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 The Normans had indeed withdrawn in sullen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."