Within the screen a couple of oil-lamps burned, rendered necessary by the dusk there produced by the membrane that covered the windows. Here, beneath the altar, was preserved the abbatial staff of the founder--a staff invested by popular belief with the miraculous powers. On the last day of April every year, this staff was solemnly brought forth and carried up the river Annell, to a point where rested an enormous boulder, fallen from the mountain crag, and resting beside the stream, where it glanced and frothed over a slide of rock, in which were depressions scooped by the water, but superstitiously held to have been worn by the Apostle of Caio as he knelt in the water at his prayers and recitation of the Psalter. Here the Archpriest halted, and with the staff stirred the water. It was held that by this means the Annell was assured to convey health and prosperity to the basin of the Cothi, into which it discharged its blessed waters. Hither were driven flocks and herds to have the crystal liquid scooped from the hollows in the rock, and sprinkled over them, as an effectual preservative against murrain. The bishop occupied a stool within the screen. On this occasion he had nothing further to do than proclaim his inflexible determination to maintain the prohibition of marriage within the seven degrees for the future, and to annul all such unions as fell within them, whether naturally or artificially, and to illegitimatize all children the issue of such marriages. It was the object of the Norman invaders to sow the seed of discord among those whose land they coveted, to produce such confusion in the transmission of estates as to enable them to intervene and dispossess the native owners, not always at the point of the sword, but also with the quill of the clerk. The villagers had crowded into the sacred building, they stood or knelt as densely as they could be packed, and through the open door could be seen faces thronging to hear such words as might reach them without. Every face wore an expression of suspicion, alarm, or resentment. Pabo stood outside the screen upon a raised step or platform, whence he was wont to read to or address his congregation. It sustained a desk, on which reposed the Scriptures. The bishop's chaplain occupied the center of the doorway through the screen. He held a parchment in his hand, and he hastily read its contents in Latin first, and then translated it into Welsh. Pabo was a tall man, with dark hair and large deep eyes, soft as those of an ox, yet capable of flashing fire. He was not over thirty-five years of age, yet looked older, as there was gravity and intensity in his face beyond his years. He was habited in a long woolen garment dyed almost but not wholly black. He was hearkening to every word that fell, his eyes fixed on the ground, his hands clenched, his lips closed, lines forming in his face.