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 The Normans had indeed withdrawn in sullen resentment, outnumbered, and incapable of revenging on the spot and at once the disabled arm of their leader and the broken tooth of their prelate.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."