THE PRIORY. CALDEY ISLAND.
Striking across the open fields, with the tall white lighthouse for our guide, we turn aside to visit an old farmstead that contains the scanty ruins of Caldey Priory. This venerable foundation owes its origin to Robert, son of Martin de Turribus, and was annexed as a cell to the abbey of St. Dogmaels, near Cardigan.
A wise old saw which observes 'There is nothing new but what has been forgotten,' may find a verification amidst such neglected nooks as these; whose long-forgotten relics of a bygone age greet the wayfarer with all the charm of novelty.
Above the adjacent farmyard premises rises the quaint little weather-beaten tower of the old priory chapel; its slender spire leaning perilously awry, its stonework fast crumbling to decay. From the summit of the tower hangs the crazy bell, with rusty chain and silent clapper. One daintily-fashioned window is roughly blocked with brickwork, another gives entrance to a pigeon-cot.
Within the adjoining house we are shown a fine old vaulted kitchen, with deep-browed windows, and rude stone settle along the wall. Thence we penetrate to a cool, dark chamber exhibiting traces of a gracefully proportioned window enclosed by a pointed arch, long since blocked up.
Retracing our steps beneath hedges of flowering fuchsia, we return by breezy, fern-clad commons and well-tilled fields to the landing-place; where an amphibious-looking individual is laying out lobster-pots among the weed-strewn rocks.
Caldey has ever been famed for the excellence of its oyster fisheries; not to speak of the crabs and lobsters caught around its rocky shores, which are commended by an Elizabethan writer who appears to have been an authority on such matters. 'The Lapster,' says this enthusiast, 'sett whole on the table, yieldeth Exercise, Sustenance and Contemplation; exercise in cracking his legs and Clawes, sustenance by eating the Meate thereof, and contemplation by beholding the curious Work of his complete Armour, both in hue and workmanship.'
'And the Crabbe,' continues the same writer, 'doth sensiblye feele the Course of the Moone; fillinge and emptyeing yt selfe with the encrease and decrease thereof, and therefore ys saied to be best at the full Moone.'
Once more afloat, we are speedily wafted past the cave-pierced cliffs of St. Margaret's Isle, and across the placid waters of Caldey Sound. Running beneath the fortress-crowned St. Catherine's Rock, we round the Castle Hill and disembark in Tenby's sheltered haven.