Part 7 (1/2)

Upon reaching the cliff-head, we discover a flight of rough steps, whereof, as the fable goes, no man can tell the number. Descending the winding way we find ourselves, a few minutes later, before St. Govan's Chapel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. GOVAN'S CHAPEL.]

This diminutive structure stands in a narrow chine between wild, tumbled crags. It is rudely constructed of weather-stained blocks of limestone, arched over with a primitive kind of vault, and is lighted by two or three narrow windows. A low doorway in the eastern wall gives access to a cell-like recess, just big enough for a man to turn round in. Here, according to a curious old legend, St. Govan sought shelter from his pagan enemies; whereupon the ma.s.sy rock closed over him and hid him from his pursuers, opening again to release the pious anchorite so soon as the chase was overpa.s.sed.

Anent this queer nook, the popular superst.i.tion runs that all who can keep to the selfsame wish, while they turn around therein, will obtain their desire before the year is out--a belief that, to judge from the well-worn appearance of the rock face, must be widely entertained.

Upon the western gable rises a small bell-cot, long since bereft of its solitary bell. For it happened, 'once upon a time,' that a wicked pirate who chanced to be sailing by became enamoured of its silvery tones, and, landing with his rascally crew, plundered the sanctuary of its treasure.

His success, however, was short-lived, for a mighty storm arose and overwhelmed the vessel, so that every soul aboard perished in the raging waves. Meanwhile the bereaved hermit was compensated for his loss with a miraculous stone, which, when struck, gave forth the identical tone of the cherished bell; and credulous folk to this day affirm that the neighbouring rocks ring, upon being struck, with surprising alacrity.

From the chapel we next scramble down to the 'holy well,' a neglected spot of no interest save such as tradition can lend. Yet in olden times folk were wont to gather here from far and wide, in antic.i.p.ation of an instant cure for 'those thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.'

Quaint legends and superst.i.tions such as these linger, to this day, amongst the older peasantry of this remote portion of South Pembrokes.h.i.+re. Indeed, the whole locality offers a happy hunting-ground to anyone curious in the matter of old-time folk-lore.

For behold, is not this Gwlad yr Hd, the Christian Kymro's Land of Phantasy; which, long ere the time that history had dawned, was enveloped in Llengel, the Veil of Mystery? Each castle-crowned headland of this rock-bound coast, and every gra.s.s-grown rath and barrow that furrows the surface of these immemorial hills, has formed the theme of some half-forgotten legend or lingering tradition, long cherished among this imaginative people.

A lonesome, sea-girt land where storms and sea-mists, sweeping from the wide Atlantic, wreath the steadfast hills in unsubstantial vapours, through which each beetling precipice that frowns across the ocean looms like some weird vision of a dream. Amidst such scenes as these, the fantastic creations of the Keltic imagination must readily have found 'a local habitation and a name.'

Well, _revenons a nos moutons_, after this excursion into legend-land.

Seated on a mossy stone, we contemplate the age-worn cliffs whose ruddy bastions, carved into a thousand castellated forms, range their impregnable fronts against old Ocean's impetuous artillery. A steady south-westerly breeze sends the green, translucent rollers vollying with thunderous roar against the weed-fringed rocks upon the sh.o.r.e; while flocks of gulls wheel overhead, drifting on motionless, angular pinions, or sweeping across the breakers with harsh, discordant cries.

We now seek out a view-point for a sketch of the lonely hermitage, a matter of no small difficulty owing to the tumbled nature of the ground; but eventually we select a sheltered spot where the noontide sun, peering downward from the cloudless vault of heaven, draws out the rich, sweet odours of sea-pink, wild-thyme and gorse.

Mounting again to the brow of the cliffs, we ramble around the lonely coast, which hereabouts is indented with a series of 'crankling nookes'

that penetrate, like long fingers, deep into the land.

Here is the wild and perilous abyss yclept the Huntsman's Leap, from the story of some fabulous rider who, putting his horse to full gallop, plunged across the unexpected chasm, only to perish from sheer fright upon regaining his home! The nodding cliffs approach so closely upon either hand, as to have been not inaptly likened to a pair of leviathan vessels locked fast in collision.

A bowshot westward lies Bosheston Meer, a similar cavern sunk fathoms deep in the solid rock. Near it is a funnel-shaped aperture that acts in stormy weather as a blowhole; whence it is said the waves are driven high above the land, plunging back again with a roar that can be heard far inland.

Strange tales were told in bygone times of the freaks of this tempest-torn abyss. George Owen, an Elizabethan chronicler, observes: 'If Sheepe or other like Cattell be grazing neere the Pitt, offtimes they are forcibly and violently Drawne and carryed into the pitt; and if a Cloke, or other garment, bee cast on the grownd neere the Pitt, at certaine seasones, you shall stande afarre off, and see it sodainely s.n.a.t.c.h'd, drawne and swallowed up into the Pitt, and never seene againe.'

Quitting this wild and fascinating spot, we pa.s.s near the gra.s.s-grown mounds of a prehistoric camp; and then, striking a little inland, make for a sort of green oasis that marks the 'Sunken Wood.'

A vast, shelving pit, sunk some 50 feet below the level of the ground, and twice as many across, is filled with a grove of vigorous ash-trees.

Their dense foliage entirely covers the top of the chasm; where it is cut off, smooth as a well-trimmed hedge, by the sea-spray borne upon the gales from the adjacent ocean.

Many conjectures have been formed as to the origin of this remarkable freak of Nature; the most plausible being that, the subsoil having been excavated by the waves through some subterranean fissure, the ground has fallen in from above and formed this cavity.

We now hark back to the cliffs once more, and coast around the broad inlet of Bullslaughter Bay, whose rocky walls are pierced with many a dark, weed-fringed cavern where

'Old Triton blows his wreathed horn.'

Pacing the springy turf of the open down, we feast our eyes upon the sparkling waters of the Channel, whose sunlit waves roll in upon the rocky headlands, 'where the broad ocean leans against the land.' The flat, featureless character of the landward view enhances by contrast the attractions of the iron-bound coast; upon whose wild, fantastic crags and beetling precipices, the traveller gazes in undivided admiration.

Anon we diverge seawards again, and, traversing the gra.s.sy mounds of a prehistoric camp, we look down into the depths of a profound abyss known as the Cauldron. The weather-stained precipices of this magnificent chasm rise sheer from the ocean, inaccessible save to the gulls and cormorants that haunt their rocky ledges. Huge archways and vaulted pa.s.sages, yawning in the limestone rock, afford glimpses of the foam-flecked waves beleaguering, in unceasing onslaught, these sea-girt bulwarks of the steadfast land.