and that it was over the mountains
not far from Llan Sanfraid. I asked whether it was not called Pont y
Meibion. He answered in the affirmative, and added that he had himself
been there, and had sat in Huw Morris's stone chair which was still to be
seen by the road's side. I told him that I hoped to visit the place in a
few days. He replied that I should be quite right in doing so, and that
no one should come to these parts without visiting Pont y Meibion, for
that Huw Morris was one of the columns of the Cumry.

"What a difference," said I to my wife, after we had departed, "between a
Welshman and an Englishman of the lower class. What would a Suffolk
miller's swain have said if I had repeated to him verses out of Beowulf
or even Chaucer, and had asked him about the residence of Skelton."

CHAPTER XX

Huw Morris--Immortal Elegy--The Valley of Ceiriog--Tangled
Wilderness--Perplexity--Chair of Huw Morris--The Walking Stick--Huw's
Descendant--Pont y Meibion.

Two days after the last adventure I set off, over the Berwyn, to visit
the birth-place of Huw Morris under the guidance of John Jones, who was
well acquainted with the spot.

Huw Morus or Morris, was born in the year 1622 on the banks of the
Ceiriog. His life was a long one, for he died at the age of eighty-four,
after living in six reigns. He was the second son of a farmer, and was
apprenticed to a tanner, with whom, however, he did not stay till the
expiration of the term of his apprenticeship, for not liking the tanning
art, he speedily returned to the house of his father, whom he assisted in
husbandry till death called the old man away. He then assisted his elder
brother, and on his elder brother's death, lived with his son. He did
not distinguish himself as a husbandman, and appears never to have been
fond of manual labour. At an early period, however, he applied himself
most assiduously to poetry, and before he had attained the age of thirty
was celebrated, throughout Wales, as the best poet of his time. When the
war broke out between Charles and his parliament, Huw espoused the part
of the king, not as soldier, for he appears to have liked fighting little
better than tanning or husbandry, but as a poet, and probably did the
king more service in that capacity than he would if he had raised him a
troop of horse, or a regiment of foot, for he wrote songs breathing
loyalty to Charles, and fraught with pungent satire against his foes,
which