Chapter XXI: Ludlow Town 379 (3)

The old, time-worn churches of England are past numbering and they came to have an almost weird fascination for us. The tombs, ranging from the artistic to the ghastly or grotesque, the old stones with their often queer or even ridiculous epitaphs, the sculptures, the bosses, the frescoes, the stained windows, the gargoyles and the oftentimes strange history or still stranger legends connected with nearly every one--but why prolong the list of curious attractions of these ancient fanes, often quite peculiar in each case? Just before we entered Barnstaple we turned into a byroad, and dropping down a hill of appalling steepness and length, came to Tawstock Church, famed as the finest country church in Devon--the "Westminster of the West Country," some enthusiast has styled it. Though hardly deserving such a dignified characterization as this, Tawstock Church is well worth a visit. Besides some remarkable tombs and fine Elizabethan pews, it has a peculiar gallery curiously wrought in vine and leaf pattern from black oak, and now used by the bell-ringers to reach the tower. Tawstock Mansion, near by, appears rather modern--a large building shining in a fresh coat of yellow paint that gave it much the appearance of a summer hotel. The house and church are located in a deep wooded valley and the towers of the ancient gateway lend a touch of much-needed antiquity to the scene.

Barnstaple, like Bideford, while a very old town, has few old-time relics now left. It has become a manufacturing town, its chief product being Barum ware, an inexpensive grade of pottery. The Golden Lion Inn, once a residence of the Earl of Bath, is famed as a place of solid comfort, and still retains much of the gorgeous decorations done by its former occupant. The poet Shelley had an odd association with Barnstaple. When living at Lynton, after his marriage with Harriet Westbrook, he came to Barnstaple and spent some time in bringing out a pamphlet scurrilously attacking the chief justice who had sentenced to prison the publisher of the works of Thomas Paine. One of the poet's associates, who distributed the pamphlets, was sentenced to six months in jail, and Shelley narrowly escaped by hastily leaving the town.

The road from Bideford through Barnstaple and Ilfracombe is rather uninteresting, save the last few miles, which pass through wooded hills and along deep verdant valleys. Ilfracombe is a resort town, pure and simple, and we found few hotels on a grander scale than the Ilfracombe, standing in beautiful grounds facing the sea, which murmured almost directly beneath our open windows. It was a beautiful evening; the tide was just receding from the jutting rocks scattered along the coast, whereon the sea, even in its mildest moods, chafes into foam; and one can easily imagine a most awe-inspiring scene when the angry ocean, driven by a westerly wind, assails these bold, angular rocks. After having visited every resort town of note in England, our recollection is that of all, Ilfracombe is the most strikingly situated; nor do any of them command views of a coast line more rugged and picturesque.

The rain was falling heavily when we came to Dunster on the following day and the abbey church was gloomy indeed. And what can be gloomier than an old church on a gray day, when the rain pours from the low-hung clouds and sweeps in fitful gusts against the mossy gravestones and crumbling, ivy-clad walls? A scene that renders one solemn and thoughtful on almost any occasion becomes positively depressing under such conditions. And though we recall Dunster Church with associations not unpleasing in perspective, the surroundings were not altogether pleasing at the time. We found the caretaker, a bent old woman, in the church, but she informed us that there were really two churches and that she had jurisdiction over only one of them. However, she conducted us about the dimly lighted building, gloomy indeed from the lowering skies without, and our recollection of her story of the quarrel that resulted in the partition of the church has faded quite away. But we do remember the rood screen which has fourteen separate openings, no two wrought in the same pattern and altogether as marvelous a piece of black-oak carving as we saw in England.

Aside from the abbey church, there are other things of interest in Dunster, especially the market cross and the castle. The latter overlooks the town from a neighboring hill and is one of the lordliest fortresses in the West Country. The town lies in one of the loveliest vales in Somersetshire and is famed for its beautiful surroundings. This section of Somerset and Devon is rich in literary associations; at Nether Stowey we pass the square, uncomfortable-looking house, close to the roadside, where Coleridge lived for three years, beginning in 1797. Indeed, it was in the autumn of that year that he made the excursion with Wordsworth and Dorothy, during which the plan of the "Ancient Mariner" was conceived. A few months before, while in a lonely farmhouse between Porlock and Lynton, he had the dream which he started to record in "Kubla Khan." This poem he had composed in his dream, but while writing it down on awakening, a "person from Porlock" interrupted, and when the poet essayed to write, not only the words but the images of the vision had faded away, and the fragment of "Kubla Khan" remains like a shattered gem. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came a little later to Alfoxden House, standing in a pleasant park in the parish of Halford, and here the literary association between Coleridge and Wordsworth became intimate and the little volume of "Lyrical Ballads" was published jointly by them in 1798. Southey, while storm-stayed by "an unwelcome summer rain" at the Ship Inn in Porlock, wrote a sonnet in praise of the hills and glens. Hazlitt and Charles Lamb at times joined their friends here for pedestrian excursions among the hills. Nor can we forget Blackmore, whose "Lorna Doone" turned the eyes of the English-speaking world toward the Exmoor wastes. Shelley's escapade at Barnstaple we have already mentioned and the cottage he occupied at Lynton still stands. No doubt much of the weird beauty that pervades his work entered his soul amidst the glorious surroundings--the sea, the hills and the vales--of the West Country.

From Original Painting by A. J. Warne-Browne.]

A pause at Cleeve Abbey near at hand gave us perhaps a better idea of the life of monastic days than any other we visited--and we saw all the greater abbeys of Britain. In the majority of cases the abbey proper had been destroyed, but the church escaped, often through purchase by the citizens. At Cleeve the reverse has happened; the church has totally disappeared, but the abbey buildings are nearly intact. As a well-informed writer puts it:

"The whole life of the society can be lived over again with but little demands on the imagination. We can see the dormitories in which they slept, the refectory where they fed, the abbot's particular parlour and the room for accounts, the kitchen, and even the archway through which their bodies went out to the grave. The church suffered from despoilers more than any other part of the abbey, and great is the loss to architecture. Otherwise we get a community of the Middle Ages preserved in all its essential surroundings, the refectory being in particular a grand fifteenth-century hall." The ceiling of this great apartment is of the hammer-beam pattern, the beams richly carved, and, springing from oaken corbels, figures of angels with expanded wings.

It brings one near indeed to the spirit of monastic days--this gray old ruin, through which sweep the wind and rain and where under foot the grass grows lush and green as it grows only in England--the spirit which the Latin legend over the gatehouse so vividly expresses, quaintly rendered thus:

"Gate Open be
To honest folk as free."

And the gray-whiskered custodian, so rheumatic and feeble that his daughter, a husky peasant woman, guides visitors about the abbey, warmed up to us as we were about to leave and opened his heart about the ruin in which he dwelt and which he seemed to love. He told us its story in the broad West Country dialect and pointed out to us many things of curious interest that we otherwise should have overlooked.

The sky is clearing; the low sun flashes along the hill-crests and floods the Somerset landscape with ethereal beauty, which we drink in as we skim swiftly along the smooth, wet road. We catch a final gleam of the ocean at Weston-super-Mare and pass a long row of imposing hotels. Then we are away for Bristol, the Queen City of the West Country.

VI

ODD CORNERS OF THE WELSH BORDER

There are few English castles where the spirit of medievalism lingers as at Berkeley and few that have darker deeds recorded in their long annals of crime. It has had a strange fascination for me ever since I read its story in my boyhood days, and the verse of the poet Gray had given the castle a weird association in my mind:

"Mark the year and mark the night
When Severn shall echo with affright;
When shrieks of death through Berkeley's roofs shall ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king."

It was therefore a keen disappointment to learn on arriving in the quiet Gloucestershire town that it was not a day when the castle was open to visitors. However, we do not regret this so much in retrospect. The castle, grim, many-towered, ivy-clad, the very embodiment of the days of chivalry, still lingers in memory, with nothing to disenchant its mystery and romance. The old keeper at the imposing entrance was evidently sincere in his regret that the rule might not be suspended for our benefit--for indeed we had found such regulations not as the laws of the Medes and Persians, but there was no such good fortune here. "But do not fail," said he, "to view the castle from the meadows, for no finer sight will you find in England."

If there be finer views of other English castles--a mere matter of opinion, after all--there can hardly be a better viewpoint than the Berkeley Meadows. It is a wide expanse of lawnlike meadowland lying alongside the castle, which stretches out its battlemented and turreted length against a background of majestic trees; from these rises the square church-tower in stern outline against the bluest of English June skies. The scene indeed savors more of enchantment than reality, and the environment seems fitting to the historic pile where a king was done to death and which Shakespeare mentions more than once. The present owner is the twenty-seventh in direct descent from Robert Fitzhardinge, to whom the manor was originally granted and who built a large part of the present castle in the tenth century.

The view from the castle keep is described by one who has written much of its legends and history: "Northwards and southwards the broad Vale of Berkeley, rich with verdure of pasture and woodland, runs on into the far distance. To the east and southeast are the Cotswolds, rising abruptly here and there into bold, bare masses whose sides are clothed with beech woods, and anon retiring into lovely valleys which seem to invite the eye to range their recesses. On the west flows the broad estuary of the Severn, studded with many a white sail; beyond it are the dark wooded hills of the Forest of Dean, veiled by the smoke of its iron-works and collieries. Under the walls of the castle, on the north and west sides, the little town seems to nestle, as though seeking shelter and protection from the grim old fortress, which was probably its origin and has been its stay and support through so many generations."

Berkeley has another claim to distinction aside from its castle, for here is the cottage where lived Jenner, whose discovery of vaccination placed under control the scourge that devastated Europe until quite recent times. The famous physician is buried in the churchyard. The church is of imposing dimensions, with stained glass better than the average and elaborate tombs of the Lords of Berkeley Castle. The bell tower is detached, standing some distance from the main structure.

The highway from Bristol to Gloucester is one of the finest in the Kingdom, and we soon resumed our flight over it after the short detour to Berkeley. At the Bell Hotel in Gloucester we found mild excitement prevailing among the guests and servants, some of the latter standing about in brilliant liveries and powdered wigs. The manageress explained that the high sheriff and county judge were about to leave the hotel and that the gaudy attire we beheld disguised only the porter and head waiter, who had been fitted out in this manner to give due state to the occasion. During the delay in the departure of the distinguished guests we had the services of one of the gorgeous gentlemen at our luncheon. Finally the dignitaries descended the stair, the bedecked servants bowed them solemnly into a carriage, and the porter in all his glory rode away beside the driver. I dwell on this incident, trifling in itself, to illustrate the different status of such officials in England as compared with our own country. In America a dozen county judges and sheriffs might be at a hotel in a city the size of Gloucester without attracting much attention. In some respects the English way is preferable, since it invests the representatives of the law with a dignity quite lacking in the States. And in this connection we might notice that county judges in England receive salaries from three to five times as great as are paid to corresponding officials on our side, thus commanding a high average of legal talent for the bench.

The half-dozen miles between Gloucester and Tewkesbury are quickly done and we halt in front of a wide green, studded with gigantic trees, amidst which rises the huge bulk of a church almost as imposing as the cathedral that has barely faded from our view. But it lacks the gracefulness and perfect proportion of the Gloucester church and perhaps its most striking exterior feature is the arch over the western windows, so high and majestic as to remind one of Peterborough. The interior is mainly ponderous Norman--rows of heavy pillars flanking the long nave and supporting massive rounded arches. The windows, however, are the lighter and more graceful creations of the Decorated Period, though the glass is mostly modern. Among the tombs is that of Prince Edward, son of Henry VI., who was cruelly slain in the battle of Tewkesbury, so fatal to the Lancastrian cause. Here, too, lies the "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence," of Shakespeare; and Somerset, executed by his captors after the battle. The abbey was marked for destruction by Henry VIII., who was deterred from his purpose by a public subscription. Tewkesbury is rather decadent, and has many houses in brick and timber as yet quite unspoiled by modern improvement. It is pleasantly situated on the banks of the classic Avon near its junction with the Severn, and the many-arched stone bridge over the former river is unusually picturesque. Half a mile farther a second bridge crosses the Severn, which lies in broad, still reaches dotted with small craft of every description.

Over these bridges we hastened away toward Hereford, following a level though sinuous road. The old-world quaintness of Ledbury attracted our attention. Its rectangular timber market cross, supported on a colonnade of wooden pillars, is unusual indeed. And nowhere else did we find finer specimens of Elizabethan half-timbered houses, though some of them were rather tawdry in recent applications of black and white paint. Such houses have become quite the rage and some owners have gone so far as to paint black stripes on common brick to represent the timbers. However, no such travesty as this is necessary in Ledbury--the town is overflowing with the genuine article--genuine though disfigured in some cases by the bad taste of the man with the paint pot. Church Lane, leading from the main street up a gentle slope to the church, is bordered with splendid examples of Elizabethan houses, quite unaltered since they left the builders' hands. At the end of the lane one sees a graceful spire standing apart from the church, which is quite unique in design. It has four sharply pitched roofs running parallel, with odd little minarets between them. The interior has the newness of recent restoration and shows traces of different styles, from Norman to Perpendicular. Ledbury has an institute which commemorates its association with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who passed her girlhood near the town.

At Hereford we sought the cathedral, having missed the interior during a former visit. A small, bare-headed boy in a red sweater saw us pause before the close and marked us as his legitimate prey. "I'll take you into the Bishop's Palace," he said in such a matter-of-fact way that it disarmed our suspicions and we followed the youngster meekly enough, for with all our doing of cathedrals we had caught only glimpses of bishops' palaces, usually embowered in gardens and apparently quite inaccessible. We had no opportunity to question our small guide as he rapidly led us through the palace grounds, but when he unhesitatingly rang at the door, we insisted on an explanation and learned that the bishop and his family were in London. During their absence the palace was thrown open to the public and our small friend was doubtless improving the opportunity to put cathedral visitors under obligations to himself.

We were admitted and wandered about at will. It is a rambling old house and indicates that a bishop occupies about the same plane in his domestic appointments as a prosperous member of the nobility, among whom, in fact, he takes a high rank. The house was sumptuously furnished and had several great rooms with high decorated ceilings and windows that looked out on the pleasant grounds, bright with flowers and shrubbery. The study pleased us most, with its high bookshelves about the walls and tall mullioned bow windows which open almost directly on the Wye. It was easy to see why the English bishops nearly all complain that their salaries, though apparently large, are hardly adequate to the state they are expected to maintain; and why, as in the case of an American ambassador, a private fortune is often necessary to enable the recipient of such an honor to pay the legitimate expenses. Our picture will show, perhaps better than any description, the beauty of the river front of the palace, with the fine trees and cathedral tower in the background. We had only a moment to look about the cathedral, since the closing hour was nearly at hand. However, we missed little, for Hereford Cathedral has few historic associations and recent restoration gives it an almost new appearance. It is built of red sandstone, which gives the interior a rather warm tone, accentuated by highly-colored modern windows.

A pause for the night at Ludlow, where we arrived after a run of an hour or two through the rich pasture lands along the Welsh Border, gave us an opportunity of renewing our pleasant associations with that fine old town. But as we were to visit Ludlow thrice before the close of our pilgrimage, I shall leave our impressions and discoveries for later consideration.

The road from Ludlow to Bridgnorth is--or rather was--not a first-class one. Road conditions in Britain change so rapidly since the advent of the motor that one can scarcely speak of them in the present tense. As we found it, poorly surfaced, narrow and winding, it was not to be compared with the highway along the border. Bridgnorth is an ancient market town, famous for its cattle fair, which has been held yearly since 1226. The service at the Crown Inn, where we stopped for luncheon, was excellent, and the moderate charge proved Bridgnorth off the beaten tourist track, a special rate not yet being established for the infrequent motorists. It was market day and the town was crowded with country people. The ample market square was filled with booths, and goods of every description were offered for sale. A socialist orator--a common nuisance in England--was haranguing the people, who crowded the streets so closely that we could get through only with difficulty. That motors are not so common in Bridgnorth was apparent, and a crowd collected about the car in the hotel stableyard. The general expression was hostile, and many instances were related where "one of the things" had worked disaster with skittish horses.

We made our escape without entering into the discussion and dropped down the almost precipitous hill to the Severn bridge. The road is a charming one, with wooded hills rising sharply on one hand and the broad Severn lying far beneath on the other. At Shifnal a policeman, in response to our inquiry, directed us to the byway leading to the village of Tong, some three miles distant. Here, according to one well qualified to judge, is the "most interesting example of early Perpendicular architecture in Shropshire--a section famous for interesting churches." But it is better known through its association with Little Nell in "Old Curiosity Shop," and Dickens' description shows that the appearance of the church before its restoration was quite different from today:

"The church was old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls and round the porch. It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the cawing of the rooks, who had built their nests among the branches of some tall trees. It was a very aged, ghostly place. The church had been built many hundreds of years ago and once had a convent or monastery attached; for arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and fragments of blackened walls were yet standing." It is still old and gray, but no longer ghostly and ruinous. It was far from lonely, for a crowd of trippers was being shown about by the caretaker when we arrived.

The tombs of Tong Church, with their effigies and brasses, are remarkably perfect, and one of them must be very ancient, for it bears the figure of a crusader in chain mail. The images escaped destruction, it is said, because of the friendship of Cromwell for the Stanleys, who were adherents of the Parliament. In the church are buried several of the Vernons, whom the madcap Dorothy gave to eternal fame, for they had little else to rescue them from the oblivion that overwhelmed such a host of unremembered squires and knights. Dorothy's sister, Margaret, is buried with her husband, Sir Edward Stanley, who came into possession of Tong Castle through his wife. The church also has a remarkable library of black-letter books, some of them almost as old as the church itself, and a stupendous bell, weighing two tons, hangs in its tower.

The village well accords with the church--a quiet place half hidden by trees and shrubbery, while the ivy and blooming vines give a touch of color to the gray walls. The tiny gardens are brilliant with old-fashioned flowers and the air is laden with their sweetness. Amidst such surroundings are scattered the pleasant old timbered cottages, with thatched roofs and diamond-paned lattice windows. The original castle has disappeared and has been replaced by a large Georgian house--a Moorish-looking mansion with domed roofs and pinnacles, yet rather picturesque, despite the fact that it outrages good architectural taste. It is in ill accord with the unspoiled little village; for altogether, Tong, with its church and associations, is one of the most delightful nooks and thoroughly typical of rural England at its best.

There are other associations in the neighborhood of Tong that may attract anyone especially interested in curious bits of English history, for near at hand is Boscobel House and its Royal Oak. In my youthful days, I read in one of the old-fashioned Sunday school books--many of which were then imported from England and were written by orthodox royalists--the story of the miraculous escape of His Gracious Majesty Charles II. from the wicked rebels who sought to lay violent hands on the "Lord's Anointed." I looked on the honest country people of Boscobel as direct instruments of Providence in preserving the sacred life of the king, and fairly held my breath with fear and excitement when I read that the Puritan troopers rode beneath the very tree in which the monarch was concealed. Even when sadly disenchanted by the knowledge that if ever rascal escaped his due it was when Charles Stuart dodged his pursuers, the romance of the old story lingered and I always had a desire to see Boscobel House and the Royal Oak.

After leaving Tong we were only a few minutes in the shady lanes until we drew up in front of the ancient manor and found it a shrine for the English tripper, though the name of no American had been registered in its visitors' book. The house is quite unaltered and of itself would be worth a visit as an unusually good specimen of early English domestic architecture, for it dates from 1540. The walls are stuccoed between heavy oaken posts at the corners and beams at the line of the floors. The huge chimney, mullioned windows and other touches indicate that it was a gentleman's residence. Inside there are several fine rooms, with much oak carving and paneling, though in the dining-room, rather the best of all, the oak has been painted. There are a good many portraits and relics of the king, more or less authentic, which are shown with a proper degree of reverence. In the attic floor is the entrance to a small secret chamber reputed as one of the hiding-places of the king, though no doubt originally planned for a "priest hole," as the Puritans called such places of concealment.

The farm-wife who cared for the house, and who was glad to see visitors, had come to reverence the king as the saint that the old chronicles picture him and had a full stock of the traditions of the place. She pointed out the identical tree which sheltered his Sacred Majesty, though the prosaic and unimpressionable Baedeker declares that it vanished long ago--which we ventured to hint, only to be met with proper scorn. To impress us with the goodness and generosity of the king, she related that the pension he settled on his preservers and their heirs forever is still paid to the descendants of the Penderels by an assessment on the parish--characteristic indeed of Charles, who always rewarded services if he could do so at the expense of some one else. We purchased a quaint book at the house--a facsimile reprint of an account of the events at Boscobel, published after the Restoration and dedicated to the king. As a curious example of the depraved lickspittle attitude of his flatterers toward the person of the monarch--a spirit not altogether extinct today, for that matter--I give a few sentences from the author's dedication:

"I humbly beg your Majesties pardon, being conscious to myself of my utter incapacity to express, either your unparallel'd valour in the day of contending, or (which is a vertue far less usual for Kings) your strong and even mind in the time of your sufferings. From which sublime endowments of Your Most Heroick Majesty I derive these comforts to my self, That whoever undertakes to reach at your perfections, must fall short as well as I, though not so much. And now, on my bended knees, let me joyfully congratulate his restored Majesty, and humbly offer him this short and hearty wish, O KING, LIVE FOR EVER."

Bidding Boscobel Manor farewell, we pause for a hasty glance at the scant ruin of White Ladies, an old-time nunnery standing quite apart in a field near by; then we retrace our way to the main road leading through Tong to Newmarket and Market Drayton. The latter town should be of considerable interest to an Englishman, since here was the home of Robert Clive, who, according to a well-known historian, "will ever be remembered as the man who laid deeply the foundations of our Indian Empire and who at a time of national despondency restored the tarnished honor of British arms." Aside from this, there is little to interest the wayfarer save several fine Elizabethan houses and a mighty church that quite overshadows the town and country.

We are soon away for Shrewsbury, the ever charming county town of Shropshire, fleeting over as fine a road as ever tempted the winged wheels of a motor car. It is nearly deserted, straight, broad and level, and it is quite too late to fear the minions of the law--but this is not a record of miles per hour. Suffice it to say that very shortly we stop at the sign of the Raven in Old Salop.

One could never grow weary of the old town, and we saw another phase in its life and activity on a Saturday evening. The whole population seemed to have turned loose, and the brilliantly lighted main street was quite metropolitan. The quaint old fronts had a rather odd and out-of-place look in the glare of the electric light; the narrow, dimly lit side streets were more in accord with the spirit of the place. The shops were crowded and on the whole seemed surprisingly up to date and well stocked for a town of thirty thousand.

The Sunday following was as quiet as the evening before had been animated, and was as perfect as an English June day can be. In the afternoon we were off for a run, with scarcely any definite point in view, though a jaunt of an hour or two brought us in front of Lichfield Cathedral just as the afternoon service was beginning. We joined the rather diminutive body of worshippers who occupied but a small part of the great church. We were perhaps quite as intent on the interior--a very epic in warm red sandstone--as upon the dreary chant of the litany. A thorough restoration has been made recently and an air of newness prevails, but no one interested in cathedral architecture will miss Lichfield--in some respects the most harmonious and best proportioned of them all. We have seen the town before, but not the large square house before which we pause, for a moment, and which bears a bronze tablet to the memory of its one-time occupant, Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin.

Our route to Shrewsbury was over one of the Roman Watling streets, straight as an arrow's flight much of the way and often bordered by giant trees. Never did the English countryside appear more charming in all our wanderings through it. There was a continual succession of green fields, vast parks, clear streams and wooded hills, with an occasional retired village--for on our return we avoided Wolverhampton with its rough streets and trams--to lend variety to the rural beauty through which we passed until we again skirted the Severn and re-entered the town.

VII

A WEEK IN SOUTH WALES

We leave Shrewsbury by the Welsh bridge for a week among the rugged hills and valleys of Southern Wales, a country rich in relics of antiquity and romantic associations. We sweep along the fine highway to Welshpool and from thence, a little farther, to Montgomery, a decayed, out-of-the-way town in the hills. A fragment of its castle is perched high on the precipitous hill commanding the town and looking far over the vale of the serpentine Severn. The Severn, like the Wye, is the most sinuous of rivers, and there are few more inspiring prospects than its long shining folds winding through the verdant valley as seen from the castle walls. Montgomery, quiet and unheroic as it is today, has a stirring past. It took its name from Roger de Montgomerie, "Second in command in the army of his kinsman, William of Normandy," though the grim, almost inaccessible castle antedated his possession of the town. Fierce indeed was the strife between the Normans and the wild Welsh tribes, and the fair vale of the Severn was the scene of many a bloody conflict. The castle, though with varying owners and fortunes, continued a stronghold to the day of its surrender to the soldiers of the Commonwealth; after which nothing remained but blackened walls--another added to the long list of feudal fortresses "destroyed by Cromwell."

The road southward from Newtown leads through as wild a tract of country as we saw in Britain. Not the Scotch Highlands or the hills at the headwaters of the Welsh Wye equal it in loneliness and seeming remoteness. But it is more picturesque than the localities just named, for the hills are mostly wooded, and the shallow, sparkling river which we followed--though usually far above it--runs through a narrow valley diversified in spots with trees and bits of meadow land. For eight miles out of Newtown we encountered a continually rising grade, which brought us to a narrow upland road running along the hillsides, which drop in almost precipitous slopes to the river far below. The road twists along the edge of the hills, at times in almost circular curves, and too close to the sharp declivity at its side for one's ease of mind. At Llandrindod Wells we had passed the wildest part of the road and we noted with surprise the handsome houses and palatial hotels of a town we had scarcely heard of before, but which has recently become the queen of Welsh inland resorts. The declining sun shot his rays along the purple hilltops that encircle the place and the shadows were already long in the pine-clad valleys. It was growing late, but after a hurried consultation we decided against the pretentious hotels of Llandrindod Wells.

We dashed across the arched stone bridge over the Wye at Builth Wells and brought sharply up in front of the Lion Hotel, which, standing squarely across the way, seemed to bar farther progress, and we had little choice but to stop for the night. The Lion's accommodations are not elaborate by any means, but it was quite too late to go farther. Though Builth has mineral wells and a "pump house," a mile from the town, there is nothing of the resort hotel about the Lion; on the contrary, it is the plainest of old-country inns, apparently a haven for fishermen rather than health seekers. Its walls were covered with the antique hand-colored prints so characteristic of English inns; its mantels were loaded with queer pieces of bric-a-brac; tallow candles lighted the bedrooms. The electric push-button had not superseded the tasseled rope by the bedside, with which one jangles a bell hung on a coiled spring in the hallway. But it is spacious and has an air of old-world comfort about it--little modern except its motor garage.

After all, we were fortunate in our pause at Builth, for we beheld the most glorious of sunsets on the long reaches of the Wye as it enters the town from the west. The river dances down the valley in a series of broad, shallow rapids, resting itself here and there in a quiet lakelike pool. The sunset hues were subdued rather than brilliant; pink and salmon tints were reflected in the stream as we stood on the bridge and looked up the quiet valley, and these faded into hazy amethyst as the twilight advanced. It was a scene of quiet, pastoral beauty amidst surroundings that do not lack for legend and antiquity, and altogether left a pleasing recollection of an unattractive Welsh town which in itself has little of the picturesque.

We were away early in the morning following the Wye Valley road, with its vistas of hill and river, as far as Llyswen, where we crossed the hills to Brecon. Our stop here was short, as our route was to bring us again to this interesting old town in a few days. We did not often find a more delightful road than that down the Usk Valley to Crickhowell, Abergavenny and Caerleon. Its excellent surface and long sweeping grades might be a temptation to speed, but it is quite neutralized by the constant beauty of the scenery and interest of the country. On either hand are the low Welsh mountains, wooded to the very crest, and at times far below we caught the gleam of the river--though so shrunken as to scarcely deserve the name--leaping and flashing over its stone-strewn bed. Here and there a quiet village nestled unobtrusively by the roadside; at Crickhowell we found a larger but somnolent town whose huge church is crowded with memorials of the old Welsh warriors. Even larger and more impressive is the great Priory Church at Abergavenny, whose square battlemented tower one might think had been built to withstand the sieges of the devil, even as the Welsh castles were made almost impregnable against the attack of man. No quainter town did we pass than Usk; it must have been much the same when the Conqueror sent his legions to overawe the Welsh tribes, save that its castle, then no doubt a lordly fortress, is now a decayed ivy-mantled ruin. Its greater importance in years gone by is attested by its mighty priory church, ill in keeping with the hamlet that clusters about it today. According to tradition, two kings of England were born in Usk--Richard III. and Edward IV.--and Roman remains indicate an important station on the spot almost at the dawn of the Christian Era.

But what shall one say of Caerleon, farther down the valley, now practically a suburb of Newport, where dim legends still linger to the effect that it was once King Arthur's capital and that here was the castle

"From whose high towers they say
Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset,
And white sails flying o'er a yellow sea."

A prosaic historian, however, declares that in all likelihood the King Arthur legend sprang from Roman ruins which some hundreds of years ago existed in Caerleon in great magnificence. At any rate, modern Caerleon has no trace of the regal capital of the early king--a bald, unattractive town close upon the Usk, now broadened into a considerable stream, dull with the taint from the manufactories on its banks.

At Newport we are entering a different order of things, brought about by the great industrial development in South Wales due to the coal and iron mines and large shipping interests. In the last century the population of the town has grown from one to seventy thousand. The old order is indeed dead here. There is no effort to attract the tourist, and the castle, almost the sole relic of antiquity, is crumbling into unhindered ruin as it sits far above the drear expanse of mud left by the receding tide. We hasten through the town--we may see a hundred such at home--and seek from a friendly policeman the road to Caerphilly, a village off in the hills which we know has no new-world counterpart.

For ten miles from Newport we wend our way over a dusty, ill-kept byroad with sharp turns and steep grades, and before we come to the village we see from some distance the broken towers and battlements of Caerphilly Castle. We pass through the gateway in the straggling walls and the scene of desolation and massive ruin that lies before us is hardly paralleled in impressiveness among British castles, unless it be by Corfe in Dorset. A great round tower, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, with walls ten feet thick, split as by a thunder stroke, greets our eyes. Half of it is still standing, though leaning many feet from the vertical, and the other half lies in mighty fragments of masonry at its base. There had been four such towers, but only one is comparatively entire. The walls, though much shattered in places, still serve to give an idea of the vast extent of the ancient castle. The huge banqueting hall has been roofed and recalls in a rather pathetic way the rude magnificence of its feudal state.

But words quite fail to describe Caerphilly--such a maze of grim walls and towers, such a network of ruinous apartments, piled deep with debris, overawe and confuse one. Only the antiquarian may painfully decipher the plan of the castle and in imagination reconstruct it as it was when it stood a bulwark between warring nations. But to the ordinary beholder it will remain a mystery set in the midst of the barren hills, and he will hardly care to resolve the impressive pile into its original parts. It will seem an entity to him--it is hard to think it otherwise than it appears today. Its romance is deepened by the obscurity of its history--for the story of Caerphilly has many blanks and breaks. There is no record of when it was first begun and there is doubt as to when it was finally destroyed. Some say the ruin is the work of Cromwell, and it surely seems worthy of that master of the art of wrecking castles; others declare that it was abandoned at the time of the Commonwealth, having been destroyed by Shakespeare's "Wild irregular Glendower," in his endless conflicts with the English.

But after all, does it not savor even more of romance that mystery enshrouds the past of the stupendous structure whose scanty remnants encircle us? Why call upon prosaic history to dispel the charm that emanates from the gray ruin, half hidden by its mantle of ivy and dashed here and there with the purple valerian and yellow wall-flower? Such would be folly indeed as we sit on the soft green turf of the court and contemplate the fantastic outlines in the glow of the sunset; when all is silence save for the angry brawls of the rooks, which have entered into full possession--reincarnations, perhaps, of the erstwhile contentious owners.

But the spell of Caerphilly dissolves and a different world surrounds us as we enter the broad modern streets of Cardiff and pause before the American-looking Park Hotel. Cardiff as a village antedates the Conquest, but as a metropolis of two hundred thousand, it is quite recent. One hundred years ago it had a population of a thousand; in 1837, of ten thousand; and it is easy to see that the traces of antiquity in such a city must be few. Its future was assured when the first Marquis of Bute hazarded his entire fortune in the construction of the extensive docks from which shipments of coal and iron are now made. It was a lucky throw of the die for the nobleman, for today his grandson owns the greater part of Cardiff and is one of the wealthiest men in the Kingdom.

Cardiff Castle--forever associated with the dark fate of Prince Robert--has been replaced by a Moorish palace--or rather, an incongruous mixture in which the Moorish predominates. It is easy to gain admittance to this imposing palace, where art has been entirely unhampered by cost, and if garishness and incongruity sometimes prevail, interest is nevertheless continual. There is a fragment of the keep of the old castle in the grounds and Duke Robert's dungeon is incorporated into the new structure--a dark, vaultlike cavity in the walls where for thirty years the unfortunate prince, the direct heir to the throne of the Conqueror, was kept a close prisoner by his brother Henry. Legend has it that his eyes were put out because of an attempt to escape and that he died in the dungeon at the age of eighty years.

Cardiff's municipal buildings are a delight; white stone palaces standing in ample grounds with wide pleasant approaches--altogether models of what civic structures ought to be. Immense and busy as it is, there is little in Cardiff to detain one on such a pilgrimage as ours, and we were away before noon on the Swansea road.

Llandaff is but three miles from Cardiff, and we reached it by a short detour. Its cathedral, recently restored, is probably the most interesting of Welsh churches excepting St. David's. The site has been occupied by a church ever since the year 600, though the present structure dates from early Norman times. It fell into complete ruin after the time of the Commonwealth. One chronicler declares that "Cromwell's men turned the nave into an ale house, penned calves in the choir and fed pigs at the font," though they must have been rather unorthodox Puritans to countenance the ale house. No attempt was made to preserve the fine church from decay until about two hundred years later, and so deplorable was its condition that the task of restoration seemed a well-nigh impossible one. Still, after much difficulty, the work was happily carried out, and the twin towers--one a slender spire and its companion square-topped with Gothic finials--present a very unusual though not unpleasant effect. Inside there is a mixture of Norman and early English styles, and some beautiful Decorated work. There are three paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that arrest attention at once--done in that artist's best style long ere he was known to fame. The windows, though modern, are of unusual excellence, having been designed by Burne-Jones and other notable artists. Near by are the ruins of the bishop's palace, whose fortresslike walls tell of a time when the churchman and the warrior went hand in hand. Its destruction some six hundred years ago is attributed to Owen Glendwr, whose record for castle-smashing in Wales is second only to that of Cromwell. The village of Llandaff is still rural and pretty; it is quite clear of the skirts of Cardiff, being separated from the city by the River Taff. The old stone cross still stands in front of the palace and there is now little to remind one of the big modern city near at hand, which may one day absorb its ancient but diminutive neighbor.

The Swansea road looks well enough on the map, but our recollections of it are far from pleasing. Dusty and rough, and crowded with traffic and tram lines in many places, it wends through a cheerless and often uninteresting country. It passes frequent mining towns straggling along for considerable distances and there were many drunken men reeling on the streets. It was market day at Cowbridge and the village was filled with countrymen, many of whom treated our right to the road with supreme indifference. One fellow in a broad-brimmed slouch hat that made him look like an American cowboy, and who was carrying a black bottle that might hold a gallon, saluted us with owl-like gravity and brought the car to a sharp stop by standing directly in our way.

While getting rid of our would-be acquaintance, we cast about to find a place for luncheon and soon lighted on the sign of the Bear, the sole inn, according to Baedeker. It was some distance to the next town and we decided to patronize the Bear, though its outer appearance filled us with misgivings. But if its outward aspect inspired doubt, words fail in speaking of the inside. The handbook of the Royal Automobile Club in setting forth the delights of a tour in America pays its compliments to our rural Bonifaces in this wise: "The hotel accommodation in country districts is often very poor and dirty," all of which may be painfully true. But in competition for distinction in these particulars, the Bear would certainly not be distanced by any American rival. Perhaps the confusion and disarray was partly due to the market-day rush, but the grime and dirt that prevailed everywhere seemed as ancient as the ramshackle old house itself. The dining-room was a large apartment with many long tables of boards laid on trestles--an arrangement, no doubt, to accommodate the patronage of market day--and the remnants of the dinner were still heaped upon them in dire confusion. A glance at the meal placed before us and at the dirty hands of the waiting-girl was enough--we left the provender untouched and summarily departed from the table. With difficulty we got the attention of the barmaid, who also acted as cashier, settled our score, and sallied forth dinnerless upon the King's highway.

Threading our way carefully through the streets of Neath, several miles farther on, with little thought save to get away from the bad road and unpleasant surroundings, we caught a glimpse, down a side street, of an ivy-clad ruin of great extent. We followed the rough rubbish-covered lane that leads directly to the entrance gate of Neath Abbey, as it proved to be. There was no caretaker in charge, but two or three workmen were engaged in cleaning away the debris, which was several feet deep in many of the roofless apartments. Everything indicated that once the abbey had stood in the pleasantest of valleys on the bank of a clear, placid little river; but the coaling industry, which flings its pall over everything in Southern Wales, had played sad havoc with the sylvan retreat of the old Cistercian monks. Heaps of rubbish dotted the uncared-for green about the place. Coal trains rattled on the railroad near at hand. The spot where the abbey now stands so forlornly is the heart of the suburban slums of Neath, and so isolated and forgotten is it that few pilgrims come to view its melancholy beauty. For it is beautiful--does not our picture tell the story?--the mouldering walls hung with masses of ivy, the fine doorways, the great groups of mullioned windows and the high chimneys, green to the very tops, all combine to charm the beholder despite the unlovely surroundings. The workmen told us that the abbey belonged to Lord Somebody--we have quite forgotten--and that he was going to clean up the premises and make necessary repairs. The craze now so prevalent in Britain for preserving every ancient ruin had extended even to Neath Abbey and perchance its titled owner will beautify the surroundings and the fine ruin may yet become a shrine for pilgrims--that the motor-car will bring.

Swansea--Swansy, they call it--had always brought to my mind, I hardly know why, the idea of a seaside resort town; but never was preconceived notion more erroneous. If there is a blacker, uglier, more odoriferous town of the size in the Kingdom, I do not recollect where it is. Here are the greatest copper smelting works in the world and from these come the pungent, stifling odors that so unpleasantly pervade the city. Here, too, is the great steel plant of the Siemens Company and many allied industries. And yet there was a time when Swansea had at least the promise of a resort town before it, when the poet Landor declared that "Italy has a fine climate but that of Swansea is better; that it is the only spot in Britain where one may have warmth without wet." Then it had six hundred people, but now its population exceeds one hundred thousand. We had no desire to linger and rapidly climbed the long steep hill that leads to the highland road to Carmarthen. We soon left behind us the smoke and grime of the collieries and smelting-works, and the road over which we rapidly coursed took us through a rather pretty rural section, though the hills are numerous and steep.

It was late when we came into Carmarthen, a bare, drab-colored town, but withal rather more prosperous-looking than the average small town of South Wales. The thirty-two miles to Haverfordwest swept by too rapidly to permit us to see the country other than as a fleeting panorama. Just as the twilight faded into dark we came sharply into Haverfordwest and with grave misgivings halted at the Castle Hotel. Here we must stop, willy nilly, for there was nothing that promised better in many miles. But to apply the cautious Yorkshireman's expression to the Castle Hotel, "It might be worse," and we were willing to let the uncomfortable feather-beds and the dingy candle-lit rooms overlooking the stable yard, be atoned for by the excellent dinner that our landlady prepared at so late an hour.

We did not linger at Haverfordwest on the following morning, though perhaps the castle and the priory church might well have detained us. The castle, which crowns the terribly steep hill to which the town seems to cling somewhat precariously, has been reduced to a county jail--or gaol, as the English have it--and thus robbed of much of its romance. Still, it is an impressive old fortress, dominating the town with its huge bulk, and it has figured much in the annals of Pembrokeshire.

Haverfordwest has a history antedating the Conquest. It was undoubtedly a stopping-place for the troops of pilgrims who in early days journeyed to the sacred shrine of St. David's, the Ultima Thule of Southern Wales, sixteen miles to the west, following a tortuous road over many steep and barren hills. The railroad ends at Haverfordwest and no doubt the facilities for reaching St. David's a thousand years ago were quite as good as today, the daily mail cart and coach twice a week in season being the only regular means of transportation. No wonder in days when strenuous journeys to distant shrines were believed to be especially meritorious, two trips to St. David's were allowed to confer the spiritual benefit of a single pilgrimage to Rome itself.