of the day I spent entirely with my family, whom at their
particular request I took in the evening to see Plas Newydd, once the
villa of the two ladies of Llangollen. It lies on the farther side of
the bridge, at a little distance from the back part of the church. There
is a thoroughfare through the grounds, which are not extensive. Plas
Newydd or the New Place is a small gloomy mansion, with a curious dairy
on the right-hand side, as you go up to it, and a remarkable stone pump.
An old man whom we met in the grounds, and with whom I entered into
conversation, said that he remembered the building of the house, and that
the place where it now stands was called before its erection Pen y maes,
or the head of the field.

CHAPTER XI

Welsh Farm-House--A Poet's Grandson--Hospitality--Mountain
Village--Madoc--The Native Valley--Corpse Candles--The Midnight Call.

My curiosity having been rather excited with respect to the country
beyond the Berwyn, by what my friend, the intelligent flannel-worker, had
told me about it, I determined to go and see it. Accordingly on Friday
morning I set out. Having passed by Pengwern Hall I turned up a lane in
the direction of the south, with a brook on the right running amongst
hazels, I presently arrived at a small farm-house standing on the left
with a little yard before it. Seeing a woman at the door I asked her in
English if the road in which I was would take me across the mountain--she
said it would, and forthwith cried to a man working in a field who left
his work and came towards us. "That is my husband," said she; "he has
more English than I."

The man came up and addressed me in very good English: he had a brisk,
intelligent look, and was about sixty. I repeated the question, which I
had put to his wife, and he also said that by following the road I could
get across the mountain. We soon got into conversation. He told me that
the little farm in which he lived belonged to the person who had bought
Pengwern Hall. He said that he was a good kind of gentleman, but did not
like the Welsh. I asked him, if the gentleman in question did not like
the Welsh, why he came to live among them. He smiled, and I then said
that I liked the Welsh very much, and was particularly fond of their
language. He asked me whether I could read Welsh, and on my telling him
I could, he said that if I would walk in he would show me a Welsh book.
I went with him and his wife into a neat kin