Mountain Moggy: The Stoning of the Witch

The succession of mountain ranges, precipitous and rugged, which extend from the shores of the Irish Sea to the boundaries of England, rising tier above tier, and culminating, at different points, in the heights of Snowdon, Cader Idris, and Plinlimmon, gives to wild Wales that romantic beauty for which it is so justly celebrated. That mountain region, too, guarded by the strong arms and undaunted hearts of its heroic sons, formed an impassable bulwark against the advance of barbarian invaders, and remained for many years, while Saxon England was yet pagan, the main refuge of that Christian religion to which Britain owes its present greatness. Yet subsequently, on account of the inaccessible nature of the country, the inhabitants, separated from their more enlightened fellow-subjects, remained for a long period almost as ignorant as their ancestors in the dark ages; and, till of late years, retained many of the grosser superstitions and customs of those times.

A young traveller was climbing the side of one of these mountain ranges facing the ocean, the silvery waters of which could be discerned in the distance, when he observed, far up, a hut. Solitary and cheerless it looked, scarcely to be distinguished from the sombre colouring of the surrounding ground and the rocks and bushes amid which it stood. It was weather-worn and dilapidated, and appeared altogether unfit to be the abode of a human being; indeed, a thin wreath of peat smoke ascending from an aperture in the roof alone made it likely that it was inhabited. Its appearance offered no temptation to the young stranger to turn aside from the path he was pursuing, and he continued his ascent till he gained a rocky pinnacle, from whence he could watch the sun dipping into the ocean; and hence he could look down, on one side, over a confused mass of barren hills and fertile valleys, rocks, and precipices, heights crowned with trees, peaks bare and rugged, and glens with sparkling torrents dashing and foaming amid them; while on the other side, towards the ocean, he saw before him a wide and smiling valley, with a stream meandering through it, and green meadows and groves of trees, from among which a church spire reared its pointed summit; and near it a cheerful village of white-washed cottages and other dwellings of more pretension; and there were sheep feeding, and cattle wending their way slowly homeward, all speaking of peace and security.

"I could not have selected a more lovely spot to spend an evening in, had I been allowed a choice," said the young traveller to himself, as he took his seat on the highest point he could find. "As I cannot find my home, I could not be better off. I thought that I knew perfectly well the place my family have got to, but I am fairly puzzled with the Welsh names. I ought to have kept my brother's letters in which he had clearly written it down. Whether it is Twrog-y-Bwlch, or Llwyd-y-Cynfael, or Dwyryd-y-Ffetiog, I am sure I don't know. I hit the right post-town, of that I am nearly certain. There's a village in the bottom. I might go down and inquire, but then I probably should not find my way back again over the mountain to the inn where I left my traps. I hope that I may hit it off to-morrow. It's very tantalising, and provoking too, to be so near home, and yet not able to find it. It was very stupid to lose the letter. They do say midshipmen are very careless chaps, and that I am no exception to the rule. Well, I have no reason to grumble. I haven't enjoyed such a sight as this for many a day, though it's something like being mast-headed, except with the difference that I may go down when I like. I should enjoy it more if I had a messmate to talk to about it. The air is wonderfully fine up here. It makes me feel inclined to shout out at the top of my voice, `Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, And Britons never, never, never will be slaves,' Hurra! That's it. Hurra, boys! `We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.'"

Thus the happy young midshipman gave full scope to the exuberance of his spirits, feeling very sure that no one was listening to him. As he ceased, a curiously wild, mournful strain struck his ear, ascending from below him on the west, and forming a strange contrast to the merry notes he had been singing. It was like the noonday song of the joyous lark, as he soars into the blue sky, answered by the midnight croak of the raven as he sits on the old abbey's ivy-covered wall. He listened. It seemed rather like a continued shriek than a song, or the fearful cry of the fabled Banshee as she flits by the family mansion in Ireland, to warn the inmates, as is ignorantly supposed, that one of their number must prepare to quit the world, its pleasures and its sorrows. The young midshipman's mind was, however, too well trained to indulge even for a moment in any such fancies, for he owed his education to a wise, religious, and loving father. Yet he was sorely puzzled at first to account for the wild strains which floated through the air, till he caught sight of the ruined hut he had observed on his way up, and discerned a large rent in the roof, through which he supposed the sounds uttered by its inmate must be ascending. He was too far off to distinguish the words; but that there were words uttered, and probably as strange as the music itself, if music he could call it, he was very certain. Now the strains rose to a high pitch, now they swelled, now decreased into a low moan scarcely audible.

"Some poor mad creature," said the midshipman to himself. "I should think nobody but a mad person would live in such a place as that; in truth, if anybody had to live there, its solitude and its forlorn condition would be enough to drive them out of their senses; it would me, I know; only I should forthwith set to work to make it habitable. To be sure, I shouldn't be worse off than Tom and I were when we were cast away on that coral island in the Pacific, except that there we had summer all the year round and abundance of food of one sort or another. Here it must be terribly cold in winter, and as for food, a person would soon starve if he were compelled to live only on what the hillside produces." The young midshipman had got into the habit of talking to himself, either during his night watches, or, it is just possible, while at the mast-head, at which post of honour, in some ships, the young gentlemen of his rank used to spend a considerable portion of their existence.

The strange singing continued for some time. As he looked down from his rocky height he saw a number of persons coming up the hill, apparently from the village towards the hut. They appeared from their movements to be children. They got close to the hut, and were hid from his sight. Now they seemed to be running away--now they returned, leaping and shouting, so that their shrill young voices reached to where he sat. Suddenly he saw them all running down the hill, just as children run, jumping and pushing against each other, and evidently in high glee. The midshipman was considering that it was time for him to return to his inn for the night, when a loud shriek, which came from the direction of the hut, struck his ear, and he saw a bright light streaming through the aperture in the roof. "Something is the matter," he exclaimed, as jumping from his seat he ran down the mountain towards the hut: "the cottage or its inmate is on fire; I must do my best to put out the flame, at all events."

An old woman was the sole occupant of that cheerless hut on the bleak hillside just described. She sat, on that evening, on a low stool before the hearth, on which a few clods of peat, smouldering slowly with some scarcely dry sticks on the top of them, served as an apology for a fire, and threw out the smallest possible heat to warm the shrivelled palms held up ever and anon before it. As she sat, occasionally rocking herself backwards and forwards, she sang, in a voice which sometimes sounded high and shrill, till it rose into almost a shriek, and then again sank down into a long-continued moan. She uttered words often with great rapidity, though even the poor creature herself might scarcely have been able to explain the burden of her song. The gentle breeze, pleasant in the cheerful sunshine, sighed through the rents in the tottering walls, and amid the branches of the solitary, crooked pine-tree, which bent its riven head over the building, its distorted limbs creaking and groaning as they swayed to and fro; while an owl shrieked his twit-to-hoo to the departing sun, as he prepared to go abroad with other creatures of the night in search of prey; and cold grey twilight covered the mountain-side. There still sat the lone old woman, crouching over the mocking fire. Dark and drear was the hovel-- floor it had none, save the damp, cold earth--nor was there a chimney or other outlet for the smoke, except a hole which a branch of the ill-favoured pine-tree had made in the roof, in one of his most restless moods. More light came through this hole than through the window, the broken panes of which were stuffed with rags, dry grass, and heather, though not tight enough to prevent the wind from whistling, and the rain, snow, and sleet from driving in upon the wretched inmate. Except where the solitary gleam of cold evening light fell upon the crouching figure of poor Mountain Moggy, all else in the hovel was gloom and obscurity. Little, however, did Moggy heed the weather. Winter or summer, chilling blasts or warm sunshine, the changeful seasons brought no change to her. Her brain was on fire, her heart cold and forlorn, "icy cold, utterly forlorn and deserted," so she says, and all feeling for outward things has long since departed.