THE Welsh coast is famous for its beautiful scenery and its terrible
storms. People who see it in the summer time think only of the beautiful
scenery. But if they should happen to pass that way in midwinter they
would be very apt to meet an unpleasant reminder of the terrible storms.
Saint Gudwall was born a Welshman, and he should have known all this.
Perhaps he did know, but chose to run into danger just because it was
dangerous, as so many saints loved to do in those years when it was
thought no virtue to take care of one's life. At all events, it was
summer when with one friend Gudwall moved to his new home, a tiny island
off the coast of Wales, which at that time was very beautiful.
The first thing they did was to set about finding a place to live in.
The island was one of those high mountains poking up out of the sea,
with green grass on top, like colored frosting to a cake; and gray
rocks below, all hollowed out into deep caves and crannies, as if mice
had been nibbling at the cake. These caves are just the sort of places
which smugglers and pirates choose to hide in with their treasures, for
no one would think of hunting for any one there. And Gudwall wanted to
be left alone with his pupil; so he thought there was no reason why a
bad man's hiding-place should not make a good saint's retreat. So they
chose the largest and deepest of all the caves, and there they put their
books and their beds and their little furniture, and set up
house-keeping.
Their home was one of those caves into which the sea rushes a little way
and then suddenly backs out again as if it had changed its mind this
time but would call again. Gudwall and his pupil loved to lie in their
cave just beyond the reach of the waves and watch them dash laughingly
up on the rocks, then roar and gurgle in pretended anger and creep away
out into the blue basin beyond. In summer their daily games with the sea
were great fun, and Gudwall was very happy. They spent some lovely
months alone with the waves and the rocks and the sea-birds which now
and then fluttered screaming into the dark cave, and then again dashed
bashfully out when they found they had come uninvited into a stranger's
home. It was all very nice and peaceful and pretty in the summer time,
just as tourists find it to this day.
But oh! what a change when old Winter came roaring down over the waves
from the North in his chariot of ice, drawn by fierce winds and angry
storm-clouds. Then the temper of the sea was changed. It grew cruel and
hungry. It left off its kindly game with the lonely dwellers on the
island, and seemed instead to have become their enemy. It tried to seize
and swallow them in its cruel jaws.
One morning there came a terrible storm. In the far end of the cave
Gudwall and the other were nearly swept away by a huge wave which rushed
in to devour them. No longer content with pausing on the threshold, the
sea swept through their whole house, dashing away their little store of
books and furniture, a most unneighborly thing to do. It tried to drag
the two men from the corner where they clung to the rough rock. Choked
and gasping they escaped this time, while the sea drew back for another
plunge. But they did not wait for this, for they knew it would mean
their death.
Drenched as they were and blinded by the salt spray, they scrambled out
of the cave and began to climb the slippery seaweed to the rocks above.
It was a hard and dangerous ascent, for the sea leaped after them to
pull them back, snarling angrily at their heels like a fierce beast
maddened by their escape. But it could not quite seize them, and at last
they reached the top of the cliff where they were safe for the time.
But what were they to do now? There were no houses on the island, no
place to go to keep warm; yet they could not live out in the open air to
freeze in the snow and cold. It was no longer possible to live in the
cave if the sea was to wash through it like this. But if only there were
some barrier to keep out the stormy waves they could still live in their
beloved cave. Saint Gudwall fell upon his knees and prayed for
help,--prayed for some defense against the winter waves.
And what do you think happened? The dwellers in the sea were kinder than
the sea itself. The little fish who live safely in the angriest waves
were sorry for the big men who were so powerless in the face of this
danger. From the sea caves far under the island's foot, from the beds of
seaweed and the groves of coral, from the sandy bottom of the ocean
fathoms deep below, the fish came swimming in great shoals about
Gudwall's island. And each one bore in his mouth a grain of sand. They
swam into the shallow water just outside the cave where Gudwall had
lived, and one by one they placed their burdens on the sandy bottom. One
by one they paused to see that it was well done, then swiftly swam away,
to return as soon as might be with another grain of sand. All day long a
procession of fish, like people in line at a ticket office, moved
steadily up to the shallows and back again. So by night a little bar of
sand had begun to grow gradually before the entrance to the cave.
Now Saint Gudwall and his pupil were shivering on the top of the cliff,
and looking off to sea, when the pupil caught his master's arm. "What is
that down there in the water?" he said, pointing to a little brown spot
peering above the waves.
"I know not," answered the Saint; "what seems it to be, brother?"
"I have been watching it," said the other, "and I think it grows. Look!
it is even now higher than when first you looked; is it not so?"
And sure enough, Gudwall saw that ever so little at a time the brown
patch was growing and spreading from right to left. Grain by grain the
sand bar rose higher and higher till it thrust bravely above the
blueness a solid wall extending for some distance through the water in
front of the cave. Against this new breakwater the surf roared and
foamed in terrible rage, but it could not pass, it could no longer swoop
down into the cavern as it had done before.
"The Lord has given us a defense," said Gudwall with a thankful heart.
And then his eye caught sight of a great bluefish swimming back into
the deep sea. "It is the fish who have built us the wall," he cried.
"Blessed be the fish who have this day helped us in our need."
For the fish had piled up a stout and lasting barrier between Saint
Gudwall and the angry sea, and thenceforth he could live in his cave
safely during both summer and winter.