Pabo, the Priest: A NovelBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Pabo, the Priest: A Novel
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Great Britain -- History -- Henry I, 1100-1135 -- Fiction; Priests -- Fiction; Wales -- Fiction
Now for the first time he realized the force of the prelate's words when
he had bidden Gerald of Windsor to cast him--Pabo--into a dungeon,
there to be _forgotten_. Forgotten he was to be, ignored as a human
being immured in this subterranean den. He was to be left there, totally
unattended and unprovided for. Of this he was now convinced, both
because of the neglect he had undergone, and also because of the attempt
made by some Welshwoman, unknown to him, surreptitiously to supply him
with food. This she would not have done had she not been aware of the
fate intended for him. He was to be left to die of cold and hunger and
thirst, and was not to leave the prison save as a dwindled, emaciated
wreck, with the life driven out of him by privation of all that is
necessary for the support of life. He was now well assured of what was
purposed, and also, and equally assured, that he had in the castle some
friend who would employ all her feminine craft to deliver him from such
a fate.
Slowly, tediously the day passed. Still, occasionally voices were
audible, but no feet approached the dungeon doorway. Overhead there were
chambers, but the prison was vaulted with stone, and even were any
persons occupying an upper story, they were not likely to be heard by
one below.
It was, perhaps, fortunate that for some time on the mountain Pabo had
led a very frugal life and had contented himself with parched grain, or
girdle-cakes of his own grinding and making. Yet to these had been added
the milk of a goat, and for this he now craved. He thought of his poor
Nanny bleating, distressed with her milk; he thought of how she had
welcomed him when he returned to the cell. Poor Nanny! What would he not
now give for a draught of her sweet sustaining milk!
Another night passed, and again in the morning there ensued the feeding
of the pigeons, and therewith a fall of crusts within his reach by the
door.
During the day he heard a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard, and by
seating himself on the lowest step in his vault, leaning one elbow on
another, and bringing first eye and then ear near to the gap below the
door, he saw and heard sufficient to lead him to suppose that the bishop
was leaving Careg Cennen, to return to his own castle of Llawhaden.
He could even distinguish his strident voice, and catch a few words
uttered by him, as he turned his face towards the dungeon-door, and
said: "My good friend Gerald--is, humph! the impostor forgotten?"
"Forgotten, as though he had never been," was the response, in the rough
tones of the Norman Baron.
Then both laughed.
Pabo clenched his hands and teeth.
Presently, a clatter; and through the gateway passed the cavalcade.
There was no drawbridge at Careg Cennen for there was no moat, no water;
but there was a portcullis, and there were stout oak-barred doors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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