Read From Across the Ancient Waters Online
Authors: Michael Phillips
Tags: #Fiction, #Christian, #Romance
From Across the Ancient Waters
© 2012 by Michael Phillips
Print ISBN 978-1-61626-585-4 (Paperback)
Print ISBN 978-1-61626-673-8 (Hardback)
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-60742-758-2
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-60742-759-9
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio,
www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, OH 44683,
www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses
.
Printed in the United States of America.
The Region of Gwynedd, North Wales at the Northern Expanse of the Cambrian Mountains
Part I: Stranger in North Wales, 1867
EDICATION
To Robert James Nigel Halliday,
A man of integrity, truth, and depth of character,
whom it is an honor to call my friend.
OTE
R
EGARDING
L
OCALE
—
Whenever one is blending fact and fiction, certain disclaimers and clarifications are necessary. Everything that follows is fiction, the characters, the setting, the story. Authors are often asked about the locations in which their stories take place. Some settings are truer to the reality of place than others. I have searched high and low to find the settings of some of George MacDonald’s Scottish novels, only to arrive at the conclusion that those settings existed only in the author’s mind. In the case of his novel
Malcolm
, however, the details of locale in the story match precisely the reality in and around the northern Scottish village of Cullen. Readers do the same with my books, with similar results. Some are based on factual places, others are not. In the case of
From Across the Ancient Waters
, the location of the story is set along the north coast of Wales. But the specifics of the villages and coastline and roads have been changed and adapted for the sake of the story. If you visit North Wales, you will
not
find a village called Llanfryniog or the promontory of Mochras Head or Westbrooke Manor or the cave on the beach. The setting, as well as the story and characters, is entirely fictionalized.
ROLOGUE
The Fate of the
Rhodri Mawr 1791
T
he blue-green sea of the Irish Ocean between the treacherous coastlines of eastern Ireland, northern Wales, and southern Scotland could be as placid as any of the thousand inland lochs for which the three Celtic lands were known.
Saint Columba had been borne safely over it to Mull more than a millennium before. He had carried a new spiritual destiny to Scotland’s western isles, which would spread throughout all Britannia. But when the seas of the north Atlantic rose in unexpected fury, beware to all who challenged them, whether conquering Roman or Viking, whether Irish saint or Welsh pirate. At such times, the waters of this Celtic triangle, no respecter of persons, sought victims to add to its ancient tomb of the watery deep.
Such a fate had come suddenly upon the vessel of dubious reputation known as the
Rhodri Mawr
.
A fierce blast from the north bent the struggling ship’s aftermast dangerously toward the slate gray waters of an angry sea. The imposing craft, stalwart and fearsome when sailing out of Penzance two days before, now bobbed like a plaything as it bottomed into a trough between two giant swells of St. George’s Channel. The leading edge of the second wave rose ominously then sent its white-tipped crest smashing into the prow with such violence that it seemed the ship’s massive stem must burst into matchsticks from the blow.
The front third of the ship disappeared as if swallowed whole. Two seconds later it reappeared out of the tumult. Somehow it was still in one piece. Water pouring over the sides, the pointed bowsprit shot toward the sky. The swell that had swallowed it now spewed the boat as a mere toy upward in a dangerous arc.
Thus repeated the downward crash and heavenward flight of the two-masted English brigantine as it had for hours. Each disappearance between titanic billows seemed to all appearance its last. Only by a miracle had it managed to remain afloat so long. Helpless against the elements, its crew was too exhausted to think what terror must be their inevitable portion. The gods were in control now. Such men as these, however, had not spent their lives befriending whatever deities made the fate of men their business. Nor was it likely that a heavenward flight would be the final journey of their souls. It was doubtful any would live through the descending night or that the
Rhodri Mawr
would enter safe harbor again.
The secret of Dolau Cothi seemed destined for a deep, black, unknown grave somewhere near the home of the giant serpent
Gwbertryd
, whom superstition credited with such violent storms and the shipwrecks that resulted from them.
Water was not just threatening from below but also from above. Rain slammed onto the deck with a ferocity that made visibility impossible. The crow’s nest had been abandoned hours before. Nothing could be seen from it. No man could survive atop it.
The
Rhodri Mawr’s
crew had ventured into these waters on a mission now forgotten in the battle for survival. As the storm rose quickly, the captain thought to find some sheltered inlet in Cardigan Bay. But the anger of Gwbert-ryd swept upon them rapidly, turning every inch of this Celtic sea into a frothy boil. No shelter was to be found. Had they only known that the drift of the current had taken them northward into Tremadog Bay and that they were now floundering within three hundred yards of the rocky coastline, it might have been different. But through the falling mist, none knew how close safety lay.
The bow slammed into another wall of water yet more violent than the rest.
“She’s taking water!” cried one of the mates, clinging desperately to a ragged end of hemp to keep from being sucked overboard.
With the wind roaring and the tattered remains of sails flapping, his warning was lost to the prince of the power of the air. The nearest of his fellows had been thrown onto the deck thirty feet astern.
A sharp crack sounded.
The tall front mast swayed dangerously … rocked the opposite direction … then another splintering crack. Suddenly the thick round timber lay across the deck in the sea. Even if she survived the storm, no ship could navigate without its rigging.
It mattered little. The next instant a tremendous wave slanted high over the bow, battering the side with mortal force. Another shattering blow followed to starboard. A deep groan creaked below deck.
Those aboard seemed destined to live out the poet’s words of the ancient rime:
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
The
Rhodri Mawr
pitched dangerously to port. It took but one more split. Now the aftermast snapped from its base and tumbled overboard. The stem could no longer absorb the blows from the raging sea. Side-timbers began to splinter. Within seconds the forehull of the
Rhodri Mawr
was breaking up. Now indeed did the sea set about in earnest its business of making matchsticks of this once sturdy vessel.