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Page 35
What should we see when we got there? The stone was not much. There was
a railing round it as a protection against relic-hunters. And there was
an inscription which, of course, was comparatively modern. That settled
it. We would not go to the stone with its modern inscription. The
ancient trees brought us much nearer to William Rufus. Besides, there
was just time, if we walked briskly, to catch the train at Brockenhurst.
III
A week which stands out in my memory as one of perfect communion with
the past was spent with another English friend in Llanthony Abbey, in
the Vale of Ewyas, in the Black Mountains of Wales. We had gone prepared
for camping with a tent of ethereal lightness, which was to protect us
from the weather.
For the first night we were to tarry amid the ruins of the
twelfth-century abbey, some parts of which had been roofed over and used
as an inn. When we arrived, the rain was falling in torrents. Soon after
supper we took our candles and climbed the winding stone stairs to our
rooms in the tower. The stones were uneven and worn by generations of
pious feet. Outside we could see the ruined nave of the church, with all
the surrounding buildings. We were in another age.
Had the sun shined next morning we should have gone on our gypsy
journey, and Llanthony Abbey would have been only an incident. But for
five days and five nights the rain descended. We could make valiant
sallies, but were driven back for shelter. Shut in by "the tumultuous
privacy of storm," one felt a sense of ownership. Only one book could be
obtained, the "Life and Letters" of Walter Savage Landor. I had always
wanted to know more of Landor and here was the opportunity.
A little over a hundred years ago he came to the vale of Ewyas and
bought this estate, and hither he brought his young bride. They occupied
our rooms, it appeared. In 1809, Landor writes to Southey, "I am about
to do what no man hath ever done in England, plant a wood of cedars of
Lebanon. These trees will look magnificent on the mountains of
Llanthony." He planted a million of them, so he said. How eloquently he
growled over those trees! He prophesied that none of them would live.
After reading, I donned my raincoat and started out through the driving
storm to see how Landor's trees were getting on. It seemed that it was
only yesterday that they were planted. It was worth going out to see
what had become of them. They were all gone. I felt that secret
satisfaction which all right-minded persons feel on being witnesses to
the fulfilment of prophecy.
And then there was the house which Landor started to build when he and
his wife were living in our tower. "I hope," he writes, "before the
close not of the next but of the succeeding summer, to have one room to
sit in with two or three bedrooms." Then he begins to growl about the
weather and the carpenters. After a while he writes again of the house:
"It's not half finished and has cost me two thousand pounds. I think
seriously of filling it with straw and setting fire to it. Never was
anything half so ugly."
I inquired about the house and was told that it was not far away on the
hillside, and was yet unfinished. I was pleased with this, and meant to
go up and see it when the spell of bad weather of which Landor
complained had passed by.
Beside Landor there was only one other historic association which one
could enjoy without getting drenched--that was St. David. In wading
across the barnyard, I encountered "Boots," an intelligent young man
though unduly respectful. He informed me that the old building just
across from the stable was the cell of St. David.
I was not prepared for this. All I knew was that St. David was the
patron saint of Wales and had a cathedral and a number of other churches
dedicated to him. Without too grossly admitting my ignorance, I tried to
draw out from my mentor some further biographical facts that my
imagination might work on during my stay. He thought that St. David was
some relation to King Arthur, but just what the relation was, and
whether he was only a relative by marriage, he didn't know. It wasn't
very much information, but I was profoundly grateful to him.
I have since read a long article on St. David in the "Cambrian
Plutarch." The author goes into the question of the family relations
between King Arthur and St. David with great thoroughness, but what
conclusion he comes to is not quite evident. He thinks that the people
are wrong who say that St. David was a nephew, because he was fifty
years older than Arthur. That would make him more likely his uncle.
But as he admits that King Arthur may possibly be another name for the
constellation Ursa Major, it is difficult to fix the dates exactly.
At any rate, the "Cambrian Plutarch" is sure that King Arthur was a
Welshman and a credit to the country--and so was St. David. The author
was as accurate in regard to the dates as the nature of his subject
would allow. He adds apologetically, "It will appear that the life of
St. David is rather misplaced with respect to chronological order. But
as he was contemporary with all those whose lives have already been
given, the anachronism, if such it may be called, can be of no great
importance."
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