A Daughter of the Druids [A novel.] By A. K. H

Introduction

. THE Civil Records of England for the year 1408 make mention of the will of Allice de Kymber be ing offered for probate. Thus we find the earliest English record of Kymber as a place name. It is supposed to have belonged to an estate which changed names with its change of holder. We have made use of this old name as it suited our purpose to do so because of its Kymric origin. The stem or root of this ancient patronymic, which antedates even the time of Homer, is vari ously spelled Kym, Kim, Cim, Cimb, and Cumr; for K and C are interchangeable in this name, while the letters i, y, and u have all the same power in the middle o.f the syllable. The word Kym means to turn, to revolve, to ro tate, and, singularly enough, as a family cognomen in England it is earliest associated with the wheel wright's craft.

Since Adam gave names to the animals, man has never called things amiss, but always in accord ance with some inherent quality or principle which INTRODUCTION, they were Originally intended to represent, because this was in the mind of the Maker. We believe, with the ancients, that the significance of names extends even to the human family ; for we find in dubitable proof of the same in the Scriptures, where names are always expressive of qualities or principles. Every recurrence of the same arrangement of letters (in whatever connection) we hold to have the same significance. Hence, if the early bearers of this name in Kymry land were in the old time engaged in making cart wheels or chariot wheels for the people, it proves to us that they were prime factors in the world's higher progress, as were those who first bore this ancient and honored patronymic.

A. K. H. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. An Ancient Name . . . . . . . 7 II. Allice de Kymber . . • 18 III. Ursula's Lesson . 36 IV. A Home Sibyl 56 V. Hugh 70 VI. Findingthe Key 89 VII. Yule-tide at Kymber 106 VIII. What Old Sol said 124 IX. MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM I45 X. Night in the Coombe 160 XI. A Witch Hunt 179 XII. A Belted Knight 194 XIII. Flight 211 XIV. The Old Cromlech 230 XV. Sainte Marie's 253 XVI. Enfranchisement

Chapter I. An Ancient Name

AMONG the mountains of ancient Cumbria stood the baronial mansion de Kymber. Here, for generations, had dwelt those bearing this old name, and claiming direct descent from the North Kymry, or the Celtic Britons who settled this por tion of England ; a race that history traces across the German ocean from their home in the North. Their traditions, which are still current, also affirm that before they settled here they dwelt in the " summer country " from which they had es caped by ship, at the time of a great flood. The de Kymbers, who still bore that old race name, claimed to have been lords of the soil since the days when, under the leadership of " Hugh the Mighty," their ancestors took Britain without arms ; so their hereditary acres were doubly dear to them for the traditions with which these were associated.

They affirmed that the family and race patronymic had been borne by their ancestors since the time Druidism received its death-blow in Britain, when the flower of the Kymry had perished in defence of their ancient faith. A prediction that the name of Kym should never die out, but should come down the. ages borne by a distinct and peculiar people, was said to have been made by the Druid priestess of this venerable faith, who, with hundreds of its adherents, laid down her life in a final stand for their ancient rites. But although their sacred groves were destroyed and their temples desecrated by barbarian invaders, the Celtic Britons remained unconquered ; for, in the mountains and plains of Cumbria and Corn wall, the North Kymry long maintained their independence, as well as their ancient form of worship.

Names of places in these countries still witness to the prolonged sovereignty of this people, while their uncultivated hills and plains are even to-day covered with Druidical remains. Here the Celtic or Kymric Britons defended themselves and their ancient inheritance long after the rest of England had submitted to Saxon rule. The subjugation of this race was, indeed, never accomplished, as is attested by the fact that its language and literature still survive. History is un able to affirm what finally became of this heroic people whose civil codes and customs are to-day incorporated into all our institutions. The prophecy of the Druid seeress, to which reference has been made, at least held good at the time of which we write, for representatives of the old name still survived, among the more prominent of whom was the Baron Hugh de Kymber.

This title had been borne by three generations, having been conferred upon Egbert de Kymber (the grandfather of the present Baron) for services rendered to the crown. Into the possession of the said Egbert had at the same time come hundreds of acres of the ancient Kymric domains, which had descended intact to his son and grandson. Notwithstanding the old blood had been crossed by the colder and more languid Saxon element, the Northern stream still retained its native vigor, as was apparent from age to age in some scion of this house, showing itself in certain characteristics, which, like family resemblances, could be traced throughout the line. The present Baron de Kymber had in early life been left a widower with two children, and, though A DAUGHTER OF THE DRUIDS. the son and daughter who had been to him as the very apple of his eye were now grown to man's and woman's estate, he had not sought to fill their mother's place in his home ; for he had regarded his marriage as a union that was not for this world alone.

The ancient Druids were said to have held death in contempt or with indifference because of their unquestioning belief in immortality. The faith of his race in this respect was strong in the heart of the Baron de Kymber, and in all the years which had intervened since his loss, he had never consid ered himself free to form any other relation than the one which was still sacred to him. His children had felt the deprivation of a mother's care far less from the fact of their father's devotion ; while they were also fortunate in the circumstance that all the servants and dependants of Kymber were old retainers of the family, faithful and loyal to its interests as only long association and commu nity of feeling insure. The manor house of Kymber was a rambling, commodious structure, built of the rough stone of that region, and originally without architectural pre tentions.

In the time of the present Baron's father, a turret had been added on the north corner, at which the old mansion had assumed something of a feudal aspect. Its forest acres, however, made the Barony de Kymber of no small note in that region, for the grand old trees with which it was thickly wooded had been held sacred from the axe for many generations. No Druid ancestor of the Baron de Kymber had ever a greater love and veneration for the forest temples of nature than had he for the oaks and beeches that reared their stately forms on the mountain side. These had stood as sentinels of a past with which he was not cognizant, and where they would still stand when he should have passed from the stage of action. To have felled any of the timber on his lands would have been, in this man's estimation, to desecrate a sanctuary.

Nothing disturbed the Baron more than to find that any of his trees had suffered from the storms which at intervals swept that mountainous region. So the forest growth of de Kymber was not inter fered with, and its leafy coverts grew denser from year to year, creating a sombre shade in which the Baron delighted, a taste that his friends could neither appreciate nor understand. Probably a forest shade so entire and continuous could not to-day be found in any civilized land, so completely does the present age bow at the shrine of the goddess Utilitaria. A DAUGHTER OF THE DRUIDS. The Baron never saw a money value in the mon archs of Kymber, and, while holding them by right of inheritance, he seemed not to consider that they were other than a trust which had come down to him from the long ago.

Tender of all things that had life was this man to whom the suffering of the world was ever present like a personal grief, from which he could escape only as he was able to enter deeply into communion with Nature. In her woody solitudes this burden was sometimes lifted from his heart ; for here was granted him a glimpse of the great plan which must eventually bring order out of present chaos. At such moments his faith grew strong in a better day, — the return of the Golden Age, traditions of which his race had always held. Had not the ancient people claimed to have originally known in the " summer country " a state or condition of life the opposite of that which at present obtains, — where Nature smiled upon her children, and age and sickness were unknown? What did their race traditions mean but that once, somewhere on this planet, man had lived in accord ance with God's laws, and so in that harmony with nature which is known only in the Edenic state.

And if once, then again could man have the same experience, since it depended upon himself to bring this condition about. His friends rallied him on what they termed his Utopian dreams, putting aside and ruling out as impracticable his suggestions for the amelioration of existing ills, until he held his peace regarding those matters which lay nearest his heart. Since it was idle to remonstrate where his was the only dis senting voice, he no longer mingled with his peers in those councils where his birth and position en titled him to a hearing. Long since had this man come to a realization of the fact that the world's objective point was not his. It was as if he had attained the pole while the rest of his fellow-men were at the equator, so his was the opposite aspect from that which was afforded them.

While his pole-star was directly overhead, theirs was still on the horizon. In the Baron's self-communings over the fact of his turned-about vision, which put him at so great a disadvantage with his age, he did not take into account the Hyperborean origin of his race. In other words, it did not occur to him as the reason of this that he had sprung from the ancient Illu minati, or the people of the pole, the Kyms or Kimmerians, whose light was not that of the sun, but of the interior vision. Somewhere along in the centuries his race had accepted the new faith of Christianity, but they had grafted on to this the tenets of the old, never losing sight of that vital truth which had been the life of the former, namely, that the coming of the Christ was to restore the ancient order ; for, that man had lapsed from an Edenic state was the very founda tion of their race traditions.

In Arthur, their great Kymric leader, they had looked for this consum mation, not any more fully apprehending than the world does to-day that the second coming of the Christ will be in the hearts of men. " Well, Janet, how have things gone in my ab sence, and where is Hartkyn to-night?" As the Baron asked this question he pushed aside the small round stand upon which the old housekeeper had served him his evening repast, for he had returned unexpectedly from Carlisle, whence he was not looked for before the morrow. Hartkyn, the old English term of endearment, was the pet name which Janet had given her nursling. " Things be mostly as usual, your Worship. If ye be askin' for the bairn, I 'm thinkin' ye '11 find her in the tower, sin' she 's sure to be there o' nights. Naething gangs on up yon that she willna ken," replied the old nurse, giving a vigorous brush to the already tidied hearth as she spoke.

" You do not mean that Allice spends her sleep ing hours in scanning the heavens? She must not injure her health in her zeal for knowledge. You should see to that, Janet." " I didna speer if it war fer nawlege or no that taks her nightly to the tower room. I ony ken she 's that daft oboot the stars that mony 's the night she gangs not to the bed till marning ; but 't is in her blude, an ye canna turn them as is born to 't." "What nonsense are you talking, Janet? No one is born to anything. We are not the puppets of fate. We make our own lives, and whatever they are is very largely the result of our own will and act. Hartkyn will listen to reason in this matter. She was never a headstrong or disobedient child," said the Baron, speaking more sharply than was his wont to the old servant whose faithful and untiring service had been given to his children.

" No, that she war not ; though the bairn didna lack o' spirit, wi' all her gentle-like ways. But I wouldna be henderin' what mayhap is laid on her. Ye^ canna say it's no faite, your Worship, sin' the Lord surely kens what He 's aboot ; an He didna send a Lion-bairn to this hoose fer naught. Ye certain mind tha auld rhyme yer fayther wouldna haive ony o' his'n forgete. I heered the mistress speer him aboot it one tyme, an' I 'm certain she mynded its meanin', too, fer jest afore the bairn cam she say to me, ' Janet, my baby will be the first Lion-child for three generations of de Kymbers,' an' when I speered her what that might mean, she said tha meanin' was in tha auld rhyme, and then she speket an' I seen it had ta'en holt on her." The Baron was visibly affected by this reminder of his wife, who had lived only long enough after the birth of her child %o learn that it was a daughter who had come of the lineage referred to, a lineage anciently held to be royal.

In other words, a child of the sun, which the old kings claimed to be when born in the sun's sign, or that of the Lion. "I know," returned the Baron, "that our race has always held a great regard for the midsummer sign, or the Heart-month of August. It was the sacred month of the Hebrews and Egyptians, be cause that of the overshadowing. Its symbolical expression is zeal, courage, enthusiasm, or the nobler and more august qualities of the heart and spirit. The rhyming prophecy to which you allude runs in this way, — '"When a Lion-child comes in To the ancient house of Kym, He will bring the mystic lore Which the fathers had of yore For they shall in every age Read aright the starry page." " Yes, and that 's what the bairn be always a doin' ; but why shouldna she if tha auld rhyme be true. Tha Lion means a power o' ripenin', your fayther user to say ; and when tha bairn cam it war liker to gatherin' time nor midsummer so to tha fore war every growin' thing.

" ' She willna be ony o' yer half-fledged birdlings, fer she haiv come wi' wings,' I said when I first seen her, an' so in truth she had. Ye neer wist her creep tha step, an ye couldna mair holt her doon than tha eagle's young. Ye needna tell me some are na born to soar and some to crawl." In her indignant refutation of the charge of talk ing nonsense, Janet had indulged in a volubility without precedent in all her years of service in the Baron's house. " I see that you think the Lion rampant a fitting blazonry for your nursling, the ancient insignia and symbol of royalty," said the Baron, who appreciated the old nurse's fondness for the child she had reared. " Yes, an' tha Lord think just that same too, else He hadna sent her when he did ; for seed-time an' harvest an' winter an' summer are na mixt up in His plan," was the old servant's response.

Leaving Janet, who liked nothing better than to talk of her bairn, as she called the child so early left motherless, the Baron made his way to the tur ret room, to find his daughter.

Chapter II. Allice De Kymber

As we have before said, the tower of Kymber manor had been added in the time of the Baron's father. Here had been fitted up an observatory opening to the four cardinal points of the compass, and furnished with such appliances for the study of the heavenly bodies as that age afforded. Traditionally the de Kymbers had been students of the heavenly science, though not from the astronomical stand-point of to-day ; and not only had the taste descended to the present generation, but so had also a wealth of arcane lore on the subject. Here were works which would delight the soul of a savant of this science, had he the key to the same ; but without this he might as well pos sess the whole Hermetic library of antiquity, so far as being able to grasp its sealed and hidden treasures. Could profane astronomy read even the alphabet of this heavenly wisdom, its students would not at tribute to any mortal monarch India's mystical conception of that royalty, " whose standard is the sun, whose retinue is the moon, whose lance is Mars; his pen, Mercury; his attendant, Venus; his signet, Jupiter ; and his sentinel, Saturn."

Allice de Kymber heard her father's step on the turret stair, but, being at the moment intent upon an observation, she did not at once turn to greet him. Surpassing fair at all times, she now sat bathed in the soft moonlight which flooded the room, giving to her finely moulded features a sheen that made her face unearthly in its beauty. The Baron paused for a moment on the thresh old, as if he would make sure that the figure wrapped as it were in a veil of light was not a visitant from some other realm. " It is you, then, Allice, and not a spirit? " he said, as she turned and faced him. " It is I, papa, spirit and body, too ; but when did you come home, and why did not Mammy Jan call me? " " I returned a little while since, and Janet has waited upon me. I found it was not necessary to spend the night in Carlisle, and so I am here.

You, I see, are " ' Arectyng your syght towarde the zodiake The sygns Twelve for to behold afarre.' " " Yes, but I am sorry you had to come and find me." This was said with a tender caress of the face which, for a moment, bent over her. " I thought I would come up and participate in your game of bo-peep," said the Baron, seating himself in the comfortable arm-chair which he always occupied on his visits to the " star cham ber," as he facetiously called the tower room. " I saw your brother Hugh, and he promised to send Ursula to Kymber next month, as you desired. He seemed to see no reason why she could not come on such a visit." " Then Clarissa must have removed her inter dict," Allice returned ; " for she refused to allow the child a recess from her studies. Clarissa need have no fears that Ursula will not keep up with her lessons, if she does spend a week or two every season here.

I want Hugh's little daughter to associate her childhood with the old place so she may be as fond of it as her father and I were, besides, a town life must always starve a nature like Ursula's." " Has the game of eye-spy begun ? " the Baron presently asked ; for there had stolen over the sweet face a pensive, thoughtful expression which he wished to dispel. " I came up to see the occultation of Antares by the moon, which will come off shortly," Allice answered, roused from her revery ; "but while waiting Luna's movements I was looking at the nebula in Cancer. Is it not significant, papa, that this star cluster bears the name of the Manger and the Beehive, terms so pregnant with meaning in connection with the symbolism of this sign ? It is wonderful how completely the ahcient truths are hidden in the letter.

How little the world realizes that in the every-day phrases and expressions will yet be found a mine of precious pearls." " Yes," returned the Baron ; " the word " sacred " and the word " profane " are nearer kin than people dream ; but the Evangelist covered the whole ground in giving us the sublime, though as yet dark, saying, ' In the beginning was the Word.' I do not follow you, however, in the association of the Manger with the sign Cancer." " You know, papa, this sign was always called by the ancients the Northern Gate, or the Gate of Men. When we remember that Cancer is the breast sign, we see the significance of its symbolism, for, with the first breath man becomes a living being. The term Manger, as associated with this sign, which is also the starting point of each great cycle, suggests the mystery of the incarnation which takes place in the birth of every child.

In other words, the offspring of a divine paternity, but moth ered by Nature, is wrapped in the swaddling bands of the flesh and laid in a manger. Like the Babe in Bethlehem, he shares with the animal life about him even the very air that he breathes. Cancer is peculiarly the symbol of the incarnation, as the Chaldean philosophy taught, and hence it is the manger wherein the Christ is laid. " ' Call no man your father upon the earth : for one is your Father, which is in heaven,' were the words of Him who knew whereof He spake. " Here is symbolized the taking up. the cross of the flesh, or the physical body, which are the con ditions of earth life into which man comes, and which is expressed in the principle of Cancer, or the breast sign. Is it not significant in this con nection that the head of the Hydra always rises with the sign Cancer?"

" Yes, the monster of greed and desire, which is man's inheritance through the flesh, does indeed assail the child in the cradle, as the myth tells us — that bequest of Juno, or Nature, who imposes the first Herculean labor," the Baron said thought fully. "Cancer has always been rightly called 'the dark constellation,' " Allice returned ; " not that it has so few bright stars (the reason generally assigned), but because it has never given its light to the world. Like the pot-hook characters which designate this sign, it has proven an unreadable hieroglyphic to the savants. God ever chooses the so-called simple and foolish things to confound the wise and pru dent. To me, there is not a more interesting star group in the heavens than that of the Crab." "Very naturally, daughter, do you find the symbol of the Crab interesting, for you have not so un tiringly investigated the ancient Kymric traditions without learning that they all cluster about those long-ago periods of time when the sun was in the two most northern symbols, the Lion and the Crab.

The first was that of the great solstice, the summer of the race, in which man reached his higher tropic, and halted for a season ere starting again on the path of declination for another round of the circle. The s-u-n and the s-o-n always com mence their declension in the sign of the backward moving Crab." "Yes, papa, and the Crab still holds this secret in its grip, — the fact that it is at the breast, or the sign Cancer, that man individually and collectively starts upon his progress through matter, the declen sion which must precede his right ascension. "It is significant," Allice added, musingly, " that the Scarabæus, with its encased and folded wings, was Egypt's symbol for the breast sign. Here is a wonderful analogy to the powers with which man comes into the world, powers that are fettered by the thrall of the flesh which must be thrown off before his metamorphosis is accomplished.

He too, like the Scarabæus, has to outgrow and put away his bonds when he also mounts into that higher region of existence where the mystery of his grub life is solved. Here is the manger because here the Son comes into the swaddling clothes of matter. The fathers of the church recognized that Jesus had accomplished this metamorphosis when they called him the Scarabæus." " I see the connection in your mind," returned the Baron. " The breast of the grand body, like the maternal breast, is indeed the starting-point of the race, where man enters upon his material existence, which is, in truth, a declension, since his home is heaven." "Very properly did the ancient Druids reckon all their years and ages from the sign Cancer," the Baron added ; " for this was their own starting-point in the great cycle.

In other words, their race had attained supremacy in the sun-period of Cancer. When the moon was six days old in Cancer (just before its first quarter) was when they always gathered the sacred mistletoe. This was the 'all heal' fruit of Jove's tree, the oak, which was their own family tree. This golden bough of the oak was the mystic branch that won the way to Ely sium, as Virgil tells us ; and the cyclic poets under stood what they were talking of when they handled this subject." " Do you know, papa, why the Druids gathered the golden fruit of the oak in the first quarter of the moon rather than at any other time ? " "This doubtless was the period of its perfect maturity ; but the sacredness with which they regarded it had to do with the mystic truth that it was the fruit of the sun's and the moon's conjunction.

In her first quarter, Luna has just issued from her conjunction with the great luminary, which last was to the Druids the symbol of spirit, or the fecundating principle of life, while Luna typified the feminine or gestative attribute of nature. Hence, the mistletoe, which bloomed at this time, was symbolic of the issue of the divine overshadowing. Naturally did they regard it as the 'all heal' fruit, by which man might win his way to Elysium. "Every phenomenon of the visible world had to them a significance which they interpreted. Every position of the moon had its symbolical expression as did every feature of nature. What of this has survived is no longer known as the ancient wisdom. A DAUGHTER OF THE DRUIDS. For instance, it is from the quarterings of the moon that we get the quarterings of heraldry.

The Druids were the people of the first quarter, or the first fruits of the great conjunction of spirit and matter. They also belonged to the first quarter of this cycle. Hence, the first quarter of the shield has always been the home position or place of honor." "Then the crescent moon was peculiarly their symbol, and that is why the Druid priests always wore it on their robes," Alice returned thought fully. After this neither spoke for a time. Alice was occupied with the obscuration of Au tares, and when this star of the Scorpion issued from Luna's disk, she gave a little sigh. "What is it, love ?" asked her father, who had not been unobservant of the shadow which had stolen over her face. " I was thinking of the evil and suffering which human passion has wrought. How fittingly is the sting of sin typified by the poisonous venom of the scorpion's bite.

This produces a lethargy of the senses as sin does of the soul." A moment afterward this cloud seemed to have passed from her spirit ; for she said, with her usual brightness of manner, — " You know, papa, that right ascension is always reckoned from Aries, or the sign of the Ram. Did it ever occur to you that this physical law veils a spiritual one, — that from Aries all real or higher progress must begin? " " I do not understand," the Baron replied. " What has the symbol of the Ram to do with man's ad vancement? " ' Everything," was the other's response. " Do you not see that the sign Aries marks the function of the cerebrum, the attribute of reason and of the physical and mental sensations? " she asked, pointing to the opposite wall, where hung the ancient zodiacal figure, with all the signs apportioned to their respective places in the body.