Treasure of the Celtic Triangle (53 page)

Gwyneth’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Mistress Chattan, of course you are forgiven. You are a dear for saving one of my little forgiveness bouquets all this time!” She stepped forward and stretched her arms around the great bulk of the woman who was more than twice her size.

Mistress Chattan had not cried in years. Nor did she cry now. But she came dangerously close.

“Please …” said Gwyneth as she stepped back, “won’t you come in and have tea with me. I would enjoy it very much. I would like to show you the beautiful view of the sea from our sitting room.”

With a nervous but appreciative smile, feeling greatly lightened from the release of her long-carried burden of conscience, Mistress Chattan nodded then followed Gwyneth inside.

Chandos Gwarthegydd married Mistress Chattan’s niece from Dolgellau. The innkeeper’s personal life had always been so shrouded in mystery that no one really knew where she had come from or whether she had living relatives at all. The identity of Chandos’s bride was greeted with many questions. Little was learned, however, beyond the fact that she was the daughter of Mistress Chattan’s brother. A beautifully incongruous relationship developed between the hulking young blacksmith and the aging aunt of his wife. The two young people took care of her during her final years with the most tender kindness imaginable. When the Keeper of the Ale died at the age of seventy-three, a handwritten will was found in her cash box, which Percy confirmed as legal and binding. It left the inn and all its contents to Chandos’s wife. The building that housed the inn and pub was one of the few in the village that was privately owned and not the property of the viscount or viscountess of Snowdon.

Chandos continued blacksmithing with his father. An increasing amount of his time, however, was spent on his wife’s new enterprise. They upgraded, restored, and added several rooms, turning it into a seacoast hotel of some repute. Many of those bound for the village on the north- or southbound coaches got out at the hotel and remained in Llanfryniog for several days. The pub of the newly renamed
Chattan Arms
continued to serve the best ale in Snowdonia.

Percy and Gwyneth had five children, three boys and two girls.

As Katherine’s hair gradually turned a silvery white, her countenance took on more and more the radiance of that quiet, humble, peaceful, wise daughterhood that only lifelong attentiveness to the commands of Christ can produce in God’s women. She continued to read and reread the works of the Scotsman, along with her brother’s writings. With every passing year, she became more deeply convinced that the answers to life’s quandaries were to be found in uncomplicated, practical obedience to the words of Jesus. All her grandchildren adored her and took every opportunity to scamper into her lap, where they felt at home, content, and at peace.

One morning in early summer, bright and warm, as Percy sat at the breakfast table with his tea, a girl of six and a boy of three walked into the room, rubbing their eyes and looking about.

“Daddy, where’s mummy?” asked the girl.

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” replied Percy. “I haven’t seen her this morning. Would you like something to eat?”

“Yes, please, Daddy.”

After Percy had the two situated at the table, with glasses of milk and a plate of oatcakes in front of them, he left the house. A glance north and south along the promontory revealed nothing. He continued around the north wing of the house until his gaze opened toward the hills of Snowdonia eastward from the coastline.

On a green hillside in the distance he saw a simply dressed figure walking through the grass as it sloped up toward the inland ridge that overlooked Tremadog Bay. The light hair bathed in sunlight was unmistakable.

He smiled as he saw her stoop to the ground. He knew what she was doing. She was plucking wildflowers.

Gwyneth would always be Gwyneth, thought Percy with a full heart. Deep inside, she would never
really
be a viscountess, whatever people might call her. She would always be the mysterious daughter of the Snowdonian hills whose childlike nature spread life and goodness wherever she went.

A F
EW
N
OTES OF
I
NTEREST FROM
M
ICHAEL
P
HILLIPS

The account of D. L. Moody’s first British mission in 1873 and 1874, though brief, is recounted as accurately as possible from the historical records. In that mission, twenty-five-year-old Henry Drummond took leave from his divinity studies in order to join the mission as a volunteer. He formed a great friendship with Moody that lasted for the rest of their lives. The draft of the manuscript on love that he had begun working on that same year, 1873, was not finally published until 1880, seven years later.
The Greatest Thing in the World
became an international best seller and has been profoundly influencing Christians toward Christlikeness ever since.

After bidding farewell to Scotland in September of 1874, Moody sailed to Ireland. There for over three months he held meetings in Belfast and Ireland. When at length he returned to England, reports of the earlier revival in Scotland sparked greater interest than had been present earlier. At last the English were ready to listen enthusiastically to D. L. Moody. For the next ten months, huge crowds in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and London flocked to hear the evangelist. The number of converts was beyond counting. Moody’s comments about Drummond’s farmhouse talk on love during his visit to England a few years later is quoted directly from Moody’s own reminiscences.

Henry Drummond died in 1897 at the young age of 47, but his vision of “the greatest thing” lives on through this work for which he continues to be revered in the annals of Christian writers.

The mountain Lugnaquilla is the thirteenth highest peak in Ireland at 925 meters and the country’s highest mountain outside Kerry. There are a number of routes up to the flat peak, known as “Percy’s Table,” which is often shrouded in mist, though when clear it affords distant and spectacular views. However there are also several treacherous ridges, cliffs, bouldery outcroppings, and severe slopes, making good weather or expert navigation a necessity for the hiker unfamiliar with Lugnaquilla’s many secrets.

Some may perhaps have found it unusual for one fiction book to play such a key role in another. I employed the works of George MacDonald in this way to highlight a point that most fiction readers know so well—the power of fictional characters, if they are truly drawn and real to life, by their struggles and failings and triumphs, to profoundly affect our lives. My desire was not merely to dedicate this volume to George MacDonald, but to convey something of the unique power of his writing. I am certain many of you are already well acquainted with his books. If you are not, you may learn more at the website
www.FatherOfTheInklings.com
, where you will also find ordering information for MacDonald’s original titles as well as my own redacted editions of his work. The title that plays such a prominent role in
Treasure of the Celtic Triangle
is available in both formats, as
David Elginbrod
or
The Tutor’s First Love
. These may be found through any online book service, or at
www.FatherOfTheInklings.com/the-bookstore/sunrise-centenary-editions/
.

For the MacDonald readers among you, I must confess to one stretching of historical verisimilitude. The quote in
chapter 57
discovered by Steven in the library was taken from MacDonald’s book
Donal Grant
, which was in actual fact not yet published at the time. It was published in 1882, eight years later. I hope purists will forgive my use of this one of MacDonald’s central themes for the sake of the story. This quote, too, as well as several of the others, has been slightly paraphrased for brevity. All the other of MacDonald’s books that are mentioned and quoted from were available at the times where they appeared in the story and were indeed being read avidly throughout England, Scotland, and Wales.

The gold rush in County Wicklow, Ireland, during the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, took place substantially as described. There was also substantial gold mining in the Snowdonian region of North Wales.

If you enjoyed these two books set in Wales, you might also like my recent doublet set in the northernmost region of the Celtic Triangle, Scotland. They are entitled
Angel Harp
and
Heather Song
.

MICHAEL PHILLIPS (b. 1946) is one of the best-selling and most beloved Christian novelists of our generation, author of dozens of books of great diversity, both historical and contemporary.

Phillips began his distinguished writing career in 1977 with several nonfiction titles. Since that time, he has authored over twenty nonfiction books, most notably dealing with the nature and character of God and the fatherhood of God. His loyal readership through the years has come to depend on the signature tune running through all his writings—the personal call to what Phillips calls bold-thinking Christianity. After turning to the writing of novels in the mid-1980s, Phillips has penned some sixty fiction titles of wide-reaching scope and variety. The enormous breadth of his faithful audience is testimony that his writings are universal in their appeal.

He is also one of many in a rising generation of spiritual offspring of C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, and the legacy of the Inklings. Phillips is widely known as George MacDonald’s redactor, publisher, and biographer, whose vision and editorial expertise helped bring MacDonald back from obscurity when his realistic novels had been nearly forgotten. After discovering the writings of the Victorian Scotsman whose books were foundational in leading C. S. Lewis out of atheism into Christianity, Phillips made it his life’s work to bring to public attention the literary and spiritual links between MacDonald and Lewis, and to promote the teachings of these giants of the past. If MacDonald is the “father of the Inklings,” Phillips calls himself one of thousands of “sons of the Inklings.” His multidimensional efforts helped ignite the MacDonald renaissance of recent years and have resulted in a new generation of readers having access to MacDonald’s books again for themselves.

As one of those responsible for the widespread renewal of MacDonald’s influence, Phillips is recognized as among the world’s foremost purveyors of MacDonald’s message, with particular insight into the Scotsman’s heart and spiritual vision.

As his own volume of work reaches a stature of significance in its own right, Phillips is regarded as one of many successors to MacDonald’s vision and spiritual legacy for a new generation.

D
ISCUSSION
Q
UESTIONS

1.    Many readers of fiction agree with Thomas Jefferson (quoted at the beginning) that books of fiction and imagination are powerful to move us, and “contribute to fix us in the principles and practice of virtue.” Discuss Jefferson’s comment in light of people who downplay the power of fiction. What are some of the fiction books that have been most influential in your life to motivate you toward “the principles and practice of virtue”?

2.    Did you like or dislike the literary device of using one fictional book within another—George MacDonald’s
David Elginbrod
playing a pivotal role in
this
fictional story? Share from your experience when a book you have read—and the struggles, thoughts, and growth of its characters—has influenced you, perhaps even contributing toward some major decision in your life. Do you think it is realistic to base decisions on lessons learned from fictional characters? In what circumstances? How has fiction contributed to your spiritual life and your inner walk with God?

3.    How do you respond when super-spiritual types say, “I don’t have time for fiction. I only read what’s real?” or “I only read the Bible.” Do you want to remind them that Jesus used fiction more than any other technique to convey truth? Discuss Jesus’ use of stories to communicate deep spiritual principles to His listeners.

4.    What kinds of fiction are most able to “fix us in the principles and practice of virtue”? Edgy, dramatic, fast-paced, and sometimes morally explicit fiction is very much in vogue today—even in Christian fiction. How does “edgy” fiction move us toward living lives of virtue? Or does it? To be realistic, is a novelist required to explore life’s dark side? George MacDonald (also quoted at the beginning) was clear in saying that he was
not
interested in writing about “spoilt humanity,” but rather wanted to point his readers toward goodness: “I will try to show what we might be, may be, must be, shall be—and something of the struggle to gain it.” We could say that MacDonald, like Jesus, was not interested in “edgy” fiction but in stories where
goodness
was the true hero of the story and where his characters were striving to attain it. Do you agree or disagree with this motive for a novelist? Is it unrealistic to want to model our lives after good characters in stories?