CHAPTER X
THE CELL ON MALLAEN
At the back of Caio church and village stretches a vast mountain regionthat extends in tossed and rearing waves of moorland and crag for milesto the north; and indeed, Mynedd Mallaen is but the southern extremityof that chain which extends from Montgomeryshire and Merioneth, and ofwhich Plinlimmon is one of the finest heads.
The elevated and barren waste is traversed here and there bystreams--the Cothy, the Camdwr, the Doeth--but these are throughrestricted and uninhabited ravines, Mynedd Mallaen, the southernmostprojection of this range, is a huge bulk united to the main mountainsystem by a slight connecting ridge, between the gorge of the Cothy anda 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 milesin length.
On leaving the Council Hall, Pabo tarried but for a few minutes inconverse with Howel, and then ascended the glen down which brawled theAnnell. The flanks of mountain on each side were clothed with heath andheather 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 whovisited the rock of Cynwyl, where annually the waters were stirred withhis staff.
But on reaching this spot, Pabo halted and looked into the sliding waterthat swirled in the reputed kneeholes worn by the saint in the rockybed. A pebble was in one, being eddied about, and, notwithstanding thedistress of mind in which was Pabo, he did not fail to notice this as anexplanation of the origin of the depressions. Dreamy, imaginative thoughhe might be, he had also a fund of common sense.
The spot was lonely and beautiful, away from the strife of men and thenoise of tongues. The stillness was broken only by the ripple of thewater and the hum of the wind in the dried fern. The evening sun lit upthe mountain heights, already glorious with dying fern, with an orioleof incomparable splendor.
The great stone slept where it had lodged beside the stream, and wasmantled with soft velvet mosses and dappled with many-colored lichen. Itwas upon its summit, doubtless, that the old Apostle had knelt--not inthe bed of the torrent, although the folk insisted on the latter, misledby the hollows worn in the rock.
Pabo, moved by an inward impulse, mounted the block, wrenched, likehimself, 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 todelude himself with hopes. The past was gone forever, with its peace andlove and happiness. Peace--broken by the sound of the Norman's steel,happiness departed with it. Love, indeed, might, must remain, but undera new form--no more sweet, but painful, full of apprehensions, full oftorture.
Discouragement came over him like the cold dews that were settling inthe valley now that the sun was withdrawn. Where the Norman hadpenetrated thence he would have to depart. The sanctuary had been brokeninto--and the Angel of Peace, bearing the palm, had spread her wings.He looked aloft: a swan was sailing through the sky, the evening gloryturning her silver feathers to gold. Even thus--even thus--leaving theland; 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 withcold drops, just as the herbage, as the moss, were being also studdedwith crystal condensations.
He prayed, turning his eyes to the sunlight that touched the heights ofthe west; prayed till the ray was withdrawn, and the mountain-head wassilvery 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 agreedwith him on a means of intercommunication in case of emergency. Upon thestone of Cynwyl, Howel was to place one rounded water-worn pebble as atoken to flee farther into the depths of the mountains, whereas twostones were to indicate a recall to Caio. In like manner was Pabo toexpress his wants, should any arise.
The refugee now ascended the steep mountain flank, penetrating fartherinto the wilderness, till at last he reached some fangs of rock, underwhich was a rude habitation constructed of stones put together withoutmortar, the interstices stopped with clay and moss.
It leaned against the rock, which constituted one wall of thehabitation, and against which rested the rafters of the roof. A furrowhad been cut in the rock, horizontally, so as to intercept the rain thatran 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 withcreak and groan. Pabo entered, and was in the cell of the deceasedhermit, in which the old man had expended nearly half his life.
A small but unfailing spring oozed from the foot of the rocks, as Pabowas aware, a few paces below the hermitage.
The habitation was certain not to be deficient in supplies of food, andon 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 theanchorite's tinder, flint and steel.
The day had by this time closed in, and Pabo at once endeavored to lighta fire. He had been heated with the steep ascent, but this warmth waspassing away, and he felt chilled. At this height the air was colder andthe wind keener. There were sticks and dry heather and fern near thehearth, but Pabo failed in all his efforts to kindle a blaze. Sparksflew from the flint, but would not ignite the spongy fungus that servedas 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 hopesof drying it by the heat of his body, and drew the hermit's blanket overhis 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 wasunglazed. The cabin was drafty, for there was not merely the window bywhich the wind could enter, but the door as well was but imperfectlyclosed, and in the roof was the smoke-hole.
What a life the hermit must have led in this remote spot! Pabo mighthave considered that now, feeling this experience, but, indeed, his mindwas too fully occupied with his own troubles to give a thought to thoseof another.
Shivering under the blanket, that seemed to have no warmth in it, heleaned his brow in his hand, and mused on the dangers, distresses, thatmenaced his tribe, his race, his wife, and which he was powerless toavert.
Prince Griffith might raise the standard and rouse to arms, but it wasin vain for Pabo to hug himself in the hope of success and freedom forhis people by this means. The north of Wales was controlled by a kingwho 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 ofthe nation do against the enormous power of all England? Do? The hope ofthe young and the sanguine, and the despair of the old and experienced,could lead them to nothing else but either to retreat among themountains and there die of hunger and cold, or perish gloriously swordin hand on the battlefield.
Pabo lifted his head, and looked through the gap in the thatch. A coldstar 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 thestar now brushing it out, then revealing it again.
The cell was not drafty only, it was also damp. Pabo felt the hearth. Itwas quite cold. Several days had elapsed since the last sparks on it hadexpired.
The wind moaned among the rocks, sighed at the window, and piped throughthe crevices about the door. A snoring owl began its monotonous call.Where it was Pabo could not detect. The sound came now from this sidethen from that, and next was behind him. It was precisely as though aman--he could not say whether without or within--were in deep stertoroussleep.
Again he endeavored to strike a light and kindle a fire. Sparks he couldelicit, that was all. The fungus refused to ignite.
The cold, the damp, ate into the marrow of his bones. He collected ahandful of barley-grains and chewed them, but they proved littlesatisfying to hunger.
Then he went forth. He must exercise his limbs to prevent them
frombecoming stiff, must circulate his blood and prevent it from coagulatingwith frost. He would walk along the mountain crest to where, over thesouthern edge, he could look down on Caio, on his lost home, on wherewas his wife--not sleeping, he knew she was not that, but thinking ofhim.
Wondrous, past expression, is that link of love that binds the man andhis wife. Never was a truer word spoken than that which pronounced themto be no more twain, but one flesh. The mother parted from her nurslingknows, feels in her breast, in every fiber of her being, when her childis weeping and will not be comforted, though parted from it by miles; anunendurable yearning comes over her to hurry to the wailing infant, toclasp it to her heart and kiss away its tears. And something akin tothis is that mysterious tie that holds together the man and his wife.They cannot live an individual life. He carries the wife with himwherever he be, thinks, feels with her, is conscious of a doubleexistence fused into a unity; and what is true of the husband is truealso of the wife.
It was now with Pabo as though he were irresistibly drawn in thedirection of Caio, where he knew that Morwen was with tears on hercheeks, her gentle, suffering heart full of him and his desolation andbanishment.
The night was clear, there was actually not much wind; but autumnrawness was in the air.
To the west still hung a dying halo, very faint, and the ground, coveredwith short grass, was dimly white where pearled with dew, each pearlcatching something of the starlight from above.
But away, to the south, was a lurid glow, against which the roundedhead of Mallaen stood out as ink.
Pabo thrust on his way, running when he could, and anon stumbling overplots of gorse or among stones.
At length he came out upon the brow, Bronffin, and looked down into thebroad basin of Caio. Below him was a fire. It had burned itself out, andlay a bed of glowing cinders, with smoke curling above it, lighted andturned red by the reflection of the fire below. Now and then a lambentflame sprang up, and then died away again.
The sound of voices came up from beneath: it was pleasant to Pabo tohear voices, but in his heart was unutterable pain. He looked down onthe glowing ruins of his presbytery--where he had lived and been sohappy.
Hour after hour he sat on the mountain-edge, watching the slowlycontracting and fading glow, hearing the sounds of life gradually dieaway.
Then above the range to the left rose the moon, and silvered the whiteribbon of the Sarn Helen, the paved road of the old Queen of Britishrace who had married the Roman Emperor Maxentius, and illumined the hazethat hung over the river-beds, and far away behind Pen-y-ddinas formeda cloud over the two tarns occupying the bottom of the valley.
But all the while Pabo looked only at one and then at anotherpoint--this, the fiery reek of his home, that a spot whence shone asmall and feeble light--the house of Howel the Tall, beneath whose roofwatched and wept his dearest treasure, Morwen. When midnight wasoverpassed, and none stirred, then did Pabo descend from the heights andapproach the ashes of his home. At the glowing embers he dried thetinder. Then he caught up a smoldering brand, turned and reascended themountain, with the fire from his ruined hearth wherewith to kindle thatin his hovel of refuge.
Pabo, the Priest: A Novel Page 10