CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XMallwyd—Falling waters—Dinas Mawddwy—Amongst the moors and mountains—A wild drive—A farmer's logic—A famous old inn—A fisherman's tale—A Roman inscribed stone—Brass to old Thomas Parr—A cruel sport—Wem and its story—A chat with "mine host"—Hawkestone and its wonders.We left Machynlleth on a blustery morning when the wild west wind was out for a rampage across country, and who could say it nay? We retraced the road we came by for a short distance, but the landscape had a fresh look seen in the reverse direction; then we turned up the narrow Dyfi valley, hills rising near and bare on either hand, those to the right mist-crowned and scarred by numberless streams that would be torrents, which had worn for themselves long stony channels on the steep hillside, and down these they dashed, milk-white in their mimic, harmless fury, filling the valley with the sound of their complainings. A hill.   .   .  that showsInscribed upon its visionary sidesThe history of many a winter storm.It was a day full of movement; the clouds above were hounded along relentlessly by the hurrying wind that even blew the birds on the wing about—awind that played riot with the woods, tossing the tops of the trees this way and that, swaying their branches even to breaking one here and there, and surring through their leaves with a sound like that of a stormy sea heard afar off. The air was full of the confused sounds of the roaring wind and raging waters. The clouds above looked drooping and threatening, but the wind trailed them along and drove them over the mountains before they had time to do much mischief, tearing some even to shreds. Nature was at play that day, and in as rampageous a mood as ever a schoolboy out for a holiday; but no mood of hers would have suited better the bare hills and bleak mountains, for, as Coleridge remarks, "there is always something going on amongst the mountains in stormy weather." There was a good deal going on that day, and loud was the din of the contending elements, and rough the embrace of the wind.At the end of the valley we found ourselves at Mallwyd, a tiny hamlet consisting of a cottage or two, a curious and ancient church, and an old-fashioned little stone-built inn half drowned in dark ivy. Mallwyd is a lonely spot shut in by gloomy mountains; its inn is the fit resort of anglers and artists, for who else, except perhaps a poet, would seek such solitary quarters, unless it were some one who desired to flee mankind? The old inn appealed to me, so far removed from the busy world it seemed, so restful with all around so full of unrest, its strong stone walls fit to bear the buffeting of all weathers; such strong walls it needed, and it looked so cosy,solid, and comfortable, in such contrast with the inhospitable country about and the wild winds that were raging.In front of the inn, overhung by drooping trees, is a deep ravine down which the flooded river rushed and roared, a ravine spanned by a grey old bridge; and this with the tumbling, churning waters below, the dark, damp, shining rocks, the boulders that would impede the river's rush, the green, dripping, and trembling foliage of the trees above, made a picture to be remembered—"A roaring dell, o'er-wooded, narrow, deep." There on the bridge I stood awhile watching the turmoil of the waters; for a space they glided smoothly but swiftly over the rounded rocks with a polished surface clear as crystal, only the occasional and sudden darting lines of white foam and bubbles revealing their movement; then they broke and crashed into the dark pools beneath, sending their spray up on to the rocks and trees, which in turn dropped back beads of moisture into the whirling waters below. Strange that watching the restless waters should have given me a feeling of rest, but so it did; and do not some people find rest by the restless sea?Great is the fascination that falling water has for certain people, and of the number I am one. Give me a mountain torrent in some wild and rocky glen remote in the wilderness, and let me be there alone, then I can, for an hour or more, contentedly watch its mad downward dash and mazy side-plays, its plunges and its plashings, its struggles with the boulders it overleaps and that itself has broughtdown but to obstruct its troubled course; its changeful colours, here silvery and bright in the shine of the sun, there dark and porter-hued in the shade of the rocks, a translucent amber tint where just escaping from the shelving rocks, with many greens above; and the bass roar of it sounds like music to my ears, the memory of which brings to me a sense of deep refreshment when in the thronged and bustling town; and sometimes at night in the roar of the streets' traffic I fancy I hear again the torrent's hoarse voice.From Mallwyd we went to Dinas Mawddwy, a little more than a mile away, a village veritably walled in by high mountains that rise close and sheer around. It lies at the bottom of a mighty rock-girt cup. When we were there the mountains were roofed across with clouds, so they might have been of any height our fancy pleased. Dinas Mawddwy oppressed me with a sense of gloom—not but what there was a certain grandeur about its gloom, but the mountains around looked so dark, dreary, and enclosing. The place obsessed me, it had such an eerie look under the louring sky; I was glad to get out of it. The prevailing gloom depressed my spirits, a depression that lasted till I got far away on to the wide open moors. I love mountains, to be on them, but I do not care to be imprisoned in them.Returning to Mallwyd we began to climb high amongst the hills; it was a wild, glorious drive, one vastly to be enjoyed, though on our exposed road we came in for a rare buffeting with the wind, butlittle we heeded that. Right bracing we found it, a tonic of tonics. As we rose the clouds began to break, and great patches of bright blue showed overhead; then frequent bursts of sunshine raked the distant mountains and swept over the moors, causing the wet rocks to glitter here and there, revealing too, now and again, a sparkling rill or a gleaming pool, so enlivening the wide waste of green and dull grey. We had exchanged mountain gloom for mountain glory. It was a fine landscape, delightful in its spaciousness and far-receding distances.Having climbed some miles we began a gradual descent to a sheltered hollow, where we entered into a straggling wood that had a civil look after the bareness of the mountains and the bleakness of the moors. Here our road took a sudden bend and crossed a deep dell boldly spanned by a one-arched bridge, and beyond the bridge we looked up to a cleft in the hills down which a tumbling stream left its white and broken trail, a stream that lost itself for a space in the woods below to shortly reappear again. This was one of the beauty-spots of the journey. The wooded dell, the grey bridge spanning it in one leap, the water falling and foaming down the dark rocks of the mountain side, the tawny-coloured stream below the bridge—altogether what a picture they made! "It seemed but a comparatively short and easy step from Nature to the canvas or to the poem" at that captivating spot!Leaving the wooded glen we came to the open moors again, moors strewn with great weather-stained boulders that have lain there untold ages, before the stones of the Pyramids were hewn or the monoliths of Stonehenge raised from the ground, lain there since the close of the last geological epoch—some old writers indeed have declared "since God created the world." Centuries come and go, kingdoms wax and wane, but the moors remain the same, unchanged, and apparently unchangeable, in an age of change, in an age when most of the land is tilled to the uttermost. Here was a solitude with nothing but the mountains and the moors for the eyes to look upon; the wind had dropped, and great was the silence prevailing except for the faint tinkling of unseen rills that made the silence seem the more profound—not the comparative silence of the countryside, which to the attentive listener is not silence at all.WELSH MOUNTAINS AND MOORLANDS.Gradually we dropped down to where the moors gave place to more kindly soil, though treeless and open still excepting for some rough and low stone walls by the roadside, but of what service (there being only hardy Welsh sheep dotted sparsely about) I could not imagine, for such sheep can climb a wall as well as any man; the only way to confine them is to place thorn branches along the tops of the walls, held there by big stones on them; even this arrangement sometimes fails, for the sheep are apt to pull down both branches and stones.As we descended we came to patches of cultivated fields, and these increased till most of the land was enclosed and tilled, or under grass, so the scene became tamer. At the beginning of our descent we espied, close to the road, a lone farmhouse with alarge water-wheel by the side of its outbuildings, so that the farmer, enlightened man, evidently utilised the power provided by the running streams instead of letting it go to waste, presumably to do his threshing, corn-grinding, chaff-cutting, and possibly churning, to the saving of labour. In a village I know the water-mill there grinds corn by day and generates electricity at night for its inhabitants, thus doing double duty. Rather different to a certain village in Essex where a meeting of the inhabitants—so I read in my morning paper—was held as to the lighting of it. At the meeting a local farmer opposed the project on the ground that "the Creator would have provided light if it had been necessary in the country at night," and strange to say, but true all the same, the lighting scheme was abandoned, though possibly on account of the expense and not because of the farmer's logic.Then we left the hills behind and came down into a green and fertile valley and to "Cann Office Inn"—why so curiously called I cannot say. "What's in a name?" says Shakespeare. Now I think there is much in a name; Aberdovey has a pleasant sound, but Cann Office is not a name suggestive of rural pleasantness, yet "Cann Office Inn" is a charming, old-fashioned, comfortable-looking wayside hostelry, ivy-covered to boot, and it boasts a restful garden; moreover, it is set in the heart of a lovely country far from the sight and sound of the fussy railway, though to be reached by the ubiquitous motor-car, for where goes the road there comes the car. Truly I wish the car was not so ubiquitous; indeed, oftentimesI find myself looking longingly and selfishly back to the desirable old days when the motor-car was not, when I travelled either afoot or by horses, slowly perhaps but contentedly enough on the then little-travelled, peaceful country roads, and took my ease at quiet rural inns, feeling fairly certain of accommodation and even of the best room of the house; now I do not feel so certain of either, nor of the old-time quiet—inns that in those days seemed so remote, and I delighted to give myself up to the delusion of their remoteness. How pleasantly those past wanderings linger in my memory, when in the country you were sure of finding peace and often solitude away from the railway! There is no getting away from the car or the sound of its horn. But vain is the cry of Backward Ho!"Cann Office Inn" was a famous hostelry in the good old coaching and posting era, so I have heard, and that there our hard-drinking ancestors made right merry over their glasses—In the past Georgian dayWhen men were less inclined to sayThat time is gold, and overlayWith toil their pleasure.Nor troubled they about the morrow—or the gout.Unlike many other coaching inns, Cann Office never seems to have fallen upon evil days, for when it lost its travelling and posting custom, anglers, just in the nick of time, happily discovered it, and ever since have haunted the troutful rivers and streams around. One angler indeed said to me, "If you can't catch fish here, you won't catch them anywhere."By my map I see that the rivers Banwy, Gam, and Twrch meet close at hand, and many a minor stream runs near by. "Twrch"—there is a fine specimen of a Welsh name, without a vowel in it, for a Saxon to pronounce! Truly it is short, but there are others that are long, and still have not a helpful vowel in all their astonishing array of consonants.An angler friend, who in years gone by had fished the rivers about Cann Office, told me that on bringing back his catch to the inn one day, by some mischance his fish got mixed with those of another angler who had fished another river there. He was somewhat vexed, but the landlord said he could quite easily sort them out, for the trout of the one river differed in appearance from the trout of the other—and he sorted them to the satisfaction of both parties. The same angler friend told me a story, for the truth of which he vouched. It appears that though a fairly good fisherman there were days when his sport was poor, and even he had to return at times with an empty creel, yet another angler there on those very days generally came back to the inn with a more or less satisfactory show of fish. So he consulted a native on the matter who knew, or was supposed to know, all about local conditions. The native replied that the man mentioned had a special fly to which the trout rose greedily, but he kept it a secret. One day, however, the man lost his cast on the branches of a tree; this the native discovered and recovered, and, for a consideration, handed to my friend. "All's fair in love—andfishing," so my friend sent the fly to his rod-and-tackle maker to be copied. The fly was unlike any fly my friend had ever seen, but he used it with marked success, and during the rest of his stay he used no other.At Llanerfyl, a little village beyond Cann Office, I pulled up to inspect a long printed notice I observed on the church door there. I found this related to the proposed Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Welsh Church. A great deal has been said of late, both in Parliament and out of it, about the neglect of the Welsh parsons of their parishes in past times.But to go back to the eighteenth century, here is the story told by the author ofThe Spiritual Quixote, published in 1772, who in his Welsh wanderings found "a poor Welsh vicar of the diocese of Llandaff, sitting in his humble kitchen paring turnips for dinner, while he read a book and listened to one of his children repeating his lesson." Then he repeats what the vicar said to him:—"Now you must observe, sir, that after spending some years in the University and taking a Master of Arts degree, I am possessed of a little rectory of about £30 a year, and of this vicarage which, if I could make the most of it, might bring me in £20 more. Now each of these preferments these poor people consider a noble benefit, and though you see in what way I live, yet because I am possessed of half a dozen spoons and a silver tankard, they envy me as living in a princely state and lording it over God's heritage. And, what is worse, as my whole income in this parish arises from the small tithes, because I cannot afford to let them cheat me out of half my dues, they represent me as carnal and worldly-minded, and as one who regards nothing but the good things of this life,and who is always making disturbances in the parish, and this prejudice against me prevents my doing that good amongst them which I sincerely wish to do. One man has left the church and walks miles to a Methodist meeting, because I took one pig out of seven as the law directs; another has complained to the Bishop of my extortion because I would not take three shillings and sixpence in lieu of tithes for a large orchard, as my predecessor had done. In short, sir, there are two or three Dissenters in the parish, who give out that all tithes are remnants of Popery; and would have the clergy consider meat and drink as types and shadows, which ought to have been abolished with the Levitical Law."In the churchyard of Llanerfyl I noticed a large and ancient yew-tree, its extended branches shadowing the ground far around, its roots amongst the dead. In the shade of it I discovered what I took to be, from the look, the shape, and the lettering on it, a Roman inscribed stone, a stone weathered and worn, with much of the inscription wasted away; still, with difficulty, I managed to decipher a part of it—not that the deciphering left me much the wiser—and this is what I recovered:—HIC   .   .   .   .   .   ..   .   .      .   .   .D   .   .   .  .   .   .   .GEDLAPATERMIN   .   .AN   .   .   XII   .   N   .Our road presently followed alongside the river Banwy, a river overhung with trees through which we caught constant silvery peeps of it tumbling over its bed of shelving rocks in shallow murmuring falls, anon resting, here and there, in many a quietpool where the big trout lie hidden, or should do so. The English language, and perhaps all others, needs a word to express the sound of falling water—"gurgling" and "plashing" are the nearest I can think of, but they hardly fulfil the need. Then Llanfair village, picturesquely situated on a hill just above the running river, came in view, with its large, tall-towered church keeping watch and ward over its cottage homes; you rarely see so fine a church in a Welsh village—most frequently you find a chapel, a gaunt and square eyesore, where they preach the Calvinistic Creed.A signpost informed me that the road led to Welshpool. Now to Welshpool I had no desire to go; it is a large town where, I believe, they manufacture flannels, a useful town, but it had no interest for me; however, as the road was a pleasant one I kept to it. By the way, the first signpost was inscribed "To Welshpool," but farther on this was shortened to simply "Pool." We duly reached Welshpool; it had a prosperous look; there was much traffic in its streets. We were glad to get out of it into the quiet country again, and a very pleasant country it proved to be, our road leading us along the hillsides and past fragrant pine-woods, with distant peeps of finely-shaped hills.Close to the hamlet of Wollaston I pulled up to consult the map, and to ask the name of the place from a youth who was passing by, and when he had told me this I jokingly queried if there were anything to see there, for it looked an uninteresting spot where nothing had ever happened, or waslikely to happen. "Well," replied he, "old Parr lived here—you may have heard of him; there's a brass about him in the church. I know where the key's kept, I'll run and get it for you"—doubtless with an eye to earning an honest penny or two, where, I should imagine, pennies were hard to earn. But he was a civil youth, so I let him get the key. There in the church I found a brass against the wall with a portrait of that old man engraved on the top, and the following inscription below:—The Old, Old, very Old ManThomas ParrWas born at the GlynIn the township of WinningtonWithin the Chapelry of Great WollastonAnd Parish of AlberburyIn the County of SalopIn the year of our Lord 1483.He lived in the reigns of Ten KingsAnd Queens of England (viz.) King Edward 4thKing Edward 5th King Richard 3rd King Henry 7thKing Henry 8th King Edward 6th Queen Mary QueenElizabeth King James 1st and King Charles. Died the 13thAnd was buryed in Westminster AbbyOn the 15th of November 1635Aged 152 years and 9 months.From Wollaston we had for some miles a pleasant stretch of pastoral country varied by shady woodlands, and we caught peeps on the way of some charming old half-timber homes, such as one finds in Shropshire, for we were in that shire now and approaching Shrewsbury again—so the signposts told us. We managed to drive round Shrewsbury by the Severn side, so did not enter thetown, and were soon again on the open road, climbing, most of the way, to the village of Albrighton, having glorious panoramas, over a richly wooded country to our left, presented to us the latter half of the stage.At Albrighton I learnt there used to prevail the cruel sport of whipping a cat to death on Shrove Tuesday, and the old signboard, that once hung in front of the inn there, is still preserved, on which is a painted and faded representation of a man whipping a cat, and the legend below—The finest sport under the sunIs whipping the cat at Albrighton.At the place I could glean no information as to the origin of this cruel and curious custom, but later on during the journey I found enlightenment of a Shropshire parson, who told me he believed it arose from a cat having got into the church and having ate the Sacrament.It was now growing late, and I began to think about my night's quarters. I passed an inviting-looking inn by the roadside, but, as I saw no stabling for the car there, I drove contentedly on in the gathering gloaming through a country that appeared to me to be exceedingly beautiful and richly wooded, and then with the evening star I made the little town of Wem (no town could surely well have a shorter title); there at the "Castle Inn" I found excellent accommodation, much civility, and a landlord who was interesting, informing, and obliging. I was glad I came to Wem.That evening in his cosy bar I had a long chat with "mine host." I discovered him seated there reading Mitford'sHistory of Greece, which much surprised me, as being, I thought, a rather heavy work for a landlord to read, and he told me he was reading for his amusement! He also lent me aHistory of Wem, by Herbert Merchant, which I found interesting, and from this I learnt that Hazlitt lived for twelve years at Wem. Augustine Birrell says that "by his writings Hazlitt, the most eloquent of English essayists, has so infected the place with his own delight that it is hard to be dull at Wem"—but not impossible, I think. Coleridge visited Hazlitt at Wem, walking with him from Shrewsbury to that place; I presume they walked along the same road we had come, and Coleridge was so delighted with the scenery on the way that he exclaimed, "If I had the quaint muse of Sir Philip Sidney I would write a sonnet to the road between Shrewsbury and Wem." Surely Coleridge's muse was quaint enough—who else but he could have composedThe Ancient Mariner? Hazlitt, it appears, like Thackeray, first sought fame as an artist, for he had inscribed on his tomb, "William Hazlitt. Painter, Critic, Essayist. Born 1778. Died 1830."In 1643, when the rest of Shropshire was loyal to the King, Wem declared for the Parliament; thereupon the King sent Lord Capel with five thousand men to capture the town, but—so the story goes—he was repulsed by the garrison of only forty men, aided by the women of the place, who were dressedin red cloaks and placed in positions where they could be seen by the King's forces. Lord Capel, judging from the number of red figures he observed, thought the garrison was too strong to be successfully attacked, and ignominiously retired. Hence the old couplet—The women of Wem and a few musketeersBeat Lord Capel and all his cavaliers.There was, too, a Royalist mock litany of the time, a part of which reads—From Wem, and from Nantwitch,Good Lord, deliver us.This story of the red-coated women of Wem reminds me of the similar story told of the French invasion of Fishguard in 1797, where and when a small French force was landed from three frigates to raid the country. Lord Cawdor at the head of a hastily collected body of militia, of about half the strength of the enemy, went forth to meet them; a number of Welsh women, in red cloaks, gathered on the hills around to watch the expected battle, and these were mistaken by the French for regular troops prepared to cut off their retreat; thereupon, deeming they were overpowered, the Frenchmen surrendered. Both stories read much alike. I wonder if either one is true? "I hae my douts."I learnt much about Wem from the landlord, how in past days the houses of the town were all thatched, and that there is still preserved in the old town hall a huge iron hook fixed to the end of along oak pole that was used to pull down the thatch from any house that was alight and so to prevent the flames spreading, and he offered to show it me in the morning if I cared to see it. I thought I should; such a contrivance must be somewhat of a curiosity—at least I had never seen or heard of anything of the kind before. However, in spite of the hook, it happened that the whole town was burnt down, the church steeple too, in 1677. "Wem was quite a large place at one time," he continued; "and though you might hardly think it, some of the quiet country lanes around were once the town streets. It is the only Shropshire town mentioned in the Doomsday Book, which perhaps may prove its former importance. Judge Jeffreys, who had his home a mile from the town, was created Baron of Wem. His house is still standing and has his coat-of-arms carved over the doorway." Then some customers came in and the conversation became general; I wish they had not, for I was interested in the landlord's account of the place, and I fancy there was much more he could have told me about it.Amongst the company was a farmer, at least I took him to be such, and the weather was his main subject of conversation. I gathered from him that for some cause thunderstorms were fairly frequent at Wem and round about, and I understood that a farmer in the locality had recently lost several sheep by lightning. "Talking of lightning," he went on, "do you know it is a fact that lightning never strikes a moving object?" I did not, though I hadto confess I had no recollection of such a circumstance, which was but negative evidence. Then said he, "According to my experience, if there's a full moon on a Saturday it's sure to rain the next day, and if there's a star close by the moon it's bound to blow hard the next morning." Though why this should be he could not explain—and little wonder! Many other things he said about the weather, but I did not note them down. The only man I trust about the weather is the shepherd of the downs or the plains, for on those open places the weather reveals its secrets to him who has little to do but observe it. I do not even trust the newspaper's forecasts except in settled times, when there is no need of them, for as a traveller who is concerned as to what the day will be, I have as often found them wrong as right. Sometimes they strike a provokingly uncertain note, such as "Rain in places," which is very safe forecasting and leaves me much in doubt.During the conversation some one talked about his "near-dwellers," and the same man twice used the term "unked." These were unfamiliar expressions to me, and on inquiry I found "near-dwellers" to mean neighbours, and "unked" was employed to signify down-spirited. Then some one made use of the old saying, "You'll have to mind your P's and Q's." "Does any one know how that saying originated?" queried another of the party, "for I do." No one appeared to know. "Then I'll tell you," he went on, manifestly pleased to be informing. "In the old days, when the publican had to trustmany of his customers, slates were kept in the bar with the customers' names written on them, with a P and a Q below. The P stood for pints and the Q for quarts, and crosses were chalked under the P's and Q's corresponding to the pints and quarts for which each customer owed. So, you see, they had to mind their P's and Q's." I had plenty of entertainment that night, of which I have given a fair sample. Much else about other things was said, but perhaps the talk of strangers at an inn is not a subject that profits to enlarge about or even worth mention at all; however, the conversation, and the unexpected turns of it, served to pass my evening pleasantly enough away. A fisherman once told me of a brother of the craft, which brother I own was given a little to romancing, that he "talked salmon and caught only tiny trout." Perhaps the moral applies to the conversation I listened to; agreeably tired after my long day in the open air, I grant I was in no exacting mood as to the quality of my entertainment, I was too dreamily lazy to be critical; then there was nothing to pay for it, and happy is the man who can find entertainment wherever he chance to be.Glancing through theHistory of Wemthat the landlord lent me, I read there a glowing description of Hawkestone Park, a most romantic spot according to the description, and as it was only four miles from Wem I determined to go there next day. I also discovered that Dr. Johnson visited Hawkestone on July 24, 1774, and this is what he had to say about it:—We saw Hawkestone and were conducted over a large tract of rocks and woods, a region abounding with striking scenes and terrific grandeur. We were always on the brink of a precipice or at the foot of a lofty rock.... Round the rocks is a narrow path cut into the stone which is very frequently hewn into steps, but art has proceeded no further than to make the succession of wonders safely accessible. The whole circuit, somewhat laborious, is terminated by a grotto cut into a rock to a great extent, with many windings and supported by pillars, not hewn with regularity.... There were from space to space seats in the rocks. Though it wants water it excels Dovedale by the extent of its prospects, the awfulness of its shades, the horror of its precipices, the verdure of its hollows, and the loftiness of its rocks. The ideas it forces upon the mind are the sublime, the dreadful, and the vast. Above inaccessible altitude, below is horrible profundity. He who mounts the precipices of Hawkestone wonders how he came thither and doubts how he shall return. His walk is an adventure and his departure an escape.Now all this strikes a most romantic note, and surely Dr. Johnson was too great a man to be given to gush, so all the more it surprised me how it was that I had never heard of Hawkestone and its wonders before. Just "Ignorance, pure ignorance," as the famous doctor once remarked to a lady in reply to her query how it was he did not know something that she considered he ought to know. Truly Hawkestone was one of the surprises and discoveries of the journey. There is one advantage in not knowing all about the country you are travelling in, for such lack of knowing keeps you ever in a delightful state of expectancy as to what fresh discoveries you may make; no matter though to others they are familiar, that does not rob you of the thrill of pleasure in discovering them.Next morning I learnt from the landlord that there was a good inn at Hawkestone, so after a look at Wem I determined to spend the rest of the day there and explore its beauties at leisure. Wem did not detain me long that morning. My curiosity induced me to see the "fire fork" already mentioned that was used to drag down the burning thatch from the houses, and I estimated this to be thirty-six feet long, but I was told it was much more than that originally. It looked just like a big iron fishhook at the end of a pole. In a niche of the church tower I noticed a much-weathered stone figure, and this the clerk told me represented St. Chad, "a favourite saint in these parts." I asked him if there were anything of interest in the church, and he said no, "but there's a unique Gothic doorway at the west end well worth seeing, it's four hundred years old"; so I went to inspect it, and I found a most quaintly shaped doorway, the like of which I had not come upon before, but it struck me as more uncommon than beautiful—and this was all I discovered worthy of note in Wem; its interest is historical, and that does not appeal to the eye.CHAPTER XIRed Castle—A stately ruin—Old houses and new owners—The joy of discovery—High Ercall and its story—Mills and millers—The life of a stone-breaker—Old folk-songs—Haughmond Abbey—Ancient tombs—A peaceful spot—A place for a pilgrimage.On leaving Wem I sought instruction of the landlord as to the road to Hawkestone, for the roads about Wem are many and winding, and it is not easy for a stranger to find his way on them. He told me to go to Weston, a village adjoining the park, "where there is a good inn. If you ask your way to Hawkestone," said he, "the natives may send you miles round; for Hawkestone is a big place, and there is no inn but at Weston." So to Weston we went, guided by the signposts, and not a signpost, strange to relate, did we see with "Hawkestone" upon it.Weston proved to be a charming little village of black and white half-timber cottages with an old church set on a hill above them, and by the churchyard wall were its ancient stocks intact. At the end of the village we came to the inn delightfully placed facing the park and its glorious scenery, and with only a low hedge between it and the park. The Hawkestone hotel gave me an agreeablegreeting, for on entering it I found myself in a panelled hall, and beyond this I caught a peep of a pleasant little garden belonging to the inn. Again I was fortunate in finding comfortable quarters. I liked my inn; it had a home-like look. I asked about seeing the park, and was told I could have a guide to show me over it, though I was welcome to go alone if I wished. No guide was pressed on me, and I appreciated the fact; but I felt I might miss much if I went without one. The park was extensive, there were many things to see there; so I obtained a guide, and set forth to explore Hawkestone, and I went alone with the guide. After Dr. Johnson's description of the place and all the adjectives he used—I presume he considered them necessary—I feel somewhat at a discount in attempting a further description, and finding fresh, suitable adjectives; but we see places with our own eyes and glean our own impressions. What struck me first about Hawkestone was a certain indefinable theatrical look, a sense of unreality, as though I were viewing a stage production on a large scale. I had never seen Nature and Art so romantically combined before. Though I climbed the precipices by narrow paths cut along their sides, I did not feel "my walk an adventure and my departure an escape," nor did I feel the "sublime, dreadful, vast, or horrible profundity" of the spot—I wondered much at those expressions; to me it appeared fully to justify the terms romantic and picturesque, but not in the least that of dreadful: never were my spirits daunted! The guide was loquacious; hadhe talked less, I might have remembered more of all he told me, and he told me much of the past history of Hawkestone and of its lords, from the early days when the first castle was built there to close upon the present time; and he expressed his surprise that I had not heard of Hawkestone before. "Not to know Hawkestone is to show yourself unknown," I almost fancy he thought.I was first shown the Red Castle, built in the reign of King Henry III., of which castle, except some broken masonry, a tall, round keep, standing isolated and stately on a crag, alone remains. "How like one of Salvator Rosa's pictures!" I could not help exclaiming to myself; and really it is. The far view from this tower over a vast extent of peaceful, pastoral, and wooded country to the stormy mountains of Wales, so rugged of outline and contrasting, is wonderfully fine and space-expressing. There was a bigness about it, looking over "the sweep of endless woods," that pleased me, a green spaciousness that was splendid. I forget now how many feet high the guide said the top of the tower on its crag was from the ground; but one had to crane one's neck to see it from below, and this gave one the impression of commanding height whatever its height might be.Next we went under a wide-arched rock at the end of a ravine, and began to climb the crags on the opposite side by a narrow winding footpath with steps cut here and there in the steepest parts; so we reached a wonderful series of grottos, consisting of arched chambers in the solid rock,with many roughly-hewn pillars. These grottos were lined with shells and spas: the guide gave me the history of them, but I have forgotten it; some one, however, cut them out of the rock, and some ladies decorated them in the manner described. Then I was conducted on to the top of the crag, opposite to which is the Raven's Cliff; from this point the view over the park and rocks is very striking, the rough grey rocks peeping out here and there from the sea of soft green foliage, forming a telling combination and contrast. Then we descended, only to ascend again up a steep and stepped path to the Hermitage, a cavern in the cliff side, over the entrance to which is inscribed—Procul, O procul este, profani.It was a strange whim of our ancestors to have a Hermitage in their grounds; and as real hermits were not to be procured, often an aged pensioner was made to take their place for the benefit of visitors—but nobody was of course deceived. I am afraid it was an age of shams, even of sham ruins built to beautify the view! In the present instance, however, a wax figure of a grey-haired and bearded man seated at a table with a skull upon it did duty for a living hermit, though it did not do it very well; for the effect of the figure was marred by the dripping of moisture from the roof of the cave: not even a hermit could endure that for long and live. The guide told me that he was supposed to leave me here and go in by a secret door at the back of thefigure and somehow introduce himself beneath its cloak and talk. He was quite open about the proceeding; it was mere acting; and I told him, after such a confession, he need not trouble himself or me. Though actually he declared some young people were taken in by the device, owing to the gloom of the cavern; if this be true, I am afraid there are a good many young innocents abroad. Then I saw the Druid's Cavern and St. Francis's Cave, and a recess in the rock where, according to an inscription, "Rowland Hill, a gentleman renowned for his great wisdom, piety, and charity, who, being a zealous Royalist, hid himself in the Civil Wars of the time of King Charles I.; but being discovered, was imprisoned in his adjacent Red Castle, whilst his house was pillaged and ransacked by the rebels." There were other things of interest in the park, but in truth its gloriously rocky and wooded scenery, and its ruined castle keep, appealed to me vastly more than the rest.June is a month to joy in, for when in a gracious mood it can produce the pleasantest of weather, and the next morning gave us a sample of its occasional perfectness. A glorious sunshiny day followed the promise of the morning with a deep sea-blue sky above, and hardly a cloud in it—a day that made us feel the joy of being alive. So we made an early start, and wandering about deviously we suddenly espied before us, standing gaunt and deserted and lone in a grass field, the ruined hall of Moreton Corbet, its roofless walls, its upstanding gables and great vacant windows, darkly silhouetted against thebright sky. I recognised the old house from a friend's photograph; it had a familiar look, though I had never been there before and had come upon it unexpectedly. The house covers a considerable area of ground, and some of the quaint carvings on its front appeared to be almost as sharp as the day they were carved, and that was centuries ago. Were I an architect, I think I should try to discover the quarry from whence came that enduring stone, for many a fine building I have seen has suffered sadly from the perishable nature of the stone employed in its construction. An architect cannot be too careful in the selection of his material if he wishes his work to last—and what architect does not—not to mention his client, who surely deserves some consideration?Moreton Corbet was begun by Sir Robert Corbet in 1606, but he died of the plague before the building was finished; his brother Sir Vincent Corbet continued the work, but the house was never finished or inhabited, and now the rambling ruins are but the home of owls and other birds. Camden the antiquary in his day wrote of it: "Robert Corbet began to build a most gorgeous and stately house, after the Italian model, for his future magnificent and splendid habitation, but death countermanding his designs took him off, so that he left his project unfinished and his old castle defaced." The remains of his "defaced" old castle are at hand, with the initials A. C. for Sir Andrew Corbet over its doorway. There is a hazy local tradition that some enemy of the Corbets, when the house was building, uttered the prophecy that "Moreton Corbet shall never be finished." But who can tell, it may be some day, though late the day, for its walls appear sound, the stone mullions stand in the windows still, and I have known ancient houses even more ruined that have come into the hands of a new owner and have been restored and converted into delightful homes. "Patch and long sit," runs the old proverb, but "build and soon flit" it ends, and from my limited experience of the ways of men there is some truth in the proverb. But proverbs are so often contradictory that I have lost faith in them. One says, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"; then another has it, "Out of sight out of mind," and I might go on quoting familiar proverbs of an antagonistic nature, only to do so would be a waste of space. You can generally by searching find a proverb to fit a special case whichever way you desire—that is the beauty of proverbs.THE RUINED HALL OF MORETON CORBET.A ruined home, whether of cottage or mansion, is always, more or less, a pathetic sight and one that appeals to the sentimental traveller, but coming thus suddenly and unexpectedly upon so stately a ruin as Moreton Corbet right in the heart of a quiet country, a country with no suggestion about it but of farms and fields—one expected nothing else—the greater was the appeal to such sentiment. The coming to the notable ruin of an abbey or castle for which the traveller is prepared by guide-book description is quite a different thing; at least I, for one, cannot command my sympathies to the order of a guide-book. To repeat, in effect, a previousremark, I really think that the chief charm of travel is the coming upon the unexpected, the enjoyment of discovery, so that even the lesser sights by the way assume an importance that perhaps is not rightly theirs and become memorable.Leaving Moreton Corbet we got wandering amongst winding lanes, and very pleasant lanes they were; these eventually brought us to High Ercall, a lonely little village consisting of an ancient church, an old Tudor manor-house of some size standing close by, and a cottage or two. High Ercall had not much to show us, but what it had to show was interesting, chiefly the fine church which retains some features of interest in spite of the fact that it was sadly battered about by the Puritan party, and the time-toned Tudor house built, according to an inscription on it, in 1608. The main portion of the house is of stone, but it has brick gables above that give it an odd appearance. The old home took my fancy. "It looks history," I exclaimed to myself, though at the time I knew nothing of its past. Why I should have imagined that house had a story to tell I cannot say, but so it impressed me, perhaps simply because it was so old. Anyway, on making inquiry I found my intuition not wrong, for I discovered it was one of the many Shropshire houses that had been fortified in the time of the Civil Wars and held for the King, and though but a house, so gallantly was it defended that it successfully resisted several fierce assaults, being indeed the last house in the shire to surrender, only the strongholds of Bridgnorth and Ludlowholding out longer. I wonder if anything eventful will ever happen at High Ercall again. Who would have expected to come upon history there? It looked so innocent of anything of the kind. Certainly the Civil Wars have given the added interest of stirring days to many a now dreamy spot in England, for those wars concerned themselves with the sieges of so many private houses scattered far and wide over the countryside. Those days have passed for ever, for no private house could now be converted into a fortress. Many of these old houses still retain bullet marks on, and sometimes the lead of the bullets in, their thick oak doors; their strong walls too occasionally show, even to this far-off day, the indentations made by some of Cromwell's inexhaustible cannon-balls. You cannot escape from Cromwell's doings when you go a-touring in England.Beyond High Ercall we crossed over a marshy upland, and over a bridge or two so narrow that there was only just room for the car to pass. The country had a remote look, for we travelled far before meeting a soul, and that soul was a solitary man breaking stones by the side of the road. From the uplands we dropped down to a picturesque old mill, its wheel turned by a sparkling stream; and a pretty picture the old mill made with its foaming weir above, its sleepy pool below, and the green fields gently sloping down to it. The mill was busy that day, and the muffled hum of its machinery, the swish, swish of its wheel and the plash of its weir, broke pleasantly the silence of the spot.I saw no miller, or any one, about; perhaps the miller was at his dinner whilst his work was being done for him. I wish I could have seen him, for I have a liking for millers, always having found them jovially disposed and not averse to a gossip; now I have a weakness for gossiping with country folk, trusting by so doing to glean something of their views of life. Such folk I have generally found willing to talk about anything but politics—well, I do not care to talk politics, but why they should so carefully avoid the subject I cannot say, nor yet why millers are so cheerful a race, any more than why farmers in contradiction should be given so to grumbling, even when the seasons are good. I remember that picture inPunchof a squire addressing a tenant of his: "Good morning, Mr. Turnips, fine growing day." "Yes, sir," responds the farmer, "'twill make the weeds grow." But the miller looks on the bright side of life; perhaps it is because he seems to have so little work to do, only having to watch whilst the running water or the willing wind do his work for him. I know I have chatted with a miller for an hour or more inside his mill and amongst his whirling wheels, as the flour flowed fast and free from the wooden shoots into the sacks below, and he merely glanced round now and then to see if a sack were nearly filled, so that he might put another in its place; nor did this take him long to do, nor did the work seem hard. It was this miller who so kindly explained to me how much better it was to rely on water than wind power, the latter being so uncertain, for "the wind may dropin the daytime, and then blow at night when you are comfortably in bed, so you may idle away half, or even the whole of a day, but water-power is constant, if you have a decent stream to depend upon." Then the miller told me how in his father's time, for his father was a miller too, the gleaners used to come to the mill to have their gleanings ground, and in those friendly past days the miller used to grind their gleanings without charge in his spare time, as the custom was. "Then helped every one his neighbour," for those were "the good old days," at least they seem good to look back upon.After the mill followed a stretch of open country with wide cornfields on either hand waving round us like a golden sea and rustling in the wind; then by way of change we entered upon a tree-lined road, with at one spot great rocks by its side, and from this spot Shrewsbury and its church spires came into view vaguely showing in the mist like the city of a dream. Not desiring to revisit Shrewsbury, I stopped the car and consulted my map; it was a fortunate circumstance, for in doing so I discovered "Haughmond Abbey" marked thereon, and apparently not very far off. I seemed to be always making discoveries on my map. Now I had heard of Haughmond Abbey, but what the ruins were like, where they were hidden away, whether extensive or the mere fragments of a building, I had no idea. Bolton, Tintern, Fountains, Glastonbury, Melrose, and other famous ruined abbeys were familiar to me in pictures, engravings, photographs,and poetry long before I saw them, but of Haughmond I had seen neither picture nor engraving, nor, as far as I am aware, has any poet sung its praises. Yet Haughmond Abbey I found to be a beautiful ruin, not so romantically situated as either Tintern or Bolton truly, but set in as sweet a spot as all fair England can show, delightful to the eye with its verdant meadows, shady trees, tranquil water, grey rock, and sheltering wooded hills around—a spot so peaceful in its seclusion, so peace-bestowing, too, and without a hint of the modern world, for at Haughmond nothing is to be seen but quiet woods, gentle hills, and the spacious sky above. Never came I to a more tranquil spot; the monks of old must have left their benediction there, though robbed of their abbey they loved so well and turned adrift into the outer world, and though they doubtless fondly hoped and believed it would "have canopied their bones," or at least they would have been laid to rest in the shade of its church.But I am a little previous. Close to where I pulled up I saw a man breaking stones by the roadside, and I asked him if he could tell me the whereabouts of the abbey. "It be right down there," said he, pointing ahead with his finger into space, "not more than a quarter of a mile away. You comes to a cottage, and on the other side of the way is a footpath by a stream leading to it." He was a civil man, his instructions were clear, stone-breaking is wearisome work; I was sorry for him to the extent of a sixpence, better expended than on a tramp, I thought, and tramps in my green dayswheedled many a sixpence out of me. I remember that the last tramp to whom I gave a trifle exclaimed in the fulness of his heart upon unexpectedly receiving it, "God bless you, sir. May we soon meet in Heaven!" Since then my donations to tramps have ceased. I would chat with that stone-breaker, I would see the world through a stone-breaker's eyes. But his view of the world was limited; manifestly the monotony of his labour had told upon him, perhaps too the loneliness of the life, so that I got little profit out of the conversation. It needs a strong mind to sit by the roadside all day long and break stones, do nothing but break stones, and have any imagination left.Finding a secluded, shady spot by the wayside I rested there awhile, for the day was hot; moreover I was already beginning to feel hungry, and my luncheon-basket was handy. How hungry one gets motoring in the fresh air, to be sure! Whilst resting there and thinking, it suddenly struck me how seldom in Wales I saw any children romping about in the villages as English children are wont to do; even to-day sometimes on the village greens one finds the latter playing games so old that no one can tell how they originated. Take, for instance, the game of "Old Roger" often played at children's gatherings in the West Country to an old song as follows. I have given this song in a previous book, but it will bear repeating, and I repeat it to show how this old song, long years ago, found its way to America, and how it became altered there. This, then, is how the original "Old Roger" runs:—Old Roger is dead and lies in his grave—Hee-haw! lies in his grave.They planted an apple-tree over his head.The apples were ripe and ready to drop,When came a big wind and blew them all off;Then came an old woman a-picking them up.Old Roger jumped up and gave her a knock,Which made the old woman go hipperty-hop.Now an American lady reading this in my book wrote to me about it, enclosing the words of a song that was sung to her by her grandfather, who had learnt it from his grandfather. "It is very plain," wrote the lady, "that our song came over from your country, and that it originated in your 'Old Roger.' This is very interesting to me. We call our song 'Old Father Cungell.' It goes this way:—Old Father Cungell went up to White Hall,Hum, ha! up to White Hall,And there he fell sick amongst 'em all,With my heigh down, ho down,Hum, Ha!Old Father Cungell was car-ri-ed home,Hum, ha! car-ri-ed home;Before he got there he was as dead as a stone,With my heigh down, ho down,Hum, Ha!Old Father Cungell was in the grave laid,They covered him up with shovel and spade,And out of his grave there grew a big treeThat bore the best apples that ever ye see!Before they were ripe and fit for the fall,There came an old woman and stole them off all;Her gown it was red, her petticoat green,The very worst woman that ever was seen.Old Cungell got up and hit her a knock,That made the old woman go hipperty-hop.The neighbours were scared and said in their fright,'The ghost of Cungell gets up in the night,'With my heigh down, ho down,Hum, Ha!"HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHURCH DOORWAY.Rested and refreshed I went in search of Haughmond Abbey, the ruins of which, though near to, are not visible from the road, so the casual traveller might pass them unawares, as doubtless many do. A short stroll along a shady footpath and by the side of a limpid stream soon brought me to the spot; the hoary, ivy-clad ruins peeping through the branching trees made a perfect picture, the sunshine resting on them and brightening the century-gathered gloom of their broken walls and rugged gables. It was, in truth, a pleasant spot the monks selected for their abbey, an ideal spot well secluded from the outer world; even to-day it retains its old-time tranquillity undisturbed. I had the ruins to myself, rejoiced to escape from the noisy prattle of the mere sightseer; to myself, excepting that some birds were holding a profane service on the grass-grown ground where erst the high altar stood. The ruins are of considerable extent, though, but for a portion of a wall and a fine sculptured doorway, the church itself has wholly disappeared; its foundations, however, may still be faintly traced. Unlike most abbeys the ruined churches of which remain whilst their monastic outbuildings and offices have vanished, at Haughmond the reverse is the case. So one generation builds a fane of prayer and another generation levels it to the ground, evenglorying in its destruction; and the sad thought of it is, who can say that what we build in our pride to-day may not at some future time share a similar fate? Doubtless the monks who reared this stately abbey thought it would last to Doomsday; it lasted about four hundred years, for it was founded in 1135 by Fitz Alan of Clun, and was suppressed by King Henry VIII. in 1541, he "being mynded to take it into his own handes," as he did many another abbey, "for better purposes." The world knows what those "better purposes" were.Nettles and weeds now flourish in the abbey's deserted courts and around its roofless buildings, the only roofed portion being the Chapter-house, which is entire with its three richly ornamented arched doorways, of which I give an illustration. It may be noted that between the pillars are statues under canopies, a remarkable feature that I do not remember to have seen in any ecclesiastical edifice before. It struck me that these statues were an after-thought and had been introduced at a later period by cutting pillars away to receive them; I cannot say that they altogether pleased me, for they disturbed the unity and simplicity of the fine Norman arches. The flat oak roof of the Chapter-house appears to be in perfect condition, though I was surprised to find an oak roof there and not a vaulted one of stone. The chief offices appertaining to the abbey appear to have been built round a court beyond the cloisters; of these the Abbot's Lodge retains its beautiful bay-window, and what was probably the guest-house retains all its side windows with their tracery intact. This building has a large gable at one end flanked by shapely turrets.HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHAPTER-HOUSE.Of the many stately tombs the abbey church once contained only two inscribed slabs remain, but these are interesting: one to John Fitz Alan, deceased 1270, who was buried before the high altar, bears the following inscription in Norman French, as was the fashion of the time:—VOVS KI PASSEZ ICI PRIES PVR LAME IOHAN FIS ALEINKI GIT ICI DEV DE SA ALME EIT MERCI. AMEN.ISABEL DE MORTIMER SA FEMME ACOST DE L ... DEVDE LVR ALME ... MERCI. AMEN.Another slab has the incised effigy of a woman shown wearing a quaint head-dress with a coat-of-arms on either side of it, her gloved hands folded in prayer; the inscription is in Latin, that prevailed during that later period and for long afterwards, and thus it runs:—Hic jacet ... filia Iohis Leyton armigi & uxor Ricardimynde que obiit in festo Cathedre Sancti PetriAnno Dni Millesio cccc xxviij cui aie ppiciet Deus Amen.I loitered long at Haughmond, and loth I was to leave so peace-bestowing a spot; thither the world-weary pilgrim might well come in search of rest, for nowhere could he find a quietude more profound. I wish I could, in words, express the peacefulness of the spot, a peacefulness that grew upon me and that seemed to me on leaving like an unuttered benediction, but not the less a benediction because unuttered. Never bade I farewell to a spot morereluctantly; never have I felt a greater desire to return to one. Such was the spell it cast upon me. "Within its walls peace reigned; from its stately church came the sounds of prayer and praise; its gates were ever open to the pilgrim and the poor; its hospitality and brotherly kindness softened the harsh incidence of the feudal days."

CHAPTER XMallwyd—Falling waters—Dinas Mawddwy—Amongst the moors and mountains—A wild drive—A farmer's logic—A famous old inn—A fisherman's tale—A Roman inscribed stone—Brass to old Thomas Parr—A cruel sport—Wem and its story—A chat with "mine host"—Hawkestone and its wonders.We left Machynlleth on a blustery morning when the wild west wind was out for a rampage across country, and who could say it nay? We retraced the road we came by for a short distance, but the landscape had a fresh look seen in the reverse direction; then we turned up the narrow Dyfi valley, hills rising near and bare on either hand, those to the right mist-crowned and scarred by numberless streams that would be torrents, which had worn for themselves long stony channels on the steep hillside, and down these they dashed, milk-white in their mimic, harmless fury, filling the valley with the sound of their complainings. A hill.   .   .  that showsInscribed upon its visionary sidesThe history of many a winter storm.It was a day full of movement; the clouds above were hounded along relentlessly by the hurrying wind that even blew the birds on the wing about—awind that played riot with the woods, tossing the tops of the trees this way and that, swaying their branches even to breaking one here and there, and surring through their leaves with a sound like that of a stormy sea heard afar off. The air was full of the confused sounds of the roaring wind and raging waters. The clouds above looked drooping and threatening, but the wind trailed them along and drove them over the mountains before they had time to do much mischief, tearing some even to shreds. Nature was at play that day, and in as rampageous a mood as ever a schoolboy out for a holiday; but no mood of hers would have suited better the bare hills and bleak mountains, for, as Coleridge remarks, "there is always something going on amongst the mountains in stormy weather." There was a good deal going on that day, and loud was the din of the contending elements, and rough the embrace of the wind.At the end of the valley we found ourselves at Mallwyd, a tiny hamlet consisting of a cottage or two, a curious and ancient church, and an old-fashioned little stone-built inn half drowned in dark ivy. Mallwyd is a lonely spot shut in by gloomy mountains; its inn is the fit resort of anglers and artists, for who else, except perhaps a poet, would seek such solitary quarters, unless it were some one who desired to flee mankind? The old inn appealed to me, so far removed from the busy world it seemed, so restful with all around so full of unrest, its strong stone walls fit to bear the buffeting of all weathers; such strong walls it needed, and it looked so cosy,solid, and comfortable, in such contrast with the inhospitable country about and the wild winds that were raging.In front of the inn, overhung by drooping trees, is a deep ravine down which the flooded river rushed and roared, a ravine spanned by a grey old bridge; and this with the tumbling, churning waters below, the dark, damp, shining rocks, the boulders that would impede the river's rush, the green, dripping, and trembling foliage of the trees above, made a picture to be remembered—"A roaring dell, o'er-wooded, narrow, deep." There on the bridge I stood awhile watching the turmoil of the waters; for a space they glided smoothly but swiftly over the rounded rocks with a polished surface clear as crystal, only the occasional and sudden darting lines of white foam and bubbles revealing their movement; then they broke and crashed into the dark pools beneath, sending their spray up on to the rocks and trees, which in turn dropped back beads of moisture into the whirling waters below. Strange that watching the restless waters should have given me a feeling of rest, but so it did; and do not some people find rest by the restless sea?Great is the fascination that falling water has for certain people, and of the number I am one. Give me a mountain torrent in some wild and rocky glen remote in the wilderness, and let me be there alone, then I can, for an hour or more, contentedly watch its mad downward dash and mazy side-plays, its plunges and its plashings, its struggles with the boulders it overleaps and that itself has broughtdown but to obstruct its troubled course; its changeful colours, here silvery and bright in the shine of the sun, there dark and porter-hued in the shade of the rocks, a translucent amber tint where just escaping from the shelving rocks, with many greens above; and the bass roar of it sounds like music to my ears, the memory of which brings to me a sense of deep refreshment when in the thronged and bustling town; and sometimes at night in the roar of the streets' traffic I fancy I hear again the torrent's hoarse voice.From Mallwyd we went to Dinas Mawddwy, a little more than a mile away, a village veritably walled in by high mountains that rise close and sheer around. It lies at the bottom of a mighty rock-girt cup. When we were there the mountains were roofed across with clouds, so they might have been of any height our fancy pleased. Dinas Mawddwy oppressed me with a sense of gloom—not but what there was a certain grandeur about its gloom, but the mountains around looked so dark, dreary, and enclosing. The place obsessed me, it had such an eerie look under the louring sky; I was glad to get out of it. The prevailing gloom depressed my spirits, a depression that lasted till I got far away on to the wide open moors. I love mountains, to be on them, but I do not care to be imprisoned in them.Returning to Mallwyd we began to climb high amongst the hills; it was a wild, glorious drive, one vastly to be enjoyed, though on our exposed road we came in for a rare buffeting with the wind, butlittle we heeded that. Right bracing we found it, a tonic of tonics. As we rose the clouds began to break, and great patches of bright blue showed overhead; then frequent bursts of sunshine raked the distant mountains and swept over the moors, causing the wet rocks to glitter here and there, revealing too, now and again, a sparkling rill or a gleaming pool, so enlivening the wide waste of green and dull grey. We had exchanged mountain gloom for mountain glory. It was a fine landscape, delightful in its spaciousness and far-receding distances.Having climbed some miles we began a gradual descent to a sheltered hollow, where we entered into a straggling wood that had a civil look after the bareness of the mountains and the bleakness of the moors. Here our road took a sudden bend and crossed a deep dell boldly spanned by a one-arched bridge, and beyond the bridge we looked up to a cleft in the hills down which a tumbling stream left its white and broken trail, a stream that lost itself for a space in the woods below to shortly reappear again. This was one of the beauty-spots of the journey. The wooded dell, the grey bridge spanning it in one leap, the water falling and foaming down the dark rocks of the mountain side, the tawny-coloured stream below the bridge—altogether what a picture they made! "It seemed but a comparatively short and easy step from Nature to the canvas or to the poem" at that captivating spot!Leaving the wooded glen we came to the open moors again, moors strewn with great weather-stained boulders that have lain there untold ages, before the stones of the Pyramids were hewn or the monoliths of Stonehenge raised from the ground, lain there since the close of the last geological epoch—some old writers indeed have declared "since God created the world." Centuries come and go, kingdoms wax and wane, but the moors remain the same, unchanged, and apparently unchangeable, in an age of change, in an age when most of the land is tilled to the uttermost. Here was a solitude with nothing but the mountains and the moors for the eyes to look upon; the wind had dropped, and great was the silence prevailing except for the faint tinkling of unseen rills that made the silence seem the more profound—not the comparative silence of the countryside, which to the attentive listener is not silence at all.WELSH MOUNTAINS AND MOORLANDS.Gradually we dropped down to where the moors gave place to more kindly soil, though treeless and open still excepting for some rough and low stone walls by the roadside, but of what service (there being only hardy Welsh sheep dotted sparsely about) I could not imagine, for such sheep can climb a wall as well as any man; the only way to confine them is to place thorn branches along the tops of the walls, held there by big stones on them; even this arrangement sometimes fails, for the sheep are apt to pull down both branches and stones.As we descended we came to patches of cultivated fields, and these increased till most of the land was enclosed and tilled, or under grass, so the scene became tamer. At the beginning of our descent we espied, close to the road, a lone farmhouse with alarge water-wheel by the side of its outbuildings, so that the farmer, enlightened man, evidently utilised the power provided by the running streams instead of letting it go to waste, presumably to do his threshing, corn-grinding, chaff-cutting, and possibly churning, to the saving of labour. In a village I know the water-mill there grinds corn by day and generates electricity at night for its inhabitants, thus doing double duty. Rather different to a certain village in Essex where a meeting of the inhabitants—so I read in my morning paper—was held as to the lighting of it. At the meeting a local farmer opposed the project on the ground that "the Creator would have provided light if it had been necessary in the country at night," and strange to say, but true all the same, the lighting scheme was abandoned, though possibly on account of the expense and not because of the farmer's logic.Then we left the hills behind and came down into a green and fertile valley and to "Cann Office Inn"—why so curiously called I cannot say. "What's in a name?" says Shakespeare. Now I think there is much in a name; Aberdovey has a pleasant sound, but Cann Office is not a name suggestive of rural pleasantness, yet "Cann Office Inn" is a charming, old-fashioned, comfortable-looking wayside hostelry, ivy-covered to boot, and it boasts a restful garden; moreover, it is set in the heart of a lovely country far from the sight and sound of the fussy railway, though to be reached by the ubiquitous motor-car, for where goes the road there comes the car. Truly I wish the car was not so ubiquitous; indeed, oftentimesI find myself looking longingly and selfishly back to the desirable old days when the motor-car was not, when I travelled either afoot or by horses, slowly perhaps but contentedly enough on the then little-travelled, peaceful country roads, and took my ease at quiet rural inns, feeling fairly certain of accommodation and even of the best room of the house; now I do not feel so certain of either, nor of the old-time quiet—inns that in those days seemed so remote, and I delighted to give myself up to the delusion of their remoteness. How pleasantly those past wanderings linger in my memory, when in the country you were sure of finding peace and often solitude away from the railway! There is no getting away from the car or the sound of its horn. But vain is the cry of Backward Ho!"Cann Office Inn" was a famous hostelry in the good old coaching and posting era, so I have heard, and that there our hard-drinking ancestors made right merry over their glasses—In the past Georgian dayWhen men were less inclined to sayThat time is gold, and overlayWith toil their pleasure.Nor troubled they about the morrow—or the gout.Unlike many other coaching inns, Cann Office never seems to have fallen upon evil days, for when it lost its travelling and posting custom, anglers, just in the nick of time, happily discovered it, and ever since have haunted the troutful rivers and streams around. One angler indeed said to me, "If you can't catch fish here, you won't catch them anywhere."By my map I see that the rivers Banwy, Gam, and Twrch meet close at hand, and many a minor stream runs near by. "Twrch"—there is a fine specimen of a Welsh name, without a vowel in it, for a Saxon to pronounce! Truly it is short, but there are others that are long, and still have not a helpful vowel in all their astonishing array of consonants.An angler friend, who in years gone by had fished the rivers about Cann Office, told me that on bringing back his catch to the inn one day, by some mischance his fish got mixed with those of another angler who had fished another river there. He was somewhat vexed, but the landlord said he could quite easily sort them out, for the trout of the one river differed in appearance from the trout of the other—and he sorted them to the satisfaction of both parties. The same angler friend told me a story, for the truth of which he vouched. It appears that though a fairly good fisherman there were days when his sport was poor, and even he had to return at times with an empty creel, yet another angler there on those very days generally came back to the inn with a more or less satisfactory show of fish. So he consulted a native on the matter who knew, or was supposed to know, all about local conditions. The native replied that the man mentioned had a special fly to which the trout rose greedily, but he kept it a secret. One day, however, the man lost his cast on the branches of a tree; this the native discovered and recovered, and, for a consideration, handed to my friend. "All's fair in love—andfishing," so my friend sent the fly to his rod-and-tackle maker to be copied. The fly was unlike any fly my friend had ever seen, but he used it with marked success, and during the rest of his stay he used no other.At Llanerfyl, a little village beyond Cann Office, I pulled up to inspect a long printed notice I observed on the church door there. I found this related to the proposed Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Welsh Church. A great deal has been said of late, both in Parliament and out of it, about the neglect of the Welsh parsons of their parishes in past times.But to go back to the eighteenth century, here is the story told by the author ofThe Spiritual Quixote, published in 1772, who in his Welsh wanderings found "a poor Welsh vicar of the diocese of Llandaff, sitting in his humble kitchen paring turnips for dinner, while he read a book and listened to one of his children repeating his lesson." Then he repeats what the vicar said to him:—"Now you must observe, sir, that after spending some years in the University and taking a Master of Arts degree, I am possessed of a little rectory of about £30 a year, and of this vicarage which, if I could make the most of it, might bring me in £20 more. Now each of these preferments these poor people consider a noble benefit, and though you see in what way I live, yet because I am possessed of half a dozen spoons and a silver tankard, they envy me as living in a princely state and lording it over God's heritage. And, what is worse, as my whole income in this parish arises from the small tithes, because I cannot afford to let them cheat me out of half my dues, they represent me as carnal and worldly-minded, and as one who regards nothing but the good things of this life,and who is always making disturbances in the parish, and this prejudice against me prevents my doing that good amongst them which I sincerely wish to do. One man has left the church and walks miles to a Methodist meeting, because I took one pig out of seven as the law directs; another has complained to the Bishop of my extortion because I would not take three shillings and sixpence in lieu of tithes for a large orchard, as my predecessor had done. In short, sir, there are two or three Dissenters in the parish, who give out that all tithes are remnants of Popery; and would have the clergy consider meat and drink as types and shadows, which ought to have been abolished with the Levitical Law."In the churchyard of Llanerfyl I noticed a large and ancient yew-tree, its extended branches shadowing the ground far around, its roots amongst the dead. In the shade of it I discovered what I took to be, from the look, the shape, and the lettering on it, a Roman inscribed stone, a stone weathered and worn, with much of the inscription wasted away; still, with difficulty, I managed to decipher a part of it—not that the deciphering left me much the wiser—and this is what I recovered:—HIC   .   .   .   .   .   ..   .   .      .   .   .D   .   .   .  .   .   .   .GEDLAPATERMIN   .   .AN   .   .   XII   .   N   .Our road presently followed alongside the river Banwy, a river overhung with trees through which we caught constant silvery peeps of it tumbling over its bed of shelving rocks in shallow murmuring falls, anon resting, here and there, in many a quietpool where the big trout lie hidden, or should do so. The English language, and perhaps all others, needs a word to express the sound of falling water—"gurgling" and "plashing" are the nearest I can think of, but they hardly fulfil the need. Then Llanfair village, picturesquely situated on a hill just above the running river, came in view, with its large, tall-towered church keeping watch and ward over its cottage homes; you rarely see so fine a church in a Welsh village—most frequently you find a chapel, a gaunt and square eyesore, where they preach the Calvinistic Creed.A signpost informed me that the road led to Welshpool. Now to Welshpool I had no desire to go; it is a large town where, I believe, they manufacture flannels, a useful town, but it had no interest for me; however, as the road was a pleasant one I kept to it. By the way, the first signpost was inscribed "To Welshpool," but farther on this was shortened to simply "Pool." We duly reached Welshpool; it had a prosperous look; there was much traffic in its streets. We were glad to get out of it into the quiet country again, and a very pleasant country it proved to be, our road leading us along the hillsides and past fragrant pine-woods, with distant peeps of finely-shaped hills.Close to the hamlet of Wollaston I pulled up to consult the map, and to ask the name of the place from a youth who was passing by, and when he had told me this I jokingly queried if there were anything to see there, for it looked an uninteresting spot where nothing had ever happened, or waslikely to happen. "Well," replied he, "old Parr lived here—you may have heard of him; there's a brass about him in the church. I know where the key's kept, I'll run and get it for you"—doubtless with an eye to earning an honest penny or two, where, I should imagine, pennies were hard to earn. But he was a civil youth, so I let him get the key. There in the church I found a brass against the wall with a portrait of that old man engraved on the top, and the following inscription below:—The Old, Old, very Old ManThomas ParrWas born at the GlynIn the township of WinningtonWithin the Chapelry of Great WollastonAnd Parish of AlberburyIn the County of SalopIn the year of our Lord 1483.He lived in the reigns of Ten KingsAnd Queens of England (viz.) King Edward 4thKing Edward 5th King Richard 3rd King Henry 7thKing Henry 8th King Edward 6th Queen Mary QueenElizabeth King James 1st and King Charles. Died the 13thAnd was buryed in Westminster AbbyOn the 15th of November 1635Aged 152 years and 9 months.From Wollaston we had for some miles a pleasant stretch of pastoral country varied by shady woodlands, and we caught peeps on the way of some charming old half-timber homes, such as one finds in Shropshire, for we were in that shire now and approaching Shrewsbury again—so the signposts told us. We managed to drive round Shrewsbury by the Severn side, so did not enter thetown, and were soon again on the open road, climbing, most of the way, to the village of Albrighton, having glorious panoramas, over a richly wooded country to our left, presented to us the latter half of the stage.At Albrighton I learnt there used to prevail the cruel sport of whipping a cat to death on Shrove Tuesday, and the old signboard, that once hung in front of the inn there, is still preserved, on which is a painted and faded representation of a man whipping a cat, and the legend below—The finest sport under the sunIs whipping the cat at Albrighton.At the place I could glean no information as to the origin of this cruel and curious custom, but later on during the journey I found enlightenment of a Shropshire parson, who told me he believed it arose from a cat having got into the church and having ate the Sacrament.It was now growing late, and I began to think about my night's quarters. I passed an inviting-looking inn by the roadside, but, as I saw no stabling for the car there, I drove contentedly on in the gathering gloaming through a country that appeared to me to be exceedingly beautiful and richly wooded, and then with the evening star I made the little town of Wem (no town could surely well have a shorter title); there at the "Castle Inn" I found excellent accommodation, much civility, and a landlord who was interesting, informing, and obliging. I was glad I came to Wem.That evening in his cosy bar I had a long chat with "mine host." I discovered him seated there reading Mitford'sHistory of Greece, which much surprised me, as being, I thought, a rather heavy work for a landlord to read, and he told me he was reading for his amusement! He also lent me aHistory of Wem, by Herbert Merchant, which I found interesting, and from this I learnt that Hazlitt lived for twelve years at Wem. Augustine Birrell says that "by his writings Hazlitt, the most eloquent of English essayists, has so infected the place with his own delight that it is hard to be dull at Wem"—but not impossible, I think. Coleridge visited Hazlitt at Wem, walking with him from Shrewsbury to that place; I presume they walked along the same road we had come, and Coleridge was so delighted with the scenery on the way that he exclaimed, "If I had the quaint muse of Sir Philip Sidney I would write a sonnet to the road between Shrewsbury and Wem." Surely Coleridge's muse was quaint enough—who else but he could have composedThe Ancient Mariner? Hazlitt, it appears, like Thackeray, first sought fame as an artist, for he had inscribed on his tomb, "William Hazlitt. Painter, Critic, Essayist. Born 1778. Died 1830."In 1643, when the rest of Shropshire was loyal to the King, Wem declared for the Parliament; thereupon the King sent Lord Capel with five thousand men to capture the town, but—so the story goes—he was repulsed by the garrison of only forty men, aided by the women of the place, who were dressedin red cloaks and placed in positions where they could be seen by the King's forces. Lord Capel, judging from the number of red figures he observed, thought the garrison was too strong to be successfully attacked, and ignominiously retired. Hence the old couplet—The women of Wem and a few musketeersBeat Lord Capel and all his cavaliers.There was, too, a Royalist mock litany of the time, a part of which reads—From Wem, and from Nantwitch,Good Lord, deliver us.This story of the red-coated women of Wem reminds me of the similar story told of the French invasion of Fishguard in 1797, where and when a small French force was landed from three frigates to raid the country. Lord Cawdor at the head of a hastily collected body of militia, of about half the strength of the enemy, went forth to meet them; a number of Welsh women, in red cloaks, gathered on the hills around to watch the expected battle, and these were mistaken by the French for regular troops prepared to cut off their retreat; thereupon, deeming they were overpowered, the Frenchmen surrendered. Both stories read much alike. I wonder if either one is true? "I hae my douts."I learnt much about Wem from the landlord, how in past days the houses of the town were all thatched, and that there is still preserved in the old town hall a huge iron hook fixed to the end of along oak pole that was used to pull down the thatch from any house that was alight and so to prevent the flames spreading, and he offered to show it me in the morning if I cared to see it. I thought I should; such a contrivance must be somewhat of a curiosity—at least I had never seen or heard of anything of the kind before. However, in spite of the hook, it happened that the whole town was burnt down, the church steeple too, in 1677. "Wem was quite a large place at one time," he continued; "and though you might hardly think it, some of the quiet country lanes around were once the town streets. It is the only Shropshire town mentioned in the Doomsday Book, which perhaps may prove its former importance. Judge Jeffreys, who had his home a mile from the town, was created Baron of Wem. His house is still standing and has his coat-of-arms carved over the doorway." Then some customers came in and the conversation became general; I wish they had not, for I was interested in the landlord's account of the place, and I fancy there was much more he could have told me about it.Amongst the company was a farmer, at least I took him to be such, and the weather was his main subject of conversation. I gathered from him that for some cause thunderstorms were fairly frequent at Wem and round about, and I understood that a farmer in the locality had recently lost several sheep by lightning. "Talking of lightning," he went on, "do you know it is a fact that lightning never strikes a moving object?" I did not, though I hadto confess I had no recollection of such a circumstance, which was but negative evidence. Then said he, "According to my experience, if there's a full moon on a Saturday it's sure to rain the next day, and if there's a star close by the moon it's bound to blow hard the next morning." Though why this should be he could not explain—and little wonder! Many other things he said about the weather, but I did not note them down. The only man I trust about the weather is the shepherd of the downs or the plains, for on those open places the weather reveals its secrets to him who has little to do but observe it. I do not even trust the newspaper's forecasts except in settled times, when there is no need of them, for as a traveller who is concerned as to what the day will be, I have as often found them wrong as right. Sometimes they strike a provokingly uncertain note, such as "Rain in places," which is very safe forecasting and leaves me much in doubt.During the conversation some one talked about his "near-dwellers," and the same man twice used the term "unked." These were unfamiliar expressions to me, and on inquiry I found "near-dwellers" to mean neighbours, and "unked" was employed to signify down-spirited. Then some one made use of the old saying, "You'll have to mind your P's and Q's." "Does any one know how that saying originated?" queried another of the party, "for I do." No one appeared to know. "Then I'll tell you," he went on, manifestly pleased to be informing. "In the old days, when the publican had to trustmany of his customers, slates were kept in the bar with the customers' names written on them, with a P and a Q below. The P stood for pints and the Q for quarts, and crosses were chalked under the P's and Q's corresponding to the pints and quarts for which each customer owed. So, you see, they had to mind their P's and Q's." I had plenty of entertainment that night, of which I have given a fair sample. Much else about other things was said, but perhaps the talk of strangers at an inn is not a subject that profits to enlarge about or even worth mention at all; however, the conversation, and the unexpected turns of it, served to pass my evening pleasantly enough away. A fisherman once told me of a brother of the craft, which brother I own was given a little to romancing, that he "talked salmon and caught only tiny trout." Perhaps the moral applies to the conversation I listened to; agreeably tired after my long day in the open air, I grant I was in no exacting mood as to the quality of my entertainment, I was too dreamily lazy to be critical; then there was nothing to pay for it, and happy is the man who can find entertainment wherever he chance to be.Glancing through theHistory of Wemthat the landlord lent me, I read there a glowing description of Hawkestone Park, a most romantic spot according to the description, and as it was only four miles from Wem I determined to go there next day. I also discovered that Dr. Johnson visited Hawkestone on July 24, 1774, and this is what he had to say about it:—We saw Hawkestone and were conducted over a large tract of rocks and woods, a region abounding with striking scenes and terrific grandeur. We were always on the brink of a precipice or at the foot of a lofty rock.... Round the rocks is a narrow path cut into the stone which is very frequently hewn into steps, but art has proceeded no further than to make the succession of wonders safely accessible. The whole circuit, somewhat laborious, is terminated by a grotto cut into a rock to a great extent, with many windings and supported by pillars, not hewn with regularity.... There were from space to space seats in the rocks. Though it wants water it excels Dovedale by the extent of its prospects, the awfulness of its shades, the horror of its precipices, the verdure of its hollows, and the loftiness of its rocks. The ideas it forces upon the mind are the sublime, the dreadful, and the vast. Above inaccessible altitude, below is horrible profundity. He who mounts the precipices of Hawkestone wonders how he came thither and doubts how he shall return. His walk is an adventure and his departure an escape.Now all this strikes a most romantic note, and surely Dr. Johnson was too great a man to be given to gush, so all the more it surprised me how it was that I had never heard of Hawkestone and its wonders before. Just "Ignorance, pure ignorance," as the famous doctor once remarked to a lady in reply to her query how it was he did not know something that she considered he ought to know. Truly Hawkestone was one of the surprises and discoveries of the journey. There is one advantage in not knowing all about the country you are travelling in, for such lack of knowing keeps you ever in a delightful state of expectancy as to what fresh discoveries you may make; no matter though to others they are familiar, that does not rob you of the thrill of pleasure in discovering them.Next morning I learnt from the landlord that there was a good inn at Hawkestone, so after a look at Wem I determined to spend the rest of the day there and explore its beauties at leisure. Wem did not detain me long that morning. My curiosity induced me to see the "fire fork" already mentioned that was used to drag down the burning thatch from the houses, and I estimated this to be thirty-six feet long, but I was told it was much more than that originally. It looked just like a big iron fishhook at the end of a pole. In a niche of the church tower I noticed a much-weathered stone figure, and this the clerk told me represented St. Chad, "a favourite saint in these parts." I asked him if there were anything of interest in the church, and he said no, "but there's a unique Gothic doorway at the west end well worth seeing, it's four hundred years old"; so I went to inspect it, and I found a most quaintly shaped doorway, the like of which I had not come upon before, but it struck me as more uncommon than beautiful—and this was all I discovered worthy of note in Wem; its interest is historical, and that does not appeal to the eye.

Mallwyd—Falling waters—Dinas Mawddwy—Amongst the moors and mountains—A wild drive—A farmer's logic—A famous old inn—A fisherman's tale—A Roman inscribed stone—Brass to old Thomas Parr—A cruel sport—Wem and its story—A chat with "mine host"—Hawkestone and its wonders.

We left Machynlleth on a blustery morning when the wild west wind was out for a rampage across country, and who could say it nay? We retraced the road we came by for a short distance, but the landscape had a fresh look seen in the reverse direction; then we turned up the narrow Dyfi valley, hills rising near and bare on either hand, those to the right mist-crowned and scarred by numberless streams that would be torrents, which had worn for themselves long stony channels on the steep hillside, and down these they dashed, milk-white in their mimic, harmless fury, filling the valley with the sound of their complainings. A hill

.   .   .  that shows

Inscribed upon its visionary sidesThe history of many a winter storm.

It was a day full of movement; the clouds above were hounded along relentlessly by the hurrying wind that even blew the birds on the wing about—awind that played riot with the woods, tossing the tops of the trees this way and that, swaying their branches even to breaking one here and there, and surring through their leaves with a sound like that of a stormy sea heard afar off. The air was full of the confused sounds of the roaring wind and raging waters. The clouds above looked drooping and threatening, but the wind trailed them along and drove them over the mountains before they had time to do much mischief, tearing some even to shreds. Nature was at play that day, and in as rampageous a mood as ever a schoolboy out for a holiday; but no mood of hers would have suited better the bare hills and bleak mountains, for, as Coleridge remarks, "there is always something going on amongst the mountains in stormy weather." There was a good deal going on that day, and loud was the din of the contending elements, and rough the embrace of the wind.

At the end of the valley we found ourselves at Mallwyd, a tiny hamlet consisting of a cottage or two, a curious and ancient church, and an old-fashioned little stone-built inn half drowned in dark ivy. Mallwyd is a lonely spot shut in by gloomy mountains; its inn is the fit resort of anglers and artists, for who else, except perhaps a poet, would seek such solitary quarters, unless it were some one who desired to flee mankind? The old inn appealed to me, so far removed from the busy world it seemed, so restful with all around so full of unrest, its strong stone walls fit to bear the buffeting of all weathers; such strong walls it needed, and it looked so cosy,solid, and comfortable, in such contrast with the inhospitable country about and the wild winds that were raging.

In front of the inn, overhung by drooping trees, is a deep ravine down which the flooded river rushed and roared, a ravine spanned by a grey old bridge; and this with the tumbling, churning waters below, the dark, damp, shining rocks, the boulders that would impede the river's rush, the green, dripping, and trembling foliage of the trees above, made a picture to be remembered—"A roaring dell, o'er-wooded, narrow, deep." There on the bridge I stood awhile watching the turmoil of the waters; for a space they glided smoothly but swiftly over the rounded rocks with a polished surface clear as crystal, only the occasional and sudden darting lines of white foam and bubbles revealing their movement; then they broke and crashed into the dark pools beneath, sending their spray up on to the rocks and trees, which in turn dropped back beads of moisture into the whirling waters below. Strange that watching the restless waters should have given me a feeling of rest, but so it did; and do not some people find rest by the restless sea?

Great is the fascination that falling water has for certain people, and of the number I am one. Give me a mountain torrent in some wild and rocky glen remote in the wilderness, and let me be there alone, then I can, for an hour or more, contentedly watch its mad downward dash and mazy side-plays, its plunges and its plashings, its struggles with the boulders it overleaps and that itself has broughtdown but to obstruct its troubled course; its changeful colours, here silvery and bright in the shine of the sun, there dark and porter-hued in the shade of the rocks, a translucent amber tint where just escaping from the shelving rocks, with many greens above; and the bass roar of it sounds like music to my ears, the memory of which brings to me a sense of deep refreshment when in the thronged and bustling town; and sometimes at night in the roar of the streets' traffic I fancy I hear again the torrent's hoarse voice.

From Mallwyd we went to Dinas Mawddwy, a little more than a mile away, a village veritably walled in by high mountains that rise close and sheer around. It lies at the bottom of a mighty rock-girt cup. When we were there the mountains were roofed across with clouds, so they might have been of any height our fancy pleased. Dinas Mawddwy oppressed me with a sense of gloom—not but what there was a certain grandeur about its gloom, but the mountains around looked so dark, dreary, and enclosing. The place obsessed me, it had such an eerie look under the louring sky; I was glad to get out of it. The prevailing gloom depressed my spirits, a depression that lasted till I got far away on to the wide open moors. I love mountains, to be on them, but I do not care to be imprisoned in them.

Returning to Mallwyd we began to climb high amongst the hills; it was a wild, glorious drive, one vastly to be enjoyed, though on our exposed road we came in for a rare buffeting with the wind, butlittle we heeded that. Right bracing we found it, a tonic of tonics. As we rose the clouds began to break, and great patches of bright blue showed overhead; then frequent bursts of sunshine raked the distant mountains and swept over the moors, causing the wet rocks to glitter here and there, revealing too, now and again, a sparkling rill or a gleaming pool, so enlivening the wide waste of green and dull grey. We had exchanged mountain gloom for mountain glory. It was a fine landscape, delightful in its spaciousness and far-receding distances.

Having climbed some miles we began a gradual descent to a sheltered hollow, where we entered into a straggling wood that had a civil look after the bareness of the mountains and the bleakness of the moors. Here our road took a sudden bend and crossed a deep dell boldly spanned by a one-arched bridge, and beyond the bridge we looked up to a cleft in the hills down which a tumbling stream left its white and broken trail, a stream that lost itself for a space in the woods below to shortly reappear again. This was one of the beauty-spots of the journey. The wooded dell, the grey bridge spanning it in one leap, the water falling and foaming down the dark rocks of the mountain side, the tawny-coloured stream below the bridge—altogether what a picture they made! "It seemed but a comparatively short and easy step from Nature to the canvas or to the poem" at that captivating spot!

Leaving the wooded glen we came to the open moors again, moors strewn with great weather-stained boulders that have lain there untold ages, before the stones of the Pyramids were hewn or the monoliths of Stonehenge raised from the ground, lain there since the close of the last geological epoch—some old writers indeed have declared "since God created the world." Centuries come and go, kingdoms wax and wane, but the moors remain the same, unchanged, and apparently unchangeable, in an age of change, in an age when most of the land is tilled to the uttermost. Here was a solitude with nothing but the mountains and the moors for the eyes to look upon; the wind had dropped, and great was the silence prevailing except for the faint tinkling of unseen rills that made the silence seem the more profound—not the comparative silence of the countryside, which to the attentive listener is not silence at all.

WELSH MOUNTAINS AND MOORLANDS.

WELSH MOUNTAINS AND MOORLANDS.

WELSH MOUNTAINS AND MOORLANDS.

Gradually we dropped down to where the moors gave place to more kindly soil, though treeless and open still excepting for some rough and low stone walls by the roadside, but of what service (there being only hardy Welsh sheep dotted sparsely about) I could not imagine, for such sheep can climb a wall as well as any man; the only way to confine them is to place thorn branches along the tops of the walls, held there by big stones on them; even this arrangement sometimes fails, for the sheep are apt to pull down both branches and stones.

As we descended we came to patches of cultivated fields, and these increased till most of the land was enclosed and tilled, or under grass, so the scene became tamer. At the beginning of our descent we espied, close to the road, a lone farmhouse with alarge water-wheel by the side of its outbuildings, so that the farmer, enlightened man, evidently utilised the power provided by the running streams instead of letting it go to waste, presumably to do his threshing, corn-grinding, chaff-cutting, and possibly churning, to the saving of labour. In a village I know the water-mill there grinds corn by day and generates electricity at night for its inhabitants, thus doing double duty. Rather different to a certain village in Essex where a meeting of the inhabitants—so I read in my morning paper—was held as to the lighting of it. At the meeting a local farmer opposed the project on the ground that "the Creator would have provided light if it had been necessary in the country at night," and strange to say, but true all the same, the lighting scheme was abandoned, though possibly on account of the expense and not because of the farmer's logic.

Then we left the hills behind and came down into a green and fertile valley and to "Cann Office Inn"—why so curiously called I cannot say. "What's in a name?" says Shakespeare. Now I think there is much in a name; Aberdovey has a pleasant sound, but Cann Office is not a name suggestive of rural pleasantness, yet "Cann Office Inn" is a charming, old-fashioned, comfortable-looking wayside hostelry, ivy-covered to boot, and it boasts a restful garden; moreover, it is set in the heart of a lovely country far from the sight and sound of the fussy railway, though to be reached by the ubiquitous motor-car, for where goes the road there comes the car. Truly I wish the car was not so ubiquitous; indeed, oftentimesI find myself looking longingly and selfishly back to the desirable old days when the motor-car was not, when I travelled either afoot or by horses, slowly perhaps but contentedly enough on the then little-travelled, peaceful country roads, and took my ease at quiet rural inns, feeling fairly certain of accommodation and even of the best room of the house; now I do not feel so certain of either, nor of the old-time quiet—inns that in those days seemed so remote, and I delighted to give myself up to the delusion of their remoteness. How pleasantly those past wanderings linger in my memory, when in the country you were sure of finding peace and often solitude away from the railway! There is no getting away from the car or the sound of its horn. But vain is the cry of Backward Ho!

"Cann Office Inn" was a famous hostelry in the good old coaching and posting era, so I have heard, and that there our hard-drinking ancestors made right merry over their glasses—

In the past Georgian dayWhen men were less inclined to sayThat time is gold, and overlay

With toil their pleasure.

Nor troubled they about the morrow—or the gout.

Unlike many other coaching inns, Cann Office never seems to have fallen upon evil days, for when it lost its travelling and posting custom, anglers, just in the nick of time, happily discovered it, and ever since have haunted the troutful rivers and streams around. One angler indeed said to me, "If you can't catch fish here, you won't catch them anywhere."By my map I see that the rivers Banwy, Gam, and Twrch meet close at hand, and many a minor stream runs near by. "Twrch"—there is a fine specimen of a Welsh name, without a vowel in it, for a Saxon to pronounce! Truly it is short, but there are others that are long, and still have not a helpful vowel in all their astonishing array of consonants.

An angler friend, who in years gone by had fished the rivers about Cann Office, told me that on bringing back his catch to the inn one day, by some mischance his fish got mixed with those of another angler who had fished another river there. He was somewhat vexed, but the landlord said he could quite easily sort them out, for the trout of the one river differed in appearance from the trout of the other—and he sorted them to the satisfaction of both parties. The same angler friend told me a story, for the truth of which he vouched. It appears that though a fairly good fisherman there were days when his sport was poor, and even he had to return at times with an empty creel, yet another angler there on those very days generally came back to the inn with a more or less satisfactory show of fish. So he consulted a native on the matter who knew, or was supposed to know, all about local conditions. The native replied that the man mentioned had a special fly to which the trout rose greedily, but he kept it a secret. One day, however, the man lost his cast on the branches of a tree; this the native discovered and recovered, and, for a consideration, handed to my friend. "All's fair in love—andfishing," so my friend sent the fly to his rod-and-tackle maker to be copied. The fly was unlike any fly my friend had ever seen, but he used it with marked success, and during the rest of his stay he used no other.

At Llanerfyl, a little village beyond Cann Office, I pulled up to inspect a long printed notice I observed on the church door there. I found this related to the proposed Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Welsh Church. A great deal has been said of late, both in Parliament and out of it, about the neglect of the Welsh parsons of their parishes in past times.

But to go back to the eighteenth century, here is the story told by the author ofThe Spiritual Quixote, published in 1772, who in his Welsh wanderings found "a poor Welsh vicar of the diocese of Llandaff, sitting in his humble kitchen paring turnips for dinner, while he read a book and listened to one of his children repeating his lesson." Then he repeats what the vicar said to him:—

"Now you must observe, sir, that after spending some years in the University and taking a Master of Arts degree, I am possessed of a little rectory of about £30 a year, and of this vicarage which, if I could make the most of it, might bring me in £20 more. Now each of these preferments these poor people consider a noble benefit, and though you see in what way I live, yet because I am possessed of half a dozen spoons and a silver tankard, they envy me as living in a princely state and lording it over God's heritage. And, what is worse, as my whole income in this parish arises from the small tithes, because I cannot afford to let them cheat me out of half my dues, they represent me as carnal and worldly-minded, and as one who regards nothing but the good things of this life,and who is always making disturbances in the parish, and this prejudice against me prevents my doing that good amongst them which I sincerely wish to do. One man has left the church and walks miles to a Methodist meeting, because I took one pig out of seven as the law directs; another has complained to the Bishop of my extortion because I would not take three shillings and sixpence in lieu of tithes for a large orchard, as my predecessor had done. In short, sir, there are two or three Dissenters in the parish, who give out that all tithes are remnants of Popery; and would have the clergy consider meat and drink as types and shadows, which ought to have been abolished with the Levitical Law."

"Now you must observe, sir, that after spending some years in the University and taking a Master of Arts degree, I am possessed of a little rectory of about £30 a year, and of this vicarage which, if I could make the most of it, might bring me in £20 more. Now each of these preferments these poor people consider a noble benefit, and though you see in what way I live, yet because I am possessed of half a dozen spoons and a silver tankard, they envy me as living in a princely state and lording it over God's heritage. And, what is worse, as my whole income in this parish arises from the small tithes, because I cannot afford to let them cheat me out of half my dues, they represent me as carnal and worldly-minded, and as one who regards nothing but the good things of this life,and who is always making disturbances in the parish, and this prejudice against me prevents my doing that good amongst them which I sincerely wish to do. One man has left the church and walks miles to a Methodist meeting, because I took one pig out of seven as the law directs; another has complained to the Bishop of my extortion because I would not take three shillings and sixpence in lieu of tithes for a large orchard, as my predecessor had done. In short, sir, there are two or three Dissenters in the parish, who give out that all tithes are remnants of Popery; and would have the clergy consider meat and drink as types and shadows, which ought to have been abolished with the Levitical Law."

In the churchyard of Llanerfyl I noticed a large and ancient yew-tree, its extended branches shadowing the ground far around, its roots amongst the dead. In the shade of it I discovered what I took to be, from the look, the shape, and the lettering on it, a Roman inscribed stone, a stone weathered and worn, with much of the inscription wasted away; still, with difficulty, I managed to decipher a part of it—not that the deciphering left me much the wiser—and this is what I recovered:—

HIC   .   .   .   .   .   .

.   .   .      .   .   .

D   .   .   .  .   .   .   .

GEDLAPATERMIN   .   .

AN   .   .   XII   .   N   .

Our road presently followed alongside the river Banwy, a river overhung with trees through which we caught constant silvery peeps of it tumbling over its bed of shelving rocks in shallow murmuring falls, anon resting, here and there, in many a quietpool where the big trout lie hidden, or should do so. The English language, and perhaps all others, needs a word to express the sound of falling water—"gurgling" and "plashing" are the nearest I can think of, but they hardly fulfil the need. Then Llanfair village, picturesquely situated on a hill just above the running river, came in view, with its large, tall-towered church keeping watch and ward over its cottage homes; you rarely see so fine a church in a Welsh village—most frequently you find a chapel, a gaunt and square eyesore, where they preach the Calvinistic Creed.

A signpost informed me that the road led to Welshpool. Now to Welshpool I had no desire to go; it is a large town where, I believe, they manufacture flannels, a useful town, but it had no interest for me; however, as the road was a pleasant one I kept to it. By the way, the first signpost was inscribed "To Welshpool," but farther on this was shortened to simply "Pool." We duly reached Welshpool; it had a prosperous look; there was much traffic in its streets. We were glad to get out of it into the quiet country again, and a very pleasant country it proved to be, our road leading us along the hillsides and past fragrant pine-woods, with distant peeps of finely-shaped hills.

Close to the hamlet of Wollaston I pulled up to consult the map, and to ask the name of the place from a youth who was passing by, and when he had told me this I jokingly queried if there were anything to see there, for it looked an uninteresting spot where nothing had ever happened, or waslikely to happen. "Well," replied he, "old Parr lived here—you may have heard of him; there's a brass about him in the church. I know where the key's kept, I'll run and get it for you"—doubtless with an eye to earning an honest penny or two, where, I should imagine, pennies were hard to earn. But he was a civil youth, so I let him get the key. There in the church I found a brass against the wall with a portrait of that old man engraved on the top, and the following inscription below:—

The Old, Old, very Old ManThomas ParrWas born at the GlynIn the township of WinningtonWithin the Chapelry of Great WollastonAnd Parish of AlberburyIn the County of SalopIn the year of our Lord 1483.He lived in the reigns of Ten KingsAnd Queens of England (viz.) King Edward 4thKing Edward 5th King Richard 3rd King Henry 7thKing Henry 8th King Edward 6th Queen Mary QueenElizabeth King James 1st and King Charles. Died the 13thAnd was buryed in Westminster AbbyOn the 15th of November 1635Aged 152 years and 9 months.

From Wollaston we had for some miles a pleasant stretch of pastoral country varied by shady woodlands, and we caught peeps on the way of some charming old half-timber homes, such as one finds in Shropshire, for we were in that shire now and approaching Shrewsbury again—so the signposts told us. We managed to drive round Shrewsbury by the Severn side, so did not enter thetown, and were soon again on the open road, climbing, most of the way, to the village of Albrighton, having glorious panoramas, over a richly wooded country to our left, presented to us the latter half of the stage.

At Albrighton I learnt there used to prevail the cruel sport of whipping a cat to death on Shrove Tuesday, and the old signboard, that once hung in front of the inn there, is still preserved, on which is a painted and faded representation of a man whipping a cat, and the legend below—

The finest sport under the sunIs whipping the cat at Albrighton.

At the place I could glean no information as to the origin of this cruel and curious custom, but later on during the journey I found enlightenment of a Shropshire parson, who told me he believed it arose from a cat having got into the church and having ate the Sacrament.

It was now growing late, and I began to think about my night's quarters. I passed an inviting-looking inn by the roadside, but, as I saw no stabling for the car there, I drove contentedly on in the gathering gloaming through a country that appeared to me to be exceedingly beautiful and richly wooded, and then with the evening star I made the little town of Wem (no town could surely well have a shorter title); there at the "Castle Inn" I found excellent accommodation, much civility, and a landlord who was interesting, informing, and obliging. I was glad I came to Wem.

That evening in his cosy bar I had a long chat with "mine host." I discovered him seated there reading Mitford'sHistory of Greece, which much surprised me, as being, I thought, a rather heavy work for a landlord to read, and he told me he was reading for his amusement! He also lent me aHistory of Wem, by Herbert Merchant, which I found interesting, and from this I learnt that Hazlitt lived for twelve years at Wem. Augustine Birrell says that "by his writings Hazlitt, the most eloquent of English essayists, has so infected the place with his own delight that it is hard to be dull at Wem"—but not impossible, I think. Coleridge visited Hazlitt at Wem, walking with him from Shrewsbury to that place; I presume they walked along the same road we had come, and Coleridge was so delighted with the scenery on the way that he exclaimed, "If I had the quaint muse of Sir Philip Sidney I would write a sonnet to the road between Shrewsbury and Wem." Surely Coleridge's muse was quaint enough—who else but he could have composedThe Ancient Mariner? Hazlitt, it appears, like Thackeray, first sought fame as an artist, for he had inscribed on his tomb, "William Hazlitt. Painter, Critic, Essayist. Born 1778. Died 1830."

In 1643, when the rest of Shropshire was loyal to the King, Wem declared for the Parliament; thereupon the King sent Lord Capel with five thousand men to capture the town, but—so the story goes—he was repulsed by the garrison of only forty men, aided by the women of the place, who were dressedin red cloaks and placed in positions where they could be seen by the King's forces. Lord Capel, judging from the number of red figures he observed, thought the garrison was too strong to be successfully attacked, and ignominiously retired. Hence the old couplet—

The women of Wem and a few musketeersBeat Lord Capel and all his cavaliers.

There was, too, a Royalist mock litany of the time, a part of which reads—

From Wem, and from Nantwitch,

Good Lord, deliver us.

This story of the red-coated women of Wem reminds me of the similar story told of the French invasion of Fishguard in 1797, where and when a small French force was landed from three frigates to raid the country. Lord Cawdor at the head of a hastily collected body of militia, of about half the strength of the enemy, went forth to meet them; a number of Welsh women, in red cloaks, gathered on the hills around to watch the expected battle, and these were mistaken by the French for regular troops prepared to cut off their retreat; thereupon, deeming they were overpowered, the Frenchmen surrendered. Both stories read much alike. I wonder if either one is true? "I hae my douts."

I learnt much about Wem from the landlord, how in past days the houses of the town were all thatched, and that there is still preserved in the old town hall a huge iron hook fixed to the end of along oak pole that was used to pull down the thatch from any house that was alight and so to prevent the flames spreading, and he offered to show it me in the morning if I cared to see it. I thought I should; such a contrivance must be somewhat of a curiosity—at least I had never seen or heard of anything of the kind before. However, in spite of the hook, it happened that the whole town was burnt down, the church steeple too, in 1677. "Wem was quite a large place at one time," he continued; "and though you might hardly think it, some of the quiet country lanes around were once the town streets. It is the only Shropshire town mentioned in the Doomsday Book, which perhaps may prove its former importance. Judge Jeffreys, who had his home a mile from the town, was created Baron of Wem. His house is still standing and has his coat-of-arms carved over the doorway." Then some customers came in and the conversation became general; I wish they had not, for I was interested in the landlord's account of the place, and I fancy there was much more he could have told me about it.

Amongst the company was a farmer, at least I took him to be such, and the weather was his main subject of conversation. I gathered from him that for some cause thunderstorms were fairly frequent at Wem and round about, and I understood that a farmer in the locality had recently lost several sheep by lightning. "Talking of lightning," he went on, "do you know it is a fact that lightning never strikes a moving object?" I did not, though I hadto confess I had no recollection of such a circumstance, which was but negative evidence. Then said he, "According to my experience, if there's a full moon on a Saturday it's sure to rain the next day, and if there's a star close by the moon it's bound to blow hard the next morning." Though why this should be he could not explain—and little wonder! Many other things he said about the weather, but I did not note them down. The only man I trust about the weather is the shepherd of the downs or the plains, for on those open places the weather reveals its secrets to him who has little to do but observe it. I do not even trust the newspaper's forecasts except in settled times, when there is no need of them, for as a traveller who is concerned as to what the day will be, I have as often found them wrong as right. Sometimes they strike a provokingly uncertain note, such as "Rain in places," which is very safe forecasting and leaves me much in doubt.

During the conversation some one talked about his "near-dwellers," and the same man twice used the term "unked." These were unfamiliar expressions to me, and on inquiry I found "near-dwellers" to mean neighbours, and "unked" was employed to signify down-spirited. Then some one made use of the old saying, "You'll have to mind your P's and Q's." "Does any one know how that saying originated?" queried another of the party, "for I do." No one appeared to know. "Then I'll tell you," he went on, manifestly pleased to be informing. "In the old days, when the publican had to trustmany of his customers, slates were kept in the bar with the customers' names written on them, with a P and a Q below. The P stood for pints and the Q for quarts, and crosses were chalked under the P's and Q's corresponding to the pints and quarts for which each customer owed. So, you see, they had to mind their P's and Q's." I had plenty of entertainment that night, of which I have given a fair sample. Much else about other things was said, but perhaps the talk of strangers at an inn is not a subject that profits to enlarge about or even worth mention at all; however, the conversation, and the unexpected turns of it, served to pass my evening pleasantly enough away. A fisherman once told me of a brother of the craft, which brother I own was given a little to romancing, that he "talked salmon and caught only tiny trout." Perhaps the moral applies to the conversation I listened to; agreeably tired after my long day in the open air, I grant I was in no exacting mood as to the quality of my entertainment, I was too dreamily lazy to be critical; then there was nothing to pay for it, and happy is the man who can find entertainment wherever he chance to be.

Glancing through theHistory of Wemthat the landlord lent me, I read there a glowing description of Hawkestone Park, a most romantic spot according to the description, and as it was only four miles from Wem I determined to go there next day. I also discovered that Dr. Johnson visited Hawkestone on July 24, 1774, and this is what he had to say about it:—

We saw Hawkestone and were conducted over a large tract of rocks and woods, a region abounding with striking scenes and terrific grandeur. We were always on the brink of a precipice or at the foot of a lofty rock.... Round the rocks is a narrow path cut into the stone which is very frequently hewn into steps, but art has proceeded no further than to make the succession of wonders safely accessible. The whole circuit, somewhat laborious, is terminated by a grotto cut into a rock to a great extent, with many windings and supported by pillars, not hewn with regularity.... There were from space to space seats in the rocks. Though it wants water it excels Dovedale by the extent of its prospects, the awfulness of its shades, the horror of its precipices, the verdure of its hollows, and the loftiness of its rocks. The ideas it forces upon the mind are the sublime, the dreadful, and the vast. Above inaccessible altitude, below is horrible profundity. He who mounts the precipices of Hawkestone wonders how he came thither and doubts how he shall return. His walk is an adventure and his departure an escape.

We saw Hawkestone and were conducted over a large tract of rocks and woods, a region abounding with striking scenes and terrific grandeur. We were always on the brink of a precipice or at the foot of a lofty rock.... Round the rocks is a narrow path cut into the stone which is very frequently hewn into steps, but art has proceeded no further than to make the succession of wonders safely accessible. The whole circuit, somewhat laborious, is terminated by a grotto cut into a rock to a great extent, with many windings and supported by pillars, not hewn with regularity.... There were from space to space seats in the rocks. Though it wants water it excels Dovedale by the extent of its prospects, the awfulness of its shades, the horror of its precipices, the verdure of its hollows, and the loftiness of its rocks. The ideas it forces upon the mind are the sublime, the dreadful, and the vast. Above inaccessible altitude, below is horrible profundity. He who mounts the precipices of Hawkestone wonders how he came thither and doubts how he shall return. His walk is an adventure and his departure an escape.

Now all this strikes a most romantic note, and surely Dr. Johnson was too great a man to be given to gush, so all the more it surprised me how it was that I had never heard of Hawkestone and its wonders before. Just "Ignorance, pure ignorance," as the famous doctor once remarked to a lady in reply to her query how it was he did not know something that she considered he ought to know. Truly Hawkestone was one of the surprises and discoveries of the journey. There is one advantage in not knowing all about the country you are travelling in, for such lack of knowing keeps you ever in a delightful state of expectancy as to what fresh discoveries you may make; no matter though to others they are familiar, that does not rob you of the thrill of pleasure in discovering them.

Next morning I learnt from the landlord that there was a good inn at Hawkestone, so after a look at Wem I determined to spend the rest of the day there and explore its beauties at leisure. Wem did not detain me long that morning. My curiosity induced me to see the "fire fork" already mentioned that was used to drag down the burning thatch from the houses, and I estimated this to be thirty-six feet long, but I was told it was much more than that originally. It looked just like a big iron fishhook at the end of a pole. In a niche of the church tower I noticed a much-weathered stone figure, and this the clerk told me represented St. Chad, "a favourite saint in these parts." I asked him if there were anything of interest in the church, and he said no, "but there's a unique Gothic doorway at the west end well worth seeing, it's four hundred years old"; so I went to inspect it, and I found a most quaintly shaped doorway, the like of which I had not come upon before, but it struck me as more uncommon than beautiful—and this was all I discovered worthy of note in Wem; its interest is historical, and that does not appeal to the eye.

CHAPTER XIRed Castle—A stately ruin—Old houses and new owners—The joy of discovery—High Ercall and its story—Mills and millers—The life of a stone-breaker—Old folk-songs—Haughmond Abbey—Ancient tombs—A peaceful spot—A place for a pilgrimage.On leaving Wem I sought instruction of the landlord as to the road to Hawkestone, for the roads about Wem are many and winding, and it is not easy for a stranger to find his way on them. He told me to go to Weston, a village adjoining the park, "where there is a good inn. If you ask your way to Hawkestone," said he, "the natives may send you miles round; for Hawkestone is a big place, and there is no inn but at Weston." So to Weston we went, guided by the signposts, and not a signpost, strange to relate, did we see with "Hawkestone" upon it.Weston proved to be a charming little village of black and white half-timber cottages with an old church set on a hill above them, and by the churchyard wall were its ancient stocks intact. At the end of the village we came to the inn delightfully placed facing the park and its glorious scenery, and with only a low hedge between it and the park. The Hawkestone hotel gave me an agreeablegreeting, for on entering it I found myself in a panelled hall, and beyond this I caught a peep of a pleasant little garden belonging to the inn. Again I was fortunate in finding comfortable quarters. I liked my inn; it had a home-like look. I asked about seeing the park, and was told I could have a guide to show me over it, though I was welcome to go alone if I wished. No guide was pressed on me, and I appreciated the fact; but I felt I might miss much if I went without one. The park was extensive, there were many things to see there; so I obtained a guide, and set forth to explore Hawkestone, and I went alone with the guide. After Dr. Johnson's description of the place and all the adjectives he used—I presume he considered them necessary—I feel somewhat at a discount in attempting a further description, and finding fresh, suitable adjectives; but we see places with our own eyes and glean our own impressions. What struck me first about Hawkestone was a certain indefinable theatrical look, a sense of unreality, as though I were viewing a stage production on a large scale. I had never seen Nature and Art so romantically combined before. Though I climbed the precipices by narrow paths cut along their sides, I did not feel "my walk an adventure and my departure an escape," nor did I feel the "sublime, dreadful, vast, or horrible profundity" of the spot—I wondered much at those expressions; to me it appeared fully to justify the terms romantic and picturesque, but not in the least that of dreadful: never were my spirits daunted! The guide was loquacious; hadhe talked less, I might have remembered more of all he told me, and he told me much of the past history of Hawkestone and of its lords, from the early days when the first castle was built there to close upon the present time; and he expressed his surprise that I had not heard of Hawkestone before. "Not to know Hawkestone is to show yourself unknown," I almost fancy he thought.I was first shown the Red Castle, built in the reign of King Henry III., of which castle, except some broken masonry, a tall, round keep, standing isolated and stately on a crag, alone remains. "How like one of Salvator Rosa's pictures!" I could not help exclaiming to myself; and really it is. The far view from this tower over a vast extent of peaceful, pastoral, and wooded country to the stormy mountains of Wales, so rugged of outline and contrasting, is wonderfully fine and space-expressing. There was a bigness about it, looking over "the sweep of endless woods," that pleased me, a green spaciousness that was splendid. I forget now how many feet high the guide said the top of the tower on its crag was from the ground; but one had to crane one's neck to see it from below, and this gave one the impression of commanding height whatever its height might be.Next we went under a wide-arched rock at the end of a ravine, and began to climb the crags on the opposite side by a narrow winding footpath with steps cut here and there in the steepest parts; so we reached a wonderful series of grottos, consisting of arched chambers in the solid rock,with many roughly-hewn pillars. These grottos were lined with shells and spas: the guide gave me the history of them, but I have forgotten it; some one, however, cut them out of the rock, and some ladies decorated them in the manner described. Then I was conducted on to the top of the crag, opposite to which is the Raven's Cliff; from this point the view over the park and rocks is very striking, the rough grey rocks peeping out here and there from the sea of soft green foliage, forming a telling combination and contrast. Then we descended, only to ascend again up a steep and stepped path to the Hermitage, a cavern in the cliff side, over the entrance to which is inscribed—Procul, O procul este, profani.It was a strange whim of our ancestors to have a Hermitage in their grounds; and as real hermits were not to be procured, often an aged pensioner was made to take their place for the benefit of visitors—but nobody was of course deceived. I am afraid it was an age of shams, even of sham ruins built to beautify the view! In the present instance, however, a wax figure of a grey-haired and bearded man seated at a table with a skull upon it did duty for a living hermit, though it did not do it very well; for the effect of the figure was marred by the dripping of moisture from the roof of the cave: not even a hermit could endure that for long and live. The guide told me that he was supposed to leave me here and go in by a secret door at the back of thefigure and somehow introduce himself beneath its cloak and talk. He was quite open about the proceeding; it was mere acting; and I told him, after such a confession, he need not trouble himself or me. Though actually he declared some young people were taken in by the device, owing to the gloom of the cavern; if this be true, I am afraid there are a good many young innocents abroad. Then I saw the Druid's Cavern and St. Francis's Cave, and a recess in the rock where, according to an inscription, "Rowland Hill, a gentleman renowned for his great wisdom, piety, and charity, who, being a zealous Royalist, hid himself in the Civil Wars of the time of King Charles I.; but being discovered, was imprisoned in his adjacent Red Castle, whilst his house was pillaged and ransacked by the rebels." There were other things of interest in the park, but in truth its gloriously rocky and wooded scenery, and its ruined castle keep, appealed to me vastly more than the rest.June is a month to joy in, for when in a gracious mood it can produce the pleasantest of weather, and the next morning gave us a sample of its occasional perfectness. A glorious sunshiny day followed the promise of the morning with a deep sea-blue sky above, and hardly a cloud in it—a day that made us feel the joy of being alive. So we made an early start, and wandering about deviously we suddenly espied before us, standing gaunt and deserted and lone in a grass field, the ruined hall of Moreton Corbet, its roofless walls, its upstanding gables and great vacant windows, darkly silhouetted against thebright sky. I recognised the old house from a friend's photograph; it had a familiar look, though I had never been there before and had come upon it unexpectedly. The house covers a considerable area of ground, and some of the quaint carvings on its front appeared to be almost as sharp as the day they were carved, and that was centuries ago. Were I an architect, I think I should try to discover the quarry from whence came that enduring stone, for many a fine building I have seen has suffered sadly from the perishable nature of the stone employed in its construction. An architect cannot be too careful in the selection of his material if he wishes his work to last—and what architect does not—not to mention his client, who surely deserves some consideration?Moreton Corbet was begun by Sir Robert Corbet in 1606, but he died of the plague before the building was finished; his brother Sir Vincent Corbet continued the work, but the house was never finished or inhabited, and now the rambling ruins are but the home of owls and other birds. Camden the antiquary in his day wrote of it: "Robert Corbet began to build a most gorgeous and stately house, after the Italian model, for his future magnificent and splendid habitation, but death countermanding his designs took him off, so that he left his project unfinished and his old castle defaced." The remains of his "defaced" old castle are at hand, with the initials A. C. for Sir Andrew Corbet over its doorway. There is a hazy local tradition that some enemy of the Corbets, when the house was building, uttered the prophecy that "Moreton Corbet shall never be finished." But who can tell, it may be some day, though late the day, for its walls appear sound, the stone mullions stand in the windows still, and I have known ancient houses even more ruined that have come into the hands of a new owner and have been restored and converted into delightful homes. "Patch and long sit," runs the old proverb, but "build and soon flit" it ends, and from my limited experience of the ways of men there is some truth in the proverb. But proverbs are so often contradictory that I have lost faith in them. One says, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"; then another has it, "Out of sight out of mind," and I might go on quoting familiar proverbs of an antagonistic nature, only to do so would be a waste of space. You can generally by searching find a proverb to fit a special case whichever way you desire—that is the beauty of proverbs.THE RUINED HALL OF MORETON CORBET.A ruined home, whether of cottage or mansion, is always, more or less, a pathetic sight and one that appeals to the sentimental traveller, but coming thus suddenly and unexpectedly upon so stately a ruin as Moreton Corbet right in the heart of a quiet country, a country with no suggestion about it but of farms and fields—one expected nothing else—the greater was the appeal to such sentiment. The coming to the notable ruin of an abbey or castle for which the traveller is prepared by guide-book description is quite a different thing; at least I, for one, cannot command my sympathies to the order of a guide-book. To repeat, in effect, a previousremark, I really think that the chief charm of travel is the coming upon the unexpected, the enjoyment of discovery, so that even the lesser sights by the way assume an importance that perhaps is not rightly theirs and become memorable.Leaving Moreton Corbet we got wandering amongst winding lanes, and very pleasant lanes they were; these eventually brought us to High Ercall, a lonely little village consisting of an ancient church, an old Tudor manor-house of some size standing close by, and a cottage or two. High Ercall had not much to show us, but what it had to show was interesting, chiefly the fine church which retains some features of interest in spite of the fact that it was sadly battered about by the Puritan party, and the time-toned Tudor house built, according to an inscription on it, in 1608. The main portion of the house is of stone, but it has brick gables above that give it an odd appearance. The old home took my fancy. "It looks history," I exclaimed to myself, though at the time I knew nothing of its past. Why I should have imagined that house had a story to tell I cannot say, but so it impressed me, perhaps simply because it was so old. Anyway, on making inquiry I found my intuition not wrong, for I discovered it was one of the many Shropshire houses that had been fortified in the time of the Civil Wars and held for the King, and though but a house, so gallantly was it defended that it successfully resisted several fierce assaults, being indeed the last house in the shire to surrender, only the strongholds of Bridgnorth and Ludlowholding out longer. I wonder if anything eventful will ever happen at High Ercall again. Who would have expected to come upon history there? It looked so innocent of anything of the kind. Certainly the Civil Wars have given the added interest of stirring days to many a now dreamy spot in England, for those wars concerned themselves with the sieges of so many private houses scattered far and wide over the countryside. Those days have passed for ever, for no private house could now be converted into a fortress. Many of these old houses still retain bullet marks on, and sometimes the lead of the bullets in, their thick oak doors; their strong walls too occasionally show, even to this far-off day, the indentations made by some of Cromwell's inexhaustible cannon-balls. You cannot escape from Cromwell's doings when you go a-touring in England.Beyond High Ercall we crossed over a marshy upland, and over a bridge or two so narrow that there was only just room for the car to pass. The country had a remote look, for we travelled far before meeting a soul, and that soul was a solitary man breaking stones by the side of the road. From the uplands we dropped down to a picturesque old mill, its wheel turned by a sparkling stream; and a pretty picture the old mill made with its foaming weir above, its sleepy pool below, and the green fields gently sloping down to it. The mill was busy that day, and the muffled hum of its machinery, the swish, swish of its wheel and the plash of its weir, broke pleasantly the silence of the spot.I saw no miller, or any one, about; perhaps the miller was at his dinner whilst his work was being done for him. I wish I could have seen him, for I have a liking for millers, always having found them jovially disposed and not averse to a gossip; now I have a weakness for gossiping with country folk, trusting by so doing to glean something of their views of life. Such folk I have generally found willing to talk about anything but politics—well, I do not care to talk politics, but why they should so carefully avoid the subject I cannot say, nor yet why millers are so cheerful a race, any more than why farmers in contradiction should be given so to grumbling, even when the seasons are good. I remember that picture inPunchof a squire addressing a tenant of his: "Good morning, Mr. Turnips, fine growing day." "Yes, sir," responds the farmer, "'twill make the weeds grow." But the miller looks on the bright side of life; perhaps it is because he seems to have so little work to do, only having to watch whilst the running water or the willing wind do his work for him. I know I have chatted with a miller for an hour or more inside his mill and amongst his whirling wheels, as the flour flowed fast and free from the wooden shoots into the sacks below, and he merely glanced round now and then to see if a sack were nearly filled, so that he might put another in its place; nor did this take him long to do, nor did the work seem hard. It was this miller who so kindly explained to me how much better it was to rely on water than wind power, the latter being so uncertain, for "the wind may dropin the daytime, and then blow at night when you are comfortably in bed, so you may idle away half, or even the whole of a day, but water-power is constant, if you have a decent stream to depend upon." Then the miller told me how in his father's time, for his father was a miller too, the gleaners used to come to the mill to have their gleanings ground, and in those friendly past days the miller used to grind their gleanings without charge in his spare time, as the custom was. "Then helped every one his neighbour," for those were "the good old days," at least they seem good to look back upon.After the mill followed a stretch of open country with wide cornfields on either hand waving round us like a golden sea and rustling in the wind; then by way of change we entered upon a tree-lined road, with at one spot great rocks by its side, and from this spot Shrewsbury and its church spires came into view vaguely showing in the mist like the city of a dream. Not desiring to revisit Shrewsbury, I stopped the car and consulted my map; it was a fortunate circumstance, for in doing so I discovered "Haughmond Abbey" marked thereon, and apparently not very far off. I seemed to be always making discoveries on my map. Now I had heard of Haughmond Abbey, but what the ruins were like, where they were hidden away, whether extensive or the mere fragments of a building, I had no idea. Bolton, Tintern, Fountains, Glastonbury, Melrose, and other famous ruined abbeys were familiar to me in pictures, engravings, photographs,and poetry long before I saw them, but of Haughmond I had seen neither picture nor engraving, nor, as far as I am aware, has any poet sung its praises. Yet Haughmond Abbey I found to be a beautiful ruin, not so romantically situated as either Tintern or Bolton truly, but set in as sweet a spot as all fair England can show, delightful to the eye with its verdant meadows, shady trees, tranquil water, grey rock, and sheltering wooded hills around—a spot so peaceful in its seclusion, so peace-bestowing, too, and without a hint of the modern world, for at Haughmond nothing is to be seen but quiet woods, gentle hills, and the spacious sky above. Never came I to a more tranquil spot; the monks of old must have left their benediction there, though robbed of their abbey they loved so well and turned adrift into the outer world, and though they doubtless fondly hoped and believed it would "have canopied their bones," or at least they would have been laid to rest in the shade of its church.But I am a little previous. Close to where I pulled up I saw a man breaking stones by the roadside, and I asked him if he could tell me the whereabouts of the abbey. "It be right down there," said he, pointing ahead with his finger into space, "not more than a quarter of a mile away. You comes to a cottage, and on the other side of the way is a footpath by a stream leading to it." He was a civil man, his instructions were clear, stone-breaking is wearisome work; I was sorry for him to the extent of a sixpence, better expended than on a tramp, I thought, and tramps in my green dayswheedled many a sixpence out of me. I remember that the last tramp to whom I gave a trifle exclaimed in the fulness of his heart upon unexpectedly receiving it, "God bless you, sir. May we soon meet in Heaven!" Since then my donations to tramps have ceased. I would chat with that stone-breaker, I would see the world through a stone-breaker's eyes. But his view of the world was limited; manifestly the monotony of his labour had told upon him, perhaps too the loneliness of the life, so that I got little profit out of the conversation. It needs a strong mind to sit by the roadside all day long and break stones, do nothing but break stones, and have any imagination left.Finding a secluded, shady spot by the wayside I rested there awhile, for the day was hot; moreover I was already beginning to feel hungry, and my luncheon-basket was handy. How hungry one gets motoring in the fresh air, to be sure! Whilst resting there and thinking, it suddenly struck me how seldom in Wales I saw any children romping about in the villages as English children are wont to do; even to-day sometimes on the village greens one finds the latter playing games so old that no one can tell how they originated. Take, for instance, the game of "Old Roger" often played at children's gatherings in the West Country to an old song as follows. I have given this song in a previous book, but it will bear repeating, and I repeat it to show how this old song, long years ago, found its way to America, and how it became altered there. This, then, is how the original "Old Roger" runs:—Old Roger is dead and lies in his grave—Hee-haw! lies in his grave.They planted an apple-tree over his head.The apples were ripe and ready to drop,When came a big wind and blew them all off;Then came an old woman a-picking them up.Old Roger jumped up and gave her a knock,Which made the old woman go hipperty-hop.Now an American lady reading this in my book wrote to me about it, enclosing the words of a song that was sung to her by her grandfather, who had learnt it from his grandfather. "It is very plain," wrote the lady, "that our song came over from your country, and that it originated in your 'Old Roger.' This is very interesting to me. We call our song 'Old Father Cungell.' It goes this way:—Old Father Cungell went up to White Hall,Hum, ha! up to White Hall,And there he fell sick amongst 'em all,With my heigh down, ho down,Hum, Ha!Old Father Cungell was car-ri-ed home,Hum, ha! car-ri-ed home;Before he got there he was as dead as a stone,With my heigh down, ho down,Hum, Ha!Old Father Cungell was in the grave laid,They covered him up with shovel and spade,And out of his grave there grew a big treeThat bore the best apples that ever ye see!Before they were ripe and fit for the fall,There came an old woman and stole them off all;Her gown it was red, her petticoat green,The very worst woman that ever was seen.Old Cungell got up and hit her a knock,That made the old woman go hipperty-hop.The neighbours were scared and said in their fright,'The ghost of Cungell gets up in the night,'With my heigh down, ho down,Hum, Ha!"HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHURCH DOORWAY.Rested and refreshed I went in search of Haughmond Abbey, the ruins of which, though near to, are not visible from the road, so the casual traveller might pass them unawares, as doubtless many do. A short stroll along a shady footpath and by the side of a limpid stream soon brought me to the spot; the hoary, ivy-clad ruins peeping through the branching trees made a perfect picture, the sunshine resting on them and brightening the century-gathered gloom of their broken walls and rugged gables. It was, in truth, a pleasant spot the monks selected for their abbey, an ideal spot well secluded from the outer world; even to-day it retains its old-time tranquillity undisturbed. I had the ruins to myself, rejoiced to escape from the noisy prattle of the mere sightseer; to myself, excepting that some birds were holding a profane service on the grass-grown ground where erst the high altar stood. The ruins are of considerable extent, though, but for a portion of a wall and a fine sculptured doorway, the church itself has wholly disappeared; its foundations, however, may still be faintly traced. Unlike most abbeys the ruined churches of which remain whilst their monastic outbuildings and offices have vanished, at Haughmond the reverse is the case. So one generation builds a fane of prayer and another generation levels it to the ground, evenglorying in its destruction; and the sad thought of it is, who can say that what we build in our pride to-day may not at some future time share a similar fate? Doubtless the monks who reared this stately abbey thought it would last to Doomsday; it lasted about four hundred years, for it was founded in 1135 by Fitz Alan of Clun, and was suppressed by King Henry VIII. in 1541, he "being mynded to take it into his own handes," as he did many another abbey, "for better purposes." The world knows what those "better purposes" were.Nettles and weeds now flourish in the abbey's deserted courts and around its roofless buildings, the only roofed portion being the Chapter-house, which is entire with its three richly ornamented arched doorways, of which I give an illustration. It may be noted that between the pillars are statues under canopies, a remarkable feature that I do not remember to have seen in any ecclesiastical edifice before. It struck me that these statues were an after-thought and had been introduced at a later period by cutting pillars away to receive them; I cannot say that they altogether pleased me, for they disturbed the unity and simplicity of the fine Norman arches. The flat oak roof of the Chapter-house appears to be in perfect condition, though I was surprised to find an oak roof there and not a vaulted one of stone. The chief offices appertaining to the abbey appear to have been built round a court beyond the cloisters; of these the Abbot's Lodge retains its beautiful bay-window, and what was probably the guest-house retains all its side windows with their tracery intact. This building has a large gable at one end flanked by shapely turrets.HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHAPTER-HOUSE.Of the many stately tombs the abbey church once contained only two inscribed slabs remain, but these are interesting: one to John Fitz Alan, deceased 1270, who was buried before the high altar, bears the following inscription in Norman French, as was the fashion of the time:—VOVS KI PASSEZ ICI PRIES PVR LAME IOHAN FIS ALEINKI GIT ICI DEV DE SA ALME EIT MERCI. AMEN.ISABEL DE MORTIMER SA FEMME ACOST DE L ... DEVDE LVR ALME ... MERCI. AMEN.Another slab has the incised effigy of a woman shown wearing a quaint head-dress with a coat-of-arms on either side of it, her gloved hands folded in prayer; the inscription is in Latin, that prevailed during that later period and for long afterwards, and thus it runs:—Hic jacet ... filia Iohis Leyton armigi & uxor Ricardimynde que obiit in festo Cathedre Sancti PetriAnno Dni Millesio cccc xxviij cui aie ppiciet Deus Amen.I loitered long at Haughmond, and loth I was to leave so peace-bestowing a spot; thither the world-weary pilgrim might well come in search of rest, for nowhere could he find a quietude more profound. I wish I could, in words, express the peacefulness of the spot, a peacefulness that grew upon me and that seemed to me on leaving like an unuttered benediction, but not the less a benediction because unuttered. Never bade I farewell to a spot morereluctantly; never have I felt a greater desire to return to one. Such was the spell it cast upon me. "Within its walls peace reigned; from its stately church came the sounds of prayer and praise; its gates were ever open to the pilgrim and the poor; its hospitality and brotherly kindness softened the harsh incidence of the feudal days."

Red Castle—A stately ruin—Old houses and new owners—The joy of discovery—High Ercall and its story—Mills and millers—The life of a stone-breaker—Old folk-songs—Haughmond Abbey—Ancient tombs—A peaceful spot—A place for a pilgrimage.

On leaving Wem I sought instruction of the landlord as to the road to Hawkestone, for the roads about Wem are many and winding, and it is not easy for a stranger to find his way on them. He told me to go to Weston, a village adjoining the park, "where there is a good inn. If you ask your way to Hawkestone," said he, "the natives may send you miles round; for Hawkestone is a big place, and there is no inn but at Weston." So to Weston we went, guided by the signposts, and not a signpost, strange to relate, did we see with "Hawkestone" upon it.

Weston proved to be a charming little village of black and white half-timber cottages with an old church set on a hill above them, and by the churchyard wall were its ancient stocks intact. At the end of the village we came to the inn delightfully placed facing the park and its glorious scenery, and with only a low hedge between it and the park. The Hawkestone hotel gave me an agreeablegreeting, for on entering it I found myself in a panelled hall, and beyond this I caught a peep of a pleasant little garden belonging to the inn. Again I was fortunate in finding comfortable quarters. I liked my inn; it had a home-like look. I asked about seeing the park, and was told I could have a guide to show me over it, though I was welcome to go alone if I wished. No guide was pressed on me, and I appreciated the fact; but I felt I might miss much if I went without one. The park was extensive, there were many things to see there; so I obtained a guide, and set forth to explore Hawkestone, and I went alone with the guide. After Dr. Johnson's description of the place and all the adjectives he used—I presume he considered them necessary—I feel somewhat at a discount in attempting a further description, and finding fresh, suitable adjectives; but we see places with our own eyes and glean our own impressions. What struck me first about Hawkestone was a certain indefinable theatrical look, a sense of unreality, as though I were viewing a stage production on a large scale. I had never seen Nature and Art so romantically combined before. Though I climbed the precipices by narrow paths cut along their sides, I did not feel "my walk an adventure and my departure an escape," nor did I feel the "sublime, dreadful, vast, or horrible profundity" of the spot—I wondered much at those expressions; to me it appeared fully to justify the terms romantic and picturesque, but not in the least that of dreadful: never were my spirits daunted! The guide was loquacious; hadhe talked less, I might have remembered more of all he told me, and he told me much of the past history of Hawkestone and of its lords, from the early days when the first castle was built there to close upon the present time; and he expressed his surprise that I had not heard of Hawkestone before. "Not to know Hawkestone is to show yourself unknown," I almost fancy he thought.

I was first shown the Red Castle, built in the reign of King Henry III., of which castle, except some broken masonry, a tall, round keep, standing isolated and stately on a crag, alone remains. "How like one of Salvator Rosa's pictures!" I could not help exclaiming to myself; and really it is. The far view from this tower over a vast extent of peaceful, pastoral, and wooded country to the stormy mountains of Wales, so rugged of outline and contrasting, is wonderfully fine and space-expressing. There was a bigness about it, looking over "the sweep of endless woods," that pleased me, a green spaciousness that was splendid. I forget now how many feet high the guide said the top of the tower on its crag was from the ground; but one had to crane one's neck to see it from below, and this gave one the impression of commanding height whatever its height might be.

Next we went under a wide-arched rock at the end of a ravine, and began to climb the crags on the opposite side by a narrow winding footpath with steps cut here and there in the steepest parts; so we reached a wonderful series of grottos, consisting of arched chambers in the solid rock,with many roughly-hewn pillars. These grottos were lined with shells and spas: the guide gave me the history of them, but I have forgotten it; some one, however, cut them out of the rock, and some ladies decorated them in the manner described. Then I was conducted on to the top of the crag, opposite to which is the Raven's Cliff; from this point the view over the park and rocks is very striking, the rough grey rocks peeping out here and there from the sea of soft green foliage, forming a telling combination and contrast. Then we descended, only to ascend again up a steep and stepped path to the Hermitage, a cavern in the cliff side, over the entrance to which is inscribed—

Procul, O procul este, profani.

It was a strange whim of our ancestors to have a Hermitage in their grounds; and as real hermits were not to be procured, often an aged pensioner was made to take their place for the benefit of visitors—but nobody was of course deceived. I am afraid it was an age of shams, even of sham ruins built to beautify the view! In the present instance, however, a wax figure of a grey-haired and bearded man seated at a table with a skull upon it did duty for a living hermit, though it did not do it very well; for the effect of the figure was marred by the dripping of moisture from the roof of the cave: not even a hermit could endure that for long and live. The guide told me that he was supposed to leave me here and go in by a secret door at the back of thefigure and somehow introduce himself beneath its cloak and talk. He was quite open about the proceeding; it was mere acting; and I told him, after such a confession, he need not trouble himself or me. Though actually he declared some young people were taken in by the device, owing to the gloom of the cavern; if this be true, I am afraid there are a good many young innocents abroad. Then I saw the Druid's Cavern and St. Francis's Cave, and a recess in the rock where, according to an inscription, "Rowland Hill, a gentleman renowned for his great wisdom, piety, and charity, who, being a zealous Royalist, hid himself in the Civil Wars of the time of King Charles I.; but being discovered, was imprisoned in his adjacent Red Castle, whilst his house was pillaged and ransacked by the rebels." There were other things of interest in the park, but in truth its gloriously rocky and wooded scenery, and its ruined castle keep, appealed to me vastly more than the rest.

June is a month to joy in, for when in a gracious mood it can produce the pleasantest of weather, and the next morning gave us a sample of its occasional perfectness. A glorious sunshiny day followed the promise of the morning with a deep sea-blue sky above, and hardly a cloud in it—a day that made us feel the joy of being alive. So we made an early start, and wandering about deviously we suddenly espied before us, standing gaunt and deserted and lone in a grass field, the ruined hall of Moreton Corbet, its roofless walls, its upstanding gables and great vacant windows, darkly silhouetted against thebright sky. I recognised the old house from a friend's photograph; it had a familiar look, though I had never been there before and had come upon it unexpectedly. The house covers a considerable area of ground, and some of the quaint carvings on its front appeared to be almost as sharp as the day they were carved, and that was centuries ago. Were I an architect, I think I should try to discover the quarry from whence came that enduring stone, for many a fine building I have seen has suffered sadly from the perishable nature of the stone employed in its construction. An architect cannot be too careful in the selection of his material if he wishes his work to last—and what architect does not—not to mention his client, who surely deserves some consideration?

Moreton Corbet was begun by Sir Robert Corbet in 1606, but he died of the plague before the building was finished; his brother Sir Vincent Corbet continued the work, but the house was never finished or inhabited, and now the rambling ruins are but the home of owls and other birds. Camden the antiquary in his day wrote of it: "Robert Corbet began to build a most gorgeous and stately house, after the Italian model, for his future magnificent and splendid habitation, but death countermanding his designs took him off, so that he left his project unfinished and his old castle defaced." The remains of his "defaced" old castle are at hand, with the initials A. C. for Sir Andrew Corbet over its doorway. There is a hazy local tradition that some enemy of the Corbets, when the house was building, uttered the prophecy that "Moreton Corbet shall never be finished." But who can tell, it may be some day, though late the day, for its walls appear sound, the stone mullions stand in the windows still, and I have known ancient houses even more ruined that have come into the hands of a new owner and have been restored and converted into delightful homes. "Patch and long sit," runs the old proverb, but "build and soon flit" it ends, and from my limited experience of the ways of men there is some truth in the proverb. But proverbs are so often contradictory that I have lost faith in them. One says, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"; then another has it, "Out of sight out of mind," and I might go on quoting familiar proverbs of an antagonistic nature, only to do so would be a waste of space. You can generally by searching find a proverb to fit a special case whichever way you desire—that is the beauty of proverbs.

THE RUINED HALL OF MORETON CORBET.

THE RUINED HALL OF MORETON CORBET.

THE RUINED HALL OF MORETON CORBET.

A ruined home, whether of cottage or mansion, is always, more or less, a pathetic sight and one that appeals to the sentimental traveller, but coming thus suddenly and unexpectedly upon so stately a ruin as Moreton Corbet right in the heart of a quiet country, a country with no suggestion about it but of farms and fields—one expected nothing else—the greater was the appeal to such sentiment. The coming to the notable ruin of an abbey or castle for which the traveller is prepared by guide-book description is quite a different thing; at least I, for one, cannot command my sympathies to the order of a guide-book. To repeat, in effect, a previousremark, I really think that the chief charm of travel is the coming upon the unexpected, the enjoyment of discovery, so that even the lesser sights by the way assume an importance that perhaps is not rightly theirs and become memorable.

Leaving Moreton Corbet we got wandering amongst winding lanes, and very pleasant lanes they were; these eventually brought us to High Ercall, a lonely little village consisting of an ancient church, an old Tudor manor-house of some size standing close by, and a cottage or two. High Ercall had not much to show us, but what it had to show was interesting, chiefly the fine church which retains some features of interest in spite of the fact that it was sadly battered about by the Puritan party, and the time-toned Tudor house built, according to an inscription on it, in 1608. The main portion of the house is of stone, but it has brick gables above that give it an odd appearance. The old home took my fancy. "It looks history," I exclaimed to myself, though at the time I knew nothing of its past. Why I should have imagined that house had a story to tell I cannot say, but so it impressed me, perhaps simply because it was so old. Anyway, on making inquiry I found my intuition not wrong, for I discovered it was one of the many Shropshire houses that had been fortified in the time of the Civil Wars and held for the King, and though but a house, so gallantly was it defended that it successfully resisted several fierce assaults, being indeed the last house in the shire to surrender, only the strongholds of Bridgnorth and Ludlowholding out longer. I wonder if anything eventful will ever happen at High Ercall again. Who would have expected to come upon history there? It looked so innocent of anything of the kind. Certainly the Civil Wars have given the added interest of stirring days to many a now dreamy spot in England, for those wars concerned themselves with the sieges of so many private houses scattered far and wide over the countryside. Those days have passed for ever, for no private house could now be converted into a fortress. Many of these old houses still retain bullet marks on, and sometimes the lead of the bullets in, their thick oak doors; their strong walls too occasionally show, even to this far-off day, the indentations made by some of Cromwell's inexhaustible cannon-balls. You cannot escape from Cromwell's doings when you go a-touring in England.

Beyond High Ercall we crossed over a marshy upland, and over a bridge or two so narrow that there was only just room for the car to pass. The country had a remote look, for we travelled far before meeting a soul, and that soul was a solitary man breaking stones by the side of the road. From the uplands we dropped down to a picturesque old mill, its wheel turned by a sparkling stream; and a pretty picture the old mill made with its foaming weir above, its sleepy pool below, and the green fields gently sloping down to it. The mill was busy that day, and the muffled hum of its machinery, the swish, swish of its wheel and the plash of its weir, broke pleasantly the silence of the spot.

I saw no miller, or any one, about; perhaps the miller was at his dinner whilst his work was being done for him. I wish I could have seen him, for I have a liking for millers, always having found them jovially disposed and not averse to a gossip; now I have a weakness for gossiping with country folk, trusting by so doing to glean something of their views of life. Such folk I have generally found willing to talk about anything but politics—well, I do not care to talk politics, but why they should so carefully avoid the subject I cannot say, nor yet why millers are so cheerful a race, any more than why farmers in contradiction should be given so to grumbling, even when the seasons are good. I remember that picture inPunchof a squire addressing a tenant of his: "Good morning, Mr. Turnips, fine growing day." "Yes, sir," responds the farmer, "'twill make the weeds grow." But the miller looks on the bright side of life; perhaps it is because he seems to have so little work to do, only having to watch whilst the running water or the willing wind do his work for him. I know I have chatted with a miller for an hour or more inside his mill and amongst his whirling wheels, as the flour flowed fast and free from the wooden shoots into the sacks below, and he merely glanced round now and then to see if a sack were nearly filled, so that he might put another in its place; nor did this take him long to do, nor did the work seem hard. It was this miller who so kindly explained to me how much better it was to rely on water than wind power, the latter being so uncertain, for "the wind may dropin the daytime, and then blow at night when you are comfortably in bed, so you may idle away half, or even the whole of a day, but water-power is constant, if you have a decent stream to depend upon." Then the miller told me how in his father's time, for his father was a miller too, the gleaners used to come to the mill to have their gleanings ground, and in those friendly past days the miller used to grind their gleanings without charge in his spare time, as the custom was. "Then helped every one his neighbour," for those were "the good old days," at least they seem good to look back upon.

After the mill followed a stretch of open country with wide cornfields on either hand waving round us like a golden sea and rustling in the wind; then by way of change we entered upon a tree-lined road, with at one spot great rocks by its side, and from this spot Shrewsbury and its church spires came into view vaguely showing in the mist like the city of a dream. Not desiring to revisit Shrewsbury, I stopped the car and consulted my map; it was a fortunate circumstance, for in doing so I discovered "Haughmond Abbey" marked thereon, and apparently not very far off. I seemed to be always making discoveries on my map. Now I had heard of Haughmond Abbey, but what the ruins were like, where they were hidden away, whether extensive or the mere fragments of a building, I had no idea. Bolton, Tintern, Fountains, Glastonbury, Melrose, and other famous ruined abbeys were familiar to me in pictures, engravings, photographs,and poetry long before I saw them, but of Haughmond I had seen neither picture nor engraving, nor, as far as I am aware, has any poet sung its praises. Yet Haughmond Abbey I found to be a beautiful ruin, not so romantically situated as either Tintern or Bolton truly, but set in as sweet a spot as all fair England can show, delightful to the eye with its verdant meadows, shady trees, tranquil water, grey rock, and sheltering wooded hills around—a spot so peaceful in its seclusion, so peace-bestowing, too, and without a hint of the modern world, for at Haughmond nothing is to be seen but quiet woods, gentle hills, and the spacious sky above. Never came I to a more tranquil spot; the monks of old must have left their benediction there, though robbed of their abbey they loved so well and turned adrift into the outer world, and though they doubtless fondly hoped and believed it would "have canopied their bones," or at least they would have been laid to rest in the shade of its church.

But I am a little previous. Close to where I pulled up I saw a man breaking stones by the roadside, and I asked him if he could tell me the whereabouts of the abbey. "It be right down there," said he, pointing ahead with his finger into space, "not more than a quarter of a mile away. You comes to a cottage, and on the other side of the way is a footpath by a stream leading to it." He was a civil man, his instructions were clear, stone-breaking is wearisome work; I was sorry for him to the extent of a sixpence, better expended than on a tramp, I thought, and tramps in my green dayswheedled many a sixpence out of me. I remember that the last tramp to whom I gave a trifle exclaimed in the fulness of his heart upon unexpectedly receiving it, "God bless you, sir. May we soon meet in Heaven!" Since then my donations to tramps have ceased. I would chat with that stone-breaker, I would see the world through a stone-breaker's eyes. But his view of the world was limited; manifestly the monotony of his labour had told upon him, perhaps too the loneliness of the life, so that I got little profit out of the conversation. It needs a strong mind to sit by the roadside all day long and break stones, do nothing but break stones, and have any imagination left.

Finding a secluded, shady spot by the wayside I rested there awhile, for the day was hot; moreover I was already beginning to feel hungry, and my luncheon-basket was handy. How hungry one gets motoring in the fresh air, to be sure! Whilst resting there and thinking, it suddenly struck me how seldom in Wales I saw any children romping about in the villages as English children are wont to do; even to-day sometimes on the village greens one finds the latter playing games so old that no one can tell how they originated. Take, for instance, the game of "Old Roger" often played at children's gatherings in the West Country to an old song as follows. I have given this song in a previous book, but it will bear repeating, and I repeat it to show how this old song, long years ago, found its way to America, and how it became altered there. This, then, is how the original "Old Roger" runs:—

Old Roger is dead and lies in his grave—

Hee-haw! lies in his grave.

They planted an apple-tree over his head.The apples were ripe and ready to drop,When came a big wind and blew them all off;Then came an old woman a-picking them up.Old Roger jumped up and gave her a knock,Which made the old woman go hipperty-hop.

Now an American lady reading this in my book wrote to me about it, enclosing the words of a song that was sung to her by her grandfather, who had learnt it from his grandfather. "It is very plain," wrote the lady, "that our song came over from your country, and that it originated in your 'Old Roger.' This is very interesting to me. We call our song 'Old Father Cungell.' It goes this way:—

Old Father Cungell went up to White Hall,

Hum, ha! up to White Hall,

And there he fell sick amongst 'em all,

With my heigh down, ho down,

Hum, Ha!

Old Father Cungell was car-ri-ed home,

Hum, ha! car-ri-ed home;

Before he got there he was as dead as a stone,

With my heigh down, ho down,

Hum, Ha!

Old Father Cungell was in the grave laid,They covered him up with shovel and spade,And out of his grave there grew a big treeThat bore the best apples that ever ye see!

Before they were ripe and fit for the fall,There came an old woman and stole them off all;Her gown it was red, her petticoat green,The very worst woman that ever was seen.

Old Cungell got up and hit her a knock,That made the old woman go hipperty-hop.The neighbours were scared and said in their fright,'The ghost of Cungell gets up in the night,'

With my heigh down, ho down,

Hum, Ha!"

HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHURCH DOORWAY.

HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHURCH DOORWAY.

HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHURCH DOORWAY.

Rested and refreshed I went in search of Haughmond Abbey, the ruins of which, though near to, are not visible from the road, so the casual traveller might pass them unawares, as doubtless many do. A short stroll along a shady footpath and by the side of a limpid stream soon brought me to the spot; the hoary, ivy-clad ruins peeping through the branching trees made a perfect picture, the sunshine resting on them and brightening the century-gathered gloom of their broken walls and rugged gables. It was, in truth, a pleasant spot the monks selected for their abbey, an ideal spot well secluded from the outer world; even to-day it retains its old-time tranquillity undisturbed. I had the ruins to myself, rejoiced to escape from the noisy prattle of the mere sightseer; to myself, excepting that some birds were holding a profane service on the grass-grown ground where erst the high altar stood. The ruins are of considerable extent, though, but for a portion of a wall and a fine sculptured doorway, the church itself has wholly disappeared; its foundations, however, may still be faintly traced. Unlike most abbeys the ruined churches of which remain whilst their monastic outbuildings and offices have vanished, at Haughmond the reverse is the case. So one generation builds a fane of prayer and another generation levels it to the ground, evenglorying in its destruction; and the sad thought of it is, who can say that what we build in our pride to-day may not at some future time share a similar fate? Doubtless the monks who reared this stately abbey thought it would last to Doomsday; it lasted about four hundred years, for it was founded in 1135 by Fitz Alan of Clun, and was suppressed by King Henry VIII. in 1541, he "being mynded to take it into his own handes," as he did many another abbey, "for better purposes." The world knows what those "better purposes" were.

Nettles and weeds now flourish in the abbey's deserted courts and around its roofless buildings, the only roofed portion being the Chapter-house, which is entire with its three richly ornamented arched doorways, of which I give an illustration. It may be noted that between the pillars are statues under canopies, a remarkable feature that I do not remember to have seen in any ecclesiastical edifice before. It struck me that these statues were an after-thought and had been introduced at a later period by cutting pillars away to receive them; I cannot say that they altogether pleased me, for they disturbed the unity and simplicity of the fine Norman arches. The flat oak roof of the Chapter-house appears to be in perfect condition, though I was surprised to find an oak roof there and not a vaulted one of stone. The chief offices appertaining to the abbey appear to have been built round a court beyond the cloisters; of these the Abbot's Lodge retains its beautiful bay-window, and what was probably the guest-house retains all its side windows with their tracery intact. This building has a large gable at one end flanked by shapely turrets.

HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHAPTER-HOUSE.

HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHAPTER-HOUSE.

HAUGHMOND ABBEY, CHAPTER-HOUSE.

Of the many stately tombs the abbey church once contained only two inscribed slabs remain, but these are interesting: one to John Fitz Alan, deceased 1270, who was buried before the high altar, bears the following inscription in Norman French, as was the fashion of the time:—

VOVS KI PASSEZ ICI PRIES PVR LAME IOHAN FIS ALEINKI GIT ICI DEV DE SA ALME EIT MERCI. AMEN.

ISABEL DE MORTIMER SA FEMME ACOST DE L ... DEVDE LVR ALME ... MERCI. AMEN.

Another slab has the incised effigy of a woman shown wearing a quaint head-dress with a coat-of-arms on either side of it, her gloved hands folded in prayer; the inscription is in Latin, that prevailed during that later period and for long afterwards, and thus it runs:—

Hic jacet ... filia Iohis Leyton armigi & uxor Ricardimynde que obiit in festo Cathedre Sancti PetriAnno Dni Millesio cccc xxviij cui aie ppiciet Deus Amen.

I loitered long at Haughmond, and loth I was to leave so peace-bestowing a spot; thither the world-weary pilgrim might well come in search of rest, for nowhere could he find a quietude more profound. I wish I could, in words, express the peacefulness of the spot, a peacefulness that grew upon me and that seemed to me on leaving like an unuttered benediction, but not the less a benediction because unuttered. Never bade I farewell to a spot morereluctantly; never have I felt a greater desire to return to one. Such was the spell it cast upon me. "Within its walls peace reigned; from its stately church came the sounds of prayer and praise; its gates were ever open to the pilgrim and the poor; its hospitality and brotherly kindness softened the harsh incidence of the feudal days."

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