by some considered anterior to even Merlin, that “he who spends a night in the chair or Cader Idris will be found mad, dead, or a poet.” Tradition relates that Merlin sat there, and that Taliesin also went through the dread ordeal that touched his lips with the fire of prophecy.
“You know,” broke in young Herbert Griffith, “the gap cut in the live rock, on the high peak where the cairn is, just above the cliff? It looks like the throne of some queer old king. I showed it to you when we went shooting dotterils. Beg your pardon, Ellen!”
Ellen went on to relate how, long ago, in the thirteenth century, the lady of the manor, a beautiful and wilful heiress, called by her vassals the Lady of Cader Idris, had resolved to undergo this terrible trial in the hopes of becoming imbued with the spirit of poetry. How, being a lady of rare courage and headstrong will, she had persisted in her resolve, in spite of the entreaties of her kindred, the prayers of her tenants, and the authority of her confessor. How she had gone up alone to the haunted hill-top, where, as legends tell, spectres keep a world-long watch over buried treasure, and had faced storm, and darkness, and all the terrors of the visible and the viewless. Finally, how she had been found in the morning, stark and dead, seated in the rocky throne on blue Idris, with her long dark hair floating over the stones as she sate in an attitude that mocked life, and with an expression of awful fear stamped on her open eyes and fair pale face. The tradition added that, on account of her rebellion against the priest’s commands, the pitiless church had denied her poor body Christian burial, and that she had been laid, in silence and stealth, by the hands of sorrowing kinsmen, under a cairn of loose pebbles on the hill-top.
Then Ellen went to her harp, and sang us first the wild Welsh ditty that some bard had composed in elder days, and then the polished verses which Mrs. Hemans had penned on the same theme. Nor was it till the last notes of the harp and the sweet voice had long died away that we recovered from the impression of the weird and mournful tale, and began to question its authenticity and to challenge its probability. I remember we all took part, in a sportive way, against Ellen and the legend. Our wish was, no doubt, to tease, harmlessly, the darling and spoiled child of the household, and also perhaps to atone to ourselves for having been for a time more completely under the spell of romance than we cared to acknowledge. But to start a discussion is like rolling a stone down-hill. It starts gently, sliding down grassy banks and springing daintily from mound to mound, then leaps with huge bounds, gaining force every instant, till it thunders from crag to crag, and crashes into the valley below. Our controversy grew warm and lively, almost bitter. Ellen was piqued and ruffled. She had told us one of her favourite tales, one which she had loved and dwelt upon, and which was grown to be almost a part of herself, and we had listened—and laughed. She had not the experience that riper years impart, and which would have made her suspect that our derision was in a measure defensive and over-strained, and she was vexed, and showed it. She was quite angry with her jeering brothers, but I came in for the full weight of her indignation.
“Why was I incredulous? Did I think woman’s nature so frivolous and cowardly that nothing brave or self-devoted could be looked for from a woman?”
To this I replied, with provoking gravity, “That I thought the story a pretty one, but that it was as improbable as the adventures of King Arthur and his knights, and that I never saw or heard of any female capable of confronting so much risk and discomfort.” Finally, I declared the “Lady of Cader Idris” a pure invention of some crack-brained harper. Ellen’s scornful eyes flashed, and she tossed her golden ringlets as she turned away. All might have gone well had not some mischievous fiend whispered to me to improve my victory. So I did. I waxed very witty and satirical, and the company applauded, all but the squire, who was asleep, and Ellen, who stamped her little foot angrily on the floor, exclaiming:
“I will show you that a woman dares do more than you fancy. I will go through this ordeal, that you believe impossible. We shall see who is right, you or I.”
And she left the room at once. When she came back, half an hour later, she was quite calm and unruffled: she joined in the conversation as usual, and spoke pleasantly of the projects for pike fishing in the Llyn, for a late pic-nic to some celebrated point of view, and a ride to the county town. But there was a feverish restlessness in her air, and she broke off rapidly from talking on one subject to diverge to another. She sat down, when asked, to harp or piano, but she played but a few bars, and then rose again, saying she could not remember a tune. This change of manner caused me some concern, and I went up to her, and said in a low tone:
“Ellen, are you ill?”
“Ill? No,” she answered, in an abstracted manner, and moved away.
“You are not offended with me?” I began. “I did not mean—”
“No, I am not offended,” she answered, with some constraint, and then began to take the keenest interest in the artificial flies Herbert was tying.
We exchanged no other word until every one had retired to rest, and it came to my turn to wish her “Good night,” as usual. She took my hand between her own little white fingers, and for a moment gazed in my face with a strange look that has haunted me ever since—that will haunt me to my dying hour. Sorrow, reproach, affection, and an under-current of firm but hidden determination, were blended in that glance,—the last that I ever received from those fond blue eyes that I had hoped would be a sunshine in my home from youth till age. And her lips murmured the old trivial phrase, “Good night,” as if it had a new meaning. She turned away.
“Ellen!” said I, springing after her, “one moment, Ellen!”
She did not seem to hear. She glided from me, and was gone. One moment I stood irresolute.
