[By Berwen Banks by Allen Raine]@TWC D-Link book
By Berwen Banks

CHAPTER III
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CHAPTER III.
THE SASSIWN.
The Sassiwn day dawned bright and clear, and as the time for the first service drew near, the roads and lanes were thronged with pedestrians and vehicles of every description.
The doors of the houses in all the surrounding villages were closed for the day, except in a few cases where illness made it impossible for the inmates to leave their beds.

Everybody--man, woman, and child, including babies innumerable--turned their faces towards the sloping field which for the day was the centre of attraction.
Already the grass was getting hidden by the black throng, and still the crowds arrived, seating themselves row behind row on the wild thyme and heather.

The topmost corner of the field merged into a rocky wilderness of stunted heath and patches of burnt grass, studded with harebells, and this unapportioned piece of ground stretched away into the adjoining corner of the Vicar's long meadow.

In the afternoon Cardo, who had virtuously kept away from the morning meetings, sauntered down to chat with Dye, who had condescended to absent himself from the third service, in order to attend to his duties on the farm.
"You sit here, Mr.Cardo," he said, with a confidential wink, "on your own hedge; the Vicar can't be angry, and you will hear something worth listening to." Soon the sloping bank was crowded with its rows of human beings, all listening with intense interest to a pale, dark man, who stood on the front of the platform at the bottom of the field, and with sonorous voice delivered a short opening prayer, followed by an impassioned address.

In the clear, pure air every word was distinctly heard all over the field, the surging multitude keeping a breathless silence, broken only by the singing of the birds or the call of the seagulls.
Sometimes a baby would send up a little wail of fatigue; but generally the slumberous air soothed and quieted them into sleep.
The prayer over, the preacher gave out the words of a well-known hymn, and with one accord the people stood up, and from those hundreds and thousands arose the swelling tones of one of those old hymns which lay hold of every Welshman's heart, its strange reminiscences, its mysterious influences swaying his whole being, and carrying him away on the wings of its rising and falling melody.


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