“Mawkerdjey—immilath acowal!” So they sounded, the words he spat in my face, the shout he shouted uninterpretable by my English ears in that cranny of Wales. But meaningless as was the shout to me, it remained clear in my auditive memory, as a scene sometimes is keenly limned in one’s inattentive sight. And I was sure it was not Welsh. Nor was this because Radnorshire is a backsliding county where the ancient language has yielded to the new. The shape and stress of the cry were unlike what speech I have heard in the remoter areas where Welsh is still spoken.
In an instant the fellow had scuffled past me and was ascending in the fog, while yet I leaned on my hand with buzzing senses and jerky mind. I staggered to my feet and looked upward along the path. At the head of the rise a glimmer of sea-green sunset-light lingered, and the broad bulk of the man staggered against that semi-darkness, a diminishing silhouette. At length I saw him reach the top of the rise, throw up his hands in a sort of gesture of weary achievement, and disappear to the uplands beyond.
Excitedly, and full of profitless conjecture as to what might be his business upon the rolling solitudes of Aidenn Forest, I turned on my way down the zigzag path, being resolved to explore the Vale for shelter since now it was hopeless to make my way over the fells and crags to my Welsh tavern lodging that night. The outcry of the ape-like man was still distinct in my ears, an undecipherable shout, one, I knew, strange even in this region of strange tongues.
I had paused, arrested by a sound the like of which I have never known, a roaring sound, not the boom of cannon or the rage of water or the thunder of avalanche, all of which I have heard. It came from below and far away, a gentle roar; I thought it might be some superhuman voice. As a fact, while I listened, I became convinced that it was a voice of great power with something unique and quite baffling in its quality, one full capable of terrifying a man of unsteady nerves. Yet I was sure that in a different context I would recognize that quality as a natural thing. The muffled echoes of the voice rocked around the Vale; words I am sure there were, the same phrase or sentence repeated many times, but the utmost strain of ear and faculties did not enable me to distinguish the meaning of a syllable. Then the distant shout and its reflections ceased, and I heard only the still grasses. I went on, full of living fancies.
A new sound greeted me out of the darkness, the rippling song of a nightingale on my right beyond the brink. The trees in the depths of Aidenn Vale, then, must be near below. And presently finding almost level ground, I heard the chuckle of water, and discerned a lofty fall of dulled silver, indeed passed it so close that the rising spray touched my cheek. Thus I had found Aidenn Water, not far from its springs on the shoulder of Black Mixen at the upper end of the horseshoe.
Straining my sight in the clogged air, I could trace the black thread of the watercourse on my right hand. Beside it I trod, to the broken descant of amorous birds. And while I went the way of the stream south among the wilding trees, the dark mist paled. I raised my eyes; great Whimble hill loomed before me, and over its stern summit crept a chipped and gibbous moon, softly lustering. While the moon went up the sky, I trolled on southward in air grey and spectral under the frowning summits of Aidenn Vale.
The pathway left the stream for a gentle rise through the trees. Still I could hear Aidenn Water clamour down the Vale while it skipped along. Soon I emerged from the thick of the wood into an open space, the level summit of a vast mound, and with a certain freshening of surprise found myself approaching a lonely wall built by human strength.
A wall—no more—ruinous and desolate, toppled in many places from its original height.
Passing closer, I discovered the confounded and scattered remnant of other wasted walls, strewn like bones in the brightening glamour of the moon. And midway among them stood one tree of mighty stature, doubtless rendered even more towering by the witchery of mist and moonlight.
Sometimes acoustic conditions prevent one from hearing what goes on just round the corner only a few feet away. So, then, my path led me toward the south-west end of the ruin, and precisely at the standing angle of the stone I ran into another man. I did literally run into him, for he was soft and spongy, and my first feeling was that I had encountered a hot-water bottle strolling as leisurely as if on the Mall.