getting up she said, "I
must go and see after my husband."

"Won't you take a glass of ale first?" said I, offering to fill a glass
which stood on the table.

"No," said she; "I am the worst in the world for a glass of ale;" and
without saying anything more she departed.

"I wonder whether your husband is anything like you with respect to a
glass of ale," said I to myself; then finishing my ale I got up and left
the house, which when I departed appeared to be entirely deserted.

It was now quite night, and it would have been pitchy-dark but for the
glare of forges. There was an immense glare to the south-west, which I
conceived proceeded from those of Cefn Mawr. It lighted up the
south-western sky; then there were two other glares nearer to me,
seemingly divided by a lump of something, perhaps a grove of trees.

Walking very fast I soon overtook a man. I knew him at once by his
staggering gait.

"Ah, landlord!" said I; "whither bound?"

"To Rhiwabon," said he, huskily, "for a pint."

"Is the ale so good at Rhiwabon," said I, "that you leave home for it?"

"No," said he, rather shortly, "there's not a glass of good ale in
Rhiwabon."

"Then why do you go thither?" said I.

"Because a pint of bad liquor abroad is better than a quart of good at
home," said the landlord, reeling against the hedge.

"There are many in a higher station than you who act upon that
principle," thought I to myself as I passed on.

I soon reached Rhiwabon. There was a prodigious noise in the
public-houses as I passed through it. "Colliers carousing," said I.
"Well, I shall not go amongst them to preach temperance, though perhaps
in strict duty I ought." At the end of the town, instead of taking the
road on the left side of the church, I took that on the right. It was
not till I had proceeded nearly a mile that I began to be apprehensive
that I had mistaken the way. Hearing some people coming towards me on
the road I waited till they came up; they proved to be a man and a woman.
On my inquiring whether I was right for Llangollen, the former told me
that I was not, and in order to get there it was necessary that I should
return to Rhiwabon. I instantly turned round. About half-way back I met
a man who asked me in English where I was hurrying to. I said to
Rhiwabon, in order to get to Llangollen. "Well, then," said he, "you
need not return to Rhiwabon--yonder is a short cut across the fields,"
and he pointed to a gate. I