Page:Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory, 1922.djvu/97

The Secret Glory "The cell of Cybi is the treasure of Gwent, Nine hills are its perpetual guardians, Nine songs befit the memory of the saint."

"See," he said, "there are the Nine Hills." He pointed them out to the boy, telling him the tale of the saint and his holy bell, which they said had sailed across the sea from Syon and had entered the Severn, and had entered the Usk, and had entered the Soar, and had entered the Canthwr; and so one day the saint, as he walked beside the little brook that almost encompassed the hill in its winding course, saw the bell "that was made of metal that no man might comprehend," floating under the alders, and crying:

"And so sweet was the sound of that bell," Ambrose's father went on, "that they said it was as the joy of angels ym Mharadwys, and that it must have come not from the earthly, but from the heavenly and glorious Syon."

And there they stood in the white morning, on the uneven ground that marked the place where once the Saint rang to the sacrifice, where the quickening words were uttered after the order of the Old Mass of the Britons. 81