as one of the besiegers, watching his opportunity, swam
across the Wye with a knife in his teeth and cut the boat adrift. Then
the castle was assaulted and taken, and the commander and most of the
garrison slain. Parliament gave it to Cromwell, but after the
Restoration it was returned to the heirs of the Marquis of Worcester,
its owner, and it still belongs to his descendant, the Duke of Beaufort.
The neighborhood of Chepstow has many pleasant villas in beautiful
sites, and the broadening Wye flows a short distance beyond through the
meadow-land, and then debouches into the estuary of the Severn.

THE GOLDEN VALLEY.

[Illustration: PONTRILAS COURT.]

[Illustration: THE SCYRRID VAWR.]

Still journeying westward beyond the beautiful valley of the Wye, we
will ascend its tributary, the Monnow, to its sources in the Black
Mountains on the borders of Wales. We skirted along the northern side of
these mountains with the Wye, while the Monnow takes us fairly into
them. The little river Dore is one of the head-waters of the Monnow, and
it flows through the picturesque region known as the Golden Valley, just
on the edge of Brecon, where the trout-fishing is as attractive as the
scenery. All its streams rise upon the flanks of the Black Mountains,
and the village of Pontrilas is its railway-station at the entrance to
the valley. This village is devoted to the manufacture of naphtha, for
which purpose mules bring wood from the neighboring forests, and it was
once honored with the presence of a hotel. This was its principal
mansion, Pontrilas Court, but it has long since been converted into a
private residence. This court is a characteristic Elizabethan mansion,
standing in a beautiful garden almost smothered in foliage and running
vines. About a mile up the valley is the pretty village of Ewias Harold,
with its church on one sloping bank of the little river and its castle
on the other. Within the church alongside the chancel there is a
recumbent female figure holding a casket in its hands. The tomb upon
which it is placed was some time ago opened, but nothing was found
within excepting a case containing a human heart. The monument probably
commemorates an unknown benefactress whose corpse lies elsewhere, but
who ordered her heart sent to the spot she loved best. The castle,
standing on an eminence, was once a strong fortress, and tradition says
it was built by Harold before he was king, but it does not occupy a
prominent pl