Wild Wales
by George Borrow
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Return to Part 1 of 2

"This bridge, sir," said John, "is called Pont y Velin Castell, the
bridge of the Castle Mill; the inn was formerly the mill of the
castle, and is still called Melin y Castell. As soon as you are
over this bridge you are in shire Amwythig, which the Saxons call
Shropshire. A little way up on yon hill is Clawdd Offa or Offa's
dyke, built of old by the Brenin Offa in order to keep us poor
Welsh within our bounds."

As we stood on the bridge I inquired of Jones the name of the brook
which was running merrily beneath it.

"The Ceiriog, sir," said John, "the same river that we saw at Pont
y Meibion."

"The river," said I, "which Huw Morris loved so well, whose praises
he has sung, and which he has introduced along with Cefn Uchaf in a
stanza in which he describes the hospitality of Chirk Castle in his
day, and which runs thus:

"Pe byddai 'r Cefn Ucha,
Yn gig ac yn fara,
A Cheiriog fawr yma'n fir aml bob tro,
Rhy ryfedd fae iddyn'
Barhau hanner blwyddyn,
I wyr bob yn gan-nyn ar ginio."

"A good penill that, sir," said John Jones. "Pity that the halls
of great people no longer flow with rivers of beer, nor have
mountains of bread and beef for all comers."

"No pity at all," said I; "things are better as they are. Those
mountains of bread and beef, and those rivers of ale merely
encouraged vassalage, fawning and idleness; better to pay for one's
dinner proudly and independently at one's inn, than to go and
cringe for it at a great man's table."

We crossed the bridge, walked a little way up the hill which was
beautifully wooded, and then retraced our steps to the little inn,
where I found my wife and daughter waiting for us, and very hungry.
We sat down, John Jones with us, and proceeded to despatch our
bread-and-butter and ale. The bread-and-butter were good enough,
but the ale poorish. Oh, for an Act of Parliament to force people
to brew good ale! After finishing our humble meal, we got up and
having paid our reckoning went back into the park, the gate of
which the landlord again unlocked for us.

We strolled towards the north along the base of the hill. The
imagination of man can scarcely conceive a scene more beautiful
than the one which we were now enjoying. Huge oaks studded the
lower side of the hill, towards the top was a belt of forest, above
which rose the eastern walls of the castle; the whole forest,
castle and the green bosom of the hill glorified by the lustre of
the sun. As we proceeded we again roused the deer, and again saw
three old black fellows, evidently the patriarchs of the herds,
with their white enormous horns; with these ancient gentlefolks I
very much wished to make acquaintance, and tried to get near them,
but no! they would suffer no such thing; off they glided, their
white antlers, like the barked top boughs of old pollards, glancing
in the sunshine, the smaller dapple creatures following them
bounding and frisking. We had again got very near the castle, when
John Jones told me that if we would follow him he would show us
something very remarkable; I asked him what it was.

"Llun Cawr," he replied. "The figure of a giant."

"What giant?" said I.

But on this point he could give me no information. I told my wife
and daughter what he had said, and finding that they wished to see
the figure, I bade John Jones lead us to it. He led us down an
avenue just below the eastern side of the castle; noble oaks and
other trees composed it, some of them probably near a hundred feet
high; John Jones observing me looking at them with admiration,
said:

"They would make fine chests for the dead, sir."

What an observation! how calculated, amidst the most bounding joy
and bliss, to remind man of his doom! A moment before I had felt
quite happy, but now I felt sad and mournful. I looked at my wife
and daughter, who were gazing admiringly on the beauteous scenes
around them, and remembered that in a few short years at most we
should all three be laid in the cold narrow house formed of four
elm or oaken boards, our only garment the flannel shroud, the cold
damp earth above us, instead of the bright glorious sky. Oh, how
sad and mournful I became! I soon comforted myself, however, by
reflecting that such is the will of Heaven, and that Heaven is
good.

After we had descended the avenue some way John Jones began to look
about him, and getting on the bank on the left side disappeared.
We went on, and in a little time saw him again beckoning to us some
way farther down, but still on the bank. When we drew nigh to him
he bade us get on the bank; we did so and followed him some way,
midst furze and lyng. All of a sudden he exclaimed, "There it is!"  
We looked and saw a large figure standing on a pedestal. On going
up to it we found it to be a Hercules leaning on his club, indeed a
copy of the Farnese Hercules, as we gathered from an inscription in
Latin partly defaced. We felt rather disappointed, as we expected
that it would have turned out to be the figure of some huge Welsh
champion of old. We, however, said nothing to our guide. John
Jones, in order that we might properly appreciate the size of the
statue by contrasting it with his own body, got upon the pedestal
and stood up beside the figure, to the elbow of which his head
little more than reached.

I told him that in my country, the eastern part of Lloegr, I had
seen a man quite as tall as the statue.

"Indeed, sir," said he; "who is it?"

"Hales the Norfolk giant," I replied, "who has a sister seven
inches shorter than himself, who is yet seven inches taller than
any man in the county when her brother is out of it."

When John Jones got down he asked me who the man was whom the
statue was intended to represent.

"Erchwl," I replied, "a mighty man of old, who with club cleared
the country of thieves, serpents, and monsters."

I now proposed that we should return to Llangollen, whereupon we
retraced our steps, and had nearly reached the farm-house of the
castle when John Jones said that we had better return by the low
road, by doing which we should see the castle-lodge and also its
gate which was considered one of the wonders of Wales. We followed
his advice and passing by the front of the castle northwards soon
came to the lodge. The lodge had nothing remarkable in its
appearance, but the gate which was of iron was truly magnificent.

On the top were two figures of wolves which John Jones supposed to
be those of foxes. The wolf of Chirk is not intended to be
expressive of the northern name of its proprietor, but as the
armorial bearing of his family by the maternal side, and originated
in one Ryred, surnamed Blaidd or Wolf from his ferocity in war,
from whom the family, which only assumed the name of Middleton in
the beginning of the thirteenth century, on the occasion of its
representative marrying a rich Shropshire heiress of that name,
traces descent.

The wolf of Chirk is a Cambrian not a Gothic wolf, and though "a
wolf of battle," is the wolf not of Biddulph but of Ryred.

CHAPTER LV

A Visitor - Apprenticeship to the Law - Croch Daranau - Lope de
Vega - No Life like the Traveller's.

ONE morning as I sat alone a gentleman was announced. On his
entrance I recognised in him the magistrate's clerk, owing to whose
good word, as it appeared to me, I had been permitted to remain
during the examination into the affair of the wounded butcher. He
was a stout, strong-made man, somewhat under the middle height,
with a ruddy face, and very clear, grey eyes. I handed him a
chair, which he took, and said that his name was R-, and that he
had taken the liberty of calling, as he had a great desire to be
acquainted with me. On my asking him his reason for that desire he
told me that it proceeded from his having read a book of mine about
Spain, which had much interested him.

"Good," said I, "you can't give an author a better reason for
coming to see him than being pleased with his book. I assure you
that you are most welcome."

After a little general discourse I said that I presumed he was in
the law.

"Yes," said he, "I am a member of that much-abused profession."

"And unjustly abused," said I; "it is a profession which abounds
with honourable men, and in which I believe there are fewer scamps
than in any other. The most honourable men I have ever known have
been lawyers; they were men whose word was their bond, and who
would have preferred ruin to breaking it. There was my old master,
in particular, who would have died sooner than broken his word.
God bless him! I think I see him now with his bald, shining pate,
and his finger on an open page of 'Preston's Conveyancing.'"

"Sure you are not a limb of the law?" said Mr R-.

"No," said I, "but I might be, for I served an apprenticeship to
it."

"I am glad to hear it," said Mr R-, shaking me by the hand. "Take
my advice, come and settle at Llangollen and be my partner."

"If I did," said I, "I am afraid that our partnership would be of
short duration; you would find me too eccentric and flighty for the
law. Have you a good practice?" I demanded after a pause.

"I have no reason to complain of it," said he, with a contented
air.

"I suppose you are married?" said I.

"Oh yes," said he, "I have both a wife and family."

"A native of Llangollen?" said I.

"No," said he: "I was born at Llan Silin, a place some way off
across the Berwyn."

"Llan Silin?" said I, "I have a great desire to visit it some day
or other."

"Why so?" said he, "it offers nothing interesting."

"I beg your pardon," said I; "unless I am much mistaken, the tomb
of the great poet Huw Morris is in Llan Silin churchyard."

"Is it possible that you have ever heard of Huw Morris?"

"Oh yes," said I; "and I have not only heard of him but am
acquainted with his writings; I read them when a boy."

"How very extraordinary," said he; "well, you are quite right about
his tomb; when a boy I have played dozens of times on the flat
stone with my schoolfellows."

We talked of Welsh poetry; he said he had not dipped much into it,
owing to its difficulty; that he was master of the colloquial
language of Wales, but understood very little of the language of
Welsh poetry, which was a widely different thing. I asked him
whether he had seen Owen Pugh's translation of Paradise Lost. He
said he had, but could only partially understand it, adding,
however, that those parts which he could make out appeared to him
to be admirably executed, that amongst these there was one which
had particularly struck him namely:

"Ar eu col o rygnu croch
Daranau."

The rendering of Milton's

"And on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder."

which, grand as it was, was certainly equalled by the Welsh
version, and perhaps surpassed, for that he was disposed to think
that there was something more terrible in "croch daranau," than in
"harsh thunder."

"I am disposed to think so too," said I. "Now can you tell me
where Owen Pugh is buried?"

"I cannot," said he; "but I suppose you can tell me; you, who know
the burying-place of Huw Morris are probably acquainted with the
burying-place of Owen Pugh."

"No," said I, "I am not. Unlike Huw Morris, Owen Pugh has never
had his history written, though perhaps quite as interesting a
history might be made out of the life of the quiet student as out
of that of the popular poet. As soon as ever I learn where his
grave is I shall assuredly make a pilgrimage to it."  Mr R- then
asked me a good many questions about Spain, and a certain singular
race of people about whom I have written a good deal. Before going
away he told me that a friend of his, of the name of J-, would call
upon me, provided he thought I should not consider his doing so an
intrusion. "Let him come by all means," said I; "I shall never
look upon a visit from a friend of yours in the light of an
intrusion."

In a few days came his friend, a fine tall athletic man of about
forty. "You are no Welshman," said I, as I looked at him.

"No," said he, "I am a native of Lincolnshire, but I have resided
in Llangollen for thirteen years."

"In what capacity?" said I.

"In the wine-trade," said he.

"Instead of coming to Llangollen," said I, "and entering into the
wine-trade, you should have gone to London, and enlisted into the
Life Guards."

"Well," said he, with a smile, "I had once or twice thought of
doing so. However, fate brought me to Llangollen, and I am not
sorry that she did, for I have done very well here."

I soon found out that he was a well-read and indeed highly
accomplished man. Like his friend R-, Mr J- asked me a great many
questions about Spain. By degrees we got on the subject of Spanish
literature. I said that the literature of Spain was a first-rate
literature, but that it was not very extensive. He asked me
whether I did not think that Lope de Vega was much overrated.

"Not a bit," said I; "Lope de Vega was one of the greatest geniuses
that ever lived. He was not only a great dramatist and lyric poet,
but a prose writer of marvellous ability, as he proved by several
admirable tales, amongst which is the best ghost story in the
world."

Another remarkable person whom I got acquainted with about this
time was A-, the innkeeper, who lived a little way down the road,
of whom John Jones had spoken so highly, saying, amongst other
things, that he was the clebberest man in Llangollen. One day as I
was looking in at his gate, he came forth, took off his hat, and
asked me to do him the honour to come in and look at his grounds.
I complied, and as he showed me about he told me his history in
nearly the following words:-

"I am a Devonian by birth. For many years I served a travelling
gentleman, whom I accompanied in all his wanderings. I have been
five times across the Alps, and in every capital of Europe. My
master at length dying left me in his will something handsome,
whereupon I determined to be a servant no longer, but married, and
came to Llangollen, which I had visited long before with my master,
and had been much pleased with. After a little time these premises
becoming vacant, I took them, and set up in the public line, more
to have something to do, than for the sake of gain, about which,
indeed, I need not trouble myself much, my poor, dear master, as I
said before, having done very handsomely by me at his death. Here
I have lived for several years, receiving strangers, and improving
my house and grounds. I am tolerably comfortable, but confess I
sometimes look back to my former roving life rather wistfully, for
there is no life so merry as the traveller's."

He was about the middle age and somewhat under the middle size. I
had a good deal of conversation with him, and was much struck with
his frank, straightforward manner. He enjoyed a high character at
Llangollen for probity and likewise for cleverness, being reckoned
an excellent gardener, and an almost unequalled cook. His master,
the travelling gentleman, might well leave him a handsome
remembrance in his will, for he had not only been an excellent and
trusty servant to him, but had once saved his life at the hazard of
his own, amongst the frightful precipices of the Alps. Such
retired gentlemen's servants, or such publicans either, as honest
A-, are not every day to be found. His grounds, principally laid
out by his own hands, exhibited an infinity of taste, and his
house, into which I looked, was a perfect picture of neatness. Any
tourist visiting Llangollen for a short period could do no better
than take up his abode at the hostelry of honest A-.

CHAPTER LVI

Ringing of Bells - Battle of Alma - The Brown Jug - Ale of
Llangollen - Reverses.

ON the third of October - I think that was the date - as my family
and myself, attended by trusty John Jones, were returning on foot
from visiting a park not far from Rhiwabon we heard, when about a
mile from Llangollen, a sudden ringing of the bells of the place,
and a loud shouting. Presently we observed a postman hurrying in a
cart from the direction of the town. "Peth yw y matter?" said John
Jones. "Y matter, y matter!" said the postman in a tone of
exultation, "Sebastopol wedi cymmeryd. Hurrah!"

"What does he say?" said my wife anxiously to me.

"Why, that Sebastopol is taken," said I.

"Then you have been mistaken," said my wife smiling, "for you
always said that the place would either not be taken at all or
would cost the allies to take it a deal of time and an immense
quantity of blood and treasure, and here it is taken at once, for
the allies only landed the other day. Well, thank God, you have
been mistaken!"

"Thank God, indeed," said I, "always supposing that I have been
mistaken - but I hardly think from what I have known of the
Russians that they would let their town - however, let us hope that
they have let it be taken. Hurrah!"

We reached our dwelling. My wife and daughter went in. John Jones
betook himself to his cottage, and I went into the town, in which
there was a great excitement; a wild running troop of boys were
shouting "Sebastopol wedi cymmeryd. Hurrah! Hurrah!"  Old Mr Jones
was standing bare-headed at his door. "Ah," said the old
gentleman, "I am glad to see you. Let us congratulate each other,"
he added, shaking me by the hand. "Sebastopol taken, and in so
short a time. How fortunate!"

"Fortunate indeed," said I, returning his hearty shake; "I only
hope it may be true."

"Oh, there can be no doubt of its being true," said the old
gentleman. "The accounts are most positive. Come in, and I will
tell you all the circumstances."  I followed him into his little
back parlour, where we both sat down.

"Now," said the old church clerk, "I will tell you all about it.
The allies landed about twenty miles from Sebastopol and proceeded
to march against it. When nearly half way they found the Russians
posted on a hill. Their position was naturally very strong, and
they had made it more so by means of redoubts and trenches.
However, the allies undismayed, attacked the enemy, and after a
desperate resistance, drove them over the hill, and following fast
at their heels entered the town pell-mell with them, taking it and
all that remained alive of the Russian army. And what do you
think? The Welsh highly distinguished themselves. The Welsh
fusileers were the first to mount the hill. They suffered horribly
- indeed almost the whole regiment was cut to pieces; but what of
that? they showed that the courage of the Ancient Britons still
survives in their descendants. And now I intend to stand beverage.
I assure you I do. No words! I insist upon it. I have heard you
say you are fond of good ale, and I intend to fetch you a pint of
such ale as I am sure you never drank in your life."  Thereupon he
hurried out of the room, and through the shop into the street.

"Well," said I, when I was by myself, "if this news does not
regularly surprise me! I can easily conceive that the Russians
would be beaten in a pitched battle by the English and French - but
that they should have been so quickly followed up by the allies, as
not to be able to shut their gates and man their walls, is to me
inconceivable. Why, the Russians retreat like the wind, and have a
thousand ruses at command, in order to retard an enemy. So at
least I thought, but it is plain that I know nothing about them,
nor indeed much of my own countrymen; I should never have thought
that English soldiers could have marched fast enough to overtake
Russians, more especially with such a being to command them, as -,
whom I, and indeed almost every one else have always considered a
dead weight on the English service. I suppose, however, that both
they and their commander were spurred on by the active French."

Presently the old church clerk made his appearance with a glass in
one hand, and a brown jug of ale in the other.

"Here," said he, filling the glass, "is some of the real Llangollen
ale. I got it from the little inn, the Eagle, over the way, which
was always celebrated for its ale. They stared at me when I went
in and asked for a pint of ale, as they knew that for twenty years
I have drunk no liquor whatever, owing to the state of my stomach,
which will not allow me to drink anything stronger than water and
tea. I told them, however, it was for a gentleman, a friend of
mine, whom I wished to treat in honour of the fall of Sebastopol."

I would fain have excused myself, but the old gentleman insisted on
my drinking.

"Well," said I, taking the glass, "thank God that our gloomy
forebodings are not likely to be realised. Oes y byd i'r glod
Frythoneg! May Britain's glory last as long as the world!"

Then, looking for a moment at the ale, which was of a dark-brown
colour, I put the glass to my lips and drank.

"Ah!" said the old church clerk, "I see you like it, for you have
emptied the glass at a draught."

"It is good ale," said I.

"Good," said the old gentleman rather hastily, "good; did you ever
taste any so good in your life?"

"Why, as to that," said I, "I hardly know what to say; I have drunk
some very good ale in my day. However, I'll trouble you for
another glass."

"Oh ho, you will," said the old gentleman; "that's enough; if you
did not think it first-rate, you would not ask for more. This,"
said he, as he filled the glass again, "is genuine malt and hop
liquor, brewed in a way only known, they say, to some few people in
this place. You must, however, take care how much you take of it.
Only a few glasses will make you dispute with your friends, and a
few more quarrel with them. Strange things are said of what
Llangollen ale made people do of yore; and I remember that when I
was young and could drink ale, two or three glasses of the
Llangollen juice of the barleycorn would make me - however, those
times are gone by."

"Has Llangollen ale," said I, after tasting the second glass, "ever
been sung in Welsh? is there no englyn upon it?"

"No," said the old church clerk, "at any rate, that I am aware."

"Well," said I, "I can't sing its praises in a Welsh englyn, but I
think I can contrive to do so in an English quatrain, with the help
of what you have told me. What do you think of this? -

"Llangollen's brown ale is with malt and hop rife;
'Tis good; but don't quaff it from evening till dawn;
For too much of that ale will incline you to strife;
Too much of that ale has caused knives to be drawn."

"That's not so bad," said the old church clerk, "but I think some
of our bards could have produced something better - that is, in
Welsh; for example old - What's the name of the old bard who wrote
so many englynion on ale?"

"Sion Tudor," said I; "O yes; but he was a great poet. Ah, he has
written some wonderful englynion on ale; but you will please to
bear in mind that all his englynion are upon bad ale, and it is
easier to turn to ridicule what is bad, than to do anything like
justice to what is good."

O, great was the rejoicing for a few days at Llangollen for the
reported triumph; and the share of the Welsh in that triumph
reconciled for a time the descendants of the Ancient Britons to the
seed of the coiling serpent. "Welsh and Saxons together will
conquer the world!" shouted brats, as they stood barefooted in the
kennel. In a little time, however, news not quite so cheering
arrived. There had been a battle fought, it is true, in which the
Russians had been beaten, and the little Welsh had very much
distinguished themselves, but no Sebastopol had been taken. The
Russians had retreated to their town, which, till then almost
defenceless on the land side, they had, following their old maxim
of "never despair," rendered almost impregnable in a few days,
whilst the allies, chiefly owing to the supineness of the British
commander, were loitering on the field of battle. In a word, all
had happened which the writer, from his knowledge of the Russians
and his own countrymen, had conceived likely to happen from the
beginning. Then came the news of the commencement of a seemingly
interminable siege, and of disasters and disgraces on the part of
the British; there was no more shouting at Llangollen in connection
with the Crimean expedition. But the subject is a disagreeable
one, and the writer will dismiss it after a few brief words.

It was quite right and consistent with the justice of God that the
British arms should be subjected to disaster and ignominy about
that period. A deed of infamous injustice and cruelty had been
perpetrated, and the perpetrators, instead of being punished, had
received applause and promotion; so if the British expedition to
Sebastopol was a disastrous and ignominious one, who can wonder?
Was it likely that the groans of poor Parry would be unheard from
the corner to which he had retired to hide his head by "the Ancient
of days," who sits above the cloud, and from thence sends
judgments?

CHAPTER LVII

The Newspaper - A New Walk - Pentre y Dwr - Oatmeal and Barley-Meal
- The Man on Horseback - Heavy News.

"DEAR me," said I to my wife, as I sat by the fire one Saturday
morning, looking at a newspaper which had been sent to us from our
own district, "what is this? Why, the death of our old friend Dr -
. He died last Tuesday week after a short illness, for he preached
in his church at - the previous Sunday."

"Poor man!" said my wife. "How sorry I am to hear of his death!
However, he died in the fulness of years, after a long and
exemplary life. He was an excellent man and good Christian
shepherd. I knew him well; you I think only saw him once."

"But I shall never forget him," said I, "nor how animated his
features became when I talked to him about Wales, for he, you know,
was a Welshman. I forgot to ask what part of Wales he came from.
I suppose I shall never know now."

Feeling indisposed either for writing or reading, I determined to
take a walk to Pentre y Dwr, a village in the north-west part of
the valley which I had not yet visited. I purposed going by a path
under the Eglwysig crags which I had heard led thither, and to
return by the monastery. I set out. The day was dull and gloomy.
Crossing the canal I pursued my course by romantic lanes till I
found myself under the crags. The rocky ridge here turns away to
the north, having previously run from the east to the west.

After proceeding nearly a mile amidst very beautiful scenery, I
came to a farm-yard where I saw several men engaged in repairing a
building. This farm-yard was in a very sequestered situation; a
hill overhung it on the west, half-way up whose side stood a farm-
house to which it probably pertained. On the north-west was a most
romantic hill covered with wood to the very top. A wild valley
led, I knew not whither, to the north between crags and the wood-
covered hill. Going up to a man of respectable appearance, who
seemed to be superintending the others, I asked him in English the
way to Pentre y Dwr. He replied that I must follow the path up the
hill towards the house, behind which I should find a road which
would lead me through the wood to Pentre Dwr. As he spoke very
good English, I asked him where he had learnt it.

"Chiefly in South Wales," said he, "where they speak less Welsh
than here."

I gathered from him that he lived in the house on the hill and was
a farmer. I asked him to what place the road up the valley to the
north led.

"We generally go by that road to Wrexham," he replied; "it is a
short but a wild road through the hills."

After a little discourse on the times, which he told me were not
quite so bad for farmers as they had been, I bade him farewell.

Mounting the hill I passed round the house, as the farmer had
directed me, and turned to the west along a path on the side of the
mountain. A deep valley was on my left, and on my right above me a
thick wood, principally of oak. About a mile further on the path
winded down a descent, at the bottom of which I saw a brook and a
number of cottages beyond it.

I passed over the brook by means of a long slab laid across, and
reached the cottages. I was now as I supposed in Pentre y Dwr, and
a pentre y dwr most truly it looked, for those Welsh words signify
in English the village of the water, and the brook here ran through
the village, in every room of which its pretty murmuring sound must
have been audible. I looked about me in the hope of seeing
somebody of whom I could ask a question or two, but seeing no one,
I turned to the south intending to regain Llangollen by the way of
the monastery. Coming to a cottage I saw a woman, to all
appearance very old, standing by the door, and asked her in Welsh
where I was.

"In Pentre Dwr," said she. "This house, and those yonder,"
pointing to the cottages past which I had come, "are Pentre y Dwr.
There is, however, another Pentre Dwr up the glen yonder," said
she, pointing towards the north - "which is called Pentre Dwr uchaf
(the upper) -this is Pentre Dwr isaf (the lower)."

"Is it called Pentre Dwr," said I, "because of the water of the
brook?"

"Likely enough," said she, "but I never thought of the matter
before."

She was blear-eyed, and her skin, which seemed drawn tight over her
forehead and cheek-bones, was of the colour of parchment. I asked
her how old she was.

"Fifteen after three twenties," she replied; meaning that she was
seventy-five.

From her appearance I should almost have guessed that she had been
fifteen after four twenties. I, however, did not tell her so, for
I am always cautious not to hurt the feelings of anybody,
especially of the aged.

Continuing my way I soon overtook a man driving five or six very
large hogs. One of these which was muzzled was of a truly immense
size, and walked with considerable difficulty on account of its
fatness. I walked for some time by the side of the noble porker,
admiring it. At length a man rode up on horseback from the way we
had come; he said something to the driver of the hogs, who
instantly unmuzzled the immense creature, who gave a loud grunt on
finding his snout and mouth free. From the conversation which
ensued between the two men I found that the driver was the servant
and the other the master.

"Those hogs are too fat to drive along the road," said I at last to
the latter.

"We brought them in a cart as far as the Pentre Dwr," said the man
on horseback, "but as they did not like the jolting we took them
out."

"And where are you taking them to?" said. I.

"To Llangollen," said the man, "for the fair on Monday."

"What does that big fellow weigh?" said I, pointing to the largest
hog.

"He'll weigh about eighteen score," said the man.

"What do you mean by eighteen score?" said I.

"Eighteen score of pounds," said the man.

"And how much do you expect to get for him?"

"Eight pounds; I shan't take less."

"And who will buy him?" said I.

"Some gent from Wolverhampton or about there," said the man; "there
will be plenty of gents from Wolverhampton at the fair."

"And what do you fatten your hogs upon?" said I.

"Oatmeal," said the man.

"And why not on barley-meal?"

"Oatmeal is the best," said the man; "the gents from Wolverhampton
prefer them fattened on oatmeal."

"Do the gents of Wolverhampton," said I, "eat the hogs?"

"They do not," said the man; "they buy them to sell again; and they
like hogs fed on oatmeal best, because they are the fattest."

"But the pork is not the best," said I; "all hog-flesh raised on
oatmeal is bitter and wiry; because do you see - "

"I see you are in the trade," said the man, "and understand a thing
or two."

"I understand a thing or two," said I, "but I am not in the trade.
Do you come from far?"

"From Llandeglo," said the man.

"Are you a hog-merchant?" said I.

"Yes," said he, "and a horse-dealer, and a farmer, though rather a
small one."

"I suppose as you are a horse-dealer," said I, "you travel much
about?"

"Yes," said the man; "I have travelled a good deal about Wales and
England."

"Have you been in Ynys Fon?" said I.

"I see you are a Welshman," said the man.

"No," said I, "but I know a little Welsh."

"Ynys Fon!" said the man. "Yes, I have been in Anglesey more times
than I can tell."

"Do you know Hugh Pritchard," said I, "who lives at Pentraeth
Coch?"

"I know him well," said the man, "and an honest fellow he is."

"And Mr Bos?" said I.

"What Bos?" said he. "Do you mean a lusty, red-faced man in top-
boots and grey coat?"

"That's he," said I.

"He's a clever one," said the man. "I suppose by your knowing
these people you are a drover or a horse-dealer. Yes," said he,
turning half-round in his saddle and looking at me, "you are a
horse-dealer. I remember you well now, and once sold a horse to
you at Chelmsford."

"I am no horse-dealer," said I, "nor did I ever buy a horse at
Chelmsford. I see you have been about England. Have you ever been
in Norfolk or Suffolk?"

"No," said the man, "but I know something of Suffolk. I have an
uncle there."

"Whereabouts in Suffolk?" said I.

"At a place called -," said the man.

"In what line of business?" said I.

"In none at all; he is a clergyman."

"Shall I tell you his name?" said I.

"It is not likely you should know his name," said the man.

"Nevertheless," said I, "I will tell it you - his name was - "

"Well," said the man, "sure enough that is his name."

"It was his name," said I, "but I am sorry to tell you he is no
more. To-day is Saturday. He died last Tuesday week and was
probably buried last Monday. An excellent man was Dr. H. O. A
credit to his country and to his order."

The man was silent for some time and then said with a softer voice
and a very different manner from that he had used before, "I never
saw him but once, and that was more than twenty years ago - but I
have heard say that he was an excellent man - I see, sir, that you
are a clergyman."

"I am no clergyman," said I, "but I knew your uncle and prized him.
What was his native place?"

"Corwen," said the man, then taking out his handkerchief he wiped
his eyes, and said with a faltering voice: "This will be heavy
news there."

We were now past the monastery, and bidding him farewell I
descended to the canal, and returned home by its bank, whilst the
Welsh drover, the nephew of the learned, eloquent and exemplary
Welsh doctor, pursued with his servant and animals his way by the
high road to Llangollen.

Many sons of Welsh yeomen brought up to the Church have become
ornaments of it in distant Saxon land, but few, very few, have by
learning, eloquence and Christian virtues reflected so much lustre
upon it as Hugh O- of Corwen.

CHAPTER LVIII

Sunday Night - Sleep, Sin, and Old Age - The Dream - Lanikin Figure
- A Literary Purchase.

THE Sunday morning was a gloomy one. I attended service at church
with my family. The service was in English, and the younger Mr E-
preached. The text I have forgotten, but I remember perfectly well
that the sermon was scriptural and elegant. When we came out the
rain was falling in torrents. Neither I nor my family went to
church in the afternoon. I however attended the evening service
which is always in Welsh. The elder Mr E- preached. Text, 2 Cor.
x. 5. The sermon was an admirable one, admonitory, pathetic and
highly eloquent; I went home very much edified, and edified my wife
and Henrietta, by repeating to them in English the greater part of
the discourse which I had been listening to in Welsh. After
supper, in which I did not join, for I never take supper, provided
I have taken dinner, they went to bed whilst I remained seated
before the fire, with my back near the table and my eyes fixed upon
the embers which were rapidly expiring, and in this posture sleep
surprised me. Amongst the proverbial sayings of the Welsh, which
are chiefly preserved in the shape of triads, is the following one:
"Three things come unawares upon a man, sleep, sin, and old age."  
This saying holds sometimes good with respect to sleep and old age,
but never with respect to sin. Sin does not come unawares upon a
man: God is just, and would never punish a man, as He always does,
for being overcome by sin if sin were able to take him unawares;
and neither sleep nor old age always come unawares upon a man.
People frequently feel themselves going to sleep and feel old age
stealing upon them; though there can be no doubt that sleep and old
age sometimes come unawares - old age came unawares upon me; it was
only the other day that I was aware that I was old, though I had
long been old, and sleep came unawares upon me in that chair in
which I had sat down without the slightest thought of sleeping.
And there as I sat I had a dream - what did I dream about? the
sermon, musing upon which I had been overcome by sleep? not a bit!
I dreamt about a widely-different matter. Methought I was in
Llangollen fair in the place where the pigs were sold, in the midst
of Welsh drovers, immense hogs and immense men whom I took to be
the gents of Wolverhampton. What huge fellows they were! almost as
huge as the hogs for which they higgled; the generality of them
dressed in brown sporting coats, drab breeches, yellow-topped
boots, splashed all over with mud, and with low-crowned broad-
brimmed hats. One enormous fellow particularly caught my notice.
I guessed he must have weighed eleven score, he had a half-ruddy,
half-tallowy face, brown hair, and rather thin whiskers. He was
higgling with the proprietor of an immense hog, and as he higgled
he wheezed as if he had a difficulty of respiration, and frequently
wiped off, with a dirty-white pocket-handkerchief, drops of
perspiration which stood upon his face. At last methought he
bought the hog for nine pounds, and had no sooner concluded his
bargain than turning round to me, who was standing close by staring
at him, he slapped me on the shoulder with a hand of immense
weight, crying with a half-piping, half-wheezing voice, "Coom,
neighbour, coom, I and thou have often dealt; gi' me noo a poond
for my bargain, and it shall be all thy own."  I felt in a great
rage at his unceremonious behaviour, and, owing to the flutter of
my spirits, whilst I was thinking whether or not I should try and
knock him down, I awoke and found the fire nearly out and the
ecclesiastical cat seated on my shoulders. The creature had not
been turned out, as it ought to have been, before my wife and
daughter retired, and feeling cold had got upon the table and
thence had sprung upon my back for the sake of the warmth which it
knew was to be found there; and no doubt the springing on my
shoulders by the ecclesiastical cat was what I took in my dream to
be the slap on my shoulders by the Wolverhampton gent.

The day of the fair was dull and gloomy, an exact counterpart of
the previous Saturday. Owing to some cause I did not go into the
fair till past one o'clock, and then seeing neither immense hogs
nor immense men I concluded that the gents of Wolverhampton had
been there, and after purchasing the larger porkers had departed
with their bargains to their native district. After sauntering
about a little time I returned home. After dinner I went again
into the fair along with my wife; the stock business had long been
over, but I observed more stalls than in the morning, and a far
greater throng, for the country people for miles round had poured
into the little town. By a stall on which were some poor legs and
shoulders of mutton I perceived the English butcher, whom the Welsh
one had attempted to slaughter. I recognised him by a patch which
he wore on his cheek. My wife and I went up and inquired how he
was. He said that he still felt poorly, but that he hoped he
should get round. I asked him if he remembered me; and received
for answer that he remembered having seen me when the examination
took place into "his matter."  I then inquired what had become of
his antagonist and was told that he was in prison awaiting his
trial. I gathered from him that he was a native of the Southdown
country and a shepherd by profession; that he had been engaged by
the squire of Porkington in Shropshire to look after his sheep, and
that he had lived there a year or two, but becoming tired of his
situation he had come to Llangollen, where he had married a
Welshwoman and set up as a butcher. We told him that as he was our
countryman we should be happy to deal with him sometimes; he,
however, received the information with perfect apathy, never so
much as saying "thank you."  He was a tall lanikin figure with a
pair of large, lack-lustre staring eyes, and upon the whole
appeared to be good for very little. Leaving him we went some way
up the principal street; presently my wife turned into a shop, and
I observing a little bookstall went up to it and began to inspect
the books. They were chiefly in Welsh. Seeing a kind of chap
book, which bore on its title-page the name of Twm O'r Nant, I took
it up. It was called Y Llwyn Celyn or the Holy Grove, and
contained the life and one of the interludes of Tom O' the Dingle
or Thomas Edwards. It purported to be the first of four numbers,
each of which amongst other things was to contain one of his
interludes. The price, of the number was one shilling. I
questioned the man of the stall about the other numbers, but found
that this was the only one which he possessed. Eager, however, to
read an interlude of the celebrated Tom, I purchased it and turned
away from the stall. Scarcely had I done so when I saw a wild-
looking woman with two wild children looking at me. The woman
curtseyed to me, and I thought I recognised the elder of the two
Irish females whom I had seen in the tent on the green meadow near
Chester. I was going to address her, but just then my wife called
to me from the shop and I went to her, and when I returned to look
for the woman she and her children had disappeared, and though I
searched about for her I could not see her, for which I was sorry,
as I wished very much to have some conversation with her about the
ways of the Irish wanderers. I was thinking of going to look for
her up "Paddy's dingle," but my wife meeting me, begged me to go
home with her, as it was getting late. So I went home with my
better half, bearing my late literary acquisition in my hand.

That night I sat up very late reading the life of Twm O'r Nant,
written by himself in choice Welsh, and his interlude which was
styled "Cyfoeth a Thylody; or, Riches and Poverty."  The life I had
read in my boyhood in an old Welsh magazine, and I now read it
again with great zest, and no wonder, as it is probably the most
remarkable autobiography ever penned. The interlude I had never
seen before, nor indeed any of the dramatic pieces of Twm O'r Nant,
though I had frequently wished to procure some of them - so I read
the present one with great eagerness. Of the life I shall give
some account and also some extracts from it, which will enable the
reader to judge of Tom's personal character, and also an extract of
the interlude, from which the reader may form a tolerably correct
idea of the poetical powers of him whom his countrymen delight to
call "the Welsh Shakespear."

CHAPTER LIX

History of Twm O'r Nant - Eagerness for Learning - The First
Interlude - The Cruel Fighter - Raising Wood - The Luckless Hour -
Turnpike-Keeping - Death in the Snow - Tom's Great Feat - The Muse
a Friend - Strength in Old Age - Resurrection of the Dead.

"I AM the first-born of my parents," says Thomas Edwards. "They
were poor people and very ignorant. I was brought into the world
in a place called Lower Pen Parchell, on land which once belonged
to the celebrated Iolo Goch. My parents afterwards removed to the
Nant (or dingle) near Nantglyn, situated in a place called Coom
Pernant. The Nant was the middlemost of three homesteads, which
are in the Coom, and are called the Upper, Middle, and Lower Nant;
and it so happened that in the Upper Nant there were people who had
a boy of about the same age as myself, and forasmuch as they were
better to do in the world than my parents, they having only two
children whilst mine had ten, I was called Tom of the Dingle,
whilst he was denominated Thomas Williams."

After giving some anecdotes of his childhood he goes on thus:-
"Time passed on till I was about eight years old, and then in the
summer I was lucky enough to be sent to school for three weeks; and
as soon as I had learnt to spell and read a few words I conceived a
mighty desire to learn to write; so I went in quest of elderberries
to make me ink, and my first essay in writing was trying to copy on
the sides of the leaves of books the letters of the words I read.
It happened, however, that a shop in the village caught fire, and
the greater part of it was burnt, only a few trifles being saved,
and amongst the scorched articles my mother got for a penny a
number of sheets of paper burnt at the edges, and sewed them
together to serve as copy-books for me. Without loss of time I
went to the smith of Waendwysog, who wrote for me the letters on
the upper part of the leaves; and careful enough was I to fill the
whole paper with scrawlings which looked for all the world like
crow's feet. I went on getting paper and ink, and something to
copy now from this person, and now from that, until I learned to
read Welsh and to write it at the same time."

He copied out a great many carols and songs, and the neighbours
observing his fondness for learning persuaded his father to allow
him to go to the village school to learn English. At the end of
three weeks, however, his father, considering that he was losing
his time, would allow him to go no longer, but took him into the
fields in order that the boy might assist him in his labour.
Nevertheless Tom would not give up his literary pursuits, but
continued scribbling, and copying out songs and carols. When he
was about ten he formed an acquaintance with an old man, chapel-
reader in Pentre y Foelas, who had a great many old books in his
possession, which he allowed Tom to read; he then had the honour of
becoming an amanuensis to a poet.

"I became very intimate," says he, "with a man who was a poet; he
could neither read nor write; but he was a poet by nature, having a
muse wonderfully glib at making triplets and quartets. He was
nicknamed Tum Tai of the Moor. He made an englyn for me to put in
a book in which I was inserting all the verses I could collect:

"'Tom Evans' the lad for hunting up songs,
Tom Evans to whom the best learning belongs;
Betwixt his two pasteboards he verses has got,
Sufficient to fill the whole country, I wot.'

"I was in the habit of writing my name Tom or Thomas Evans before I
went to school for a fortnight in order to learn English; but then
I altered it, into Thomas Edwards, for Evan Edwards was the name of
my father, and I should have been making myself a bastard had I
continued calling myself by my first name. However, I had the
honour of being secretary to the old poet. When he had made a song
he would keep it in his memory till I came to him. Sometimes after
the old man had repeated his composition to me I would begin to
dispute with him, asking whether the thing would not be better
another way, and he could hardly keep from flying into a passion
with me for putting his work to the torture."

It was then the custom for young lads to go about playing what were
called interludes, namely dramatic pieces on religious or moral
subjects, written by rustic poets. Shortly after Tom had attained
the age of twelve he went about with certain lads of Nantglyn
playing these pieces, generally acting the part of a girl, because,
as he says, he had the best voice. About this time he wrote an
interlude himself, founded on "John Bunyan's Spiritual Courtship,"
which was, however, stolen from him by a young fellow from
Anglesey, along with the greater part of the poems and pieces which
he had copied. This affair at first very much disheartened Tom:
plucking up his spirits, however, he went on composing, and soon
acquired amongst his neighbours the title of "the poet," to the
great mortification of his parents, who were anxious to see him
become an industrious husbandman.

"Before I was quite fourteen," says he, "I had made another
interlude, but when my father and mother heard about it they did
all they could to induce me to destroy it. However, I would not
burn it, but gave it to Hugh of Llangwin, a celebrated poet of the
time, who took it to Landyrnog, where he sold it for ten shillings
to the lads of the place, who performed it the following summer;
but I never got anything for my labour, save a sup of ale from the
players when I met them. This at the heel of other things would
have induced me to give up poetry, had it been in the power of
anything to do so. I made two interludes," he continues, "one for
the people of Llanbedr in the Vale of Clwyd, and the other for the
lads of Llanarmon in Yale, one on the subject of Naaman's leprosy,
and the other about hypocrisy, which was a re-fashionment of the
work of Richard Parry of Ddiserth. When I was young I had such a
rage or madness for poetizing, that I would make a song on almost
anything I saw - and it was a mercy that many did not kill me or
break my bones, on account of my evil tongue. My parents often
told me I should have some mischief done me if I went on in the way
in which I was going. Once on a time being with some companions as
bad as myself, I happened to use some very free language in a place
where three lovers were with a young lass of my neighbourhood, who
lived at a place called Ty Celyn, with whom they kept company. I
said in discourse that they were the cocks of Ty Celyn. The girl
heard me, and conceived a spite against me on account of my
scurrilous language. She had a brother, who was a cruel fighter;
he took the part of his sister, and determined to chastise me. One
Sunday evening he shouted to me as I was coming from Nantglyn - our
ways were the same till we got nearly home - he had determined to
give me a thrashing, and he had with him a piece of oak stick just
suited for the purpose. After we had taunted each other for some
time, as we went along, he flung his stick on the ground, and
stripped himself stark naked. I took off my hat and my neck-cloth,
and took his stick in my hand, whereupon running to the hedge he
took a stake, and straight we set to like two furies. After
fighting some time, our sticks were shivered to pieces and quite
short; sometimes we were upon the ground, but did not give up
fighting on that account. Many people came up and would fain have
parted us, but he would by no means let them. At last we agreed to
go and pull fresh stakes, and then we went at it again until he
could no longer stand. The marks of this battle are upon him and
me to this day. At last, covered with a gore of blood, he was
dragged home by his neighbours. He was in a dreadful condition,
and many thought he would die. On the morrow there came an alarm
that he was dead, whereupon I escaped across the mountain to Pentre
y Foelas to the old man Sion Dafydd to read his old books."

After staying there a little time, and getting his wounds tended by
an old woman, he departed and skulked about in various places,
doing now and then a little work, until hearing his adversary was
recovering, he returned to his home. He went on writing and
performing interludes till he fell in love with a young woman
rather religiously inclined, whom he married in the year 1763, when
he was in his twenty-fourth year. The young couple settled down on
a little place near the town of Denbigh, called Ale Fowlio. They
kept three cows and four horses. The wife superintended the cows,
and Tom with his horses carried wood from Gwenynos to Ruddlan, and
soon excelled all other carters "in loading and in everything
connected with the management of wood."  Tom in the pride of his
heart must needs be helping his fellow-carriers, whilst labouring
with them in the forests, till his wife told him he was a fool for
his pains, and advised him to go and load in the afternoon, when
nobody would be about, offering to go and help him. He listened to
her advice and took her with him.

"The dear creature," says he, "assisted me for some time, but as
she was with child, and on that account not exactly fit to turn the
roll of the crane with levers of iron, I formed the plan of hooking
the horses to the rope, in order to raise up the wood which was to
be loaded, and by long teaching the horses to pull and to stop, I
contrived to make loading a much easier task, both to my wife and
myself. Now this was the first hooking of horses to the rope of
the crane which was ever done either in Wales or England.
Subsequently I had plenty of leisure and rest instead of toiling
amidst other carriers."

Leaving Ale Fowlio he took up his abode nearer to Denbigh, and
continued carrying wood. Several of his horses died, and he was
soon in difficulties, and was glad to accept an invitation from
certain miners of the county of Flint to go and play them an
interlude. As he was playing them one called "A Vision of the
Course of the World," which he had written for the occasion, and
which was founded on, and named after, the first part of the work
of Master Ellis Wyn, he was arrested at the suit of one Mostyn of
Calcoed. He, however, got bail, and partly by carrying and partly
by playing interludes, soon raised money enough to pay his debt.
He then made another interlude, called "Riches and Poverty," by
which he gained a great deal of money. He then wrote two others,
one called "The Three Associates of Man, namely, the World, Nature,
and Conscience;" the other entitled "The King, the Justice, the
Bishop and the Husbandman," both of which he and certain of his
companions acted with great success. After he had made all that he
could by acting these pieces he printed them. When printed they
had a considerable sale, and Tom was soon able to set up again as a
carter. He went on carting and carrying for upwards of twelve
years, at the end of which time he was worth, with one thing and
the other, upwards of three hundred pounds, which was considered a
very considerable property about ninety years ago in Wales. He
then, in a luckless hour, "when," to use his own words, "he was at
leisure at home, like King David on the top of his house," mixed
himself up with the concerns of an uncle of his, a brother of his
father. He first became bail for him, and subsequently made
himself answerable for the amount of a bill, due by his uncle to a
lawyer. His becoming answerable for the bill nearly proved the
utter ruin of our hero. His uncle failed, and left him to pay it.
The lawyer took out a writ against him. It would have been well
for Tom if he had paid the money at once, but he went on dallying
and compromising with the lawyer, till he became terribly involved
in his web. To increase his difficulties work became slack; so at
last he packed his things upon his carts, and with his family,
consisting of his wife and three daughters, fled into
Montgomeryshire. The lawyer, however, soon got information of his
whereabouts, and threatened to arrest him. Tom, after trying in
vain to arrange matters with him, fled into South Wales, to
Carmarthenshire, where he carried wood for a timber-merchant, and
kept a turnpike gate, which belonged to the same individual. But
the "old cancer" still followed him, and his horses were seized for
the debt. His neighbours, however, assisted him, and bought the
horses in at a low price when they were put up for sale, and
restored them to him for what they had given. Even then the matter
was not satisfactorily settled, for, years afterwards, on the
decease of Tom's father, the lawyer seized upon the property, which
by law descended to Tom O'r Nant, and turned his poor old mother
out upon the cold mountain's side.

Many strange adventures occurred to Tom in South Wales, but those
which befell him whilst officiating as a turnpike-keeper were
certainly the most extraordinary. If what he says be true, as of
course it is - for who shall presume to doubt Tom O' the Dingle's
veracity? - whosoever fills the office of turnpike-keeper in Wild
Wales should be a person of very considerable nerve.

"We were in the habit of seeing," says Tom, "plenty of passengers
going through the gate without paying toll; I mean such things as
are called phantoms or illusions - sometimes there were hearses and
mourning coaches, sometimes funeral processions on foot, the whole
to be seen as distinctly as anything could be seen, especially at
night-time. I saw myself on a certain night a hearse go through
the gate whilst it was shut; I saw the horses and the harness, the
postillion, and the coachman, and the tufts of hair such as are
seen on the tops of hearses, and I saw the wheels scattering the
stones in the road, just as other wheels would have done. Then I
saw a funeral of the same character, for all the world like a real
funeral; there was the bier and the black drapery. I have seen
more than one. If a young man was to be buried there would be a
white sheet, or something that looked like one - and sometimes I
have seen a flaring candle going past.

"Once a traveller passing through the gate called out to me:
'Look! yonder is a corpse candle coming through the fields beside
the highway.'  So we paid attention to it as it moved, making
apparently towards the church from the other side. Sometimes it
would be quite near the road, another time some way into the
fields. And sure enough after the lapse of a little time a body
was brought by exactly the same route by which the candle had come,
owing to the proper road being blocked up with snow.

"Another time there happened a great wonder connected with an old
man of Carmarthen, who was in the habit of carrying fish to Brecon,
Menny, and Monmouth, and returning with the poorer kind of
Gloucester cheese: my people knew he was on the road and had made
ready for him, the weather being dreadful, wind blowing and snow
drifting. Well, in the middle of the night, my daughters heard the
voice of the old man at the gate, and their mother called to them
to open it quick, and invite the old man to come in to the fire!
One of the girls got up forthwith, but when she went out there was
nobody to be seen. On the morrow, lo and behold! the body of the
old man was brought past on a couch, he having perished in the snow
on the mountain of Tre 'r Castell. Now this is the truth of the
matter."

Many wonderful feats did Tom perform connected with loading and
carrying, which acquired for him the reputation of being the best
wood carter of the south. His dexterity at moving huge bodies was
probably never equalled. Robinson Crusoe was not half so handy.
Only see how he moved a ship into the water, which a multitude of
people were unable to do.

"After keeping the gate for two or three years," says he, "I took
the lease of a piece of ground in Llandeilo Fawr and built a house
upon it, which I got licensed as a tavern for my daughters to keep.
I myself went on carrying wood as usual. Now it happened that my
employer, the merchant at Abermarlais, had built a small ship of
about thirty or forty tons in the wood about a mile and a quarter
from the river Towy, which is capable of floating small vessels as
far as Carmarthen. He had resolved that the people should draw it
to the river by way of sport, and had caused proclamation to be
made in four parish churches, that on such a day a ship would be
launched at Abermarlais, and that food and drink would be given to
any one who would come and lend a hand at the work. Four hogsheads
of ale were broached, a great oven full of bread was baked, plenty
of cheese and butter bought, and meat cooked for the more
respectable people. The ship was provided with four wheels, or
rather four great rolling stocks, fenced about with iron, with
great big axle-trees in them, well greased against the appointed
day. I had been loading in the wood that day, and sending the team
forward, I went to see the business - and a pretty piece of
business it turned out. All the food was eaten, the drink
swallowed to the last drop, the ship drawn about three roods, and
then left in a deep ditch. By this time night was coming on, and
the multitude went away, some drunk, some hungry for want of food,
but the greater part laughing as if they would split their sides.
The merchant cried like a child, bitterly lamenting his folly, and
told me that he should have to take the ship to pieces before he
could ever get it out of the ditch.

"I told him that I could take it to the river, provided I could but
get three or four men to help me; whereupon he said that if I could
but get the vessel to the water he would give me anything I asked,
and earnestly begged me to come the next morning, if possible. I
did come with the lad and four horses. I went before the team, and
set the men to work to break a hole through a great old wall, which
stood as it were before the ship. We then laid a piece of timber
across the hole from which was a chain, to which the tackle, that
is the rope and pulleys, was hooked. We then hooked one end of the
rope to the ship, and set the horses to pull at the other. The
ship came out of the hole prosperously enough, and then we had to
hook the tackle to a tree, which was growing near, and by this
means we got the ship forward; but when we came to soft ground we
were obliged to put planks under the wheels to prevent their
sinking under the immense weight; when we came to the end of the
foremost planks we put the hinder ones before, and so on; when
there was no tree at hand to which we could hook the tackle, we
were obliged to drive a post down to hook it to. So from tree to
post it got down to the river in a few days. I was promised noble
wages by the merchant, but I never got anything from him but
promises and praises. Some people came to look at us, and gave us
money to get ale, and that was all."

The merchant subsequently turned out a very great knave, cheating
Tom on various occasions, and finally broke very much in his debt.
Tom was obliged to sell off everything, and left South Wales
without horses or waggon; his old friend the Muse, however, stood
him in good stead.

"Before I left," says he, "I went to Brecon, and printed the
'Interlude of the King, the Justice, the Bishop, and the
Husbandman,' and got an old acquaintance of mine to play it with
me, and help me to sell the books. I likewise busied myself in
getting subscribers to a book of songs called the 'Garden of
Minstrelsy.'  It was printed at Trefecca. The expense attending
the printing amounted to fifty-two pounds, but I was fortunate
enough to dispose of two thousand copies. I subsequently composed
an interlude called 'Pleasure and Care,' and printed it; and after
that I made an interlude called the 'Three Powerful Ones of the
World: Poverty, Love, and Death.'"

The poet's daughters were not successful in the tavern speculation
at Llandeilo, and followed their father into North Wales. The
second he apprenticed to a milliner, the other two lived with him
till the day of his death. He settled at Denbigh in a small house
which he was enabled to furnish by means of two or three small sums
which he recovered for work done a long time before. Shortly after
his return, his father died, and the lawyer seized the little
property "for the old curse," and turned Tom's mother out.

After his return from the South Tom went about for some time
playing interludes, and then turned his hand to many things. He
learnt the trade of stonemason, took jobs, and kept workmen. He
then went amongst certain bricklayers, and induced them to teach
him their craft; "and shortly," as he says, "became a very lion at
bricklaying. For the last four or five years," says he, towards
the conclusion of his history, "my work has been to put up iron
ovens and likewise furnaces of all kinds, also grates, stoves and
boilers, and not unfrequently I have practised as a smoke doctor."

The following feats of strength he performed after his return from
South Wales, when he was probably about sixty years of age:-

"About a year after my return from the South," says he, "I met with
an old carrier of wood, who had many a time worked along with me.
He and I were at the Hand at Ruthyn along with various others, and
in the course of discourse my friend said to me: 'Tom, thou art
much weaker than thou wast when we carted wood together.'  I
answered that in my opinion I was not a bit weaker than I was then.
Now it happened that at the moment we were talking there were some
sacks of wheat in the hall which were going to Chester by the
carrier's waggon. They might hold about three bushels each, and I
said that if I could get three of the sacks upon the table, and had
them tied together, I would carry them into the street and back
again; and so I did; many who were present tried to do the same
thing, but all failed.

"Another time when I was at Chester I lifted a barrel of porter
from the street to the hinder part of the waggon solely by strength
of back and arms."

He was once run over by a loaded waggon, but strange to say escaped
without the slightest injury.

Towards the close of his life he had strong religious convictions,
and felt a loathing for the sins which he had committed. "On their
account," says he in the concluding page of his biography, "there
is a strong necessity for me to consider my ways and to inquire
about a Saviour, since it is utterly impossible for me to save
myself without obtaining knowledge of the merits of the Mediator,
in which I hope I shall terminate my short time on earth in the
peace of God enduring unto all eternity."

He died in the year 1810, at the age of 71, shortly after the death
of his wife, who seems to have been a faithful, loving partner. By
her side he was buried in the earth of the graveyard of the White
Church, near Denbigh. There can be little doubt that the souls of
both will be accepted on the great day when, as Gronwy Owen says:-

"Like corn from the belly of the ploughed field, in a thick crop,
those buried in the earth shall arise, and the sea shall cast forth
a thousand myriads of dead above the deep billowy way."

CHAPTER LX

Mystery Plays - The Two Prime Opponents - Analysis of Interlude -
Riches and Poverty - Tom's Grand Qualities.

IN the preceding chapter I have given an abstract of the life of
Tom O' the Dingle; I will now give an analysis of his interlude;
first, however, a few words on interludes in general. It is
difficult to say with anything like certainty what is the meaning
of the word interlude. It may mean, as Warton supposes in his
history of English Poetry, a short play performed between the
courses of a banquet or festival; or it may mean the playing of
something by two or more parties, the interchange of playing or
acting which occurs when two or more people act. It was about the
middle of the fifteenth century that dramatic pieces began in
England to be called Interludes; for some time previous they had
been styled Moralities; but the earliest name by which they were
known was Mysteries. The first Mysteries composed in England were
by one Ranald, or Ranulf, a monk of Chester, who flourished about
1322, whose verses are mentioned rather irreverently in one of the
visions of Piers Plowman, who puts them in the same rank as the
ballads about Robin Hood and Maid Marion, making Sloth say:

"I cannon perfitly my Paternoster as the priest it singeth,
But I can rhymes of Robin Hood and Ranald of Chester."

Long, however, before the time of this Ranald Mysteries had been
composed and represented both in Italy and France. The Mysteries
were very rude compositions, little more, as Warton says, than
literal representations of portions of Scripture. They derived
their name of Mysteries from being generally founded on the more
mysterious parts of Holy Writ, for example the Incarnation, the
Atonement, and the Resurrection. The Moralities displayed
something more of art and invention than the Mysteries; in them
virtues, vices and qualities were personified, and something like a
plot was frequently to be discovered. They were termed Moralities
because each had its moral, which was spoken at the end of the
piece by a person called the Doctor. (7)  Much that has been said
about the moralities holds good with respect to the interludes.
Indeed, for some time dramatic pieces were called moralities and
interludes indifferently. In both there is a mixture of allegory
and reality. The latter interludes, however, display more of
every-day life than was ever observable in the moralities; and more
closely approximate to modern plays. Several writers of genius
have written interludes, amongst whom are the English Skelton and
the Scottish Lindsay, the latter of whom wrote eight pieces of that
kind, the most celebrated of which is called "The Puir Man and the
Pardoner."  Both of these writers flourished about the same period,
and made use of the interlude as a means of satirizing the vices of
the popish clergy. In the time of Charles the First the interlude
went much out of fashion in England; in fact, the play or regular
drama had superseded it. In Wales, however, it continued to the
beginning of the present century, when it yielded to the influence
of Methodism. Of all Welsh interlude composers Twm O'r Nant or Tom
of the Dingle was the most famous. Here follows the promised
analysis of his "Riches and Poverty."

The entire title of the interlude is to this effect. The two prime
opponents Riches and Poverty. A brief exposition of their contrary
effects on the world; with short and appropriate explanations of
their quality and substance according to the rule of the four
elements, Water, Fire, Earth, and Air.

First of all enter Fool, Sir Jemant Wamal, who in rather a foolish
speech tells the audience that they are about to hear a piece
composed by Tom the poet. Then appears Captain Riches, who makes a
long speech about his influence in the world and the general
contempt in which Poverty is held; he is, however, presently
checked by the Fool, who tells him some home truths, and asks him,
among other questions, whether Solomon did not say that it is not
meet to despise a poor man, who conducts himself rationally. Then
appears Howel Tightbelly, the miser, who in capital verse, with
very considerable glee and exultation, gives an account of his
manifold rascalities. Then comes his wife, Esther Steady, home
from the market, between whom and her husband there is a pithy
dialogue. Captain Riches and Captain Poverty then meet, without
rancour, however, and have a long discourse about the providence of
God, whose agents they own themselves to be. Enter then an old
worthless scoundrel called Diogyn Trwstan, or Luckless Lazybones,
who is upon the parish, and who, in a very entertaining account of
his life, confesses that he was never good for anything, but was a
liar and an idler from his infancy. Enter again the Miser along
with poor Lowry, who asks the Miser for meal and other articles,
but gets nothing but threatening language. There is then a very
edifying dialogue between Mr Contemplation and Mr Truth, who, when
they retire, are succeeded on the stage by the Miser and John the
Tavern-keeper. The publican owes the Miser money, and begs that he
will be merciful to him. The Miser, however, swears that he will
be satisfied with nothing but bond and judgment on his effects.
The publican very humbly says that he will go to a friend of his in
order to get the bond made out; almost instantly comes the Fool who
reads an inventory of the publican's effects. The Miser then sings
for very gladness, because everything in the world has hitherto
gone well with him; turning round, however, what is his horror and
astonishment to behold Mr Death, close by him. Death hauls the
Miser away, and then appears the Fool to moralise and dismiss the
audience.

The appropriate explanations mentioned in the title are given in
various songs which the various characters sing after describing
themselves, or after dialogues with each other. The announcement
that the whole exposition, etc., will be after the rule of the four
elements, is rather startling; the dialogue, however, between
Captain Riches and Captain Poverty shows that Tom was equal to his
subject, and promised nothing that he could not perform.

ENTER CAPTAIN POVERTY

O Riches, thy figure is charming and bright,
And to speak in thy praise all the world doth delight,
But I'm a poor fellow all tatter'd and torn,
Whom all the world treateth with insult and scorn.

RICHES

However mistaken the judgment may be
Of the world which is never from ignorance free,
The parts we must play, which to us are assign'd,
According as God has enlightened our mind.

Of elements four did our Master create
The earth and all in it with skill the most great;
Need I the world's four materials declare -
Are they not water, fire, earth, and air?

Too wise was the mighty Creator to frame
A world from one element, water or flame;
The one is full moist and the other full hot,
And a world made of either were useless, I wot.

And if it had all of mere earth been compos'd
And no water nor fire been within it enclos'd,
It could ne'er have produc'd for a huge multitude
Of all kinds of living things suitable food.

And if God what was wanted had not fully known,
But created the world of these three things alone,
How would any creature the heaven beneath,
Without the blest air have been able to breathe?

Thus all things created, the God of all grace,
Of four prime materials, each good in its place.
The work of His hands, when completed, He view'd,
And saw and pronounc'd that 'twas seemly and good.

POVERTY

In the marvellous things, which to me thou hast told
The wisdom of God I most clearly behold,
And did He not also make man of the same
Materials He us'd when the world He did frame?

RICHES

Creation is all, as the sages agree,
Of the elements four in man's body that be;
Water's the blood, and fire is the nature,
Which prompts generation in every creature.

The earth is the flesh which with beauty is rife
The air is the breath, without which is no life;
So man must be always accounted the same
As the substances four which exist in his frame.

And as in their creation distinction there's none
'Twixt man and the world, so the Infinite One
Unto man a clear wisdom did bounteously give
The nature of everything to perceive.

POVERTY

But one thing to me passing strange doth appear
Since the wisdom of man is so bright and so clear
How comes there such jarring and warring to be
In the world betwixt Riches and Poverty?

RICHES

That point we'll discuss without passion or fear
With the aim of instructing the listeners here;
And haply some few who instruction require
May profit derive like the bee from the briar.

Man as thou knowest, in his generation
Is a type of the world and of all the creation;
Difference there's none in the manner of birth
'Twixt the lowliest hinds and the lords of the earth.

The world which the same thing as man we account
In one place is sea, in another is mount;
A part of it rock, and a part of it dale -
God's wisdom has made every place to avail.

There exist precious treasures of every kind
Profoundly in earth's quiet bosom enshrin'd;
There's searching about them, and ever has been,
And by some they are found, and by some never seen.

With wonderful wisdom the Lord God on high
Has contriv'd the two lights which exist in the sky;
The sun's hot as fire, and its ray bright as gold,
But the moon's ever pale, and by nature is cold.

The sun, which resembles a huge world of fire,
Would burn up full quickly creation entire
Save the moon with its temp'rament cool did assuage
Of its brighter companion the fury and rage.

Now I beg you the sun and the moon to behold,
The one that's so bright and the other so cold.
And say if two things in creation there be
Better emblems of Riches and Poverty.

POVERTY

In manner most brief, yet convincing and clear,
You have told the whole truth to my wond'ring ear,
And I see that 'twas God, who in all things is fair,
Has assign'd us the forms, in this world which we bear.

In the sight of the world doth the wealthy man seem
Like the sun which doth warm everything with its beam;
Whilst the poor needy wight with his pitiable case
Resembles the moon which doth chill with its face.

RICHES

You know that full oft, in their course as they run,
An eclipse cometh over the moon or the sun;
Certain hills of the earth with their summits of pride
The face of the one from the other do hide.

The sun doth uplift his magnificent head,
And illumines the moon, which were otherwise dead,
Even as Wealth from its station on high,
Giveth work and provision to Poverty.

POVERTY

I know, and the thought mighty sorrow instils,
The sins of the world are the terrible hills
An eclipse which do cause, or a dread obscuration,
To one or another in every vocation.

RICHES

It is true that God gives unto each from his birth
Some task to perform while he wends upon earth,
But He gives correspondent wisdom and force
To the weight of the task, and the length of the course.

[Exit.

POVERTY

I hope there are some, who 'twixt me and the youth
Have heard this discourse, whose sole aim is the truth,
Will see and acknowledge, as homeward they plod,
Each thing is arrang'd by the wisdom of God.

There can be no doubt that Tom was a poet, or he could never have
treated the hackneyed subjects of Riches and Poverty in a manner so
original and at the same time so masterly as he has done in the
interlude above analyzed: I cannot, however, help thinking that he
was greater as a man than a poet, and that his fame depends more on
the cleverness, courage and energy, which it is evident by his
biography that he possessed, than on his interludes. A time will
come when his interludes will cease to be read, but his making ink
out of elderberries, his battle with the "cruel fighter," his
teaching his horses to turn the crane, and his getting the ship to
the water, will be talked of in Wales till the peak of Snowdon
shall fall down.

CHAPTER LXI

Set out for Wrexham - Craig y Forwyn - Uncertainty - The Collier -
Cadogan Hall - Methodistical Volume.

HAVING learnt from a newspaper that a Welsh book on Welsh Methodism
had been just published at Wrexham, I determined to walk to that
place and purchase it. I could easily have procured the work
through a bookseller at Llangollen, but I wished to explore the
hill-road which led to Wrexham, what the farmer under the Eglwysig
rocks had said of its wildness having excited my curiosity, which
the procuring of the book afforded me a plausible excuse for
gratifying. If one wants to take any particular walk it is always
well to have some business, however trifling, to transact at the
end of it; so having determined to go to Wrexham by the mountain
road, I set out on the Saturday next after the one on which I had
met the farmer who had told me of it.

The day was gloomy, with some tendency to rain. I passed under the
hill of Dinas Bran. About a furlong from its western base I turned
round and surveyed it - and perhaps the best view of the noble
mountain is to be obtained from the place where I turned round.
How grand though sad from there it looked, that grey morning, with
its fine ruin on its brow above which a little cloud hovered! It
put me in mind of some old king, unfortunate and melancholy but a
king still, with the look of a king, and the ancestral crown still
on his furrowed forehead. I proceeded on my way, all was wild and
solitary, and the yellow leaves were falling from the trees of the
groves. I passed by the farmyard, where I had held discourse with
the farmer on the preceding Saturday, and soon entered the glen,
the appearance of which had so much attracted my curiosity. A
torrent, rushing down from the north, was on my right. It soon
began to drizzle, and mist so filled the glen that I could only
distinguish objects a short way before me, and on either side. I
wandered on a considerable way, crossing the torrent several times
by rustic bridges. I passed two lone farm-houses and at last saw
another on my left hand. The mist had now cleared up, but it still
slightly rained - the scenery was wild to a degree - a little way
before me was a tremendous pass, near it an enormous crag of a
strange form rising to the very heavens, the upper part of it of a
dull white colour. Seeing a respectable-looking man near the house
I went up to him.

"Am I in the right way to Wrexham?" said I, addressing him in
English.

"You can get to Wrexham this way, sir," he replied.

"Can you tell me the name of that crag?" said I, pointing to the
large one.

"That crag, sir, is called Craig y Forwyn."

"The maiden's crag," said I; "why is it called so?"

"I do not know sir; some people say that it is called so because
its head is like that of a woman, others because a young girl in
love leaped from the top of it and was killed."

"And what is the name of this house?" said I.

"This house, sir, is called Plas Uchaf."

"Is it called Plas Uchaf," said I, "because it is the highest house
in the valley?"

"It is, sir; it is the highest of three homesteads; the next below
it is Plas Canol - and the one below that Plas Isaf."

"Middle place and lower place," said I. "It is very odd that I
know in England three people who derive their names from places so
situated. One is Houghton, another Middleton, and the third
Lowdon; in modern English, Hightown, Middletown, and Lowtown."

"You appear to be a person of great intelligence, sir."

"No, I am not - but I am rather fond of analysing words,
particularly the names of persons and places. Is the road to
Wrexham hard to find?"

"Not very, sir; that is, in the day-time. Do you live at Wrexham?"

"No," I replied, "I am stopping at Llangollen."

"But you won't return there to-night?"

"Oh yes, I shall!"

"By this road?"

"No, by the common road. This is not a road to travel by night."

"Nor is the common road, sir, for a respectable person on foot;
that is, on a Saturday night. You will perhaps meet drunken
colliers who may knock you down."

"I will take my chance for that," said I, and bade him farewell. I
entered the pass, passing under the strange-looking crag. After I
had walked about half a mile the pass widened considerably and a
little way further on debauched on some wild moory ground. Here
the road became very indistinct. At length I stopped in a state of
uncertainty. A well-defined path presented itself, leading to the
east, whilst northward before me there seemed scarcely any path at
all. After some hesitation I turned to the east by the well-
defined path, and by so doing went wrong, as I soon found.

I mounted the side of a brown hill covered with moss-like grass,
and here and there heather. By the time I arrived at the top of
the hill the sun shone out, and I saw Rhiwabon and Cefn Mawr before
me in the distance. "I am going wrong," said I; "I should have
kept on due north. However, I will not go back, but will steeple-
chase it across the country to Wrexham, which must be towards the
north-east."  So turning aside from the path, I dashed across the
hills in that direction; sometimes the heather was up to my knees,
and sometimes I was up to the knees in quags. At length I came to
a deep ravine which I descended; at the bottom was a quagmire,
which, however, I contrived to cross by means of certain stepping-
stones, and came to a cart path up a heathery hill which I
followed. I soon reached the top of the hill, and the path still
continuing, I followed it till I saw some small grimy-looking huts,
which I supposed were those of colliers. At the door of the first
I saw a girl. I spoke to her in Welsh, and found she had little or
none. I passed on, and seeing the door of a cabin open I looked in
- and saw no adult person, but several grimy but chubby children.
I spoke to them in English, and found they could only speak Welsh.
Presently I observed a robust woman advancing towards me; she was
barefooted and bore on her head an immense lump of coal. I spoke
to her in Welsh, and found she could only speak English. "Truly,"
said I to myself, "I am on the borders. What a mixture of races
and languages!"  The next person I met was a man in a collier's
dress; he was a stout-built fellow of the middle age, with a coal-
dusty surly countenance. I asked him in Welsh if I was in the
right direction for Wrexham, he answered in a surly manner in
English, that I was. I again spoke to him in Welsh, making some
indifferent observation on the weather, and he answered in English
yet more gruffly than before. For the third time I spoke to him in
Welsh, whereupon looking at me with a grin of savage contempt, and
showing a set of teeth like those of a mastiff, he said, "How's
this? why you haven't a word of English? A pretty fellow you, with
a long coat on your back and no English on your tongue, an't you
ashamed of yourself? Why, here am I in a short coat, yet I'd have
you to know that I can speak English as well as Welsh, aye and a
good deal better."  "All people are not equally clebber," said I,
still speaking Welsh. "Clebber," said he, "clebber! what is
clebber? why can't you say clever! Why, I never saw such a low,
illiterate fellow in my life;" and with these words he turned away
with every mark of disdain, and entered a cottage near at hand.

"Here I have had," said I to myself, as I proceeded on my way, "to
pay for the over-praise which I lately received. The farmer on the
other side of the mountain called me a person of great
intelligence, which I never pretended to be, and now this collier
calls me a low, illiterate fellow, which I really don't think I am.
There is certainly a Nemesis mixed up with the affairs of this
world; every good thing which you get, beyond what is strictly your
due, is sure to be required from you with a vengeance. A little
over-praise by a great deal of underrating - a gleam of good
fortune by a night of misery."

I now saw Wrexham Church at about the distance of three miles, and
presently entered a lane which led gently down from the hills,
which were the same heights I had seen on my right hand, some
months previously, on my way from Wrexham to Rhiwabon. The scenery
now became very pretty - hedge-rows were on either side, a
luxuriance of trees and plenty of green fields. I reached the
bottom of the lane, beyond which I saw a strange-looking house upon
a slope on the right hand. It was very large, ruinous, and
seemingly deserted. A little beyond it was a farm-house, connected
with which was a long row of farming buildings along the road-side.
Seeing a woman seated knitting at the door of a little cottage, I
asked her in English the name of the old, ruinous house?

"Cadogan Hall, sir," she replied.

"And whom does it belong to?" said I.

"I don't know exactly," replied the woman, "but Mr Morris at the
farm holds it, and stows his things in it."

"Can you tell me anything about it?" said I.

"Nothing farther," said the woman, "than that it is said to be
haunted, and to have been a barrack many years ago."

"Can you speak Welsh?" said I.

"No," said the woman, "I are Welsh but have no Welsh language."

Leaving the woman I put on my best speed and in about half an hour
reached Wrexham.

The first thing I did on my arrival was to go to the bookshop and
purchase the Welsh Methodistic book. It cost me seven shillings,
and was a thick, bulky octavo with a cut-and-come-again expression
about it, which was anything but disagreeable to me, for I hate
your flimsy publications. The evening was now beginning to set in,
and feeling somewhat hungry I hurried off to the Wynstay Arms
through streets crowded with market people. On arriving at the inn
I entered the grand room and ordered dinner. The waiters,
observing me splashed with mud from head to foot, looked at me
dubiously; seeing, however, the respectable-looking volume which I
bore in my hand - none of your railroad stuff - they became more
assured, and I presently heard one say to the other, "It's all
right - that's Mr So-and-So, the great Baptist preacher. He has
been preaching amongst the hills - don't you see his Bible?"

Seating myself at a table I inspected the volume. And here perhaps
the reader expects that I shall regale him with an analysis of the
Methodistical volume at least as long as that of the life of Tom O'
the Dingle. In that case, however, he will be disappointed; all
that I shall at present say of it is, that it contained a history
of Methodism in Wales, with the lives of the principal Welsh
Methodists. That it was fraught with curious and original matter,
was written in a straightforward, Methodical style, and that I have
no doubt it will some day or other be extensively known and highly
prized.

After dinner I called for half a pint of wine. Whilst I was
trifling over it, a commercial traveller entered into conversation
with me. After some time he asked me if I was going further that
night.

"To Llangollen," said I.

"By the ten o'clock train?" said he.

"No," I replied, "I'm going on foot."

"On foot!" said he; "I would not go on foot there this night for
fifty pounds."

"Why not?" said I.

"For fear of being knocked down by the colliers, who will be all
out and drunk."

"If not more than two attack me," said I, "I shan't much mind.
With this book I am sure I can knock down one, and I think I can
find play for the other with my fists."

The commercial traveller looked at me. "A strange kind of Baptist
minister," I thought I heard him say.

CHAPTER LXII

Rhiwabon Road - The Public-house Keeper - No Welsh - The Wrong Road
- The Good Wife.

I PAID my reckoning and started. The night was now rapidly closing
in. I passed the toll-gate and hurried along the Rhiwabon road,
overtaking companies of Welsh going home, amongst whom were many
individuals, whom, from their thick and confused speech, as well as
from their staggering gait, I judged to be intoxicated. As I
passed a red public-house on my right hand, at the door of which
stood several carts, a scream of Welsh issued from it.

"Let any Saxon," said I, "who is fond of fighting and wishes for a
bloody nose go in there."

Coming to the small village about a mile from Rhiwabon, I felt
thirsty, and seeing a public-house, in which all seemed to be
quiet, I went in. A thick-set man with a pipe in his mouth sat in
the tap-room, and also a woman.

"Where is the landlord?" said I.

"I am the landlord," said the man, huskily. "What do you want?"

"A pint of ale," said I.

The man got up and with his pipe in his mouth went staggering out
of the room. In about a minute he returned holding a mug in his
hand, which he put down on a table before me, spilling no slight
quantity of the liquor as he did so. I put down three-pence on the
table. He took the money up slowly piece by piece, looked at it
and appeared to consider, then taking the pipe out of his mouth he
dashed it to seven pieces against the table, then staggered out of
the room into the passage, and from thence apparently out of the
house. I tasted the ale which was very good, then turning to the
woman who seemed about three-and-twenty and was rather good-
looking, I spoke to her in Welsh.

"I have no Welsh, sir," said she.

"How is that?" said I; "this village is I think in the Welshery."

"It is," said she, "but I am from Shropshire."

"Are you the mistress of the house?" said I.

"No," said she, "I am married to a collier;" then getting up she
said, "I must go and see after my husband."

"Won't you take a glass of ale first?" said I, offering to fill a
glass which stood on the table.

"No," said she; "I am the worst in the world for a glass of ale;"
and without saying anything more she departed.

"I wonder whether your husband is anything like you with respect to
a glass of ale," said I to myself; then finishing my ale I got up
and left the house, which when I departed appeared to be entirely
deserted.

It was now quite night, and it would have been pitchy-dark but for
the glare of forges. There was an immense glare to the south-west,
which I conceived proceeded from those of Cefn Mawr. It lighted up
the south-western sky; then there were two other glares nearer to
me, seemingly divided by a lump of something, perhaps a grove of
trees.

Walking very fast I soon overtook a man. I knew him at once by his
staggering gait.

"Ah, landlord!" said I; "whither bound?"

"To Rhiwabon," said he, huskily, "for a pint."

"Is the ale so good at Rhiwabon," said I, "that you leave home for
it?"

"No," said he, rather shortly, "there's not a glass of good ale in
Rhiwabon."

"Then why do you go thither?" said I.

"Because a pint of bad liquor abroad is better than a quart of good
at home," said the landlord, reeling against the hedge.

"There are many in a higher station than you who act upon that
principle," thought I to myself as I passed on.

I soon reached Rhiwabon. There was a prodigious noise in the
public-houses as I passed through it. "Colliers carousing," said
I. "Well, I shall not go amongst them to preach temperance, though
perhaps in strict duty I ought."  At the end of the town, instead
of taking the road on the left side of the church, I took that on
the right. It was not till I had proceeded nearly a mile that I
began to be apprehensive that I had mistaken the way. Hearing some
people coming towards me on the road I waited till they came up;
they proved to be a man and a woman. On my inquiring whether I was
right for Llangollen, the former told me that I was not, and in
order to get there it was necessary that I should return to
Rhiwabon. I instantly turned round. About half-way back I met a
man who asked me in English where I was hurrying to. I said to
Rhiwabon, in order to get to Llangollen. "Well, then," said he,
"you need not return to Rhiwabon - yonder is a short cut across the
fields," and he pointed to a gate. I thanked him, and said I would
go by it; before leaving him I asked to what place the road led
which I had been following.

"To Pentre Castren," he replied. I struck across the fields and
should probably have tumbled half-a-dozen times over pales and the
like, but for the light of the Cefn furnaces before me which cast
their red glow upon my path. I debauched upon the Llangollen road
near to the tramway leading to the collieries. Two enormous sheets
of flame shot up high into the air from ovens, illumining two
spectral chimneys as high as steeples, also smoky buildings, and
grimy figures moving about. There was a clanging of engines, a
noise of shovels and a falling of coals truly horrible. The glare
was so great that I could distinctly see the minutest lines upon my
hand. Advancing along the tramway I obtained a nearer view of the
hellish buildings, the chimneys, and the demoniac figures. It was
just such a scene as one of those described by Ellis Wynn in his
Vision of Hell. Feeling my eyes scorching I turned away, and
proceeded towards Llangollen, sometimes on the muddy road,
sometimes on the dangerous causeway. For three miles at least I
met nobody. Near Llangollen, as I was walking on the causeway,
three men came swiftly towards me. I kept the hedge, which was my
right; the two first brushed roughly past me, the third came full
upon me and was tumbled into the road. There was a laugh from the
two first and a loud curse from the last as he sprawled in the
mire. I merely said "Nos Da'ki," and passed on, and in about a
quarter of an hour reached home, where I found my wife awaiting me
alone, Henrietta having gone to bed being slightly indisposed. My
wife received me with a cheerful smile. I looked at her and the
good wife of the Triad came to my mind.

"She is modest, void of deceit, and obedient.

"Pure of conscience, gracious of tongue, and true to her husband.

"Her heart not proud, her manners affable, and her bosom full of
compassion for the poor.

"Labouring to be tidy, skilful of hand, and fond of praying to God.

"Her conversation amiable, her dress decent, and her house orderly.

"Quick of hand, quick of eye, and quick of understanding.

"Her person shapely, her manners agreeable, and her heart innocent.

"Her face benignant, her head intelligent, and provident.

"Neighbourly, gentle, and of a liberal way of thinking.

"Able in directing, providing what is wanting, and a good mother to
her children.

"Loving her husband, loving peace, and loving God.

"Happy the man," adds the Triad, "who possesses such a wife."  Very
true, O Triad, always provided he is in some degree worthy of her;
but many a man leaves an innocent wife at home for an impure
Jezebel abroad, even as many a one prefers a pint of hog's wash
abroad to a tankard of generous liquor at home.

CHAPTER LXIII

Preparations for Departure - Cat provided for - A Pleasant Party -
Last Night at Llangollen.

I WAS awakened early on the Sunday morning by the howling of wind.
There was a considerable storm throughout the day, but
unaccompanied by rain. I went to church both in the morning and
the evening. The next day there was a great deal of rain. It was
now the latter end of October; winter was coming on, and my wife
and daughter were anxious to return home. After some consultation
it was agreed that they should depart for London, and that I should
join them there after making a pedestrian tour in South Wales.

I should have been loth to quit Wales without visiting the
Deheubarth or Southern Region, a land differing widely, as I had
heard, both in language and customs from Gwynedd or the Northern, a
land which had given birth to the illustrious Ab Gwilym, and where
the great Ryce family had flourished, which very much distinguished
itself in the Wars of the Roses - a member of which Ryce ap Thomas
placed Henry the Seventh on the throne of Britain - a family of
royal extraction, and which after the death of Roderic the Great
for a long time enjoyed the sovereignty of the south.

We set about making the necessary preparations for our respective
journeys. Those for mine were soon made. I bought a small leather
satchel with a lock and key, in which I placed a white linen shirt,
a pair of worsted stockings, a razor and a prayer-book. Along with
it I bought a leather strap with which to sling it over my
shoulder: I got my boots new soled, my umbrella, which was rather
dilapidated, mended; put twenty sovereigns into my purse, and then
said I am all right for the Deheubarth.

As my wife and daughter required much more time in making
preparations for their journey than I for mine, and as I should
only be in their way whilst they were employed, it was determined
that I should depart on my expedition on Thursday, and that they
should remain at Llangollen till the Saturday.

We were at first in some perplexity with respect to the disposal of
the ecclesiastical cat; it would of course not do to leave it in
the garden to the tender mercies of the Calvinistic Methodists of
the neighbourhood, more especially those of the flannel
manufactory, and my wife and daughter could hardly carry it with
them. At length we thought of applying to a young woman of sound
church principles, who was lately married and lived over the water
on the way to the railroad station, with whom we were slightly
acquainted, to take charge of the animal, and she on the first
intimation of our wish, willingly acceded to it. So with her poor
puss was left along with a trifle for its milk-money, and with her,
as we subsequently learned, it continued in peace and comfort till
one morning it sprang suddenly from the hearth into the air, gave a
mew, and died. So much for the ecclesiastical cat!

The morning of Tuesday was rather fine, and Mr Ebenezer E-, who had
heard of our intended departure, came to invite us to spend the
evening at the Vicarage. His father had left Llangollen the day
before for Chester, where he expected to be detained some days. I
told him we should be most happy to come. He then asked me to take
a walk. I agreed with pleasure, and we set out, intending to go to
Llansilio at the western end of the valley and look at the church.
The church was an ancient building. It had no spire, but had the
little erection on its roof, so usual to Welsh churches, for
holding a bell.

In the churchyard is a tomb in which an old squire of the name of
Jones was buried about the middle of the last century. There is a
tradition about this squire and tomb to the following effect.
After the squire's death there was a lawsuit about his property, in
consequence of no will having been found. It was said that his
will had been buried with him in the tomb, which after some time
was opened, but with what success the tradition sayeth not.

In the evening we went to the Vicarage. Besides the family and
ourselves there was Mr R- and one or two more. We had a very
pleasant party; and as most of those present wished to hear
something connected with Spain, I talked much about that country,
sang songs of Germania, and related in an abridged form Lope de
Vega's ghost story, which is decidedly the best ghost story in the
world.

In the afternoon of Wednesday I went and took leave of certain
friends in the town; amongst others of old Mr Jones. On my telling
him that I was about to leave Llangollen, he expressed considerable
regret, but said that it was natural for me to wish to return to my
native country. I told him that before returning to England I
intended to make a pedestrian tour in South Wales. He said that he
should die without seeing the south; that he had had several
opportunities of visiting it when he was young, which he had
neglected, and that he was now too old to wander far from home. He
then asked me which road I intended to take. I told him that I
intended to strike across the Berwyn to Llan Rhyadr, then visit
Sycharth, once the seat of Owain Glendower, lying to the east of
Llan Rhyadr, then return to that place, and after seeing the
celebrated cataract across the mountains to Bala - whence I should
proceed due south. I then asked him whether he had ever seen
Sycharth and the Rhyadr; he told me that he had never visited
Sycharth, but had seen the Rhyadr more than once. He then smiled
and said that there was a ludicrous anecdote connected with the
Rhyadr, which he would relate to me. "A traveller once went to see
the Rhyadr, and whilst gazing at it a calf which had fallen into
the stream above, whilst grazing upon the rocks, came tumbling down
the cataract. 'Wonderful!' said the traveller, and going away
reported that it was not only a fall of water, but of calves, and
was very much disappointed, on visiting the waterfall on another
occasion, to see no calf come tumbling down."  I took leave of the
kind old gentleman with regret, never expecting to see him again,
as he was in his eighty-fourth year - he was a truly excellent
character, and might be ranked amongst the venerable ornaments of
his native place.

About half-past eight o'clock at night John Jones came to bid me
farewell. I bade him sit down, and sent for a pint of ale to
regale him with. Notwithstanding the ale, he was very melancholy
at the thought that I was about to leave Llangollen, probably never
to return. To enliven him I gave him an account of my late
expedition to Wrexham, which made him smile more than once. When I
had concluded he asked me whether I knew the meaning of the word
Wrexham: I told him I believed I did, and gave him the derivation
which the reader will find in an early chapter of this work. He
told me that with all due submission, he thought he could give me a
better, which he had heard from a very clever man, gwr deallus
iawn, who lived about two miles from Llangollen on the Corwen road.
In the old time a man of the name of Sam kept a gwestfa, or inn, at
the place where Wrexham flow stands; when he died he left it to his
wife, who kept it after him, on which account the house was first
called Ty wraig Sam, the house of Sam's wife, and then for
shortness Wraig Sam, and a town arising about it by degrees, the
town too was called Wraig Sam, which the Saxons corrupted into
Wrexham.

I was much diverted with this Welsh derivation of Wrexham, which I
did not attempt to controvert. After we had had some further
discourse John Jones got up, shook me by the hand, gave a sigh,
wished me a "taith hyfryd," and departed. Thus terminated my last
day at Llangollen.

CHAPTER LXIV

Departure for South Wales - Tregeiriog - Pleasing Scene - Trying to
Read - Garmon and Lupus - The Cracked Voice - Effect of a
Compliment - Llan Rhyadr.

THE morning of the 21st of October was fine and cold; there was a
rime frost on the ground. At about eleven o'clock I started on my
journey for South Wales, intending that my first stage should be
Llan Rhyadr. My wife and daughter accompanied me as far as Plas
Newydd. As we passed through the town I shook hands with honest A-
, whom I saw standing at the door of a shop, with a kind of Spanish
hat on his head, and also with my venerable friend old Mr Jones,
whom I encountered close beside his own domicile. At the Plas
Newydd I took an affectionate farewell of my two loved ones, and
proceeded to ascend the Berwyn. Near the top I turned round to
take a final look at the spot where I had lately passed many a
happy hour. There lay Llangollen far below me, with its chimneys
placidly smoking, its pretty church rising in its centre, its blue
river dividing it into two nearly equal parts, and the mighty hill
of Brennus overhanging it from the north.

I sighed, and repeating Einion Du's verse

"Tangnefedd i Llangollen!"

turned away.

I went over the top of the hill and then began to descend its
southern side, obtaining a distant view of the plains of Shropshire
on the east. I soon reached the bottom of the hill, passed through
Llansanfraid, and threading the vale of the Ceiriog at length found
myself at Pont y Meibion in front of the house of Huw Morris, or
rather of that which is built on the site of the dwelling of the
poet. I stopped and remained before the house thinking of the
mighty Huw, till the door opened, and out came the dark-featured
man, the poet's descendant, whom I saw when visiting the place in
company with honest John Jones - he had now a spade in his hand and
was doubtless going to his labour. As I knew him to be of a rather
sullen unsocial disposition, I said nothing to him, but proceeded
on my way. As I advanced the valley widened, the hills on the west
receding to some distance from the river. Came to Tregeiriog a
small village, which takes its name from the brook; Tregeiriog
signifying the hamlet or village on the Ceiriog. Seeing a bridge
which crossed the rivulet at a slight distance from the road, a
little beyond the village, I turned aside to look at it. The
proper course of the Ceiriog is from south to north; where it is
crossed by the bridge, however, it runs from west to east,
returning to its usual course, a little way below the bridge. The
bridge was small and presented nothing remarkable in itself: I
obtained, however, as I looked over its parapet towards the west a
view of a scene, not of wild grandeur, but of something which I
like better, which richly compensated me for the slight trouble I
had taken in stepping aside to visit the little bridge. About a
hundred yards distant was a small water-mill, built over the
rivulet, the wheel going slowly, slowly round; large quantities of
pigs, the generality of them brindled, were either browsing on the
banks or lying close to the sides half immersed in the water; one
immense white hog, the monarch seemingly of the herd, was standing
in the middle of the current. Such was the scene which I saw from
the bridge, a scene of quiet rural life well suited to the brushes
of two or three of the old Dutch painters, or to those of men
scarcely inferior to them in their own style, Gainsborough,
Moreland, and Crome. My mind for the last half-hour had been in a
highly excited state; I had been repeating verses of old Huw
Morris, brought to my recollection by the sight of his dwelling-
place; they were ranting roaring verses, against the Roundheads. I
admired the vigour but disliked the principles which they
displayed; and admiration on the one hand and disapproval on the
other, bred a commotion in my mind like that raised on the sea when
tide runs one way and wind blows another. The quiet scene from the
bridge, however, produced a sedative effect on my mind, and when I
resumed my journey I had forgotten Huw, his verses, and all about
Roundheads and Cavaliers.

I reached Llanarmon, another small village, situated in a valley
through which the Ceiriog or a river very similar to it flows. It
is half-way between Llangollen and Llan Rhyadr, being ten miles
from each. I went to a small inn or public-house, sat down and
called for ale. A waggoner was seated at a large table with a
newspaper before him on which he was intently staring.

"What news?" said I in English.

"I wish I could tell you," said he in very broken English, "but I
cannot read."

"Then why are you looking at the paper?" said I.

"Because," said he, "by looking at the letters I hope in time to
make them out."

"You may look at them," said I, "for fifty years without being able
to make out one. You should go to an evening school."

"I am too old," said he, "to do so now; if I did the children would
laugh at me."

"Never mind their laughing at you," said I, "provided you learn to
read; let them laugh who win!"

"You give good advice, mester," said he, "I think I shall follow
it."

"Let me look at the paper," said I.

He handed it to me. It was a Welsh paper, and full of dismal
accounts from the seat of war.

"What news, mester?" said the waggoner.

"Nothing but bad," said I; "the Russians are beating us and the
French too."

"If the Rusiaid beat us," said the waggoner, "it is because the
Francod are with us. We should have gone alone."

"Perhaps you are right," said I; "at any rate we could not have
fared worse than we are faring now."

I presently paid for what I had had, inquired the way to Llan
Rhyadr, and departed.

The village of Llanarmon takes its name from its church, which is
dedicated to Garmon, an Armorican bishop, who with another called
Lupus came over into Britain in order to preach against the heresy
of Pelagius. He and his colleague resided for some time in
Flintshire, and whilst there enabled in a remarkable manner the
Britons to achieve a victory over those mysterious people the
Picts, who were ravaging the country far and wide. Hearing that
the enemy were advancing towards Mold, the two bishops gathered
together a number of the Britons, and placed them in ambush in a
dark valley through which it was necessary for the Picts to pass in
order to reach Mold, strictly enjoining them to remain quiet till
all their enemies should have entered the valley and then do
whatever they should see them, the two bishops, do. The Picts
arrived, and when they were about half-way through the valley the
two bishops stepped forward from a thicket and began crying aloud,
"Alleluia!"  The Britons followed their example, and the wooded
valley resounded with cries of "Alleluia! Alleluia!"  The shouts
and the unexpected appearance of thousands of men caused such
terror to the Picts that they took to flight in the greatest
confusion; hundreds were trampled to death by their companions, and
not a few were drowned in the river Alan (8) which runs through the
valley.

There are several churches dedicated to Garmon in Wales, but
whether there are any dedicated to Lupus I am unable to say. After
leaving Llanarmon I found myself amongst lumpy hills through which
the road led in the direction of the south. Arriving where several
roads met I followed one and became bewildered amidst hills and
ravines. At last I saw a small house close by a nant or dingle,
and turned towards it for the purpose of inquiring my way. On my
knocking at the door a woman made her appearance, of whom I asked
in Welsh whether I was in the road to Llan Rhyadr. She said that I
was out of it, but that if I went towards the south I should see a
path on my left which would bring me to it. I asked her how far it
was to Llan Rhyadr.

"Four long miles," she replied.

"And what is the name of the place where we are now?" said I.

"Cae Hir" (the long inclosure), said she.

"Are you alone in the house?" said I.

"Quite alone," said she; "but my husband and people will soon be
home from the field, for it is getting dusk."

"Have you any Saxon?" said I.

"Not a word," said she, "have I of the iaith dieithr, nor has my
husband, nor any one of my people."

I bade her farewell, and soon reached the road, which led south and
north. As I was bound for the south I strode forward briskly in
that direction. The road was between romantic hills; heard Welsh
songs proceeding from the hill fields on my right, and the murmur
of a brook rushing down a deep nant on my left. I went on till I
came to a collection of houses which an old woman, with a cracked
voice and a small tin milk-pail, whom I assisted in getting over a
stile into the road, told me was called Pen Strit - probably the
head of the street. She spoke English, and on my asking her how
she had learnt the English tongue, she told me that she had learnt
it of her mother who was an English woman. She said that I was two
miles from Llan Rhyadr, and that I must go straight forward. I did
so till I reached a place where the road branched into two, one
bearing somewhat to the left, and the other to the right. After
standing a minute in perplexity I took the right-hand road, but
soon guessed that I had taken the wrong one, as the road dwindled
into a mere footpath. Hearing some one walking on the other side
of the hedge I inquired in Welsh whether I was going right for Llan
Rhyadr, and was answered by a voice in English, apparently that of
a woman, that I was not, and that I must go back. I did so, and
presently a woman came through a gate to me.

"Are you the person," said I, "who just now answered me in English
after I had spoken in Welsh?"

"In truth I am," said she, with a half laugh.

"And how came you to answer me in English after I had spoken to you
in Welsh?"

"Because," said she, "it was easy enough to know by your voice that
you were an Englishman."

"You speak English remarkably well," said I.

"And so do you Welsh," said the woman; "I had no idea that it was
possible for any Englishman to speak Welsh half so well."

"I wonder," thought I to myself, "what you would have answered if I
had said that you speak English execrably."  By her own account she
could read both Welsh and English. She walked by my side to the
turn, and then up the left-hand road, which she said was the way to
Llan Rhyadr. Coming to a cottage she bade me good-night and went
in. The road was horribly miry: presently, as I was staggering
through a slough, just after I had passed a little cottage, I heard
a cracked voice crying, "I suppose you lost your way?"  I
recognised it as that of the old woman whom I had helped over the
stile. She was now standing behind a little gate which opened into
a garden before the cottage. The figure of a man was standing near
her. I told her that she was quite right in her supposition.

"Ah," said she, "you should have gone straight forward."

"If I had gone straight forward," said I, "I must have gone over a
hedge, at the corner of a field which separated two roads; instead
of bidding me go straight forward you should have told me to follow
the left-hand road."

"Well," said she, "be sure you keep straight forward now."

I asked her who the man was standing near her.

"It is my husband," said she.

"Has he much English?" said I.

"None at all," said she, "for his mother was not English, like
mine."  I bade her good-night and went forward. Presently I came
to a meeting of roads, and to go straight forward it was necessary
to pass through a quagmire; remembering, however, the words of my
friend the beldame I went straight forward, though in so doing I
was sloughed up to the knees. In a little time I came to rapid
descent, and at the bottom of it to a bridge. It was now very
dark; only the corner of the moon was casting a faint light. After
crossing the bridge I had one or two ascents and descents. At last
I saw lights before me which proved to be those of Llan Rhyadr. I
soon found myself in a dirty little street, and, inquiring for the
inn, was kindly shown by a man to one which he said was the best,
and which was called the Wynstay Arms.

CHAPTER LXV

Inn at Llan Rhyadr - A low Englishman - Enquiries - The Cook - A
Precious Couple.

THE inn seemed very large, but did not look very cheerful. No
other guest than myself seemed to be in it, except in the kitchen,
where I heard a fellow talking English and occasionally yelling an
English song: the master and the mistress of the house were civil,
and lighted me a fire in what was called the Commercial Room, and
putting plenty of coals in the grate soon made the apartment warm
and comfortable. I ordered dinner or rather supper, which in about
half-an-hour was brought in by the woman. The supper whether good
or bad I despatched with the appetite of one who had walked twenty
miles over hill and dale.

Occasionally I heard a dreadful noise in the kitchen, and the woman
told me that the fellow there was making himself exceedingly
disagreeable, chiefly she believed because she had refused to let
him sleep in the house. She said that he was a low fellow that
went about the country with fish, and that he was the more ready to
insult her as the master of the house was now gone out. I asked if
he was an Englishman, "Yes," said she, "a low Englishman."

"Then he must be low indeed," said I. "A low Englishman is the
lowest of the low."  After a little time I heard no more noise, and
was told that the fellow was gone away. I had a little whisky and
water, and then went to bed, sleeping in a tolerable chamber but
rather cold. There was much rain during the night and also wind;
windows rattled, and I occasionally heard the noise of falling
tiles.

I arose about eight. Notwithstanding the night had been so
tempestuous the morning was sunshiny and beautiful. Having ordered
breakfast I walked out in order to look at the town. Llan Rhyadr
is a small place, having nothing remarkable in it save an ancient
church and a strange little antique market-house, standing on
pillars. It is situated at the western end of an extensive valley
and at the entrance of a glen. A brook or rivulet runs through it,
which comes down the glen from the celebrated cataract, which is
about four miles distant to the west. Two lofty mountains form the
entrance of the glen, and tower above the town, one on the south
and the other on the north. Their names, if they have any, I did
not learn.

After strolling about the little place for about a quarter of an
hour, staring at the things and the people, and being stared at by
the latter, I returned to my inn, a structure built in the modern
Gothic style, and which stands nearly opposite to the churchyard.
Whilst breakfasting I asked the landlady, who was bustling about
the room, whether she had ever heard of Owen Glendower.

"In truth, sir, I have. He was a great gentleman who lived a long
time ago, and, and - "

"Gave the English a great deal of trouble," said I.

"Just so, sir; at least I daresay it is so, as you say it."

"And do you know where he lived?"

"I do not, sir; I suppose a great way off, somewhere in the south."

"Do you mean South Wales?"

"In truth, sir, I do."

"There you are mistaken," said I; "and also in supposing he lived a
great way off. He lived in North Wales, and not far from this
place."

"In truth, sir, you know more about him than I."

"Did you ever hear of a place called Sycharth?

"Sycharth! Sycharth! I never did, sir."

"It is the place where Glendower lived, and it is not far off. I
want to go there, but do not know the way."

"Sycharth! Sycharth!" said the landlady musingly: "I wonder if it
is the place we call Sychnant."

"Is there such a place?"

"Yes, sure; about six miles from here, near Langedwin."

"What kind of place is it?"

"In truth, sir, I do not know, for I was never there. My cook,
however, in the kitchen, knows all about it, for she comes from
there."

"Can I see her?"

"Yes, sure; I will go at once and fetch her."

She then left the room and presently returned with the cook, a
short, thick girl with blue staring eyes.

"Here she is, sir," said the landlady, "but she has no English."

"All the better," said I. "So you come from a place called
Sychnant?" said I to the cook in Welsh.

"In truth, sir, I do;" said the cook.

"Did you ever hear of a gwr boneddig called Owen Glendower?"

"Often, sir, often; he lived in our place."

"He lived in a place called Sycharth?" said I.

"Well, sir; and we of the place call it Sycharth as often as
Sychnant; nay, oftener."

"Is his house standing?"

"It is not; but the hill on which it stood is still standing."

"Is it a high hill?"

"It is not; it is a small, light hill."

"A light hill!" said I to myself. "Old Iolo Goch, Owen Glendower's
bard, said the chieftain dwelt in a house on a light hill.

"'There dwells the chief we all extol
In timber house on lightsome knoll.'

"Is there a little river near it," said I to the cook, "a ffrwd?"

"There is; it runs just under the hill."

"Is there a mill upon the ffrwd?"

"There is not; that is, now - but there was in the old time; a
factory of woollen stands now where the mill once stood."

"'A mill a rushing brook upon
And pigeon tower fram'd of stone.'

"So says Iolo Goch," said I to myself, "in his description of
Sycharth; I am on the right road."

I asked the cook to whom the property of Sycharth belonged and was
told of course to Sir Watkin, who appears to be the Marquis of
Denbighshire. After a few more questions I thanked her and told
her she might go. I then finished my breakfast, paid my bill, and
after telling the landlady that I should return at night, started
for Llangedwin and Sycharth.

A broad and excellent road led along the valley in the direction in
which I was proceeding.

The valley was beautiful and dotted with various farm-houses, and
the land appeared to be in as high a state of cultivation as the
soil of my own Norfolk, that county so deservedly celebrated for
its agriculture. The eastern side is bounded by lofty hills, and
towards the north the vale is crossed by three rugged elevations,
the middlemost of which, called, as an old man told me, Bryn Dinas,
terminates to the west in an exceedingly high and picturesque crag.

After an hour's walking I overtook two people, a man and a woman
laden with baskets which hung around them on every side. The man
was a young fellow of about eight-and-twenty, with a round face,
fair flaxen hair, and rings in his ears; the female was a blooming
buxom lass of about eighteen. After giving them the sele of the
day I asked them if they were English.

"Aye, aye, master," said the man; "we are English."

"Where do you come from?" said I.

"From Wrexham," said the man.

"I thought Wrexham was in Wales," said

"If it be," said the man, "the people are not Welsh; a man is not a
horse because he happens to be born in a stable."

"Is that young woman your wife?" said I.

"Yes;" said he, "after a fashion" - and then he leered at the lass,
and she leered at him.

"Do you attend any place of worship?" said I.

"A great many, master!"

"What place do you chiefly attend?" said I.

"The Chequers, master!"

"Do they preach the best sermons there?" said I.

"No, master! but they sell the best ale there."

"Do you worship ale?" said I.

"Yes, master, I worships ale."

"Anything else?" said I.

"Yes, master! I and my mort worships something besides good ale;
don't we, Sue?" and then he leered at the mort, who leered at him,
and both made odd motions backwards and forwards, causing the
baskets which hung round them to creak and rustle, and uttering
loud shouts of laughter, which roused the echoes of the
neighbouring hills.

"Genuine descendants, no doubt," said I to myself as I walked
briskly on, "of certain of the old heathen Saxons who followed Rag
into Wales and settled down about the house which he built.
Really, if these two are a fair specimen of the Wrexham population,
my friend the Scotch policeman was not much out when he said that
the people of Wrexham were the worst people in Wales."

CHAPTER LXVI

Sycharth - The Kindly Welcome - Happy Couple - Sycharth - Recalling
the Dead - Ode to Sycharth.

I WAS now at the northern extremity of the valley near a great
house past which the road led in the direction of the north-east.
Seeing a man employed in breaking stones I inquired the way to
Sychnant.

"You must turn to the left," said he, "before you come to yon great
house, follow the path which you will find behind it, and you will
soon be in Sychnant."

"And to whom does the great house belong?"

"To whom? why, to Sir Watkin."

"Does he reside there?"

"Not often. He has plenty of other houses, but he sometimes comes
there to hunt."

"What is the place's name?"

"Llan Gedwin."

I turned to the left, as the labourer had directed me. The path
led upward behind the great house round a hill thickly planted with
trees. Following it I at length found myself on a broad road on
the top extending east and west, and having on the north and south
beautiful wooded hills. I followed the road which presently began
to descend. On reaching level ground I overtook a man in a
waggoner's frock, of whom I inquired the way to Sycharth. He
pointed westward down the vale to what appeared to be a collection
of houses, near a singular-looking monticle, and said, "That is
Sycharth."

We walked together till we came to a road which branched off on the
right to a little bridge.

"That is your way," said he, and pointing to a large building
beyond the bridge, towering up above a number of cottages, he said,
"that is the factory of Sycharth;" he then left me, following the
high road, whilst I proceeded towards the bridge, which I crossed,
and coming to the cottages entered one on the right hand of a
remarkably neat appearance.

In a comfortable kitchen by a hearth on which blazed a cheerful
billet sat a man and woman. Both arose when I entered: the man
was tall, about fifty years of age, and athletically built; he was
dressed in a white coat, corduroy breeches, shoes, and grey worsted
stockings. The woman seemed many years older than the man; she was
tall also, and strongly built, and dressed in the ancient female
costume, namely, a kind of round, half Spanish hat, long blue
woollen kirtle or gown, a crimson petticoat, and white apron, and
broad, stout shoes with buckles.

"Welcome, stranger," said the man, after looking me a moment or two
full in the face.

"Croesaw, dyn dieithr - welcome, foreign man," said the woman,
surveying me with a look of great curiosity.

"Won't you sit down?" said the man, handing me a chair.

I sat down, and the man and woman resumed their seats.

"I suppose you come on business connected with the factory?" said
the man.

"No," said I, "my business is connected with Owen Glendower."

"With Owen Glendower?" said the man, staring.

"Yes," said I, "I came to see his place."

"You will not see much of his house now," said the man - "it is
down; only a few bricks remain."

"But I shall see the place where his house stood," said I, "which
is all I expected to see."

"Yes, you can see that."

"What does the dyn dieithr say?" said the woman in Welsh with an
inquiring look.

"That he is come to see the place of Owen Glendower."

"Ah!" said the woman with a smile.

"Is that good lady your wife?" said I.

"She is."

"She looks much older than yourself."

"And no wonder. She is twenty-one years older."

"How old are you?"

"Fifty-three."

"Dear me," said I, "what a difference in your ages. How came you
to marry?"

"She was a widow and I had lost my wife. We were lone in the
world, so we thought we would marry."

"Do you live happily together?"

"Very."

"Then you did quite right to marry. What is your name?"

"David Robert."

"And that of your wife?"

"Gwen Robert."

"Does she speak English?"

"She speaks some, but not much."

"Is the place where Owen lived far from here?"

"It is not. It is the round hill a little way above the factory."

"Is the path to it easy to find?"

"I will go with you," said the man. "I work at the factory, but I
need not go there for an hour at least."

He put on his hat and bidding me follow him went out. He led me
over a gush of water which passing under the factory turns the
wheel; thence over a field or two towards a house at the foot of
the mountain where he said the steward of Sir Watkin lived, of whom
it would be as well to apply for permission to ascend the hill, as
it was Sir Watkin's ground. The steward was not at home; his wife
was, however, and she, when we told her we wished to go to the top
of Owain Glendower's Hill, gave us permission with a smile. We
thanked her and proceeded to mount the hill or monticle once the
residence of the great Welsh chieftain, whom his own deeds and the
pen of Shakespear have rendered immortal.

Owen Glendower's hill or mount at Sycharth, unlike the one bearing
his name on the banks of the Dee, is not an artificial hill, but
the work of nature, save and except that to a certain extent it has
been modified by the hand of man. It is somewhat conical and
consists of two steps or gradations, where two fosses scooped out
of the hill go round it, one above the other, the lower one
embracing considerably the most space. Both these fosses are about
six feet deep, and at one time doubtless were bricked, as stout
large, red bricks are yet to be seen, here and there, in their
sides. The top of the mount is just twenty-five feet across. When
I visited it it was covered with grass, but had once been subjected
to the plough as various furrows indicated. The monticle stands
not far from the western extremity of the valley, nearly midway
between two hills which confront each other north and south, the
one to the south being the hill which I had descended, and the
other a beautiful wooded height which is called in the parlance of
the country Llwyn Sycharth or the grove of Sycharth, from which
comes the little gush of water which I had crossed, and which now
turns the wheel of the factory and once turned that of Owen
Glendower's mill, and filled his two moats, part of the water by
some mechanical means having been forced up the eminence. On the
top of this hill or monticle in a timber house dwelt the great
Welshman Owen Glendower, with his wife, a comely, kindly woman, and
his progeny, consisting of stout boys and blooming girls, and
there, though wonderfully cramped for want of room, he feasted
bards who requited his hospitality with alliterative odes very
difficult to compose, and which at the present day only a few book-
worms understand. There he dwelt for many years, the virtual if
not the nominal king of North Wales, occasionally no doubt looking
down with self-complaisance from the top of his fastness on the
parks and fish-ponds of which he had several; his mill, his pigeon
tower, his ploughed lands, and the cottages of a thousand
retainers, huddled round the lower part of the hill, or strewn
about the valley; and there he might have lived and died had not
events caused him to draw the sword and engage in a war, at the
termination of which Sycharth was a fire-scathed ruin, and himself
a broken-hearted old man in anchorite's weeds, living in a cave on
the estate of Sir John Scudamore, the great Herefordshire
proprietor, who married his daughter Elen, his only surviving
child.

After I had been a considerable time on the hill looking about me
and asking questions of my guide, I took out a piece of silver and
offered it to him, thanking him at the same time for the trouble he
had taken in showing me the place. He refused it, saying that I
was quite welcome.

I tried to force it upon him.

"I will not take it," said he; "but if you come to my house and
have a cup of coffee, you may give sixpence to my old woman."

"I will come," said I, "in a short time. In the meanwhile do you
go; I wish to be alone."

"What do you want to do?"

"To sit down and endeavour to recall Glendower, and the times that
are past."

The fine fellow looked puzzled; at last he said, "Very well,"
shrugged his shoulders, and descended the hill.

When he was gone I sat down on the brow of the hill, and with my
face turned to the east began slowly to chant a translation made by
myself in the days of my boyhood of an ode to Sycharth composed by
Iolo Goch when upwards of a hundred years old, shortly after his
arrival at that place, to which he had been invited by Owen
Glendower:-

Twice have I pledg'd my word to thee
To come thy noble face to see;
His promises let every man
Perform as far as e'er he can!
Full easy is the thing that's sweet,
And sweet this journey is and meet;
I've vowed to Owain's court to go,
And I'm resolved to keep my vow;
So thither straight I'll take my way
With blithesome heart, and there I'll stay,
Respect and honour, whilst I breathe,
To find his honour'd roof beneath.
My chief of long lin'd ancestry
Can harbour sons of poesy;
I've heard, for so the muse has told,
He's kind and gentle to the old;
Yes, to his castle I will hie;
There's none to match it 'neath the sky:
It is a baron's stately court,
Where bards for sumptuous fare resort;
There dwells the lord of Powis land,
Who granteth every just demand.
Its likeness now I'll limn you out:
'Tis water girdled wide about;
It shows a wide and stately door
Reached by a bridge the water o'er;
'Tis formed of buildings coupled fair,
Coupled is every couple there;
Within a quadrate structure tall
Muster the merry pleasures all.
Conjointly are the angles bound -
No flaw in all the place is found.
Structures in contact meet the eye
Upon the hillock's top on high;
Into each other fastened they
The form of a hard knot display.
There dwells the chief we all extol
In timber house on lightsome knoll;
Upon four wooden columns proud
Mounteth his mansion to the cloud;
Each column's thick and firmly bas'd,
And upon each a loft is plac'd;
In these four lofts, which coupled stand,
Repose at night the minstrel band;
Four lofts they were in pristine state,
But now partitioned form they eight.
Tiled is the roof, on each house-top
Rise smoke-ejecting chimneys up.
All of one form there are nine halls
Each with nine wardrobes in its walls
With linen white as well supplied
As fairest shops of fam'd Cheapside.
Behold that church with cross uprais'd
And with its windows neatly glaz'd;
All houses are in this comprest -
An orchard's near it of the best,
Also a park where void of fear
Feed antler'd herds of fallow deer.
A warren wide my chief can boast,
Of goodly steeds a countless host.
Meads where for hay the clover grows,
Corn-fields which hedges trim inclose,
A mill a rushing brook upon,
And pigeon tower fram'd of stone;
A fish-pond deep and dark to see,
To cast nets in when need there be,
Which never yet was known to lack
A plenteous store of perch and jack.
Of various plumage birds abound;
Herons and peacocks haunt around,
What luxury doth his hall adorn,
Showing of cost a sovereign scorn;
His ale from Shrewsbury town he brings;
His usquebaugh is drink for kings;
Bragget he keeps, bread white of look,
And, bless the mark! a bustling cook.
His mansion is the minstrels' home,
You'll find them there whene'er you come
Of all her sex his wife's the best;
The household through her care is blest
She's scion of a knightly tree,
She's dignified, she's kind and free.
His bairns approach me, pair by pair,
O what a nest of chieftains fair!
Here difficult it is to catch
A sight of either bolt or latch;
The porter's place here none will fill;
Her largess shall be lavish'd still,
And ne'er shall thirst or hunger rude
In Sycharth venture to intrude.
A noble leader, Cambria's knight,
The lake possesses, his by right,
And midst that azure water plac'd,
The castle, by each pleasure grac'd.

And when I had finished repeating these lines I said, "How much
more happy, innocent, and holy, I was in the days of my boyhood
when I translate Iolo's ode than I am at the present time!"  Then
covering my face with my hands I wept like a child.

CHAPTER LXVII

Cup of Coffee - Gwen - Bluff old Fellow - A Rabble Rout - All from
Wrexham.

AFTER a while I arose from my seat and descending the hill returned
to the house of my honest friends, whom I found sitting by their
fire as I had first seen them.

"Well," said the man, "did you bring back Owen Glendower?"

"Not only him," said I, "but his house, family, and all relating to
him."

"By what means?" said the man.

"By means of a song made a long time ago, which describes Sycharth
as it was in his time, and his manner of living there."

Presently Gwen, who had been preparing coffee in expectation of my
return, poured out a cupful, which she presented to me, at the same
time handing me some white sugar in a basin.

I took the coffee, helped myself to some sugar, and returned her
thanks in her own language.

"Ah," said the man, in Welsh, "I see you are a Cumro. Gwen and I
have been wondering whether you were Welsh or English; but I see
you are one of ourselves."

"No," said I in the same language, "I am an Englishman, born in a
part of England the farthest of any from Wales. In fact, I am a
Carn Sais."

"And how came you to speak Welsh?" said the man.

"I took it into my head to learn it when I was a boy," said I.
"Englishmen sometimes do strange things."

"So I have heard," said the man, "but I never heard before of an
Englishman learning Welsh."

I proceeded to drink my coffee, and having finished it, and had a
little more discourse I got up, and having given Gwen a piece of
silver, which she received with a smile and a curtsey, I said I
must now be going,

"Won't you take another cup?" said Gwen, "you are welcome."

"No, thank you," said I, "I have had enough."

"Where are you going?" said the man in English.

"To Llan Rhyadr," said I, "from which I came this morning."

"Which way did you come?" said the man.

"By Llan Gedwin," I replied, "and over the hill. Is there another
way?"

"There is," said the man, "by Llan Silin."

"Llan Silin!" said I; "is not that the place where Huw Morris is
buried?"

"It is," said the man.

"I will return by Llan Silin," said I, "and in passing through pay
a visit to the tomb of the great poet. Is Llan Silin far off?"

"About half a mile," said the man. "Go over the bridge, turn to
the right, and you will be there presently."

I shook the honest couple by the hand and bade them farewell. The
man put on his hat and went with me a few yards from the door, and
then proceeded towards the factory. I passed over the bridge,
under which was a streamlet, which a little below the bridge
received the brook which once turned Owen Glendower's corn-mill. I
soon reached Llan Silin, a village or townlet, having some high
hills at a short distance to the westward, which form part of the
Berwyn.

I entered the kitchen of an old-fashioned public-house, and sitting
down by a table told the landlord, a red-nosed elderly man, who
came bowing up to me, to bring me a pint of ale. The landlord
bowed and departed. A bluff-looking old fellow, somewhat under the
middle size, sat just opposite to me at the table. He was dressed
in a white frieze coat, and had a small hat on his head set rather
consequentially on one side. Before him on the table stood a jug
of ale, between which and him lay a large crabstick. Three or four
other people stood or sat in different parts of the room.
Presently the landlord returned with the ale.

"I suppose you come on sessions business, sir?" said he, as he
placed it down before me.

"Are the sessions being held here to-day?" said I.

"They are," said the landlord, "and there is plenty of business;
two bad cases of poaching, Sir Watkin's keepers are up at court and
hope to convict."

"I am not come on sessions business," said I; "I am merely
strolling a little about to see the country."

"He is come from South Wales," said the old fellow in the frieze
coat, to the landlord, "in order to see what kind of country the
north is. Well at any rate he has seen a better country than his
own."

"How do you know that I come from South Wales?" said I.

"By your English," said the old fellow; "anybody may know you are
South Welsh by your English; it is so cursedly bad. But let's hear
you speak a little Welsh; then I shall be certain as to who you
are."

I did as he bade me, saying a few words in Welsh.

"There's Welsh," said the old fellow, "who but a South Welshman
would talk Welsh in that manner? It's nearly as bad as your
English."

I asked him if he had ever been in South Wales.

"Yes," said he; "and a bad country I found it; just like the
people."

"If you take me for a South Welshman," said I, "you ought to speak
civilly both of the South Welsh and their country."

"I am merely paying tit for tat," said the old fellow. "When I was
in South Wales your people laughed at my folks and country, so when
I meet one of them here I serve him out as I was served out there."

I made no reply to him, but addressing myself to the landlord
inquired whether Huw Morris was not buried in Llan Silin
churchyard. He replied in the affirmative.

"I should like to see his tomb," said I.

"Well, sir," said the landlord, "I shall be happy to show it to you
whenever you please."

Here again the old fellow put in his word.

"You never had a prydydd like Huw Morris in South Wales," said he;
"nor Twm o'r Nant either."

"South Wales has produced good poets," said I.

"No, it hasn't," said the old fellow; "it never produced one. If
it had, you wouldn't have needed to come here to see the grave of a
poet; you would have found one at home."

As he said these words he got up, took his stick, and seemed about
to depart. Just then in burst a rabble rout of game-keepers and
river-watchers who had come from the petty sessions, and were in
high glee, the two poachers whom the landlord had mentioned having
been convicted and heavily fined. Two or three of them were
particularly boisterous, running against some of the guests who
were sitting or standing in the kitchen, and pushing the landlord
about, crying at the same time that they would stand by Sir Watkin
to the last, and would never see him plundered. One of them, a
fellow of about thirty, in a hairy cap, black coat, dirty yellow
breeches, and dirty white top-boots, who was the most obstreperous
of them all, at last came up to the old chap who disliked South
Welshmen and tried to knock off his hat, swearing that he would
stand by Sir Watkin; he, however, met a Tartar. The enemy of the
South Welsh, like all crusty people, had lots of mettle, and with
the stick which he held in his hand forthwith aimed a blow at the
fellow's poll, which, had he not jumped back, would probably have
broken it.

"I will not be insulted by you, you vagabond," said the old chap,
"nor by Sir Watkin either; go and tell him so."

The fellow looked sheepish, and turning away proceeded to take
liberties with other people less dangerous to meddle with than old
crabstick. He, however, soon desisted, and sat down evidently
disconcerted.

"Were you ever worse treated in South Wales by the people there
than you have been here by your own countrymen?" said I to the old
fellow.

"My countrymen?" said he; "this scamp is no countryman of mine; nor
is one of the whole kit. They are all from Wrexham, a mixture of
broken housekeepers and fellows too stupid to learn a trade; a set
of scamps fit for nothing in the world but to swear bodily against
honest men. They say they will stand up for Sir Watkin, and so
they will, but only in a box in the Court to give false evidence.
They won't fight for him on the banks of the river. Countrymen of
mine, indeed! they are no countrymen of mine; they are from
Wrexham, where the people speak neither English nor Welsh, not even
South Welsh as you do."

Then giving a kind of flourish with his stick he departed.

CHAPTER LXVIII

Llan Silin Church - Tomb of Huw Morris - Barbara and Richard -
Welsh Country Clergyman - The Swearing Lad - Anglo-Saxon Devils.

HAVING discussed my ale I asked the landlord if he would show me
the grave of Huw Morris. "With pleasure, sir," said he; "pray
follow me."  He led me to the churchyard, in which several enormous
yew trees were standing, probably of an antiquity which reached as
far back as the days of Henry the Eighth, when the yew bow was
still the favourite weapon of the men of Britain. The church
fronts the south, the portico being in that direction. The body of
the sacred edifice is ancient, but the steeple which bears a gilded
cock on its top is modern. The innkeeper led me directly up to the
southern wall, then pointing to a broad discoloured slab, which lay
on the ground just outside the wall, about midway between the
portico and the oriel end, he said:

"Underneath this stone lies Huw Morris, sir."  Forthwith taking off
my hat I went down on my knees and kissed the cold slab covering
the cold remains of the mighty Huw, and then, still on my knees,
proceeded to examine it attentively. It is covered over with
letters three parts defaced. All I could make out of the
inscription was the date of the poet's death, 1709. "A great
genius, a very great genius, sir," said the inn-keeper, after I had
got on my feet and put on my hat.

"He was indeed," said I; "are you acquainted with his poetry?"

"Oh yes," said the innkeeper, and then repeated the four lines
composed by the poet shortly before his death, which I had heard
the intoxicated stonemason repeat in the public-house of the Pandy,
the day I went to visit the poet's residence with John Jones.

"Do you know any more of Huw's poetry?" said I.

"No," said the innkeeper. "Those lines, however, I have known ever
since I was a child and repeated them, more particularly of late
since age has come upon me and I have felt that I cannot last
long."

It is very odd how few of the verses of great poets are in people's
mouths. Not more than a dozen of Shakespear's lines are in
people's mouths: of those of Pope not more than half that number.
Of Addison's poetry two or three lines may be in people's mouths,
though I never heard one quoted, the only line which I ever heard
quoted as Addison's not being his but Garth's:

"'Tis best repenting in a coach and six.'

Whilst of the verses of Huw Morris I never knew any one but myself,
who am not a Welshman, who could repeat a line beyond the four
which I have twice had occasion to mention, and which seem to be
generally known in North if not in South Wales.

From the flagstone I proceeded to the portico and gazed upon it
intensely. It presented nothing very remarkable, but it had the
greatest interest for me, for I remembered how many times Huw
Morris had walked out of that porch at the head of the
congregation, the clergyman yielding his own place to the inspired
bard. I would fain have entered the church, but the landlord had
not the key, and told me that he imagined there would be some
difficulty in procuring it. I was therefore obliged to content
myself with peeping through a window into the interior, which had a
solemn and venerable aspect.

"Within there," said I to myself, "Huw Morris, the greatest
songster of the seventeenth century, knelt every Sunday during the
latter thirty years of his life, after walking from Pont y Meibion
across the bleak and savage Berwyn. Within there was married
Barbara Wynn, the Rose of Maelai, to Richard Middleton, the
handsome cavalier of Maelor, and within there she lies buried, even
as the songster who lamented her untimely death in immortal verse
lies buried out here in the graveyard. What interesting
associations has this church for me, both outside and in, but all
connected with Huw; for what should I have known of Barbara, the
Rose, and gallant Richard but for the poem on their affectionate
union and untimely separation, the dialogue between the living and
the dead, composed by humble Huw, the farmer's son of Ponty y
Meibion?"

After gazing through the window till my eyes watered I turned to
the innkeeper, and inquired the way to Llan Rhyadr. Having
received from him the desired information I thanked him for his
civility, and set out on my return.

Before I could get clear of the town I suddenly encountered my
friend R-, the clever lawyer and magistrate's clerk of Llangollen.

"I little expected to see you here," said he.

"Nor I you," I replied.

"I came in my official capacity," said he; "the petty sessions have
been held here to-day."

"I know they have," I replied; "and that two poachers have been
convicted. I came here on my way to South Wales to see the grave
of Huw Morris, who, as you know, is buried in the churchyard."

"Have you seen the clergyman?" said R-.

"No," I replied.

"Then come with me," said he; "I am now going to call upon him. I
know he will be rejoiced to make your acquaintance."

He led me to the clergyman's house, which stood at the south-west
end of the village within a garden fenced with an iron paling. We
found the clergyman in a nice comfortable parlour or study, the
sides of which were decorated with books. He was a sharp clever-
looking man, of about the middle age. On my being introduced to
him he was very glad to see me, as my friend R- told me he would
be. He seemed to know all about me, even that I understood Welsh.
We conversed on various subjects: on the power of the Welsh
language; its mutable letters; on Huw Morris, and likewise on ale,
with an excellent glass of which he regaled me. I was much pleased
with him, and thought him a capital specimen of the Welsh country
clergyman. His name was Walter Jones.

After staying about half-an-hour I took leave of the good kind man,
who wished me all kind of happiness, spiritual and temporal, and
said that he should always be happy to see me at Llan Silin. My
friend R- walked with me a little way and then bade me farewell.
It was now late in the afternoon, the sky was grey and gloomy, and
a kind of half wintry wind was blowing. In the forenoon I had
travelled along the eastern side of the valley, which I will call
that of Llan Rhyadr, directing my course to the north, but I was
now on the western side of the valley, journeying towards the
south. In about half-an-hour I found myself nearly parallel with
the high crag which I had seen from a distance in the morning. It
was now to the east of me. Its western front was very precipitous,
but on its northern side it was cultivated nearly to the summit.
As I stood looking at it from near the top of a gentle acclivity a
boy with a team, whom I had passed a little time before, came up.
He was whipping his horses, who were straining up the ascent, and
was swearing at them most frightfully in English. I addressed him
in that language, inquiring the name of the crag, but he answered
Dim Saesneg, and then again fell to cursing; his horses in English.
I allowed him and his team to get to the top of the ascent, and
then overtaking him, I said in Welsh: "What do you mean by saying
you have no English? You were talking English just now to your
horses."

"Yes," said the lad, "I have English enough for my horses, and that
is all."

"You seem to have plenty of Welsh," said I; "why don't you speak
Welsh to your horses?"

"It's of no use speaking Welsh to them," said the boy; "Welsh isn't
strong enough."

"Isn't Myn Diawl tolerably strong?" said I.

"Not strong enough for horses," said the boy "if I were to say Myn
Diawl to my horses, or even Cas Andras, they would laugh at me."

"Do the other carters," said I, "use the same English to their
horses which you do to yours?"

"Yes" said the boy, "they'll all use the same English words; if
they didn't the horses wouldn't mind them."

"What a triumph," thought I, "for the English language that the
Welsh carters are obliged to have recourse to its oaths and
execrations to make their horses get on!"

I said nothing more to the boy on the subject of language, but
again asked him the name of the crag. "It is called Craig y
Gorllewin," said he. I thanked him, and soon left him and his team
far behind.

Notwithstanding what the boy said about the milk-and-water
character of native Welsh oaths, the Welsh have some very pungent
execrations, quite as efficacious, I should say, to make a horse
get on as any in the English swearing vocabulary. Some of their
oaths are curious, being connected with heathen times and Druidical
mythology; for example that Cas Andras, mentioned by the boy, which
means hateful enemy or horrible Andras. Andras or Andraste was the
fury or Demigorgon of the Ancient Cumry, to whom they built temples
and offered sacrifices out of fear. Curious that the same oath
should be used by the Christian Cumry of the present day, which was
in vogue amongst their pagan ancestors some three thousand years
ago. However, the same thing is observable amongst us Christian
English: we say the Duse take you! even as our heathen Saxon
forefathers did, who worshipped a kind of Devil so called, and
named a day of the week after him, which name we still retain in
our hebdomadal calendar like those of several other Anglo-Saxon
devils. We also say: Go to old Nick! and Nick or Nikkur was a
surname of Woden, and also the name of a spirit which haunted fords
and was in the habit of drowning passengers.

Night came quickly upon me after I had passed the swearing lad.
However, I was fortunate enough to reach Llan Rhyadr, without
having experienced any damage or impediment from Diawl, Andras,
Duse, or Nick.

CHAPTER LXIX

Church of Llan Rhyadr - The Clerk - The Tablet - Stone - First View
of the Cataract.

THE night was both windy and rainy like the preceding one, but the
morning which followed, unlike that of the day before, was dull and
gloomy. After breakfast I walked out to take another view of the
little town. As I stood looking at the church a middle-aged man of
a remarkably intelligent countenance came up and asked me if I
should like to see the inside. I told him I should, whereupon he
said that he was the clerk and would admit me with pleasure.
Taking a key out of his pocket he unlocked the door of the church
and we went in. The inside was sombre, not so much owing to the
gloominess of the day as the heaviness of the architecture. It
presented something in the form of a cross. I soon found the clerk
what his countenance represented him to be, a highly intelligent
person. His answers to my questions were in general ready and
satisfactory.

"This seems rather an ancient edifice," said I; "when was it
built?"

"In the sixteenth century," said the clerk; "in the days of Harry
Tudor."

"Have any remarkable men been clergymen of this church?"

"Several, sir; amongst its vicars was Doctor William Morgan, the
great South Welshman, the author of the old Welsh version of the
Bible, who flourished in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Then there
was Doctor Robert South, an eminent divine, who, though not a
Welshman, spoke and preached Welsh better than many of the native
clergy. Then there was the last vicar, Walter D-, a great preacher
and writer, who styled himself in print Gwalter Mechain."

"Are Morgan and South buried here?" said I.

"They are not, sir," said the clerk; "they had been transferred to
other benefices before they died."

I did not inquire whether Walter D- was buried there, for of him I
had never heard before, but demanded whether the church possessed
any ancient monuments.

"This is the oldest which remains, sir," said the clerk, and he
pointed with his finger to a tablet-stone over a little dark pew on
the right side of the oriel window. There was an inscription upon
it, but owing to the darkness I could not make out a letter. The
clerk, however, read as follows.

1694. 21 Octr.
Hic Sepultus Est
Sidneus Bynner.

"Do you understand Latin?" said I to the clerk.

"I do not, sir; I believe, however, that the stone is to the memory
of one Bynner."

"That is not a Welsh name," said I.

"It is not, sir," said the clerk.

"It seems to be radically the same as Bonner," said I, "the name of
the horrible Popish Bishop of London in Mary's time. Do any people
of the name of Bynner reside in this neighbourhood at present?"

"None, sir," said the clerk; "and if the Bynners are descendants of
Bonner, it is, perhaps, well that there are none."

I made the clerk, who appeared almost fit to be a clergyman, a
small present, and returned to the inn. After paying my bill I
flung my satchel over my shoulder, took my umbrella by the middle
in my right hand, and set off for the Rhyadr.

I entered the narrow glen at the western extremity of the town and
proceeded briskly along. The scenery was romantically beautiful;
on my left was the little brook, the waters of which run through
the town; beyond it a lofty hill; on my right was a hill covered
with wood from the top to the bottom. I enjoyed the scene, and
should have enjoyed it more had there been a little sunshine to
gild it.

I passed through a small village, the name of which I think was
Cynmen, and presently overtook a man and boy. The man saluted me
in English, and I entered into conversation with him in that
language. He told me that he came from Llan Gedwin, and was going
to a place called Gwern something, in order to fetch home some
sheep. After a time he asked me where I was going.

"I am going to see the Pistyll Rhyadr," said I

We had then just come to the top of a rising ground.

"Yonder's the Pistyll!" said he, pointing to the west.

I looked in the direction of his finger, and saw something at a
great distance, which looked like a strip of grey linen hanging
over a crag.

"That is the waterfall," he continued, "which so many of the Saxons
come to see. And now I must bid you good-bye, master; for my way
to the Gwern is on the right"

Then followed by the boy he turned aside into a wild road at the
corner of a savage, precipitous rock.

CHAPTER LXX

Mountain Scenery - The Rhyadr - Wonderful Feat.

AFTER walking about a mile with the cataract always in sight, I
emerged from the glen into an oblong valley extending from south to
north, having lofty hills on all sides, especially on the west,
from which direction the cataract comes. I advanced across the
vale till within a furlong of this object, when I was stopped by a
deep hollow or nether vale into which the waters of the cataract
tumble. On the side of this hollow I sat down, and gazed down
before me and on either side. The water comes spouting over a crag
of perhaps two hundred feet in altitude between two hills, one
south-east and the other nearly north. The southern hill is wooded
from the top, nearly down to where the cataract bursts forth; and
so, but not so thickly, is the northern hill, which bears a
singular resemblance to a hog's back. Groves of pine are on the
lower parts of both; in front of a grove low down on the northern
hill is a small white house of a picturesque appearance. The water
of the cataract, after reaching the bottom of the precipice, rushes
in a narrow brook down the vale in the direction of Llan Rhyadr.
To the north-east, between the hog-backed hill and another strange-
looking mountain, is a wild glen, from which comes a brook to swell
the waters discharged by the Rhyadr. The south-west side of the
vale is steep, and from a cleft of a hill in that quarter a slender
stream rushing impetuously joins the brook of the Rhyadr, like the
rill of the northern glen. The principal object of the whole is of
course the Rhyadr. What shall I liken it to? I scarcely know,
unless to an immense skein of silk agitated and disturbed by
tempestuous blasts, or to the long tail of a grey courser at
furious speed. Through the profusion of long silvery threads or
hairs, or what looked such, I could here and there see the black
sides of the crag down which the Rhyadr precipitated itself with
something between a boom and a roar.

After sitting on the verge of the hollow for a considerable time I
got up, and directed my course towards the house in front of the
grove. I turned down the path which brought me to the brook which
runs from the northern glen into the waters discharged by the
Rhyadr, and crossing it by stepping-stones, found myself on the
lowest spur of the hog-backed hill. A steep path led towards the
house. As I drew near two handsome dogs came rushing to welcome
the stranger. Coming to a door on the northern side of the house I
tapped, and a handsome girl of about thirteen making her
appearance, I inquired in English the nearest way the waterfall;
she smiled, and in her native language said that she had no Saxon.
On my telling her in Welsh that I was come to see the Pistyll she
smiled again, and said that I was welcome, then taking me round the
house, she pointed to a path and bade me follow it. I followed the
path which led downward to a tiny bridge of planks, a little way
below the fall. I advanced to the middle of the bridge, then
turning to the west, looked at the wonderful object before me.

There are many remarkable cataracts in Britain and the neighbouring
isles, even the little Celtic Isle of Man has its remarkable
waterfall; but this Rhyadr, the grand cataract of North Wales, far
exceeds them all in altitude and beauty, though it is inferior to
several of them in the volume of its flood. I never saw water
falling so gracefully, so much like thin beautiful threads, as
here. Yet even this cataract has its blemish. What beautiful
object has not something which more or less mars its loveliness?
There is an ugly black bridge or semi-circle of rock, about two
feet in diameter and about twenty feet high, which rises some
little way below it, and under which the water, after reaching the
bottom, passes, which intercepts the sight, and prevents it from
taking in the whole fall at once. This unsightly object has stood
where it now stands since the day of creation, and will probably
remain there to the day of judgment. It would be a desecration of
nature to remove it by art, but no one could regret if nature in
one of her floods were to sweep it away.

As I was standing on the planks a woman plainly but neatly dressed
came from the house. She addressed me in very imperfect English,
saying that she was the mistress of the house and should be happy
to show me about. I thanked her for her offer, and told her that
she might speak Welsh, whereupon she looked glad, and said in that
tongue that she could speak Welsh much better than Saesneg. She
took me by a winding path up a steep bank on the southern side of
the fall to a small plateau, and told me that was the best place to
see the Pistyll from. I did not think so, for we were now so near
that we were almost blinded by the spray, though, it is true, the
semicircle of rock no longer impeded the sight; this object we now
saw nearly laterally rising up like a spectral arch, spray and foam
above it, and water rushing below. "That is a bridge rather for
ysprydoedd (9) to pass over than men," said I.

"It is," said the woman; "but I once saw a man pass over it."

"How did he get up?" said I. "The sides are quite steep and
slippery."

"He wriggled to the sides like a llysowen, (10) till he got to the
top, when he stood upright for a minute, and then slid down on the
other side."

"Was he any one from these parts?" said I.

"He was not. He was a dyn dieithr, a Russian; one of those with
whom we are now at war."

"Was there as much water tumbling then as now?"

"More, for there had fallen more rain."

"I suppose the torrent is sometimes very dreadful?" said I.

"It is indeed, especially in winter; for it is then like a sea, and
roars like thunder or a mad bull."

After I had seen all I wished of the cataract, the woman asked me
to come to the house and take some refreshment. I followed her to
a neat little room where she made me sit down and handed me a bowl
of butter-milk. On the table was a book in which she told me it
was customary for individuals who visited the cataract to insert
their names. I took up the book which contained a number of names
mingled here and there with pieces of poetry. Amongst these
compositions was a Welsh englyn on the Rhyadr, which, though
incorrect in its prosody, I thought stirring and grand. I copied
it, and subjoin it with a translation which I made on the spot.

"Crychiawg, ewynawg anian - yw y Rhyadr
Yn rhuo mal taran;
Colofn o dwr, gloyw-dwr glan,
Gorwyllt, un lliw ag arian."

Foaming and frothing from mountainous height,
Roaring like thunder the Rhyadr falls;
Though its silvery splendour the eye may delight,
Its fury the heart of the bravest appals.

CHAPTER LXXI

Wild Moors - The Guide - Scientific Discourse - The Land of Arthur
- The Umbrella - Arrival at Bala.

WHEN I had rested myself and finished the buttermilk, I got up, and
making the good woman a small compensation for her civility,
inquired if I could get to Bala without returning to Llan Rhyadr.

"Oh yes," said she, "if you cross the hills for about five miles
you will find yourself upon a road which will take you straight to
Bala."

"Is there anyone here," said I, "who will guide me over the hills,
provided I pay him for his trouble?"

"Oh yes," said she, "I know one who will be happy to guide you
whether you pay him or not."

She went out and presently returned with a man about thirty-five,
stout and well-looking, and dressed in a waggoner's frock.

"There," said she, "this is the man to show you over the hills; few
know the paths better."

I thanked her, and telling the man I was ready, bade him lead the
way. We set out, the two dogs of which I have spoken attending us,
and seemingly very glad to go. We ascended the side of the hog-
backed hill to the north of the Rhyadr. We were about twenty
minutes in getting to the top, close to which stood a stone or
piece of rock, very much resembling a church altar, and about the
size of one. We were now on an extensive moory elevation, having
the brook which forms the Rhyadr a little way on our left. We went
nearly due west, following no path, for path there was none, but
keeping near the brook. Sometimes we crossed water-courses which
emptied their tribute into the brook, and every now and then
ascended and descended hillocks covered with gorse and whin. After
a little time I entered into conversation with my guide. He had
not a word of English.

"Are you married?" said I.

"In truth I am, sir."

"What family have you?"

"I have a daughter."

"Where do you live?"

"At the house of the Rhyadr."

"I suppose you live there as servant?"

"No, sir, I live there as master."

"Is the good woman I saw there your wife?"

"In truth, sir, she is."

"And the young girl I saw your daughter?"

"Yes, sir, she is my daughter."

"And how came the good woman not to tell me you were her husband?"

"I suppose, sir, you did not ask who I was, and she thought you did
not care to know."

"But can you be spared from home?"

"Oh yes, sir, I was not wanted at home."

"What business are you?"

"I am a farmer, sir."

"A sheep farmer?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who is your landlord."

"Sir Watkin."

"Well, it was very kind of you to come with me."

"Not at all, sir; I was glad to come with you, for we are very
lonesome at Rhyadr, except during a few weeks in the summer, when
the gentry come to see the Pistyll. Moreover, I have sheep lying
about here which need to be looked at now and then, and by coming
hither with you I shall have an opportunity of seeing them."

We frequently passed sheep feeding together in small numbers. In
two or three instances my guide singled out individuals, caught
them, and placing their heads between his knees examined the
insides of their eyelids, in order to learn by their colour whether
or not they were infected with the pwd or moor disorder. We had
some discourse about that malady. At last he asked me if there was
a remedy for it.

"Oh yes," said I; "a decoction of hoarhound."

"What is hoarhound?" said he.

"Llwyd y Cwn," said I. "Pour some of that down the sheep's throat
twice a day, by means of a horn, and the sheep will recover, for
the bitterness, do you see, will destroy the worm (11) in the
liver, which learned men say is the cause of the disorder."

We left the brook on our left hand and passed by some ruined walls
which my guide informed me had once belonged to houses but were now
used as sheepfolds. After walking several miles, according to my
computation, we began to ascend a considerable elevation covered
with brown heath and ling. As we went on the dogs frequently put
up a bird of a black colour, which flew away with a sharp whirr.

"What bird is that?" said I.

"Ceiliog y grug, the cock of the heath," replied my guide. "It is
said to be very good eating, but I have never tasted it. The
ceiliog y grug is not food for the like of me. It goes to feed the
rich Saxons in Caer Ludd."

We reached the top of the elevation.

"Yonder," said my guide, pointing to a white bare place a great way
off to the west, "is Bala road."

"Then I will not trouble you to go any further," said I; "I can
find my way thither."

"No, you could not," said my guide; "if you were to make straight
for that place you would perhaps fall down a steep, or sink into a
peat hole up to your middle, or lose your way and never find the
road, for you would soon lose sight of that place. Follow me, and
I will lead you into a part of the road more to the left, and then
you can find your way easily enough to that bare place, and from
thence to Bala."  Thereupon he moved in a southerly direction down
the steep and I followed him. In about twenty minutes we came to
the road.

"Now," said my guide, "you are on the road; bear to the right and
you cannot miss the way to Bala."

"How far is it to Bala?" said I.

"About twelve miles," he replied.

I gave him a trifle, asking at the same time if it was sufficient.
"Too much by one-half," he replied; "many, many thanks."  He then
shook me by the hand, and accompanied by his dogs departed, not
back over the moor, but in a southerly direction down the road.

Wending my course to the north, I came to the white bare spot which
I had seen from the moor, and which was in fact the top of a
considerable elevation over which the road passed. Here I turned
and looked at the hills I had come across. There they stood,
darkly blue, a rain cloud, like ink, hanging over their summits.
Oh, the wild hills of Wales, the land of old renown and of wonder,
the land of Arthur and Merlin!

The road now lay nearly due west. Rain came on, but it was at my
back, so I expanded my umbrella, flung it over my shoulder and
laughed. Oh, how a man laughs who has a good umbrella when he has
the rain at his back, aye and over his head too, and at all times
when it rains except when the rain is in his face, when the
umbrella is not of much service. Oh, what a good friend to a man
is an umbrella in rain time, and likewise at many other times.
What need he fear if a wild bull or a ferocious dog attacks him,
provided he has a good umbrella? He unfurls the umbrella in the
face of the bull or dog, and the brute turns round quite scared,
and runs away. Or if a footpad asks him for his money, what need
he care provided he has an umbrella? He threatens to dodge the
ferrule into the ruffian's eye, and the fellow starts back and
says, "Lord, sir! I meant no harm. I never saw you before in all
my life. I merely meant a little fun."  Moreover, who doubts that
you are a respectable character provided you have an umbrella? You
go into a public-house and call for a pot of beer, and the publican
puts it down before you with one hand without holding out the other
for the money, for he sees that you have an umbrella and
consequently property. And what respectable man, when you overtake
him on the way and speak to him, will refuse to hold conversation
with you, provided you have an umbrella? No one. The respectable
man sees you have an umbrella, and concludes that you do not intend
to rob him, and with justice, for robbers never carry umbrellas.
Oh, a tent, a shield, a lance, and a voucher for character is an
umbrella. Amongst the very best friends of man must be reckoned an
umbrella. (12)

The way lay over dreary, moory hills; at last it began to descend,
and I saw a valley below me with a narrow river running through it,
to which wooded hills sloped down; far to the west were blue
mountains. The scene was beautiful but melancholy; the rain had
passed away, but a gloomy almost November sky was above, and the
mists of night were coming down apace.

I crossed a bridge at the bottom of the valley and presently saw a
road branching to the right. I paused, but after a little time
went straight forward. Gloomy woods were on each side of me and
night had come down. Fear came upon me that I was not on the right
road, but I saw no house at which I could inquire, nor did I see a
single individual for miles of whom I could ask. At last I heard
the sound of hatchets in a dingle on my right, and catching a
glimpse of a gate at the head of a path, which led down into it, I
got over it. After descending some time I hallooed. The noise of
the hatchets ceased. I hallooed again, and a voice cried in Welsh,
"What do you want?"  "To know the way to Bala," I replied. There
was no answer, but presently I heard steps, and the figure of a man
drew nigh, half undistinguishable in the darkness, and saluted me.
I returned his salutation, and told him I wanted to know the way to
Bala. He told me, and I found I had been going right. I thanked
him and regained the road. I sped onward, and in about half-an-
hour saw some houses, then a bridge, then a lake on my left, which
I recognised as the lake of Bala. I skirted the end of it, and
came to a street cheerfully lighted up, and in a minute more was in
the White Lion Inn.

CHAPTER LXXII

Cheerful Fire - Immense Man - Doctor Jones - Recognition - A Fast
Young Man - Excellent Remarks - Disappointment.

I WAS conducted into the coffee-room of the White Lion by a little
freckled maid whom I saw at the bar, and whom I told that I was
come to pass the night at the inn. The room presented an agreeable
contrast to the gloomy, desolate places through which I had lately
come. A good fire blazed in the grate, and there were four lights
on the table. Lolling in a chair by one side of the fire was an
individual at the sight of whom I almost started. He was an
immense man, weighing I should say at least eighteen stone, with
brown hair, thinnish whiskers, half-ruddy, half-tallowy complexion,
and dressed in a brown sporting coat, drab breeches, and yellow-
topped boots - in every respect the exact image of the
Wolverhampton gent or hog-merchant who had appeared to me in my
dream at Llangollen, whilst asleep before the fire. Yes, the very
counterpart of that same gent looked this enormous fellow, save and
except that he did not appear to be more than seven or eight and
twenty, whereas the hog-merchant looked at least fifty. Laying my
satchel down I took a seat and ordered the maid to get some dinner
for me, and then asked what had become of the waiter, Tom Jenkins.

"He is not here at present, sir," said the freckled maid; "he is at
his own house."

"And why is he not here?" said I.

"Because he is not wanted, sir; he only comes in summer when the
house is full of people."

And having said this the little freckled damsel left the room.

"Reither a cool night, sir!" said the enormous man after we had
been alone together a few minutes.

I again almost started, for he spoke with the same kind of half-
piping, half-wheezing voice, with which methought the Wolverhampton
gent had spoken to me in my dream.

"Yes," said I; "it is rather cold out abroad, but I don't care as I
am not going any farther to-night."

"That's not my case," said the stout man, "I have got to go ten
miles, as far as Cerrig Drudion, from which place I came this
afternoon in a wehicle."

"Do you reside at Cerrig Drudion?" said I.

"No," said the stout man, whose dialect I shall not attempt further
to imitate, "but I have been staying there some time; for happening
to go there a month or two ago I was tempted to take up my quarters
at the inn. A very nice inn it is, and the landlady a very
agreeable woman, and her daughters very agreeable young ladies."

"Is this the first time you have been at Bala?"

"Yes, the first time. I had heard a good deal about it, and wished
to see it. So to-day, having the offer of a vehicle at a cheap
rate, I came over with two or three other gents, amongst whom is
Doctor Jones."

"Dear me" said I, "is Doctor Jones in Bala?"

"Yes," said the stout man. "Do you know him?"

"Oh yes," said I, "and have a great respect for him; his like for
politeness and general learning is scarcely to be found in
Britain."

"Only think," said the stout man. "Well, I never heard that of him
before."

Wishing to see my sleeping room before I got my dinner, I now rose
and was making for the door, when it opened, and in came Doctor
Jones. He had a muffler round his neck, and walked rather slowly
and disconsolately, leaning upon a cane. He passed without
appearing to recognise me, and I, thinking it would be as well to
defer claiming acquaintance with him till I had put myself a little
to rights, went out without saying anything to him. I was shown by
the freckled maid to a nice sleeping apartment, where I stayed some
time adjusting myself. On my return to the coffee-room I found the
doctor sitting near the fire-place. The stout man had left the
room. I had no doubt that he had told Doctor Jones that I had
claimed acquaintance with him, and that the doctor, not having
recollected me, had denied that he knew anything of me, for I
observed that he looked at me very suspiciously.

I took my former seat, and after a minute's silence said to Doctor
Jones, "I think, sir, I had the pleasure of seeing you some time
ago at Cerrig Drudion?"

"It's possible, sir," said Doctor Jones in a tone of considerable
hauteur, and tossing his head so that the end of his chin was above
his comforter, "but I have no recollection of it."

I held my head down for a little time, then raising it and likewise
my forefinger, I looked Doctor Jones full in the face and said,
"Don't you remember talking to me about Owen Pugh and Coll Gwynfa?"

"Yes, I do," said Doctor Jones in a very low voice, like that of a
person who deliberates; "yes, I do. I remember you perfectly,
sir," he added almost immediately in a tone of some animation; "you
are the gentleman with whom I had a very interesting conversation
one evening last summer in the bar of the inn at Cerrig Drudion. I
regretted very much that our conversation was rather brief, but I
was called away to attend to a case, a professional case, sir, of
some delicacy, and I have since particularly regretted that I was
unable to return that night, as it would have given me much
pleasure to have been present at a dialogue, which I have been told
by my friend the landlady, you held with a certain Italian who was
staying at the house, which was highly agreeable and instructive to
herself and her daughter."

"Well," said I, "I am rejoiced that fate has brought us together
again. How have you been in health since I had the pleasure of
seeing you?"

"Rather indifferent, sir, rather indifferent. I have of late been
afflicted with several ailments, the original cause of which, I
believe, was a residence of several years in the Ynysoedd y
Gorllewin - the West India Islands - where I had the honour of
serving her present gracious Majesty's gracious uncle, George the
Fourth - in a medical capacity, sir. I have likewise been
afflicted with lowness of spirits, sir. It was this same lowness
of spirits which induced me to accept an invitation made by the
individual lately in the room to accompany him in a vehicle with
some other people to Bala. I shall always consider my coming as a
fortunate circumstance, inasmuch as it has given me an opportunity
of renewing my acquaintance with you."

"Pray," said I, "may I take the liberty of asking who that
individual is?"

"Why," said Doctor Jones, "he is what they call a Wolverhampton
gent."

"A Wolverhampton gent," said I to myself; "only think!"

"Were you pleased to make any observation, sir?" said the doctor.

"I was merely saying something to myself," said I. "And in what
line of business may he be? I suppose in the hog line."

"Oh no!" said Doctor Jones. "His father, it is true, is a hog-
merchant, but as for himself he follows no business; he is what is
called a fast young man, and goes about here and there on the
spree, as I think they term it, drawing, whenever he wants money,
upon his father, who is in affluent circumstances. Some time ago
he came to Cerrig Drudion, and was so much pleased with the place,
the landlady, and her daughters, that he has made it his
headquarters ever since. Being frequently at the house I formed an
acquaintance with him, and have occasionally made one in his
parties and excursions, though I can't say I derive much pleasure
from his conversation, for he is a person of little or no
literature."

"The son of a hog-merchant," thought I to myself. "Depend upon it,
that immense fellow whom I saw in my dream purchase the big hog at
Llangollen fair, and who wanted me to give him a poond for his
bargain, was this gent's father. Oh, there is much more in dreams
than is generally dreamt of by philosophy!"

Doctor Jones presently began to talk of Welsh literature, and we
were busily engaged in discussing the subject when in walked the
fast young man, causing the floor to quake beneath his ponderous
tread. He looked rather surprised at seeing the doctor and me
conversing, but Doctor Jones turning to him, said, "Oh, I remember
this gentleman perfectly."

"Oh!" said the fast young man; "very good!" then flinging himself
down in a chair with a force that nearly broke it, and fixing his
eyes upon me, said, "I think I remember the gentleman too. If I am
not much mistaken, sir, you are one of our principal engineers at
Wolverhampton. Oh yes! I remember you now perfectly. The last
time I saw you was at a public dinner given to you at
Wolverhampton, and there you made a speech, and a capital speech it
was."

Just as I was about to reply Doctor Jones commenced speaking Welsh,
resuming the discourse on Welsh literature. Before, however, he
had uttered a dozen words he was interrupted by the Wolverhampton
gent, who exclaimed in a blubbering tone: "O Lord, you are surely
not going to speak Welsh. If I had thought I was to be bothered
with Welsh I wouldn't have asked you to come."

"If I spoke Welsh, sir," said the doctor, "it was out of compliment
to this gentleman, who is a proficient in the ancient language of
my country. As, however, you dislike Welsh, I shall carry on the
conversation with him in English, though peradventure you may not
be more edified by it in that language than if it were held in
Welsh."

He then proceeded to make some very excellent remarks on the
history of the Gwedir family, written by Sir John Wynn, to which
the Wolverhampton gent listened with open mouth and staring eyes.
My dinner now made its appearance, brought in by the little
freckled maid - the cloth had been laid during my absence from the
room. I had just begun to handle my knife and fork, Doctor Jones
still continuing his observations on the history of the Gwedir
family, when I heard a carriage drive up to the inn, and almost
immediately after, two or three young fellows rollicked into the
room: "Come let's be off," said one of them to the Wolverhampton
gent; "the carriage is ready."  "I'm glad of it," said the fast
young man, "for it's rather slow work here. Come, doctor! are you
going with us or do you intend to stay here all night?"  Thereupon
the doctor got up, and coming towards me leaning on his cane, said:
"Sir! it gives me infinite pleasure that I have met a second time a
gentleman of so much literature. That we shall ever meet a third
time I may wish but can scarcely hope, owing to certain ailments
under which I suffer, brought on, sir, by a residence of many years
in the Occidental Indies. However, at all events, I wish you
health and happiness."  He then shook me gently by the hand and
departed with the Wolverhampton gent and his companions; the gent
as he stumped out of the room saying, "Good-night, sir; I hope it
will not be long before I see you at another public dinner at
Wolverhampton, and hear another speech from you as good as the
last."  In a minute or two I heard them drive off. Left to myself
I began to discuss my dinner. Of the dinner I had nothing to
complain, but the ale which accompanied it was very bad. This was
the more mortifying, for, remembering the excellent ale I had drunk
at Bala some months previously, I had, as I came along the gloomy
roads the present evening, been promising myself a delicious treat
on my arrival.

"This is very bad ale!" said I to the freckled maid, "very
different from what I drank in the summer, when I was waited on by
Tom Jenkins."

"It is the same ale, sir," said the maid, "but the last in the
cask; and we shan't have any more for six months, when he will come
again to brew for the summer; but we have very good porter, sir,
and first-rate Allsopp."

"Allsopp's ale," said I, "will do for July and August, but scarcely
for the end of October. However, bring me a pint; I prefer it at
all times to porter."

My dinner concluded, I trifled away my time till about ten o'clock,
and then went to bed.

CHAPTER LXXIII

Breakfast - The Freckled Maid - Llan uwch Llyn - The Landlady -
Llewarch Hen - Conversions to the Church.

AWAKING occasionally in the night I heard much storm and rain. The
following morning it was gloomy and lowering. As it was Sunday I
determined to pass the day at Bala, and accordingly took my Prayer
Book out of my satchel, and also my single white shirt, which I put
on.

Having dressed myself I went to the coffee-room and sat down to
breakfast. What a breakfast! - pot of hare; ditto of trout; pot of
prepared shrimps; dish of plain shrimps; tin of sardines; beautiful
beef-steak; eggs, muffin; large loaf, and butter, not forgetting
capital tea. There's a breakfast for you!

As the little freckled maid was removing the breakfast things I
asked her how old she was.

"Eighteen, sir, last Candlemas," said the freckled maid.

"Are your parents alive?"

"My mother is, sir, but my father is dead."

"What was your father?"

"He was an Irishman, sir! and boots to this inn."

"Is your mother Irish?"

"No, sir, she is of this place; my father married her shortly after
he came here."

"Of what religion are you?"

"Church, sir, Church."

"Was your father of the Church?"

"Not always, sir; he was once what is called a Catholic. He turned
to the Church after he came here."

"A'n't there a great many Methodists in Bala?"

"Plenty, sir, plenty."

"How came your father not to go over to the Methodists instead of
the Church?"

"'Cause he didn't like them, sir; he used to say they were a
trumpery, cheating set; that they wouldn't swear, but would lie
through a three-inch board."

"I suppose your mother is a Church-woman?"

"She is now, sir; but before she knew my father she was a
Methodist."

"Of what religion is the master of the house?"

"Church, sir, Church; so is all the family."

"Who is the clergyman of the place?"

"Mr Pugh, sir!"

"Is he a good preacher?"

"Capital, sir! and so is each of his curates; he and they are
converting the Methodists left and right."

"I should like to hear him."

"Well, sir! that you can do. My master, who is going to church
presently, will be happy to accommodate you in his pew."

I went to church with the landlord, a tall gentlemanly man of the
name of Jones - Oh that eternal name of Jones! Rain was falling
fast, and we were glad to hold up our umbrellas. We did not go to
the church at Bala, at which there was no service that morning, but
to that of a little village close by, on the side of the lake, the
living of which is incorporated with that of Bala. The church
stands low down by the lake at the bottom of a little nook. Its
name which is Llan uwch Llyn, is descriptive of its position,
signifying the Church above the Lake. It is a long, low, ancient
edifice, standing north-east by south-west. The village is just
above it on a rising ground, behind which are lofty hills
pleasantly dotted with groves, trees, and houses. The interior of
the edifice has a somewhat dilapidated appearance. The service was
in Welsh. The clergyman was about forty years of age, and had a
highly-intelligent look. His voice was remarkably clear and
distinct. He preached an excellent practical sermon, text, 14th
chapter, 22nd verse of Luke, about sending out servants to invite
people to the supper. After the sermon there was a gathering for
the poor.

As I returned to the inn I had a good deal of conversation with the
landlord on religious subjects. He told me that the Church of
England, which for a long time had been a down-trodden Church in
Wales, had of late begun to raise its head, and chiefly owing to
the zeal and activity of its present ministers; that the former
ministers of the Church were good men, but had not energy enough to
suit the times in which they lived; that the present ministers
fought the Methodist preachers with their own weapons, namely,
extemporary preaching, and beat them, winning shoals from their
congregations. He seemed to think that the time was not far
distant when the Anglican Church would be the popular as well as
the established Church of Wales.

Finding myself rather dull in the inn, I went out again,
notwithstanding that it rained. I ascended the toman or mound
which I had visited on a former occasion. Nothing could be more
desolate and dreary than the scene around. The woods were stripped
of their verdure and the hills were half shrouded in mist. How
unlike was this scene to the smiling, glorious prospect which had
greeted my eyes a few months before. The rain coming down with
redoubled violence, I was soon glad to descend and regain the inn.

Shortly before dinner I was visited by the landlady, a fine tall
woman of about fifty, with considerable remains of beauty in her
countenance. She came to ask me if I was comfortable. I told her
that it was my own fault if I was not. We were soon in very
friendly discourse. I asked her her maiden name.

"Owen," said she, laughing, "which, after my present name of Jones,
is the most common name in Wales."

"They were both one and the same originally," said I, "Owen and
Jones both mean John."

She too was a staunch member of the Church of England, which she
said was the only true Church. She spoke in terms of high respect
and admiration of her minister, and said that a new church was
being built, the old one not being large enough to accommodate the
numbers who thronged to hear him.

I had a noble goose for dinner, to which I did ample justice.
About four o'clock, the weather having cleared up, I took a stroll.
It was a beautiful evening, though rain clouds still hovered about.
I wandered to the northern end of Llyn Tegid, which I had passed in
the preceding evening. The wind was blowing from the south, and
tiny waves were beating against the shore, which consisted of small
brown pebbles. The lake has certainly not its name, which
signifies Lake of Beauty, for nothing. It is a beautiful sheet of
water, and beautifully situated. It is oblong and about six miles
in length. On all sides, except to the north, it is bounded by
hills. Those at the southern end are very lofty, the tallest of
which is Arran, which lifts its head to the clouds like a huge
loaf. As I wandered on the strand I thought of a certain British
prince and poet, who in the very old time sought a refuge in the
vicinity of the lake from the rage of the Saxons. His name was
Llewarch Hen, of whom I will now say a few words.

Llewarch Hen, or Llewarch the Aged, was born about the commencement
of the sixth and died about the middle of the seventh century,
having attained to the prodigious age of one hundred and forty or
fifty years, which is perhaps the lot of about forty individuals in
the course of a millennium. If he was remarkable for his years he
was no less so for the number of his misfortunes. He was one of
the princes of the Cumbrian Britons; but Cumbria was invaded by the
Saxons, and a scene of horrid war ensued. Llewarch and his sons,
of whom he had twenty-four, put themselves at the head of their
forces, and in conjunction with the other Cumbrian princes made a
brave but fruitless opposition to the invaders. Most of his sons
were slain, and he himself with the remainder sought shelter in
Powys, in the hall of Cynddylan, its prince. But the Saxon bills
and bows found their way to Powys too. Cynddylan was slain, and
with him the last of the sons of Llewarch, who, reft of his
protector, retired to a hut by the side of the lake of Bala, where
he lived the life of a recluse, and composed elegies on his sons
and slaughtered friends, and on his old age, all of which abound
with so much simplicity and pathos that the heart of him must be
hard indeed who can read them unmoved. Whilst a prince he was
revered for his wisdom and equity, and he is said in one of the
historical triads to have been one of the three consulting warriors
of Arthur.

In the evening I attended service in the old church at Bala. The
interior of the edifice was remarkably plain; no ornament of any
kind was distinguishable; the congregation was overflowing, amongst
whom I observed the innkeeper and his wife, the little freckled
maid and the boots. The entire service was in Welsh. Next to the
pew in which I sat was one filled with young singing women, all of
whom seemed to have voices of wonderful power. The prayers were
read by a strapping young curate at least six feet high. The
sermon was preached by the rector, and was a continuation of the
one which I had heard him preach in the morning. It was a very
comforting discourse, as the preacher clearly proved that every
sinner will be pardoned who comes to Jesus. I was particularly
struck with one part. The preacher said that Jesus' arms being
stretched out upon the cross was emblematic of His surprising love
and His willingness to receive anybody. The service concluded with
the noble anthem Teyrnasa Jesu Mawr, "May Mighty Jesus reign!"

The service over I returned to the parlour of the inn. There I sat
for a long-time, lone and solitary, staring at the fire in the
grate. I was the only guest in the house; a great silence
prevailed both within and without; sometimes five minutes elapsed
without my hearing a sound, and then, perhaps, the silence would be
broken by a footstep at a distance in the street. At length,
finding myself yawning, I determined to go to bed. The freckled
maid as she lighted me to my room inquired how I liked the sermon.
"Very much," said I. "Ah," said she, "did I not tell you that Mr
Pugh was a capital preacher?"  She then asked me how I liked the
singing of the gals who sat in the next pew to mine. I told her
that I liked it exceedingly. "Ah," said she, "them gals have the
best voices in Bala. They were once Methody gals, and sang in the
chapels, but were converted, and are now as good Church as myself.
Them gals have been the cause of a great many convarsions, for all
the young fellows of their acquaintance amongst the Methodists - "

"Follow them to church," said I, "and in time become converted.
That's a thing of course. If the Church gets the girls she is
quite sure of the fellows."

CHAPTER LXXIV

Proceed on Journey - The Lad and Dog - Old Bala - The Pass -
Extensive View - The Two Men - The Tap Nyth - The Meeting of the
Waters - The Wild Valley - Dinas Mawddwy.

THE Monday morning was gloomy and misty, but it did not rain, a
circumstance which gave me no little pleasure, as I intended to
continue my journey without delay. After breakfast I bade farewell
to my kind host, and also to the freckled maid, and departed, my
satchel o'er my shoulder and my umbrella in my hand.

I had consulted the landlord on the previous day as to where I had
best make my next halt, and had been advised by him to stop at
Mallwyd. He said that if I felt tired I could put up at Dinas
Mawddwy, about two miles on this side of Mallwyd, but that if I
were not he would advise me to go on, as I should find very poor
accommodation at Dinas. On my inquiring as to the nature of the
road, he told me that the first part of it was tolerably good,
lying along the eastern side of the lake, but that the greater part
of it was very rough, over hills and mountains, belonging to the
great chain of Arran, which constituted upon the whole the wildest
part of all Wales.

Passing by the northern end of the lake I turned to the south, and
proceeded along a road a little way above the side of the lake.
The day had now to a certain extent cleared up, and the lake was
occasionally gilded by beams of bright sunshine. After walking a
little way I overtook a lad dressed in a white greatcoat and
attended by a tolerably large black dog. I addressed him in
English, but finding that he did not understand me I began to talk
to him in Welsh.

"That's a fine dog," said I.

LAD. - Very fine, sir, and a good dog; though young he has been
known to kill rats.

MYSELF. - What is his name?

LAD. - His name is Toby, sir.

MYSELF. - And what is your name?

LAD. - John Jones, sir.

MYSELF. - And what is your father's?

LAD. - Waladr Jones, sir.

MYSELF. - Is Waladr the same as Cadwaladr?

LAD. - In truth, sir, it is.

MYSELF. - That is a fine name.

LAD. - It is, sir; I have heard my father say that it was the name
of a king.

MYSELF. - What is your father?

LAD. - A farmer, sir.

MYSELF. - Does he farm his own land?

LAD. - He does not, sir; he is tenant to Mr Price of Hiwlas.

MYSELF. - Do you live far from Bala?

LAD. - Not very far, sir.

MYSELF. - Are you going home now?

LAD. - I am not, sir; our home is on the other side of Bala. I am
going to see a relation up the road.

MYSELF. - Bala is a nice place.

LAD. - It is, sir; but not so fine as old Bala.

MYSELF. - I never heard of such a place. Where is it?

LAD. - Under the lake, sir.

MYSELF. - What do you mean?

LAD. - It stood in the old time where the lake now is, and a fine
city it was, full of fine houses, towers, and castles, but with
neither church nor chapel, for the people neither knew God nor
cared for Him, and thought of nothing but singing and dancing and
other wicked things. So God was angry with them, and one night,
when they were all busy at singing and dancing and the like, God
gave the word, and the city sank down into Unknown, and the lake
boiled up where it once stood.

MYSELF. - That was a long time ago.

LAD. - In truth, sir, it was.

MYSELF. - Before the days of King Cadwaladr.

LAD. - I daresay it was, sir.

I walked fast, but the lad was a shrewd walker, and though
encumbered with his greatcoat contrived to keep tolerably up with
me. The road went over hill and dale, but upon the whole more
upward than downward. After proceeding about an hour and a half we
left the lake, to the southern extremity of which we had nearly
come, somewhat behind, and bore away to the south-east, gradually
ascending. At length the lad, pointing to a small farm-house on
the side of a hill, told me he was bound thither, and presently
bidding me farewell, turned aside up a footpath which led towards
it.

About a minute afterwards a small delicate furred creature with a
white mark round its neck and with a little tail trailing on the
ground ran swiftly across the road. It was a weasel or something
of that genus; on observing it I was glad that the lad and the dog
were gone, as between them they would probably have killed it. I
hate to see poor wild animals persecuted and murdered, lose my
appetite for dinner at hearing the screams of a hare pursued by
greyhounds, and am silly enough to feel disgust and horror at the
squeals of a rat in the fangs of a terrier, which one of the
sporting tribe once told me were the sweetest sounds in "natur."

I crossed a bridge over a deep gulley which discharged its waters
into a river in a valley on the right. Arran rose in great majesty
on the farther side of this vale, its head partly shrouded in mist.
The day now became considerably overcast. I wandered on over much
rough ground till I came to a collection of houses at the bottom of
a pass leading up a steep mountain. Seeing the door of one of the
houses open I peeped in, and a woman who was sitting knitting in
the interior rose and came out to me. I asked the name of the
place. The name which she told me sounded something like Ty Capel
Saer - the House of the Chapel of the Carpenter. I inquired the
name of the river in the valley. Cynllwyd, hoary-headed, she
seemed to say; but here, as well as with respect to her first
answer, I speak under correction, for her Welsh was what my old
friends, the Spaniards, would call muy cerrado, that is, close or
indistinct. She asked me if I was going up the bwlch. I told her
I was.

"Rather you than I," said she, looking up to the heavens, which had
assumed a very dismal, not to say awful, appearance.

Presently I began to ascend the pass or bwlch, a green hill on my
right intercepting the view of Arran, another very lofty hill on my
left with wood towards the summit. Coming to a little cottage
which stood on the left I went to the door and knocked. A smiling
young woman opened it, of whom I asked the name of the house.

"Ty Nant - the House of the Dingle," she replied.

"Do you live alone?" said I.

"No; mother lives here."

"Any Saesneg?"

"No," said she with a smile, "S'sneg of no use here."

Her face looked the picture of kindness. I was now indeed in Wales
amongst the real Welsh. I went on some way. Suddenly there was a
moaning sound, and rain came down in torrents. Seeing a deserted
cottage on my left I went in. There was fodder in it, and it
appeared to serve partly as a barn, partly as a cow-house. The
rain poured upon the roof, and I was glad I had found shelter.
Close behind this place a small brook precipitated itself down
rocks in four successive falls.

The rain having ceased I proceeded, and after a considerable time
reached the top of the pass. From thence I had a view of the
valley and lake of Bala, the lake looking like an immense sheet of
steel. A round hill, however, somewhat intercepted the view of the
latter. The scene in my immediate neighbourhood was very desolate;
moory hillocks were all about me of a wretched russet colour; on my
left, on the very crest of the hill up which I had so long been
toiling, stood a black pyramid of turf, a pole on the top of it.
The road now wore nearly due west down a steep descent. Arran was
slightly to the north of me. I, however, soon lost sight of it, as
I went down the farther side of the hill, which lies over against
it to the south-east. The sun, now descending, began to shine out.
The pass down which I was now going was yet wilder than the one up
which I had lately come. Close on my right was the steep hill's
side out of which the road or path had been cut, which was here and
there overhung by crags of wondrous forms; on my left was a very
deep glen, beyond which was a black, precipitous, rocky wall, from
a chasm near the top of which tumbled with a rushing sound a
slender brook, seemingly the commencement of a mountain stream,
which hurried into a valley far below towards the west. When
nearly at the bottom of the descent I stood still to look around
me. Grand and wild was the scenery. On my left were noble green
hills, the tops of which were beautifully gilded by the rays of the
setting sun. On my right a black, gloomy, narrow valley or glen
showed itself; two enormous craggy hills of immense altitude, one
to the west and the other to the east of the entrance; that to the
east terminating in a peak. The background to the north was a wall
of rocks forming a semicircle, something like a bent bow with the
head downward; behind this bow, just in the middle, rose the black
loaf of Arran. A torrent tumbled from the lower part of the
semicircle, and after running for some distance to the south turned
to the west, the way I was going.

Observing a house a little way within the gloomy vale I went
towards it, in the hope of finding somebody in it who could give me
information respecting this wild locality. As I drew near the door
two tall men came forth, one about sixty, and the other about half
that age. The elder had a sharp, keen look; the younger a lumpy
and a stupid one. They were dressed like farmers. On my saluting
them in English the elder returned my salutation in that tongue,
but in rather a gruff tone. The younger turned away his head and
said nothing.

"What is the name of this house?" said I, pointing to the building.

"The name of it," said the old man, "is Ty Mawr."

"Do you live in it?" said I.

"Yes, I live in it."

"What waterfall is that?" said I, pointing to the torrent tumbling
down the crag at the farther end of the gloomy vale.

"The fountain of the Royal Dyfi."

"Why do you call the Dyfy royal?" said I.

"Because it is the king of the rivers in these parts."

"Does the fountain come out of a rock?"

"It does not; it comes out of a lake, a llyn."

"Where is the llyn?"

"Over that crag at the foot of Aran Vawr."

"Is it a large lake?"

"It is not; it is small."

"Deep?"

"Very."

"Strange things in it?"

"I believe there are strange things in it."  His English now became
broken.

"Crocodiles?"

"I do not know what cracadailes be."

"Efync?"

"Ah! No, I do not tink there be efync dere. Hu Gadarn in de old
time kill de efync dere and in all de lakes in Wales. He draw them
out of the water with his ychain banog his humpty oxen, and when he
get dem out he burn deir bodies on de fire, he good man for dat."

"What do you call this allt?" said I, looking up to the high
pinnacled hill on my right.

"I call that Tap Nyth yr Eryri."

"Is not that the top nest of the eagles?"

"I believe it is. Ha! I see you understand Welsh."

"A little," said I. "Are there eagles there now?"

"No, no eagle now."

"Gone like avanc?"

"Yes, gone like avanc, but not so long. My father see eagle on Tap
Nyth, but my father never see avanc in de llyn."

"How far to Dinas?"

"About three mile."

"Any thieves about?"

"No, no thieves here, but what come from England," and he looked at
me with a strange, grim smile.

"What is become of the red-haired robbers of Mawddwy?"

"Ah," said the old man, staring at me, "I see you are a Cumro. The
red-haired thieves of Mawddwy! I see you are from these parts."

"What's become of them?"

"Oh, dead, hung. Lived long time ago; long before eagle left Tap
Nyth."

He spoke true. The red-haired banditti of Mawddwy were
exterminated long before the conclusion of the sixteenth century,
after having long been the terror not only of these wild regions
but of the greater part of North Wales. They were called the red-
haired banditti because certain leading individuals amongst them
had red foxy hair.

"Is that young man your son?" said I, after a little pause.

"Yes, he my son."

"Has he any English?"

"No, he no English, but he plenty of Welsh - that is if he see
reason."

I spoke to the young man in Welsh, asking him if he had ever been
up to the Tap Nyth, but he made no answer.

"He no care for your question," said the old man; "ask him price of
pig."  I asked the young fellow the price of hogs, whereupon his
face brightened up, and he not only answered my question, but told
me that he had fat hog to sell. "Ha, ha," said the old man; "he
plenty of Welsh now, for he see reason. To other question he no
Welsh at all, no more than English, for he see no reason. What
business he on Tap Nyth with eagle? His business down below in sty
with pig. Ah, he look lump, but he no fool; know more about pig
than you or I, or any one 'twixt here and Mahuncleth."

He now asked me where I came from, and on my telling him from Bala,
his heart appeared to warm towards me, and saying that I must be
tired, he asked me to step in and drink buttermilk, but I declined
his offer with thanks, and bidding the two adieu, returned to the
road.

I hurried along and soon reached a valley which abounded with trees
and grass; I crossed a bridge over a brook, not what the old man
had called the Dyfi, but the stream whose source I had seen high up
the bwlch, and presently came to a place where the two waters
joined. Just below the confluence on a fallen tree was seated a
man decently dressed; his eyes were fixed on the rushing stream. I
stopped and spoke to him.

He had no English, but I found him a very sensible man. I talked
to him about the source of the Dyfi. He said it was a disputed
point which was the source. He himself was inclined to believe
that it was the Pistyll up the bwlch. I asked him of what religion
he was. He said he was of the Church of England, which was the
Church of his father and his grandfather, and which he believed to
be the only true Church. I inquired if it flourished. He said it
did, but that it was dreadfully persecuted by all classes of
dissenters, who, though they were continually quarrelling with one
another, agreed in one thing, namely, to persecute the Church. I
asked him if he ever read. He said he read a great deal,
especially the works of Huw Morris, and that reading them had given
him a love for the sights of nature. He added that his greatest
delight was to come to the place where he then was of an evening,
and look at the waters and hills. I asked him what trade he was.
"The trade of Joseph," said he, smiling. "Saer."  "Farewell,
brother," said I; "I am not a carpenter, but like you I read the
works of Huw Morris and am of the Church of England."  I then shook
him by the hand and departed.

I passed a village with a stupendous mountain just behind it to the
north, which I was told was called Moel Vrith or the party-coloured
moel. I was now drawing near to the western end of the valley.
Scenery of the wildest and most picturesque description was rife
and plentiful to a degree: hills were here, hills were there; some
tall and sharp, others huge and humpy; hills were on every side;
only a slight opening to the west seemed to present itself. "What
a valley!" I exclaimed. But on passing through the opening I found
myself in another, wilder and stranger, if possible. Full to the
west was a long hill rising up like the roof of a barn, an enormous
round hill on its north-east side, and on its south-east the tail
of the range which I had long had on my left - there were trees and
groves and running waters, but all in deep shadow, for night was
now close at hand.

"What is the name of this place?" I shouted to a man on horseback,
who came dashing through a brook with a woman in a Welsh dress
behind him.

"Aber Cowarch, Saxon!" said the man in a deep guttural voice, and
lashing his horse disappeared rapidly in the night.

"Aber Cywarch!" I cried, springing half a yard into the air. "Why,
that's the place where Ellis Wynn composed his immortal 'Sleeping
Bard,' the book which I translated in the blessed days of my youth.
Oh, no wonder that the 'Sleeping Bard' is a wild and wondrous work,
seeing that it was composed amidst the wild and wonderful scenes
which I here behold."

I proceeded onwards up an ascent; after some time I came to a
bridge across a stream, which a man told me was called Avon Gerres.
It runs into the Dyfi, coming down with a rushing sound from a wild
vale to the north-east between the huge barn-like hill and Moel
Vrith. The barn-like hill I was informed was called Pen Dyn. I
soon reached Dinas Mawddwy, which stands on the lower part of a
high hill connected with the Pen Dyn. Dinas, trough at one time a
place of considerable importance, if we may judge from its name,
which signifies a fortified city, is at present little more than a
collection of filthy huts. But though a dirty squalid place, I
found it anything but silent and deserted. Fierce-looking, red-
haired men, who seemed as if they might be descendants of the red-
haired banditti of old, were staggering about, and sounds of
drunken revelry echoed from the huts. I subsequently learned that
Dinas was the head-quarters of miners, the neighbourhood abounding
with mines both of lead and stone. I was glad to leave it behind
me. Mallwyd is to the south of Dinas - the way to it is by a
romantic gorge down which flows the Royal Dyfi. As I proceeded
along this gorge the moon rising above Moel Vrith illumined my
path. In about half-an-hour I found myself before the inn at
Mallwyd.

CHAPTER LXXV

Inn at Mallwyd - A Dialogue - The Cumro.

I ENTERED the inn, and seeing a comely-looking damsel at the bar, I
told her that I was in need of supper and a bed. She conducted me
into a neat sanded parlour, where a good fire was blazing, and
asked me what I would have for supper. "Whatever you can most
readily provide," said I; "I am not particular."  The maid retired,
and taking off my hat, and disencumbering myself of my satchel, I
sat down before the fire and fell into a doze, in which I dreamed
of some of the wild scenes through which I had lately passed.

I dozed and dozed till I was roused by the maid touching me on the
shoulder and telling me that supper was ready. I got up and
perceived that during my doze she had laid the cloth and put supper
upon the table. It consisted of bacon and eggs. During supper I
had some conversation with the maid.

MYSELF. - Are you a native of this place?

MAID. - I am not, sir; I come from Dinas.

MYSELF. - Are your parents alive?

MAID. - My mother is alive, sir, but my father is dead.

MYSELF. - Where does your mother live?

MAID. - At Dinas, sir.

MYSELF. - How does she support herself?

MAID. - By letting lodgings to miners, sir.

MYSELF. - Are the miners quiet lodgers?

MAID. - Not always, sir; sometimes they get up at night and fight
with each other.

MYSELF. - What does your mother do on those occasions?

MAID. - She draws the quilt over her head, and says her prayers,
sir.

MYSELF. - Why doesn't she get up and part them?

MAID. - Lest she should get a punch or a thwack for her trouble,
sir.

MYSELF. - Of what religion are the miners?

MAID. - They are Methodists, if they are anything; but they don't
trouble their heads much about religion.

MYSELF. - Of what religion are you?

MAID. - I am of the Church, sir.

MYSELF. - Did you always belong to the Church?

MAID. - Not always. When I was at Dinas I used to hear the
preacher, but since I have been here I have listened to the
clergyman.

MYSELF. - Is the clergyman here a good man?

MAID. - A very good man indeed, sir. He lives close by. Shall I
go and tell him you want to speak to him?

MYSELF. - Oh dear me, no! He can employ his time much more
usefully than in waiting upon me.

After supper I sat quiet for about an hour. Then ringing the bell,
I inquired of the maid whether there was a newspaper in the house.
She told me there was not, but that she thought she could procure
me one. In a little time she brought me a newspaper, which she
said she had borrowed at the parsonage. It was the CUMRO, an
excellent Welsh journal written in the interest of the Church. In
perusing its columns I passed a couple of hours very agreeably, and
then went to bed.

CHAPTER LXXVI

Mallwyd and its Church - Sons of Shoemakers - Village Inn -
Dottings.

THE next day was the thirty-first of October, and was rather fine
for the season. As I did not intend to journey farther this day
than Machynlleth, a principal town in Montgomeryshire, distant only
twelve miles, I did not start from Mallwyd till just before noon.

Mallwyd is a small but pretty village. The church is a long
edifice standing on a slight elevation on the left of the road.
Its pulpit is illustrious from having for many years been occupied
by one of the very celebrated men of Wales, namely Doctor John
Davies, author of the great Welsh and Latin dictionary, an
imperishable work. An immense yew tree grows in the churchyard,
and partly overshadows the road with its branches. The parsonage
stands about a hundred yards to the south of the church, near a
grove of firs. The village is overhung on the north by the
mountains of the Arran range, from which it is separated by the
murmuring Dyfi. To the south for many miles the country is not
mountainous, but presents a pleasant variety of hill and dale.

After leaving the village a little way behind me I turned round to
take a last view of the wonderful region from which I had emerged
on the previous evening. Forming the two sides of the pass down
which comes "the royal river" stood the Dinas mountain and Cefn
Coch, the first on the left, and the other on the right. Behind,
forming the background of the pass, appearing, though now some
miles distant, almost in my proximity, stood Pen Dyn. This hill
has various names, but the one which I have noted here, and which
signifies the head of a man, perhaps describes it best. From where
I looked at it on that last day of October it certainly looked like
an enormous head, and put me in mind of the head of Mambrino,
mentioned in the master work which commemorates the achievements of
the Manchegan knight. This mighty mountain is the birthplace of
more than one river. If the Gerres issues from its eastern side,
from its western springs the Maw, that singularly picturesque
stream, which enters the ocean at the place which the Saxons
corruptly call Barmouth and the Cumry with great propriety Aber
Maw, or the disemboguement of the Maw.

Just as I was about to pursue my journey two boys came up, bound in
the same direction as myself. One was a large boy dressed in a
waggoner's frock, the other was a little fellow in a brown coat and
yellowish trowsers. As we walked along together I entered into
conversation with them. They came from Dinas Mawddwy. The large
boy told me that he was the son of a man who carted mwyn or lead
ore, and the little fellow that he was the son of a shoemaker. The
latter was by far the cleverest, and no wonder, for the son of
shoemakers are always clever, which assertion should anybody doubt
I beg him to attend the examinations at Cambridge, at which he will
find that in three cases out of four the senior wranglers are the
sons of shoemakers. From this little chap I got a great deal of
information about Pen Dyn, every part of which he appeared to have
traversed. He told me amongst other things that there was a castle
upon it. Like a true son of a shoemaker, however, he was an arch
rogue. Coming to a small house with a garden attached to it in
which there were apple-trees, he stopped, whilst I went on with the
other boy, and after a minute or two came up running with a couple
of apples in his hand.

"Where did you get those apples?" said I; "I hope you did not steal
them."

He made no reply, but bit one, then making a wry face he flung it
away, and so he served the other. Presently afterwards, coming to
a side lane, the future senior wrangler, for a senior wrangler he
is destined to be, always provided he finds his way to Cambridge,
darted down it like an arrow, and disappeared.

I continued my way with the other lad, occasionally asking him
questions about the mines of Mawddwy. The information, however,
which I obtained from him was next to nothing, for he appeared to
be as heavy as the stuff which his father carted. At length we
reached a village forming a kind of semicircle on a green which
looked something like a small English common. To the east were
beautiful green hills; to the west the valley with the river
running through it, beyond which rose other green hills yet more
beautiful than the eastern ones. I asked the lad the name of the
place, but I could not catch what he said, for his answer was
merely an indistinct mumble, and before I could question him again
he left me, without a word of salutation, and trudged away across
the green.

Descending a hill I came to a bridge, under which ran a beautiful
river, which came foaming down from a gulley between two of the
eastern hills. From a man whom I met I learned that the bridge was
called Pont Coomb Linau, and that the name of the village I had
passed was Linau. The river carries an important tribute to the
Dyfi, at least it did when I saw it, though perhaps in summer it is
little more than a dry water-course.

Half-an-hour's walking brought me from this place to a small town
or large village, with a church at the entrance and the usual yew
tree in the churchyard. Seeing a kind of inn I entered it, and was
shown by a lad-waiter into a large kitchen, in which were several
people. I had told him in Welsh that I wanted some ale, and as he
opened the door he cried with a loud voice, "Cumro!" as much as to
say, Mind what you say before this chap, for he understands Cumraeg
- that word was enough. The people, who were talking fast and
eagerly as I made my appearance, instantly became silent and stared
at me with most suspicious looks. I sat down, and when my ale was
brought I took a hearty draught, and observing that the company
were still watching me suspiciously and maintaining the same
suspicious silence, I determined to comport myself in a manner
which should to a certain extent afford them ground for suspicion.
I therefore slowly and deliberately drew my note-book out of my
waistcoat pocket, unclasped it, took my pencil from the loops at
the side of the book, and forthwith began to dot down observations
upon the room and company, now looking to the left, now to the
right, now aloft, now alow, now skewing at an object, now leering
at an individual, my eyes half closed and my mouth drawn
considerably aside. Here follow some of my dottings:-

"A very comfortable kitchen with a chimney-corner on the south side
- immense grate and brilliant fire - large kettle hanging over it
by a chain attached to a transverse iron bar - a settle on the
left-hand side of the fire - seven fine large men near the fire -
two upon the settle, two upon chairs, one in the chimney-corner
smoking a pipe, and two standing up - table near the settle with
glasses, amongst which is that of myself, who sit nearly in the
middle of the room a little way on the right-hand side of the fire.

"The floor is of slate; a fine brindled greyhound lies before it on
the hearth, and a shepherd's dog wanders about, occasionally going
to the door and scratching as if anxious to get out. The company
are dressed mostly in the same fashion, brown coats, broad-brimmed
hats, and yellowish corduroy breeches with gaiters. One who looks
like a labouring man has a white smock and a white hat, patched
trowsers, and highlows covered with gravel - one has a blue coat.

"There is a clock on the right-hand side of the kitchen; a warming-
pan hangs close by it on the projecting side of the chimney-corner.
On the same side is a large rack containing many plates and dishes
of Staffordshire ware. Let me not forget a pair of fire-irons
which hang on the right-hand side of the chimney-corner!"

I made a great many more dottings, which I shall not insert here.
During the whole time I was dotting the most marvellous silence
prevailed in the room, broken only by the occasional scratching of
the dog against the inside of the door, the ticking of the clock,
and the ruttling of the smoker's pipe in the chimney-corner. After
I had dotted to my heart's content I closed my book, put the pencil
into the loops, then the book into my pocket, drank what remained
of my ale, got up, and, after another look at the apartment and its
furniture, and a leer at the company, departed from the house
without ceremony, having paid for the ale when I received it.
After walking some fifty yards down the street I turned half round
and beheld, as I knew I should, the whole company at the door
staring after me. I leered sideways at them for about half a
minute, but they stood my leer stoutly. Suddenly I was inspired by
a thought. Turning round I confronted them, and pulling my note-
book out of my pocket, and seizing my pencil, I fell to dotting
vigorously. That was too much for them. As if struck by a panic,
my quondam friends turned round and bolted into the house; the
rustic-looking man with the smock-frock and gravelled highlows
nearly falling down in his eagerness to get in.

The name of the place where this adventure occurred was Cemmaes.

CHAPTER LXXVII

The Deaf Man - Funeral Procession - The Lone Family - The Welsh and
their Secrets - The Vale of the Dyfi - The Bright Moon.

A LITTLE way from Cemmaes I saw a respectable-looking old man like
a little farmer, to whom I said:

"How far to Machynlleth?"

Looking at me in a piteous manner in the face he pointed to the
side of his head, and said - "Dim clywed."

It was no longer no English, but no hearing.

Presently I met one yet more deaf. A large procession of men came
along the road. Some distance behind them was a band of women and
between the two bands was a kind of bier drawn by a horse with
plumes at each of the four corners. I took off my hat and stood
close against the hedge on the right-hand side till the dead had
passed me some way to its final home.

Crossed a river, which like that on the other side of Cemmaes
streamed down from a gulley between two hills into the valley of
the Dyfi. Beyond the bridge on the right-hand side of the road was
a pretty cottage, just as there was in the other locality. A fine
tall woman stood at the door, with a little child beside her. I
stopped and inquired in English whose body it was that had just
been borne by.

"That of a young man, sir, the son of a farmer, who lives a mile or
so up the road."

MYSELF. - He seems to have plenty of friends.

WOMAN. - Oh yes, sir, the Welsh have plenty of friends both in life
and death.

MYSELF. - A'n't you Welsh, then?

WOMAN. - Oh no, sir, I am English, like yourself, as I suppose.

MYSELF. - Yes, I am English. What part of England do you come
from?

WOMAN. - Shropshire, sir.

MYSELF. - Is that little child yours?

WOMAN. - Yes, sir, it is my husband's child and mine.

MYSELF. - I suppose your husband is Welsh.

WOMAN. - Oh no, sir, we are all English.

MYSELF. - And what is your husband?

WOMAN. - A little farmer, sir, he farms about forty acres under Mrs
-.

MYSELF. - Well, are you comfortable here?

WOMAN. - Oh dear me, no, sir, we are anything but comfortable.
Here we are three poor lone creatures in a strange land, without a
soul to speak to but one another. Every day of our lives we wish
we had never left Shropshire.

MYSELF. - Why don't you make friends amongst your neighbours?

WOMAN. - Oh, sir, the English cannot make friends amongst the
Welsh. The Welsh won't neighbour with them, or have anything to do
with them, except now and then in the way of business.

MYSELF. - I have occasionally found the Welsh very civil.

WOMAN. - Oh yes, sir, they can be civil enough to passers-by,
especially those who they think want nothing from them - but if you
came and settled amongst them you would find them, I'm afraid,
quite the contrary.

MYSELF. - Would they be uncivil to me if I could speak Welsh?

WOMAN. - Most particularly, sir; the Welsh don't like any
strangers, but least of all those who speak their language.

MYSELF. - Have you picked up anything of their language?

WOMAN. - Not a word, sir, nor my husband neither. They take good
care that we shouldn't pick up a word of their language. I stood
the other day and listened whilst two women were talking just where
you stand now, in the hope of catching a word, and as soon as they
saw me they passed to the other side of the bridge, and began
buzzing there. My poor husband took it into his head that he might
possibly learn a word or two at the public-house, so he went there,
called for a jug of ale and a pipe, and tried to make himself at
home just as he might in England, but it wouldn't do. The company
instantly left off talking to one another and stared at him, and
before he could finish his pot and pipe took themselves off to a
man, and then came the landlord, and asked him what he meant by
frightening away his customers. So my poor husband came home as
pale as a sheet, and sitting down in a chair said, "Lord, have
mercy upon me!"

MYSELF. - Why are the Welsh afraid that strangers should pick up
their language?

WOMAN. - Lest, perhaps, they should learn their secrets, sir!

MYSELF. - What secrets have they?

WOMAN. - The Lord above only knows, sir!

MYSELF. - Do you think they are hatching treason against Queen
Victoria?

WOMAN. - Oh dear no, sir.

MYSELF. - Is there much murder going on amongst them?

WOMAN. - Nothing of the kind, sir.

MYSELF. - Cattle-stealing?

WOMAN. - Oh no, sir!

MYSELF. - Pig-stealing?

WOMAN. - No, sir!

MYSELF. - Duck or hen stealing?

WOMAN. - Haven't lost a duck or hen since I have been here, sir.

MYSELF. - Then what secrets can they possibly have?

WOMAN. - I don't know, sir! perhaps none at all, or at most only a
pack of small nonsense that nobody would give three farthings to
know. However, it is quite certain they are as jealous of
strangers hearing their discourse as if they were plotting
gunpowder treason or something worse.

MYSELF. - Have you been long here?

WOMAN. - Only since last May, sir! and we hope to get away by next,
and return to our own country, where we shall have some one to
speak to.

MYSELF. - Good-bye!

WOMAN. - Good-bye, sir, and thank you for your conversation; I
haven't had such a treat of talk for many a weary day.

The Vale of the Dyfi became wider and more beautiful as I advanced.
The river ran at the bottom amidst green and seemingly rich
meadows. The hills on the farther side were cultivated a great way
up, and various neat farm-houses were scattered here and there on
their sides. At the foot of one of the most picturesque of these
hills stood a large white village. I wished very much to know its
name, but saw no one of whom I could inquire. I proceeded for
about a mile, and then perceiving a man wheeling stones in a barrow
for the repairing of the road I thought I would inquire of him. I
did so, but the village was then out of sight, and though I pointed
in its direction and described its situation I could not get its
name out of him. At last I said hastily, "Can you tell me your own
name?"

"Dafydd Tibbot, sir," said he.

"Tibbot, Tibbot," said I; "why, you are a Frenchman."

"Dearie me, sir," said the man, looking very pleased, "am I,
indeed?"

"Yes, you are," said I, rather repenting of my haste, and giving
him sixpence, I left him.

"I'd bet a trifle," said I to myself, as I walked away, that this
poor creature is the descendant of some desperate Norman Tibault
who helped to conquer Powisland under Roger de Montgomery or Earl
Baldwin. How striking that the proud old Norman names are at
present only borne by people in the lowest station. Here's a
Tibbot or Tibault harrowing stones on a Welsh road, and I have
known a Mortimer munching poor cheese and bread under a hedge on an
English one. How can we account for this save by the supposition
that the descendants of proud, cruel, and violent men - and who so
proud, cruel and violent, as the old Normans - are doomed by God to
come to the dogs?"

Came to Pont Velin Cerrig, the bridge of the mill of the Cerrig, a
river which comes foaming down from between two rocky hills. This
bridge is about a mile from Machynlleth, at which place I arrived
at about five o'clock in the evening - a cool, bright moon shining
upon me. I put up at the principal inn, which was of course called
the Wynstay Arms.

CHAPTER LXXVIII

Welsh Poems - Sessions Business - The Lawyer and his Client - The
Court - The Two Keepers - The Defence.

DURING supper I was waited upon by a brisk, buxom maid who told me
that her name was Mary Evans. The repast over, I ordered a glass
of whiskey and water, and when it was brought I asked the maid if
she could procure me some book to read. She said she was not aware
of any book in the house which she could lay her hand on except one
of her own, which if I pleased she would lend me. I begged her to
do so. Whereupon she went out and presently returned with a very
small volume, which she laid on the table and then retired. After
taking a sip of my whiskey and water I proceeded to examine it. It
turned out to be a volume of Welsh poems entitled "Blodau Glyn
Dyfi"; or, Flowers of Glyn Dyfi, by one Lewis Meredith, whose
poetical name is Lewis Glyn Dyfi. The author indites his preface
from Cemmaes, June, 1852. The best piece is called Dyffryn Dyfi,
and is descriptive of the scenery of the vale through which the
Dyfi runs. It commences thus:

"Heddychol ddyffryn tlws,"
Peaceful, pretty vale,

and contains many lines breathing a spirit of genuine poetry.

The next day I did not get up till nine, having no journey before
me, as I intended to pass that day at Machynlleth. When I went
down to the parlour I found another guest there, breakfasting. He
was a tall, burly, and clever-looking man of about thirty-five. As
we breakfasted together at the same table we entered into
conversation. I learned from him that he was an attorney from a
town at some distance, and was come over to Machynlleth to the
petty sessions, to be held that day, in order to defend a person
accused of spearing a salmon in the river. I asked him who his
client was.

"A farmer," said he, "a tenant of Lord V-, who will probably
preside over the bench which will try the affair."

"Oh," said I, "a tenant spearing his landlord's fish - that's bad."

"No," said he, "the fish which he speared, that is, which he is
accused of spearing, did not belong to his landlord but to another
person; he hires land of Lord V-, but the fishing of the river
which runs through that land belongs to Sir Watkin."

"Oh, then," said I, "supposing he did spear the salmon I shan't
break my heart if you get him off: do you think you shall?"

"I don't know," said he. "There's the evidence of two keepers
against him; one of whom I hope, however, to make appear a
scoundrel, in whose oath the slightest confidence is not to be
placed. I shouldn't wonder if I make my client appear a persecuted
lamb. The worst is, that he has the character of being rather fond
of fish, indeed of having speared more salmon than any other six
individuals in the neighbourhood."

"I really should like to see him," said I; "what kind of person is
he? - some fine, desperate-looking fellow, I suppose?"

"You will see him presently," said the lawyer; "he is in the
passage waiting till I call him in to take some instructions from
him; and I think I had better do so now, for I have breakfasted,
and time is wearing away."

He then got up, took some papers out of a carpet bag, sat down, and
after glancing at them for a minute or two, went to the door and
called to somebody in Welsh to come in. Forthwith in came a small,
mean, wizzened-faced man of about sixty, dressed in a black coat
and hat, drab breeches and gaiters, and looking more like a decayed
Methodist preacher than a spearer of imperial salmon.

"Well," said the attorney, "This is my client, what do you think of
him?"

"He is rather a different person from what I had expected to see,"
said I; "but let us mind what we say or we shall offend him."

"Not we," said the attorney; "that is, unless we speak Welsh, for
he understands not a word of any other language."

Then sitting down at the further table he said to his client in
Welsh: "Now, Mr So-and-so, have you learnt anything more about
that first keeper?"

The client bent down, and placing both his hands upon the table
began to whisper in Welsh to his professional adviser. Not wishing
to hear any of their conversation I finished my breakfast as soon
as possible and left the room. Going into the inn-yard I had a
great deal of learned discourse with an old ostler about the
glanders in horses. From the inn-yard I went to my own private
room and made some dottings in my note-book, and then went down
again to the parlour, which I found unoccupied. After sitting some
time before the fire I got up, and strolling out, presently came to
a kind of marketplace, in the middle of which stood an old-
fashioned-looking edifice supported on pillars. Seeing a crowd
standing round it I asked what was the matter, and was told that
the magistrates were sitting in the town-hall above, and that a
grand poaching case was about to be tried. "I may as well go and
hear it," said I.

Ascending a flight of steps I found myself in the hall of justice,
in the presence of the magistrates and amidst a great many people,
amongst whom I observed my friend the attorney and his client. The
magistrates, upon the whole, were rather a fine body of men. Lord
V- was in the chair, a highly intelligent-looking person, with
fresh complexion, hooked nose, and dark hair. A policeman very
civilly procured me a commodious seat. I had scarcely taken
possession of it when the poaching case was brought forward. The
first witness against the accused was a fellow dressed in a dirty
snuff-coloured suit, with a debauched look, and having much the
appearance of a town shack. He deposed that he was a hired keeper,
and went with another to watch the river at about four o'clock in
the morning; that they placed themselves behind a bush, and that a
little before day-light they saw the farmer drive some cattle
across the river. He was attended by a dog. Suddenly they saw him
put a spear upon a stick which he had in his hand, run back to the
river, and plunging the spear in, after a struggle, pull out a
salmon; that they then ran forward, and he himself asked the farmer
what he was doing, whereupon the farmer flung the salmon and spear
into the river and said that if he did not take himself off he
would fling him in too. The attorney then got up and began to
cross-question him. "How long have you been a keeper?"

"About a fortnight."

"What do you get a week?"

"Ten shillings."

"Have you not lately been in London?"

"I have."

"What induced you to go to London?"

"The hope of bettering my condition."

"Were you not driven out of Machynlleth?"

"I was not."

"Why did you leave London?"

"Because I could get no work, and my wife did not like the place."

"Did you obtain possession of the salmon and the spear?"

"I did not."

"Why didn't you?"

"The pool was deep where the salmon was struck, and I was not going
to lose my life by going into it."

"How deep was it?"

"Over the tops of the houses," said the fellow, lifting up his
hands.

The other keeper then came forward; he was brother to the former,
but had much more the appearance of a keeper, being rather a fine
fellow, and dressed in a wholesome, well-worn suit of velveteen.
He had no English, and what he said was translated by a sworn
interpreter. He gave the same evidence as his brother about
watching behind the bush, and seeing the farmer strike a salmon.
When cross-questioned, however, he said that no words passed
between the farmer and his brother, at least, that he heard. The
evidence for the prosecution being given, my friend the attorney
entered upon the defence. He said that he hoped the court were not
going to convict his client, one of the most respectable farmers in
the county, on the evidence of two such fellows as the keepers, one
of whom was a well-known bad one, who for his evil deeds had been
driven from Machynlleth to London, and from London back again to
Machynlleth, and the other, who was his brother, a fellow not much
better, and who, moreover, could not speak a word of English - the
honest lawyer forgetting no doubt that his own client had just as
little English as the keeper. He repeated that he hoped the court
would not convict his respectable client on the evidence of these
fellows, more especially as they flatly contradicted each other in
one material point, one saying that words had passed between the
farmer and himself, and the other that no words at all had passed,
and were unable to corroborate their testimony by anything visible
or tangible. If his client speared the salmon and then flung the
salmon with the spear sticking in its body into the pool, why
didn't they go into the pool and recover the spear and salmon?
They might have done so with perfect safety, there being an old
proverb - he need not repeat it - which would have secured them
from drowning had the pool been not merely over the tops of the
houses but over the tops of the steeples. But he would waive all
the advantage which his client derived from the evil character of
the witnesses, the discrepancy of their evidence, and their not
producing the spear and salmon in court. He would rest the issue
of the affair with confidence, on one argument, on one question; it
was this. Would any man in his senses - and it was well known that
his client was a very sensible man - spear a salmon not his own
when he saw two keepers close at hand watching him - staring at
him? Here the chairman observed that there was no proof that he
saw them - that they were behind a bush. But my friend the
attorney very properly, having the interest of his client and his
own character for consistency in view, stuck to what he had said,
and insisted that the farmer must have seen them, and he went on
reiterating that he must have seen them, notwithstanding that
several magistrates shook their heads.

Just as he was about to sit down I moved up behind him and
whispered: "Why don't you mention the dog? Wouldn't the dog have
been likely to have scented the fellows out even if they had been
behind the bush?"

He looked at me for a moment and then said with a kind of sigh:
"No, no! twenty dogs would be of no use here. It's no go - I shall
leave the case as it is."

The court was cleared for a time, and when the audience were again
admitted Lord V- said that the Bench found the prisoner guilty;
that they had taken into consideration what his counsel had said in
his defence, but that they could come to no other conclusion, more
especially as the accused was known to have been frequently guilty
of similar offences. They fined him four pounds, including costs.

As the people were going out I said to the farmer in Welsh: "A bad
affair this."

"Drwg iawn" - very bad indeed, he replied.

"Did these fellows speak truth?" said I.

"Nage - Dim ond celwydd" - not they! nothing but lies.

"Dear me!" said I to myself, "what an ill-treated individual!"

CHAPTER LXXIX

Machynlleth - Remarkable Events - Ode to Glendower - Dafydd Gam -
Lawdden's Hatchet.

MACHYNLLETH, pronounced Machuncleth, is one of the principal towns
of the district which the English call Montgomeryshire, and the
Welsh Shire Trefaldwyn or the Shire of Baldwin's town, Trefaldwyn
or the town of Baldwin being the Welsh name for the town which is
generally termed Montgomery. It is situated in nearly the centre
of the valley of the Dyfi, amidst pleasant green meadows, having to
the north the river, from which, however, it is separated by a
gentle hill. It possesses a stately church, parts of which are of
considerable antiquity, and one or two good streets. It is a
thoroughly Welsh town, and the inhabitants, who amount in number to
about four thousand, speak the ancient British language with
considerable purity.

Machynlleth has been the scene of remarkable events, and is
connected with remarkable names, some of which have rung through
the world. At Machynlleth, in 1402, Owen Glendower, after several
brilliant victories over the English, held a parliament in a house
which is yet to be seen in the Eastern Street, and was formally
crowned King of Wales; in his retinue was the venerable bard Iolo
Goch, who, imagining that he now saw the old prophecy fulfilled,
namely, that a prince of the race of Cadwaladr should rule the
Britons, after emancipating them from the Saxon yoke, greeted the
chieftain with an ode, to the following effect:-

"Here's the life I've sigh'd for long:
Abash'd is now the Saxon throng,
And Britons have a British lord
Whose emblem is the conquering sword;
There's none I trow but knows him well,
The hero of the watery dell,
Owain of bloody spear in field,
Owain his country's strongest shield;
A sovereign bright in grandeur drest,
Whose frown affrights the bravest breast.
Let from the world upsoar on high
A voice of splendid prophecy!
All praise to him who forth doth stand
To 'venge his injured native land!
Of him - of him a lay I'll frame
Shall bear through countless years his name,
In him are blended portents three,
Their glories blended sung shall be:
There's Oswain, meteor of the glen,
The head of princely generous men;
Owain the lord of trenchant steel,
Who makes the hostile squadrons reel;
Owain, besides, of warlike look,
A conqueror who no stay will brook;
Hail to the lion leader gay!
Marshaller of Griffith's war array;
The scourger of the flattering race,
For them a dagger has his face;
Each traitor false he loves to smite,
A lion is he for deeds of might;
Soon may he tear, like lion grim,
All the Lloegrians limb from limb!
May God and Rome's blest father high
Deck him in surest panoply!
Hail to the valiant carnager,
Worthy three diadems to bear!
Hail to the valley's belted king!
Hail to the widely conquering,
The liberal, hospitable, kind,
Trusty and keen as steel refined!
Vigorous of form he nations bows,
Whilst from his breast-plate bounty flows.
Of Horsa's seed on hill and plain
Four hundred thousand he has slain.
The copestone of our nation's he,
In him our weal, our all we see;
Though calm he looks his plans when breeding,
Yet oaks he'd break his clans when leading.
Hail to this partisan of war,
This bursting meteor flaming far!
Where'er he wends, Saint Peter guard him,
And may the Lord five lives award him!"

To Machynlleth on the occasion of the parliament came Dafydd Gam,
so celebrated in after time; not, however, with the view of
entering into the councils of Glendower, or of doing him homage,
but of assassinating him. This man, whose surname Gam signifies
crooked, was a petty chieftain of Breconshire. He was small of
stature and deformed in person, though possessed of great strength.
He was very sensitive of injury, though quite as alive to kindness;
a thorough-going enemy and a thorough-going friend. In the earlier
part of his life he had been driven from his own country for
killing a man, called Big Richard of Slwch, in the High Street of
Aber Honddu or Brecon, and had found refuge in England and kind
treatment in the house of John of Gaunt, for whose son Henry,
generally called Bolingbroke, he formed one of his violent
friendships. Bolingbroke, on becoming King Henry the Fourth, not
only restored the crooked little Welshman to his possessions, but
gave him employments of great trust and profit in Herefordshire.
The insurrection of Glendower against Henry was quite sufficient to
kindle against him the deadly hatred of Dafydd, who swore "by the
nails of God" that he would stab his countryman for daring to rebel
against his friend King Henry, the son of the man who had received
him in his house and comforted him when his own countrymen were
threatening his destruction. He therefore went to Machynlleth with
the full intention of stabbing Glendower, perfectly indifferent as
to what might subsequently be his own fate. Glendower, however,
who had heard of his threat, caused him to be seized and conducted
in chains to a prison which he had in the mountains of Sycharth.
Shortly afterwards, passing through Breconshire with his host, he
burnt Dafydd's house - a fair edifice called the Cyrnigwen,
situated on a hillock near the river Honddu - to the ground, and
seeing one of Gam's dependents gazing mournfully on the smouldering
ruins he uttered the following taunting englyn:-

"Shouldst thou a little red man descry
Asking about his dwelling fair,
Tell him it under the bank doth lie,
And its brow the mark of the coal doth bear."

Dafydd remained confined till the fall of Glendower, shortly after
which event he followed Henry the Fifth to France, where he
achieved that glory which will for ever bloom, dying, covered with
wounds, on the field of Agincourt after saving the life of the
king, to whom in the dreadest and most critical moment of the fight
he stuck closer than a brother, not from any abstract feeling of
loyalty, but from the consideration that King Henry the Fifth was
the son of King Henry the Fourth, who was the son of the man who
received and comforted him in his house, after his own countrymen
had hunted him from house and land.

Connected with Machynlleth is a name not so widely celebrated as
those of Glendower and Dafydd Gam, but well known to and cherished
by the lovers of Welsh song. It is that of Lawdden, a Welsh bard
in holy orders, who officiated as priest at Machynlleth from 1440
to 1460. But though Machynlleth was his place of residence for
many years, it was not the place of his birth, Lychwr in
Carmarthenshire being the spot where he first saw the light. He
was an excellent poet, and displayed in his compositions such
elegance of language, and such a knowledge of prosody, that it was
customary, long after his death, when any masterpiece of vocal song
or eloquence was produced, to say that it bore the traces of
Lawdden's hatchet. At the request of Griffith ap Nicholas, a
powerful chieftain of South Wales, and a great patron of the Muse,
he drew up a statute relating to poets and poetry, and at the great
Eisteddfodd, or poetical congress, held at Carmarthen in the year
1450, under the auspices of Griffith, which was attended by the
most celebrated bards of the north and south, he officiated as
judge, in conjunction with the chieftain, upon the compositions of
the bards who competed for the prize - a little silver chair. Not
without reason, therefore, do the inhabitants of Machynlleth
consider the residence of such a man within their walls, though at
a far by-gone period, as conferring a lustre on their town, and
Lewis Meredith has probability on his side when, in his pretty poem
on Glen Dyfi, he says:-

"Whilst fair Machynlleth decks thy quiet plain,
Conjoined with it shall Lawdden's name remain."

CHAPTER LXXX

The Old Ostler - Directions - Church of England Man - The Deep
Dingle - The Two Women - The Cutty Pipe - Waen y Bwlch  - The Deaf
and Dumb - The Glazed Hat.

I ROSE on the morning of the 2nd of November intending to proceed
to the Devil's Bridge, where I proposed halting a day or two, in
order that I might have an opportunity of surveying the far-famed
scenery of that locality. After paying my bill I went into the
yard to my friend the old ostler, to make inquiries with respect to
the road.

"What kind of road," said I, "is it to the Devil's Bridge?"

"There are two roads, sir, to the Pont y Gwr Drwg; which do you
mean to take?"

"Why do you call the Devil's Bridge the Pont y Gwr Drwg, or the
bridge of the evil man?"

"That we may not bring a certain gentleman upon us, sir, who
doesn't like to have his name taken in vain."

"Is their much difference between the roads?"

"A great deal, sir; one is over the hills, and the other round by
the valleys."

"Which is the shortest?"

"Oh, that over the hills, sir; it is about twenty miles from here
to the Pont y Gwr Drwg over the hills, but more than twice that by
the valleys."

"Well, I suppose you would advise me to go by the hills?"

"Certainly, sir - that is, if you wish to break your neck, or to
sink in a bog, or to lose your way, or perhaps, if night comes on,
to meet the Gwr Drwg himself taking a stroll. But to talk soberly.
The way over the hills is an awful road, and, indeed, for the
greater part is no road at all."

"Well, I shall go by it. Can't you give me some directions?"

"I'll do my best, sir, but I tell you again that the road is a
horrible one, and very hard to find."

He then went with me to the gate of the inn, where he began to give
me directions, pointing to the south, and mentioning some names of
places through which I must pass, amongst which were Waen y Bwlch
and Long Bones. At length he mentioned Pont Erwyd, and said: "If
you can but get there, you are all right, for from thence there is
a very fair road to the bridge of the evil man; though I dare say
if you get to Pont Erwyd - and I wish you may get there - you will
have had enough of it and will stay there for the night, more
especially as there is a good inn."

Leaving Machynlleth, I ascended a steep hill which rises to the
south of it. From the top of this hill there is a fine view of the
town, the river, and the whole valley of the Dyfi. After stopping
for a few minutes to enjoy the prospect I went on. The road at
first was exceedingly good, though up and down, and making frequent
turnings. The scenery was beautiful to a degree: lofty hills were
on either side, clothed most luxuriantly with trees of various
kinds, but principally oaks. "This is really very pleasant," said
I, "but I suppose it is too good to last long."  However, I went on
for a considerable way, the road neither deteriorating nor the
scenery decreasing in beauty. "Surely I can't be in the right
road," said I; "I wish I had an opportunity of asking."  Presently
seeing an old man working with a spade in a field near a gate, I
stopped and said in Welsh: "Am I in the road to the Pont y Gwr
Drwg?"  The old man looked at me for a moment, then shouldering his
spade he came up to the gate, and said in English: "In truth, sir,
you are."

"I was told that the road thither was a very bad one," said I, "but
this is quite the contrary."

"This road does not go much farther, sir," said he; "it was made to
accommodate grand folks who live about here."

"You speak very good English," said I; "where did you get it?"

He looked pleased, and said that in his youth he had lived some
years in England.

"Can you read?" said I.

"Oh yes," said he, "both Welsh and English."

"What have you read in Welsh?" said I.

"The Bible and Twm O'r Nant."

"What pieces of Twm O'r Nant have you read?"

"I have read two of his interludes and his life."

"And which do you like best - his life or his interludes?"

"Oh, I like his life best."

"And what part of his life do you like best?"

"Oh, I like that part best where he gets the ship into the water at
Abermarlais."

"You have a good judgment," said I; "his life is better than his
interludes, and the best part of his life is where he describes his
getting the ship into the water. But do the Methodists about here
in general read Twm O'r Nant?"

"I don't know," said be; "I am no Methodist."

"Do you belong to the Church?"

"I do."

"And why do you belong to the Church?"

"Because I believe it is the best religion to get to heaven by."

"I am much of your opinion," said I. "Are there many Church people
about here?"

"Not many," said he, "but more than when I was young."

"How old are you?"

"Sixty-nine."

"You are not very old," said I.

"An't I? I only want one year of fulfilling my proper time on
earth."

"You take things very easily," said I.

"Not so very easily, sir; I have often my quakings and fears, but
then I read my Bible, say my prayers, and find hope and comfort."

"I really am very glad to have seen you," said I; "and now can you
tell me the way to the bridge?"

"Not exactly, sir, for I have never been there; but you must follow
this road some way farther, and then bear away to the right along
yon hill" - and he pointed to a distant mountain.

I thanked him, and proceeded on my way. I passed through a deep
dingle, and shortly afterwards came to the termination of the road;
remembering, however, the directions of the old man,, I bore away
to the right, making for the distant mountain. My course lay now
over very broken ground where there was no path, at least that I
could perceive. I wandered on for some time; at length on turning
round a bluff I saw a lad tending a small herd of bullocks. "Am I
in the road," said I, "to the Pont y Gwr Drwg?"

"Nis gwn! I don't know," said he sullenly. "I am a hired servant,
and have only been here a little time."

"Where's the house," said I, "where you serve?"

But as he made no answer I left him. Some way farther on I saw a
house on my left, a little way down the side of a deep dingle which
was partly overhung with trees, and at the bottom of which a brook
murmured. Descending a steep path, I knocked at the door. After a
little time it was opened, and two women appeared, one behind the
other. The first was about sixty; she was very powerfully made,
had stern grey eyes and harsh features, and was dressed in the
ancient Welsh female fashion, having a kind of riding-habit of blue
and a high conical hat like that of the Tyrol. The other seemed
about twenty years younger; she had dark features, was dressed like
the other, but had no hat. I saluted the first in English, and
asked her the way to the Bridge, whereupon she uttered a deep
guttural "augh" and turned away her head, seemingly in abhorrence.
I then spoke to her in Welsh, saying I was a foreign man - I did
not say a Saxon - was bound to the Devil's Bridge, and wanted to
know the way. The old woman surveyed me sternly for some time,
then turned to the other and said something, and the two began to
talk to each other, but in a low, buzzing tone, so that I could not
distinguish a word. In about half a minute the eldest turned to
me, and extending her arm and spreading out her five fingers wide,
motioned to the side of the hill in the direction which I had been
following.

"If I go that way shall I get to the bridge of the evil man?" said
I, but got no other answer than a furious grimace and violent
agitations of the arm and fingers in the same direction. I turned
away, and scarcely had I done so when the door was slammed to
behind me with great force, and I heard two "aughs," one not quite
so deep and abhorrent as the other, probably proceeding from the
throat of the younger female.

"Two regular Saxon-hating Welsh women," said I, philosophically;
"just of the same sort no doubt as those who played such pranks on
the slain bodies of the English soldiers, after the victory
achieved by Glendower over Mortimer on the Severn's side."

I proceeded in the direction indicated, winding round the side of
the hill, the same mountain which the old man had pointed out to me
some time before. At length, on making a turn I saw a very lofty
mountain in the far distance to the south-west, a hill right before
me to the south, and, on my left, a meadow overhung by the southern
hill, in the middle of which stood a house from which proceeded a
violent barking of dogs. I would fain have made immediately up to
it for the purpose of inquiring my way, but saw no means of doing
so, a high precipitous bank lying between it and me. I went
forward and ascended the side of the hill before me, and presently
came to a path running east and west. I followed it a little way
towards the east. I was now just above the house, and saw some
children and some dogs standing beside it. Suddenly I found myself
close to a man who stood in a hollow part of the road, from which a
narrow path led down to the house; a donkey with panniers stood
beside him. He was about fifty years of age, with a carbuncled
countenance, high but narrow forehead, grey eyebrows, and small,
malignant grey eyes. He had a white hat, with narrow eaves and the
crown partly knocked out, a torn blue coat, corduroy breeches, long
stockings and highlows. He was sucking a cutty pipe, but seemed
unable to extract any smoke from it. He had all the appearance of
a vagabond, and of a rather dangerous vagabond. I nodded to him,
and asked him in Welsh the name of the place. He glared at me
malignantly, then, taking the pipe out of his mouth, said that he
did not know, that he had been down below to inquire and light his
pipe, but could get neither light nor answer from the children. I
asked him where he came from, but he evaded the question by asking
where I was going to.

"To the Pont y Gwr Drwg," said I.

He then asked me if I was an Englishman.

"Oh yes," said I, "I am Carn Sais;" whereupon, with a strange
mixture in his face of malignity and contempt, he answered in
English that he didn't understand me.

"You understood me very well," said I, without changing my
language, "till I told you I was an Englishman. Harkee, man with
the broken hat, you are one of the bad Welsh who don't like the
English to know the language, lest they should discover your lies
and rogueries."  He evidently understood what I said, for he
gnashed his teeth, though he said nothing. "Well," said I, "I
shall go down to those children and inquire the name of the house;"
and I forthwith began to descend the path, the fellow uttering a
contemptuous "humph" behind me, as much as to say, "Much you'll
make out down there."  I soon reached the bottom and advanced
towards the house. The dogs had all along been barking violently;
as I drew near to them, however, they ceased, and two of the
largest came forward wagging their tails. "The dogs were not
barking at me," said I, "but at that vagabond above."  I went up to
the children; they were four in number, two boys and two girls, all
red-haired, but tolerably good-looking. They had neither shoes nor
stockings. "What is the name of this house?" said I to the eldest,
a boy about seven years old. He looked at me, but made no answer.
I repeated my question; still there was no answer, but methought I
heard a humph of triumph from the hill. "Don't crow quite yet, old
chap," thought I to myself, and putting my hand into my pocket, I
took out a penny, and offering it to the child said: "Now, small
man, Peth yw y enw y lle hwn?"  Instantly the boy's face became
intelligent, and putting out a fat little hand, he took the ceiniog
and said in an audible whisper, "Waen y Bwlch."  "I am all right,"
said I to myself; "that is one of the names of the places which the
old ostler said I must go through."  Then addressing myself to the
child I said: "Where's your father and mother?"

"Out on the hill," whispered the child.

"What's your father?"

"A shepherd."

"Good," said I. "Now can you tell me the way to the bridge of the
evil man?"  But the features became blank, the finger was put to
the mouth, and the head was hung down. That question was evidently
beyond the child's capacity. "Thank you!" said I, and turning
round I regained the path on the top of the bank. The fellow and
his donkey were still there. "I had no difficulty," said I, "in
obtaining information; the place's name is Waen y Bwlch. But oes
genoch dim Cumraeg - you have no Welsh."  Thereupon I proceeded
along the path in the direction of the east. Forthwith the fellow
said something to his animal, and both came following fast behind.
I quickened my pace, but the fellow and his beast were close in my
rear. Presently I came to a place where another path branched off
to the south. I stopped, looked at it, and then went on, but
scarcely had done so when I heard another exulting "humph" behind.
"I am going wrong," said I to myself; "that other path is the way
to the Devil's Bridge, and the scamp knows it or he would not have
grunted."  Forthwith I faced round, and brushing past the fellow
without a word turned into the other path and hurried along it. By
a side glance which I cast I could see him staring after me;
presently, however, he uttered a sound very much like a Welsh
curse, and, kicking his beast, proceeded on his way, and I saw no
more of him. In a little time I came to a slough which crossed the
path. I did not like the look of it at all, and to avoid it
ventured upon some green mossy-looking ground to the left, and had
scarcely done so when I found myself immersed to the knees in a
bog. I, however, pushed forward, and with some difficulty got to
the path on the other side of the slough. I followed the path, and
in about half-an-hour saw what appeared to be houses at a distance.
"God grant that I maybe drawing near some inhabited place!" said I.
The path now grew very miry, and there were pools of water on
either side. I moved along slowly. At length I came to a place
where some men were busy in erecting a kind of building. I went up
to the nearest and asked him the name of the place. He had a
crowbar in his hand, was half naked, had a wry mouth and only one
eye. He made me no answer, but mowed and gibbered at me.

"For God's sake," said I, "don't do so, but tell me where I am!"  
He still uttered no word, but mowed and gibbered yet more
frightfully than before. As I stood staring at him another man
came to me and said in broken English: "It is of no use speaking
to him, sir, he is deaf and dumb."

"I am glad he is no worse," said I, "for I really thought he was
possessed with the evil one. My good person, can you tell me the
name of this place?"

"Esgyrn Hirion, sir," said he.

"Esgyrn Hirion," said I to myself; "Esgyrn means 'bones,' and
Hirion means 'long.'  I am doubtless at the place which the old
ostler called Long Bones. I shouldn't wonder if I get to the
Devil's Bridge to-night after all."  I then asked the man if he
could tell me the way to the bridge of the evil man, but he shook
his head and said that he had never heard of such a place, adding,
however, that he would go with me to one of the overseers, who
could perhaps direct me. He then proceeded towards a row of
buildings, which were, in fact, those objects which I had guessed
to be houses in the distance. He led me to a corner house, at the
door of which stood a middle-aged man, dressed in a grey coat, and
saying to me, "This person is an overseer," returned to his labour.
I went up to the man, and, saluting him in English, asked whether
he could direct me to the Devil's Bridge, or rather to Pont Erwyd.

"It would be of no use directing you, sir," said he, "for with all
the directions in the world it would be impossible for you to find
the way. You would not have left these premises five minutes
before you would be in a maze without knowing which way to turn.
Where do you come from?"

"From Machynlleth," I replied.

"From Machynlleth!" said he. "Well, I only wonder you ever got
here, but it would be madness to go farther alone."

"Well," said I, "can I obtain a guide?"

"I really don't know," said he; "I am afraid all the men are
engaged."

As we were speaking a young man made his appearance at the door
from the interior of the house. He was dressed in a brown short
coat, had a glazed hat on his head, and had a pale but very
intelligent countenance.

"What is the matter?" said he to the other man.

"This gentleman," replied the latter, "is going to Pont Erwyd, and
wants a guide."

"Well," said the young man, "we must find him one. It will never
do to let him go by himself."

"If you can find me a guide," said I, "I shall be happy to pay him
for his trouble."

"Oh, you can do as you please about that," said the young man;
"but, pay or not, we would never suffer you to leave this place
without a guide, and as much for our own sake as yours; for the
directors of the Company would never forgive us if they heard we
had suffered a gentleman to leave these premises without a guide,
more especially if he were lost, as it is a hundred to one you
would be if you went by yourself."

"Pray," said I, "what Company is this, the directors of which are
so solicitous about the safety of strangers?"

"The Potosi Mining Company," said he, "the richest in all Wales.
But pray walk in and sit down, for you must be tired."

CHAPTER LXXXI

The Mining Compting Room - Native of Aberystwyth - Story of a
Bloodhound - The Young Girls - The Miner's Tale - Gwen Frwd - The
Terfyn.

I FOLLOWED the young man with the glazed hat into a room, the other
man following behind me. He of the glazed hat made me sit down
before a turf fire, apologising for its smoking very much. The
room seemed half compting-room, half apartment. There was a wooden
desk with a ledger upon it by the window, which looked to the west,
and a camp bedstead extended from the southern wall nearly up to
the desk. After I had sat for about a minute, the young man asked
me if I would take any refreshment. I thanked him for his kind
offer, which I declined, saying, however, that if he would obtain
me a guide I should feel much obliged. He turned to the other man
and told him to go and inquire whether there was any one who would
be willing to go. The other nodded, and forthwith went out.

"You think, then," said I, "that I could not find the way by
myself?"

"I am sure of it," said he, "for even the people best acquainted
with the country frequently lose their way. But I must tell you,
that if we do find you a guide, it will probably be one who has no
English."

"Never mind," said I, "I have enough Welsh to hold a common
discourse."

A fine girl about fourteen now came in, and began bustling about.

"Who is this young lady?" said I.

"The daughter of a captain of a neighbouring mine," said he; "she
frequently comes here with messages, and is always ready to do a
turn about the house, for she is very handy."

"Has she any English?" said I.

"Not a word," he replied. "The young people of these hills have no
English, except they go abroad to learn it."

"What hills are these?" said I.

"Part of the Plynlimmon range," said he.

"Dear me," said I, "am I near Plynlimmon?"

"Not very far from it," said the young man, "and you will be nearer
when you reach Pont Erwyd."

"Are you a native of these parts?" said I.

"I am not," he replied; "I am a native of Aberystwyth, a place on
the sea-coast about a dozen miles from here."

"This seems to be a cold, bleak spot," said I; "is it healthy?"

"I have reason to say so," said he; "for I came here from
Aberystwyth about four months ago very unwell, and am now perfectly
recovered. I do not believe there is a healthier spot in all
Wales."

We had some further discourse. I mentioned to him the adventure
which I had on the hill with the fellow with the donkey. The young
man said that he had no doubt that he was some prowling thief.

"The dogs of the shepherd's house," said I, "didn't seem to like
him, and dogs generally know an evil customer. A long time ago I
chanced to be in a posada, or inn, at Valladolid in Spain. One hot
summer's afternoon I was seated in a corridor which ran round a
large open court in the middle of the inn; a fine yellow, three-
parts-grown bloodhound was lying on the ground beside me with whom
I had been playing, a little time before. I was just about to fall
asleep, when I heard a 'hem' at the outward door of the posada,
which was a long way below at the end of a passage which
communicated with the court. Instantly the hound started upon his
legs, and with a loud yell, and with eyes flashing fire, ran nearly
round the corridor, down a flight of steps, and through the passage
to the gate. There was then a dreadful noise, in which the cries
of a human being and the yells of the hound were blended. I
forthwith started up and ran down, followed by several other
guests, who came rushing out of their chambers round the corridor.
At the gate we saw a man on the ground and the hound trying to
strangle him. It was with the greatest difficulty, and chiefly
through the intervention of the master of the dog, who happened to
be present, that the animal could be made to quit his hold. The
assailed person was a very powerful man, but had an evil
countenance, was badly dressed, and had neither hat, shoes nor
stockings. We raised him up and gave him wine, which he drank
greedily, and presently, without saying a word, disappeared. The
guests said they had no doubt that he was a murderer flying from
justice, and that the dog by his instinct, even at a distance, knew
him to be such. The master said that it was the first time that
the dog had ever attacked any one or shown the slightest symptom of
ferocity. Not the least singular part of the matter was, that the
dog did not belong to the house, but to one of the guests from a
distant village; the creature therefore could not consider itself
the house's guardian."

I had scarcely finished my tale when the other man came in and said
that he had found a guide, a young man from Pont Erwyd, who would
be glad of such an opportunity to go and see his parents, that he
was then dressing himself, and would shortly make his appearance.
In about twenty minutes he did so. He was a stout young fellow
with a coarse blue coat, and coarse white felt hat; he held a stick
in his hand. The kind young book-keeper now advised us to set out
without delay, as the day was drawing to a close and the way was
long. I shook him by the hand, told him that I should never forget
his civility, and departed with the guide.

The fine young girl, whom I have already mentioned, and another
about two years younger, departed with us. They were dressed in
the graceful female attire of old Wales.

We bore to the south down a descent, and came to some moory, quaggy
ground intersected with water-courses. The agility of the young
girls surprised me; they sprang over the water-courses, some of
which were at least four feet wide, with the ease and alacrity of
lawns. After a short time we came to a road, which, however, we
did not long reap the benefit of, as it only led to a mine. Seeing
a house on the top of a hill, I asked my guide whose it was.

"Ty powdr," said he, "a powder house," by which I supposed he meant
a magazine of powder used for blasting in the mines. He had not a
word of English. . If the young girls were nimble with their feet,
they were not less so with their tongues, as they kept up an
incessant gabble with each other and with the guide. I understood
little of what they said, their volubility preventing me from
catching more than a few words. After we had gone about two miles
and a half, they darted away with surprising swiftness down a hill
towards a distant house, where, as I learned from my guide, the
father of the eldest lived. We ascended a hill, passed between two
craggy elevations, and then wended to the south-east over a
strange, miry place, in which I thought any one at night not
acquainted with every inch of the way would run imminent risk of
perishing. I entered into conversation with my guide. After a
little time he asked me if I was a Welshman. I told him no.

"You could teach many a Welshman," said he.

"Why do you think so?" said I.

"Because many of your words are quite above my comprehension," said
he.

"No great compliment," thought I to myself; but putting a good face
upon the matter I told him that I knew a great many old Welsh
words.

"Is Potosi an old Welsh word?" said he.

"No," said I; "it is the name of a mine in the Deheubarth of
America."

"Is it a lead mine?"

"No!" said I, "it is a silver mine."

"Then why do they call our mine, which is a lead mine, by the name
of a silver mine?"

"Because they wish to give people to understand," said I, "that it
is very rich - as rich in lead as Potosi in silver. Potosi is, or
was, the richest silver mine in the world, and from it has come at
least one half of the silver which we use in the shape of money and
other things."

"Well," said he, "I have frequently asked, but could never learn
before why our mine was called Potosi."

"You did not ask at the right quarter," said I; "the young man with
the glazed hat could have told you as well as I."  I inquired why
the place where the mine was bore the name of Esgyrn Hirion or Long
Bones. He told me that he did not know, but believed that the
bones of a cawr or giant had been found there in ancient times. I
asked him if the mine was deep.

"Very deep," he replied.

"Do you like the life of a miner?" said I.

"Very much," said he, "and should like it more, but for the noises
of the hill."

"Do you mean the powder blasts?" said I.

"Oh no!" said he, "I care nothing for them; I mean the noises made
by the spirits of the hill in the mine. Sometimes they make such
noises as frighten the poor fellow who works underground out of his
senses. Once on a time I was working by myself very deep
underground, in a little chamber to which a very deep shaft led. I
had just taken up my light to survey my work, when all of a sudden
I heard a dreadful rushing noise, as if an immense quantity of
earth had come tumbling down. 'Oh God!' said I, and fell
backwards, letting the light fall, which instantly went out. I
thought the whole shaft had given way, and that I was buried alive.
I lay for several hours half stupefied, thinking now and then what
a dreadful thing it was to be buried alive. At length I thought I
would get up, go to the mouth of the shaft, feel the mould, with
which it was choked up, and then come back, lie down, and die. So
I got up and tottered to the mouth of the shaft, put out my hand
and felt - nothing; all was clear. I went forward, and presently
felt the ladder. Nothing had fallen; all was just the same as when
I came down. I was dreadfully afraid that I should never be able
to get up in the dark without breaking my neck; however, I tried,
and at last, with a great deal of toil and danger, got to a place
where other men were working. The noise was caused by the spirits
of the hill in the hope of driving the miner out of his senses.
They very nearly succeeded. I shall never forget how I felt when I
thought I was buried alive. If it were not for those noises in the
hill, the life of a miner would be quite heaven below."

We came to a cottage standing under a hillock, down the side of
which tumbled a streamlet close by the northern side of the
building. The door was open, and inside were two or three females
and some children. "Have you any enwyn?" said the lad, peeping in.

"Oh yes!" said a voice - "digon! digon!"  Presently a buxom,
laughing girl brought out two dishes of buttermilk, one of which
she handed to me and the other to the guide. I asked her the name
of the place.

"Gwen Frwd - the 'Fair Rivulet,'" said she.

"Who lives here?"

"A shepherd."

"Have you any English?"

"Nagos!" said she, bursting into a loud laugh. "What should we do
with English here?" After we had drunk the buttermilk I offered the
girl some money, but she drew back her hand angrily, and said: "We
don't take money from tired strangers for two drops of buttermilk;
there's plenty within, and there are a thousand ewes on the hill.
Farvel!"

"Dear me!" thought I to myself as I walked away; "that I should
once in my days have found shepherd life something as poets have
represented it!"

I saw a mighty mountain at a considerable distance on the right,
the same I believe which I had noted some hours before. I inquired
of my guide whether it was Plynlimmon.

"Oh no!" said he, "that is Gaverse; Pumlimmon is to the left."

"Plynlimmon is a famed hill," said I; "I suppose it is very high."

"Yes!" said he, "it is high; but it is not famed because it is
high, but because the three grand rivers of the world issue from
its breast, the Hafren, the Rheidol, and the Gwy."

Night was now coming rapidly on, attended with a drizzling rain. I
inquired if we were far from Pont Erwyd. "About a mile," said my
guide; "we shall soon be there."  We quickened our pace. After a
little time he asked me if I was going farther than Pont Erwyd.

"I am bound for the bridge of the evil man," said I; "but I daresay
I shall stop at Pont Erwyd to-night."

"You will do right," said he; "it is only three miles from Pont
Erwyd to the bridge of the evil man, but I think we shall have a
stormy night."

"When I get to Pont Erwyd," said I, "how far shall I be from South
Wales?"

"From South Wales!" said he; "you are in South Wales now; you
passed the Terfyn of North Wales a quarter of an hour ago."

The rain now fell fast and there was so thick a mist that I could
only see a few yards before me. We descended into a valley, at the
bottom of which I heard a river roaring.

"That's the Rheidol," said my guide, "coming from Pumlimmon,
swollen with rain."

Without descending to the river, we turned aside up a hill, and,
after passing by a few huts, came to a large house, which my guide
told me was the inn of Pont Erwyd.

CHAPTER LXXXII

Consequential Landlord - Cheek - Darfel Gatherel - Dafydd Nanmor -
Sheep Farms - Wholesome Advice - The Old Postman - The Plant de Bat
- The Robber's Cavern.

MY guide went to a side door, and opening it without ceremony went
in. I followed and found myself in a spacious and comfortable-
looking kitchen: a large fire blazed in a huge grate, on one side
of which was a settle; plenty of culinary utensils, both pewter and
copper, hung around on the walls, and several goodly rows of hams
and sides of bacon were suspended from the roof. There were
several people present, some on the settle and others on chairs in
the vicinity of the fire. As I advanced, a man arose from a chair
and came towards me. He was about thirty-five years of age, well
and strongly made, with a fresh complexion, a hawk nose, and a keen
grey eye. He wore top-boots and breeches, a half jockey coat, and
had a round cap made of the skin of some animal on his head.

"Servant, sir!" said he in rather a sharp tone, and surveying me
with something of a supercilious air.

"Your most obedient humble servant!" said I; "I presume you are the
landlord of this house."

"Landlord!" said he, "landlord! It is true I receive guests
sometimes into my house, but I do so solely with the view of
accommodating them; I do not depend upon innkeeping for a
livelihood. I hire the principal part of the land in this
neighbourhood."

"If that be the case," said I, "I had better continue my way to the
Devil's Bridge; I am not at all tired, and I believe it is not very
far distant."

"Oh, as you are here," said the farmer-landlord, "I hope you will
stay. I should be very sorry if any gentleman should leave my
house at night after coming with an intention of staying, more
especially in a night like this. Martha!" said he, turning to a
female between thirty and forty - who I subsequently learned was
the mistress - "prepare the parlour instantly for this gentleman,
and don't fail to make up a good fire."

Martha forthwith hurried away, attended by a much younger female.

"Till your room is prepared, sir," said he, "perhaps you will have
no objection to sit down before our fire?"

"Not the least," said I; "nothing gives me greater pleasure than to
sit before a kitchen fire. First of all, however, I must settle
with my guide, and likewise see that he has something to eat and
drink."

"Shall I interpret for you?" said the landlord; "the lad has not a
word of English; I know him well."

"I have not been under his guidance for the last three hours," said
I, "without knowing that he cannot speak English; but I want no
interpreter."

"You do not mean to say, sir," said the landlord, with a surprised
and dissatisfied air, "that you understand Welsh?"

I made no answer, but turning to the guide thanked him for his
kindness, and giving him some money asked him if it was enough.

"More than enough, sir," said the lad; "I did not expect half as
much. Farewell!"

He was then about to depart, but I prevented him saying:

"You must not go till you have eaten and drunk. What will you
have?"

"Merely a cup of ale, sir," said the lad.

"That won't do," said I; "you shall have bread and cheese and as
much ale as you can drink. Pray," said I to the landlord, "let
this young man have some bread and cheese and a large quart of
ale."

The landlord looked at me for a moment, then turning to the lad he
said:

"What do you think of that, Shon? It is some time since you had a
quart of ale to your own cheek."

"Cheek," said I - "cheek! Is that a Welsh word? Surely it is an
importation from the English, and not a very genteel one."

"Oh come, sir!" said the landlord, "we can dispense with your
criticisms. A pretty thing indeed for you, on the strength of
knowing half-a-dozen words of Welsh, to set up for a Welsh critic
in the house of a person who knows the ancient British language
perfectly."

"Dear me!" said I, "how fortunate I am! a person thoroughly versed
in the ancient British language is what I have long wished to see.
Pray what is the meaning of Darfel Gatherel?"

"Oh sir!" said the landlord, "you must answer that question
yourself; I don't pretend to understand gibberish!"

"Darfel Gatherel," said I, "is not gibberish; it was the name of
the great wooden image at Ty Dewi, or Saint David's, in
Pembrokeshire, to which thousands of pilgrims in the days of popery
used to repair for the purpose of adoring it, and which at the time
of the Reformation was sent up to London as a curiosity, where it
eventually served as firewood to burn the monk Forrest upon, who
was sentenced to the stake by Henry the Eighth for denying his
supremacy. What I want to know is, the meaning of the name, which
I could never get explained, but which you who know the ancient
British language perfectly can doubtless interpret."

"Oh, sir," said the landlord, "when I said I knew the British
language perfectly, I perhaps went too far there are, of course,
some obsolete terms in the British tongue, which I don't
understand. Dar, Dar - what is it? Darmod Cotterel amongst the
rest; but to a general knowledge of the Welsh language I think I
may lay some pretensions; were I not well acquainted with it, I
should not have carried off the prize at various eisteddfodau, as I
have done. I am a poet, sir - a prydydd."

"It is singular enough," said I, "that the only two Welsh poets I
have seen have been innkeepers - one is yourself, the other a
person I met in Anglesey. I suppose the Muse is fond of cwrw da."

"You would fain be pleasant, sir," said the landlord; "but I beg
leave to inform you that I am not fond of pleasantries; and now, as
my wife and the servant are returned, I will have the pleasure of
conducting you to the parlour."

"Before I go," said I, "I should like to see my guide provided with
what I ordered."  I stayed till the lad was accommodated with bread
and cheese and a foaming tankard of ale, and then bidding him
farewell, I followed the landlord into the parlour, where I found a
fire kindled, which, however, smoked exceedingly. I asked my host
what I could have for supper, and was told that he did not know,
but that if I would leave the matter to him he would send the best
he could. As he was going away, I said: "So you are a poet?
Well, I am very glad to hear it, for I have been fond of Welsh
poetry from my boyhood. What kind of verse do you employ in
general? Did you ever write an awdl in the four-and-twenty
measures? What are the themes of your songs? The deeds of the
ancient heroes of South Wales, I suppose, and the hospitality of
the great men of the neighbourhood who receive you as an honoured
guest at their tables. I'll bet a guinea that however clever a
fellow you may be you never sang anything in praise of your
landlord's housekeeping equal to what Dafydd Nanmor sang in praise
of that of Ryce of Twyn four hundred years ago:

'For Ryce if hundred thousands plough'd
The lands around his fair abode;
Did vines of thousand vineyards bleed,
Still corn and wine great Ryce would need;
If all the earth had bread's sweet savour,
And water all had cyder's flavour,
Three roaring feasts in Ryce's hall
Would swallow earth and ocean all.'

Hey?"

"Really, sir," said the landlord, "I don't know how to reply to
you, for the greater part of your discourse is utterly
unintelligible to me. Perhaps you are a better Welshman than
myself; but however that may be, I shall take the liberty of
retiring in order to give orders about your supper."

In about half-an-hour the supper made its appearance in the shape
of some bacon and eggs. On tasting them I found them very good,
and calling for some ale I made a very tolerable supper. After the
things had been removed I drew near to the fire, but as it still
smoked, I soon betook myself to the kitchen. My guide had taken
his departure, but the others whom I had left were still there.
The landlord was talking in Welsh to a man in a rough great-coat,
about sheep. Setting himself down near the fire I called for a
glass of whiskey and water, and then observing that the landlord
and his friend had suddenly become silent, I said: "Pray go on
with your discourse; don't let me be any hindrance to you."

"Yes, sir!" said the landlord snappishly, "go on with our discourse
for your edification, I suppose?"

"Well," said I, "suppose it is for my edification; surely you don't
grudge a stranger a little edification which will cost you
nothing?"

"I don't know that, sir," said the landlord; "I don't know that.
Really, sir, the kitchen is not the place for a gentleman."

"Yes, it is," said I, "provided the parlour smokes. Come, come, I
am going to have a glass of whiskey and water; perhaps you will
take one with me."

"Well, sir!" said the landlord, in rather a softened tone, "I have
no objection to take a glass with you."

Two glasses of whiskey and water were presently brought, and the
landlord and I drank to each other's health.

"Is this a sheep district?" said I, after a pause of a minute or
two.

"Yes, sir," said the landlord; "it may to a certain extent be
called a sheep district."

"I suppose the Southdown and Norfolk breeds would not do for these
here parts," said I, with a regular Norfolk whine.

"No, sir, I don't think they would exactly," said the landlord,
staring at me. "Do you know anything about sheep?"

"Plenty, plenty," said I; "quite as much indeed as about Welsh
words and poetry."  Then in a yet more whining tone than before, I
said: "Do you think that a body with money in his pocket could
hire a nice comfortable sheep farm hereabouts?"

"Oh, sir!" said the landlord in a furious tone, "you have come to
look out for a farm, I see, and to outbid us poor Welshmen: it is
on that account you have studied Welsh; but, sir, I would have you
know - "

"Come!" said I, "don't be afraid; I wouldn't have all the farms in
your country, provided you would tie them in a string and offer
them to me. If I talked about a farm, it was because I am in the
habit of talking about everything, being versed in all matters, do
you see, or affecting to be so, which comes much to the same thing.
My real business in this neighbourhood is to see the Devil's Bridge
and the scenery about it."

"Very good, sir," said the landlord; "I thought so at first. A
great many English go to see the Devil's Bridge and the scenery
near it, though I really don't know why, for there is nothing so
very particular in either. We have a bridge here too, quite as
good as the Devil's Bridge; and as for scenery, I'll back the
scenery about this house against anything of the kind in the
neighbourhood of the Devil's Bridge. Yet everybody goes to the
Devil's Bridge and nobody comes here!"

"You might easily bring everybody here," said I, "if you would but
employ your talent. You should celebrate the wonders of your
neighbourhood in cowydds, and you would soon have plenty of
visitors; but you don't want them, you know, and prefer to be
without them."

The landlord looked at me for a moment, then taking sip of his
whiskey and water he turned to the man with whom he had previously
been talking and recommenced the discourse about sheep. I make no
doubt, however, that I was a restraint upon them; they frequently
glanced at me, and soon fell to whispering. At last both got up
and left the room, the landlord finishing his glass of whiskey and
water before he went away.

"So you are going to the Devil's Bridge, sir!" said an elderly man,
dressed in a grey coat, with a broad-brimmed hat, who sat on the
settle smoking a pipe in company with another elderly man with a
leather hat, with whom I had heard him discourse sometimes in
Welsh, sometimes in English, the Welsh which he spoke being rather
broken.

"Yes," said I, "I am going to have a sight of the bridge and the
neighbouring scenery."

"Well, sir, I don't think you will be disappointed, for both are
wonderful."

"Are you a Welshman?" said I.

"No, sir, I am not; I am an Englishman from Durham, which is the
best county in England."

"So it is," said I - "for some things at any rate. For example,
where do you find such beef as in Durham?"

"Ah, where indeed, sir? I have always said that neither the
Devonshire nor the Lincolnshire beef is to be named in the same day
with that of Durham."

"Well," said I, "what business do you follow in these parts? I
suppose you farm?"

"No, sir, I do not; I am what they call a mining captain."

"I suppose that gentleman," said I, motioning to the man in the
leather hat, "is not from Durham?"

"No, sir, he is not; he is from this neighbourhood."

"And does he follow mining?"

"No, sir, he does not; he carries about the letters."

"Is your mine near this place?"

"Not very, sir; it is nearer the Devil's Bridge."

"Why is the bridge called the Devil's Bridge?" said

"Because, sir, 'tis said that the Devil built it in the old time,
though that I can hardly believe; for the Devil, do ye see,
delights in nothing but mischief, and it is not likely that such
being the case he would have built a thing which must have been of
wonderful service to people by enabling them to pass in safety over
a dreadful gulf."

"I have heard," said the old postman with the leather hat, "that
the Devil had no hand in de work at all, but that it was built by a
Mynach, or monk, on which account de river over which de bridge is
built is called Afon y Mynach - dat is de Monk's River."

"Did you ever hear," said I, "of three creatures who lived a long
time ago near the Devil's Bridge, called the Plant de Bat?"

"Ah, master!" said the old postman, "I do see that you have been in
these parts before; had you not, you would not know of the Plant de
Bat."

"No," said I, "I have never been here before; but I heard of them
when I was a boy, from a Cumro who taught me Welsh, and had lived
for some time in these parts. Well, what do they say here about
the Plant de Bat? for he who mentioned them to me could give me no
further information about them than that they were horrid creatures
who lived in a cave near the Devil's Bridge several hundred years
ago."

"Well, master," said the old postman, thrusting his forefinger
twice or thrice into the bowl of his pipe, "I will tell you what
they says here about the Plant de Bat. In de old time - two, three
hundred year ago - a man lived somewhere about here called Bat or
Bartholomew; this man had three children, two boys and one girl,
who, because their father's name was Bat, were generally called
'Plant de Bat,' or Bat's children. Very wicked children they were
from their cradle, giving their father and mother much trouble and
uneasiness; no good in any one of them, neither in the boys nor the
girl. Now the boys, once when they were rambling idly about,
lighted by chance upon a cave near the Devil's Bridge. Very
strange cave it was, with just one little hole at top to go in by;
so the boys said to one another: 'Nice cave this for thief to live
in. Suppose we come here when we are a little more big and turn
thief ourselves.'  Well, they waited till they were a little more
big, and then leaving their father's house they came to de cave and
turned thief, lying snug there all day and going out at night to
rob upon the roads. Well, there was soon much talk in the country
about the robberies which were being committed, and people often
went out in search of de thieves, but all in vain; and no wonder,
for they were in a cave very hard to light upon, having, as I said
before, merely one little hole at top to go in by. So, Bat's boys
went on swimmingly for a long time, lying snug in cave by day and
going out at night to rob, letting no one know where they were but
their sister, who was as bad as themselves, and used to come to
them and bring them food and stay with them for weeks, and
sometimes go out and rob with them. But as de pitcher which goes
often to de well comes home broke at last, so it happened with
Bat's children. After robbing people upon the roads by night many
a long year and never being found out, they at last met one great
gentleman upon the roads by night and not only robbed, but killed
him, leaving his body all cut and gashed near to Devil's Bridge.
That job was the ruin of Plant de Bat, for the great gentleman's
friends gathered together and hunted after his murderers with dogs,
and at length came to the cave, and going in, found it stocked with
riches, and the Plant de Bat sitting upon the riches, not only the
boys but the girl also. So they took out the riches and the Plant
de Bat, and the riches they did give to churches and spyttys, and
the Plant de Bat they did execute, hanging the boys and burning the
girl. That, master, is what they says in dese parts about the
Plant de Bat."

"Thank you!" said I. "Is the cave yet to be seen?"

"Oh yes! it is yet to be seen, or part of it, for it is not now
what it was, having been partly flung open to hinder other thieves
from nestling in it. It is on the bank of the river Mynach, just
before it joins the Rheidol. Many gentlefolk in de summer go to
see the Plant de Bat's cave."

"Are you sure," said I, "that Plant de Bat means Bat's children?"

"I am not sure, master; I merely says what I have heard other
people say. I believe some says that it means 'the wicked
children,' or 'the Devil's children.'  And now, master, we may as
well have done with them, for should you question me through the
whole night, I could tell you nothing more about the Plant de Bat."

After a little further discourse, chiefly about sheep and the
weather, I retired to the parlour, where the fire was now burning
brightly; seating myself before it, I remained for a considerable
time staring at the embers and thinking over the events of the day.
At length I rang the bell and begged to be shown to my chamber,
where I soon sank to sleep, lulled by the pattering of rain against
the window and the sound of a neighbouring cascade.

CHAPTER LXXXIII

Wild Scenery - Awful Chasm - John Greaves - Durham County - Queen
Philippa - The Two Aldens - Welsh Wife - The Noblest Business - The
Welsh and the Salve - The Lad John.

A RAINY and boisterous night was succeeded by a bright and
beautiful morning. I arose and having ordered breakfast went forth
to see what kind of country I had got into. I found myself amongst
wild, strange-looking hills, not, however, of any particular
height. The house, which seemed to front the east, stood on the
side of a hill, on a wide platform abutting on a deep and awful
chasm, at the bottom of which chafed and foamed the Rheidol. This
river enters the valley of Pont Erwyd from the north-west, then
makes a variety of snake-like turns, and at last bears away to the
south-east just below the inn. The banks are sheer walls, from
sixty to a hundred feet high, and the bed of the river has all the
appearance of a volcanic rent. A brook, running from the south
past the inn, tumbles into the chasm at an angle, and forms the
cascade whose sound had lulled me to sleep the preceding night.

After breakfasting I paid my bill, and set out for the Devil's
Bridge without seeing anything more of that remarkable personage in
whom were united landlord, farmer, poet, and mighty fine gentleman
- the master of the house. I soon reached the bottom of the
valley, where are a few houses and the bridge from which the place
takes its name, Pont Erwyd signifying the bridge of Erwyd. As I
was looking over the bridge, near which are two or three small
waterfalls, an elderly man in a grey coat, followed by a young lad
and dog, came down the road which I had myself just descended.

"Good day, sir," said he, stopping, when he came upon the bridge.
"I suppose you are bound my road?"

"Ah," said I, recognising the old mining captain with whom I had
talked in the kitchen the night before, "is it you? I am glad to
see you. Yes, I am bound your way, provided you are going to the
Devil's Bridge."

"Then, sir, we can go together, for I am bound to my mine, which
lies only a little way t'other side of the Devil's Bridge."

Crossing the bridge of Erwyd, we directed our course to the south-
east.

"What young man is that," said I, "who is following behind us?"

"The young man, sir, is my son John, and the dog with him is his
dog Joe."

"And what may your name be, if I may take the liberty of asking?"

"Greaves, sir; John Greaves from the county of Durham."

"Ah! a capital county that," said I.

"You like the county, sir? God bless you! John!" said he in a
loud voice, turning to the lad, "why don't you offer to carry the
gentleman's knapsack?"

"Don't let him trouble himself," said I. "As I was just now
saying, a capital county is Durham county."

"You really had better let the boy carry your bag, sir."

"No," said I, "I would rather carry it myself. I question upon the
whole whether there is a better county in England."

"Is it long since your honour was in Durham county?"

"A good long time. A matter of forty years."

"Forty years! - why that's the life of a man. That's longer than I
have been out of the county myself. I suppose your honour can't
remember much about the county."

"Oh yes, I can! I remember a good deal."

"Please, your honour, tell me what you remember about the county.
It would do me good to hear it."

"Well, I remember it was a very fine county in more respects than
one. One part of it was full of big hills and mountains, where
there were mines of coal and lead, with mighty works with tall
chimneys spouting out black smoke, and engines roaring, and big
wheels going round, some turned by steam, and others by what they
call forces, that is, brooks of water dashing down steep channels.
Another part was a more level country, with beautiful woods, happy-
looking farm-houses well-filled fields and rich, glorious meadows,
in which stood stately, with brown sides and short horns, the
Durham ox."

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said my companion. "Ah! I see your honour
knows everything about Durham county. Forces? none but one who had
been in Durham county would have used that word. I haven't heard
it for five-and-thirty years. Forces! there was a force close to
my village. I wonder if your honour has ever been in Durham city?"

"Oh yes! I have been there."

"Does your honour remember anything about Durham city?"

"Oh yes! I remember a good deal about it."

"Then, your honour, pray tell us what you remember about it - pray
do I perhaps it will do me good."

"Well then, I remember that it was a fine old city standing on a
hill with a river running under it, and that it had a fine old
church, one of the finest in the of Britain; likewise a fine old
castle; and last, not least, a capital old inn, where I got a
capital dinner off roast Durham beef, and a capital glass of ale,
which I believe was the cause, of my being ever after fond of ale."

"Dear me! Ah, I see your honour knows all about Durham city. And
now let me ask one question. How came your honour to Durham, city
and county? I don't think your honour is a Durham man either of
town or field."

"I am not; but when I was a little boy I passed through Durham
county with my mother and brother to a place called Scotland."

"Scotland! a queer country that, your honour!"

"So it is," said I; "a queerer country I never saw in all my life."

"And a queer set of people, your honour."

"So they are," said I; "a queerer set of people than the Scotch you
would scarcely see in a summer's day."

"The Durham folks, neither of town or field, have much reason to
speak well of the Scotch, your honour."

"I dare say not," said I; "very few people have."

"And yet the Durham folks, your honour, generally contrived to give
them as good as they brought."

"That they did," said I; "a pretty licking the Durham folks once
gave the Scots under the walls of Durham city, after the scamps had
been plundering the country for three weeks - a precious licking
they gave them, slaying I don't know how many thousands, and taking
their king prisoner."

"So they did, your honour, and under the command of a woman too."

"Very true," said I; "Queen Philippa."

"Just so, your honour! The idea that your honour should know so
much about Durham, both field and town!"

"Well," said I, "since I have told you so much about Durham,
perhaps you will tell me something about yourself. How did you
come here?"

"I had better begin from the beginning, your honour. I was born in
Durham county close beside the Great Force, which no doubt your
honour has seen. My father was a farmer, and had a bit of a share
in a mining concern. I was brought up from my childhood both to
farming and mining work, but most to mining, because, do you see, I
took most pleasure in it, being the more noble business of the two.
Shortly after I had come to man's estate my father died, leaving me
a decent little property, whereupon I forsook farming altogether
and gave myself up, body, soul, and capital, to mining, which at
last I thoroughly understand in all its branches. Well, your
honour, about five-and-thirty years ago - that was when I was about
twenty-eight - a cry went through the north country that a great
deal of money might be made by opening Wales, that is, by mining in
Wales in the proper fashion, which means the north country fashion,
for there is no other fashion of mining good for much. There had
long been mines in Wales, but they had always been worked in a
poor, weak, languid manner, very different from that of the north
country. So a company was formed, at the head of which were the
Aldens, George and Thomas, for opening Wales, and they purchased
certain mines in these districts which they knew to be productive,
and which might be made yet more so, and settling down here called
themselves the Rheidol United. Well, after they had been here a
little time they found themselves in want of a man to superintend
their concerns, above all in the smelting department. So they
thought of me, who was known to most of the mining gentry in the
north country, and they made a proposal to me through George Alden,
afterwards Sir George, to come here and superintend. I said no at
first, for I didn't like the idea of leaving Durham county to come
to such an outlandish place as Wales; howsomeover, I at last
allowed myself to be overpersuaded by George Alden, afterwards Sir
George, and here I came with my wife and family - for I must tell
your honour I had married a respectable young woman of Durham
county, by whom I had two little ones - here I came and did my best
for the service of the Rheidol United. The company was terribly
set to it for a long time, spending a mint of money and getting
very poor returns. To my certain knowledge, the two Aldens, George
and Tom, spent between them thirty thousand pounds. The company,
however, persevered, chiefly at the instigation of the Aldens, who
were in the habit of saying, 'Never say die!' and at last got the
better of all their difficulties and rolled in riches, and had the
credit of being the first company that ever opened Wales, which
they richly deserved, for I will uphold it that the Rheidol United,
particularly the Aldens, George and Thomas, were the first people
who really opened Wales. In their service I have been for five-
and-thirty years, and daresay shall continue so till I die. I have
been tolerably comfortable, your honour, though I have had my
griefs, the bitterest of which was the death of my wife, which
happened about eight years after I came to this country. I thought
I should have gone wild at first, your honour; having, however,
always plenty to do, I at last got the better of my affliction. I
continued single till my English family grew up and left me, when,
feeling myself rather lonely, I married a decent young Welshwoman,
by whom I had one son, the lad John who is following behind with
his dog Joe. And now your honour knows the whole story of John
Greaves, miner from the county of Durham."

"And a most entertaining and instructive history it is," said I.
"You have not told me, however, how you contrived to pick up Welsh:
I heard you speaking it last night with the postman."

"Why, through my Welsh wife, your honour! Without her I don't
think I should ever have picked up the Welsh manner of discoursing
- she is a good kind of woman, my Welsh wife, though - "

"The loss of your Durham wife must have been a great grief to you,"
said I.

"It was the bitterest grief, your honour, as I said before, that I
ever had; my next worst I think was the death of a dear friend."

"Who was that?" said I

"Who was it, your honour? why, the Duke of Newcastle."

"Dear me!" said I, "how came you to know him?"

"Why, your honour, he lived at a place not far from here, called
Hafod, and so - "

"Hafod?" said I; "I have often heard of Hafod and its library; but
I thought it belonged to an old Welsh family called Johnes."

"Well, so it did, your honour, but the family died away, and the
estate was put up for sale, and purchased by the Duke, who built a
fine house upon it, which he made his chief place of residence -
the old family house, I must tell your honour, in which the library
was, had been destroyed by fire. Well, he hadn't been long settled
there before he found me out and took wonderfully to me,
discoursing with me and consulting me about his farming and
improvements. Many is the pleasant chat and discourse I have had
with his Grace for hours and hours together, for his Grace had not
a bit of pride, at least he never showed any to me, though perhaps
the reason of that was that we were both north country people.
Lord! I would have laid down my life for his Grace and have done
anything but one which he once asked me to do. 'Greaves,' said the
Duke to me one day, 'I wish you would give up mining and become my
steward.'  'Sorry I can't oblige your Grace,' said I, 'but give up
mining I cannot. I will at any time give your Grace all the advice
I can about farming and such like, but give up mining I cannot;
because why? - I conceive mining to be the noblest business in the
'versal world.'  Whereupon his Grace laughed, and said he dare say
I was right, and never mentioned the subject again."

"Was his Grace very fond of farming and improving?"

"Oh yes, your honour. Like all the great gentry, especially the
north country gentry, his Grace was wonderfully fond of farming and
improving; and a wonderful deal of good he did, reclaiming
thousands of acres of land which was before good for nothing, and
building capital farm-houses and offices for his tenants. His
grand feat, however, was bringing the Durham bull into this
country, which formed a capital cross with the Welsh cows. Pity
that he wasn't equally fortunate with the north country sheep."

"Did he try to introduce them into Wales?"

"Yes, but they didn't answer, as I knew they wouldn't. Says I to
the Duke: 'It won't do, your Grace, to bring the north country
sheep here: because why? the hills are too wet and cold for their
constitutions'; but his Grace, who had sometimes a will of his own,
persisted and brought the north country sheep to these parts, and
it turned out as I said - the sheep caught the disease, and the
wool parted and - "

"But," said I, "you should have told him about the salve made of
bran, butter and oil; you should have done that."

"Well, so I did, your honour. I told him about the salve, and the
Duke listened to me, and the salve was made by these very hands;
but when it was made, what do you think? the foolish Welsh wouldn't
put it on, saying that it was against their laws and statties and
religion to use it, and talked about Devil's salves and the Witch
of Endor, and the sin against the Holy Ghost, and such like
nonsense. So to prevent a regular rebellion, the Duke gave up the
salve, and the poor sheep pined away and died, till at last there
was not one left."

"Who holds the estate at present?" said I.

"Why, a great gentleman from Lancashire, your honour, who bought it
when the Duke died; but he doesn't take the same pleasure in it
which the Duke did, nor spend so much money about it, the
consequence being that everything looks very different from what it
looked in the Duke's time. The inn at the Devil's Bridge and the
grounds look very different from what they looked in the Duke's
time, for you must know that the inn and the grounds form part of
the Hafod estate, and are hired from the proprietor."

By this time we had arrived at a small village, with a toll-bar and
a small church or chapel at some little distance from the road,
which here made a turn nearly full south. The road was very good,
but the country was wild and rugged; there was a deep vale on the
right, at the bottom of which rolled the Rheidol in its cleft,
rising beyond which were steep, naked hills.

"This village," said my companion, "is called Ysbytty Cynfyn. Down
on the right, past the church, is a strange bridge across the
Rheidol, which runs there through a horrid kind of a place. The
bridge is called Pont yr Offeiriad, or the Parson's Bridge, because
in the old time the clergyman passed over it every Sunday to do
duty in the church here."

"Why is this place called Ysbytty Cynfyn?" said I, "which means the
hospital of the first boundary; is there a hospital of the second
boundary near here?"

"I can't say anything about boundaries, your honour; all I know is,
that there is another Spytty farther on beyond Hafod called Ysbytty
Ystwyth, or the 'Spytty upon the Ystwyth. But to return to the
matter of the Minister's Bridge: I would counsel your honour to go
and see that bridge before you leave these parts. A vast number of
gentry go to see it in the summer time. It was the bridge which
the landlord was mentioning last night, though it scarcely belongs
to his district, being quite as near the Devil's Bridge inn as it
is to his own, your honour."

We went on discoursing for about half a mile farther, when,
stopping by a road which branched off to the hills on the left, my
companion said. "I must now wish your honour good day, being
obliged to go a little way up here to a mining work on a small bit
of business; my son, however, and his dog Joe will show your honour
the way to the Devil's Bridge, as they are bound to a place a
little way past it. I have now but one word to say, which is, that
should ever your honour please to visit me at my mine, your honour
shall receive every facility for inspecting the works, and moreover
have a bellyful of drink and victuals from Jock Greaves, miner from
the county of Durham."

I shook the honest fellow by the hand, and went on in company with
the lad John and his dog as far as the Devil's Bridge. John was a
highly-intelligent lad, spoke Welsh and English fluently, could
read, as he told me, both languages, and had some acquaintance with
the writings of Twm o'r Nant, as he showed by repeating the
following lines of the carter poet, certainly not the worst which
he ever wrote:-

"Twm or Nant mae cant a'm galw,
Tomas Edwards yw fy enw,"

Tom O Nant is a nickname I've got,
My name's Thomas Edwards, I wot."

CHAPTER LXXXIV

The Hospice - The Two Rivers - The Devil's Bridge - Pleasant
Recollections.

I ARRIVED at the Devil's Bridge at about eleven o'clock of a fine
but cold day, and took up my quarters at the inn, of which I was
the sole guest during the whole time that I continued there; for
the inn, standing in a lone, wild district, has very few guests
except in summer, when it is thronged with tourists, who avail
themselves of that genial season to view the wonders of Wales, of
which the region close by is considered amongst the principal.

The inn, or rather hospice - for the sounding name of hospice is
more applicable to it than the common one of inn - was built at a
great expense by the late Duke of Newcastle. It is an immense
lofty cottage with projecting eaves, and has a fine window to the
east which enlightens a stately staircase and a noble gallery. It
fronts the north, and stands in the midst of one of the most
remarkable localities in the world, of which it would require a far
more vigorous pen than mine to convey an adequate idea.

Far to the west is a tall, strange-looking hill, the top of which
bears no slight resemblance to that of a battlemented castle. This
hill, which is believed to have been in ancient times a stronghold
of the Britons, bears the name of Bryn y Castell, or the hill of
the castle. To the north-west are russet hills, to the east two
brown paps, whilst to the south is a high, swelling mountain. To
the north, and just below the hospice, is a profound hollow with
all the appearance of the crater of an extinct volcano; at the
bottom of this hollow the waters of two rivers unite; those of the
Rheidol from the north, and those of the Afon y Mynach, or the
Monks' River, from the south-east. The Rheidol, falling over a
rocky precipice at the northern side of the hollow, forms a
cataract very pleasant to look upon from the middle upper window of
the inn. Those of the Mynach which pass under the celebrated
Devil's Bridge are not visible, though they generally make
themselves heard. The waters of both, after uniting, flow away
through a romantic glen towards the west. The sides of the hollow,
and indeed of most of the ravines in the neighbourhood, which are
numerous, are beautifully clad with wood.

Penetrate now into the hollow above which the hospice stands. You
descend by successive flights of steps, some of which are very
slippery and insecure. On your right is the Monks' River, roaring
down its dingle in five successive falls, to join its brother the
Rheidol. Each of the falls has its own peculiar basin, one or two
of which are said to be of awful depth. The length which these
falls with their basins occupy is about five hundred feet. On the
side of the basin of the last but one is the cave, or the site of
the cave, said to have been occupied in old times by the Wicked
Children - the mysterious Plant de Bat - two brothers and a sister,
robbers and murderers. At present it is nearly open on every side,
having, it is said, been destroyed to prevent its being the haunt
of other evil people. There is a tradition in the country that the
fall at one time tumbled over its mouth. This tradition, however,
is evidently without foundation, as from the nature of the ground
the river could never have run but in its present channel. Of all
the falls, the fifth or last is the most considerable: you view it
from a kind of den, to which the last flight of steps, the
ruggedest and most dangerous of all, has brought you. Your
position here is a wild one. The fall, which is split into two, is
thundering beside you; foam, foam, foam is flying all about you;
the basin or cauldron is boiling frightfully below you; hirsute
rocks are frowning terribly above you, and above them forest trees,
dank and wet with spray and mist, are distilling drops in showers
from their boughs.

But where is the bridge, the celebrated bridge of the Evil Man?
From the bottom of the first flight of steps leading down into the
hollow you see a modern-looking bridge, bestriding a deep chasm or
cleft to the south-east, near the top of the dingle of the Monks'
River; over it lies the road to Pont Erwyd. That, however, is not
the Devil's Bridge; but about twenty feet below that bridge, and
completely overhung by it, don't you see a shadowy, spectral
object, something like a bow, which likewise bestrides the chasm?
You do! Well, that shadowy, spectral object is the celebrated
Devil's Bridge, or, as the timorous peasants of the locality call
it, the Pont y Gwr Drwg. It is now merely preserved as an object
of curiosity, the bridge above being alone used for transit, and is
quite inaccessible except to birds and the climbing wicked boys of
the neighbourhood, who sometimes at the risk of their lives
contrive to get upon it from the frightfully steep northern bank,
and snatch a fearful joy, as, whilst lying on their bellies, they
poke their heads over its sides worn by age, without parapet to
prevent them from falling into the horrid gulf below. But from the
steps in the hollow the view of the Devil's Bridge, and likewise of
the cleft, is very slight and unsatisfactory. To view it properly,
and the wonders connected with it, you must pass over the bridge
above it, and descend a precipitous dingle on the eastern side till
you come to a small platform in a crag. Below you now is a
frightful cavity, at the bottom of which the waters of the Monks'
River, which comes tumbling from a glen to the east, whirl, boil,
and hiss in a horrid pot or cauldron, called in the language of the
country Twll yn y graig, or the hole in the rock, in a manner truly
tremendous. On your right is a slit, probably caused by volcanic
force, through which the waters after whirling in the cauldron
eventually escape. The slit is wonderfully narrow, considering its
altitude which is very great - considerably upwards of a hundred
feet. Nearly above you, crossing the slit, which is partially
wrapt in darkness, is the far-famed bridge, the Bridge of the Evil
Man, a work which, though crumbling and darkly grey, does much
honour to the hand which built it, whether it was the hand of Satan
or of a monkish architect; for the arch is chaste and beautiful,
far superior in every respect, except in safety and utility, to the
one above it, which from this place you have not the mortification
of seeing. Gaze on these objects, namely, the horrid seething pot
or cauldron, the gloomy volcanic slit, and the spectral, shadowy
Devil's Bridge for about three minutes, allowing a minute to each,
then scramble up the bank and repair to your inn, and have no more
sight-seeing that day, for you have seen enough. And if pleasant
recollections do not haunt you through life of the noble falls and
the beautiful wooded dingles to the west of the bridge of the Evil
One, and awful and mysterious ones of the monks' boiling cauldron,
the long, savage, shadowy cleft, and the grey, crumbling, spectral
bridge, I say boldly that you must be a very unpoetical person
indeed.

CHAPTER LXXXV

Dinner at the Hospice - Evening Gossip - A Day of Rain - A Scanty
Flock - The Bridge of the Minister - Legs in Danger.

I DINED in a parlour of the inn commanding an excellent view of the
hollow and the Rheidol fall. Shortly after I had dined, a fierce
storm of rain and wind came on. It lasted for an hour, and then
everything again became calm. Just before evening was closing in I
took a stroll to a village which stands a little way to the west of
the inn. It consists only of a few ruinous edifices, and is
chiefly inhabited by miners and their families. I saw no men, but
plenty of women and children. Seeing a knot of women and girls
chatting I went up and addressed them. Some of the girls were very
good-looking; none of the party had any English; all of them were
very civil. I first talked to them about religion, and found that,
without a single exception, they were Calvinistic-Methodists. I
next talked to them about the Plant de Bat. They laughed heartily
at the first mention of their name, but seemed to know very little
about their history. After some twenty minutes' discourse I bade
them good-night and returned to my inn.

The night was very cold; the people of the house, however, made up
for me a roaring fire of turf, and I felt very comfortable. About
ten o'clock I went to bed, intending next morning to go and see
Plynlimmon, which I had left behind me on entering Cardiganshire.
When the morning came, however, I saw at once that I had entered
upon a day by no means adapted for excursions of any considerable
length, for it rained terribly; but this gave me very little
concern; my time was my own, and I said to myself: "If I can't go
to-day I can perhaps go to-morrow."  After breakfast I passed some
hours in a manner by no means disagreeable, sometimes meditating
before my turf fire, with my eyes fixed upon it, and sometimes
sitting by the window, with my eyes fixed upon the cascade of the
Rheidol, which was every moment becoming more magnificent. At
length about twelve o'clock, fearing that if I stayed within I
should lose my appetite for dinner, which has always been one of
the greatest of my enjoyments, I determined to go and see the
Minister's Bridge which my friend the old mining captain had spoken
to me about. I knew that I should get a wetting by doing so, for
the weather still continued very bad, but I don't care much for a
wetting provided I have a good roof, a good fire, and good fare to
betake myself to afterwards.

So I set out. As I passed over the bridge of the Mynach River I
looked down over the eastern balustrade. The Bridge of the Evil
One, which is just below it, was quite invisible. I could see,
however, the pot or crochan distinctly enough, and a horrible sight
it presented. The waters were whirling round in a manner to
describe which any word but frenzied would be utterly powerless.
Half-an-hour's walking brought me to the little village through
which I had passed the day before. Going up to a house I knocked
at the door, and a middle-aged man opening it, I asked him the way
to the Bridge of the Minister. He pointed to the little chapel to
the west, and said that the way lay past it, adding that he would
go with me himself, as he wanted to go to the hills on the other
side to see his sheep.

We got presently into discourse. He at first talked broken
English, but soon began to speak his native language. I asked him
if the chapel belonged to the Methodists.

"It is not a chapel," said he, "it is a church."

"Do many come to it?" said I.

"Not many, sir, for the Methodists are very powerful here. Not
more than forty or fifty come."

"Do you belong to the Church?" said I.

"I do, sir - thank God!"

"You may well be thankful," said I, "for it is a great privilege to
belong to the Church of England."

"It is so, sir," said the man, 'though few, alas! think so."

I found him a highly-intelligent person. On my talking to him
about the name of the place, he said that some called it Spytty
Cynfyn, and others Spytty Cynwyl, and that both Cynwyl and Cynfyn
were the names of people, to one or other of which the place was
dedicated, and that, like the place farther on called Spytty
Ystwyth, it was in the old time a hospital or inn for the
convenience of the pilgrims going to the great monastery of Ystrad
Flur or Strata Florida.

Passing through a field or two we came to the side of a very deep
ravine, down which there was a zigzag path leading to the bridge.
The path was very steep, and, owing to the rain, exceedingly
slippery. For some way it led through a grove of dwarf oaks, by
grasping the branches of which I was enabled to support myself
tolerably well; nearly at the bottom, however, where the path was
most precipitous, the trees ceased altogether. Fearing to trust my
legs, I determined to slide down, and put my resolution in
practice, arriving at a little shelf close by the bridge without
any accident. The man, accustomed to the path, went down in the
usual manner. The bridge consisted of a couple of planks and a
pole flung over a chasm about ten feet wide, on the farther side of
which was a precipice with a path at least quite as steep as the
one down which I had come, and without any trees or shrubs by which
those who used it might support themselves. The torrent rolled
about nine feet below the bridge; its channel was tortuous; on the
south-east side of the bridge was a cauldron, like that on which I
had looked down from the bridge over the river of the monks. The
man passed over the bridge and I followed him; on the other side we
stopped and turned round. The river was rushing and surging, the
pot was boiling and roaring, and everything looked wild and savage;
but the locality, for awfulness and mysterious gloom, could not
compare with that on the east side of the Devil's Bridge, nor for
sublimity and grandeur with that on the west.

"Here you see, sir," said the man, "the Bridge of the Offeiriad,
called so, it is said, because the popes used to pass over it in
the old time; and here you have the Rheidol, which, though not so
smooth nor so well off for banks as the Hafren and the Gwy, gets to
the sea before either of them, and, as the pennill says, is quite
as much entitled to honour:-

"'Hafren a Wy yn hyfryd eu wedd
A Rheidol vawr ei anrhydedd.'

Good rhyme, sir, that. I wish you would put it into Saesneg."

"I am afraid I shall make a poor hand of it," said I; "however, I
will do my best:-

"'Oh pleasantly do glide along the Severn and the Wye;
But Rheidol's rough, and yet he's held by all in honour high.'

"Very good rhyme that, sir! though not so good as the pennill
Cymraeg. Ha, I do see that you know the two languages and are one
poet. And now, sir, I must leave you, and go to the hills to my
sheep, who I am afraid will be suffering in this dreadful weather.
However, before I go, I should wish to see you safe over the
bridge."

I shook him by the hand, and retracing my steps over the bridge,
began clambering up the bank on my knees.

"You will spoil your trousers, sir!" cried the man from the other
side.

"I don't care if I do," said I, "provided I save my legs, which are
in some danger in this place, as well as my neck, which is of less
consequence."

I hurried back amidst rain and wind to my friendly hospice, where,
after drying my wet clothes as well as I could, I made an excellent
dinner on fowl and bacon. Dinner over, I took up a newspaper which
was brought me, and read an article about the Russian war, which
did not seem to be going on much to the advantage of the allies.
Soon flinging the paper aside, I stuck my feet on the stove, one on
each side of the turf fire, and listened to the noises without.
The bellowing of the wind down the mountain passes and the roaring
of the Rheidol fall at the north side of the valley, and the
rushing of the five cascades of the river Mynach, were truly awful.
Perhaps I ought not to have said the five cascades of the Mynach,
but the Mynach cascade, for now its five cascades had become one,
extending from the chasm over which hung the bridge of Satan to the
bottom of the valley.

After a time I fell into a fit of musing. I thought of the Plant
de Bat; I thought of the spitties or hospitals connected with the
great monastery of Ystrad Flur or Strata Florida; I thought of the
remarkable bridge close by, built by a clever monk of that place to
facilitate the coming of pilgrims with their votive offerings from
the north to his convent; I thought of the convent built in the
time of our Henry the Second by Ryce ab Gruffyd, prince of South
Wales; and lastly, I thought of a wonderful man who was buried in
its precincts, the greatest genius which Wales, and perhaps
Britain, ever produced, on whose account, and not because of old it
had been a magnificent building, and the most celebrated place of
popish pilgrimage in Wales, I had long ago determined to visit it
on my journey, a man of whose life and works the following is a
brief account.

CHAPTER LXXXVI

Birth and Early Years of Ab Gwilym - Morfudd - Relic of Druidism -
The Men of Glamorgan - Legend of Ab Gwilym - Ab Gwilym as a Writer
- Wonderful Variety - Objects of Nature - Gruffydd Gryg.

DAFYDD AB GWILYM was born about the year 1320, at a place called
Bro Gynnin in the county of Cardigan. Though born in wedlock he
was not conceived legitimately. His mother being discovered by her
parents to be pregnant, was turned out of doors by them, whereupon
she went to her lover, who married her, though in so doing he acted
contrary to the advice of his relations. After a little time,
however, a general reconciliation took place. The parents of Ab
Gwilym, though highly connected, do not appear to have possessed
much property. The boy was educated by his mother's brother
Llewelyn ab Gwilym Fychan, a chief of Cardiganshire; but his
principal patron in after life was Ifor, a cousin of his father,
surnamed Hael, or the bountiful, a chieftain of Glamorganshire.
This person received him within his house, made him his steward and
tutor to his daughter. With this young lady Ab Gwilym speedily
fell in love, and the damsel returned his passion. Ifor, however,
not approving of the connection, sent his daughter to Anglesey, and
eventually caused her to take the veil in a nunnery of that island.
Dafydd pursued her, but not being able to obtain an interview, he
returned to his patron, who gave him a kind reception. Under
Ifor's roof he cultivated poetry with great assiduity and wonderful
success. Whilst very young, being taunted with the circumstances
of his birth by a brother bard called Rhys Meigan, he retorted in
an ode so venomously bitter that his adversary, after hearing it,
fell down and expired. Shortly after this event he was made head
bard of Glamorgan by universal acclamation.

After a stay of some time with Ifor, he returned to his native
county and lived at Bro Gynnin. Here he fell in love with a young
lady of birth called Dyddgu, who did not favour his addresses. He
did not break his heart, however, on her account, but speedily
bestowed it on the fair Morfudd, whom he first saw at Rhosyr in
Anglesey, to which place both had gone on a religious account. The
lady after some demur consented to become his wife. Her parents
refusing to sanction the union, their hands were joined beneath the
greenwood tree by one Madawg Benfras, a bard, and a great friend of
Ab Gwilym. The joining of people's hands by bards, which was
probably a relic of Druidism, had long been practised in Wales, and
marriages of this kind were generally considered valid, and seldom
set aside. The ecclesiastical law, however, did not recognise
these poetical marriages, and the parents of Morfudd by appealing
to the law soon severed the union. After confining the lady for a
short time, they bestowed her hand in legal fashion upon a
chieftain of the neighbourhood, very rich but rather old, and with
a hump on his back, on account which he was nicknamed bow-back, or
little hump-back. Morfudd, however, who passed her time in rather
a dull manner with this person, which would not have been the case
had she done her duty by endeavouring to make the poor man
comfortable, and by visiting the sick and needy around her, was
soon induced by the bard to elope with him. The lovers fled to
Glamorgan, where Ifor Hael, not much to his own credit, received
them with open arms, probably forgetting how he had immured his OWN
daughter in a convent, rather than bestow her on Ab Gwilym. Having
a hunting-lodge in a forest on the banks of the lovely Taf, he
allotted it to the fugitives as a residence. Ecclesiastical law,
however, as strong in Wild Wales as in other parts of Europe, soon
followed them into Glamorgan, and, very properly, separated them.
The lady was restored to her husband, and Ab Gwilym fined to a very
high amount. Not being able to pay the fine, he was cast into
prison; but then the men of Glamorgan arose to a man, swearing that
their head bard should not remain in prison. "Then pay his fine!"
said the ecclesiastical law, or rather the ecclesiastical lawyer.
"So we will!" said the men of Glamorgan, and so they did. Every
man put his hand into his pocket; the amount was soon raised, the
fine paid, and the bard set free.

Ab Gwilym did not forget this kindness of the men of Glamorgan,
and, to requite it, wrote an address to the sun, in which he
requests that luminary to visit Glamorgan, to bless it, and to keep
it from harm. The piece concludes with some noble lines somewhat
to this effect

"If every strand oppression strong
Should arm against the son of song,
The weary wight would find, I ween,
A welcome in Glamorgan green."

Some time after his release he meditated a second elopement with
Morfudd, and even induced her to consent to go off with him. A
friend, to whom he disclosed what he was thinking of doing, asking
him whether he would venture a second time to take such a step, "I
will," said the bard, "in the name of God and the men of
Glamorgan."  No second elopement, however, took place, the bard
probably thinking, as has been well observed, that neither God nor
the men of Glamorgan would help him a second time out of such an
affair. He did not attain to any advanced age, but died when about
sixty, some twenty years before the rising of Glendower. Some time
before his death his mind fortunately took a decidedly religious
turn.

He is said to have been eminently handsome in his youth, tall,
slender, with yellow hair falling in ringlets down his shoulders.
He is likewise said to have been a great libertine. The following
story is told of him:-

"In a certain neighbourhood he had a great many mistresses, some
married and others not. Once upon a time, in the month of June he
made a secret appointment with each of his lady-loves, the place
and hour of meeting being the same for all; each was to meet him at
the same hour beneath a mighty oak which stood in the midst of a
forest glade. Some time before the appointed hour he went, and
climbing up the oak, hid himself amidst the dense foliage of its
boughs. When the hour arrived he observed all the nymphs tripping
to the place of appointment; all came, to the number of twenty-four
- not one stayed away. For some time they remained beneath the oak
staring at each other. At length an explanation ensued, and it
appeared that they had all come to meet Ab Gwilym.

"'Oh, the treacherous monster!' cried they with one accord; 'only
let him show himself and we will tear him to pieces.'

"'Will you?' said Ab Gwilym from the oak; 'here I am; let her who
has been most wanton with me make the first attack upon me!'

"The females remained for some time speechless; all of a sudden,
however, their anger kindled, not against the bard, but against
each other. From harsh and taunting words they soon came to
actions: hair was torn off, faces were scratched, blood flowed
from cheek and nose. Whilst the tumult was at its fiercest Ab
Gwilym slipped away."

The writer merely repeats this story, and he repeats it as
concisely as possible, in order to have an opportunity of saying
that he does not believe one particle of it. If he believed it, he
would forthwith burn the most cherished volume of the small
collection of books from which he derives delight and recreation,
namely, that which contains the songs of Ab Gwilym, for he would
have nothing in his possession belonging to such a heartless
scoundrel as Ab Gwilym must have been had he got up the scene above
described. Any common man who would expose to each other and the
world a number of hapless, trusting females who had favoured him
with their affections, and from the top of a tree would feast his
eyes upon their agonies of shame and rage, would deserve to be -
emasculated. Had Ab Gwilym been so dead to every feeling of
gratitude and honour as to play the part which the story makes him
play, he would have deserved not only to be emasculated, but to be
scourged with harp-strings in every market-town in Wales, and to be
dismissed from the service of the Muse. But the writer repeats
that he does not believe one tittle of the story, though Ab
Gwilym's biographer, the learned and celebrated William Owen, not
only seems to believe it, but rather chuckles over it. It is the
opinion of the writer that the story is of Italian origin, and that
it formed part of one of the many rascally novels brought over to
England after the marriage of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third
son of Edward the Third, with Violante, daughter of Galeazzo, Duke
of Milan.

Dafydd Ab Gwilym has been in general considered as a songster who
never employed his muse on any subject save that of love, and there
can be no doubt that by far the greater number of his pieces are
devoted more or less to the subject of love. But to consider him
merely in the light of an amatory poet would be wrong. He has
written poems of wonderful power on almost every conceivable
subject. Ab Gwilym has been styled the Welsh Ovid, and with great
justice, but not merely because like the Roman he wrote admirably
on love. The Roman was not merely an amatory poet: let the shade
of Pythagoras say whether the poet who embodied in immortal verse
the oldest, the most wonderful, and at the same time the most
humane, of all philosophy was a mere amatory poet. Let the shade
of blind Homer be called up to say whether the bard who composed
the tremendous line -

"Surgit ad hos clypei dominus septemplicis Ajax" -

equal to any save ONE of his own, was a mere amatory songster.
Yet, diversified as the genius of the Roman was, there is no
species of poetry in which he shone in which the Welshman may not
be said to display equal merit. Ab Gwilym, then, has been fairly
styled the Welsh Ovid. But he was something more - and here let
there be no sneers about Welsh: the Welsh are equal in genius,
intellect and learning to any people under the sun, and speak a
language older than Greek, and which is one of the immediate
parents of the Greek. He was something more than the Welsh Ovid:
he was the Welsh Horace, and wrote light, agreeable, sportive
pieces, equal to any things of the kind composed by Horace in his
best moods. But he was something more: he was the Welsh Martial,
and wrote pieces equal in pungency to those of the great Roman
epigrammatist, - perhaps more than equal, for we never heard that
any of Martial's epigrams killed anybody, whereas Ab Gwilym's piece
of vituperation on Rhys Meigan - pity that poets should be so
virulent - caused the Welshman to fall down dead. But he was yet
something more: he could, if he pleased, be a Tyrtaeus; he was no
fighter - where was there ever a poet that was? - but he wrote an
ode on a sword, the only warlike piece that he ever wrote, the best
poem on the subject ever written in any language. Finally, he was
something more: he was what not one of the great Latin poets was,
a Christian; that is, in his latter days, when he began to feel the
vanity of all human pursuits, when his nerves began to be unstrung,
his hair to fall off, and his teeth to drop out, and he then
composed sacred pieces entitling him to rank with - we were going
to say Caedmon; had we done so we should have done wrong; no
uninspired poet ever handled sacred subjects like the grand Saxon
Skald - but which entitle him to be called a great religious poet,
inferior to none but the protege of Hilda.

Before ceasing to speak of Ab Gwilym, it will be necessary to state
that his amatory pieces, which constitute more than one-half of his
productions, must be divided into two classes: the purely amatory
and those only partly devoted to love. His poems to Dyddgu and the
daughter of Ifor Hael are productions very different from those
addressed to Morfudd. There can be no doubt that he had a sincere
affection for the two first; there is no levity in the cowydds
which he addressed to them, and he seldom introduces any other
objects than those of his love. But in his cowydds addressed to
Morfudd is there no levity? Is Morfudd ever prominent? His
cowydds to that woman abound with humorous levity, and for the most
part have far less to do with her than with natural objects - the
snow, the mist, the trees of the forest, the birds of the air, and
the fishes of the stream. His first piece to Morfudd is full of
levity quite inconsistent with true love. It states how, after
seeing her for the first time at Rhosyr in Anglesey, and falling in
love with her, he sends her a present of wine by the hands of a
servant, which present she refuses, casting the wine contemptuously
over the head of the valet. This commencement promises little in
the way of true passion, so that we are not disappointed when we
read a little farther on that the bard is dead and buried, all on
account of love, and that Morfudd makes a pilgrimage to Mynyw to
seek for pardon for killing him, nor when we find him begging the
popish image to convey a message to her. Then presently we almost
lose sight of Morfudd amidst birds, animals and trees, and we are
not sorry that we do; for though Ab Gwilym is mighty in humour,
great in describing the emotions of love and the beauties of the
lovely, he is greatest of all in describing objects of nature;
indeed in describing them he has no equal, and the writer has no
hesitation in saying that in many of his cowydds in which he
describes various objects of nature, by which he sends messages to
Morfudd, he shows himself a far greater poet than Ovid appears in
any one of his Metamorphoses. There are many poets who attempt to
describe natural objects without being intimately acquainted with
them, but Ab Gwilym was not one of these. No one was better
acquainted with nature; he was a stroller, and there is every
probability that during the greater part of the summer he had no
other roof than the foliage, and that the voices of birds and
animals were more familiar to his ears than was the voice of man.
During the summer months, indeed, in the early part of his life, he
was, if we may credit him, generally lying perdue in the woodland
or mountain recesses near the habitation of his mistress, before or
after her marriage, awaiting her secret visits, made whenever she
could escape the vigilance of her parents, or the watchful of her
husband, and during her absence he had nothing better to do than to
observe objects of nature and describe them. His ode to the Fox,
one of the most admirable of his pieces, was composed on one of
these occasions.

Want of space prevents the writer from saying as much as he could
wish about the genius of this wonderful man, the greatest of his
country's songsters, well calculated by nature to do honour to the
most polished age and the most widely-spoken language. The bards
his contemporaries, and those who succeeded him for several hundred
years, were perfectly convinced of his superiority, not only over
themselves, but over all the poets of the past; and one, and a
mighty one, old Iolo the bard of Glendower, went so far as to
insinuate that after Ab Gwilym it would be of little avail for any
one to make verses -

"Aed lle mae'r eang dangneff,
Ac aed y gerdd gydag ef."

"To Heaven's high peace let him depart,
And with him go the minstrel art."

He was buried at Ystrad Flur, and a yew tree was planted over his
grave, to which Gruffydd Gryg, a brother bard, who was at one time
his enemy, but eventually became one of the most ardent of his
admirers, addressed an ode, of part of which the following is a
paraphrase:-

"Thou noble tree, who shelt'rest kind
The dead man's house from winter's wind;
May lightnings never lay thee low;
Nor archer cut from thee his bow,
Nor Crispin peel thee pegs to frame;
But may thou ever bloom the same,
A noble tree the grave to guard
Of Cambria's most illustrious bard!"

CHAPTER LXXXVII

Start for Plynlimmon - Plynlimmon's Celebrity - Troed Rhiw Goch.

THE morning of the fifth of November looked rather threatening.
As, however, it did not rain, I determined to set off for
Plynlimmon, and, returning at night to the inn, resume my journey
to the south on the following day. On looking into a pocket
almanac I found it was Sunday. This very much disconcerted me, and
I thought at first of giving up my expedition. Eventually,
however, I determined to go, for I reflected that I should be doing
no harm, and that I might acknowledge the sacredness of the day by
attending morning service at the little Church of England chapel
which lay in my way.

The mountain of Plynlimmon to which I was bound is the third in
Wales for altitude, being only inferior to Snowdon and Cadair
Idris. Its proper name is Pum, or Pump, Lumon, signifying the five
points, because towards the upper part it is divided into five
hills or points. Plynlimmon is a celebrated hill on many accounts.
It has been the scene of many remarkable events. In the tenth
century a dreadful battle was fought on one of its spurs between
the Danes and the Welsh, in which the former sustained a bloody
overthrow; and in 1401 a conflict took place in one of its valleys
between the Welsh, under Glendower, and the Flemings of
Pembrokeshire, who, exasperated at having their homesteads
plundered and burned by the chieftain who was the mortal enemy of
their race, assembled in considerable numbers and drove Glendower
and his forces before them to Plynlimmon, where, the Welshmen
standing at bay, a contest ensued, in which, though eventually
worsted, the Flemings were at one time all but victorious. What,
however, has more than anything else contributed to the celebrity
of the hill is the circumstance of its giving birth to three
rivers, the first of which, the Severn, is the principal stream in
Britain; the second, the Wye, the most lovely river, probably,
which the world can boast of; and the third, the Rheidol, entitled
to high honour from its boldness and impetuosity, and the
remarkable banks between which it flows in its very short course,
for there are scarcely twenty miles between the ffynnon or source
of the Rheidol and the aber or place where it disembogues itself
into the sea.

I started about ten o'clock on my expedition, after making, of
course, a very hearty breakfast. Scarcely had I crossed the
Devil's Bridge when a shower of hail and rain came on. As,
however, it came down nearly perpendicularly, I put up my umbrella
and laughed. The shower pelted away till I had nearly reached
Spytty Cynwyl, when it suddenly left off and the day became
tolerably fine. On arriving at the Spytty, I was sorry to find
that there would be no service till three in the afternoon. As
waiting till that time was out of the question, I pushed forward on
my expedition. Leaving Pont Erwyd at some distance on my left, I
went duly north till I came to a place amongst hills where the road
was crossed by an angry-looking rivulet, the same, I believe which
enters the Rheidol near Pont Erwyd, and which is called the Castle
River. I was just going to pull off my boots and stockings in
order to wade through, when I perceived a pole and a rail laid over
the stream at little distance above where I was. This rustic
bridge enabled me to cross without running the danger of getting a
regular sousing, for these mountain streams, even when not reaching
so high as the knee, occasionally sweep the wader off his legs, as
I know by my own experience. From a lad whom I presently met I
learned that the place where I crossed the water was called Troed
rhiw goch, or the Foot of the Red Slope.

About twenty minutes' walk from hence brought me to Castell
Dyffryn, an inn about six miles distant from the Devil's Bridge,
and situated near a spur of the Plynlimmon range. Here I engaged a
man to show me the sources of the rivers and the other wonders of
the mountain. He was a tall, athletic fellow, dressed in brown
coat, round buff hat, corduroy trousers, linen leggings and
highlows, and, though a Cumro, had much more the appearance of a
native of Tipperary than a Welshman. He was a kind of shepherd to
the people of the house, who, like many others in South Wales,
followed farming and inn-keeping at the same time.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII

The Guide - The Great Plynlimmon - A Dangerous Path - Source of the
Rheidol - Source of the Severn - Pennillion - Old Times and New -
The Corpse Candle - Supper.

LEAVING the inn, my guide and myself began to ascend a steep hill
just behind it. When we were about halfway up I asked my
companion, who spoke very fair English, why the place was called
the Castle.

"Because, sir," said he, "there was a castle here in the old time."

"Whereabouts was it?" said I.

"Yonder," said the man, standing still and pointing to the right.
"Don't you see yonder brown spot in the valley? There the castle
stood."

"But are there no remains of it?" said I. "I can see nothing but a
brown spot."

"There are none, sir; but there a castle once stood, and from it
the place we came from had its name, and likewise the river that
runs down to Pont Erwyd."

"And who lived there?" said I.

"I don't know, sir," said the man; "but I suppose they were grand
people, or they would not have lived in a castle."

After ascending the hill and passing over its top, we went down its
western side and soon came to a black, frightful bog between two
hills. Beyond the bog and at some distance to the west of the two
hills rose a brown mountain, not abruptly, but gradually, and
looking more like what the Welsh call a rhiw, or slope, than a
mynydd, or mountain.

"That, sir," said my guide, "is the grand Plynlimmon."

"It does not look much of a hill," said I.

"We are on very high ground, sir, or it would look much higher. I
question, upon the whole, whether there is a higher hill in the
world. God bless Pumlummon Mawr!" said he, looking with reverence
towards the hill. "I am sure I have a right to say so, for many is
the good crown I have got by showing gentlefolks like yourself to
the top of him."

"You talk of Plynlimmon Mawr, or the great Plynlymmon," said I;
"where are the small ones?"

"Yonder they are," said the guide, pointing to two hills towards
the north; "one is Plynlimmon Canol, and the other Plynlimmon Bach
- the middle and the small Plynlimmon."

"Pumlummon," said I, "means five summits. You have pointed out
only three; now, where are the other two?"

"Those two hills which we have just passed make up the five.
However, I will tell your worship that there is a sixth summit.
Don't you see that small hill connected with the big Pumlummon, on
the right?"

"I see it very clearly," said I.

"Well, your worship, that's called Bryn y Llo - the Hill of the
Calf, or the Calf Plynlimmon, which makes the sixth summit."

"Very good," said I, "and perfectly satisfactory. Now let us
ascend the Big Pumlummon."

In about a quarter of an hour we reached the summit of the hill,
where stood a large carn or heap of stones. I got upon the top and
looked around me.

A mountainous wilderness extended on every side, a waste of russet
coloured hills, with here and there a black, craggy summit. No
signs of life or cultivation were to be discovered, and the eye
might search in vain for a grove or even a single tree. The scene
would have been cheerless in the extreme had not a bright sun
lighted up the landscape.

"This does not seem to be a country of much society," said I to my
guide.

"It is not, sir. The nearest house is the inn we came from, which
is now three miles behind us. Straight before you there is not one
for at least ten, and on either side it is an anialwch to a vast
distance. Plunlummon is not a sociable country, sir; nothing to be
found in it, but here and there a few sheep or a shepherd."

"Now," said I, descending from the carn, "we will proceed to the
sources of the rivers."

"The ffynnon of the Rheidol is not far off," said the guide; "it is
just below the hill."

We descended the western side of the hill for some way; at length,
coming to a very craggy and precipitous place, my guide stopped,
and pointing with his finger into the valley below, said:-

"There, sir, if you look down you can see the source of the
Rheidol."

I looked down, and saw far below what appeared to be part of a
small sheet of water.

"And that is the source of the Rheidol?" said I.

"Yes, sir," said my guide; "that is the ffynnon of the Rheidol."

"Well," said I; "is there no getting to it?"

"Oh yes! but the path, sir, as you see, is rather steep and
dangerous."

"Never mind," said I. "Let us try it."

"Isn't seeing the fountain sufficient for you, sir?"

"By no means," said I. "It is not only necessary for me to see the
sources of the rivers, but to drink of them, in order that in after
times I may be able to harangue about them with a tone of
confidence and authority."

"Then follow me, sir; but please to take care, for this path is
more fit for sheep or shepherds than gentlefolk."

And a truly bad path I found it; so bad indeed that before I had
descended twenty yards I almost repented having ventured. I had a
capital guide, however, who went before and told me where to plant
my steps. There was one particularly bad part, being little better
than a sheer precipice; but even here I got down in safety with the
assistance of my guide, and a minute afterwards found myself at the
source of the Rheidol.

The source of the Rheidol is a small beautiful lake, about a
quarter of a mile in length. It is overhung on the east and north
by frightful crags, from which it is fed by a number of small
rills. The water is of the deepest blue, and of very considerable
depth. The banks, except to the north and east, slope gently down,
and are clad with soft and beautiful moss. The river, of which it
is the head, emerges at the south-western side, and brawls away in
the shape of a considerable brook, amidst moss, and rushes down a
wild glen tending to the south. To the west the prospect is
bounded, at a slight distance, by high, swelling ground. If few
rivers have a more wild and wondrous channel than the Rheidol,
fewer still have a more beautiful and romantic source.

After kneeling down and drinking freely of the lake I said:

"Now, where are we to go to next?"

"The nearest ffynnon to that of the Rheidol, sir, is the ffynnon of
the Severn."

"Very well," said I; "let us now go and see the ffynnon of the
Severn!"

I followed my guide over a hill to the north-west into a valley, at
the farther end of which I saw a brook streaming apparently to the
south, where was an outlet.

"That brook," said the guide, "is the young Severn."  The brook
came from round the side of a very lofty rock, singularly
variegated, black and white, the northern summit presenting
something of the appearance of the head of a horse. Passing round
this crag we came to a fountain surrounded with rushes, out of
which the brook, now exceedingly small, came murmuring.

"The crag above," said my guide, "is called Crag y Cefyl, or the
Rock of the Horse, and this spring at its foot is generally called
the ffynnon of the Hafren. However, drink not of it, master; for
the ffynnon of the Hafren is higher up the nant. Follow me, and I
will presently show you the real ffynnon of the Hafren."

I followed him up a narrow and very steep dingle. Presently we
came to some beautiful little pools of water in the turf, which was
here remarkably green.

"These are very pretty pools, an't they, master?" said my
companion. "Now, if I was a false guide I might bid you stoop and
drink, saying that these were the sources of the Severn; but I am a
true cyfarwydd, and therefore tell you not to drink, for these
pools are not the sources of the Hafren, no more than the spring
below. The ffynnon of the Severn is higher up the nant. Don't
fret, however, but follow me, and we shall be there in a minute."

So I did as he bade me, following him without fretting higher up
the nant. Just at the top he halted and said: "Now, master, I
have conducted you to the source of the Severn. I have considered
the matter deeply, and have come to the conclusion that here, and
here only, is the true source. Therefore stoop down and drink, in
full confidence that you are taking possession of the Holy Severn."

The source of the Severn is a little pool of water some twenty
inches long, six wide, and about three deep. It is covered at the
bottom with small stones, from between which the water gushes up.
It is on the left-hand side of the nant, as you ascend, close by
the very top. An unsightly heap of black turf-earth stands right
above it to the north. Turf-heaps, both large and small, are in
abundance in the vicinity.

After taking possession of the Severn by drinking at its source,
rather a shabby source for so noble a stream, I said, "Now let us
go to the fountain of the Wye."

"A quarter of an hour will take us to it, your honour," said the
guide, leading the way.

The source of the Wye, which is a little pool, not much larger than
that which constitutes the fountain of the Severn, stands near the
top of a grassy hill which forms part of the Great Plynlimmon. The
stream after leaving its source runs down the hill towards the
east, and then takes a turn to the south. The Mountains of the
Severn and the Wye are in close proximity to each other. That of
the Rheidol stands somewhat apart front both, as if, proud of its
own beauty, it disdained the other two for their homeliness. All
three are contained within the compass of a mile.

"And now, I suppose, sir, that our work is done, and we may go back
to where we came from," said my guide, as I stood on the grassy
hill after drinking copiously of the fountain of the Wye.

"We may," said I; "but before we do I must repeat some lines made
by a man who visited these sources, and experienced the hospitality
of a chieftain in this neighbourhood four hundred years ago."  Then
taking off my hat, I lifted up my voice and sang:-

"From high Plynlimmon's shaggy side
Three streams in three directions glide;
To thousands at their mouths who tarry
Honey, gold and mead they carry.
Flow also from Plynlimmon high
Three streams of generosity;
The first, a noble stream indeed,
Like rills of Mona runs with mead;
The second bears from vineyards thick
Wine to the feeble and the sick;
The third, till time shall be no more,
Mingled with gold shall silver pour."

"Nice pennillion, sir, I daresay," said my guide, "provided a
person could understand them. What's meant by all this mead, wine,
gold, and silver?"

"Why," said I, "the bard meant to say that Plynlimmon, by means of
its three channels, sends blessings and wealth in three different
directions to distant places, and that the person whom he came to
visit, and who lived on Plynlimmon, distributed his bounty in three
different ways, giving mead to thousands at his banquets, wine from
the vineyards of Gascony to the sick and feeble of the
neighbourhood, and gold and silver to those who were willing to be
tipped, amongst whom no doubt was himself, as poets have never been
above receiving a present."

"Nor above asking for one, your honour; there's a prydydd in this
neighbourhood who will never lose a shilling for want of asking for
it. Now, sir, have the kindness to tell me the name of the man who
made those pennillion."

"Lewis Glyn Cothi," said I; "at least, it was he who made the
pennillion from which those verses are translated."

"And what was the name of the gentleman whom he came to visit?"

"His name," said I, "was Dafydd ab Thomas Vychan."

"And where did he live?"

"Why, I believe, he lived at the castle, which you told me once
stood on the spot which you pointed out as we came up. At any
rate, he lived somewhere upon Plynlimmon."