the sober black of their severe Puritan hosts.

Criccieth has a very long history. Legend states that from its rock there could once be surveyed a rich and lovely plain. But the prince of that lowland cantref, in a drunken fit, neglected to have the flood-gates closed at one night fall; and by the morning the waves had rushed in and covered the whole plain. A small remnant of a luxurious people, a few who had lost their all while fleeing for their lives before the in-rushing sea, stood on the Criccieth rock, uttering their cry of misery. And from that cry,-cri certh, a dismal cry, so the local antiquarians tell us, Criccieth had its name.

In the days of Welsh independence, in the stormy and critical times which followed the death of Llywelyn the Great, Criccieth was the place of imprisonment of Gruffydd ab Llywelyn and his son. His brother David, who had been recognized as his father's successor, had placed him there to keep him out of mischief.

Criccieth had one of the castles with which Edward the First girt the mountains of Eryri, the last home and the everlasting stronghold of Welsh independence. It became a small colony of English soldiers and burgesses, on what was then considered a bleak and inhospitable shore; and to it was entrusted a share in the oppressive government and superficial civilization of Wales. Of the circle of English towns and garrisons which surrounded Eryri,-Carnarvon, Newborough, Bangor, Beaumaris, Conway, Rhuddlan, Denbigh, Bala, Harlech, Criccieth, Pwllheli, Nevin, Criccieth soon lost its foreign character and became thoroughly Welsh. It retains a vestige of its old privilege, it still forms one of the tiniest of the Carnarvon Parliamentary boroughs. In the middle ages, Howel of the Battle Battle Axe, of Agincourt fame, was its constable at one time. There is still extant a description of the castle above the sea,-when tales were told and silk deftly embroidered and chess played on summer days in its courtyard, by Iolo of the Red Mantle.

Nowadays Criccieth, still a tiny village, is a holiday resort which is sure to attract the visitor summer after summer. It is

difficult to reach from a distance; the cheap tripper is is unknown, for the thousands of Liverpool and Birmingham cannot come to it and leave it in a day. The visitors to Criccieth are of two classes. English visitors come to stay their week or month, from the north across the Arvon peninsula, or from the south along the coast of Cardigan Bay. They find pleasant accommodation on either of the two terraces which flank the wind-swept ruins of the castle. The other class is made up of Festiniog quarrymen and Eifion farmers, who find congenial lodgings in the smaller and older houses on the north eastern side of the castle. These staid and grave folk discuss last Sunday's sermons, and try to catch a glimpse of Lloyd George, in whose speeches they are excellently versed.

Among the attractions of Criccieth are the breezy slopes which surround it, and the ever-varying and picturesque character of its shore. It is the most bracing of Welsh watering places, and the most quiet. It is always full, but it has the great advantage of the absence of the concert promoter, the negro minstrel, and the organ grinder. Here one can enjoy the distant murmur of the sea and the sigh of the summer mountain wind in peace; here one can walk for hours along the wavekissed terraces, inhaling ozone from brineladen breezes, and in the presence of incomparable sea and mountain scenery, without being jostled by a crowd of widemouthed idiots laughing at the imbecile jokes of a music-hall comic song.

The views from the castle and from the terraces are exceedingly beautiful. To the west there are pleasant paths along low cliffs, which are continually crumbling and falling into the sea. To the east rises Moel y Gest, and around it are walks without number, now leading along meadow rills, from which rises the creamy white beauty of the fragrant queen of the meadow; now winding through copses of hazel and birch, then emerging into an open space commanding a glorious view of an expanse of mountains and sea; now striking across a stretch of heather and gorse, in all their glory of purple and gold, or across green closely nibbled fields, with the stag's horn or lady strew bed scattered

in their lowly beauty over them. Now and then we come across a solitary church, like Ynys Cynhaiarn on the low lands or Treflys high up on the hill. Ynys Cynhaiarn contains the grave of David of the White Rock, the composer of the air which bears his name and of other airs, some of them among the most popular of Welsh airs. Tradition says that, when the dying bard's fingers fell from the strings of the harp, the strings went on playing of themselves, and "David of the White Rock" was the air they played.

What strikes the visitor to Criccieth most, probably, is the range of mountains that stretches from Snowdon in the north to the extreme western point of Wales in Dewisland in the south. With the bay between us and them, they are never the same. Sometimes they are in dark threatening masses, at other times a veil of cloud and mist gives them a mysterious and ghostly appearance, and often, when

the west wind blows faintly, they are a long line of lovely blue or a series of shining golden summits. Harlech castle rises darkly, like a bird of ill omen, between us and the peaceful mountains of the "Bard of Sleep." Barmouth lies further south, Aberystwyth can be seen, and the distant headland of St. David's is faintly seen, resting peacefully in the sea.

There is excellent accommodation at Criccieth; and the rooms on the terraces, which overlook the sea and are within a few feet of it when the tide is in, are much sought after. Furnished houses can be taken, or any number of rooms. In the height of the season sets of rooms let at from one to five pounds a week, but after August they are cheaper. The Criccieth people have a good name as hosts; they are rigidly honest, they are civil without being servile, and they see their guests returning year after year.

brothers living; the youngest three years older than herself. All the brothers were married; and their dwellings encircled the paternal mansion; whose roof-trees were honoured in the estimation of children and grandchildren and retainers that thronged the family hive.

Solicitude about her family engrossed Flur as she continued rapidly pacing backward and forward. Exercise in the cold Exercise in the cold east wind seemed to quicken the action of her mind, as well as to promote a faster arterial flow; and meditation bred misgiving. Each time she turned to face up the river in the direction of the darkly frowning hill-line, interior concern grew; and more than once she paused, with eyes directed to the distant summits, as though she would divine the happenings beyond.

She had cause for anxiety.

Yester-morn had seen the emblem of war, a bent bow in the hand of a herald, borne through the district; a sign which had been awaited with no little impatience since the secret meeting of Gwentians held during the harvesting in the previous autumn; when Owen Glendower's chief bard, Griffith, attended a cymorth held in the neighbourhood, the cymorth ostensibly convened to assist a certain poor yeoman in the ingathering of his corn. These cymorthau, or assemblies of Welsh people, were forbidden by statute of Henry IV.; and as a minstrel was one of the persons specially mentioned in the statute,-which termed him "vagabond," who should not presume to gather together any number of natives, Griffith's sojourn in the country-side was surreptitious; and his soul-rousing ballads were sung secretly to eager listeners without any authority from a lord marcher or his representative varlet.

Griffith and his harp had done much to heighten the spirit of patriotism. Since the bard's departure, suppressed feelings had deepened; and the sight of the longexpected sign was as a torch to flax. Men's faces flushed, their eyes blazed; patriotic ardour took them without themselves and made them giants in resolution, Titans to endeavour. Their women girded them to war and urged them on,-albeit with tears and prolonged partings. Chains of love, whether of wife or mother, children

or sweetheart, were severed, though tenderly, to permit of the husband's, the son's, the father's, or the lover's attendance under the banner of Owen Glendower,-that prince, that saviour of a nation, whose advent had been foretold by the sage Merlin; and who was to remove the galling yoke of dependence from about the necks of a people oppressed, crushed, by unthinking, unmindful, unsympathetic English with English-made laws, and tyrannised over by ambitious lords marchers.

For years the struggle for freedom had progressed, though with favour to the English arms. Yet the Welsh fought on in the face of misfortune; and the best blood in the land dyed many a hardly contested field.

Now that the tide of battle had reached the Gwentland, natives felt that their time of action had arrived, and forthwith they flocked around the standard of their prince; nor heeded the tales of his many worstings in northern parts, neither allowed themselves to catch the nervous infection which of late had disheartened supporters of the cause elsewhere in Wales.

Flur had bidden her brothers "Godspeed" when they departed on their mission the previous evening. With them went all the able-bodied men in the district,-roughharnessed, ill-armed, unkempt warriors; but every one a patriot, and a host in himself. The party would join a large main body of Gwentians who were to assemble in the thick woods below the town of Usk.

Only the greybeards, the women, and young children, were left in the huts surrounding Meredith ap Owen's mansion. The regulus was an old man,-of sixty and odd years;-yet as he gripped the hand of each departing son he seemed to catch the magnetism of their health and manly vigour, and to feel the pulsation of their warlike spirit thrill through his age-wasted frame, till softened tissues and muscles renewed and braced into something of former power; he felt relieved of the weight of years. Then it was that the pride of sire straightened his bent form; he upreared among them all with nobler aspect and gleaming eyes; while a fuller note enriched his voice when he spoke,—