Star of Mercia Part 6

She does come bringing bannuts,[12] for she knows I love to eat them!"

[12] Walnuts.

"My father," Lily interposed, "they say that the girl is here."

"Well, indeed, now," said David, "let her come forth."

Several women pushed a maiden into the middle of the ring formed by the a.s.sembly. She seemed to have been weeping, for her eyelids were flushed; she shook her dark hair over her face, and clutched her hands together and plucked at a ring she wore.

"Daughter," said David, "why do you torment and pester Cynyr son of Cyngen, a hermit seeking G.o.d?"

Her lips moved. Some thought she whispered hoa.r.s.ely:

"I do not!"

"Dost thou hate Cynyr?"

"I hate him in my heart!" cried she.

"I will hang him from yonder ash-tree," said David with a mocking twinkle, "to-morrow at dawn."

"No, no!" she shrieked. "Mercy, mercy! Holy David, there is cruel he is! Spare him--spare Cynyr----"

"Peace, woman!" David's face had become a mask of fury, but his voice was mellifluous. "Nothing will thy tongue avail thee. Thou hast wrought devilish magic, and surely we shall slay thee as a witch!"

"Myn Duw!" shouted Cynyr the novice, tossing his arms on high. "Do not so! I was mistaken--there is mad I have been. David has cleared the covering from my eyes! I love Indeg...."

"And thou, Indeg," said David softly, "dost thou love Cynyr?"

Said she, more softly still:

"I like him ... as well as I like any man."

"Our Lord G.o.d lays hold upon His own," cried David, "and, Teilo, there is no need to grab souls for him. Rhaint mab Brychan, wilt thou adopt this Cynyr into thy tribe, when he shall have sojourned with thee the accustomed number of years? He will make a brave fighting-man, though not in the picked army of heaven."

"Yes, indeed!" replied Rhaint the King. "I am David's servant, to do his bidding."

"Now, upon blessed Llywel's land, where he lived and died," the saint continued, "we will set a new church, and Llywel, Teilo, and I, we three, will own it in perpetuity. And of the three thou, Teilo, shalt have the pre-eminence. Willingly wilt thou fast forty days upon this spot, for our church's hallowing. A small omission troubles thy conscience, I know. Children," turning from the Abbot of Llandaff to the man and woman before him, "I would see all well with you before I depart. Give me thy ring, Indeg."

She put her ring in the palm of David.

"It is not yet the noon-hour," said he. "Lily, where is my altar, and the other things I now require?"

"Here is your altar, my father," was Lily's reply, "and the sacred elements, look you!--ready for the swearing of oaths."

He brought David's portable altar and placed it before him, and set bread and wine upon it.

David rose to his feet, and, supported by Teilo and Ismael, said ma.s.s as it was celebrated for a marriage.

"Cynyr," said he in the British tongue, "wilt thou have Indeg as thy wife?"

"Yes, yes!" Cynyr answered.

"And, Indeg, wilt thou have Cynyr as thy husband?"

She nodded her head several times.

"Then I declare before all these, men and women of the Plant y Cymry, that ye be man and wife together. And, Cynyr, thou shalt love Indeg as long as her life shall last; and thou, Indeg, shalt love Cynyr and obey him. The blessing of G.o.d is upon you; and ye shall go with my blessing, and with the blessing of Teilo."

Hand in hand the lovers wandered away over the young, green gra.s.s.

"Sixty days and no less will I fast before I consecrate Llywel's church," cried Teilo, his native generosity breaking forth, "and those two shall have my prayers at each day's offering!"

Gwhir, Teilo's bard at Llandaff, unslung his harp from his shoulder, and struck a triumphant prelude from the strings. He began to chant the praises of his master:

"Thrice a hundred servants of Christ does Teilo feed in his Bangor.

The fierce old dragon he drove to the seas--potent is our father.

Miracles are all about the little ones of Teilo.

"With Brynach aforetime did angels company in the wilderness about Nant Nimer.

No harvest had Llandaff but flower of the broom, the gold-finch of the meadows.

Surely white messengers were at hand for the succour of the Cor of Teilo!"

David listened at first with a slight frown, but by the end of the second triad his countenance had softened.

"Truth governs the tongue of Gwhir," said he. "Hearken! there is also music over yonder. Give me thy arm, my Ismael--I would hear the children sing."

They left the dingle, David and his followers, and ascended a gentle slope that led to an open stretch of level, sheep-cropped sward. Here stunted cowslips grew, and daisies, and a few stray tufts of thyme greeted the footsteps of each comer with their tonic perfume. Young men and girls, partnered in couples, were dancing about a blossoming hawthorn. At their shoulders and wrists, their knees or their ankles, coloured ribbons fluttered; and as they sprang, with outstretched arms, to touch the tree-trunk they hissed between tongue and palate. A man played shrilly upon a pipe, and a number of elderly women, seated upon the ground, were singing:

"Arianrod's battlements light the pathless waste of the sky.

Oak for power, and ash for aid, and birch for constancy!

Bird calls to bird that gone is winter, the time of hunger and fear.

Bless the thorntree, maidens and boys, and bless the spring of the year!"

David watched them indulgently, for the days of the Druids were far off. When their dance was over, they rushed in a body to his feet, begging his blessing, and crying out compliments, sincere though extravagant, upon his sanct.i.ty and his fame.

"Dewi Sant! Dewi Sant! Father of the Saints of Britain! May he live amongst us for ever!"

"As G.o.d wills," said he, as he turned to leave them. "Beautiful the May tree--more beautiful the groves of Paradise. There is a hard task, my brothers, for Ismael."

His companions remembered well what he had spoken of Ismael in two months less than a year from that hour.[13]

[13] Ismael succeeded David as Bishop of Mynyw.

One February day in the year Six Hundred and One, many folk, rich and poor, flocked to the walls of Ty Ddewi, David's monastic enclosure. A rumour had gone abroad that the saint had had heavenly premonition that his end was near at hand. So, weeping and lamenting, these men and women came from the regions around, crying upon their bishop to take their sadness from them. Within Ty Ddewi there was a wonderful silence and peace; and in the streets of Mynyw were heard the flutterings of invisible wings.

"Look you, this mourning must cease, now!" said blessed David.

"Well, well, true is what ye have heard. Merry tidings have reached me!