desolation, and grandeur of those to the north, where the
+Cothi takes its rise. The broad basin in the midst of the highlands,
+once probably occupied by a lake, is traversed near its head by the Sarn
+Helen, a paved Roman-British road, still in use, that connects the vales
+of the Towy and the Teify, and passes the once famous gold-mines of
+Ogofau.
+
+At the head of this oval trough or basin stand the church and village of
+Cynwyl Gaio, backed by mountains that rise rapidly, and are planted on
+a fork between the river Annell and a tributary, whose mingled waters
+eventually swell the Cothi.
+
+The lower extremity of the trough is occupied by a rocky height,
+Pen-y-ddinas, crowned with prehistoric fortifications, and a little tarn
+of trifling extent is the sole relic of the great sheet of water which
+at one time, we may conjecture, covered the entire expanse.
+
+At the time of this story, the district between the Towy and Teify,
+comprising the basin just described, constituted the sanctuary of David,
+and was the seat of an ecclesiastical tribe--that is to say, it was the
+residence of a people subject to a chief in sacred orders, the priest
+Pabo, and the hereditary chieftainship was in his family.
+
+And this pleasant bowl among the mountains was also regarded as a
+sanctuary, to which might fly such as had fallen into peril of life by
+manslaughter, or such strangers as were everywhere else looked on with
+suspicion. A story was told, and transmitted from father to son, to
+account for this. It was to this effect. When St. David--or Dewi, as the
+Welsh called him--left the synod of Brefi, in the Teify Vale, he
+ascended the heights of the Craig Twrch, by Queen Helen's road, and on
+passing the brow, looked down for the first time on the fertile district
+bedded beneath him, engirdled by heathery mountains at the time in the
+flush of autumn flower. It was as though a crimson ribbon was drawn
+round the emerald bowl.
+
+Then--so ran the tale--the spirit of prophecy came on the patriarch. His
+soul was lifted up within him, and raising his hands in benediction, he
+stood for a while as one entranced.
+
+"Peace!" said he--and again, "Peace!" and once more, "Peace!" and he
+added, "May the deluge of blood never reach thee!"
+
+Then he fell to sobbing, and bowed his head on his knees.
+
+His disciples, Ismael and Aiden, said, "Father, tell us why thou
+weepest."
+
+But David answered, "I see what will be. Till then may the peace of
+David rest on this fair spot."
+
+Now, in memory of this, it was ordained that no blood should be spilled
+throughout the region; and that such as feared for their lives could
+flee to it and be safe from pursuit, so long as they remained within the
+sanctuary bounds. And the bounds were indicated by crosses set up on
+the roads and at the head of every pass.
+
+Consequently, the inhabitants of the Happy Valley knew that no Welsh
+prince would harry there, that no slaughters could take place there, no
+hostile forces invade the vale. There might ensue quarrels between
+residents in the Happy Land, personal disputes might wax keen; but so
+great was the dread of incurring the wrath of Dewi, that such quarrels
+and disputes were always adjusted before reaching extremities.
+
+And this immunity from violence had brought upon the inhabitants great
+prosperity. Such was a consequence of the benediction pronounced by old
+Father David.
+
+It was no wonder, therefore, that the inhabitants of the region looked
+to him with peculiar reverence and almost fanatical love. Just as in
+Tibet the Grand Lama never dies, for when one religious chief pays the
+debt of nature, his spirit undergoes a new incarnation, so--or almost
+so--was each successive Bishop of St. David's regarded as the
+representative of the first great father, as invested with all his
+rights, authority, and sanctity, as having a just and inalienable claim
+on their hearts and on their allegiance.
+
+But now a blow had fallen on the community that was staggering. On the
+death of their Bishop Griffith, the church of St. David had chosen as
+his successor Daniel, son of a former bishop, Sulien; but the Normans
+had closed all avenues of egress from the peninsula, so that he might
+not be consecrated, unless he would consent to swear allegiance to the
+see of Canterbury and submission to the crown of England, and this was
+doggedly resisted.
+
+Menevia--another name for the St. David's headland--had undergone many
+vicissitudes. The church had been burnt by Danes, and its bishop and
+clergy massacred, but it had risen from its ruins, and a new successor
+in spirit, in blood, in tongue, had filled the gap. Now--suddenly,
+wholly unexpectedly, arrived Bernard, a Norman, who could not speak a
+word of Welsh, and mumbled but broken English, a man who had been
+hurried into Orders, the priesthood and episcopal office, all in one
+day, and was thrust on the Welsh by the mere will of the English King,
+in opposition to Canon law, common decency, and without the consent of
+the diocese.
+
+The ferment throughout South Wales was immense. Resentment flamed in
+some hearts, others were quelled with despair. It was not the clergy
+alone who were in consternation: all, of every class, felt that their
+national rights had been invaded, and that in some way they could not
+understand this appointment was a prelude to a great disaster.
+
+Although there had been dissensions among the princes, and strife
+between tribes, the Church, their religion, had been the one bond of
+union. There was a cessation of all discord across the sacred threshold,
+and clergy and people were intimately united in feeling, in interests,
+in belief. In the Celtic Church bishops and priests had always been
+allowed to marry--a prelate of St. David's had frankly erected a
+monument to the memory of two of his sons, which is still to be seen
+there. Everywhere the parochial clergy, if parochial they can be styled,
+where territorial limits were not defined had their wives. They were
+consequently woven into one with the people by the ties of blood.
+
+Nowhere was the feeling of bitterness more poignant than in the Happy
+Valley, where the intrusion of a stranger to the throne of David was
+resented almost as a sacrilege. Deep in the hearts of the people lay the
+resolve not to recognize the new bishop as a spiritual father, one of
+the ecclesiastical lineage of Dewi.
+
+Such was the condition of affairs, such the temper of the people, when
+it was announced that Bernard was coming to visit the sanctuary and
+there to initiate the correction of abuses.
+
+Pabo, the Archpriest, showed less alarm than his flock. When he heard
+that threats were whispered, that there was talk of resistance to the
+intrusion, he went about among his people exhorting, persuading against
+violence. Let Bernard be received with the courtesy due to a visitor,
+and the respect which his office deserved.
+
+A good many protested that they would not appear at Cynwyl lest their
+presence should be construed as a recognition of his claim, and they
+betook themselves to their mountain pastures, or remained at home.
+Nevertheless, moved by curiosity, a considerable number of men did
+gather on the ridge, about the church, watching the approach of the
+bishop and his party. Women also were there in numbers, children as
+well, only eager to see the sight. The men were gloomy, silent, and wore
+their cloaks, beneath which they carried cudgels.
+
+The day was bright, and the sun flashed on the weapons and on the armor
+of the harnessed men who were in the retinue of Bishop Bernard, that
+entered the valley by Queen Helen's road, and advanced leisurely towards
+the ridge occupied by the church and the hovels that constituted the
+village.
+
+The Welsh were never--they are not to this day--builders. Every fair
+structure of stone in the country is due to the constructive genius of
+the Normans. The native Celt loved to build of wood and wattle. His
+churches, his domestic dwellings, his monasteries, his kingly halls, all
+were of timber.
+
+The tribesmen of Pabo stood in silence, observing the advancing
+procession.
+
+First came a couple of clerks, and after them two men-at-arms, then rode
+Bernard, attended on one side by his interpreter, on the other by his
+brother Rogier in full harness. Again clerks, and then a body of
+men-at-arms.
+
+The bishop was a middle-sized man with sandy hair, very pale eyes with
+rings about the iris deeper in color than the iris itself--eyes that
+seemed without depth, impossible to sound, as those of a bird. He had
+narrow, straw-colored brows, a sharp, straight peak of a nose, and thin
+lips--lips that hardly showed at all--his mouth resembling a slit. The
+chin and jowl were strongly marked.
+
+He wore on his head a cloth cap with two peaks, ending in tassels, and
+with flaps to cover his ears, possibly as an imitation of a miter; but
+outside a church, and engaged in no sacred function, he was of course
+not vested. He had a purple-edged mantle over one shoulder, and beneath
+it a dark cassock, and he was booted and spurred. One of the clerks who
+preceded him carried his pastoral cross--for the see of St. David's
+claimed archiepiscopal pre-eminence. In the midst of the men-at-arms
+were sumpter mules carrying the ecclesiastical purtenances of the
+bishop.
+
+Not a cheer greeted Bernard as he reached the summit of the hill and was
+in the midst of the people. He looked about with his pale, inanimate
+eyes, and saw sulky faces and folded arms.
+
+"Hey!" said he to his interpreter. "Yon fellow--he is the Archpriest, I
+doubt not. Bid him come to me."
+
+"I am at your service," said Pabo in Norman-French, which he had
+acquired.
+
+"That is well; hold my stirrup whilst I alight."
+
+Pabo hesitated a moment, then complied.
+
+"The guest," said he, "must be honored."
+
+But an angry murmur passed through the throng of bystanders.
+
+"You have a churlish set of parishioners," said Bernard, alighting.
+"They must be taught good manners. Go, fetch me a seat."
+
+Pabo went to the presbytery, and returned with a stool, that he placed
+where indicated by the bishop.
+
+The people looked at each other with undisguised dissatisfaction. They
+did not approve of their chief holding the stirrup, or carrying a stool
+for this foreign intruder. Their isolation in the midst of the
+mountains, their immunity from war and ravage, had made them tenacious
+of their liberties and proud, resistful to innovation, and resolute in
+the maintenance of their dignity and that of their chief. But a certain
+amount of concession was due to hospitality, and so construed these acts
+could alone be tolerated. Nevertheless their tempers were chafed, and
+there was no graciousness in the demeanor of the bishop to allay
+suspicion, while the contemptuous looks of his Norman attendants were
+calculated to exasperate.
+
+"It is well," said Bernard, signing imperiously to Pabo to draw near.
+"It is well that you can speak French."
+
+"I have been in Brittany. I have visited Nantes and Rennes. I can speak
+your language after a fashion."
+
+"'Tis well. I am among jabbering jackdaws, and cannot comprehend a word
+of their jargon. I do not desire to distort my mouth in the attempt to
+acquire it."
+
+"Then would it not have been as well had you remained in Normandy or
+England?"
+
+"I have other work to do than to study your tongue," said Bernard with a
+laugh. "I am sent here by my august master, the fine clerk, the great
+scholar, the puissant prince, to bring order where is confusion."
+
+"The aspect of this valley bespeaks confusion," interrupted Pabo, with a
+curl of the lip.
+
+"Do not break in on me with unmannered words," said the bishop. "I am an
+apostle of morality where reigns mere license."
+
+"License, my Sieur? I know my people; I have lived among them from
+childhood. They are not perfect. They may not be saints, but I cannot
+admit that a stranger who is newly come among us, who cannot understand
+a word that we speak, is justified in thus condemning us."
+
+"We shall see that presently," exclaimed Bernard, "when we come to
+particulars. I have heard concerning you. My lord and master, the
+Beauclerk Henry, has his eyes and ears open. Ye are a dissolute set, ye
+do not observe the Seven Degrees." Then aside to his chaplain: "It is
+seven, not four, I think?"
+
+"I pray you explain," said Pabo.
+
+"Seven degrees," pursued Bernard. "I must have all the relationships of
+the married men throughout the country gone into. This district of Caio
+to commence with, then go on through the South of Wales--through my
+diocese. I must have all inquired into; and if any man shall have
+contracted an union within the forbidden degrees, if he have taken to
+him a wife related by blood--consanguine, that is the word, chaplain,
+eh?--or connected by marriage, affine--am I right, chaplain?--or having
+contracted a spiritual relationship through sponsorship at the font, or
+legal relation through guardianship--then such marriages must be
+annulled, made void, and the issue pronounced to be illegitimate."
+
+"My good Lord!" gasped Pabo, turning deadly pale.
+
+"Understand me," went on the bishop, turning his blear, ringed, birdlike
+eyes about on the circle of those present, "if it shall chance that
+persons have stood at the font to a child, then they have thereby
+contracted a spiritual affinity--I am right, am I not chaplain?--which
+acts as a barrier to marriage; and, if they have become united,
+bastardizes their issue. Cousinship by blood, relationship through
+marriage, all act in the same way to seven degrees--and render unions
+void."
+
+"Are you aware what you are about?" asked Pabo gravely. "In our land,
+hemmed in by mountains, marriages are usually contracted within the same
+tribe, and in the same district, so that the whole of our people are
+more or less bound together into a family. A kinship of some sort
+subsists between all. If you press this rule--and it is no rule with
+us--you break up fully three-fourths of the families in this country."
+
+"And what if I do?"
+
+"What! Separate husband and wife!"
+
+"If the union has been unlawful."
+
+"It has not been unlawful. Cousins have always among us been allowed to
+marry. No nearer blood relations; and the rule of affinity has never
+extended beyond a wife's sister. As to spiritual relationship as a bar,
+it is a device of man. Why! to inquire into such matters is to pry into
+every family, to introduce trouble into consciences, to offer
+opportunity for all kinds of license."
+
+"I care not. It is our Canon law."
+
+"But we are not, we never have been, subject to your Canon law."
+
+"You are so now. I, your head, have taken oath of allegiance to
+Canterbury. Thereby I have bound you all."
+
+Pabo's cheek darkened.
+
+"I rely on you," proceeded the bishop. "You, as you say, have lived here
+always. You can furnish me with particulars as to all the marriages that
+have been contracted for the last fifty years."
+
+"What! does the rule act retrospectively?"
+
+"Ay. What is unlawful now was unlawful always."
+
+"I will not give up--betray my people."
+
+"You will be obedient to your bishop!"
+
+Pabo bit his lip and looked down.
+
+"This will entail a good deal of shifting of lands from hand to hand,
+when sons discover that their fathers' wedlock was unlawful, and that
+they are not qualified to inherit aught."
+
+"You will cause incalculable evil!"
+
+The bishop shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Lead on to the church," said he. "My chaplain, who is interpreter as
+well, shall read my decree to your people--in Latin first and then in
+Welsh. By the beard of Wilgefrotis! if you are obstructive, Archpriest,
+I know how to call down lightning to fall on you."
+
+     NOTE.--The seven prohibited degrees were reduced to four at the
+     Fourth Lateran Council (1215). By Civil law the degrees were thus
+     counted,--
+
+
+          0
+          |
+    +-----+-----+
+    |           |
+    10          10
+    |           |
+    20          20
+    \----\ /----/
+          4
+
+     But by Canon law--
+
+          0
+          |
+    +-----+-----+
+    |           |
+    0.....1.....0
+    |           |
+    0.....2.....0
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A HWYL
+
+
+A Welsh church at the period of the Norman Conquest was much what it had
+been from the time when Christianity had been adopted by the Britons. It
+was of wood, as has been already stated.
+
+The insular Celt could never apply himself to the quarrying and shaping
+of stone.
+
+The church of Cynwyl was oblong, built of split logs, roofed with
+thatch. The eaves projected, so as to shelter the narrow windows from
+the drift of rain, as these latter were unglazed. Only in the chancel
+were they protected by sheep's amnion stretched on frames.
+
+A gallows of timber standing at a short distance from the west end
+supported the bell. This was neither circular nor cast, but was oblong
+in shape, of hammered metal, and riveted. The tone emitted was shrill
+and harsh, but perhaps was on this account better suited to be heard at
+a distance than had it been deep in tone and musical in note.
+
+Rude although the exterior of the church was, the interior was by no
+means deficient in beauty, but this beauty was limited to, or at least
+concentrated on, the screen that divided the long hall into two
+portions. There were no aisles, the only division into parts was
+effected by the screen, that was pierced by a doorway in the middle.
+
+This screen was, indeed, constructed of wood in compartments, and each
+compartment was filed with an intricate and varied tracery of plaited
+willow wands. It was the glory and the delight of the Celt to expend his
+artistic effort on the devising and carrying out of some original design
+in interlaced work--his knots and twists and lattice were of
+incomparable beauty and originality. If he took to carving on stone, it
+was to reproduce on the best tractable material his delightful lacework
+of osiers.
+
+The patterns of the compartments were not merely varied in plaits, but
+color was skilfully introduced by the flexible rods having been dyed by
+herbs or lichens, and a further variety was introduced by the partial
+peeling of some of the wands in rings. Moreover, to heighten the
+effect, in places flat pieces of wood like shuttles, but with dragons'
+heads carved on them, were introduced among the plait as a means of
+breaking continuity in design and allowing of a fresh departure in
+pattern.
+
+Within the screen a couple of oil-lamps burned, rendered necessary by
+the dusk there produced by the membrane that covered the windows. Here,
+beneath the altar, was preserved the abbatial staff of the founder--a
+staff invested by popular belief with the miraculous powers.
+
+On the last day of April every year, this staff was solemnly brought
+forth and carried up the river Annell, to a point where rested an
+enormous boulder, fallen from the mountain crag, and resting beside the
+stream, where it glanced and frothed over a slide of rock, in which were
+depressions scooped by the water, but superstitiously held to have been
+worn by the Apostle of Caio as he knelt in the water at his prayers and
+recitation of the Psalter. Here the Archpriest halted, and with the
+staff stirred the water. It was held that by this means the Annell was
+assured to convey health and prosperity to the basin of the Cothi, into
+which it discharged its blessed waters. Hither were driven flocks and
+herds to have the crystal liquid scooped from the hollows in the rock,
+and sprinkled over them, as an effectual preservative against murrain.
+
+The bishop occupied a stool within the screen. On this occasion he had
+nothing further to do than proclaim his inflexible determination to
+maintain the prohibition of marriage within the seven degrees for the
+future, and to annul all such unions as fell within them, whether
+naturally or artificially, and to illegitimatize all children the issue
+of such marriages. It was the object of the Norman invaders to sow the
+seed of discord among those whose land they coveted, to produce such
+confusion in the transmission of estates as to enable them to intervene
+and dispossess the native owners, not always at the point of the sword,
+but also with the quill of the clerk.
+
+The villagers had crowded into the sacred building, they stood or knelt
+as densely as they could be packed, and through the open door could be
+seen faces thronging to hear such words as might reach them without.
+Every face wore an expression of suspicion, alarm, or resentment. Pabo
+stood outside the screen upon a raised step or platform, whence he was
+wont to read to or address his congregation. It sustained a desk, on
+which reposed the Scriptures.
+
+The bishop's chaplain occupied the center of the doorway through the
+screen. He held a parchment in his hand, and he hastily read its
+contents in Latin first, and then translated it into Welsh. Pabo was a
+tall man, with dark hair and large deep eyes, soft as those of an ox,
+yet capable of flashing fire. He was not over thirty-five years of age,
+yet looked older, as there was gravity and intensity in his face beyond
+his years. He was habited in a long woolen garment dyed almost but not
+wholly black. He was hearkening to every word that fell, his eyes fixed
+on the ground, his hands clenched, his lips closed, lines forming in his
+face.
+
+It escaped Bernard, behind the lattice-work, and incapable of observing
+such phenomena, how integrally one, as a single body, the tribesmen
+present were with their ecclesiastical and political chieftain. Their
+eyes were riveted, not on the reader, but on the face of Pabo. The least
+change in his expression, a contraction of the brow, a quiver of the
+lip, a flush on the cheek, repeated itself in every face.
+
+Whilst the lection in Latin proceeded, the people could understand no
+more of it than what might be discerned from its effect on their
+Archpriest; but it was other when the chaplain rendered it into
+every-day vernacular. Yet even then, they did not look to his lips. They
+heard his words, but read the commentary on them in the face of Pabo.
+
+They understood now with what they were menaced. It was shown to them,
+not obscurely. They knew as the allocution proceeded what it involved if
+carried out: there were wives present whose sentence of expulsion from
+their homes was pronounced, children who were bastardized and
+disinherited, husbands whose dearest ties were to be torn and snapped.
+
+Not a sound was to be heard save the drone of the reader's voice; till
+suddenly there came a gasp of pain--then a sob.
+
+Again an awful hush. Men set their teeth and their brows contracted; the
+muscles of their faces became knotted. Women held their palms to their
+mouths. Appealing hands were stretched to Pabo, but he did not stir.
+
+Then, when the translation was ended, the chaplain looked round in
+silence to Bernard, who made a sign with his hand and nodded.
+
+In a loud and strident voice the chaplain proceeded: "By order of
+Bernard, by the grace of God, and the favor of his Majesty the King,
+Bishop of St. David's and Primate of all Wales--all such as have
+contracted these unlawful unions shall be required within ten days from
+this present to separate from the women with whom they have lived as
+husbands, and shall not occupy the same house with them, nor eat at the
+same board, under pain of excommunication. And it is further decreed
+that in the event of contumacy, of delay in fulfilling what is hereby
+required, or refusal to fulfil these lawful commands, after warning,
+such contumacious person shall forfeit all his possessions, whether in
+lands or in movable goods, or cattle--his wearing apparel alone
+excepted; and such possessions shall be divided into three equal
+portions, whereof one-third shall be confiscated to the Crown, one-third
+shall fall to the Church Metropolitan, and, again, one-third----" He
+raised his head. Then Bernard moved forward in his seat that he might
+fix his eyes upon Pabo; there was a lifting of his upper lip on one
+side, as he signed to the chaplain to proceed: "And, again, one-third
+shall be adjudged as a grace to the Informer." A moan swept through the
+congregation like that which precedes the breaking of a storm, "To the
+Informer," repeated the chaplain; "who shall denounce to the Lord Bishop
+such unions as have been effected in this district of Caio within the
+forbidden degrees."
+
+This last shaft pierced deepest of all. It invited, it encouraged,
+treachery. It cast everywhere, into every family, the sparks that would
+cause conflagration. It was calculated to dissolve all friendships, to
+breed mistrust in every heart.
+
+Then Pabo lifted his head.
+
+His face was wet as though he had been weeping, but the drops that ran
+over his cheeks fell, not from his glowing eyes, but from his
+sweat-beaded brow.
+
+He turned back the book that was on the desk and opened it. He said no
+words of his own, but proceeded to read from the volume in a voice deep,
+vibrating with emotion; and those who heard him thrilled at his tones.
+
+"Thus saith the Lord God. Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat
+cattle and between the lean cattle. Because ye have thrust with side and
+with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye
+have scattered them abroad; therefore will I save my flock, and they
+shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle----"
+
+"What doth he say? What readeth he?" asked the bishop of his chaplain,
+whom he had beckoned to him.
+
+Pabo heard his words, turned about and said--"I am reading the oracle of
+God. Is that forbidden?" A woman in the congregation cried out; another
+burst into sobs.
+
+Pabo resumed the lection, and his voice unconsciously rose and fell in a
+musical wail: "I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed
+them." At once--like a rising song, a mounting wave of sound--came the
+voice of the people, as they caught the words that rang in their hearts;
+they caught and repeated the words of the reader after him--"One
+shepherd, and he shall feed them." And as they recited in swelling and
+falling tones, they moved rhythmically, with swaying bodies and raised
+and balanced arms. It was an electric, a marvelous quiver of a common
+emotion that passed through the entire congregation. It went further--it
+touched and vibrated through those outside, near the door--it went
+further, it affected those beyond, who knew not what was said.
+
+Pabo continued--and his voice rolled as if in a chant--"I will set up
+one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them--even my servant DAVID."
+
+"David! He shall feed us--even he, our father--our father David!"
+
+Those kneeling started to their feet, stretched their arms to heaven.
+Their tears poured forth like rain, their voices, though broken by sobs,
+swelled into a mighty volume of sound, thrilling with the intensity of
+their distress, their hope, their fervor of faith--"Even he shall
+come--God's servant David!" At the name, the loved name, they broke into
+an ecstatic cry, "And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David
+a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it."[1] The chaplain
+translated. "He is uttering treason!" shouted Bernard, starting up.
+"David a prince among them! We have no King but Henry."
+
+Then from without came cries, shouts, a rushing of feet, an angry roar,
+and the clash of weapons.
+
+[Footnote 1: "A minnau yr Arglwydd a fyddaf yn Dduw iddynt, a'm gwas
+Dafydd yn dywysog yn eu mysg; myfi yr Arglwydd a leferais hyn."--Ez.
+xxxiv. 24.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FIRST BLOOD
+
+
+"What is this uproar? What is being done?" asked Bernard in agitation.
+"Look, Cadell! Is there no second door to this trap? Should violence be
+attempted I can obtain no egress by the way I came in; this church is
+stuffed with people. Shut the screen gates if they show the least
+indication of attacking us. 'Sdeath! if it should occur to them to fire
+this place----"
+
+"They will not do so, on account of their own people that are in it."
+
+"But--but what is the occasion of this noise? How is it I am here
+without anyone to protect me? This should have been looked to. I am not
+safe among these savages. It is an accursed bit of negligence that shall
+be inquired into. What avails me having men-at-arms if they do not
+protect me? Body of my life! Am not I the King's emissary? Am not I a
+bishop? Am I to be held so cheap even by my own men that I am allowed
+to run the risk of being torn to pieces, or smoked out of a hole like
+this?"
+
+"Do not fear, my Lord Bishop," said Cadell, his chaplain and
+interpreter, who was himself quaking, "there is a door behind, in the
+chancel wall. But methinks the danger is without; there is the
+disturbance, and the congregation are pressing to get forth."
+
+"Body of my life! I want to know what is happening. Here, quick, you
+clumsy ass, you beggarly Welshman; Cadell, undo the clasp, the brooch; I
+will have off this cope--and remove my miter. I will leave them here. I
+shall be less conspicuous, if weapons are being flourished and stones
+are flying."
+
+The bishop speedily divested himself of his ecclesiastical attire, all
+the while scolding, cursing his attendant, who was a Welshman by birth,
+but who had passed into the service of the conquerors, and knew very
+well that this would advance him in wealth, and ensure for himself a fat
+benefice.
+
+When the bishop had been freed of his vestments, the chaplain unbolted a
+small side door, and both emerged from the church.
+
+Outside all was in commotion. The populace was surging to and fro,
+uttering cries and shouts. An attack had been made on the military guard
+of the bishop--and these, for their mutual protection, had retreated to
+the sumpter horses and mules, surrounded them, and faced their
+assailants with swords brandished. About them, dense and menacing, were
+the Welshmen of Caio, flourishing cudgels and poles, and the women
+urging them on with cries.
+
+Bernard found himself separated from his party by the dense ring of
+armed peasants, infuriated by the wrongs they had endured and by the
+appeals of the women. He could not see his men, save that now and then
+the sun flashed on their swords as they were whirled above the heads of
+the crowd. No blood seemed to have been shed as yet--the Normans stood
+at bay. The Welsh peasants were reluctant to approach too nearly to the
+terrible blades that whirled and gleamed like lightning.
+
+At the same instant that Bernard issued from the church, the bell
+suspended between two beams was violently swung, and its clangor rang
+out above the noise of the crowd. As if in answer to its summons, from
+every side poured natives, who had apparently been holding themselves
+in reserve; they were armed with scythes, axes, and ox-goads. Some were
+in leather jerkins that would resist a sword-cut or a pike-thrust, but
+the majority were in thick wadmel. The congregation were also issuing
+from the west door of the church, thick on each other's heels, and were
+vainly asking the occasion of the disturbance.
+
+It was some minutes before Pabo emerged into the open, and then it was
+through the side door. He found the bishop there, livid, every muscle of
+his face jerking with terror, vainly endeavoring to force his chaplain
+to stand in front of and screen him.
+
+"I hold you answerable for my safety," said Bernard, putting forth a
+trembling hand and plucking at the Archpriest.
+
+"And I for mine," cried the chaplain.
+
+"Have no fear--none shall touch you," answered Pabo, addressing the
+prelate. He disdained even to look at the interpreter.
+
+"If any harm come to my men, you shall be held accountable. They are
+King Henry's men; he lent them to me. He sent them to guard my sacred
+person."
+
+"And mine," said Cadell. "Our father in God cannot make himself
+understood without me."
+
+"You are in no danger," said Pabo.
+
+Then the Archpriest stepped forward, went to the belfry, and disengaged
+the rope from the hand of him who was jangling the bell. With a loud,
+deep, sonorous voice, he called in their native tongue to his tribesmen
+to be silent, to cease from aggression, and to explain the cause of the
+tumult.
+
+He was obeyed immediately. All noise ceased, save that caused by the
+Normans, who continued to thunder menaces.
+
+"Silence them also," said Pabo to the bishop.
+
+"I--I have lost my voice," said the frightened prelate.
+
+At the same moment the crowd parted, and a band of sturdy peasants,
+carrying clubs, and one armed with a coulter, came forward, drawing with
+them Rogier, the bishop's brother, and a young and beautiful woman with
+disheveled hair and torn garments. Her wrists had been bound behind her
+back, but one of the men who drew her along with a great knife cut the
+thongs, and she shook the fragments from her and extended her freed arms
+to the priest.
+
+"Pabo!"
+
+"Morwen!" he exclaimed, recoiling in dismay.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" demanded the bishop. "Unhand my brother,
+ye saucy curs!" But, though his meaning might be guessed by those who
+gripped Rogier, they could not understand his words.
+
+"What is the cause of this?" asked Bernard, addressing the Norman.
+"Rogier, how comes this about?"
+
+The Norman was spluttering with rage, and writhing in vain endeavor to
+extricate himself from the men who held him. It was apparent to Bernard
+that the right arm of the man had received some injury, as he was
+powerless to employ it against his captors. The rest of the soldiery
+were hemmed in and unable to go to his assistance.
+
+"Curse the hounds!" he yelled. "They have struck me over the shoulder
+with their bludgeons, or by the soul of Rollo I would have sent some of
+them to hell! What are my men about that they do not attempt to release
+me?" he shouted. But through the ring of stout weapons--a quadruple
+living hedge--his followers were unable to pass; moreover, all
+considered their own safety to consist in keeping together.
+
+"What has caused this uproar?" asked the bishop. "Did they attack you
+without provocation?"
+
+"By the soul of the conqueror!" roared Rogier. "Can not a man look at
+and kiss a pretty woman without these swine resenting it? Have not I a
+right to carry her off if it please me to grace her with my favor? Must
+these hogs interfere?"
+
+"Brother, you have been indiscreet!"
+
+"Not before your face, Bernard. I know better than that. I know what is
+due to your sanctity of a few weeks. I waited like a decent Christian
+till your back was turned. You need have known nothing about it. And if,
+as we rode away, there was a woman behind my knave on his horse, you
+would have shut one eye. But these mongrels--these swine--resent it.
+Body of my life! Resent it!--an honor conferred on one of their girls if
+a Norman condescend to look with favor on her. Did not our gracious King
+Henry set us the example with a Welsh prince's wench? And shall not we
+follow suit?"
+
+"You are a fool, Rogier--at such a time, and so as to compromise me."
+
+"Who is to take you to task, brother?"
+
+"I mean not that, but to risk my safety. To leave me unprotected in the
+church, and to provoke a brawl without, that might have produced
+serious consequences to me. Odd's life! Where is that Cadell? Slinking
+away?"
+
+"My lord, I have greater cause to fear than yourself. They bear me
+bitterest hate."
+
+"I care not. Speak for me to these curs. Bid them unhand my brother.
+They have maimed him--maybe broken his arm. My brother, a Norman, held
+as a common felon by these despicable serfs!"
+
+"Bishop," said Pabo, stepping before Bernard.
+
+"What have you to say?" asked the prelate suddenly.
+
+The face of the Archpriest was stern and set, as though chiseled out of
+alabaster.
+
+"Are you aware what has been attempted while you were in God's house?
+What the outrage is has been offered?"
+
+"I know that my brother has been so light as to cast his eye on one of
+your Welsh wenches."
+
+"Lord bishop," said Pabo in hard tones, and the sound of his voice was
+metallic as the bell, "he has insulted this noble woman. He bound her
+hands behind her back and has endeavored to force her onto a horse in
+spite of her resistance, her struggles--look at her bruised and
+bleeding arms!--and to carry her away."
+
+"Well, well, soldiers are not clerks and milk-sops."
+
+"Do you know who she is?"
+
+"I know not. Some saucy lass who ogled him, and he took her winks as an
+invitation."
+
+"Sieur!" thundered Pabo, and the veins in his brow turned black. "She is
+the noblest, purest of women."
+
+"Among broken sherds, a cracked pitcher is precious."
+
+"Bishop, she is my wife!"
+
+"Your wife!" jeered Bernard, leaned back, placed his hands to his side,
+and laughed. "Priests have no wives; you mean your harlot."
+
+In a moment the bishop was staggering back, and would have fallen unless
+he had had the timber wall of the church to sustain him. In a moment,
+maddened beyond endurance by the outrage, by the words, by the demeanor
+of the prelate, in forgetfulness of the sacred office of the man who
+insulted him, in forgetfulness of his own sacred office, forgetful of
+everything save the slur cast on the one dearest to him in the whole
+world, the one to whom he looked with a reverence which from her
+extended to all womanhood, the incandescent Welsh blood in his veins
+burst into sudden flame, and he struck Bernard in the face, on the mouth
+that had slandered her and insulted him. And the bishop reeled back and
+stood speechless, with blear eyes fixed, his hands extended against the
+split logs, and from his lips, cut with his teeth, blood was flowing.
+
+Then, in the dead silence that ensued, an old hermit, clothed in
+sackcloth, bareheaded, with long matted white hair, walking bent by the
+aid of a staff--a man who for thirty years had occupied a cell on the
+mountain-side without leaving it--stood forward before all, an unwonted
+apparition; and slowly, painfully raising his distorted form, he lifted
+hand and staff to heaven, and cried: "Wo, wo, wo to the Blessed Valley!
+The peace of David, our father, is broken. Blood has flowed in strife.
+That cometh which he foresaw, and over which he wept. Wo! wo! wo!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SCROLL
+
+
+The young, the thoughtless, were full of exultation over the rebuff that
+the Normans, with their bishop, had encountered, but the older and wiser
+men were grave and concerned. The Normans had indeed withdrawn in sullen
+resentment, outnumbered, and incapable of revenging on the spot and at
+once the disabled arm of their leader and the broken tooth of their
+prelate. The old men knew very well that matters would not rest thus;
+and they feared lest the events of that day when the party of foreigners
+penetrated to the Blessed Valley might prove the most fruitful in
+disastrous consequences it had ever seen.
+
+Native princes had respected the sanctuary of David, but an English King
+and foreign adventurers were not likely to regard its privileges, nor
+fear the wrath of the saint who had hitherto rendered it inviolable.
+Bishop Bernard had at his back not only the whole spiritual force of
+the Latin Church, the most highly concentrated and practically organized
+in Christendom, but he was specially the emissary of the English King,
+with all the physical power of the realm to support him; and what was
+the prospect of a little green basin in the mountains, isolated from the
+world, occupied by three thousand people, belonging to the most loosely
+compacted Church that existed, with no political force to maintain its
+right and champion its independence--what chance had the sanctuary of
+David in Caio against the resentment of the English King and the Roman
+Church? Neither, as experience showed, was likely to pass over an
+affront. One would sustain the other in exacting a severe chastisement.
+
+The hermit, who after over thirty years of retirement in one cell, far
+up the Mount Mallaen, had suddenly, and unsolicited, left his retreat to
+appear once more among his fellow-men, and then to pronounce a sentence
+of wo, had sunk exhausted after this supreme effort of expiring powers,
+and had been removed into the Archpriest's house, where he was
+ministered to by Morwen, Pabo's wife.
+
+The old man lay as one in a trance, and speechless. His eyes were open,
+but he saw nothing on earth, and no efforts could induce him to take
+nourishment. With folded hands, muttering lips, and glazed eyes he
+continued for several days. Pabo and his wife looked on with reverence,
+not knowing whether he were talking with invisible beings which he saw.
+He answered no questions put to him; he seemed not to hear them, and he
+hardly stirred from the position which he assumed when laid on a bed in
+the house.
+
+The hermit of Mallaen had been regarded with unbounded reverence
+throughout the country. He had been visited for counsel, his words had
+been esteemed oracular, and he was even credited with having performed
+miraculous cures.
+
+That he was dying in their midst would have created greater attention
+and much excitement among the people of Caio at any other time, but now
+they were in a fever over the events of the bishop's visit, their alarm
+over the enforcing of the decree on marriages, and their expectation of
+punishment for the rough handling of their unwelcome visitors; and when
+one night the old hermit passed away, it was hardly noticed, and Morwen
+was left almost unassisted to pay the last duties to the dead, to place
+the plate of salt on his breast when laid out, and to light the candles
+at the head.
+
+It was no holiday-time, and yet little work was done throughout the once
+happy valley. A cloud seemed to hang over it, and oppress all therein.
+Shepherds on the mountain drove their flocks together, that for awhile,
+sitting under a rock or leaning on their crooks, they might discuss what
+was past and form conjectures as to the future. Women, over their
+spinning, drew near each other, and in low voices and with anxious faces
+conversed as to the unions that were like to be dissolved. Men met in
+groups and passed opinions as to what steps should be taken to maintain
+their rights, their independence, and to ward off reprisals. Even
+children caught up the words that were whispered, and jeered each other
+as born out of legitimate wedlock, or asked one another who were their
+sponsors, and shouted that such could never intermarry.
+
+So days passed. Spirits became no lighter; the gloom deepened. It was
+mooted who would tell of the relationships borne by those who were now
+contented couples?--so as to enable the bishop to separate them? Who
+would see selfish profit by betrayal of their own kin?
+
+The delay was not due to pitiful forbearance, to Christian forgiveness;
+it boded preparation for dealing an overwhelming blow. The Welsh Prince
+or King was a fugitive. From him no help could be expected. His castle
+of Dynevor was in the hands of the enemy. To the south, the Normans
+blocked the exit of the Cothy from its contracted mouth; to east, the
+Towy valley was in the hands of the oppressor, planted in impregnable
+fortresses; to the west, Teify valley was in like manner occupied. Only
+to the north among the wild, tumbled, barren mountains, was there no
+contracting, strangling, steel hand.
+
+The autumn was closing in. The cattle that had summered in the _hafod_
+(the mountain byre) were returning to the _hendre_ (the winter home).
+Usually the descent from the uplands was attended with song and laugh
+and dancing. It was not so now. And the very cattle seemed to perceive
+that they did not receive their wonted welcome.
+
+Pabo went about as usual, but graver, paler than formerly--for his mind
+was ill at ease. It was he who had shed the first blood. A trifling
+spill, indeed, but one likely to entail serious results. The situation
+had been aggravated by his act. He who should have done his utmost to
+ward off evil from his flock had perpetrated an act certain to provoke
+deadly resentment against them. He bitterly regretted his passionate
+outbreak; he who should have set an example of self-control had failed.
+Yet when he looked on his wife, her gentle, patient face, the tenderness
+with which she watched and cared for the dying hermit, again his cheek
+flushed, the veins in his brow swelled, and the blood surged in his
+heart. To hear her insulted, he could never bear; should such an outrage
+be repeated, he would strike again.
+
+Pabo sat by his fire. In Welsh houses even so late as the twelfth
+century there were no structural chimneys--these were first introduced
+by the Flemish settlers--consequently the smoke from the wood fire
+curled and hung in the roof and stole out, when tired of circling there,
+through a hole in the thatch.
+
+On a bier lay the dead man, with candles at his head--his white face
+illumined by the light that descended from the gap in the roof. At the
+feet crouched a woman, a professional wailer, singing and swaying
+herself, as she improvised verses in honor of the dead, promised him
+the glories of Paradise, and a place at the right hand of David, and
+then fell to musical moans.
+
+Morwen sat by the side, looking at the deceased--she was awaiting her
+turn to kneel, sing, and lament--and beside her was a rude bench on
+which were placed cakes and ale wherewith to regale such as came in to
+wake the dead.
+
+And as Pabo looked at his wife he thought of the peaceful useful life
+they had led together.
+
+She had been the daughter of a widow, a harsh and exacting woman, who
+had long been bedridden, and with whose querulousness she had borne
+meekly. He had not been always destined to the Archpriesthood. His uncle
+had been the ecclesiastical as well as political head of the tribe; but
+on his death his son, Goronwy, had been passed over, as deformed, and
+therefore incapable of taking his father's place, and the chiefship had
+been conferred on Pabo, who had already been for some years ordained in
+anticipation of this selection.
+
+Pabo continued to look at his wife, and he questioned whether he could
+have understood the hearts of his people had he not himself known what
+love was.
+
+"Husband," said Morwen, "there is a little roll under his hand."
+
+Pabo started to consciousness of the present.
+
+"I have not ventured to remove it; yet what think you? Is it to be
+buried with him? It almost seems as though it were his testament."
+
+The Archpriest rose and went to where the dead man lay; his long white
+beard flowed to his waist, and the hands were crossed over it.
+
+"It is in the palm," said Morwen.
+
+Pabo passed his fingers through the thick white hair and drew forth a
+scroll, hardly two fingers' breadth in width; it was short also, as he
+saw when he uncurled it.
+
+He opened and read.
+
+"Yes, it is his will. 'To Pabo, the Archpriest, my cell--as a refuge;
+and----'" He ceased, rolled up the little coil once more, and placed it
+in his bosom.
+
+A stroke at the door, and one of the elders of the community, named
+Howel the Tall, entered.
+
+"It seems fit, Father Pabo, to us to meet in council. What say you? All
+are gathered."
+
+"It is well; I attend."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+GRIFFITH AP RHYS
+
+
+The council-house of the Caio tribe was a large circular wooden
+structure, with a conical thatched roof. There was a gable on one side
+in which was a circular opening to serve as window, and it was unglazed.
+
+As Pabo entered with Howel the Tall, he was saluted with respect, and he
+returned the salutation with grave courtesy.
+
+He took the seat reserved for him, and looked about him, mustering who
+were present. They were all representative men, either because weighty
+through wealth, force of character, or intellect.
+
+Among them were two officers, the one Meredith ap David, the Bard, who,
+in his retentive memory preserved the traditions of the tribe and the
+genealogies of all the families of the district from Noah. The other was
+Morgan ap Seissyl, the hereditary custodian of the staff of Cynwyl, and
+sacristan of the church, enjoying certain lands which went with the
+_baculus_, or staff, as well as certain dignities.
+
+Howel stepped into the center of the building and addressed those
+present, and their president.
+
+"Father Pabo, we who are gathered together have done so with one
+consent, drawn hither by a common need, to take counsel in our
+difficulties. Seeing how grave is the situation in which we stand, how
+uncertain is the future, how ignorant we are of the devices of our
+enemies, how doubtful what a day may bring forth--we have considered it
+expedient to meet and devise such methods as may enable us to stand
+shoulder to shoulder, and to frustrate the machinations of our common
+foe. By twos and threes we have talked of these things, and now we
+desire to speak in assembly concerning them.
+
+"And, first of all, we have considered the threats of Bernard, whom the
+King of the English has thrust upon us by his mere will, to be bishop
+over us; a man of whom we hear no good, who cannot speak our tongue, who
+despises our nation and its customs, and mocks at our laws. A man is he
+who has not entered the sheepfold by the door, but has climbed in
+another way."
+
+His words were received with a murmur of assent.
+
+"And the first time that this intruder has opened his mouth, it has been
+to provoke unto strife, and to fill all hearts with dismay. He erects
+barriers where was open common. He prohibits unions which the Word of
+God does not disallow. He creates spiritual relationships as occasions
+and excuses for dissolving marriages, where no blood ties exist. He
+proclaims his mission to be one of breaking up of families and making
+houses desolate. Now we are sheep without a shepherd, a flock in the
+midst of wolves. We are neither numerous enough nor strong enough to
+resist the over-might that is brought against us. By the blessing of
+David, we have been ever men of peace. Our hands are unaccustomed to
+handle the bow and wield the sword. We have no prince over us to lead
+us. We have no bishop over us to advise us. The throne of our father
+David is usurped by an intruder whom we will not acknowledge."
+
+He paused. Again his words roused applause.
+
+"And now, it seems to me, that as we are incapable of opposing force to
+force, we must take refuge in subtlety. It has pleased God, who
+confounded the speech of men at Babel, that we should preserve that
+original tongue spoken by Adam in Paradise, in his unfallen state, and
+that the rest of mankind, by reason of the blindness of their hearts,
+and the dulness of their understandings, are hardly able to acquire it.
+Now it has further pleased Providence, which has a special care over our
+elect nation, that our relationships should present a perplexity to all
+save unto ourselves. I am creditably informed that the English people
+are beginning to call themselves after their trades, and to hand down
+their trade names to their children, so that John the Smith's sons and
+daughters be also entitled Smiths, although the one be a butcher, and
+another a weaver--which is but one token out of many that this is an
+insensate people. Moreover, some call themselves after the place where
+they were born, and although their children and children's children be
+born elsewhere, yet are they called after the township whence came their
+father--an evident proof of sheer imbecility. Again, it is said that if
+a John Redhead, so designated by reason of a fiery poll, have a
+dark-haired son, though the head of this latter be as a raven's wing,
+yet is he a Redhead. One really marvels that Providence should suffer
+such senseless creatures to beget children. But there is worse still
+behind. A Tom has a son George, and he is called Tomson. But if this
+George have a son Philip, then Philip is not Georgeson, but Tomson.
+Stupidity could go no farther. Now we are wiser. I am Howel ap John, and
+John was ap Roderick, and he ap Thomas. There were assuredly a score of
+Johns in Caio when my father lived, and say that each had five children.
+Then there be now in the tribe a hundred persons who bear the name of ap
+John or merch John. Who is to say which John begat this lad or that
+lass, and therefore to decide who are consanguineous, and who are not?
+There is one man only whose duty and calling it is to unravel the
+tangle, and this is Meredith, the genealogist. Should the bishop come
+here again, or send his commissioner, we have the means of raising such
+a cloud of confusion with our Johns and Morgans, or Thomases and
+Merediths, with the _aps_ and our _merchs_, as will utterly bewilder his
+brains. I defy any pig-headed Englishman or Norman either to discover
+our relationships unless he gets hold of the genealogist."
+
+This was so obviously true and so eminently consolatory that all nodded
+approvingly.
+
+"This being the case," pursued Howel, "as there is but a single man to
+unravel this tangle, Meredith ap David, and as he would consider it his
+sacred duty conscientiously to give every pedigree if asked--therefore I
+advise that he go into hiding. Then, when the bishop comes we take it
+upon ourselves to confound his head with our relationships--consanguine,
+affine, and spiritual--so that he will be able to do nothing in the
+matter of dissolving our marriages. A child who is ill-treated lies. In
+that way it seeks protection. An ill-treated people takes refuge in
+subterfuge. It is permissible."
+
+This long speech was vastly approved, and all present, even the bard
+himself, voted with uplifted right hand that it should be carried into
+effect.
+
+Then Jorwerth the smith stood up and said--
+
+"It is well spoken; but all is not done. The chief danger menaces us
+through our head. It is at the head that the deadly blow is aimed.
+Griffith ap Rhys, our prince, is not among us. A true bishop is not over
+us. We have none but our Father Pabo; and him we must do our utmost to
+preserve. It is he who stands in greater peril than we. It is true that
+I struck a fellow on the arm because he molested the wife of our chief;
+but that was naught. Blows are exchanged among men and thought lightly
+of. But our Father Pabo smote the bishop in the mouth and broke his
+teeth. That will never be forgiven him--never; and the intruder Bernard
+will compass sea and land to revenge on him that blow. If our head be
+taken, what will become of us, the members? If it be thought expedient
+that Meredith the Bard should go into hiding, then I give my voice that
+our chief should also seek out a refuge where he may not be found."
+
+This opinion was met with murmurs of approval. Then the tall Howel rose
+and said, "You marked what I said before, that although we approve not
+deception, yet must the weak take resort unto trickery when matched
+against the strong. So be it--our Archpriest Pabo shall disappear, and
+disappear so that the enemy shall not know that he be alive. Leave this
+to me. An opportunity offers--that Heaven has given to us. Ask me not to
+explain."
+
+"It is well. We trust thee, Howel."
+
+Then they heard a distant murmur, a hum as of a rising wind, the rustle
+of trees, the beating of waves. It drew nearer, it waxed louder, it
+broke out into cries of joy and shouts of exultation as at the bringing
+in of harvest, and the crowned sheaf--the _tori pen y wrach_.
+
+The elders of Caio listened and wondered.
+
+Then through the door sprang a young man, and stood where a falling
+sunbeam from the one round window rested on him.
+
+He had flowing golden hair that reached his shoulders in curls. He was
+tall, lithe, graceful, and beautiful.
+
+In a moment they all knew him, as those had recognized him on the way
+and had accompanied him to the churchtown.
+
+The old, the gray-headed, strong iron men, and those who were feeble at
+once encircled him. They threw themselves at his feet, they clasped his
+knees, those who could kissed his hands, others the hem of his garment.
+
+"Griffith, our Prince! Our heart and soul, our King!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+PREPARING FOR THE EVIL DAY
+
+
+As Nest was the most beautiful woman in Wales, so her brother Griffith
+was the handsomest of the men there. His face was open and engaging. The
+blue eyes were honest, the jaw resolute. His address had a fascination
+few could resist. Moreover, the story of his young life was such as
+enlisted sympathy and fired the hearts of the Cymri.
+
+His gallant father, a true hero, the King of Dyfed, South Wales, had
+fallen in battle, fighting against the Normans under Robert Fitzhamon
+and some turbulent Welsh who had invited the invader into the land. The
+fall of the great chief had left his country open, defenseless to the
+spoiler. His eldest son and his daughter had been carried away as
+hostages, the Prince to die in his captivity--whether wasting with grief
+or by the hand of the assassin none knew--and the Princess, dishonored,
+had been married to the worst oppressor of her people.
+
+Griffith, the second son, had effected his escape, and had committed
+himself to his namesake the King of Gwynedd, or North Wales, and had
+married his daughter.
+
+The crafty Beauclerk was ill-pleased so long as the Prince remained at
+large to head insurrection in the South, perhaps, in combination with
+his father-in-law, to unite all Cambria in one mighty effort to hurl the
+invader from the rocks of that mountain world. He accordingly entered
+into negotiations with the King and invited him to visit him in London.
+Griffith ap Cynan, the old King of North Wales, flattered by the terms
+in which he was addressed, pleased with the prospect of seeing more of
+the world than was possible from his castle-walls in Anglesea,
+incautiously accepted.
+
+Arrived at Westminster, he was treated with effusive courtesy: King
+Henry addressed him as a brother, seated him at his side, lavished on
+him splendid gifts, and still more splendid promises. Not till he had
+made the Welshman drunk with vanity and ambition did Henry unfold his
+purpose. Griffith ap Cynan was offered the sovereignty over North and
+South Wales united with Cardigan, the Prince of which had fled to
+Ireland, to be held under the suzerainty of the English Crown, and the
+sole price asked for this was the surrender of the young Prince, his own
+son-in-law and guest, a man whose only guilt consisted in having the
+blood of Rhys in his veins, and who confided in the honor and loyalty of
+his wife's father.
+
+The King of Gwynedd consented, and hasted home to conclude his part of
+the contract.
+
+Happily, but not a moment too soon, did Griffith the younger get wind of
+the treachery that was intended, and he fled before the arrival of the
+old King.
+
+When the latter discovered that his son-in-law had escaped, he sent a
+body of horsemen in pursuit. The fugitive, nearly overtaken, took
+sanctuary in the church of Aberdaron, and the baffled pursuers, not
+venturing to infringe the rights of the Church, returned unsuccessful to
+their master. The King, angry, blind to every consideration save his
+ambition, bade his men return on their traces, and, if need be, force
+the sanctuary and tear the Prince from the foot of the altar, should he
+make that his last refuge.
+
+The executioners of the mandate were not, however, free from the
+superstitious awe which surrounded a sanctuary. The clergy of the church
+and of the neighborhood rose with one consent in protection of the
+pursued, and of the menaced rights, and again the Ministers of the King
+were baffled. By this means, time was gained, and the clergy of
+Aberdaron succeeded by night in securing the escape of the Prince, with
+a few faithful followers, into the Vale of the Towy.
+
+There he had no alternative open to him but to prepare to take up arms.
+He at once entered into communication with his sister, on whose fidelity
+to the cause of the royal family of Dyfed, and of her country, he knew
+he could calculate. He found the people impatient to fly to arms. Their
+condition had become intolerable. Wherever they went the barons had
+introduced the system of feudal tenure, which was foreign to the laws
+and feelings of the people, and they vigorously resisted its
+application. Moreover, foreign ecclesiastics, the kinsmen or clients of
+the secular tyrant, seized upon the livings. Where a fortress could not
+be established, there a monastery was planted and filled with
+foreigners, to maintain whom the tithes and glebes were confiscated,
+and the benefices converted into vicarages, which were served by English
+or continental monks.
+
+Added to this, the King had created the Bishop of London Lord of the
+Marches and President of Shropshire, and this astute and unprincipled
+man devoted his energies to the setting at rivalry of all the native
+princes, and the goading them to war with one another. Such was his
+policy--let the Welsh cut each other's throats and make way for the
+Norman and the Fleming.
+
+The wretched people, betrayed by their natural leaders, the princes,
+deprived of their clergy, subjected to strange laws, with foreign
+masters, military and ecclesiastic, intruding themselves everywhere, and
+dispossessing them of all their possessions, felt that it would be
+better to die among their burnt farmsteads than live on dishonored.
+
+At this juncture, when they looked for, prayed for a leader, Griffith,
+son of their King, suddenly appeared in their midst, with a fresh story
+of insult and treachery to tell--and make their blood flame.
+
+"I am come," said the Prince, still standing in the falling ray of sun.
+"I have hasted to come to you with a word from my sister, the Princess
+Nest. Evil is devised against you--evil you are powerless now to resist.
+It comes swift, and you must bow your heads as bulrushes. The enemy is
+at hand--will be here on the morrow; and what the Princess says to Pabo,
+your chief, is, Fly for your life!"
+
+"That is what has been determined among us," said Howel.
+
+"It is well--let not a moment be lost!" Then, looking around, "I--my
+friends, my brothers, am as a squirrel in the forest, flying from branch
+to branch, pursued even by the hand that should have sheltered me. There
+is no trust to be laid in princes. I lean on none; I commend my cause to
+none. I place it in the hearts of the people. I would lay my head to
+sleep on the knee of any shepherd, fearless. I could not close my eyes
+under the roof of any prince, and be sure he would not sell me whilst I
+slept."
+
+None answered. It was true--they knew it--too true.
+
+"My brother," said Griffith--and he stepped to each and touched each
+hand--"I commit myself and the cause of my country to these hands that
+have held the plow and wielded the hammer, and I fear not. They are
+true."
+
+A shout of assurances, thrilled from every heart, and the eyes filled
+with tears.
+
+"My brothers, the moment has not yet arrived. When it comes, I will call
+and ye will answer."
+
+"We will!"
+
+"My life--it is for you."
+
+"And our lives are at your disposal."
+
+"We knew each other," said the prince, and one of his engaging smiles
+lighted his face. "But now to the matter in hand. The Bishop Bernard
+claims the entire region of Caio, from the mountains to where the Cothi
+enters the ravine, as his own, because it is the patrimony of David,
+which he has usurped. And forthwith he sends a mandate for the
+deposition of your Archpriest Pabo, and his arrest and conveyance under
+a guard to his castle of Llawhaden."
+
+"He shall not have him."
+
+"Therefore must he escape at once."
+
+"He shall fly to a place of security."
+
+"And that without a moment's delay."
+
+"It shall be so."
+
+"Furthermore, the bishop sends his chaplain, Cadell, to fill his room,
+to minister to you in holy things."
+
+"He shall not so minister to us."
+
+"And to occupy the presbytery."
+
+"My house!" exclaimed Pabo.
+
+"He shall not set foot therein," said Howel; "leave that to me."
+
+"I go," said Pabo sadly; "but I shall take my wife with me."
+
+"Nay," answered Howel hastily, "that must not be."
+
+"But wherefore not? She must be placed where safe from pursuit as well
+as I."
+
+"She shall be under my protection," said Howel the Tall. "Have
+confidence in me. All Caio will rise again were she to be molested. Have
+no fear; she shall be safe. But with you she must not go. Ask me not my
+reasons now. You shall learn them later."
+
+"Then I go. But I will bid her farewell first."
+
+"Not that even," said Howel, "lest she learn whither you betake
+yourself. That none of us must know."
+
+Then Meredith the Bard rose.
+
+"There is need for haste," he said. "I go."
+
+"And I go, too," said Pabo. He looked at the elders with swelling breast
+and filling eye. "I entrust to you, dear friends and spiritual sons, one
+more precious to me than life itself." He turned to Griffith: "Prince,
+God grant it be not for long that you are condemned to fly as the
+squirrel. God grant that ere long we may hear the cry of the ravens of
+Dynevor; and when we hear that----"
+
+All present raised their hands--
+
+"We will find the ravens their food."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WHAT MUST BE
+
+
+Howel the Tall walked slowly to the presbytery, the house of Pabo, that
+was soon to be his no longer. The tidings that an armed body of men was
+on its way into the peaceful valley--whose peace was to be forever
+broken up, so it seemed--had produced a profound agitation. Every one
+was occupied: some removing their goods, and themselves preparing to
+retire to the hovel on the summer pastures; those who had no _hafod_ to
+receive them were concealing their little treasures.
+
+A poor peasant was entreating a well-to-do farmer to take with him his
+daughter, a young and lovely girl, for whom he feared when the lawless
+servants of the bishop entered Caio.
+
+But all could not take refuge in the mountains, even if they had places
+there to which to retire. There were their cattle to be attended to in
+the valley; the grass on the heights was burnt, and would not shoot
+again till spring. The equinoctial gales were due, and rarely failed to
+keep their appointments. There were mothers expecting additions to their
+families, and little children who could not be exposed to the privations
+and cold of the uplands. There were no stores on the mountains; hay and
+corn were stacked by the homes in the valley.
+
+Some said, "What more can these strangers do than they have done? Do
+they come, indeed, to thrust on us a new pastor? They will not drive us
+with their pikes into church to hear what he has to say! They are not
+bringing with them a batch of Flemings to occupy our farms and take from
+us our corn-land and pasture! The Norman is no peaceful agriculturist,
+and he must live; therefore he will let the native work on, that he may
+eat out of his hands." And, again, others said: "There will be time
+enough to escape when they flourish their swords in our faces." But even
+such as resolved to remain concealed their valuables.
+
+The basin of the sanctuary was extensive; it was some seven miles long
+and five at its widest, but along the slopes of the hills that broke the
+evenness of its bottom and on the side of the continuous mountains were
+scattered numerous habitations. And it would be an easy matter for those
+on high ground commanding the roads to take to flight when the
+men-at-arms were observed to be coming their way.
+
+Howel entered the presbytery.
+
+Like every other house in Wales, excepting those of the great princes,
+it comprised but two chambers--that which served as hall and kitchen,
+into which the door opened, and the bed-chamber on one side. There was
+no upper story; its consequence as the residence of the chief was
+indicated by a detached structure, like a barn, that served as
+banqueting-hall on festive occasions, and where, indeed, all such as
+came on Sundays from distances tarried and ate after divine service, and
+awaited the vespers which were performed early in the afternoon. There
+were stables, also, to accommodate the horses of those who came to
+church, or to pay their respects, and to feast with their chief.
+
+With the exception of these disconnected buildings, the house presented
+the character of a Welsh cottage of the day in which we live. It was
+deficient in attempt at ornament, and, unlike a medieval edifice of the
+rest of Europe, lacked picturesqueness. At the present, a Welsh cottage
+or farmhouse is, indeed, of stone, and is ugly.
+
+Although the presbytery was lacking in beauty, of outline and detail, it
+was convenient as a dwelling. As Howel entered, he saw that the body of
+the hermit still lay exposed, preparatory to burial, with the candles
+burning at its head. But Morwen was the sole person in attendance on it,
+as the professional wailer had decamped to secrete the few coins she
+possessed, and, above all, to convey to and place under the protection
+of the Church a side of bacon, the half of a pig, on which she
+calculated to subsist during the winter.
+
+By the side of the fire sat a lean, sharp-featured boy, with high
+cheek-bones; a lad uncouth in appearance, for one shoulder was higher
+than the other.
+
+He stirred the logs with his foot, and when he found one that was burnt
+through, stooped, separated the ends, and reversed them in the fire.
+
+This was Goronwy Cam, kinsman of Pabo, the son of the late Archpriest,
+who had been passed over for the chieftainship, partly on account of his
+youth, mainly because of his deformity, which disqualified him for the
+ecclesiastical state.
+
+He lived in the presbytery with his cousin, was kindly, affectionately
+treated by him, and was not a little humored by Morwen, who pitied his
+condition, forgave his perversity of temper, and was too familiar with
+ill-humors, experienced during her mother's life, to resent his
+outbreaks of petulance.
+
+"Go forth, Goronwy," said Howel. "Bid Morgan see that the grave for our
+dead saint be made ready. They are like to forget their duties to the
+dead in their care for themselves. Bid him expedite the work of the
+sexton."
+
+"Why should I go? I am engaged here."
+
+"Engaged in doing nothing. Go at once and speak with Morgan. Time
+presses too hard for empty civilities."
+
+"You have no right to order me, none to send me from this house."
+
+"I have a right in an emergency to see that all be done that is
+requisite for the good of the living, and for the repose of the dead. Do
+you not know, boy, that the enemy are on their way hither, and that when
+they arrive you will no further have this as your home?"
+
+"Goronwy, be kind and do as desired," said Morwen.
+
+The young man left, muttering. He looked but a boy; he was in fact a
+man.
+
+When he had passed beyond earshot, Morwen said, "Do not be short with
+the lad; he has much to bear, his infirmities of body are ever present
+to his mind, and he can ill endure the thought that but for them he
+would have been chief in Caio."
+
+"I have not come hither to discuss Goronwy and his sour humors," said
+Howel; "but to announce to you that Pabo is gone."
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"That I do not know."
+
+"For how long?"
+
+"That also I cannot say."
+
+"Is he in danger?" Morwen's color fled, and she put her hand to her
+bosom.
+
+"At present he is in none; for how long he will be free I cannot say,
+and something depends on you."
+
+"On me! I will do anything, everything for him."
+
+"To-morrow the sleuth-hounds will be after him: his safety lies in
+remaining hid."
+
+"But why has he not come to me and told me so?"
+
+"Because it is best that you know nothing, not even the direction he
+has taken in his flight. Be not afraid--he is safe so long as he remains
+concealed. As for you and that boy, ye shall both come to my house, for
+to-morrow he will be here who will claim this as his own. The bishop who
+has stepped into David's seat has sent him to dispossess our Archpriest
+of all his rights, and to transfer them to Cadell, his chaplain."
+
+"But it is not possible. He does not belong to the tribe."
+
+"What care these aliens about our rights and our liberties? With the
+mailed fists they beat down all law."
+
+"And he will take from us our house?"
+
+"If you suffer him."
+
+"How can I, a poor woman, resist?"
+
+"I do not ask you to resist."
+
+"Then what do you require of me?"
+
+"Leave him no house into which to step and which he may call his own."
+
+"I understand you not."
+
+"Morwen, say farewell you must to these walls--this roof. It will
+dishonor them to become the shelter of the renegade, after it has been
+the home of such as you and Pabo, and the Archpriests of our race and
+tribe for generations--aye, and after it has been consecrated by the
+body of this saint." He indicated the dead hermit.
+
+"But again I say, I do not understand. What would you have me do?"
+
+"Do this, Morwen." Howel dropped his voice and drew nearer to her. He
+laid hold of her wrist. "Set fire to the presbytery. The wind is from
+the east; it will cause the hall to blaze also."
+
+She looked at him in dismay and doubt.
+
+"To me, and away from this, thou must come, and that boy with thee. Thou
+wouldest not have Pabo taken from thee and given to some Saxon woman.
+So, suffer not this house that thou art deprived of to become the
+habitation of another--one false to his blood and to his duties."
+
+"I cannot," she said, and looked about her at the walls, at every object
+against them, at the hearth, endeared to her by many ties. "I cannot--I
+cannot," and then: "Indeed I cannot with him here,"--and she indicated
+the corpse.
+
+"It is with him here that the house must burn," said Howel.
+
+"Burn the hermit--the man of God!"
+
+"It would be his will, could he speak," said Howel. "He, throughout his
+life, gave his body to harsh treatment and treated it as the enemy of
+his soul. Now out of Heaven he looks down and bids you--he as a saint in
+light--do this thing. He withholds not his cast-off tabernacle, if
+thereby he may profit some."
+
+"Nay, let him be honorably buried, and then, if thou desirest it, let
+the house blaze."
+
+"It must be, Morwen, as I say. Hearken to me. When they come to-morrow
+they will find the presbytery destroyed by fire, and we will say that
+the Archpriest has perished in it."
+
+"But they will know it is not so. See his snowy beard!"
+
+"Will the flames spare those white hairs?"
+
+"Yet all know--all in Caio."
+
+"And I can trust them all. When the oppressor is strong the weak must be
+subtle. Aye, and they will be as one man to deceive him, for they hate
+him, and they love their true priest."
+
+"I cannot do it."
+
+"It may be that the truth will come out in a week, a month--I cannot
+say; but time will be gained for Pabo to escape, and every day is of
+importance."
+
+"If it must be--but, O Howel, it is hard, and it seemeth to me
+unrighteous."
+
+"It is no unrighteousness to do that which must be."
+
+"And it must?"
+
+"Morwen, you shall not lay the fire. I will do it--but done it must
+be."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE CELL ON MALLAEN
+
+
+At the back of Caio church and village stretches a vast mountain region
+that extends in tossed and rearing waves of moorland and crag for miles
+to the north; and indeed, Mynedd Mallaen is but the southern extremity
+of that chain which extends from Montgomeryshire and Merioneth, and of
+which Plinlimmon is one of the finest heads.
+
+The elevated and barren waste is traversed here and there by
+streams--the Cothy, the Camdwr, the Doeth--but these are through
+restricted and uninhabited ravines, Mynedd Mallaen, the southernmost
+projection of this range, is a huge bulk united to the main mountain
+system by a slight connecting ridge, between the gorge of the Cothy and
+a tributary of the Towy.
+
+North of this extends far the territory of Caio, over barren wilderness,
+once belonging to the tribe now delimited as a parish some sixteen miles
+in length.
+
+On leaving the Council Hall, Pabo tarried but for a few minutes in
+converse with Howel, and then ascended the glen down which brawled the
+Annell. The flanks of mountain on each side were clothed with heath and
+heather now fast losing their bells, and were gorgeous with bracken,
+turned to copper and gold by the touch of the finger of Death.
+
+He pursued his way without pause along the track trodden by those who
+visited the rock of Cynwyl, where annually the waters were stirred with
+his staff.
+
+But on reaching this spot, Pabo halted and looked into the sliding water
+that swirled in the reputed kneeholes worn by the saint in the rocky
+bed. A pebble was in one, being eddied about, and, notwithstanding the
+distress of mind in which was Pabo, he did not fail to notice this as an
+explanation of the origin of the depressions. Dreamy, imaginative though
+he might be, he had also a fund of common sense.
+
+The spot was lonely and beautiful, away from the strife of men and the
+noise of tongues. The stillness was broken only by the ripple of the
+water and the hum of the wind in the dried fern. The evening sun lit up
+the mountain heights, already glorious with dying fern, with an oriole
+of incomparable splendor.
+
+The great stone slept where it had lodged beside the stream, and was
+mantled with soft velvet mosses and dappled with many-colored lichen. It
+was upon its summit, doubtless, that the old Apostle had knelt--not in
+the bed of the torrent, although the folk insisted on the latter, misled
+by the hollows worn in the rock.
+
+Pabo, moved by an inward impulse, mounted the block, wrenched, like
+himself, from its proper place and cast far away, never to return to it.
+Never to return. That thought filled his mind; he need not attempt to
+delude himself with hopes. The past was gone forever, with its peace and
+love and happiness. Peace--broken by the sound of the Norman's steel,
+happiness departed with it. Love, indeed, might, must remain, but under
+a new form--no more sweet, but painful, full of apprehensions, full of
+torture.
+
+Discouragement came over him like the cold dews that were settling in
+the valley now that the sun was withdrawn. Where the Norman had
+penetrated thence he would have to depart. The sanctuary had been broken
+into--and the Angel of Peace, bearing the palm, had spread her wings.
+He looked aloft: a swan was sailing through the sky, the evening glory
+turning her silver feathers to gold. Even thus--even thus--leaving the
+land; but not, like that swan, to return at another season.
+
+Pabo knelt on that stone. He put his hand to his brow; it was wet with
+cold drops, just as the herbage, as the moss, were being also studded
+with crystal condensations.
+
+He prayed, turning his eyes to the sunlight that touched the heights of
+the west; prayed till the ray was withdrawn, and the mountain-head was
+silvery and no longer golden.
+
+Then, strengthened in spirit, he left the block and resumed his course.
+
+Without telling Howel whither he would betake himself, Pabo had agreed
+with him on a means of intercommunication in case of emergency. Upon the
+stone of Cynwyl, Howel was to place one rounded water-worn pebble as a
+token to flee farther into the depths of the mountains, whereas two
+stones were to indicate a recall to Caio. In like manner was Pabo to
+express his wants, should any arise.
+
+The refugee now ascended the steep mountain flank, penetrating farther
+into the wilderness, till at last he reached some fangs of rock, under
+which was a rude habitation constructed of stones put together without
+mortar, the interstices stopped with clay and moss.
+
+It leaned against the rock, which constituted one wall of the
+habitation, and against which rested the rafters of the roof. A furrow
+had been cut in the rock, horizontally, so as to intercept the rain that
+ran down the face and divert it on to the incline of the roof.
+
+The door was unfastened and was swaying on its hinges in the wind with
+creak and groan. Pabo entered, and was in the cell of the deceased
+hermit, in which the old man had expended nearly half his life.
+
+A small but unfailing spring oozed from the foot of the rocks, as Pabo
+was aware, a few paces below the hermitage.
+
+The habitation was certain not to be deficient in supplies of food, and
+on searching Pabo found a store of grain, a heap of roots, and a quern.
+There was a hearth on which he might bake cakes, and he found the
+anchorite's tinder, flint and steel.
+
+The day had by this time closed in, and Pabo at once endeavored to light
+a fire. He had been heated with the steep ascent, but this warmth was
+passing away, and he felt chilled. At this height the air was colder and
+the wind keener. There were sticks and dry heather and fern near the
+hearth, but Pabo failed in all his efforts to kindle a blaze. Sparks
+flew from the flint, but would not ignite the spongy fungus that served
+as tinder. It had lain too many days on a stone, and had become damp.
+After fruitless attempts, Pabo placed the amadou in his bosom, in hopes
+of drying it by the heat of his body, and drew the hermit's blanket over
+his shoulders as he seated himself on the bed, which was but a board.
+
+All was now dark within. The window was but a slit in the wall, and was
+unglazed. The cabin was drafty, for there was not merely the window by
+which the wind could enter, but the door as well was but imperfectly
+closed, and in the roof was the smoke-hole.
+
+What a life the hermit must have led in this remote spot! Pabo might
+have considered that now, feeling this experience, but, indeed, his mind
+was too fully occupied with his own troubles to give a thought to those
+of another.
+
+Shivering under the blanket, that seemed to have no warmth in it, he
+leaned his brow in his hand, and mused on the dangers, distresses, that
+menaced his tribe, his race, his wife, and which he was powerless to
+avert.
+
+Prince Griffith might raise the standard and rouse to arms, but it was
+in vain for Pabo to hug himself in the hope of success and freedom for
+his people by this means. The north of Wales was controlled by a king
+who had violated the rights of hospitality and betrayed his own kindred.
+Thus, all Cambria would not rise as one man, and what could one half of
+the nation do against the enormous power of all England? Do? The hope of
+the young and the sanguine, and the despair of the old and experienced,
+could lead them to nothing else but either to retreat among the
+mountains and there die of hunger and cold, or perish gloriously sword
+in hand on the battlefield.
+
+Pabo lifted his head, and looked through the gap in the thatch. A cold
+star was twinkling aloft. A twig of heather, got free from its bands,
+was blown by the night wind to and fro over the smoke-hole, across the
+star now brushing it out, then revealing it again.
+
+The cell was not drafty only, it was also damp. Pabo felt the hearth. It
+was quite cold. Several days had elapsed since the last sparks on it had
+expired.
+
+The wind moaned among the rocks, sighed at the window, and piped through
+the crevices about the door. A snoring owl began its monotonous call.
+Where it was Pabo could not detect. The sound came now from this side
+then from that, and next was behind him. It was precisely as though a
+man--he could not say whether without or within--were in deep stertorous
+sleep.
+
+Again he endeavored to strike a light and kindle a fire. Sparks he could
+elicit, that was all. The fungus refused to ignite.
+
+The cold, the damp, ate into the marrow of his bones. He collected a
+handful of barley-grains and chewed them, but they proved little
+satisfying to hunger.
+
+Then he went forth. He must exercise his limbs to prevent them from
+becoming stiff, must circulate his blood and prevent it from coagulating
+with frost. He would walk along the mountain crest to where, over the
+southern edge, he could look down on Caio, on his lost home, on where
+was his wife--not sleeping, he knew she was not that, but thinking of
+him.
+
+Wondrous, past expression, is that link of love that binds the man and
+his wife. Never was a truer word spoken than that which pronounced them
+to be no more twain, but one flesh. The mother parted from her nursling
+knows, feels in her breast, in every fiber of her being, when her child
+is weeping and will not be comforted, though parted from it by miles; an
+unendurable yearning comes over her to hurry to the wailing infant, to
+clasp it to her heart and kiss away its tears. And something akin to
+this is that mysterious tie that holds together the man and his wife.
+They cannot live an individual life. He carries the wife with him
+wherever he be, thinks, feels with her, is conscious of a double
+existence fused into a unity; and what is true of the husband is true
+also of the wife.
+
+It was now with Pabo as though he were irresistibly drawn in the
+direction of Caio, where he knew that Morwen was with tears on her
+cheeks, her gentle, suffering heart full of him and his desolation and
+banishment.
+
+The night was clear, there was actually not much wind; but autumn
+rawness was in the air.
+
+To the west still hung a dying halo, very faint, and the ground, covered
+with short grass, was dimly white where pearled with dew, each pearl
+catching something of the starlight from above.
+
+But away, to the south, was a lurid glow, against which the rounded
+head of Mallaen stood out as ink.
+
+Pabo thrust on his way, running when he could, and anon stumbling over
+plots of gorse or among stones.
+
+At length he came out upon the brow, Bronffin, and looked down into the
+broad basin of Caio. Below him was a fire. It had burned itself out, and
+lay a bed of glowing cinders, with smoke curling above it, lighted and
+turned red by the reflection of the fire below. Now and then a lambent
+flame sprang up, and then died away again.
+
+The sound of voices came up from beneath: it was pleasant to Pabo to
+hear voices, but in his heart was unutterable pain. He looked down on
+the glowing ruins of his presbytery--where he had lived and been so
+happy.
+
+Hour after hour he sat on the mountain-edge, watching the slowly
+contracting and fading glow, hearing the sounds of life gradually die
+away.
+
+Then above the range to the left rose the moon, and silvered the white
+ribbon of the Sarn Helen, the paved road of the old Queen of British
+race who had married the Roman Emperor Maxentius, and illumined the haze
+that hung over the river-beds, and far away behind Pen-y-ddinas formed
+a cloud over the two tarns occupying the bottom of the valley.
+
+But all the while Pabo looked only at one and then at another
+point--this, the fiery reek of his home, that a spot whence shone a
+small and feeble light--the house of Howel the Tall, beneath whose roof
+watched and wept his dearest treasure, Morwen. When midnight was
+overpassed, and none stirred, then did Pabo descend from the heights and
+approach the ashes of his home. At the glowing embers he dried the
+tinder. Then he caught up a smoldering brand, turned and reascended the
+mountain, with the fire from his ruined hearth wherewith to kindle that
+in his hovel of refuge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A MIRACLE
+
+
+Had one been on Bronffin, the mountain-brow overhanging Caio, on the
+following morning, strange would have been the scene witnessed.
+
+Those of the inhabitants who had not fled were engaged in the obsequies
+of the hermit who had been burned when the presbytery took fire, and
+whose charred remains had been extricated from the ruins.
+
+The corpse was borne on a bier covered with a white sheet; and men and
+women accompanied, chanting an undulating wail-like dirge, while the
+priest from Llansawel--a daughter church--preceded the body.
+
+Simultaneously arrived a number of armed men, retainers of the bishop,
+under the command of his brother, with the chaplain Cadell in their
+midst, accompanied by the Dean of Llandeilo and his deacon. Rogier had
+recovered the use of his arm, which was, however, still somewhat stiff
+in the joint from the blow he had received.
+
+Their arrival disturbed the procession, for the newcomers rode through
+the train of wailers manifesting supreme indifference with regard to the
+proceedings.
+
+"Put down yon bier!" ordered Rogier; and then, because none comprehended
+his words, he made imperious gestures that could not be mistaken. He was
+obeyed by the bearers, and the mourners parted and stood back, while the
+armed men filled in about the chaplain and their leader.
+
+Cadell rose in his stirrups and called in Welsh for silence, that he
+might be heard.
+
+Then, addressing the inhabitants in loud tones, he said: "It is well
+that ye are present, assembled, without my having to call you together.
+Ye shall hear what has been decreed. Proceed with the interment of the
+dead after that. Draw around and give ear."
+
+All obeyed, though slowly, reluctantly.
+
+When Cadell saw that all those of Caio who were gathered to the funeral
+were within earshot and attention, he said, speaking articulately, in
+sharp, distinct sentences, raising himself in his stirrups: "His
+fatherliness, the Bishop of St. David's, by the grace of God and the
+favor of Henry King of England and Lord Paramount over Wales, in
+consideration of the disloyal and irreligious conduct of the people
+inhabiting the so-called Sanctuary of David in Caio, but forming an
+integral portion of the patrimony of the see when he, their father and
+their lord, visited the place but recently, and above all, because the
+Archpriest did resist him, and further, did not shun to lift up his
+sacrilegious hand against him, his father in God, and inasmuch as in the
+divine law communicated to man from Sinai, it is commanded that he who
+smiteth his father shall surely be put to death, therefore he, their
+Lord and Bishop, in exercise of his just and legal rights, doth require
+_imprimis_: That the said Archpriest, Pabo by name, shall surrender his
+person to be tried and sentenced by the Court ecclesiastical, then to be
+handed over to the secular court for execution; and, further, that he be
+esteemed _ipso facto_ and from this present inhibited from the discharge
+of any sacred office, and shall be destituted of all and singular
+benefices that he may hold in the Menevian diocese, and that he be
+formally degraded from his sacerdotal character, by virtue of the
+authority hereby committed to me."
+
+Then Howel the Tall stood forth, and approaching the chaplain, said,
+"Good master Cadell, this matter hath already been decided and taken out
+of the province of thy master. Pabo, Archpriest and hereditary chieftain
+of the tribe of Caio, hath, as saith the Scripture, escaped out of the
+snare of the fowler. We are even now engaged in the celebration of his
+obsequies. You have interrupted us as we were about to commit his ashes
+to the ground."
+
+"How so!" exclaimed the chaplain, taken aback. "Pabo is not dead?"
+
+"Look around thee," answered Howel. "Behold how that fire hath destroyed
+the presbytery and at the same time hath consumed him who lay therein."
+
+"It was the judgment of God!" cried Cadell. "The manifest judgment of
+God against the man who lifted his hand against his spiritual father.
+Did the lightning flash from heaven to slay him?"
+
+"That I cannot affirm," said Howel.
+
+"Heaven has manifestly and miraculously interposed," said the chaplain,
+dismounting. In a few words he informed his attendants of what had
+taken place.
+
+"It is to be regretted," said Rogier. "I had hoped to carry a fagot,
+wherewith to roast him."
+
+"It soundeth passing strange," said another.
+
+"It is a miracle," persisted Cadell. "God is with us and against those
+who resist the bishop. This shall be everywhere proclaimed."
+
+"I do not see that as a miracle it was necessary," said Rogier. "For we
+would have burnt him all the same."
+
+"But," said the chaplain, "it was the will of Heaven to reveal that it
+is wroth with this people, and is on our side."
+
+Rogier shrugged one shoulder.
+
+"I will have a look at him and satisfy myself," said he, strode to the
+bier, and plucked aside the sheet.
+
+All recoiled at the object revealed--a human being burnt to a cinder.
+
+"By the soul of the Conqueror," said the bishop's brother, "methought he
+had been a man of more inches."
+
+"He is shrunken with the fire," explained the chaplain.
+
+"I would I could be certain it is he," said Rogier.
+
+"We will subject them to an oath," said Cadell. "If it be he, then,
+assuredly, his wife--that woman whom he called his wife--will not be far
+away."
+
+"She is the chief mourner," said Howel.
+
+Then he took Morwen by the hand and led her forward. "She is here."
+
+"Ah, ha! my pretty wench!" said Rogier, "praise Heaven that thou art
+released from thy leman. We may find thee a better man, and not one that
+wears the cassock."
+
+"Come hither," said the chaplain; "I desire thee to take the strictest
+and most solemn oath that he who there lieth charred as a burned log is
+none other than Pabo the Archpriest, whom thou didst call thy husband.
+What be the chiefest relics here?" he asked, looking round.
+
+"We have but the staff of Cynwyl; but that is mighty and greatly
+resorted to," said Howel.
+
+"Where is it? Bring it hither."
+
+"I am the custodian of the relic," said Morgan ap David. "But it is not
+customary to produce it unless it be attended and treated with all
+reverence."
+
+"Take with you whom you will," said the chaplain impatiently. "Faugh!
+cast again the pall over it."
+
+Morgan chose Howel and another, and they departed towards the church.
+
+After a few moments' delay they returned, Morgan in the center, bearing
+the staff.
+
+"Lay it on the corpse," said Cadell.
+
+"Have a care," said Howel, with a curve in the lip. "That staff has been
+known to have raised the dead to life again."
+
+"It were well it did so now," laughed Rogier, when Cadell, somewhat
+dashed, interpreted what had been said. "I' faith, I would be glad to
+have a hand in the second burning of him."
+
+"Hath it really done so?" asked the chaplain.
+
+"There was Ewan, the son of Morgan ap Rees, who fell from a tree," said
+Howel, "and he lay stone dead. Then, full of faith, his mother cried out
+for the staff of Cynwyl, and lo! when it was laid on the lad he opened
+his eyes and spoke."
+
+"Hold it above the body," said the chaplain, "one at each end, so as not
+to touch, and in such wise let the woman take oath."
+
+Again was the linen sheet removed, and now Morgan and an attendant
+sacristan held the relic--one at the head, the other at the foot--that
+it was above the body, yet not touching it; only the shadow fell upon
+it.
+
+"Go thrice round it," enjoined Morgan, signing with his head to Morwen;
+"thrice from left to right, with the sun, then lay thine hand on the
+staff and take the required oath."
+
+Morwen shuddered, but she obeyed, though pale as death. When she had
+made the third circuit she was forced, shrinking and with averted head,
+to approach the dead man. Then Cadell said in a loud voice, "Lay thy
+hand thereon and say these words: 'I take oath before God and Cynwyl,
+before the saints and angels in heaven, in the face of sun and moon and
+all men here present, that this is the dead body of Pabo, late
+Archpriest--whom thou didst esteem as thy husband.'"
+
+Then Morwen repeated, mechanically, the first words of adjuration, but
+added, in place of what Cadell had recited: "I take oath that if this be
+not Pabo, the Archpriest, and my husband, I know not where he is."
+
+"That sufficeth," said Cadell. "And now," he spoke aloud, turning to the
+assistants, "seeing that this man hath manifestly died by the just
+judgment of God, and to the notable confirmation of the authority of
+Bernard, the bishop, I declare that he be treated as one excommunicate,
+and be not buried within consecrated ground."
+
+The people of Caio murmured and looked at one another disconcerted.
+
+Then Howel went among them and whispered a few words. Cadell did not
+observe him; he was intent on speaking once more. That he might be the
+better heard, he remounted his horse.
+
+"Inhabitants of the sanctuary and of the tribe of Caio," said he, in the
+same distinct and sharp tones as before. "I have something further to
+add. _Secundo_: Inasmuch as the Archpriest Pabo hath manifestly perished
+by the interposition of Heaven, thus obviating his deposition as
+purposed, now his fatherliness, Bernard, Bishop of Menevia, is
+graciously pleased to nominate and present me, unworthy, to fill his
+room; in token whereof, the Dean of Llandeilo accompanies, so as
+straightway to induct me into all the offices, benefices, spirituals
+that were possessed by Pabo, the late Archpriest. _Tertio_: And inasmuch
+as the people of the territory and tribe of Caio did resist and
+mutinously assail the servants of the bishop, he imposes on them a fine
+of a mark in silver per house, great and small, to be collected and paid
+within one month from this day, until which time his attendants now
+accompanying me shall have free quarters and entertainment for
+themselves and their beasts among you."
+
+His words filled all with dismay. None answered.
+
+Then said Rogier laughingly: "I' faith, while Providence punished the
+late Archpriest, it did not mightily favor the incomer, for it hath
+consumed his presbytery."
+
+"The hall still standeth," said Cadell sternly. "Are we to question the
+ways of Heaven!"
+
+"'Ods life," pursued Rogier mockingly, "who would ever have considered
+my brother a saint, and one to be sustained by miracles; and he, but the
+other day, as great a Jew in grinding the peasants, and wringing the
+blood from their noses, as any son of Abraham. By the paunch of the
+Conqueror--and taking tithe and toll therefrom to his own benefit! Well!
+If Heaven be not nice in whom it proclaims as saints. There is good hope
+for such as me."
+
+Somewhat later, the new Archpriest indited the following letter to his
+ecclesiastical superior--
+
+"Cadell, Archpriest of Caio, to Bernard, Lord Bishop of St. David's,
+sendeth humbly greeting, with much filial affection.
+
+"This is to inform your fatherliness that it has pleasured Heaven--which
+is wondrous in the saints, to vindicate thy sanctity in a very special
+and marvelous manner. It is now many hundred years ago since David, the
+holy, founded the bishopric of Menevia, and primacy over all Cambria;
+and it is said he was thereto ordained and appointed by the Patriarch of
+Jerusalem. Now it is a notable fact that there was a certain Boia, a
+chief of the land, who mightily opposed him. Then fell fire from Heaven
+in the night, and consumed Boia and his wife and all that he had, in
+witness thereto remaineth the Cleggyr Voia, his ruined and burnt castle,
+unto this day. Since then many have been the bishops who have sat in the
+seat of David, and many also have been those who have opposed them. The
+Northmen have slain some, and have expelled others, yet did not Heaven
+interfere in their behalf. Nevertheless, no sooner art thou, Bernard,
+appointed and consecrated to this see, than have thy right and thy
+holiness been vindicated miraculously in the sight of all. For the
+Archpriest and chief Pabo did oppose thee even as did Boia oppose
+David. And each was smitten in the same way. Manifestly in the sight of
+all men, fire fell from Heaven and consumed him who sacrilegiously
+lifted his hand against thee, him and all his house, whereof we are
+witnesses--to wit, thy brother Rogier, the Dean of Llandeilo, and all
+thy servants and the people of Caio, as well as my unworthy self, thy
+servant, who beheld him--the transgressor--burned as a charred log,
+blasted by Heaven. And forasmuch as he perished by the judgment of God,
+I have bidden give to him but the burial of an ass.
+
+"Be this known unto all men, and it will mightily extend the fear of
+thee, and dissuade men from temerariously resisting thy just authority,
+whether in the diocese or throughout Wales."
+
+When the chaplain had written this, as he sealed it, he said to Rogier,
+"It is so wonderful, he will hardly credit it."
+
+"My good Cadell," replied the Norman adventurer, "I know my brother
+better even than do you. He is so inordinately vain that he would
+believe if you told him that the sun and moon had bowed down to worship
+him. But I--whether I believe this, that is another matter."
+
+"But I believe it--that I solemnly affirm," said Cadell.
+
+"And, further, do you not recollect that his fatherliness, the Bishop,
+did threaten as much, when he was here, and the Archpriest resisted him?
+Did he not say, can I not send lightning to consume thee?--and lo! it
+has fallen, even as he said."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GORONWY
+
+
+The Blessed Valley, which for nearly five hundred years had enjoyed the
+"Peace of Dewi," which had remained untroubled in the midst of the most
+violent commotions, was now a prey to the spoiler.
+
+Throughout the whole basin all was trouble. The armed men, servants of
+the bishop, for the most part Normans or Englishmen, but some Welshmen
+who had taken service under the oppressors of their countrymen, were
+dispersed through the district.
+
+Ostensibly they were engaged in numbering the hearths, for the exaction
+of the fine, but with this they did not content themselves. They entered
+every house, and conducted themselves therein as masters, aware that
+they were not likely to be called to order for the grossest outrages by
+either Rogier or by the bishop.
+
+They demanded food and drink, they ransacked the habitations and
+plundered them. They wasted what they could not consume, and destroyed
+what they did not take. The men they treated with contumely and the
+women with insult.
+
+A farmer who had a _hafod_, a summer byre, as well as a _hendre_, a
+winter residence, must pay for both. The poorest squatter would be
+forced to contribute as well as the wealthiest proprietor. "A mark of
+silver for a house," said Rogier; "settle it among you how the money is
+to be extracted. The rich will pay for the poor. In a fortnight we shall
+have every hearth registered."
+
+One wretched man, whose hovel had been broken into, set fire to it.
+"This," said he, "shall not be counted. I have no house now, no roof, no
+hearth. Therefore it shall not be reckoned in."
+
+"It was recorded before you set it in flames," was the answer. "It pays
+all the same."
+
+A father attempting to defend his daughter against one of the dissolute
+soldiers received a blow on his head which cut it open and cast him
+senseless on the ground. He lay in a precarious condition; and the girl
+had been carried off.
+
+A lone woman, aged, and a widow dependent on the charity of the
+neighbors, through their dispersion, or through forgetfulness, had died
+in solitude, by starvation.
+
+Several well to-do men, landowners, in attempting to resist the
+plunderers had been unmercifully beaten.
+
+It was an open secret that Rogier was seeking in all directions for the
+beautiful Morwen; but Tall Howel had the cunning to evade his search, by
+moving her about from house to house.
+
+On Sunday, with the exception of some of the soldiers, hardly any
+natives appeared in the church. The few who did show were some old
+women. It transpired that the inhabitants of the Caio district had gone
+for their religious duties to some of the chapels, of which there were
+at least six, scattered over the territory of the tribe, where they had
+been ministered to by the assistant clergy.
+
+When this came to Cadell's ears, he had his horse saddled, and attended
+by some of the men-at-arms, rode to the residences of these vicars,
+dismissed them from their offices, and had them removed by the bishop's
+retainers and thrust over the borders, with a threat of imprisonment
+should they return.
+
+On the following Sunday the church of Cynwyl was as deserted as before.
+"He has deprived us of our pastors," said the people. "He cannot rob us
+of our God."
+
+Then as Cadell learned that they had assembled in the chapels, and had
+united in prayer under the conduct of one of the elders, he rode round
+again, and had the roofs of these chapels removed.
+
+"This is better," said the people. "There is naught now betwixt us and
+God. He will hear us the readier."
+
+The day arrived for the benediction of the waters of the Annell. Then it
+transpired that the rod of Cynwyl had been abstracted from the church.
+In a rage, Cadell sent for the hereditary custodian.
+
+Morgan appeared with imperturbable face. "Ah!" said he, "this comes of
+having here such godless rascals as you have, foreigners who respect
+nothing human and divine. You brought forth the staff to lay it on the
+body--and this before all eyes. These rapacious men saw that there was
+gold on the case, and that stones of price were encrusted therein. Had
+they stolen the case and left the wooden staff, it would not have
+mattered greatly. But what to them are the merits of one of our great
+saints? They regard them not."
+
+Rogier now considered that it were well to hasten matters to a
+conclusion. He accordingly sent round messengers to every principal
+farmhouse to summon a meeting of the elders in the council-house, that
+he might know whether they were ready with the fine, and what measures
+they had taken to raise it.
+
+Cadell was dissatisfied and uneasy. He sat ruminating over the fire. The
+hall that had escaped being burnt had been accommodated for his
+occupation without much difficulty, as such articles as were needed to
+furnish it were requisitioned without scruple from the householders of
+Caio.
+
+But Cadell was discontented. In a few days the bishop's servants, who
+had brought him to the place and had seen him there installed, would be
+withdrawn. Then he would be left alone in the midst of a hostile and
+incensed population. Although they might not overtly resist him, they
+would be able in a thousand ways to make his residence among them
+unendurable. He might wring from them their ecclesiastical dues, but
+would be unable to compel those many services, small in themselves,
+which go to make life tolerable. He had already encountered reluctance
+to furnish him with fuel, to supply him with meal and with milk, to
+fetch and to carry, to cook and to scour. To get nothing done save by
+the exercise of threats was unpleasant when he was able to call to his
+aid the military force placed at his disposal; when, however, that force
+was withdrawn, the situation would be unendurable.
+
+If there had been a party, however small, in the place that favored the
+English, he would have been content; but to be the sole representative
+of the foreign tyranny, political as well as ecclesiastical, under which
+the people writhed, was beyond his strength. And the situation was
+aggravated by the fact that he was himself a Welshman, and was therefore
+regarded with double measure of animosity as a renegade.
+
+He was uneasy, as well, on another head. Rogier had let drop a hint that
+his brother intended to reduce the Archpriesthood of Caio to a mere
+vicariate on small tithe, and to appropriate to himself the great tithe
+with the object of eventually endowing therewith a monastery in the
+basin of the Cothi, probably by the tarns at the southern end. "We shall
+never crush the spirit out of this people," said Rogier, "unless we
+plant a castle on Pen-y-ddinas, or squat an abbey by those natural
+fishponds at Talley."
+
+If this were done, then he, Cadell, would have been inadequately repaid
+for the vexations and discomforts he would be forced to endure.
+
+The troop sent with him, Cadell could not but see, had done their utmost
+to roughen his path. They had exasperated the people beyond endurance.
+
+As he sat thus musing a young man entered cautiously, looked around, and
+sidled towards him. He was deformed.
+
+The chaplain looked up and asked what he required.
+
+"I have come for a talk," said the visitor. "May I sit? I know this hall
+well; it belonged to my father. I am Goronwy, son of the former
+Archpriest Ewan or John, as you please to call him."
+
+Cadell signed to a seat. He was not ill-pleased at a distraction from
+his unpleasant thoughts, and he was not a little gratified to find a man
+of the place ready to approach him without apparent animosity or
+suspicion.
+
+"You do not appear to me to have a pleasant place," pursued Goronwy. "I
+saw a beetle once enter a hive. The bees fell on him, and in spite of
+his hardness, stung him to death, and after that built a cairn of wax
+over him. There he lay all the summer, and every bee that entered or
+left the hive trampled on the mound of wax that covered their enemy."
+
+"Their stings shall be plucked out," said Cadell.
+
+"Aye, but you cannot force them to furnish you with honey, nor prevent
+them from entombing you in wax. They will do it--imperceptibly, and
+tread you underfoot at the last."
+
+Cadell said nothing to this; he muttered angrily and contemptuously, and
+drew back from the fire to look at his visitor.
+
+A lad with a long face, keen, beady eyes, restless and cunning, long
+arms, and large white hands. His body was misshapen and short, but his
+limbs disproportionately long.
+
+"I should have been Archpriest here," pursued he; "but because I am not
+straight as a wand, they rejected me. In your Latin Church, are they as
+particular on this point?"
+
+"We can dispense with most rules--if there be good reason for it."
+
+"Do you think, in the event of your getting tired of being here, among
+those who do not love you, that you could make room for me?"
+
+"For you!" Cadell stared.
+
+"Aye! I ought to have been chief here, only they passed me over for
+Pabo. I have a hereditary right to be both chief and priest in Caio."
+
+Then Cadell laughed.
+
+"You are a misshapen fool," he said; "dost think that Bishop Bernard
+would give thee such a place as this--to foment rebellion against him?"
+
+"He might give it to me, if I undertook to do him a great service, and
+to bring the place under his feet."
+
+"What service could such as you render?"
+
+"Would not that be a service to bring all Caio into subjection. See! I
+doubt not that a good fat prebend would be more to your liking than this
+lost valley among the mountains, traversed by the Sarn Helen alone,
+which was a road frequented once when the Romans were here, and the
+gold-mines were worked, and Loventum was a city. But now--it is naught.
+Few use it."
+
+Cadell mused on this astonishing proposal.
+
+It was quite true. He would rather far be a canon at St. David's, with
+nothing to do, than be stationed here in this lonely nook surrounded by
+enemies. Caio, however, with Llansawel and Pumpsaint, its daughter
+benefices, was a rich holding, and not to be sacrificed except for
+something better. Yet he feared the intentions of Bernard with regard
+to it.
+
+"You see," continued Goronwy, "that the people are so maddened at what
+has been done and so bitterly opposed to you that were I appointed in
+your room----"
+
+"But you are not a priest."
+
+"Was not Bernard pitchforked into the priesthood and episcopate in one
+day? Could not something of the sort be done with me?"
+
+Again Cadell was silent.
+
+Goronwy suffered him to brood over the proposal.
+
+"If you were to leave for something better they would hail me as one of
+themselves, and their rightful chief. And I would repay the bishop and
+you for doing it."
+
+Still Cadell did not speak.
+
+Then Goronwy drew nearer to him. His small eyes contracted and his thin
+lips became pointed as he said, "Pabo is not dead."
+
+Cadell started.
+
+"Dead! I know he is dead! I saw his body!"
+
+Goronwy broke into a mocking laugh.
+
+"I saw him--charred; and I had him buried under a dungheap outside the
+church garth, as befitted one struck down by the judgment of Heaven."
+
+"Pabo is not dead," repeated Goronwy jeeringly.
+
+"He is dead. It was a manifest miracle. I have told the bishop of it. It
+would spoil everything if, after I had announced it, he were found not
+to be dead."
+
+"Yes," said the young man, rubbing his large hands together, "it would
+spoil everything."
+
+Then, seized by a sudden terror, Cadell exclaimed, "It was
+threatened--the staff of Cynwyl would raise the dead. It has done it
+before."
+
+"Oh! the staff of Cynwyl had naught to do with it."
+
+"Merciful heavens, angels and saints protect me! If that burned lump is
+raised, and walks, and were to come here, and--come to me when in
+bed----!" In the horror of the thought, Cadell was unable to conclude
+the sentence. But he broke forth: "It is not so. If he be alive, he is
+no longer under the dungheap where he was laid. I will go see."
+
+"Go, by all means," said Goronwy, and laughed immoderately.
+
+"Tell me more. You know more."
+
+"Nay, go and see. I will tell nothing further till I have a written and
+sealed promise from the bishop that he will appoint me Archpriest of
+Caio."
+
+Cadell ran from the hall. Filled with terror, he got together some of
+the men of the bishop, and they searched where the burnt body had been
+laid. It was not there.
+
+Back to the hall came the chaplain. Goronwy still sat over the fire
+warming and then folding and unfolding his hands.
+
+"He is gone. He is not where we buried him," gasped Cadell.
+
+"Oh, he is gone! I told you Pabo was alive. He is walking to and
+fro--when the moon shines you may see him. When it is dark he will come
+on you unawares, from behind, and seize you."
+
+Cadell cowered in alarm. "I would to Heaven I were out of this place!"
+he gasped.
+
+"Now, mark you," said Goronwy. "Get the promise of this Archpriesthood
+for me, and I will deliver Pabo, risen from the dead, into your hands,
+and, if he desire it also, Morwen into the arms of Rogier."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+IT MUST BE MAINTAINED
+
+
+Rogier broke into a roar of laughter, when Cadell, with white face and
+in agitated voice, told him that Pabo was not dead.
+
+"'Sdeath!" he exclaimed. "I never quite believed that he was."
+
+"Not that he was dead?" cried the chaplain. "Did you ever see a man
+burnt as black as a coal and live after it?"
+
+"That was not he. I doubted it then."
+
+"It must have been he. He was buried as a dog in a dungheap,
+and"--Cadell lowered his voice--"he is no longer there."
+
+"Because these fellows here have removed the body and laid it in
+consecrated ground. It was a trick played on us, clever in its way,
+though I was not wholly convinced. Now I shall let them understand what
+it is to play jokes with me. I can joke as well."
+
+"But what do you mean, Rogier?"
+
+"That these Welsh rogues have endeavored to make us believe that the old
+Archpriest is dead, so that our vengeance might be disarmed and he
+allowed to escape. He is in hiding somewhere. Where is that fellow who
+informed you?"
+
+"Nothing further is to be got out of him."
+
+"We shall see."
+
+"I pray you desist. He may be useful to us; but it must not be suspected
+that he is in treaty with us."
+
+"There is some reason in this. I shall find out without his aid."
+
+"Do nothing till I have seen the bishop. He will be very
+distressed--angry. For I assured him that a miracle had been wrought. It
+was such an important miracle. It showed to all that Heaven was on our
+side."
+
+Rogier laughed.
+
+"We can cut and carve for ourselves without the help of miracles," said
+he.
+
+"I shall go at once," said Cadell; "the bishop must be communicated with
+immediately--and his pleasure known."
+
+Bernard of St. David's was at his castle of Llawhaden, near Narberth. He
+was there near his Norman friends and supporters. He had no relish for
+banishment to the bare and remote corner of Pembrokeshire stretching as
+a hand into the sea, as though an appeal from Wales to Ireland for
+assistance. Moreover, Bernard was by no means assured that his presence
+where was the throne would be acceptable, and that it might not provoke
+some second popular commotion which would cost him a further loss of
+teeth. Llawhaden lay in a district well occupied by Norman soldiers and
+Flemish settlers. The residence there was commodious in a well-wooded
+and fertile district. The castle was strong, secure against surprises,
+built by architect and masons imported from Normandy, as were all those
+constructed by the conquerors throughout the South of Wales.
+
+In Llawhaden Bernard lived like a temporal baron, surrounded by fighting
+men, and never going abroad without his military retinue. It was said
+that he ever wore a fine steel-chain coat of mail under his woolen
+ecclesiastical habit. In his kitchen, as about his person, no native was
+suffered to serve, so suspicious was he lest an attempt should be made
+on his life, by poison or by dagger.
+
+Happily, he was not required to perform any ecclesiastical functions,
+for he was profoundly ignorant of these; but the situation was such that
+he was not required to ordain clergy or consecrate churches. Clergy were
+not lacking. The ne'er-do-weels of England, men who were for their
+immorality or crimes forced to leave their cures, hasted to Wales, where
+they readily found preferment, as the great object in view with the
+invaders was to dispossess the natives of their land and of their
+churches.
+
+"So you are here," said the bishop. He spoke with inconvenience, as one
+front tooth had been knocked out and another broken. Unless he drew down
+his upper lip, his words issued from his mouth indistinctly, accompanied
+by a disagreeable hiss. "Hah!--have the bumpkins paid up so readily that
+you are here with the money? How many marks have they had to disgorge?"
+
+"Your fatherliness," said the chaplain, "I have brought nothing with me
+save unsatisfactory tidings."
+
+"What! They will not pay?"
+
+"They can be made to find the silver," said Cadell; "that I do not
+doubt. For centuries those men of Caio have prospered and have hoarded.
+Other lands have been wasted, not theirs; other stores pillaged, theirs
+have been untouched."
+
+"It is well. They will bear further squeezing. But what ails thee? Thou
+lookest as though thou hadst bitten into a crab-apple."
+
+"I have come touching the miracle."
+
+"Ah! to be sure--the miracle. I have sent despatches containing complete
+accounts thereof to his Majesty King Henry, and to my late gracious
+mistress, the Queen. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who consecrated me at
+Westminster, looked as sour as do you. He would fain have had the
+consent of the Pope, as father of Christendom, but the King would brook
+no delay, and the Archbishop was not so stubborn as to hold out--glad in
+this, to get a bishop of St. David's to swear submission to the stool of
+Augustine. I have sent him as well a narrative of the miracle; it will
+salve his conscience to see that Heaven is manifestly with me. Moreover,
+I have had my crow over Urban of Llandaff. _He_ has not a miracle to
+boast of to bolster up his authority."
+
+"My gracious master and lord, I grieve to have to assure you that there
+has been some mistake in the matter for which I am in no way
+blameworthy."
+
+"How a mistake?" asked Bernard testily.
+
+"There has been no miracle."
+
+"No miracle! But there has. I have it in your own handwriting."
+
+"I wrote under a misapprehension."
+
+"Misapprehension, you Welsh hound! You misapprehend your man, if you
+think I will allow you to retract in this matter."
+
+"I really do not know what to say, for I do not know what to think about
+the circumstance. It is, I fear, certain that Pabo lives."
+
+"Pabo lives! Why you saw him burnt to a coal! I have your written
+testimony. You invoked the witness of the Dean of Llandeilo, and he has
+formally corroborated it. I have it under his hand. You declared that
+there were hundreds who could bear testimony to the same."
+
+"Lord Bishop, I cannot now say what is the truth. It is certain that
+your brother and we all were shown the charred relics of a man, whom the
+inhabitants of Caio were proceeding to inter with the rites of religion,
+as their late Archpriest. When I learned that he had died by fire, by
+the judgment of God, then I stayed the ceremony, and bade that his body
+should be laid under a dungheap."
+
+"You did well. It is there still."
+
+"It is not, my Lord Bishop."
+
+"Do you mean to declare that he is risen from his grave?"
+
+"Your brother is of opinion that we have been deceived by the tribesmen
+of Caio, so as to make us suppose that this their Archpriest and chief
+was dead, and that he is now in concealment somewhere. He further saith
+that the people have secretly removed the dead man from the place where
+cast, and have laid him in the churchyard."
+
+"But--who can he have been?"
+
+"I know not."
+
+"And I care not," said the bishop. "Pabo was struck by fire from heaven,
+because he opposed me. Why when Ahaziah sent captains of fifty with
+their fifties against the prophet Elijah, did not lightning fall and
+consume them and their fifties twice? Is a ragged old prophet under the
+law of Moses to be served better than me, a high prelate under the
+Gospel? I see but too plainly, Cadell, you, being a Welshman, would rob
+me of the glory that appertains to me. What grounds have you for this
+preposterous assertion?"
+
+"There is a young man, the son of a former Archpriest, who has been
+slighted and overpassed, and has harbored resentment against Pabo. He
+came to me secretly and told me that we had been deceived--they used
+subtlety so as to be able the more effectually to conceal their chief
+from your just resentment."
+
+"I do not believe a word of it. I have written and sent certified
+testimonies that Pabo was burned by fire from Heaven. Where is this
+alleged Pabo?"
+
+"I know not. The young man I speak of is ready to assist us to secure
+him."
+
+"I do not want him. I want and will have my miracle. Did you not hear
+me? When I visited Caio, I said to Pabo that I would call down fire from
+Heaven upon his head. I take you to witness that you heard me."
+
+"But what, my dear master and lord, if he were to appear, and all men
+were to discover that there had been no miracle?"
+
+"I _will_ have my miracle," persisted Bernard in petulant tones. "I have
+gone too far with it to retract. Odds' life! I should become a
+laughing-stock all through Wales; and I know well the humor of his
+Majesty. Over his cups he would tell the tale and burst his sides with
+laughing; and he would cast it in the teeth of my gracious mistress, the
+Queen. I have gone too far--I will have my miracle. If there be a man
+who is going about calling himself Pabo the Archpriest, let him be
+arrested as an impostor."
+
+"There will be talk concerning it."
+
+"There must be no noise. By the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, we must hush
+it up! As a minister of the Truth, a prelate of the Church, it is my
+sovereign duty to put down all imposition. Go now! I will even send a
+letter to Gerald of Windsor, who is at his castle of Carreg Cennen, in a
+retired vale away from every road, and from most habitations. I will bid
+him receive this false Pabo, and take such measures that the wretched
+impostor trouble us no more. As to my brother, bid him, if he lay hand
+on this dissembler and deceiver of men, this lying rogue, to get him
+away unnoticed, and with no noise, out of Caio, where he may be
+observed, and to send him under escort and by night to Gerald at Carreg
+Cennen."
+
+"It shall be so. And--with regard to the young man of whom I spake?"
+
+"That young man is a pest. Why should he have disturbed us with his
+suggestions?"
+
+"I venture to remind your fatherliness that he has but allowed us to see
+what is at work behind our backs. He tells us what is known to all men
+in Caio. Pabo might come forward at any time and show that he is alive."
+
+"That is true. What further about this young man?"
+
+"He offers to be the means of putting Pabo in our power."
+
+"And his price?"
+
+"In the event of your fatherliness transferring me to some other place
+of usefulness, such as a canonry at St. Davids, he protests that were he
+named to the Archpriesthood, he would in all ways subserve your
+interests. As he belongs to the chieftain's family, he would be well
+received by the people, and their suspicions disarmed."
+
+"Well, well, promise him anything--everything. I shall not be bound to
+performance. But hark you, Master Cadell! If this miracle be a little
+breathed upon, then you must contrive me another that cannot be upset by
+scoffers. Find me a paralytic or a blind person whom I may recover. That
+would go mightily to confirm the miracle of the burning of Pabo. And
+bid my brother act warily and proceed secretly, require him to treat
+this dissembler as what he is--a personator of a man who is on sure
+warrant dead, slain by the judgment of God."
+
+"I would fain have it under your hand and seal," said Cadell. "Your
+brother Rogier acts after his own will, and is not amenable to my
+advice."
+
+"You shall have it--also a letter to Gerald of Windsor. Get you away
+now. The epistles shall be ready by night, and you shall ride at
+cockcrow. And, mind you this, Master Cadell, if you lust after a
+canonry, provide me a new miracle. As to that already wrought, at all
+hazards it must be maintained. Not on my account. I am a poor worm, a
+nothing! But for policy, for the good of the Cause; lest these Welsh
+should come to crow over us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE FALL OF THE LOT
+
+
+The elders of the Caio tribe assembled as enjoined. Some few were not
+present, risking the anger of Rogier rather than appear before him. But
+the majority conceived it advisable to attend; and, in fact, a gathering
+of the notables was necessary for the apportionment of the fine that had
+to be raised. Although a mark in silver was what had to be exacted from
+each house, yet, as the majority of the inhabitants were too poor to pay
+such a sum, the richer would have to supplement the deficiency. The fine
+was imposed on the district as a whole. The amount was calculated by the
+hearths, but each householder was not expected to pay the same fixed
+sum.
+
+This was well understood, and the adjustment of the burden had to be
+considered in common. There was, so it was generally supposed, no
+exceptional cause for further uneasiness. The tax must be raised, and
+when the silver had been paid, then the valley would be rid of its
+intruders--with the exception of the renegade Cadell, forced on the
+tribe as its ecclesiastical chief. That Rogier had any fresh cause of
+complaint against the inhabitants was not suspected.
+
+They assembled accordingly, and entered the council-hall.
+
+It was not till all were within that the young men and women without
+were filled with alarm and suspicion by seeing the men-at-arms slowly,
+and in orderly fashion, close in and completely surround the edifice,
+and a strong detachment occupy the door.
+
+Rogier had remained outside, and gave directions. Presently he stepped
+within, attended by two men, one of whom served as his interpreter.
+
+The sun was shining, and it had painted a circle on the floor through
+the opening in the gable.
+
+Then the Norman took his sword, and drew a line in the dust with it from
+the president's seat to the doorway.
+
+"I give ye," said he, "till the sun hath crossed this line, wherein to
+discuss and arrange as to the payment of the fine. Till then--no one
+leaves the hall. After that--I have a further communication to make."
+
+The men looked in one another's faces and wondered what this meant. A
+fresh impost? They were not aware that occasion had been given for this;
+but who could be sure with one so rapacious as Rogier! It was the case
+of the Wolf and the Lamb in the fable.
+
+The Norman now left the court-house and sauntered about outside,
+speaking to his men, looking pryingly among those of the natives who, in
+an anxious, timorous crowd, remained in every avenue between the houses,
+ready at a threat to escape.
+
+After the lapse of approximately an hour the Norman reentered the hall
+and walked directly to the principal seat to take it.
+
+Then up started an aged man, and with vehement gesticulations and in
+words of excitement addressed him: "That seat is taken by none--save of
+the race of Cunedda. It belongs to our chief, who is of the blood royal.
+None other may occupy it."
+
+"I take it by the right of the sword," answered Rogier. "And let me see
+the man who will turn me out of it. I take it as deputy to my brother,
+the bishop."
+
+He laughed contemptuously, and let himself down on the chair.
+
+"Well," said he, looking round, "have you settled among yourselves as to
+the contribution? The round gold patch touches my line. I give you till
+it has passed across it to conclude that matter."
+
+Then Howel ap John stood up.
+
+"We have considered and apportioned the charges," he said, and his
+cunning eyes contracted. "Amongst ourselves we have arranged what each
+is to pay. But, inasmuch as we are nothing save tribesmen of our chief,
+and as the right over the land was at one time wholly his, but has since
+suffered curtailment, so that portions have become hereditary holdings
+of the chief men, yet as still the common lands, as well as the glebe
+and the domain, belong to the chief, it has seemed reasonable and just
+that he should bear one-third of the fine, and that this shall be levied
+on his land and homesteads, and two-thirds upon us."
+
+When this was translated to Rogier, he laughed aloud.
+
+"I see," said he, "the holder of the benefice is to bear a third. What
+will Cadell say to that?"
+
+"It is a decision according to equity," said Howel.
+
+"I care not. Cadell is not here to protect himself. So long as I have
+the silver to hand to the bishop, it is indifferent to me whether you
+bleed your own veins or fleece your pastor. He has been put in a fat
+pasture by my brother; it is right that he pay for it."
+
+"In two days the silver shall be brought here and weighed out."
+
+"It is well." Rogier looked at the sun-patch. "That is concluded; now
+tarry till the sun traverses the line. Then we will broach other
+business."
+
+All sat now in silence, their eyes on the soil, watching the patch of
+light as it traveled.
+
+The men of Caio were aware that the doorway was guarded. But what was
+threatened they could not conjecture. They had endured intolerable
+provocations without resistance. They were anxious at heart; their
+breasts contracted at the dread of fresh exactions. Some looked at
+Rogier to endeavor to read his purpose in his face; but his, as well as
+the countenances of his attendants, was expressionless.
+
+The sun-round passed on. Then a cloud obscured the light, a fine and
+fleecy cloud that would be gone shortly.
+
+All tarried in silence, breathless, fearing they knew not what--but
+expecting no good.
+
+Then the sun burst forth again, and the circle of fire appeared beyond
+the line.
+
+At once Rogier stood up.
+
+"You men of Caio, you have thought to deal with a fool, and to deceive
+me by your craft. But I know what has been done, and will make you to
+understand on whom ye have practised your devices. Pabo, the chief and
+Archpriest, is not dead. It was not he who was consumed in the
+presbytery. Ye played a stage mystery before our eyes to make us believe
+that he was dead, and that you were burying him. Pabo is alive and is
+among you, and you know where he is concealed."
+
+The interpreter was interrupted by outcries of, "We know not. If that
+were not he, we cannot say where he be. We found a man burned to a
+cinder. Were we in error in supposing him to be our chief? Show us that
+it was so!"
+
+Rogier remained unmoved by the clamor.
+
+"Ye are like a parcel of lying, quibbling women," he said. "Pabo is in
+hiding. Ye are all leagued together to save him. But have him from his
+lurking-den I will."
+
+"We cannot say where he is. There is not one of us who knows."
+
+"You will admit that he whom ye pretended to be Pabo was some other?"
+
+They looked doubtfully at each other.
+
+"We could not tell. The dead man was found in the ruins of the burnt
+house. We thought it was Pabo."
+
+"Ye did not. Ye contrived the device between you."
+
+"We will swear that we know not where he is. Bring forth the staff of
+Cynwyl."
+
+"The staff has been stolen. But I will not trust your oaths. Did not the
+wife of Pabo swear thereon?" Then Rogier laughed. "She was crafty as the
+rest of you, and deceived us in her oath. Nay, I will trust no oaths. I
+will place my reliance on something more secure. Hey! bring forward my
+bassinet!"
+
+At his order, one of the attendants went to the door and received a
+steel cap from a soldier without.
+
+"In this bassinet," said Rogier, "there are short willow twigs. There
+are more twigs than there are householders and notables here assembled.
+Of these twigs all but six are blank; but on half a dozen a death's head
+has been scored with a dagger point, rubbed in with black. He who draws
+such a figured twig shall be hung on the gallows, where is suspended
+your church bell--one to-day, a second to-morrow. On Sunday, being a
+sacred day, none; on Monday a third, on Tuesday a fourth, on Wednesday a
+fifth, on Thursday the sixth. And on Friday ye shall all assemble here
+once more, and again draw the lots. I shall hang one of you every day
+till Pabo be delivered up to me, alive."
+
+Then there broke forth cries, protests, entreaties; there were hands
+stretched towards the window through which the sun entered, in oath that
+the whereabouts of Pabo was not known; there were arms extended to
+Rogier in assurance that Pabo was actually dead. Some cried out that
+they had had no cognizance of any plot to deceive. Many folded their
+arms in sullen wrath or despair.
+
+Then Rogier lifted his sword and commanded silence. "No word spoken,"
+said he, "will move me from my purpose. One thing can alone rob the
+gallows of its rich burden--the delivery of your late chief, Pabo."
+
+"We cannot do it. We know not where he is."
+
+"Then let justice take its course. This I will suffer. When each has
+drawn his lot from the cap, he shall bring it in his closed fist to me,
+and open it where I stand in the ray of sunlight. If he have an unmarked
+stick, he shall go forth by the door unmolested. But he who shall have
+the death's head in his hand shall tarry here. And when all six are
+selected, then will I suffer each in turn to be conducted to his home,
+there to bid farewell to his family, and so to dispose of his worldly
+affairs as pleaseth him. I will allow each one hour to effect this; then
+he will return hither. The first man who draws the bad lot shall be
+strung to the gallows to-day. If ye be wise men, he will be the only one
+who will go to make a chime of bells. If Pabo be delivered to me before
+noon to-morrow, then no second man shall hang. If he be given up on
+Monday before mid-day no third man shall swing. But--if you remain
+obstinate, I will go on hanging ye to the last man. Come, in your order,
+as ye sit; draw to the bassinet and take out your lot. I lay the steel
+cap on what ye call the seat of your chief."
+
+Then the old man advanced, he who had protested against the occupation
+of the chair, and said--"I am ready to die, whether in my bed or on the
+gibbet matters little to me. God grant that I be the man taken. My time
+at best is but short. Another year to me matters not a hair."
+
+He walked to the bassinet, without hesitation drew his lot, carried it
+to the Norman--who stood in the sun-ray--and unclosed his withered hand.
+In it was an unmarked stick.
+
+"Pass forth," said Rogier.
+
+"Nay," said the old man. "My son comes after me--let him draw."
+
+A tall, well-built man walked boldly to the cap, drew, and approached
+the sunbeam.
+
+"Open!" ordered Rogier.
+
+He held a marked stick.
+
+"On one side--food for the crows," said the Norman.
+
+Then the old man fell on his knees. "I beseech you take me and spare
+him. He has a young wife and a child. He has life before him, mine is
+all behind."
+
+"Away," ordered Rogier. "The lot decides--the judgment is with heaven,
+not with me."
+
+"Father," said the young man, "I am willing to die for my chief."
+
+Then followed several who went free, and escaped into the open air,
+where they drew long breaths, as though their lungs had been cramped
+within.
+
+The next who drew the death's head was a mean little man with pointed,
+foxy face and red hair. He fell into convulsions of terror, clung to
+Rogier, implored for life, promised to betray whatever he knew--only,
+unhappily, he did not know where Pabo was concealed, but undertook, if
+pardoned, to find out. The bishop's brother spurned him from him with
+disgust. Then came three with blanks and were sent outside.
+
+The third taken was Howel.
+
+"One can but die once," said he, and shrugged his shoulders. "My old
+woman will have to look out for a second husband. May he be better than
+the first."
+
+He stepped aside without the exhibition of much feeling, but avoided the
+whimpering wretch who had drawn the death's head before him.
+
+"Hah!" said Iorwerth the Smith, as he opened his palm and disclosed the
+marked twig, "I thought something would fall to me for striking that
+blow which disabled the captain's arm. Would to heaven I had aimed
+better and broken his skull! He did not know me, or I should have been
+hung before this." Singularly enough, the very next to draw was also one
+who drew an unlucky stick, and this was Morgan the Sacristan.
+
+"Since the Sanctuary of David has been invaded, and the wild beast of
+the field tramples on the vineyard, I care not; and now the secret of
+where is hid the rod of Cynwyl will perish with me."
+
+Next came a whole batch who drew blanks, and gladly escaped with their
+necks.
+
+The last to draw the death's head looked steadily at it, and said: "She
+is always right. I thought so; now I'm sure of it. My wife said to me,
+'Do not go to the meeting?' I said, 'Why not?' Like a woman, she
+couldn't give a reason; but repeated, 'Do not go.' I have come, and now
+shall swing with the rest. It's a rough way of learning a lesson. And
+having learnt it--can no more practise it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TWO PEBBLES
+
+
+Tidings of the blow to be struck, reaching the hearts of many
+families--six only at first, but with prospect of more afterwards--had
+spread through the tribal region. Those who had drawn the unmarked
+sticks hurried to their homes, not tarrying to learn who were all the
+unfortunates; and, although relieved for the present were in fear lest
+they should be unfortunate at a subsequent drawing.
+
+All knew that Pabo was in concealment, and that his place of concealment
+was known to none, not even to his wife or to Howel. They had not a clue
+as to where he was. Some supposed that he had fled to the mountains of
+Brecknock, others to Cardigan; some, again, that he had attached himself
+to Griffith ap Rhys, who was traversing South Wales, stirring up
+disaffection and preparing for a general rising of the Welsh against
+their oppressors.
+
+Yet hardly half a dozen men desired that he should be taken, and thus
+free themselves from death. The great and heroic virtue of the Celt lies
+in his devotion to his chief, for whom he is ready at once to lay down
+his life.
+
+The hideous prospect that lay before the unfortunate people of Caio was
+one of illimited decimation. Would Rogier weary of his barbarous work?
+Would it avail to send a deputation to the bishop? It was doubtful
+whether the latter was not as hard of heart as his lay brother.
+
+Gwen, the wife of Howel, was as one stunned. She leaned with both hands
+against the wall of her house, her head drooping between them, with dry,
+glazed eyes, and for long speechless.
+
+Morwen was now in Howel's house. She had returned to it.
+
+She was pale, and quivering with emotion under the weight of great
+horror, unable to speak.
+
+Her eyes were fixed on the despairing woman, from whose lips issued a
+low moan, and whose bosom heaved with long-drawn, laborious breaths.
+Morwen was well aware what sacrifices the tribe was making and would
+have to make for her husband's safety, and this gave inexpressible pain
+to her.
+
+The moans of the poor woman cut her to the heart. At length, unable to
+endure it longer, she went to her, put her arms round her, and drew her
+to herself. Then, all at once, with a cry, the wife of Howel shook
+herself free, and found words--
+
+"Monday! It is on Monday that he must die, and that is our thirtieth
+wedding-day? For all these years we have been together, as one soul, and
+it will tear the heart out of my body--and to be hung on the
+gallows--the shame, the loss--and Howel so clever, so shrewd! Where has
+been his wit that he could not get free? He always had a cunning above
+other men. And on our wedding-day!" She ran to a coffer and opened it,
+and drew forth a knitted garment, such as we should nowadays call a
+jersey.
+
+"See, see!" cried the wretched woman. "I have been fashioning this; a
+thought of him is knitted into every loop I have made, and I have kissed
+it--kissed it a thousand times because it was for him. He feels the cold
+in the long winters, and I made this for him that he might be warm, and
+wherever he was remember me, and bear my kisses and my finger-work about
+him. And he must die, and shiver, and be cold in the grave! Nay, shiver
+and be cold hanging on the gallows, and the cold winds sway him. He
+shall wear my knitted garment. They will let me pass to him, and I will
+draw it over him."
+
+Then in at the door came the old man, who had been left when his son was
+taken. He was supporting that son's wife, and at the same time was
+carrying her child, which she was incapable of sustaining. She was
+frantic with grief.
+
+"I have brought one sorrowful woman to another," said the old man. "This
+is Sheena. She must not see it. They are taking my son now to ----. Keep
+her here, she is mad. She will run there, and if she sees, she will die.
+For the child's sake, pity her, make her live--calm her."
+
+She had been allowed an hour with her husband in their house, and then
+the soldiers had led him away, bound his hands behind his back, and had
+conducted him towards the church.
+
+She had followed with the child, crying, plucking at her hair with the
+one free hand, thrusting from her the old man who would hold her back,
+striving to reach, to retain her husband, her eyes blinded with terror
+and tears, her limbs giving way under her.
+
+The five men confined within the court-house heard her piercing cries,
+her entreaties to be allowed once more to kiss her husband, her screams
+as she was repulsed by the guards. They shuddered and put their hands to
+their ears; but one, the foxfaced man, whose name was Madoc, burst into
+a torrent of curses and of blasphemy till Morgan the Sacristan went to
+him in reproof, and then the wretched man turned on him with
+imprecations.
+
+"Come now, man," said the smith, "why shouldst thou take on so
+frantically? We leave wives that we love and that love us; but thy old
+cat, good faith! I should esteem it a welcome release to be freed from
+her tongue and nails."
+
+On nearing the gallows, where stood Rogier, that captain ordered the
+removal of Sheena; and when she saw a ladder set up against the
+crosspiece that sustained the bell, her cries ceased, she reeled, and
+would have let the child drop had not her father-in-law caught it from
+her.
+
+"One kiss--one last kiss! I have forgot something to say--let him bless
+his child!" she entreated.
+
+Rogier hesitated and consented, on the condition that she should then be
+at once removed. Thereupon the desolate woman staggered to the foot of
+the gallows, threw her arms round her husband's neck; and the man who
+acted as executioner relaxed the rope that bound his wrists, that he
+might bring his hands before him and lay them on his infant's head. Then
+the death-doomed man raised his eyes to heaven and said, "The
+benediction and the strength of God and the help of our fathers David
+and Cynwyl be with thee, my son, and when thou art a man revenge thy
+father and thy wronged country."
+
+At once the cord was drawn again, and his hands rebound. The old man
+took his daughter-in-law in one arm whilst bearing the babe in the
+other, and seeing that consciousness was deserting Sheena, hurried her
+to the house of Howel. There, after a moment of dazed looking about her,
+she sank senseless on the floor.
+
+Morwen flew to her assistance, and Howel's wife somewhat rallied from
+her stupefaction.
+
+At that same moment in burst Angarad, the wife of foxfaced Madoc.
+
+"Where is she?" she shouted, her eyes glaring, her hair bristling with
+rage. "She is here--she--the wife of our chief. Are we all to be dragged
+to the gallows because of him? Is every woman to become a widow? He call
+himself a priest! Why, his Master gave His life for His sheep, and
+he--ours--fleeth and hideth his head, whilst those whom he should guard
+are being torn by the wolves."
+
+"Silence, woman!" exclaimed the old man wrathfully. "I joy that my son
+has given up his life to save his chief."
+
+"But I am not content to surrender my Madoc," yelled the beldame. "Let
+us have the hated Saxon or the worst Norman to rule over us, rather than
+one who skulks and dares not show his face. My Madoc will be hung
+to-morrow, as they have hung Sheena's man now. I have seen it. They
+pulled him up."
+
+"Be silent," shouted the old man, and tried to shut her mouth.
+
+"I will not be silent. I saw it all. They drew him up, and then a man
+sprang from the ladder upon his shoulders and stamped."
+
+A cry of agony from the wife of Howel, who flung out her hands, as
+before, against the wall, and stayed herself there. Sheena heard
+nothing--she was but returning to consciousness.
+
+"Why do you not bring him back?" asked the hag, facing Morwen with fists
+clenched, fangs exposed, and eyes glaring. "Why do you keep him hidden,
+that we all may be widows--and you be happy with your man? What shall I
+do without my Madoc? Who will support me? Am I young enough to maintain
+myself? Is the whole tribe to be dragged down, that you and your husband
+may live at ease and be merry?"
+
+"Woman," said Morwen, trembling, "I do not know where he is concealed."
+
+"Then find him, and let him come forward to save us all. Shame, I say,
+shame on him!--the false shepherd--the hireling--who fleeth and careth
+not for the sheep!"
+
+The rattle of arms was heard, and at the sound Morwen slipped out of the
+room into the inner apartment that she might not be seen.
+
+Immediately two men-at-arms entered, leading Howel between them.
+
+"He is granted one hour," said the man who could speak a few words of
+Welsh. "On Monday he dies."
+
+"Clear the room!" said the old man; and to the soldier: "Remove this
+frantic woman." He indicated Angarad; and he himself, with their
+assistance, drew her--swearing, struggling, spluttering with rage--from
+the house. Sheena remained where she had been laid--as yet barely
+conscious. Howel's wife dropped into her husband's arms, moaning, still
+powerless to weep.
+
+In the inner chamber, dimly lighted by a small window covered with
+bladder in place of glass, on a bed sat Morwen, with her hands clasped
+between her knees, looking despairingly before her. Every word of the
+cruel woman had cut her heart as the stab of an envenomed poignard.
+
+Did Pabo know what was being done at Caio? No--assuredly not. She who
+had read his thoughts and knew his heart was well aware that he would
+readily die himself rather than that any of his people should suffer. He
+knew nothing. They, with a rare exception only, would meet their fate,
+the men give their necks to the halter, the women submit to be made
+widows rather than that their master and chief should fall into the
+hands of his enemies. Brave, true, faithful hearts! But was it right
+that they should be called on to endure such sacrifices? She shuddered.
+What, would she have him taken and die an ignominious death? Him whom
+she loved better than any one--with a one, soul-filling love? Could she
+endure such a sacrifice as that? Then she heard the step of Howel coming
+to the door.
+
+He entered and was with her alone.
+
+"Morwen," said he, in a low voice, "I shall be able shortly to do no
+more for my dear chief. Should you ever see him again, tell him from us
+all--all but perhaps one who is beside himself with fear--that we die
+willingly. But with him I can no more communicate. That must be done by
+you. It is expedient that he should fly farther; search will be made
+everywhere for him. Where he is, that I know not, though I may have my
+suspicion. Do this--at nightfall mount the valley of the Annell till you
+come to the stone of Cynwyl."
+
+"The stone of Cynwyl," repeated Morwen mechanically.
+
+"Take a pebble out of the brook and place it upon the rock. That will be
+a sign that he is not safe, and must fly to other quarters."
+
+"What other tokens be there?"
+
+"Two pebbles was to be the sign that all was safe and he was to return.
+That is not the case at this present time. Remember, then--One pebble."
+
+"And two calls him hither?"
+
+"Two pebbles. But remember, One only."
+
+"Two pebbles," said Morwen, but so that none heard it: it was said to
+her own heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A SUMMONS
+
+
+The days spent on the mountain had not been as cheerless as that first
+night. The fire burned now continually on the hearth, the light peat
+smoke was dissipated at once by the wind, which was never still at the
+fall of the year at the altitude where was planted the hovel of the
+hermit.
+
+The supply of food was better than at first. One night Pabo had found a
+she-goat attached to a bush near the stone of Cynwyl; and he had taken
+her to his habitation, where she supplied him with milk. On another
+night he had found on a rock a rolled-up blanket, and had experienced
+the comfort at night of this additional covering.
+
+But no tidings whatever had reached him of what went on in Caio. This
+was satisfactory, and his anxiety for his flock abated. But he knew that
+the enemy was quartered in the valley, because no call had come to him
+to return to it. At nights he would steal along the mountain-top that he
+might, from Bronffin, look down on the sleeping valley, with its
+scattered farms and hamlets; and on Sunday morning he even ventured
+within hearing of the church bell, that he might in spirit unite with
+his flock in prayer. He concluded that one of the assistant priests from
+a chapelry under the great Church was ministering there in his stead. He
+knew that his people would be thinking of him, as he was of them.
+
+During the day he made long excursions to the north, among the wild
+wastes that stretched interminably away before his eyes, and offered him
+a region where he might lie hid should his present hiding-place be
+discovered.
+
+None could approach the hut unobserved, a long stretch of moor was
+commanded by it, and the rocks in the rear afforded means, should he
+observe an enemy approach, of getting away beyond their reach into the
+intricacies of the wilderness.
+
+At first Pabo was oppressed by the sense of loneliness. No human face
+was seen, no human voice heard. But this passed, and he became conscious
+of a calm coming over his troubled heart, and with it a sense of
+freedom from care and childlike happiness.
+
+The elevation at which he lived, the elasticity of the air, the
+brilliance of the light, unobstructed, as below, by mountains, tended
+towards this. Moreover, he was alone with Nature, that has an
+inspiriting effect on the heart, whilst at the same time tranquilizing
+the nerves--tranquilizing all the cares and worries bred of life among
+men. It was a delight to Pabo to wander through the heather to some brow
+that overhung the Ystrad Towy or the valley of the Cothi, and look down
+from his treeless altitude on the rolling masses of wood, now undergoing
+glorious change of color under the touch of autumn. Or else to venture
+into the higher, unoccupied mountain glens, where the rowan and the
+rose-bramble were scarlet with their berries, and there he seemed to be
+moving in the land of coral.
+
+It was a delight to observe the last flowers of the year, the few stray
+harebells that still hung and swayed in the air, the little ivy-leafed
+campanula by the water, the sturdy red robin, the gorse persistent in
+bloom. He gathered a few blossoms to adorn his wretched hovel, and in it
+they were as a smile.
+
+The birds were passing overhead, migrating south, yet the ring-ouzel was
+still there; the eagle and hawk spired aloft on their lookout for prey;
+the plover and curlew piped mournfully, and the owl hooted.
+
+The insects were retiring underground for the winter. Pabo had not
+hitherto noticed the phases of life around him, below that of man, now
+it broke on him as a wonder, and filled him with interest, to see a
+world on which hitherto he had not thought to direct his observation.
+There is no season in the year in which the lights are more varied and
+more beautiful than in autumn, the slant rays painting the rocks
+vermilion, glorifying the dying foliage, enhancing the color of every
+surviving flower.
+
+But the fall of the year is one in which Nature weeps and sighs over the
+prospect of death; and there came on Pabo days of blinding fog and
+streaming rain. Then he was condemned to remain within, occasionally
+looking forth into the whirls of drifting vapor, charged with a strange
+dank scent, or at the lines of descending water. He milked his goat,
+collected food for it, and heaped up his fire.
+
+Then it was that sad thoughts came over him, forebodings of ill; and he
+mused by his hearth, looking into the glow, listening to the moan of the
+wind or the drizzle of the rain, and the eternal drip, drip from the
+eaves.
+
+He had thus sat for hours one day, interrupting his meditations only by
+an occasional pace to the door to look out for a break in the weather,
+when there came upon him with a shock of surprise the recollection that
+there was more in the hermit's scroll than he had considered at first.
+Not much. He unfurled it, and beside the bequest of the hut, only these
+words were added: "For a commission look below my bed."
+
+What was the meaning of this? It was strange that till now Pabo had
+given no thought to these concluding words.
+
+Now he thrust the fire together, cast on some dry bunches of gorse that
+lit the interior with a golden light, and he drew the bed from the place
+it had occupied in the corner of the chamber.
+
+Beneath it was nothing but the beaten earth that had never been
+disturbed.
+
+The bed itself was but a plank resting on two short rollers, to sustain
+it six inches above the soil. Nothing had been concealed beneath the
+plank, between it and the ground--no box, no roll of parchment. Nothing
+even was written in the dust.
+
+Pabo took a flaming branch and examined the place minutely, but in vain.
+
+Then he threw off the blanket and skins that covered the pallet. He
+shook them, and naught dropped out. He took the pillow and explored it.
+The contents were but moss; yet he picked the moss to small pieces,
+searching for the commission and finding none. Then he drew away the
+logs on which the plank had rested. They might be hollow and contain
+something. Also in vain. Thoroughly perplexed to know what could have
+been the hermit's meaning, Pabo now replaced the rollers in their former
+position and raised the plank to lean it upon them once more.
+
+At this something caught his eye--some scratches on the lower surface of
+the board. He at once turned it over, and to his amazement saw that this
+under side of the pallet was scored over with lines and with words,
+drawn on the wood with a heated skewer, so that they were burnt in.
+
+The fire had sunk to a glow--he threw on more gorse. As it blazed he saw
+that the lines were continuous and had some meaning, though winding
+about. Apparently a plan had been sketched on the board. Beneath were
+these words, burnt in--
+
+     Thesaurus, a Romanis antiquis absconditus in antro Ogofau.
+
+Then followed in Welsh some verses--
+
+    In the hour of Cambria's need,
+    When thou seest Dyfed bleed,
+    Raise the prize and break her chains;
+    Use it not for selfish gains.
+
+The lines that twisted, then ran straight, then bent were, apparently, a
+plan.
+
+Pabo studied it. At one point, whence the line started, he read,
+"_Ingressio_"; then a long stroke, and _Perge_; further a turn, and here
+was written _vertitur in sinistram_. There was a fork there, in fact the
+line forked in several places, and the plan seemed to be intricate. Then
+a black spot was burnt deeply into the wood, and here was written:
+_Cave, puteum profundum_. And just beyond this several dots with the
+burning skewer, and the inscription, _Auri moles prægrandis_.
+
+Pabo was hardly able at first to realize the revelation made. He knew
+the Ogofau well. It was hard by Pumpsaint--a height, hardly a mountain,
+that had been scooped out like a volcanic crater by the Romans during
+their occupation of Britain. From the crater thus formed, they had
+driven adits into the bowels of the mountain. Thence it was reported
+they had extracted much gold. But the mine had been unworked since their
+time. The Welsh had not sufficient energy or genius in mining to carry
+on the search after the most precious of ores. And superstition had
+invested the deserted works with terrors. Thither it was said that the
+Five Saints, the sons of Cynyr of the family of Cunedda, had retired in
+a thunder-storm for shelter. They had penetrated into the mine and had
+lost their way, and taking a stone for a bolster, had laid their heads
+on it and fallen asleep. And there they would remain in peaceful slumber
+till the return of King Arthur, or till a truly apostolic prelate should
+occupy the throne of St. David. An inquisitive woman, named Gwen, led by
+the devil, sought to spy on the saintly brothers in their long sleep,
+but was punished by also losing her way in the passages of the mine; and
+there she also remained in an undying condition, but was suffered to
+emerge in storm and rain, when her vaporous form--so it was
+reported--might be seen sailing about the old gold-mine, and her sobs
+and moans were borne far off on the wind.
+
+In consequence, few dared in broad daylight to visit the Ogofau, none
+ever ventured to penetrate the still open mouth of the mine.
+
+Pabo was not devoid of superstition, yet not abjectly credulous. If what
+he now saw was the result of research by the hermit, then it was clear
+that where one man had gone another might also go, and with the
+assistance of the plan discover the hidden treasure which the Romans had
+stored, but never removed.
+
+And yet, as Pabo gazed at the plan and writing, he asked, was it not
+more likely that the old hermit had been a prey to hallucinations, and
+that there was no substance behind this parade of a secret? Was it not
+probable that in the thirty years' dreaming in this solitude his fancies
+had become to him realities; that musing in the long winter nights on
+the woes of his country he had come on the thought, what an assistance
+it would be to it had the Romans not extricated all the ore from the
+rich veins of the Ogofau. Then, going a little further, had imagined
+that in their hasty withdrawal from Britain, they might not have removed
+all the gold found. Advancing mentally, he might have supposed that the
+store still remaining underground might be recovered, and then the
+entire fabric of plan, with its directions, would have been the final
+stage in this fantastic progress.
+
+How could the recluse have penetrated the passages of the mine?
+
+It was true enough that the Ogofau were accessible from Mallaen without
+going near any habitation of man. It was conceivable that by night the
+old man had prosecuted his researches, which had finally been crowned
+with success.
+
+Pabo felt a strong desire to consult Howel. He started up, and after
+having replaced the plank and covered it with the bedding, left the hut
+and made his way down into the valley of the Annell, to the Stone of
+Cynwyl.
+
+Notwithstanding the drizzle and the gathering night, he pushed on down
+the steep declivity, and on reaching the brawling stream passed out of
+the envelope of vapor.
+
+The night was not pitch dark, there was a moon above the clouds, and a
+wan, gray haze pervaded the valley.
+
+As he reached the great erratic block he saw what at first he thought
+was a dark bush, or perhaps a black sheep against it.
+
+All at once, at the sound of his step on the rocks, the figure moved,
+rose, and he saw before him a woman with extended arms.
+
+"Pabo!" she said in thrilling tones. "Here they are--the two pebbles!"
+
+"Morwen!"
+
+He sprang towards her, with a rush of blood from his heart.
+
+She made no movement to meet his embrace.
+
+"Oh, Pabo! hear all first, and then decide if I am to lose you forever."
+
+In tremulous tones, but with a firm heart, she narrated to him all that
+had taken place. This was now Sunday. Two men had been hung. On the
+morrow Howel would be suspended beside them. These executions would
+continue till the place of retreat of the Archpriest was revealed, and
+he had been taken.
+
+She did not repeat to him the words of Angarad, Madoc's wife--now widow.
+
+"Pabo!" she said, and tears were oozing between every word she uttered,
+"It is I--I who bring you this tidings! I--I who offer you these two
+pebbles! I--I who send you to your death!"
+
+"Aye, my Morwen," he said, and clasped her to his heart, "it is because
+you love me that you do this. It is right. I return to Caio with you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BETRAYED
+
+
+A congregation exceptionally large under existing circumstances
+assembled on Sunday morning before the church of Caio. Fear lest the
+Normans and English quartered in the place should find fresh occasion
+against the unhappy people, were they to absent themselves as on
+previous Sundays, led a good many to swallow their dislike of the man
+forced upon them as pastor, and to put in an appearance in the house of
+God.
+
+They stood about, waiting for the bell to sound, and looked shrinkingly
+at the hideous spectacle of the two men suspended by the bell, and at
+the vacant spaces soon to be occupied by others. At the foot of the
+gallows sat Sheena moaning, and swaying herself to her musical and
+rhythmic keening.
+
+Around the Court or Council-House stood guards. All those standing
+about knew that within it were Howel and three others, destined to
+execution during the week.
+
+They spoke to each other in low tones, and looks of discouragement
+clouded every face. What could these inhabitants of a lone green basin
+in the heart of the mountains do to rid themselves of their oppressors
+and lighten their miserable condition? Griffith ap Rhys, the Prince, had
+appeared among them for a moment, flashed on their sight, and had then
+disappeared. Of him they had heard no more.
+
+Some went into the church, prayed there awhile, and came out again. The
+new Archpriest had not put in an appearance.
+
+It was then whispered that he had left Caio during the week, and was not
+returned.
+
+Sarcastic comments passed: such was the pastor thrust on them who
+neglected his duties.
+
+But Cadell was not to blame.
+
+He had left Llawhaden, and had made a diversion to Careg Cennen by the
+bishop's orders. The road had been bad and his horse had fallen lame, so
+that he had been unable to reach his charge on Saturday afternoon. To
+travel by night in such troubled times was out of the question, and he
+did not reach Caio till the evening closed in on the Sunday.
+
+It was not, however, too dark for him to see that the frame supporting
+the bell presented an unusual appearance. He walked towards it, and then
+observed a woman leaning against one of the beams of support.
+
+"Who are you? What has been done here?" he asked.
+
+"There is my man--I am Sheena. They have hung him, and I am afraid of
+the night ravens. They will come and pluck out his eyes. I went to see
+my babe, and when I returned there was one perched on his shoulder. I
+drove it away with stones. There will be a moon, and I shall see them
+when they come."
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"I am Sheena--that is my man."
+
+"Go home; this is no place for you."
+
+"I have no home. I had a home, but the Norman chief drove us out, me and
+my man, that he might have it for himself; and we have been in a cowshed
+since--but I will not go there. I want no home. What is a home to me
+without him?"
+
+"Who has done this? Why has this been done?" asked Cadell.
+
+"Oh, they, the Saxons, have done it because we will not give up our
+priest, our chief. And my man was proud to die for him. So are the
+rest--all but Madoc."
+
+"The rest--what do you mean?"
+
+"They will hang them all, down to the last man, for none will betray the
+chief. They will go singing to the gallows. There was but Madoc, and him
+the devils will carry away; I have seen one, little and black, slinking
+around. I will sit here and drive devils away, lest coming for Madoc
+they take my man in mistake."
+
+Cadell was shocked and incensed.
+
+He hasted at once to the house in which Rogier was quartered. He knew
+that he had turned out the owners that he might have it to himself.
+
+Rogier and two men were within. They had on the table horns and a jug of
+mead, and had been drinking.
+
+Said one man to his fellow, "The Captain shall give me Sheena, when she
+has done whimpering over her Welshman."
+
+"Nay," quoth the other, "she is a morsel for my mouth, that has been
+watering for her. He cannot refuse her to me."
+
+"You, Luke! You have not served him so long as have I."
+
+"That may be, but I have served him better."
+
+"Prove me that."
+
+"I can interpret for him, I know sufficient Welsh for that."
+
+"Bah! I would not dirty my mouth with that gibberish."
+
+"You have not the tongue wherewith to woo her."
+
+"But I have a hand wherewith to grip her."
+
+"The captain shall decide between us."
+
+"Be it so. Now, captain, which of us is to comfort Sheena in her
+widowhood?"
+
+"It is all cursed perversity of Luke to fancy this woman. Before long
+there will be a score of other widows for him to pick among. There is
+even now that wild cat, Angarad."
+
+"I thank you. Let the captain judge."
+
+Then said Rogier. "Ye be both good and useful men. And in such a matter
+as this, let Fortune decide between ye. There is a draught-board; settle
+it between you by the chance of a game."
+
+"It is well. We will."
+
+The men seated themselves at the board. The draught-men employed were
+knucklebones of sheep, some blackened.
+
+While thus engaged, Cadell came in.
+
+"Rogier!" he exclaimed, "what is the meaning of this? There be men hung
+to my belfry."
+
+"Aye! And ere long there shall be such a peal of bells there as will
+sound throughout Wales, and this shall be their chime: 'Pabo, priest,
+come again!' By the Conqueror's paunch, I will make it ring in every
+ear, so that he who knows where he is hidden will come and declare it."
+
+"Consider! You make the place intolerable for me to perform my duty in."
+
+"Thy duty! That sits light on thy shoulders, I wot. Here have the poor
+sheep been waiting for their shepherd all the morn, and he was away."
+
+"I have been with the bishop."
+
+"I care not. I shall find Pabo ere long."
+
+"But his fatherliness holds that Pabo the Archpriest was burnt."
+
+"And we know that he was not."
+
+"If there be found one calling himself Pabo--and he is in no mighty
+desire that such should be discovered--then let him be esteemed an
+impostor--a false Pabo."
+
+"How so?"
+
+The chaplain looked at the men and did not answer.
+
+"But none has as yet been discovered," said Rogier.
+
+"Do not press to find one--not in this manner."
+
+"I shall not desist till he is given up. I have said so, and will be as
+good as my word."
+
+As he spoke, a face looked in at the door, then, after an inspection, a
+body followed, and Goronwy approached stealthily.
+
+He stood before Cadell with his eyes twinkling with malevolence, and his
+sharp white face twitching with excitement, nodding his head, he said--
+
+"He is here--he, Pabo, and she also whom the great Baron, the bishop's
+brother, desires; they are both here. Know well that it is I who have
+told you this, and it is I who claim the reward."
+
+"The reward!"
+
+"Aye, the Archpriesthood, which thou wilt resign for a rich benefice.
+Let me tell thee--here thou canst not live. They will hate thee, they
+will not receive the Sacraments from thy hand, they will baptize their
+children themselves rather than commit them to thee. The word of God,
+coming from thy lips, will have lost all savor. They will die and be
+buried on the mountains under cairns, as in the old pagan times, rather
+than have thee bless their graves. No--this is no place for thee. What
+the captain has done has driven barbed iron into their souls; they will
+have none of thee. But I am of the stock of Cunedda--me they will
+welcome, and I will be the bishop's henchman."
+
+"Pabo here!" exclaimed Cadell, and looked round at Rogier, who had
+understood nothing that had passed in this brief colloquy, as it had
+been spoken in Welsh. The man who did understand the tongue was too
+deeply engrossed in his game to hearken.
+
+"Aye, aye, Pabo is here--he and Morwen. I have just seen them; they came
+together down the glen, and are in the house of Howel ap John. Be speedy
+and have them secured, or they may again escape. Pabo is for you--and
+for him," he pointed to the Norman captain, "for him the comely Morwen,
+whom he has been looking for. Say, didst thou obtain for me the promise
+from the bishop?"
+
+"What says this misshapen imp?" asked Rogier.
+
+Then the young man sidled up to him, and, plucking at his sleeve and
+pointing through the door, said: "Là--Pabo! Morwen, là!"
+
+"By the soul of the Conqueror," exclaimed the Norman, "if that be so,
+Pabo shall be strung up at the door of his church at daybreak!"
+
+Turning to his men, with his hand he brushed the knucklebones off the
+board. "Ye shall conclude the game later--we have higher sport in view
+now."
+
+The men started to their feet with oaths, angry at the interruption,
+especially he who considered that he had won an advantage over his
+fellow.
+
+"I would have cornered him in three moves!" he shouted.
+
+"Nay, not thou; I should have taken thy men in leaps!"
+
+"Another time," said Rogier. "The man we seek has run into our hands."
+Then to the boy: "Where is he hiding?"
+
+Goronwy understood the question by the action of his hands, and replied
+in the few words he had picked up of French, "Là--maison, Howel."
+
+"He shall be swung at once," said Rogier; "and then the first object on
+which the eyes of all will rest when they come out of their houses with
+the morrow's sun will be this Archpriest they have been hiding from me."
+
+"Nay," said Cadell, "that may not be. I have orders to the contrary
+under the hand and seal of the bishop." He unfolded the instructions.
+
+Rogier cursed. "Well," said he, "Pabo to me matters but little--so long
+as I lay my hand on Morwen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CAREG CENNEN
+
+
+Before dawn Pabo was on his way, bound to Careg Cennen, riding between
+four soldiers. He had been taken in the house of Howel. It had been his
+intention to deliver himself up early on the morrow; but he was
+forestalled.
+
+He regretted this, for more reasons than one. He had been unable to make
+final arrangements for the protection of Morwen, and he had been unable
+to communicate with Howel as he desired, relative to the secret of the
+treasure in the Roman gold-mines.
+
+The owls were hooting and night-jars screaming as the cavalcade
+proceeded along the Sarn Helen towards the broad valley of the Towy by
+that of its tributary the _Dulais_. As they reached the main river, the
+dawn was lightening behind the Brecknock Mountains, and the water
+sliding down toward the sea shone cold as steel.
+
+With daylight men were met upon the road, and occasionally a woman; the
+latter invariably, the former for the most part fled at the sight of the
+armed men. But some, less timorous remained, and recognizing the
+Archpriest, saluted him with respect and with exclamations of
+lamentation at seeing him in the hands of the common enemy. At Llandeilo
+the river was crossed, and Pabo was conveyed up a steep ascent into the
+tributary valley of the Cennen. But this stream makes a great loop, and
+the troopers thrust their horses over the spur of hill about which the
+torrent sweeps.
+
+Presently the castle came in view, very new and white, constructed of
+limestone, on a crag of the same substance, that rises precipitously for
+five hundred feet sheer out the ravine and the brawling stream that
+laves the foot of the crag.
+
+After a slight dip the track led up a bold stony rise to the castle
+gate.
+
+The situation is of incomparable wildness and majesty. Beyond the ravine
+towers up the Mynydd Ddu, the Black Mountain, clothed in short heather,
+to cairn-topped ridges, two thousand feet above the sea, the flanks
+seamed with descending threads of water; while further south over its
+shoulder are seen purple hills in the distance. A solitary sycamore here
+and there alone stands against the wind on the ridge about which the
+Cennen whispers far below.
+
+The bishop had already arrived at the castle. He had followed up his
+emissary pretty quickly, anxious that his own view of the case should be
+maintained in the event of the capture of Pabo.
+
+He and Gerald of Windsor were on excellent terms. Between them they were
+to divide the land, so much to the crook and so much to the sword; and
+whom the latter did not consume were to be delivered over to feel the
+weight of the crozier. In the subjugation of Wales, in the breaking of
+the spirit of the people, church and castle must combine and play each
+other's game.
+
+The staff of the bishop has a crook above and a spike below, to signify
+the double power that resides in his hands, that of drawing and that of
+goading. The time for the exercise of the curved head might come in the
+future, that for the driving of the sharp end was the present, thought
+Bernard.
+
+No sooner did he learn of the arrival of Pabo than he bade that he
+should be brought into his presence, in the room given to him by his
+host on whom he had intruded himself--a room facing south, overhanging
+the precipice.
+
+The weather was mild, and the sun shone in at the window. There was no
+fire.
+
+"So!" said the prelate, fixing his gray dark-rimmed irises on the
+prisoner, "you are he who give yourself out to be the Archpriest of
+Caio?"
+
+"I am he," answered Pabo.
+
+The bishop assured himself that the strongly built upright man before
+him was bound and could not hurt him; and he said to the attendants, "Go
+forth outside the door and leave this dissembler with me. Yet remain
+within call, and one bid Gerald, the Master, come to me speedily."
+
+The men withdrew.
+
+"I wonder," said Bernard, and his words hissed through the gap in his
+teeth, "I wonder now at thy audacity. If indeed I held thee to be Pabo,
+the late Archpriest of Caio, who smote me, his bishop, on the mouth and
+drew my blood, there would be no other course for me but to deliver thee
+over to the secular arm, and for such an act of treason against thy
+superior in God--the stake would be thy due."
+
+"I am he, Lord Bishop, who struck thee on the mouth. The insult was
+intolerable. The old law provided--an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
+tooth. If thou goest by the law of Moses deal with me as seems right.
+What the Gospel law is, maybe thou art too recent in Holy Orders and too
+new to the study of the Sacred Scriptures to be aware."
+
+"Thou art insolent. But as I do not for a moment take thee to be the
+deceased Pabo----"
+
+"Lord Bishop, none doubt that I am he."
+
+Bernard looked at him from head to foot.
+
+"Methinks a taller man by three fingers' breadth, and leaner in face
+certainly, as also browner in complexion, and with cheek-bones standing
+out more forcibly."
+
+Pabo hardly knew what to think of the bishop's words. It occurred to him
+that the prelate was beating about for some excuse for pardoning him
+whilst saving his dignity.
+
+He smiled and said, "If it be a matter of doubt with thee, whether I be
+indeed Pabo----"
+
+"Oh! by no means," interrupted Bernard, "I have no manner of doubt. On
+the surest testimony I know that the Archpriest Pabo was consumed by
+fire from heaven. This is known far and wide. His Majesty the King is
+aware of it; it is a matter of common talk."
+
+"Yet is it not true."
+
+"It is most assuredly true. I have the testimony of credible
+eye-witnesses."
+
+"Yet," said Pabo, "my own wife knows me."
+
+"Of her I can believe anything," said Bernard, thrusting his seat a
+little back, to give more space between himself and the prisoner.
+
+"Hearken unto me," said the bishop; "I have heard say of these Welsh
+that they keep their King Arthur somewhere, ready to produce him in the
+hour of need, to fight against their rightful lord and sovereign the
+King of England. And I warrant ye--they will turn out some scullion
+knave, and put a tinsel crown about his head, and shout 'God save King
+Arthur!' and make believe it is he come from his long sleep to fight
+against us. But we are prepared against such make-believes and mumming
+kings. And so, in like manner, when Pabo, Archpriest of Caio, is dead,
+burned to a cinder, as it has been most surely reported to us, then up
+starts such as you and assume to be what you are not, so as to fan the
+flame of discontent among the people, and inspire them with hopes that
+can never be fulfilled; and so persuade them to resist rightful
+authority. Have I not appointed my late chaplain to be Archpriest in the
+room of that unhappy man who, for temerity in lifting his hand against
+his ecclesiastical father, was evidently, before the eyes of all men,
+smitten by Heaven? I, of all men, I, who was struck in the face, and
+thereby lost my teeth, have a right to recognize the impious man who
+smote me. But I tell thee I do not identify thee. Further, I am ready to
+declare, and if need be, to swear, that thou art not the man. Thou art
+but a sorry makeshift. Who should know him, if not I?"
+
+"My dear people of Caio, whose pastor I have been, among whom I have
+gone in and out, will know me well enough. Confront me with them and the
+matter will be settled at once."
+
+"Nay--the word of a Welshman is not to be trusted. They will combine to
+bolster up a lie. Thou art an impostor, a false Pabo. That is certain."
+Then he turned his hands one over the other: "If thou wert the real
+Pabo, then be very sure of this: I would deliver thee over to the
+secular arm to be burned in verity--and only Norman and English soldiers
+should surround the fire, and they would see that thou wast in truth
+this time burned to a coal. But as I do not and will not hold this, I
+ask thee, for thine own sake, to acknowledge that there has been a plot
+to thrust thee forward--that thy people are in a league to accept thee
+as their priest and chief, knowing very well that their true priest and
+chief was burned in his house. Confess this, and I will use my endeavor
+to get thee thrust away into some distant part, where no harm shall come
+to thee. Nay, further," the bishop brightened up, "I will even keep thee
+about myself and advance thee to honor, and I will put thee into a fat
+benefice at the other extremity of the diocese, if thou wilt constantly
+affirm that thou art not Pabo, and never wast Pabo, neither ever knew
+him--but hast been mistaken for him through some chance resemblance."
+
+"Although a Welshman," said the Archpriest, with a curl of the lip,
+"and, as thou sayest, ready with lies, I will not say that."
+
+"Then take the consequences," exclaimed the bishop. "I give one minute
+in which to resolve thee. Admit that thou art an impostor, and I will do
+what I can for thee; refuse--and--and----"
+
+"Do your worst," exclaimed Pabo indignantly. "What your object is I
+cannot devise; but, be it what it may, I will not help with a
+falsehood. I am Pabo, still Archpriest and head of the tribe of the land
+of Caio."
+
+"Then," said the bishop, with harshness in his tone but with no
+alteration in his mask-like face, "be content, as simulating the Pabo
+who struck his ecclesiastical father in the face, and knocked out one
+tooth and broke another, to receive such punishment as is due to so
+treasonable an action."
+
+"If we two met as plain Christian people, living under the Gospel," said
+Pabo, "I would say the act was done under provocation; but it was an
+unworthy act, and I, who committed it, express my regret and ask for
+pardon of my brother Christian."
+
+"And I," said the bishop, "as a Christian man and a prelate of the Holy
+Roman Church, do cheerfully give forgiveness. Yet inasmuch as it is
+unwise that----"
+
+"I see," said Pabo; "a forgiveness that is no forgiveness at all. The
+transgression must be wiped out in blood."
+
+"The Church never sheds blood," said Bernard. "She hands over stubborn
+offenders to the secular arm. Here it comes--in at the door."
+
+The hand of Gerald of Windsor was thrust in, followed by the man
+himself.
+
+"See here," said Bernard, addressing the Baron and pointing to Pabo,
+"this is a man who sets himself up to be a leader among the rebellious
+Welsh, and is stirring up of hot blood and fomenting of intrigue."
+
+"Aye," said Gerald, "I have tidings come this day that the beggars are
+rising everywhere. They have among them their Prince Griffith ap Rhys."
+
+"And here," said the prelate, "is one of his agents. This man gives
+himself out to be a certain person whom he is not, and he has come among
+the people of Caio to bid them take up arms. But happily my brother
+Rogier is there."
+
+"What shall we do with him?" asked Gerald.
+
+"Beau Sieur," said the prelate, "with that I have nought to do.
+Sufficient that I place him--a dangerous fellow--in your hands. And mark
+you, a priest as well as an agitator, one to arouse the religious
+fanaticism of the people against the Church as well as against the
+Crown."
+
+"What shall be done with him? Cut off his head?"
+
+"Nay, I pray shed no blood."
+
+"Shall we hang him?"
+
+"I think," said the bishop, after musing a moment, "that it would be
+well were he simply to disappear. Let him not be hung so that,
+perchance, he might be recognized, but rather suffer him to be cast into
+one of the dungeons where none may ever cast eye on him till he be but
+bones and there be forgot."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FORGOTTEN?
+
+
+Pabo was hurried away, along a corridor, down a flight of steps, through
+the courtyard, and was thrust into a dungeon at the base of a tower on
+the east side of the castle. He had to descend into it by steps, and
+then the heavy oak door was shut and locked.
+
+The floor was of the limestone rock, with some earth on it; the walls
+new, and smelling of mortar. One slit, far up, admitted a ray of light,
+and beneath the door was a space of as much as two finger-breadths
+between it and the stone sill. No preparations had been made for his
+reception. No straw or fern was littered for a bed, nor was a pitcher of
+water set for him, that he might quench his thirst. Pabo was hungry; he
+had partaken of nothing since he left Caio save a crust that had been
+given him at Llanwrda on his way. At Llandeilo the soldiers had
+purposely avoided the town, and they had halted nowhere on the way
+except at the place Llanwrda, where they had given him a portion of
+their breakfast.
+
+Pabo supposed that he was to remain in confinement as long as suited the
+convenience of the bishop. He was far from fathoming the purpose of the
+prelate in endeavoring to cajole or frighten him into a denial of his
+own identity. Had he known the figure Bernard was endeavoring to cut at
+his expense, he would have laughed aloud and made his dungeon walls
+ring.
+
+He cast himself in a corner against the wall and waited, in the
+expectation of his jailer coming in before long with a truss of straw,
+some bread and water, and possibly chains for his hands or feet. But
+hours passed, and no one came.
+
+From where he sat he could see feet go by his door, and it seemed to him
+that towards evening these were the feet of women.
+
+No sentinel paced the court outside his doorway. He heard human voices,
+occasionally, but could distinguish no words.
+
+The evening closed in, and still none attended to him. Feeling in his
+pouch he found some dried corn from the hermit's store. When wandering
+on the mountains he had been wont to thus provide himself, and happily
+there remained still some unconsumed. With this he filled his mouth.
+
+He waited on as darkness settled in, so that he could but just
+distinguish his window and the gap below the door, and at length fell
+into a troubled sleep.
+
+During the night he woke with the cold, and groped for the blankets he
+had been accustomed to draw over him in the cell on Mallaen, but here in
+the prison of Careg Cennen none were provided. He felt stiff and chilled
+in his bones with lying on the bare rock. He turned from side to side,
+but could find no relief.
+
+Surely it was not the intention of Gerald of Windsor to detain him there
+without the modicum of comforts supplied to the worst of criminals. He
+had not offended the Norman baron. If he were not Pabo, as the bishop
+insisted, why was he dealt with so harshly? He had not done anything to
+show that he was a fanner of rebellion. Against him not a particle of
+evidence could be adduced.
+
+The thought that he carried with him the great secret of the hermit also
+troubled him. It is said that no witch can die till she has
+communicated her hidden knowledge to some sister.
+
+It was to Pabo a thought insupportable that he was unable to impart the
+secret deposited with him to some one who could use the knowledge for
+the good of his oppressed countrymen.
+
+Hitherto the attempts made by the Welsh to shake off their yoke had been
+doomed to failure, largely because of their inability to purchase
+weapons and stores that might furnish their levies and maintain them in
+the field. It was not that in the Cambrian Mountains there had been
+deficiency in resolution and lack of heroism; but it was the poverty of
+Wales that had stood no chance against the wealth of England.
+
+For himself Pabo cared little, but he was deeply concerned that he had
+no means of conveying the secret that had been entrusted to him to those
+who could make good use of it.
+
+He dozed off again in cold and hunger, and fell to dreaming that he had
+lit on an ingot of pure gold, so large and so weighty that he could not
+himself lift it, and opened his eyes to see a golden bar indeed before
+him, but it was one of sunlight, painted on the wall by the rising orb
+as it shone through the slit that served as window. He waited now with
+impatience, trusting that some one would come to him. Yet time passed
+and none arrived.
+
+He moved to one of the steps, seated himself thereon, and looked at the
+light between the bottom of the door and the sill. Again he saw what he
+conjectured to be women's feet pass by, and presently, but after a long
+interval, return; and this time he knew that the feet belonged to a
+woman, for she stopped where he could see, set down an earthenware
+pitcher, and exchanged some words with a soldier, one of the garrison.
+He could see the pitcher nearly to the handle, but not the hand that set
+it down and raised it. Yet he distinguished the skirts of the dress and
+the tones of voice as those of a woman.
+
+Presently he again heard a voice, that belonged to a female, and by the
+intonation was sure that what she spoke was in Welsh. She was calling
+and strewing crumbs, for some fell near his door. Immediately numerous
+pigeons arrived and pecked up what was cast for them. He could see their
+red legs and bobbing heads, and wished that some of the fragments might
+have been for him.
+
+He had hardly formed the wish before a crust, larger than any given to
+the birds, fell against his door, and there was a rush of pigeons
+towards it. Pabo put forth two fingers through the opening, and drew the
+piece of bread within. He had hardly secured this, before another piece
+fell in the same place, and once more, in the same manner, he endeavored
+to capture it. But unhappily it had rebounded just beyond his reach, and
+after vain efforts he would have had to relinquish it wholly to the
+pigeons had not feet rapidly approached and a hand been lowered that
+touched the crust and thrust it hastily under the door, and then pushed
+in another even larger.
+
+After this the feet went away. But still the pigeons fluttered and
+pecked till they had consumed the last particle cast to them.
+
+Pabo ate the pieces of bread ravenously.
+
+He was not thirsty. The coolness and moisture of the prison prevented
+him from becoming parched. What he had received was not, indeed, much,
+but it was sufficient to take off the gnawing pain that had consumed his
+vitals.
+
+Now for the first time he realized the force of the prelate's words when
+he had bidden Gerald of Windsor to cast him--Pabo--into a dungeon,
+there to be _forgotten_. Forgotten he was to be, ignored as a human
+being immured in this subterranean den. He was to be left there, totally
+unattended and unprovided for. Of this he was now convinced, both
+because of the neglect he had undergone, and also because of the attempt
+made by some Welshwoman, unknown to him, surreptitiously to supply him
+with food. This she would not have done had she not been aware of the
+fate intended for him. He was to be left to die of cold and hunger and
+thirst, and was not to leave the prison save as a dwindled, emaciated
+wreck, with the life driven out of him by privation of all that is
+necessary for the support of life. He was now well assured of what was
+purposed, and also, and equally assured, that he had in the castle some
+friend who would employ all her feminine craft to deliver him from such
+a fate.
+
+Slowly, tediously the day passed. Still, occasionally voices were
+audible, but no feet approached the dungeon doorway. Overhead there were
+chambers, but the prison was vaulted with stone, and even were any
+persons occupying an upper story, they were not likely to be heard by
+one below.
+
+It was, perhaps, fortunate that for some time on the mountain Pabo had
+led a very frugal life and had contented himself with parched grain, or
+girdle-cakes of his own grinding and making. Yet to these had been added
+the milk of a goat, and for this he now craved. He thought of his poor
+Nanny bleating, distressed with her milk; he thought of how she had
+welcomed him when he returned to the cell. Poor Nanny! What would he not
+now give for a draught of her sweet sustaining milk!
+
+Another night passed, and again in the morning there ensued the feeding
+of the pigeons, and therewith a fall of crusts within his reach by the
+door.
+
+During the day he heard a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard, and by
+seating himself on the lowest step in his vault, leaning one elbow on
+another, and bringing first eye and then ear near to the gap below the
+door, he saw and heard sufficient to lead him to suppose that the bishop
+was leaving Careg Cennen, to return to his own castle of Llawhaden.
+
+He could even distinguish his strident voice, and catch a few words
+uttered by him, as he turned his face towards the dungeon-door, and
+said: "My good friend Gerald--is, humph! the impostor forgotten?"
+
+"Forgotten, as though he had never been," was the response, in the rough
+tones of the Norman Baron.
+
+Then both laughed.
+
+Pabo clenched his hands and teeth.
+
+Presently, a clatter; and through the gateway passed the cavalcade.
+There was no drawbridge at Careg Cennen for there was no moat, no water;
+but there was a portcullis, and there were stout oak-barred doors.
+
+After the departure of the prelate, the castle fell back again into
+listlessness. No sounds reached the ear of Pabo, save the occasional
+footfall of one passing across the court with the leisurely pace of a
+person to whom time was of no value.
+
+On this day the prisoner began to be distressed for water. The walls of
+his cell, being of pervious limestone, absorbed all moisture from the
+air, so that none condensed on it. In the morning he had swallowed the
+dry crusts with difficulty. He now felt that his lips were burning, and
+his tongue becoming dry. If food were brought him on the morrow, he
+doubted whether he would then be able to swallow it.
+
+But relief came to him in a manner he had not expected. During the night
+rain fell, and he found that by crouching on the steps and putting his
+fingers beneath the door, he could catch the raindrops as they trickled
+down the oak plank, and convey the scanty supply by this means to his
+mouth. But with the first glimpse of dawn he saw a means of furnishing
+water that was more satisfactory. With his fingers he scraped a channel
+beneath the door to receive the falling drops, and then, by heaping the
+soil beyond this, forced the water as it ran down the door and dripped,
+to decant itself in a small stream over the sill. By this means he was
+able to catch sufficient to assuage the great agony of thirst.
+
+He was thus engaged when suddenly a foot destroyed his contrivance, and
+next moment he heard a key turned in the lock.
+
+He started from the steps on which he was lying, the door was thrown
+open, and before him stood a muffled female figure, against the gray
+early morning light, diffused through thick rain that filled the castle
+yard.
+
+Without a word the woman signed to Pabo to follow. She made the gesture
+with impatience, and he obeyed without hesitation.
+
+"Follow me!" she whispered in Welsh, and strode rapidly before him, and
+passed through a small doorway, a very few steps from the tower, yet in
+the south face of the castle. She beckoned imperiously to him to enter,
+then closed the door on him, went back and relocked that of the dungeon.
+Next moment she was back through the small door. Pabo found himself in a
+narrow passage that, as far as he could judge, descended by steps.
+
+The woman bolted the door behind.
+
+The place was dark, but she led on.
+
+The way descended by steps, then led along a narrow passage, with rock
+on one side and wall on the other, till she reached a great natural
+vault--a cave opening into the heart of the crag on which the castle was
+built. And here the passage terminated in a wooden stair that descended
+into darkness, only illumined by one point of red light.
+
+Still she descended, and Pabo followed.
+
+Presently she was at the bottom, and now he saw in a hollow of the rock
+on one side a little lamp burning with a lurid flame.
+
+She struck off the glowing snuff, and it sent up a bright spire of
+light.
+
+"Forgotten," said she, turning to Pabo, and throwing back her hood.
+"Forgotten! Nay, Nest will never forget one of her own people--never."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE BRACELET OF MAXEN
+
+
+"Look at me," said Nest; "I am the daughter of Rhys and sister of your
+Prince Griffith. How I have been treated God knows, but not worse than
+my dear country. I have been cast into the arms of one of its
+oppressors, and I welcome it, because I can do something thereby for
+those of my people who suffer. Griffith is about. He will do great
+things. I sent him with warning to you. And now I will even yet save
+you. Know you where you are? Whither I have brought you? Come further."
+She led him down among the smooth shoulders of rock, and showed him pans
+scooped in the limestone ledges that brimmed with water.
+
+There was no well in Careg Cennen. It would not have availed to have
+sunk one. In the dry limestone there were no springs. Gerald the Norman
+would not have reared his castle on this barren head of rock had he not
+known that water was accessible in this natural cave.
+
+But this cavern had been known and utilized long before the Norman
+adventurers burst into Wales. At some remote age, we know not how many
+centuries or tens of centuries before, some warfaring people had
+surrounded the top of the hill with a wall of stones, not set in mortar,
+but sustained in place by their own weight. And to supply themselves
+with water, they had cut a path like a thread in the face of the
+precipice to the mouth of a gaping cavern that could be seen only from
+the slopes of the Black Mountains, on the further side of the Cennen
+River.
+
+In this vault water incessantly dripped, not in rapid showers, but
+slowly; in wet weather more rapidly than at times of dryness, yet even
+in the most burning, rainless seasons, there never was an absolute
+cessation of falling drops. To receive these, bowls had been scooped out
+in ledges of rock; and hither came the maidens daily with their
+pitchers, to supply the wants of all in the castle. What the Norman
+builders had done was to broaden the path by cutting deeper into the
+face of the cliff, and to build up the face towards the precipice,
+leaving loopholes at intervals, to prevent accidents such as might
+happen through vertigo, or a turn of an ankle, or a slip on the polished
+lime-rock. The whole mouth of the cavern had also been walled up, so
+that no one unacquainted with the arrangements within the castle would
+have suspected its existence.
+
+To fill the pitchers the water-carriers were furnished with wooden
+spoons and shallow ladles, with which they scooped up the liquid from
+the rock-basins into their vessels.
+
+Hither Nest, the wife of Gerald of Windsor, had brought Pabo. She had
+learned what was the doom of the Archpriest so soon as the interview was
+over between him, the bishop, and her husband. Nest was a subtle woman.
+Lovely beyond any other woman in Britain, and with that exquisite
+winsomeness of manner which only a Celtic woman possesses, which a Saxon
+can ape but not acquire, she was able when she exerted her powers to
+cajole Gerald, and obtain from him much that his judgment warned him he
+should not yield. For a long time she had induced him even to harbor her
+brother Griffith, but he did so only so long as the young man was not in
+open revolt against King Henry.
+
+She had not on this occasion attempted to induce Gerald to mitigate the
+sentence on Pabo. She reserved her cajolery for another occasion. Now,
+she had recourse to other means. With a little cleverness, she had
+succeeded in securing the key of the dungeon; but for her own good
+reasons she did not desire that her husband should learn, or even
+suspect, that she had contrived the escape of the prisoner.
+
+Now Pabo stood by her in the great natural domed vault in the bowels of
+the mountain, crowned by Careg Cennen Castle; and by the flicker of the
+lamp he saw her face, and wondered at its beauty.
+
+"Pabo, priest of God!" she said, and her face worked with emotion.
+"Heaven alone knows what a life I lead--a double life, a life behind a
+mask. I have a poor, weak, trembling woman's heart, that bleeds and
+suffers for my people. I have but one love--one only love, that fills
+and flames in all my veins: it is the love of Wales, of my country, my
+beautiful, my sovereign country. And, O God! my people. Touch them, and
+I quiver and am tortured, and durst not cry out. Yet am I linked to one
+who is my husband, and I belong to him in body. Yet hath he not my
+immortal soul, he hath not this passionate heart. Nay! Not one single
+drop of the burning Welsh blood that dances and boils in every artery."
+She clasped her hands to her heart. "Oh, Pabo, my lot is in sad
+quarters! My life is one continuous martyrdom for my country, for my
+people, for their laws, their freedom, their Church! What can I do? Look
+at these women's fingers! What gifts have I? Only this fair face and
+this golden hair, and a little mother wit. I give all to the good cause.
+And now," she became more calm in tone, and she put forth her hand and
+clasped the priest by the wrist, and spake in measured tones, though her
+finger-ends worked nervously. "And now--learn this. For reasons that I
+cannot speak plainly, I would not have my husband know that I have
+contrived thy escape. And I cannot contrive to pass thee out through the
+gates. There is but one way that thou canst be freed. See--the women
+come hither to draw water, and the door creaks on its hinges whensoever
+opened. When thou hearest the door cry out, then hide thee under the
+stair, or yonder in the depth of the cave. None of the wenches penetrate
+further than these basins. But after they have left--and they come but
+in the morning and at eve--then thou hast this place to thyself. Know
+that there is no escape downwards from the eyelet-holes. It is a sheer
+fall--and if that were adventured, thou wouldst be dashed to pieces, as
+was one of the Normandy masons who was engaged on the wall. He lost his
+foothold and fell--and was but a mangled heap at the bottom. No--that
+way there is no escape. I have considered well, and this is what I have
+devised." She paused and drew a long breath. "There stands a stout and
+well-rooted thorn-tree on the crag above. I will tarry till supper-time,
+when my lord and his men will be merry over their cups, and then will I
+swing a bracelet--this." She took off a twisted serpent of gold,
+quaintly wrought, from her wrist. "This I will attach to a string, and I
+will fasten the other end to the thorn-tree. Then shall the bracelet be
+swung to and fro, and do thou remain at one of the loopholes, and put
+forth thine hand and catch the string as it swings. Hold it fast and
+draw it in. Then I will attach a knotted rope to the string, and do thou
+draw on until thou hast hold of the rope. Thereupon I will make the
+other end fast to the thorn-tree, and as thou canst not descend, mount,
+and thou art free."
+
+Pabo hesitated--then said, "It seems to me that these eyelet-holes are
+too narrow for a man's body to pass through."
+
+"It is well said," answered Nest, "and of that I have thought. Here is a
+stout dagger. Whilst thou canst, work out the mortar from between the
+joints of the masonry about the window-slit yonder. It is very fresh and
+not set hard. But remove not the stone till need be."
+
+"I will do so."
+
+"And as to the bracelet," continued Nest, "it is precious to me, and
+must not be left here to betray what I have done. Bring it away with
+thee."
+
+"And when I reach the thorn-tree then I will restore it thee."
+
+"Nay," rejoined Nest, "take it with thee, and go find my brother
+Griffith, wherever he be, and give it to him. Know this: it was taken
+from the cairn of Maxen Wlledig, the Emperor of Britain, whose wife was
+a Welsh princess, and whose sons ruled in Britain, and of whose blood
+are we. Tell him to return me my bracelet within the walls of Dynevor.
+Tell him"--her breath came fast and like flame from her lips--"tell him
+that I will not wear it till he restore it to me in the castle of our
+father--in the royal halls of our ancestors, the Kings of Dyfed, and
+has fed the ravens of Dynevor with English flesh."
+
+Again she calmed down.
+
+A strange passionate woman. At one moment flaming into consuming heat,
+then lulling down to calm and coolness. It was due to the double life
+she lived; the false face she was constrained to assume, and the
+undying, inextinguishable patriotic ardor that ate out her heart, that
+was so closely and for so long time smothered, but which must at times
+force itself into manifestation. Pabo, looking into that wondrous face,
+by the flicker of the little lamp, saw in it a whole story of sorrow,
+shame, rage, love, and tenderness mapped out.
+
+A strange and terrible life-story had hers been--even in young days.
+
+She had been taken from her home while quite a child, and committed as a
+hostage to the charge of Henry Beauclerk; he had done her the worst
+outrage that could have been offered--when she was helpless, an alien
+from her home and people in his power. Then, without caring whether she
+liked the man or not, he had married her to Gerald of Windsor, the
+spoliator, the ravager of South Wales. Once, Owen ap Cadogan, son of
+the Prince of Cadogan, had seen her at a banquet and eisteddfod given by
+her father at Aberteiri, to which the kings, princes, and lords of Wales
+had been invited. Among all the fair ladies there assembled none
+approached in beauty the young Princess Nest, daughter of King Rhys, and
+wife of Gerald of Windsor. Owen went mad with love. On the plea of
+kinship he visited her in Pembroke Castle, set it on fire, and while it
+was blazing carried her away into Powys.
+
+Nor was she an unwilling victim: she accompanied him, but only because
+she trusted that he would rouse all Wales and unite North and South in
+one great revolt against the power of England. And, indeed, at his
+summons, like a wild-fire, revolt had spread through Dyfed, Cardigan,
+and southern Powys. Only North Wales remained unmoved. The struggle was
+brief--the Cymri were poor and deficient in weapons of war, and were
+unable to withstand the compact masses hurled against them, in perfect
+military discipline, and securing every stride by the erection of a
+stronghold. Owen, carrying with him plenty of spoil, fled to Ireland,
+where he was hospitably received, and Gerald recovered his wife. She was
+disillusioned. Owen sought no nobler end than the amassing of plunder
+and the execution of vindictive revenge on such as had offended him. His
+ferocity had alienated from him the hearts of his people, for his sword
+had been turned rather against such of his own kin who had incurred his
+resentment than against the common foe.
+
+Into Cardigan, the realm of Owen's father, Strongbow had penetrated, and
+had planted castles.
+
+Presently, harboring treachery in his heart, Owen returned from Ireland
+and threw himself into the arms of Henry Beauclerk, who flattered him
+with promises and took him in his company to Normandy, where he bestowed
+on Owen the honor of knighthood, and had converted him into a creature
+ready to do his pleasure without scruple.
+
+Pembroke Castle had been rebuilt, Carmarthen was girt with iron-bound
+towers; in rear, Strongbow was piling up fortresses at Aberystwyth and
+Dingeraint.
+
+"See!" said Nest; "poorly hast thou fared hitherto. I have laid in a
+store of food for thee under the stair. Be ready just before nightfall.
+Lay hold of the golden bracelet, and retain it till thou encounterest
+Griffith, then give it him with my message. Let him return it me in our
+father's ruined hall of Dynevor, when it is his own once more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+SANCTUARY
+
+
+Rogier was pacing up and down in the house of which he had taken
+possession. On the table lay, heaped in bags of woven grass, the fine
+that had been imposed on the tribe. All had been paid. The elders had
+endeavored hard to induce him to accept two-thirds from them and to levy
+the remainder on Cadell; but he bade them squeeze their Archpriest--he
+was not going to trouble himself to do that--and the rest of the silver
+was produced. The men hoped to be able to recoup themselves later by
+deducting this third from their payments to the pastor thrust upon them.
+
+As Pabo had been secured, Rogier had released those who were detained in
+the court-house; they had returned to their homes.
+
+It was anticipated that now the Norman would withdraw along with his
+men; he had no further excuse for remaining. But he gave not the
+smallest token of an intention to remove.
+
+Cadell had entered. He also wished to know how long the foreigners would
+tarry in the place. So long as they were there it would be impossible
+for him to come to friendly terms with his flock. Yet, though he desired
+that the bulk of the men-at-arms, along with their captain, should
+withdraw, he did not by any means desire to be left completely alone in
+the midst of a population that regarded him with a malevolent eye, were
+unwilling to receive his ministrations, acknowledge his authority, and
+even show him ordinary civility.
+
+He had accordingly entered the house in the hopes of arranging with the
+bishop's brother terms whereby he might have two or four men left in
+Caio to support him in emergencies without being ostensibly his
+servants.
+
+A plea might easily be found in the refractory humor of the people for a
+small guard to be left till they proved more complaisant.
+
+Near the door, against the wall, Morwen was seated, pale but resolved,
+with her hands folded.
+
+"You seem to be in a vast impatience to see my back," said Rogier, "but
+let me tell you, Master Chaplain, I like this place. It lyeth well to
+the sun, the soil is fertile and amply watered. It is suitably timbered,
+and methinks there is building-stone here that might serve to construct
+a stronghold. I have looked about me and fancied Pen-y-ddinas. It crieth
+out for a castle to stand upon it--dominating, as it doth, the whole
+valley."
+
+"A castle for the bishop?"
+
+"Oh! save your presence and clergy. It is well for one to feather one's
+own nest first. As to the Church, hers is downy enough without needing
+to pluck more geese to make her easier."
+
+"Then for whom?"
+
+"For myself, of course. This is a fair district; it is girded about with
+mountains; it has been occupied for centuries by a thrifty people who
+have hoarded their silver. Methinks I could soon contrive to make of it
+a barony of Caio for myself."
+
+"But," said Cadell, aghast, "these be Church lands. You would not rob
+the Church?"
+
+"By no means are they Church lands. This is tribal land, and it so
+chances that the head of the tribe has been for some time--how long I
+know not--an ecclesiastic. But that is an accident."
+
+"It is the sanctuary of David."
+
+"But not the property of the see of David. It is the sanctuary of
+Cynwyl, I take it; and it has so fallen out that the inheritor of the
+chieftainship has been for some years--it may be centuries--in priestly
+orders. But as to belonging to the see, that it never did. Now I take
+it, there shall be a separation of powers, and I will assume the secular
+rule, and constitute myself Baron of Caio--and thou, if it please thee,
+shalt be Archpriest, and exercise ecclesiastical authority. It will be
+best so--then I and my bull-dogs will be ever hard by to help thee in
+thy difficulties."
+
+"The bishop will never agree to this."
+
+"He must. Am I going to fight his battles and not be paid for it, and
+fix my price?"
+
+"Does he know of thy purpose?"
+
+"I care not whether he do or not. I shall take my course, and he cannot
+oppose me, because he dare not. By the soul of the Conqueror, Sir
+Chaplain, these fat farmers ooze with money. I have but given them a
+little squeeze, and they have run out silver--it is yonder, dost mark
+it? Hast thou seen cider made? They make it in my country. The apples
+are chopped up and cast into a broad, stone-grooved trough, and a lever
+is brought to bear, laden with immense weights, to crush them. You
+should see, man, how the juice runs out, and you would say that there
+was never another drop of liquor in them. Then the lever is raised, and
+the weight shifted; next with a knife the apple-cheese is pared all
+round and the parings are cast up in the middle. Again the lever is
+worked, and out flows as much as at first, till again it appears that
+all is drained away. And this process is renewed to five times, and
+every time out pours the generous and sweet must. It is not with apples
+as with grapes. These latter once well pressed yield all--apples must be
+pressed to six and even seven times. My Cadell--these peasants are juicy
+apples. If I send this first squeeze to my brother, I reserve the after
+outgushes for mine own drinking."
+
+Cadell looked down disconcerted. He knew very well that Rogier's scheme
+would mean the shrinkage to but little of his power and profits.
+
+"You do not understand this people," said he, after some consideration.
+"You will drive them to desperation with your rough treatment. They are
+a kindly and a gentle folk that are easily led, but ill driven."
+
+"Well, now," said Rogier, and laughed. He halted, leaned against the
+table, and folded his arms; "it is so; but I have a scheme such as will
+reconcile the tribe of Cynwyl to my rule. And thou art come here
+suitably at this moment to assist me in carrying it out."
+
+"What wouldest thou?" asked Cadell sulkily.
+
+"It is even this," answered Rogier, and again he laughed. "Dost see? I
+have been courting a pretty wench. But it is bad wooing when I cannot
+speak a word of Welsh and she as little of French. Now, Sir Priest, be
+my go-between, and say sweet and tender words to her from me, and bring
+me back her replies of the same savor."
+
+"I cannot! I will not!" exclaimed the chaplain indignantly.
+
+"I ask of thee nothing dishonest," said Rogier; "far otherwise. I have a
+fancy to make the pretty Morwen my wife--and Baroness Caio. Tell her
+that--all in good sooth and my purpose honorable, the Church shall be
+called to bless us."
+
+"She is another man's wife!"
+
+"Nay, nay, a priest's leman--that is all. And if that stick in thy
+throat, be conscience-smoothed. By this time Pabo is no more. I know my
+brother's temper. He is a man who never forgives; and the loss of a pair
+of teeth is not that he will pass over."
+
+"But he does not hold that this man you have sent him is Pabo."
+
+"Pshaw! he knows better. Whether he be Pabo, or whether he be not,
+Bernard will never suffer him to live a week after he has him between
+his two palms. Therefore, seeing Morwen is a widow, and free, now, all
+is plain, my intent is good. If I marry her--who has been the wife of
+the chieftain of the tribe, I enter upon all his rights so far as they
+are secular; those that be ecclesiastical I leave to thee."
+
+"Not so," said Cadell sharply. "She is no heiress. She is not of the
+blood."
+
+"Oh! she shall be so esteemed. Scripture is with me--man and wife be no
+more twain but one flesh, so that she enters into all his rights, and I
+take them over along with her. It will smooth the transfer. The people
+will like it, or will gulp down what is forced on them, and pretend to
+be content."
+
+"This is preposterous--the heir to the tribal rights is Goronwy, the
+cousin of Pabo."
+
+"That cripple? The people would not have him before to rule over them.
+They will not now. Let them look on him and then on me; there can be but
+one decision. If there be a doubt, I shall contrive to get the weasel
+out of the way. And, moreover," said Rogier, who chuckled over his
+scheme, "all here are akin--that is why there was such a to-do about the
+seven degrees. It hit them all. I warrant ye, when gone into, it will be
+found that she has in her the blood of----. What is the name?"
+
+"Cunedda."
+
+"Aye, of that outlandish old forefather. If not, I can make it so. There
+is a man here--Meredith they call him--a bard and genealogist. I have a
+pair of thumb-screws, and I can spoil his harping forever unless he
+discover that the pretty wench whom I design for myself, to be my
+Baroness Caio, be lineally descended from--I cannot mind the name--and
+be, after Goronwy, the legitimate heir to all the tribal rights. Cadell,
+you can make a man say and swear to anything with the persuasion of
+thumb-screws. A rare institution."
+
+The chaplain said nothing to this. It was a proposition that did not
+admit of dispute.
+
+A good many of the Norman barons had taken the Welsh heiresses to them
+as a means of disarming the opposition they encountered, perhaps feeling
+a twinge of compunction at their methods of appropriation of lands by
+the sword. Gerald of Windsor, as we have seen, was married to a
+princess of the royal race of Dyfed, though not, indeed, an heiress. A
+knight occupying a subordinate position, if he chanced to secure as wife
+the heiress of some Welsh chief, at once claimed all her lands and
+rights, and sprang at once into the position of a great baron.
+
+"Come, sweetheart!" exclaimed Rogier boisterously, and went up to Morwen
+and caught her by the chin. "Look me in the face and say 'Aye!' and I
+will put a coronet of pearls on thy black hair."
+
+She shrank from him--not indeed, understanding his words, but
+comprehending that she was treated with disrespect.
+
+"Speak to her, you fool!" said Rogier angrily. "She must be told what I
+purpose. If not by you then by Pont l'Espec, whom I will call in. But by
+the Conqueror's paunch, I do not care to do my wooing through the mouth
+of a common serving-man."
+
+Cadell stood up from the seat into which he had lowered himself and
+approached Morwen.
+
+"Hark y'!" said the Norman; "no advice of thine own. I can see thou
+likest not my design. Say my words, give my message, and bear me back
+her reply--and thrust in naught of thy mind, and thy suasion."
+
+"What, then, shall I say?"
+
+"Tell her that I am not one to act with violence unless thwarted, and in
+this particular thwarted I will not be. Tell her that I desire that she
+shall be my wife; and say that I will make myself baron over this
+district of Caio--King Henry will deny me nothing I wot--and she shall
+rule and reign the rest of her days by a soldier's side, instead of by
+that of a cassocked clerk."
+
+Cadell translated the offer.
+
+Morwen's large deep eyes were fixed on him intently as he spoke, and her
+lips trembled.
+
+"I must give an answer," said the priest.
+
+Then Morwen rose and replied: "He will surely give me time to consider."
+
+"Aye, aye, till to-morrow," said Rogier when her words were translated
+to him.
+
+Thereupon Morwen bowed and left the house.
+
+Rogier took a step towards the door, but Cadell stayed him. "Give her
+till to-morrow to be alone."
+
+"Well," said he, "to-morrow shall settle it."
+
+Cadell left, and instead of seeking his lodging he went into the church.
+
+There, to his surprise, he saw a woman--it was Morwen, clinging to the
+wicker-work screen.
+
+"It is sanctuary! It is sanctuary!" she cried, as she saw him. "They
+shall not tear me hence."
+
+"Nay," said Cadell; "that they dare not. I will maintain thy right to
+sanctuary. It is well. To Cynwyl thou hast appealed. Cynwyl shall
+protect thee."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+IN OGOFAU
+
+
+In the darkness, Goronwy was lurking about the church. He was the first
+to communicate to Rogier that Morwen had taken sanctuary. The Norman,
+angry, bade him watch and not suffer her to leave without informing him
+whither she had betaken herself. She could not remain there
+indefinitely. It was a custom that sanctuary held for seven days and
+nights, and that if the clergy could not send away a refugee during that
+time, the right of protection afforded by the sacredness of the
+precincts ceased in that particular case.
+
+Rogier was wounded in his vanity, but not greatly concerned. He was
+certain that she could not escape him eventually.
+
+A hand was laid on Goronwy's shoulder; he started with terror, and his
+alarm was not lessened when Pabo addressed him, "What are you doing
+here, Goronwy?"
+
+"Oh, Pabo! we have feared you were lost."
+
+"As you see--I am returned. What are you doing here?"
+
+"Alas! I have no proper home--no more than you. Do you ask then why I am
+about at night?"
+
+"Poor boy! poor boy! Well, I would have you do me a commission now. I
+must not be seen here; yet would communicate with my wife. Where is
+Morwen?"
+
+Goronwy hesitated but for a moment, and then answered, "I do not know."
+
+"She is not now with Howel?"
+
+"No, sent elsewhere. Perhaps to Llansawel."
+
+"You must find her, and bid her come to me."
+
+"Whither shall I bid her go?"
+
+"Bid her come to me in Ogofau."
+
+"In Ogofau?" echoed Goronwy, shrinking back.
+
+"There is one thing more I desire," pursued Pabo. "Go into the church
+and bring me thence one of those coils of taper that hang in front of
+the screen."
+
+"Taper!" in all but speechless astonishment.
+
+"Yes; I am going to enter the old mine. I do not hesitate to tell you,
+as one in blood, in hopes, in sufferings with me. I am going to enter
+the mine, and would fain have a consecrated light."
+
+"I will get it at once," said Goronwy, and went within. What could this
+mean? What was Pabo's object? Within the church two lamps burnt in the
+sanctuary, but without all was dark, yet in the darkness he could see
+Morwen crouched against the screen. A Celtic church had buildings
+connected with it--a guest hall in which the congregation could assemble
+and take a meal after divine service, stables for horses, and even
+sleeping apartments. All were surrounded by the privilege of sanctuary;
+yet Morwen remained in the church, fearing lest these adjuncts should
+not meet with the same respect as the main building, the house of God.
+
+Against the screen were hung a number of twisted wax tapers, forming
+coils. These were employed on vigils and at the Pylgain, or Christmas
+Eve service at night. One of these Goronwy took down. He said no word to
+Morwen, but went out as silently as he had entered.
+
+"I thank you," said Pabo. "I would not enter myself lest Cadell should
+be there, and he recognize me."
+
+"You need not have feared that," laughed Goronwy. "He is not one to
+spend hours in prayer. He is not there."
+
+"Then will I enter and pray."
+
+"Nay," Goronwy interposed. "There are others there who it were well
+should not see you."
+
+"Be it so," said Pabo. "And now--find Morwen, aye--and speak with Howel
+also. Tell him naught of Ogofau. I shall have something to say shortly
+that will make the hearts of all Welshmen dance."
+
+"And will you not tell me?"
+
+"All in good time, lad. As yet I cannot say, for in sooth it is an
+expectation and not a certainty."
+
+Then he departed.
+
+Goronwy leaned against the church wall, looking in the direction he had
+taken, perplexed and not knowing what he should do.
+
+Pabo took his course over the brawling Annell, below the church, and
+mounted a spur of hill, among woods, till he came to a hollow, an
+incipient glen that ran west, and opposite rose a rounded height crowned
+by a camp, the Caer of ancient Cynyr, the father of the Five Saints. It
+was thence these holy brothers had descended to place themselves under
+the tuition of Cynwyl. It was when these five had disappeared into the
+gold-mine that the father had surrendered his principality to the
+missionary who had come among them from the North, and thus had
+constituted the Archpriesthood, holding a chieftaindom over the Caio
+district.
+
+And now Pabo descended among stumps of trees and broken masses of stone,
+and all at once stood on the edge of a great crater, into which the
+silvery light of the moon from behind a haze flowed, and which it
+filled. Out of this circular basin shot up a spire of rock, called the
+Belfry of Gwen--of her who dared to enter the mine to spy on the Saints
+in their magic sleep.
+
+Cautiously Pabo descended the steep side, where the rubble, sifted for
+gold, sloped to the floor.
+
+On reaching the bottom he looked around him.
+
+He was in an amphitheater of rock, here abrupt, there buried under
+slopes of detritus.
+
+The moon came out and sent the shadow of Gwen's Belfry across the level
+white floor of the mine.
+
+What the Romans had done was to scoop out the interior of a nodule of
+hill, much as we now dig out the inside of a Stilton cheese, and leave
+the walls intact. But there existed this difference: that the walls were
+not like a cheese-rind, that could be pierced through. They were but
+portions of the mountain, into which, by adits from the crater, the
+miners had burrowed. Most of these old tunnels were choked, some hidden
+under slides of rubble, but one gaped black, and it was into this that
+the Five Saints had entered according to legend, and Gwen also. And now
+Pabo was about to penetrate as well. Doubt of the reality of the
+discovery made by the hermit had departed. He was fully convinced that
+he would light on the hoard. His sole fear left was he should forget the
+directions he had seen traced on the plank.
+
+There was little wind now, below in this bowl. He struck flint and steel
+together and obtained a light. Then he kindled his wax taper, signed
+himself with the cross, and entered the cave.
+
+For some way in, the floor was covered with stones that had been thrown
+in. The roof was higher than his head and was arched.
+
+This was no natural cavern like that under Careg Cennen. This was cut by
+man's hand, out of rock very different in character, color, and texture
+from the limestone.
+
+The light from his taper glittered in the water that trickled over the
+sides, and in the pools that here and there lay in the footway. There
+were no stalagmites. Pabo could distinguish the marks of the picks used
+to excavate the adit. All at once he was startled by a rushing and
+whistling.
+
+He drew back, and past him swept legions of bats that had hitherto lived
+undisturbed in this cave. They came back, flickered near his face,
+threatened his light, and he shouted and threw stones. Then--he saw,
+heard them no more. They had issued from the portal and had gone to hunt
+under the open sky.
+
+Now the ground rose; there had been an accumulation of soil, and he was
+forced to bend low to pass on. But presently the floor sank and the
+vault was loftier, and he pursued his course erect.
+
+The ground now was hard rock, not earth, and it rang under his steps. It
+was also dry. The air was intensely still.
+
+The candle cast but a feeble light, and that but imperfectly illumined
+the way before him. He could best see by holding it above his head, yet
+was able to do this only where the arched roof was high, and he ever
+feared lest it should strike on a rock and become extinguished.
+
+The passage bulged and became a hall, and here it seemed to him that he
+saw some blue object before him. He stood, uncertain what it was, and
+whether to venture towards it. Presently he discovered that it was a
+patch of light, a reflection of some of the moonlit vapor in the sky
+falling through a small orifice far, far above in a dome, the height of
+which he could not measure. In contrast with the yellow flame of his
+candle, this feeble spot had looked blue as a turquoise. He tried to
+recollect the plan sketched on the board, and he did remember that this
+hall was there indicated, with _Ibi lumen_ scrawled beside it. He
+traversed this hall and entered another passage, or a continuance of the
+same, beyond. Then he put his hand to his brow, and endeavored to recall
+the sketch of the mine--and felt that it was gone from him.
+
+While lying in prison at Careg Cennen he had recalled it distinctly--he
+now, indeed, remembered that there was a direction _in sinistram_ or _ad
+dextram_, he could not now say which, and where the turn was to be made.
+However, there surely could be no mistake--as he had the way open
+before him.
+
+Hitherto he had felt no fear. Possibly his incarceration in partial
+darkness had accustomed him to some such places; he pushed on, moreover,
+animated with hope. And he placed some confidence in his blessed taper
+from the church of the patron of his family and tribe.
+
+But suddenly he sprang back, and only just in time. In front of him,
+occupying the whole width of the passage, was a hole. How deep it was he
+had some means of judging by hearing the bound and rebound of a stone
+dislodged by his foot.
+
+"_Cave puteum_;" now he recalled the warning.
+
+He crept forward cautiously, and extended his light over the gulf. It
+illumined the sides but a little way down. Judging by the time a stone
+took in falling before it plashed into water, it must have been about
+fifty feet in depth.
+
+The well was not large at the mouth. And now Pabo distinctly remembered
+that the _Thesaurus_ was not far beyond it.
+
+It did not occur to him to return. He was so near the goal that reach it
+he must.
+
+He examined attentively the sides. Not a thread of a track existed
+whereby the abyss might be skirted. There were no pieces of wood about
+by means of which it could be bridged.
+
+The well's mouth was but four feet in diameter. Surely he could leap
+that!
+
+He stepped back two, three strides, and bounded. He reached the ground
+beyond, but in the spring his light was extinguished.
+
+The snuff was glowing, and he blew on it, but it would not flame.
+
+"It matters not," said he. "I have my tinder and steel; I can relight
+it. Now on, on to the gold!"
+
+He stepped forward in the dark, but holding the taper with the
+smoldering snuff. Then his steps sounded as though he were in a wide
+chamber. He held out his hands; the walls had fallen away. A few steps
+further, and he stumbled, and stumbling, dropped on his knees, and saw
+by the expiring light of the snuff--the glint of ingots of gold.
+
+The last spark went out, and he was in complete darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+AURI MOLES PRÆGRANDIS
+
+
+Pabo rose to his feet at once. He had seen, he had touched the gold. The
+wax taper had dropped from his hand as he fell. He groped for it and
+soon found it. Then he put his hand to his pouch for flint and steel.
+They were not there. He searched the breast of his tunic. They were not
+there either. Then he passed his hand over the floor, thinking that he
+might have dropped them from his pouch when he fell. As yet he was not
+alarmed, rather concerned, as he was impatient to see the treasure.
+Kneeling, he groped on all sides of him, but could not find what he
+sought. His hand touched ingots; that he knew by their shape, and that
+they were of gold he was assured by the yellow glint when his wax light
+fell.
+
+Still bending on one knee, and with a hand on the ground, he began to
+consider what could have become of flint and steel. Was it possible
+that he had left them outside the "Ogof" when he lighted the taper? He
+racked his brain. He distinctly recalled the kindling of the wick. He
+could not remember having replaced the flint, steel, and tinder in his
+pouch. It might have occurred that flint or steel had fallen out when he
+stumbled, or even when he leaped the chasm, but not that tinder as well
+should have gone. He knew that whilst engaged in kindling the taper he
+had placed the now missing articles on a stone just within the entrance.
+There they might be still. He must have forgotten to replace them in his
+purse. Forgotten those things most necessary to him in the mine! Only
+conceivable through the occupation of his thoughts over the treasure, in
+quest of which he was venturing. He had found the treasure, but now was
+without the means of mustering it, even of seeing it.
+
+Again he groped about the floor, in desperation, hoping against
+conviction that the flint, steel, and tinder might be lying there. His
+hands passed over the cold damp rock; it was in vain; and weariness at
+length compelled him to desist. Now only did the whole horror of his
+situation lighten on him. The chasm lay between him and his way back. He
+might, possibly enough, by feeling, find the passage by which he had
+entered; but how could he traverse that awful abyss? He was buried
+alive.
+
+He sat in the darkness listening.
+
+He heard no sound whatever, save at long intervals a drip of water.
+
+He stared into the blackness of night that surrounded him, but could see
+not the faintest trace of light. And yet--not at any great distance was
+the hall into which a pearly ray fell from an orifice above; but between
+him and the spot of light lay the well.
+
+Were it not better to essay to return, and risk the headlong fall into
+that gulf, than to sit there in darkness, in solitude, till death by
+starvation came on him, and hear the slow ticking of the falling drops?
+
+What chance of rescue had he?
+
+True that he had sent word to his wife to meet him at the Ogofau--the
+caves, in the plural, not to seek for him in the one Ogof, in the
+singular, that was specially dreaded as the haunt of Gwen, and the place
+where slept the Five Saints.
+
+Would his wife think of seeking him therein? Could she possibly venture
+so far from the light? It was not credible.
+
+He tried to rise, but his limbs were stiff, and he shivered as with
+cold.
+
+Cautiously, with extended hands, he groped for the wall, and finally
+reached it. Then, passing them along, he felt his way towards the
+opening to the passage. But as to his direction, of that he knew
+nothing, could form no conjecture. While searching for his kindling
+tools, he had turned himself about and lost every inkling as to the
+course by which he had entered.
+
+After a while his right hand no longer encountered rock, and stepping
+sideways, he held with his left hand to the wall and stretched forth the
+right, but felt nothing. Letting go, but with reluctance, he moved
+another step sideways and now touched rock again.
+
+He had found the passage, and he took a few steps down it, drawing his
+hand along the side. He put forth the right foot, feeling the floor lest
+he should come unawares on the chasm. So he crept on, but whether he
+were going forward in a straight line or was describing a curve, he did
+not know. His brain was in a whirl. Then he struck his head against a
+prong of rock that descended from above, and reeled back and fell.
+
+For a while, without being completely stunned, he lay in half
+consciousness. His desperate condition filled him with horror.
+
+What if he did find his way to the ledge of the well? Could he leap it?
+If he made the attempt, he did not know in which direction to spring; he
+might bound, dash himself against the rock, and go reeling down into the
+gulf. But even to make such a leap he must take a few strides to acquire
+sufficient impetus. How measure his strides in the pitch darkness? How
+be sure that he did not leap too precipitately and not land at all, but
+go down whirling into the depths? And there was something inexpressibly
+hideous in the thought of lying dead below, sopping in water at the
+bottom of that abyss--sopping till his flesh parted from the bones, away
+from the light, his fate unknown to his wife, his carcass there to lie
+till Doomsday.
+
+Partly due to the blow he had received, partly to desperation, his mind
+became confused. Strange thoughts came over him. He seemed to acquire
+vision, and to behold the Five Saints lying in a niche before him, with
+their heads on a long stone. They were very old, and their faces covered
+with mildew. Their silver beards had grown and covered them like
+blankets. One had his hand laid on the ground, and the fingers were
+like stag's-horn lichen.
+
+Then the one saint raised this white hand, passed it over his face,
+opened his eyes, and sat up.
+
+"Brothers," said he, in a faint small voice, "let us turn our pillow."
+
+Thereat the other four sat up, and the one who had roused his brethren
+said: "See--we have worn holes in the stone with our heads. We will turn
+our pillow."
+
+And in verity there were five cup-like depressions in the stone. Then
+the old Saint reversed the stone, and at once all four laid their heads
+on it again and went again to sleep. The fifth also relaid his head on
+the stone, and immediately his eyes closed.
+
+Then it was to Pabo as though he saw a white face peeping round a corner
+of rock; and this was followed by a form--thin, vaporous, clad in
+flowing white robes.
+
+"Gwen! Gwen!" he cried, starting up. "You--you know a way forth! You
+leave in thunder and storm. Let me hold to your skirts, and draw me from
+this pit of darkness!"
+
+But with his cries the phantasm had vanished. His eyes were staring
+into pitch darkness, in which not even a spectral form moved.
+
+And still--he heard at long-drawn intervals the drip, drip of water.
+
+Again he sank back into half-consciousness, and once more his troubled
+brain conjured up fantastic visions.
+
+He thought himself once again in the cave at Careg Cennen, and that the
+beautiful Nest came to him. Somehow, he confused her with Gwen. She
+seemed also to be vaporous--all but her face and her radiant golden
+hair. What eyes she had, and how they flashed and glowed as she spoke of
+the wrongs done to her country and to her people!
+
+He thought she spoke to him, and said: "Oh, Pabo, Pabo, I have trusted
+in thee! My brother, he is raising all Cymraig peoples. Take to him the
+treasure of the old Romans. With that he will buy harness, and swords,
+and spears, and will call over and enroll levies from Ireland. With gold
+he will bribe, and get admission to castles he cannot break up. With
+gold he will get fleets to sail up the Severn Sea and harass the enemy
+as they venture along the levels of Morganwg. See, see, I have given
+thee the bracelet of Maxen the Emperor! It is a solemn trust. Bear it
+to him; let it not be lost here in the bowels of the earth!"
+
+And again he started with a cry and said: "Help, help, Princess Nest! Me
+thou didst draw out of the dungeon. Me thou didst bring up out of the
+cave. Deliver me now!"
+
+And again all was blackness, and there was no answer. Still continued
+the monotonous drip. Then Pabo bit his tongue, and resolved by no means
+to suffer himself to fall away into these trances again. With strong
+resolution he fought with phantom figures as they rose before his eyes,
+with drowsiness as it crept over his brain, with whispers and mutterings
+that sounded in his ears.
+
+How long the time was that passed he knew not. He might have counted the
+drips of water, yet knew not the length of each interval between the
+falling of the drops.
+
+He forcibly turned his mind to Morwen, and wondered what would become of
+her. Howel he trusted to do his uttermost, but Howel would have been
+hung but for his opportune return.
+
+Then his mind turned to the prospects of down-trampled Wales; to the
+chances of Griffith--to the defection and treachery of the King of
+North Wales; to the discouragement that had followed the abortive
+attempt of Owen ap Cadogan. But Owen had been a man false of heart,
+seeking only his selfish ends; without one spark of loyalty to his
+nation. Far other was Griffith. His beauty, his open manner, his winning
+address, were matched with a character true, brave, and sympathetic. In
+him the people had a leader in whom they could trust. And yet what would
+be his chances against the overwhelming power of England and Normandy?
+
+Before Pabo's eyes, as they closed unconsciously, clouds seemed to
+descend, overspread and darken his beautiful land. He saw again and
+again devastation sweep it. He saw alien nobles and alien prelates
+fasten on it and suck its resources like leeches. There passed before
+him, as it were, wave on wave of darkness, fire, and blood. And
+then--suddenly a spark, a flame, a blaze, and in it a Welsh prince
+mounting the English throne, one of the blood of Cunedda--the ancestor
+of the Saint of Caio, their loved Cynwyl. The lions! the black lions of
+Cambria waving over the throne of England!
+
+Pabo started with a thrill of triumph, but it was to hear a shriek,
+piercing, harsh, horrible, ring through the vault, followed by crash,
+crash, again a dull thud--and a splash.
+
+Thereon all was silent.
+
+Dazed in mind, unaware whether he were dreaming still, or whether what
+he had heard were real, with every nerve quivering, with his blood
+fluttering in his temples, at his heart, he shut his eyes, clutched the
+ground, and held his breath.
+
+And then--next moment a flash--and a cry--"Pabo!"
+
+He opened his eyes--but saw nothing, only light. But he felt arms about
+him, felt his head drawn to a soft and throbbing bosom, felt warm tears
+dropping on his face.
+
+"Pabo! oh, my Pabo! it was not you!"
+
+By degrees his faculties returned.
+
+Then he saw before him Howel bearing a horn lantern; but he felt he
+could not see her who had folded him in her arms and was sobbing over
+him.
+
+"We have found you," said Howel. "But for her I would not have dared to
+enter. Yet she would have gone alone. She saw thy flint and steel on a
+stone at the entrance. She was full of fear, and left me no rest till I
+agreed to accompany her. Tell me, what was that fearful cry?"
+
+"I know not. The place is full of phantoms."
+
+"Was there none with thee?"
+
+"None. Were ye alone?"
+
+"We were alone."
+
+"Then it was the cry of Gwen, or of some evil spirit. And oh! Howel.
+_Auri moles prægrandis._"
+
+"I understand not."
+
+"Come and see."
+
+Pabo started to his feet now, disengaging himself gently from the arms
+of his wife; but not relaxing the hold of her hand which he clasped.
+
+A few steps were retraced to the hall, and there lay the fallen wax
+taper, and there, piled up, were ingots of gold.
+
+"See!" exclaimed Pabo. "For Griffith ap Rhys. With this--at last
+something may be done."
+
+Howel passed his lantern over it meditatively.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it is just what has been the one thing that has failed
+us hitherto."
+
+"Not the only thing; the other--a true man."
+
+"Right. We have here the means of success, and in Griffith--the true
+leader."
+
+"Come!" said Pabo. "I must to the light. I am weary of darkness."
+
+He rekindled his wax taper at Howel's light, and all proceeded on their
+way; and before many minutes had elapsed were in the domed chamber,
+traversed from above by a tiny ray of moonlight.
+
+Pabo stood still. His head spun.
+
+"But the well! the well!"
+
+His wife and Howel looked at him with surprise.
+
+"How came you to me? How did you pass the chasm?"
+
+"There was no chasm. We have returned as we went."
+
+Pabo clasped his head.
+
+"There is a well. I leaped it. I feared to fall into it."
+
+Then all at once, clear before him stood the plan as drawn by the
+hermit. From the chamber where light was there were two passages leading
+to the treasure--one had it in the well--that was the turn to the right,
+and the direction had been to go to the left. He who had seen the map
+had gone wrong. They who had never seen it went right. But, we may ask,
+what was that cry? From whom did it issue?
+
+All that can be said is this: Goronwy, after having given the message,
+watched curiously, and saw Morwen go to the house of Howel. Had he not
+been inquisitive to know the meaning of the meeting in Ogofau, he would
+have betrayed her at once to Rogier. As it was, he resolved to follow
+and observe, unseen.
+
+He had done so, and at a distance, after Howel and Morwen, he had
+entered the mine.
+
+More cannot be said.
+
+Goronwy was never seen again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE PYLGAIN OF DYFED
+
+
+Like an explosion of fire-damp in a coal-mine--sudden, far-reaching,
+deadly--so was the convulsion in South Wales.
+
+All was quiet to-day. On the morrow the whole land from the Bay of
+Cardigan to Morganwg, was in flames. The rising had been prepared for
+with the utmost caution.
+
+The last to anticipate it were the soldiery under Rogier, who were
+quartered in Caio. Notwithstanding imperative orders from the bishop at
+Llawhaden to return to him, they had remained where they were, and had
+continued to conduct themselves in the same lawless manner as before.
+They scoffed at the tameness with which their insolence was endured.
+
+"They are Cynwyl conies--des lapins!" they said. "Say 'Whist!' and
+nothing more is seen of them than their white tails as they scuttle to
+their burrows."
+
+For centuries this had been an oasis of peace, unlapped by the waves of
+war. The very faculty of resistance was taken out of these men, who
+could handle a plow or brandish a shepherd's crook, but were frightened
+at the chime of a bowstring and the flash of a pike.
+
+Yet, secretly, arms were being brought into the valley, and were
+distributed from farm to farm and from cot to cot; and the men whose
+wives and daughters had been dishonored, whose savings had been carried
+off, who had themselves been beaten and insulted, whose relatives had
+been hung as felons, were gripping the swords and handling the
+lances--eager for the signal that should set them free to fall on their
+tormentors. And that signal came at last.
+
+On Christmas Eve, from the top of Pen-y-ddinas shot up a tongue of
+flame. At once from every mountain-side answered flashes of fire. There
+was light before every house, however small. The great basin of Caio was
+like a reversed dome of heaven studded with stars.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" asked Rogier, issuing from the habitation
+he had appropriated to himself, and looking round in amazement.
+
+"It is the pylgain," replied his man, Pont d'Arche, who knew something
+of Welsh.
+
+"Pylgain! What is that?"
+
+"The coming in of Christmas. They salute it with lights and carols and
+prayers and dances."
+
+"Methinks I can hear sounds."
+
+"Aye! they are coming to church."
+
+"With torches--there are many."
+
+"They all come."
+
+Then a man came rushing up the hill; he was breathless. On reaching
+where stood Rogier, he gasped: "They come--a thousand men and all
+armed."
+
+"It is a river of fire."
+
+Along the road could be seen a waving line of light, and from all sides,
+down the mountains ran cascades of light as well.
+
+"There is not a man is not armed, and the women each bear a torch; they
+come with them--to see revenge done on us."
+
+Then up came Cadell. He was trembling.
+
+"Rogier," he said, "this is no pylgain for us--the whole country is
+stirring. The whole people is under arms, and swearing to have our
+blood."
+
+"We will show these conies of Cynwyl that we are not afraid of them."
+
+"They are no conies now, but lions. Can you stand against a thousand
+men? And--this is not all, I warrant. The whole of the Towy Valley, and
+that of the Teify, all Dyfed, maybe all Wales, is up to-night. Can you
+make your way through?"
+
+Rogier uttered a curse.
+
+"By the paunch of the Bastard. I relish not running before those
+conies."
+
+"Then tarry--and they will hang you beside Cynwyl's bell, where you
+slung their kinsmen."
+
+Rogier's face became mottled with mingled rage and fear.
+
+Meanwhile his men had rallied around them, running from the several
+houses they were lodging in; a panic had seized them. Some, without
+awaiting orders, were saddling their horses.
+
+"Hark!" shouted Rogier. "What is that?"
+
+The river of light had become a river of song. The thunder of the voices
+of men and the clear tones of the women combined. And from every rill of
+light that descended from the heights to swell the advancing current,
+came the strain as well.
+
+"They have come caroling," said Rogier disdainfully.
+
+"Carol, call you this?" exclaimed Cadell. "It is the war-song of the
+sons of David. 'Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered: let
+them also that hate Him, flee before Him. Like as the smoke vanisheth,
+so shalt Thou drive them away: and like as wax melteth at the fire, so
+let the ungodly perish----'"
+
+"I will hear no more," said Rogier. "Mount! And Heaven grant us a day
+when we may revenge this."
+
+"I will go too," said Cadell. "Here I dare not remain."
+
+Before the advancing river of men arrived at the crossing of the Annell,
+the entire band of the Normans had fled--not one was left.
+
+Then up the ascent came the procession.
+
+First went the staff of Cynwyl, not now in its gold and gem-encrusted
+shrine, but removed from it--a plain, rough, ashen stick, borne aloft by
+Morgan ap Seyssult, its hereditary guardian, and behind him came
+Meredith, with his two attendant bards, all with their harps, striking
+them as the multitude intoned the battle-song that for five hundred
+years had not sounded within the sanctuary of David. The women bore
+torches aloft, the men marched four in breast, all armed and with stern
+faces, and Pabo was there--and led them.
+
+The Archpriest, on reaching the church, mounted a block of stone, and
+dismissed the women. Let them return to their homes. A panic had fallen
+on those who had molested them, and they had fled. The work was but
+begun, and the men alone could carry it on to the end.
+
+Rogier and his men did not draw rein till they had reached the Ystrad
+Towy, the broad valley through which flowed the drainage of the
+Brecknock Mountains. And there they saw that on all sides beacons were
+kindled; in every hamlet resounded the noise of arms. At Llandeilo they
+threw themselves into Dynevor, which had but a slender garrison. But
+there they would not stay; and, avoiding such places as were centers of
+gathering to the roused natives, they made for Carmarthen.
+
+The castle there was deemed impregnable. It was held mainly by Welsh
+mercenaries in the service of Gerald of Windsor. Rogier mistrusted them;
+he would not remain there, for he heard that Griffith ap Rhys, at the
+head of large bodies of insurgents, was marching upon Carmarthen.
+
+Next day the brother of the bishop was again on the move with his men by
+daybreak, and passed into the Cleddau Valley, making for Llawhaden.
+
+In the meantime the men of Caio were on the march. None were left behind
+save the very old and the very young and the women.
+
+They marched four abreast, with the staff of Cynwyl borne before them.
+Now the vanguard thundered the battle-song of David, "Cyfoded Duw,
+gwasgarer ei elynion: afföed ei gaseion o'i flaen ef."
+
+They sang, then ceased, and the rear-guard took up the chant: "When thou
+wentest forth before the people; when thou wentest through the
+wilderness, the earth shook and the heavens dropped." They sang on and
+ceased. Thereupon again the vanguard took up the strain, "Kings with
+their armies did flee, and were discomfited; and they of the household
+divided the spoil."
+
+Thus chanting alternately, they marched through the passage among the
+mountains threaded by the Sarn Helen, and before the people went Pabo,
+wearing the bracelet of Maximus, the Roman Emperor, who took to wife
+that Helen who had made the road, and who was of the royal British race
+of Cunedda.
+
+So they marched on--following the same course as that by which the
+Norman cavalcade had preceded them. And this was the Pylgain in Dyfed
+in the year 1115.
+
+The host came out between the portals of the hills at Llanwrda, and
+turned about and descended the Ystrad Towy, by the right bank of the
+river; and the daybreak of Christmas saw them opposite Llangadock. The
+gray light spread from behind the mighty ridge of Trichrug, and revealed
+the great fortified, lonely camp of Carn Gôch towering up, with its
+mighty walls of stone and the huge cairn that occupied the highest point
+within the enclosure.
+
+They halted for a while, but for a while only, and then thrust along in
+the same order, and with the same resolution, intoning the same chant on
+their way to Llandeilo. There they tarried for the night, and every
+house was opened to them, and on every hearth there was a girdle-cake
+for them.
+
+On the morrow the whole body was again on the march. Meanwhile, the
+garrison had fled from Dynevor to Careg Cennen, and the men of Ystrad
+Towy were camped against that fortress, from which, on the news of the
+revolt, Gerald had escaped to Carmarthen.
+
+By the time the men of Caio were within sight of this latter place, it
+was in flames.
+
+And tidings came from Cardigan. The people there had with one acclaim
+declared that they would have Griffith as their prince, and were
+besieging Strongbow's castle of Blaen-Porth.
+
+But the men of Caio did not tarry at Carmarthen to assist in the taking
+of the castle. Only there did Pabo surrender the bracelet of Maxen to
+the Prince, with the message from his sister.
+
+They pushed on their way.
+
+Whither were they bound? Slowly, steadily, resolvedly on the track of
+those men who had outraced them to their place of retreat and defense,
+the bishop's Castle of Llawhaden.
+
+Now when Bernard heard that all Caio was on the march, and came on
+unswervingly towards where he was behind strong walls and defended by
+mighty towers, then his heart failed him. He bade Rogier hold out, but
+for himself he mounted his mule, rode to Tenby Castle; nor rested there,
+but took ship and crossed the mouth of the Severn estuary to Bristol,
+whence he hasted to London, to lay the tidings before the King. And with
+him went Cadell, the Chaplain.
+
+It was evening when the host of Caio reached Llawhaden, and Rogier from
+the walls heard the chant of the war-psalm. "God shall wound the head
+of his enemies: and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in
+his wickedness ... that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine
+enemies: and that the tongue of thy dogs may be red through the same."
+
+He shuddered--a premonition of evil.
+
+Pabo would have dissuaded his men from an immediate assault; but they
+were not weary, they were eager for the fray. They had cut down and were
+bearing fagots of wood, and carried huge bundles of fern. Some fagots
+went into the moat, others were heaped against the gates. The episcopal
+barns were broken into, and all the straw brought forth.
+
+Then flame was applied, and the draught carried the fire with a roar
+within.
+
+By break of day Llawhaden Castle was in the hands of the men of Caio.
+They chased its garrison from every wall of defense; they were asked
+for, they gave no quarter. Those who had so long tyrannized over them
+lay in the galleries, slain with the sword, or thrust through with
+spears. Only Rogier, hung by the neck, dangled from a beam thrust
+through an upper window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE WHITE SHIP
+
+
+The rebellion extended, castle after castle fell; those of the Normans
+who remained maintained themselves within fortresses, like Pembroke and
+Aberystwyth, that could receive provisions from the sea. Powys was
+seething--a thrill of excitement had run through Gwynedd, and the aged
+King there quaked lest his people should rise, dethrone him, and call on
+Griffith to reign over them, and combine north and south in one against
+the invader.
+
+It was in the favor of the Welsh that King Henry was out of the country.
+He was warring against the French King in Normandy, and the malcontents
+in the duchy.
+
+In order to punish the Welsh, he had sent Owen ap Cadogan at the head of
+a body of men into the country. Owen was furious because the people of
+Cardigan had greeted Griffith as their prince. Cardigan was the kingdom
+to which Owen laid claim, but he had done nothing to maintain this claim
+against Strongbow. Yet no sooner did he hear that a cousin, Griffith ap
+Rhys, had been welcomed there as its deliverer and prince, than in
+uncontrolled rage he gathered a troop of ruffians, and aided by the men
+afforded him by King Henry, he invaded Dyfed, and took an oath that he
+would massacre every man, woman, and child he came across till he had
+cut his way, and left a track of blood from the Usk to the Atlantic.
+
+Thus a Welsh prince, with a mixed host of Welshmen and English, had come
+among the mountains that had cradled him to exterminate those of his own
+blood and tongue.
+
+The horrors he committed, his remorseless savagery, sent men and women
+flying before him to the wastes and heaths of the Brecknock mountains,
+and they carried with them the infirm and feeble, knowing well that Owen
+would spare neither the gray head nor the infant.
+
+Enraged at not finding more food for his sword, he marked his onward
+course with flame, destroying farms and homesteads.
+
+An appointment was made for the host of Owen, another led by Robert
+Consul, and the disciplined foreigners under Gerald of Windsor, who had
+been reinforced from the sea--to converge and unite in one great army
+for the chastisement of South Wales.
+
+It so happened, while thus marching, that Owen, with about a hundred
+men, detached himself from the main body to fall on and butcher a party
+of fugitives on their way to the fastnesses of the mountains. Returning
+with their plunder and their blades dripping with blood, Owen and his
+ruffians came near to where Gerald of Windsor was on his way.
+
+Then up flamed the rage of the baron, and he resolved on using the
+opportunity to discharge a personal debt of honor. It was this Owen who
+had penetrated as a friend into Pembroke, and had carried off Gerald's
+wife, Nest.
+
+At once he turned and fell on Owen and his murderous band, cut them to
+pieces, and slew the man against whom he bore so bitter a grudge.
+
+Henry had returned from Normandy; he was triumphant. Peace had been
+declared, and his son William had been invested with the duchy. The King
+hastened to Westminster as soon as he had landed, expecting his sons,
+William and Richard, and his daughter, Matilda, to follow him in a day
+or two. As he was about to embark at Barfleur, there had come to him one
+Thomas Fitz-Stephen, the son of the man who had conveyed the Conqueror
+to England. At his petition, Henry accorded him the favor of convoying
+the princes and the princess across the Channel in his splendid new
+vessel, the _White Ship_.
+
+The crew, greatly elated at this honor, after having received their
+passengers on board, begged Prince William that he would order drink to
+be supplied them, and this he imprudently granted. A revel ensued, which
+was kept up even after the King and his fleet had put to sea. Owing to
+this, Henry arrived in England without the _White Ship_ remaining in
+sight and forming a portion of the fleet. He was not, however, in any
+concern, as the sea was calm and there was little wind, and he made his
+way at once to Windsor.
+
+Almost immediately on his arrival, Nest appeared before him.
+
+The King was in a bad humor. He was vexed at his children not having
+arrived. He was very angry because his porcupine was dead. The servant
+whose duty it was to attend to the natural rarities Henry collected,
+assured him that this death was due to the porcupine's licking himself
+like a cat, to keep himself clean, and he had accidentally swallowed one
+of his own quills, which had transfixed his heart.
+
+"And, Sire," said the man; "when I saw him licking himself, I blessed
+Heaven, as I thought it to be a token of fair weather while your Majesty
+was crossing the sea."
+
+"You should not have suffered him to lick himself," said the King
+angrily.
+
+"Sire, I believed he was cleaning his spines, that he might present his
+best appearance to your Majesty."
+
+"Take him away!" ordered Henry, addressing a man-at-arms, "and say he is
+to receive fifty stripes at the pillory for his negligence. Well, what
+are you here for, Nest? This is a cursed bad augury on my return to find
+my porcupine dead and you here with a complaint."
+
+"Sire," said the Princess, "at one time my presence was not of
+ill-augury to you."
+
+"Times have changed. I am driven mad with rebellion. First in Normandy,
+then in Wales. One has no peace. But I have beaten down all opposition
+in the duchy, and now I shall turn my attention to your country. What
+do you want? To threaten and scold, as once before?"
+
+"No--only to entreat."
+
+"Oh, you women! you plead, and if you do not get what you ask, then you
+menace. What one of all your threats and denunciations has come true?
+What single one?"
+
+"Oh, my Sovereign," said Nest, "hearken to me but this once. Now there
+is an occasion such as may not present itself again of pacifying Wales
+and making my dear people honor you and submit to your scepter."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Owen ap Cadogan is dead. He entered his native land slaying and laying
+waste, so that every Cymric heart trembled before him--some with fear,
+others with resentment. And now--he is dead, Gerald my husband, who had
+some wrong to redress----"
+
+Henry burst into derisive laughter.
+
+"Gerald killed him; and now the Welsh people hail him as having
+delivered them from their worst foe."
+
+"Then let them submit."
+
+"But, Sire and King, their wrongs are intolerable. Oh, let there be some
+holding of the hand. Lay not on them more burdens; meddle not further
+with their concerns. I speak to you now, not for the princes, but for
+the people."
+
+"It is well that you speak not for the princes. The worst of all, a
+rebellious dragon, is your brother Griffith. Him I shall not spare."
+
+"I speak for the people. Sire, there is one truth they have taken to
+heart now by the fall of Owen. It is that given in Scripture: Put not
+your trust in princes! Those we have known have failed; and fail they
+all will, because they seek their own glory, and not the welfare of the
+people. Our Cymri know this now. Griffith of Gwynedd and Owen of
+Cardigan have taught them that. Therefore, they are ready to bow under
+the scepter of England, if that scepter, in place of being used to stir
+up one prince against another, be laid on all to keep them in
+tranquillity. What my people seek is peace, protection, justice. Sire,
+you are mistaken if you believe that the Welsh people rise against the
+overlordship of your Crown. They rise because they can obtain no peace,
+no justice from the Norman adventurers sent among them, and no
+protection against their best lands being taken from them and given to
+Flemings. Sire, trust the people. Be just and generous to them. Protect
+them from those who would eat them up. All they rise for, fight for--are
+the eternal principles of justice as between man and man. Your men
+snatch from them their lands; their homes they are expelled from; even
+their churches are taken from them."
+
+"Ah, ha, Nest! I have the sanction of Heaven there. Did not your British
+Church resist Augustine? Does it not now oppose our See of Canterbury?
+And as Heaven blesses the right and punishes the wrong, so has it
+marvelously interposed to silence evil tongues. When my Bernard was
+resisted, fire fell from heaven and consumed those who opposed him, in
+the sight of all men. I believe a hundred men were suddenly and
+instantaneously burnt."
+
+"You heard that from Bernard."
+
+"It has been published throughout England. I have spoken of it myself to
+the successor of the Apostles, to Pope Callixtus, at Rheims, and he was
+mightily gratified, for, said he, I ever held that British Church to be
+tainted with heresy. And he reminded me that when the British bishops
+opposed Augustine, they were massacred at Bangor. Which was very
+satisfactory. So now with my Bernard----"
+
+"Bernard!" exclaimed Nest, boldly interrupting the King, "Bernard is an
+arch liar! Sire! a priest named Pabo struck the bishop in the mouth, and
+knocked out one or two of his teeth."
+
+"I noticed this and rallied him on his whistling talk. But he said
+nought of the blow."
+
+"It was so. And he pretends that Pabo was smitten by lightning for
+having thus struck him. But, Sire, I have seen this priest since the
+alleged miracle; his hair is unsinged. He has a hearty appetite, and
+good teeth--not one struck out by lightning--wherewith to consume his
+food. The smell of fire has not passed upon him."
+
+The King broke into a roar of laughter.
+
+"That is Bernard! Bernard to the life! A rogue in business. He cheated
+my Queen, and now tries to cheat me with a lie, and sets up as the
+favored of Heaven. You are sure of it?"
+
+"Quite sure; Bernard endeavored to huddle the man out of the way lest
+the lie should be found out."
+
+"Famous!" The King had recovered his good-humor. "And to see the
+solemnity and conviction of the Holy Father when he heard the story."
+Again he exploded into laughter. "I must go tell the Queen. It is fun,
+it will put her in a passion."
+
+"And, Sire! about my people--my poor Welsh people?"
+
+"I will see to it. I will consider--what did I hear? You have brought
+your young child with you?"
+
+"Yes, Sire, he is without."
+
+"Let me see him--has he your beauty or Gerald's ugliness?"
+
+"Your Majesty shall judge."
+
+Nest went towards the door, but turned. "Oh, Sire, forget not my
+entreaty for my people."
+
+"Away--fetch the boy. I will think on it."
+
+Nest left the room.
+
+In the ante-chamber all present were in obvious consternation, pale, and
+dejected.
+
+She had left her little son with a servant, and she crossed the chamber.
+
+Then the Chancellor, who was present, came to her, drew her into the
+embrasure of a window, and spoke to her in awestruck tones. At his words
+her cheek blanched.
+
+"None dare inform him," said the Chancellor. "We have instructed the
+child. Suffer him to enter alone and tell the tale."
+
+For a moment Nest could not speak; something rose in her throat. She
+signed to the boy to come to her. "Do you know what to say?"
+
+"Yes, mother; that the _White Ship_----"
+
+"Cast yourself at the King's feet, tell him all; and when you have said
+the last words, 'The princes, thy sons, be dead; thy daughter also, she
+likewise is dead'--then pause and say in a loud voice, 'Remember
+Wales!'"
+
+The child was dismissed. He passed behind a curtain, then through the
+door into the royal presence.
+
+All without stood hushed, trembling with emotion, hardly breathing, none
+looking on another.
+
+Then, in the stillness, came a loud and piercing cry; a cry that cut to
+the hearts of such as heard it like a stiletto.
+
+In another moment Henry staggered forth, blanched, and as one drunk,
+with hands extended and lifted before his face, and in a harsh voice,
+like a madman's shriek, he cried: "It has come. The judgment of God! I
+am a dry and a branchless tree, blasted in the midst of life--blasted in
+the hour of victory." Then he reeled to a table, threw himself on his
+knees, laid his head on his hands, and burst into tears.
+
+None moved. None ventured near him. The Bishop of London was there--but
+he felt that no words of his were of avail now.
+
+So they stood hardly breathing, watching the stricken man, who quivered
+in the agony of his bereavement.
+
+Presently he lifted his face--so altered as to be hardly recognizable,
+livid as that of a corpse, and running down with tears. He turned
+towards Nest and said--"Go, woman, go--it shall be as thou hast desired.
+I am judged."
+
+What had occurred needs but a few words of explanation.
+
+When the _White Ship_ started the captain assured Prince William that
+such was her speed that she would overtake the King's ship, and even
+pass it and leave behind the royal squadron. The signal was given, and
+the _White Ship_ left the harbor, impelled to her utmost speed by fifty
+excited rowers; but she had not proceeded far before she was driven
+violently against a reef, which stove in two planks of her starboard
+bow. Prince William was put into the boat, and was already on his way
+towards the land when, hearing the cries of his sister from the sinking
+vessel, he ordered his rowers to put back and save her. He was obeyed;
+but on reaching the wreck such a rush was made by the frantic passengers
+to enter their boat that she was swamped, and the whole crowd was
+swallowed in the scarcely troubled sea. William and Richard, the two
+sons of Henry, and their sister Matilda, and three hundred others,
+chiefly persons of exalted rank, perished on this occasion.
+
+Nest returned to Wales.
+
+She had gained all that she desired. She went at once to Dynevor. There
+was her brother, Griffith, who had done much to restore the ruinous
+castle of his fathers, the kings of Dyfed.
+
+"Griffith," said she, "I have done what I could. For thee, free pardon
+and reinstatement in thy principality--yet is it not to be a kingdom,
+only as a great chiefdom. The King undertakes to suffer no more English
+or Normans to enter our country and carve out for themselves baronies
+therein. Nor will he send into it any more Flemings. But such as are
+here shall remain, and Norman, Fleming, and Welshman alike shall be
+under his scepter, and be justly ruled, the English by their own laws,
+the Welsh by those of Rhodric Dda." She looked round and saw Pabo, "and
+for thee--return thou to Caio and thy Archpriesthood--and to thy wife.
+Let Bernard look to it. The King will not forget the story of thy being
+consumed with fire from Heaven for having knocked out one of the
+bishop's teeth. And now, Griffith, give me the armlet of Maxen Wledig.
+We have both deserved well of our country."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pabo, The Priest, by Sabine Baring-Gould
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42011 ***