Such was the condition of affairs, such the temper of the people, when it was announced that Bernard was coming to visit the sanctuary and there to initiate the correction of abuses. Pabo, the Archpriest, showed less alarm than his flock. When he heard that threats were whispered, that there was talk of resistance to the intrusion, he went about among his people exhorting, persuading against violence. Let Bernard be received with the courtesy due to a visitor, and the respect which his office deserved. A good many protested that they would not appear at Cynwyl lest their presence should be construed as a recognition of his claim, and they betook themselves to their mountain pastures, or remained at home. Nevertheless, moved by curiosity, a considerable number of men did gather on the ridge, about the church, watching the approach of the bishop and his party. Women also were there in numbers, children as well, only eager to see the sight. The men were gloomy, silent, and wore their cloaks, beneath which they carried cudgels. The day was bright, and the sun flashed on the weapons and on the armor of the harnessed men who were in the retinue of Bishop Bernard, that entered the valley by Queen Helen's road, and advanced leisurely towards the ridge occupied by the church and the hovels that constituted the village. The Welsh were never--they are not to this day--builders. Every fair structure of stone in the country is due to the constructive genius of the Normans. The native Celt loved to build of wood and wattle. His churches, his domestic dwellings, his monasteries, his kingly halls, all were of timber. The tribesmen of Pabo stood in silence, observing the advancing procession. First came a couple of clerks, and after them two men-at-arms, then rode Bernard, attended on one side by his interpreter, on the other by his brother Rogier in full harness. Again clerks, and then a body of men-at-arms. The bishop was a middle-sized man with sandy hair, very pale eyes with rings about the iris deeper in color than the iris itself--eyes that seemed without depth, impossible to sound, as those of a bird. He had narrow, straw-colored brows, a sharp, straight peak of a nose, and thin lips--lips that hardly showed at all--his mouth resembling a slit. The chin and jowl were strongly marked. He wore on his head a cloth cap with two peaks, ending in tassels, and with flaps to cover his ears, possibly as an imitation of a miter; but outside a church, and engaged in no sacred function, he was of course not vested. He had a purple-edged mantle over one shoulder, and beneath it a dark cassock, and he was booted and spurred. One of the clerks who preceded him carried his pastoral cross--for the see of St. David's claimed archiepiscopal pre-eminence. In the midst of the men-at-arms were sumpter mules carrying the ecclesiastical purtenances of the bishop.