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."