However, that
I might hear by and by. So I thanked him, and said that I could
wish for nothing better than to be his guest until I could go on my
way hence.
Now the princess went to the cliff top and called Govan, while I
armed myself. The hermit came back, and I bade him farewell, with
many thanks for his kindnesses during the hours I had been with
him; and so I went from the little cell with the blessing of Govan
the Hermit on me, and that was a bright ending to hours which had
been dark enough. Govan the Saint, men call him, now that he has
gone from among them, and rightly do they give him that name, as I
think.
Howel dismounted one of his men, and set me on the horse in his
place, and then we rode to the camp at the landing place by the
track which had led me hither, passing the head of the rift from
which I had escaped, so that I saw its terrors in full daylight.
And they were even more awesome to me than as I hung on the brink
with the depths unknown below me. Then Howel told me how once a
hunter had come suddenly on that gulf with his horse at full
gallop, and had been forced to leap or court death by checking the
steed. He had cleared it in safety, but the terror of what he had
done bided with him, so that he died in no long time; I could well
believe it.
Then the princess told me many things of Govan, and among others
that the poor folk held that when the Danes came and stole the bell
from him he had been hidden from them in the rock wall of the
chapel, which had gaped to take him in, closing on him and setting
him free when danger was past.
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