lsh the passages which interested him most. He was,
like many of the inhabitants of the South Wales coast, a descendant of
the Flemings, who had long ago settled there, and who have left such
strong and enduring marks of their presence.

Their language has long given place to a sort of doggerel English, but
they have never learned to speak the language of the country except in
some of the straggling border villages.

Pembrokeshire, in particular, retains a complete separateness, so to
speak, from the rest of the country, and is often called "Little
England beyond Wales." Thus it was that the English language seemed
always more natural to Meurig Wynne than the Welsh. His sermons were
always thought out in that language, and then translated into the
vernacular, and this, perhaps, accounted in some degree for their
stiffness and want of living interest. His descent from the Flemings
had the disadvantage of drawing a line of distinction between him and
his parishioners, and thus added to his unpopularity. In spite of
this, Cardo was an immense favourite, his frank and genial
manner--inherited from his mother, who was thoroughly Welsh--making its
way easily to the warm Welsh hearts. There was a deep well of
tenderness, almost of pity, within him for his cold stern father, a
longing to break through his reserve, a hankering after the loving ways
of home life, which he missed though he had never known them. The cold
Fleming had very little part in Cardo's nature, and, with his
enthusiastic Welsh sympathies, he was wont to regret and disclaim his
connection with these ancient ancestors. His father's pedigree,
however, made it very plain that the Gwynnes of Brynderyn were
descended from Gwayn, a Flemish wool merchant who had settled there in
the reign of Henry I.--these settlers being protected and encouraged by
the English king, who found their peaceable, industrious habits a great
contrast to the turbulence and restlessness of the Welsh under their
foreign yoke. Time has done but little to soften the difference
between the Welsh and Flemish characters; they have never really
amalgamated, and to this day the descendants of the Flemings remain a
separate people in language, disposition, and appearance. In
Pembrokeshire, Gower, and Radnorshire, we find them still flourishing,
and for some distance along the coast northwards from Pembrokeshire
there are still families, and even whole hamlets, descended from them,
exhib