for here had
occurred the first conflict, in which men had been wounded and prisoners
made. The advance of evening, with its halcyon attributes of all kinds,
had the effect of a lullaby on the mind, disturbed at every stage by
some hurrying dragoon, some eager gossiping group, or fresh "news" of
some farm "burned last night," or rumours of "martial law" being
actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales.

Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway, we were startled by
the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having remained to
present to us, on the higher ground, the semblance of a white cottage.
The old thatch, fallen in, and timber, were still smouldering visibly,
though the house was fired about one A.M. yesterday morning.

Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty persons
appeared, and a few rustic articles of furniture on the roadside. Where
was their owner? Dismounting, we entered this cottage, that had looked
all peaceful security so lately to our eyes. It had not been injured,
but was all dismantled and in confusion; and stretched on some low sort
of bench or seat, lay the murdered owner of that smoking ruin--the Hendy
toll-house. Her coffin had been already made, (the coffin-plate giving
her age, 75,) and stood leaning against the wall, but the body was
preserved just as it fell, for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a
British jury! Is there a British _man_, incapable of perjury, of
parricide, of bloody and blackest felony, _himself_, who will ever
forget, who will ever cease to spurn, spit upon in thought,
execrate in words, that degraded, wretched, most wicked knot of
murder-screeners--_the Hendy Gate jury?_)

There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find there food
for fancy. All was naked, ugly horror. An old rug just veiled the
corpse, which, being turned down, revealed the orifice, just by the
nipple, of a shot or slug wound, and her linen was stiff and saturated
with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the temple had caused
a torrent of blood, which remained glued over the whole cheek. The
retracted lips of this poor suffering creature, gave a dreadful grin to
the aged countenance, expressing the strong agony she must have endured,
no doubt from the filling up of the breast with those three pints of
blood found there by the surgeons. The details of this savage murder
have been too fully given in all the papers to need repeti