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.