Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [112]
And now, suddenly, this business with Caoilinn seemed to be bringing matters to a head. He wasn’t sure why, but an instinct told him that his decision about their marriage was going to decide everything else, too. If he married now, he was going to settle down with her at Dyflin, have children, and live there for the rest of his days. An honourable life of domestic bliss. It was an attractive option. It was what he had always wanted. Wasn’t it?
The two monks came by the little monastery the week after his interview with Caoilinn’s father. They had been staying in Dyflin for a few days and were returning southwards to their monastery at Glendalough.
Osgar had only been to the great lakeside monastery in the Wicklow Mountains once. The abbot of Glendalough had the right to visit and inspect their own little monastery, and when he was a boy of eight, his uncle had taken him there; but it had rained for the entire time, Osgar had been bored, and perhaps because of this depressing memory, he had never made the effort to journey down there again. Now, however, feeling the need for a change of scene while he made up his mind about the question of Caoilinn, he asked if he might accompany them to visit the place, to which they readily agreed; and so, telling his uncle that he would be back in a few days, he set off in their company.
The journey was delightful. They had chosen the lower road that led southwards along the slopes of the great volcanic hills below the Liffey estuary, with wonderful views eastwards over the coastal plain. They went about twenty miles before resting for the night and then continued the climb that led to the high ground. It was mid-morning when, pausing by a turn in the mountain track, one of the monks beckoned to him and pointed.
There was still a morning mist over the floor of the narrow mountain valley, and the wooded sides which rose steeply from the waters appeared to be floating in the clouds. The two small lakes were invisible under the mist, but the treetops around them, drenched in dew, emerged into the morning air. From where he stood, Osgar could also see the roofs of several of the stone buildings: the main chapel, which they called the abbey, with its little turret; some smaller churches, the high arch of the gatehouse; and a few small chapels. And dominating them all, rising a hundred feet into the air, stood the solitary guardian of the valley, the round tower.
So this was Glendalough—the valley of the two lakes—the loveliest monastery in all Ireland.
The secluded position of Glendalough was not unusual. Irish monasteries were sometimes founded on former pagan holy places; but, as in other parts of Christendom, they were often set up on lands that had not been much used before—marshy riverbanks, borderlands, and isolated mountain places. It had been founded, about a century after the mission of Saint Patrick, by a hermit.
The tradition of the Church in Ireland, ever since the days of Saint Patrick, had been a kindly and peaceable one. Saints there had been, and scholars too numerous to mention, but few if any martyrs. There had also been hermits. There were many hermits in the Celtic Church. The practice had come to the island, through Gaul, from the early Christian anchorites, as these solitary desert dwellers were called, of Egypt. And as there had never been much need for Christian martyrs in Ireland, it was natural, perhaps, that the role of a mountain or woodland recluse should have appealed to men,