CHAPTER XVI
A SUMMONS
The days spent on the mountain had not been as cheerless as that firstnight. The fire burned now continually on the hearth, the light peatsmoke was dissipated at once by the wind, which was never still at thefall of the year at the altitude where was planted the hovel of thehermit.
The supply of food was better than at first. One night Pabo had found ashe-goat attached to a bush near the stone of Cynwyl; and he had takenher to his habitation, where she supplied him with milk. On anothernight he had found on a rock a rolled-up blanket, and had experiencedthe comfort at night of this additional covering.
But no tidings whatever had reached him of what went on in Caio. Thiswas satisfactory, and his anxiety for his flock abated. But he knew thatthe enemy was quartered in the valley, because no call had come to himto return to it. At nights he would steal along the mountain-top that hemight, from Bronffin, look down on the sleeping valley, with itsscattered farms and hamlets; and on Sunday morning he even venturedwithin hearing of the church bell, that he might in spirit unite withhis flock in prayer. He concluded that one of the assistant priests froma chapelry under the great Church was ministering there in his stead. Heknew that his people would be thinking of him, as he was of them.
During the day he made long excursions to the north, among the wildwastes that stretched interminably away before his eyes, and offered hima region where he might lie hid should his present hiding-place bediscovered.
None could approach the hut unobserved, a long stretch of moor wascommanded by it, and the rocks in the rear afforded means, should heobserve an enemy approach, of getting away beyond their reach into theintricacies of the wilderness.
At first Pabo was oppressed by the sense of loneliness. No human facewas seen, no human voice heard. But this passed, and he became consciousof a calm coming over his troubled heart, and with it a sense offreedom from care and childlike happiness.
The elevation at which he lived, the elasticity of the air, thebrilliance of the light, unobstructed, as below, by mountains, tendedtowards this. Moreover, he was alone with Nature, that has aninspiriting effect on the heart, whilst at the same time tranquilizingthe nerves--tranquilizing all the cares and worries bred of life amongmen. It was a delight to Pabo to wander through the heather to some browthat overhung the Ystrad Towy or the valley of the Cothi, and look downfrom his treeless altitude on the rolling masses of wood, now undergoingglorious change of color under the touch of autumn. Or else to ventureinto the higher, unoccupied mountain glens, where the rowan and therose-bramble were scarlet with their berries, and there he seemed to bemoving in the land of coral.
It was a delight to observe the last flowers of the year, the few strayharebells that still hung and swayed in the air, the little ivy-leafedcampanula by the water, the sturdy red robin, the gorse persistent inbloom. He gathered a few blossoms to adorn his wretched hovel, and in itthey were as a smile.
The birds were passing overhead, migrating south, yet the ring-ouzel wasstill there; the eagle and hawk spired aloft on their lookout for prey;the plover and curlew piped mournfully, and the owl hooted.
The insects were retiring underground for the winter. Pabo had nothitherto noticed the phases of life around him, below that of man, nowit broke on him as a wonder, and filled him with interest, to see aworld on which hitherto he had not thought to direct his observation.There is no season in the year in which the lights are more varied andmore beautiful than in autumn, the slant rays painting the rocksvermilion, glorifying the dying foliage, enhancing the color of everysurviving flower.
But the fall of the year is one in which Nature weeps and sighs over theprospect of death; and there came on Pabo days of blinding fog andstreaming rain. Then he was condemned to remain within, occasionallylooking forth into the whirls of drifting vapor, charged with a strangedank scent, or at the lines of descending water. He milked his goat,collected food for it, and heaped up his fire.
Then it was that sad thoughts came over him, forebodings of ill; and hemused by his hearth, looking into the glow, listening to the moan of thewind or the drizzle of the rain, and the eternal drip, drip from theeaves.
He had thus sat for hours one day, interrupting his meditations only byan occasional pace to the door to look out for a break in the weather,when there came upon him with a shock of surprise the recollection thatthere was more in the hermit's scroll than he had considered at first.Not much. He unfurled it, and beside the bequest of the hut, only thesewords were added: "For a commission look below my bed."
What was the meaning of this? It was strange that till now Pabo hadgiven no thought to these concluding words.
Now he thrust the fire together, cast on some dry bunches of gorse thatlit the interior with a golden light, and he drew the bed from the placeit had occupied in the corner of the chamber.
Beneath it was nothing but the beaten earth that had never beendisturbed.
The bed itself was but a plank resting on two short rollers, to sustainit six inches above the soil. Nothing had been concealed beneath theplank, between it and the ground--no box, no roll of parchment. Nothingeven was written in the dust.
Pabo took a flaming branch and examined the place minutely, but in vain.
Then he threw off the blanket and skins that covered the pallet. Heshook them, and naught dropped out. He took the pillow and explored it.The contents were but moss; yet he picked the moss to small pieces,searching for the commission and finding none. Then he drew away thelogs on which the plank had rested. They might be hollow and containsomething. Also in vain. Thoroughly perplexed to know what could havebeen the hermit's meaning, Pabo now replaced the rollers in their formerposition and raised the plank to lean it upon them once more.
At this something caught his eye--some scratches on the lower surface ofthe board. He at once turned it over, and to his amazement saw that thisunder side of the pallet was scored over with lines and with words,drawn on the wood with a heated skewer, so that they were burnt in.
The fire had sunk to a glow--he threw on more gorse. As it blazed he sawthat the lines were continuous and had some meaning, though windingabout. Apparently a plan had been sketched on the board. Beneath werethese words, burnt in--
Thesaurus, a Romanis antiquis absconditus in antro Ogofau.
Then followed in Welsh some verses--
In the hour of Cambria's need, When thou seest Dyfed bleed, Raise the prize and break her chains; Use it not for selfish gains.
The lines that twisted, then ran straight, then bent were, apparently, aplan.
Pabo studied it. At one point, whence the line started, he read,"_Ingressio_"; then a long stroke, and _Perge_; further a turn, and herewas written _vertitur in sinistram_. There was a fork there, in fact theline forked in several places, and the plan seemed to be intricate. Thena black spot was burnt deeply into the wood, and here was written:_Cave, puteum profundum_. And just beyond this several dots with theburning skewer, and the inscription, _Auri moles praegrandis_.
Pabo was hardly able at first to realize the revelation made. He knewthe Ogofau well. It was hard by Pumpsaint--a height, hardly a mountain,that had been scooped out like a volcanic crater by the Romans duringtheir occupation of Britain. From the crater thus formed, they haddriven adits into the bowels of the mountain. Thence it was reportedthey had extracted much gold. But the mine had been unworked since theirtime. The Welsh had not sufficient energy or genius in mining to carryon the search after the most precious of ores. And superstition hadinvested the deserted works with terrors. Thither it was said that theFive Saints, the sons of Cynyr of the family of Cunedda, had retired ina thunder-storm for shelter. They had penetrated into the mine and hadlost their way, and taking a stone for a bolster, had laid their headson it and fallen asleep. And there they would remain in peaceful slumbertill the return of King Arthur, or till a truly apostolic prelate shouldoccupy the throne of St. David. An inquisitive woman, named Gwen, led bythe devil, sought to spy on the
saintly brothers in their long sleep,but was punished by also losing her way in the passages of the mine; andthere she also remained in an undying condition, but was suffered toemerge in storm and rain, when her vaporous form--so it wasreported--might be seen sailing about the old gold-mine, and her sobsand moans were borne far off on the wind.
In consequence, few dared in broad daylight to visit the Ogofau, noneever ventured to penetrate the still open mouth of the mine.
Pabo was not devoid of superstition, yet not abjectly credulous. If whathe now saw was the result of research by the hermit, then it was clearthat where one man had gone another might also go, and with theassistance of the plan discover the hidden treasure which the Romans hadstored, but never removed.
And yet, as Pabo gazed at the plan and writing, he asked, was it notmore likely that the old hermit had been a prey to hallucinations, andthat there was no substance behind this parade of a secret? Was it notprobable that in the thirty years' dreaming in this solitude his fancieshad become to him realities; that musing in the long winter nights onthe woes of his country he had come on the thought, what an assistanceit would be to it had the Romans not extricated all the ore from therich veins of the Ogofau. Then, going a little further, had imaginedthat in their hasty withdrawal from Britain, they might not have removedall the gold found. Advancing mentally, he might have supposed that thestore still remaining underground might be recovered, and then theentire fabric of plan, with its directions, would have been the finalstage in this fantastic progress.
How could the recluse have penetrated the passages of the mine?
It was true enough that the Ogofau were accessible from Mallaen withoutgoing near any habitation of man. It was conceivable that by night theold man had prosecuted his researches, which had finally been crownedwith success.
Pabo felt a strong desire to consult Howel. He started up, and afterhaving replaced the plank and covered it with the bedding, left the hutand made his way down into the valley of the Annell, to the Stone ofCynwyl.
Notwithstanding the drizzle and the gathering night, he pushed on downthe steep declivity, and on reaching the brawling stream passed out ofthe envelope of vapor.
The night was not pitch dark, there was a moon above the clouds, and awan, gray haze pervaded the valley.
As he reached the great erratic block he saw what at first he thoughtwas a dark bush, or perhaps a black sheep against it.
All at once, at the sound of his step on the rocks, the figure moved,rose, and he saw before him a woman with extended arms.
"Pabo!" she said in thrilling tones. "Here they are--the two pebbles!"
"Morwen!"
He sprang towards her, with a rush of blood from his heart.
She made no movement to meet his embrace.
"Oh, Pabo! hear all first, and then decide if I am to lose you forever."
In tremulous tones, but with a firm heart, she narrated to him all thathad taken place. This was now Sunday. Two men had been hung. On themorrow Howel would be suspended beside them. These executions wouldcontinue till the place of retreat of the Archpriest was revealed, andhe had been taken.
She did not repeat to him the words of Angarad, Madoc's wife--now widow.
"Pabo!" she said, and tears were oozing between every word she uttered,"It is I--I who bring you this tidings! I--I who offer you these twopebbles! I--I who send you to your death!"
"Aye, my Morwen," he said, and clasped her to his heart, "it is becauseyou love me that you do this. It is right. I return to Caio with you."
Pabo, the Priest: A Novel Page 16
