I pulled therefore for the eastern end of the cove, opposite to the place where the ship lay, and so rounded the point and was out in the open and tossing on the waves in a way that tried my rowing sorely, for I am but a fresh-water boatman. Lucky it was for me that there was little sea on, or I should have fared badly. Then I pulled eastward, and against the tide also, but that was a thing that I did not know.
The boat was wonderfully light and swift, and far less trouble to send along than any other I had seen. There are no better shipwrights than the Nors.e.m.e.n, and we Saxons have forgotten the craft.
The terrible numbness pa.s.sed off as I worked, but now the wind grew cold, and the clouds were working up from the southwest quickly, with wind overhead that was not felt here yet. I knew that I must make some haven soon, or it was likely that I should be frozen on the sea, but the great cliffs were like walls, and at their feet was a fringe of angry foam everywhere. I could see no hope as yet.
Far away to the east of me a great headland seemed to bar my way, but I did not think that I should ever reach it. And all the while I looked to see the black forms of men on the cliffs in the moonlight, but they did not come. That was good at least.
Then at last my heart leapt, for I saw, as a turn of the cliffs opened out to me, another white beach with a cleft of the rocks running up from it, and I thought it best to take the chance it gave me, for I feared the blinding snow that would be here soon, and I felt that the sea was rising. If my foes were after me they would have been seen before now, as they came to the edge of the cliffs to spy me out, and anyway I dreaded them less than the growing cold. Moreover, I thought that Evan would hardly get many men to follow him on a chase of what he had told them was a madman, and a dangerous one at that. He had his goods to see to also.
So I ran the boat into the black mouth of the gorge, and beached her well by good chance. I had little time to lose, but I tied her painter to a rock at the highest fringe of tide wrack, in hopes that she might be safe. It was so dark here that I did not think that Evan would see her from above. And then I began to climb up the rugged path that led out of the gorge to the hilltops.
There were bones everywhere in it. Bones and skulls of droves of cattle on all the strand above the tide mark for many score yards.
Their ribs stuck out from the snow everywhere, and the sightless eye sockets grinned at me as I stumbled over them. But I had no time to wonder how they came there, for I must get to the summit before Evan and his men reached it by their way along the cliff. I ate handfuls of the snow and quenched my thirst that was growing on me again, and my strength began to come back to me as I hurried upward. I was a better man when at last I reached the top of the gorge than when I came ash.o.r.e.
CHAPTER VII. HOW OSWALD CROSSED THE DYFED CLIFFS, AND MET WITH FRIENDS.
Now I halted before I lifted my head above the skyline, and listened with a fear on me lest I should hear the sound of running feet, and I was the more careful because I knew that the snow which lay white and deep on all the open land might deaden any sounds thereof. But I heard nothing save the wail of the wind overhead as it rose in gusts. I wondered if Thorgils would be able to bide in this little cove, or must needs put out to seek some other haven.
There seemed to be a swell setting into it.
So I crept yet farther up the path, crouching behind a point of rock, and thence I saw a dark line on the snow that seemed to promise a road, and that must surely lead to some house or village.
I went forward to it with all caution, and with my head over my shoulder, as they say, but I saw no man. This track led east and west, and was well trodden by cattle, but there were few footprints of men on it, so far as I could see. So I turned into it, going ever away from the ship, and hurrying. I had a thought that I heard shouts behind me, but there was more wind here on the heights than I had felt on the sea, or it was rising, and it sung strangely round the bare points of rock that jutted up everywhere. Maybe it was but that.
Inland I could see no sign of house or hut where I might find food at least, but the cloud wrack had drifted across the moon, and I could not see far now. It was a desolate coast, all unlike our own.
Then I came to a place where the track crossed stony ground and was lost in gathered snow. When I was across that I had lost the road altogether, and had only the line of the cliffs to guide me to what shelter I could not tell. And now a few flakes of snow fluttered round me, and I held on hopelessly, thinking that surely I should come to some place that would give me a lee of rock that I could creep under.
Then the snow swooped down on me heavily, with a whirl and rush of wind from the sea, and I tried to hurry yet more from the chill.
Then I was sure that I heard voices calling after me, and I ran, not rightly knowing where to go, but judging that the coastline would lead me to some fishers" village in the end. There seemed no hope from the land I had seen.
Again the voices came--nay, but there was one voice only, and it called me by my name: "Oswald, Oswald!"
I stopped and listened, for I thought of Thorgils. But the voice was silent, and again I pressed on in the blinding snow, and at once it came, wailing:
"Oswald, Oswald!"
It was behind me now and close at hand, and I turned with my hand on my sword hilt. But there was nothing. Only the snow whirled round me, and the wind sung in the rocks. I called softly, but there was no answer, and I was called no more as I stood still.
"Oswald, Oswald!"
I had turned to go on my way when it came this time, and now I could have sworn that I knew the voice, though whose it was I could not say.
"Who calls me," I cried, facing round.
Then a chill that was not of cold wind and snow fell on me, for there was silence, and into my mind crept the knowledge of where I had last heard that voice. It was long years ago--at Eastdean in half-forgotten Suss.e.x.
"Father!" I cried. "Father!"
There was no reply, and I stood there for what seemed a long time waiting one. I called again and again in vain.
"It is weakness," I said to myself at last, and turned.
At once the voice was wailing, with some wild terror as it seemed, at my very shoulder, with its cry of my name, and I must needs turn once more sharply:
"Oswald, Oswald!"
My foot struck a stone as I wheeled round, and it grated on others and seemed to stop. But as I listened for the voice I heard a crash, and yet another, and at last a far-off rumble that was below my very feet, and I sprang with a cry away from the sound, for I knew that I stood on the very brink of some gulf. And then the snow ceased for a moment and the moon shone out from the break in the clouds, and I saw that my last footprint whence the voice had made me turn was on the edge of an awesome rift that cleft the level surface on the downland, clean cut as by a sword stroke, right athwart my path. Even in clear daylight I had hardly seen that gulf until I was on its very brink, for I could almost have leapt it, and nought marked its edge. And in its depths I heard the crash and thunder of prisoned waves.
I do not know that I ever felt such terror as fell on me then. It was the terror that comes of thinking what might have been, after the danger is past, and that is the worst of all. I sank down on the snow with my knees trembling, and I clutched at the gra.s.s that I might not feel that I must even yet slip into that gulf that was so close, though there was no slope of the ground toward it. Sheer and sudden it gaped with sharp edges, as the mouth of some monster that waited for prey.
There on the snow I believe that I should have bided to sleep the sleep of the frozen, for I hardly dared to move. The snow whirled round me again, but I did not heed it, and with a great roar the wind rose and swept up the rift with a sound as of mighty harps, but it did not rouse me. Only my father"s voice came to me again and called me, and I rose up shaking and followed it as it came from time to time, until I was once more on the track that I had lost.
There it left me, but the sadness that had been in its tones was gone when it last came. And surely that was the touch of no snowflake that lit on my hand for a moment and was gone.
Now I grew stronger, and the fear of the unseen was no longer on me, and I battled onward with wind and snow for a long way. Thanks to the wind, the track was kept clear of the snow, and I did not lose it again until it led me to help that was unlooked for.
There came the sound of a bell to me, strange sounding indeed, but a bell nevertheless, and I knew that somewhere close at hand was surely some home of monks who would take me in with all kindness.
And presently the track led me nearer to the sound of the sea, and at last bent sharply to the right and began to go downhill, while the sound of the bell grew plainer above the roar of nearer breakers yet. I felt that I was pa.s.sing down such a gorge as that up which I had come from the boat, but far narrower, for I had not gone far before I could touch the rocky walls with either hand.
Then I came to steps, and they were steep, but below me still sounded the bell, and the hoa.r.s.e breakers were very near at hand. I expected to see the lights of some little fishing village every moment, but the wind that rushed up the narrow s.p.a.ce between the cliff walls and brought the salt spray with it almost blinded me.
Suddenly the stairway turned so sharply that I almost fell, and then I found my way downward barred by what seemed a great rough-faced rock that was right across the gorge, if one may call a mere cleft in the cliffs so, and barred my way, while the strange bell sounded from beyond it. But it was sheltered under this barrier, and I felt along it to find out where I had to climb over, thinking that the stairway must lead up its face. But there was no stair, and as I groped my hand came on cut stone, and when I felt it I knew that I had come to a doorway, for I found the woodwork, but in no way could I find how it opened.
I kicked on it, therefore, and shouted, but it seemed that none heard. The bell went on and then stopped, and I thought I heard footsteps on the far side of the barrier. They came nearer, and then were almost at the door, paused for a moment, and then the door was opened and the red light from a fire flashed out on me, showing the tall form of a man in monk"s dress in its opening.
"Come in, my son," said a grave voice, speaking Welsh, that had no wonder in it, though one could hardly have expected to see an armed and gold-bedecked Saxon here in the storm.
I stumbled into what I had thought a rock, and found when my eyes grew used to the light that I was in a house built of great stones, uncemented but wonderfully fitted together, and warm and bright with the driftwood fire, though I heard the spray rattle on the roof of flat stones, and the wind howled strangely around the walls. Both ends of this house were of the living rock of the sides of the gorge, and at one end seemed to be a sort of cave with a narrow entrance.
The man who had bidden me in stood yet at the open door looking out on his staircase, but he did not bide there long. With a sigh he turned and closed the door and came in, hardly looking at me, but turning toward the cave I had just noticed. He was an old man, very old indeed, with a long white beard and pale face lined with countless wrinkles, and he stooped a little as he walked. But his face was calm and kind, though he did not smile at me, and I felt that here I was safe with one of no common sort.
"Come, my son," he said, "it is the hour of prime. Glad am I to have one with me after many days."
He waited for no answer, and I followed him for the few steps that led to the rock cavern; and there was a tiny oratory with its altar and cross, and wax lights already burning.
The old man knelt in his place and I knelt with him, and as he began the office straightway I knew how worn out I was, and of a sudden the lights danced before me and I reeled and fell with a clatter and clash of arms on the rocky floor. I seemed to know that the old man turned and looked and rose up from his knees hastily, and I tried to say that I was sorry that I had broken the peace of this holy place; but he answered in his soft voice:
"Why, poor lad, I should have seen that you were spent ere this.
The fault is mine."
He raised me gently, and seemed to search me for some wound. And as he did so I came more to myself, and begged him to go on with his office.
"First comes care of the afflicted, my son, and after that may be prayer. In truth, to help the fainting is in itself a prayer, as I think. Come to the fireside and tell me what is amiss."
"Fasting and fighting and freezing, father," I said, trying to laugh.
"Are you wounded?" he asked quickly.
"No, not at all."