And waft thine honour over all the land, Now what a rare and sweet revenge were this! "Well may I pause. Too late the summons comes: the world no more Enticeth me with subtlety as when It taught my hand and heart and soul to seek Again that fearful chill! But in the night, what time the silent moon BEYOND GOWER'S LAND. A WET day at the sea-side is never a pleasant thing, especially when you happen to be at a place where there is neither a public room, a library, nor a gossiping friend; yet, in spite of these wants, rain will come, and to-day we have it in good earnest, a grey, lowering sky, mists like billows creeping across the "borrows" or bents," ," and a seething sea tossing its white mane, wreathed with dark weeds brought up from the deep water by last night's storm. It is an old and true saying that "it's an ill wind that blows nobody good." In the present case this wind, in blowing up the rain, gave me time to put some of my Welsh gatherings into a readable form, so, with my sketch-book before me, I sit down for a day's work. Pendine is one of the quietest little places upon the Welsh coast: those who have found it out, and like it well enough to return to, prefer its quiet to any philanthropical views toward the rest of mankind, and hold their tongue as to its advantages. It has hitherto escaped notice, and is just the kind of place to remain in this sort of twilight, as there are no resident influential gentry, no fishing trade, or indeed trade of any description; but now this is to be changed. A company are about to build an hotel, where good and cheap accommodation will supply a want long and often felt. The village of Pendine lies about midway along Carmarthen bay, ten miles from Tenby, and six from a railway station: thus escaping the tourist tide, it has remained in the hands of the country folks, and retained more of the original characteristic courtesy and friendliness, peculiarly Cymric, than any place I have met with. Pendine does not know itself in print; once I had occasion to mention it in writing of the famous earth-stopper and bard of Morvybachen, and once it is mentioned in Mason's "Tenby Guide," not, however, in any compliment to its own charms, but simply in connection with the "Green Bridge of Wales," which, being one of the sights appropriated by Tenby, necessitates a visit to the Inn at Pendine as a resting-place for the the horses. Few, however, of the fashionables of Tenby go as far as the "Green Bridge," and consequently to Pendine, a circumstance which, in my opinion, is not a little to its advantage, inasmuch as the true lover of Nature can here enjoy some of her most perfect handiwork without the apprehension of running against the crinolined divinities of a watering-place, or hearing modern young-lady slang profane caverns where old Neptune has been chanting his hymns for ages; of this I speak feelingly, as full many a scene have I felt utterly marred by an ill-timed comparison or remark. First impressions are always the most lasting, and carry with them a greater influence upon the memory in after days. My first impression of Pendine was favourable, and, I am happy to say, nothing has ever clouded it. I arrived here one October afternoon, just as the sun was dropping down behind Tenby, whose terraced cliffs, tower, and ruins stood out in strong relief against the western sky, all flooded as it was with warm blushing light. The hill-side near me, upon which stand several pretty cottages, was already buried in dark shades of night; but the beautiful beach, fringed with coarse bent grass, wore a pale golden hue, upon which the retreating tide was breaking in long rollers, every one of which was mirrored forth again in the wet sand. After a long look, I went back to my lodgings to attend to my home duties, and by the time our little ones were fed, bathed, and asleep, the full moon was sailing on her quiet way across the dark-blue sky, shedding her sweet bright smile earthwards, and lighting up the sea and shore with a calm radiance more like twilight than moonlight. To the south-west shone the Caldy light-house, throwing a long red line of reflection upon the sands and across the bay; taking this as a beacon, I walked on, until, turning, I found I had reached the shore beyond the high cliffs; the point hid the village, not a human habitation or sign of life was to be seen or heard, and verily I stood entranced and overpowered by the solemn grandeur of the scene. Before me lay the sands, sparkling as if strewn with diamonds, stretching away to the foot of the bold beetling cliffs, at the base of which lay great boulders, armoured with acorn shells. On one side the cliffs rose a solid perpendicular wall, several hundreds of feet high; on the other side they were broken in upon by numerous caverns of every fantastic shape imaginable; when I saw them their mysterious depths were filled with weird-like shadows, and it required but small effort of the imagination to convert the bleached, waterworn columns into those spectral forms known in all parts of Wales as "White Ladies." While the refrain of the distant tide went echoing through the dim recesses like spirit songs, as my ear became accustomed to the harmonious medley it began to distinguish the silvery bell-like note of a dripping well and the gush of a waterfall, and there was something so strangely sweet in the tone of the last that I could not but seek it out. Accordingly, after much scrambling and scratching upon the acorn shells, I discovered the secret to be a deep chasm, in which a stream of water gleamed in the moonbeams, as it poured down some forty feet from a rent in the dark rock. So enrapt was I that I ran a narrow chance of passing the night among the ghostly caves. The first warning I perceived of the rising tide was the rippling of the water round the rock upon which I was sitting, and the first wave just kissed the point as I hurried past. A couple of hours later, when I looked out of my bed-room window, the tide was fully up, breaking within twenty yards of me, and radiant with phosphorescent light. I sat watching the flashes until my eyes grew dim, and I was fain to seek my rest; but even then the musical rhythm of the waves filled my dreams! with scenes of other days. Madame de Staël says, "C'était le parfum que toujours portait Corinne ;" true as this is, sound has a still greater power, and an old melody, the into nation of some passing voice, or, as now, the throb of the restless ocean touches the key-note of memory, bringing back with startling vitality, voices, scenes, and joys that earth can never give us back. Up from the shadowy past, Come visions of joy and light; No place in the United Kingdom could be more completely adapted than Pendine by those natural advantages generally considered indispensable at a bathing place, and that, too, not only in summer, but likewise as a sheltered and healthy place of retreat from the east and north winds which afflict our land in spring. At present, accommodation is scanty; but land, labour, and material are cheap, and the sides of the hills and dells are filled with tempting sites for cottages. The first attraction of the place is the great extent of dry, hard, and clean sand left bare by every tide; these sands are nearly eight miles in length, and at the neap tides two or more in width, and are as deeply interesting to the conchologist as the pleasure-seeker; indeed, as a proof of what they do offer, I may say that the collection I have here made comprises almost every variety of shell found upon the South Coast, and a few rarely-seen specimens into the bargain. A semicircle of high grassy hills partially encloses the flat plain; the sea-board side of which is composed of sand-hills, upon which the bent grows, and gives occupation in making very elegant and useful kind of baskets; these "borrows," as they are called, are inhabited by hundreds of rabbits, whose gambols it is amusing to watch. Beyond the borrows and mouth of the Towey is Ferryside; then a flat shore, enlivened by the smoke of the coal and copper works at Kidwelly, Llanelly, and Pembray; then comes a long reach of sandy flat; then Gower's Land, terminating in the Worm's Head, which stands like a natural fortress at the mouth of the bay. West of Pendine the coast assumes a wild and grand character. Beyond the Beacon Hill is a pretty little harbour opening into Morvybachen Bay, and upon the other side of this basin the cliffs rise again, and, with the exception of a hill or so at Amroth, continue the same precipitous wall-like defence as far as Tenby Castle rock. Wales has long been famous among the artist fraternity, not only for the picturesque combinations of mountain, wood, and water there to be found in a comparatively small compass, but also for the exquisite variety of the atmospheric tinting; yet of all Wales commend me to Carmarthen Bay. Here every hour gives new life and beauty, and with all these changing shades there is a repose and influence of repose over all; that, harmonising with the purer and better feelings of the heart, brings with it a tranquillising effect I never experienced elsewhere. The sunrises and sunsets are absolutely splendid, and make one long to be a painter, though, after all, if happy enough to catch even a faint impression of the gorgeous colouring, how loud-mouthed the public is in crying it down as unnatural. I once stood beside a great painter while an amateur critic was condemning the bright colouring of a sunset picture; the painter listened calmly, and when the other had done gravely made reply, "Sir, I am not the Creator, only a humble copyist." The neighbourhood is rich in legendary lore, and the fame of the Pendine witches was long a source of trouble and anxiety among the coasting vessels, the hags taking a delight, as well as gaining a living, by exercising their spells upon such ships as came within their influence. I was told by old Cadwallader, a boatman at Tenby, that he remembered when a lad accompanying his father to the help of a bewitched vessel, the captain of which, being a stranger to these parts, knew nothing of the danger of hugging the land, and when he suddenly perceived that the ship was driving on shore the evil was done. In vain he shifted sail and tried to tack; the witches' wind tacked too, and strange voices and laughter came whistling through the shrouds as the sailors attempted to alter them. At last one of the crew cried out that they were bewitched, then, the others all fell upon their knees, and not a turn of work could the captain persuade them to do, so that the good ship drove right on shore. When they were in this predicament, with the wind rising and a storm brewing, the boat from Tenby put off to their assistance. "When," to use the words of my informant, "we see'd a big ship go on the sands we knowed what they were up to, my father being a very clever man, and understanding all about the witches. Well! when we gets to the land he didn't go to'ards the ship, but sets off to the auld witch's cottage, and rammed a darning needle threaded wi' blue worsted into her arm till the blood spurted, and when that come she gives a lood screech, and instantly there was as fair a wind as ever blowed, and the ship turned off quite jolly-like, so we got her into Tenby harbour, and that's as true as death, for I was an eye-witness." After this event, some counter-charm was brought to bear upon the witches, and, as Cadwallader assured me, they were "anchored with blue yarn," so that they could not do any mischief" out at sea." Wrecks are of rare occurrence here now, though in days gone by Pendine, like most of its neighbours on the Bristol Channel, bore an unholy reputation, the inhabitants living by wrecking and smuggling; and upon the Beacon rock stands a post where formerly a fire was lighted, while a horse with a lantern tied round his neck was taught to walk along the verge of the cliff, and many a good ship's crew left their bones to whiten beneath the waters of Carmarthen Bay. As a people, the Welsh are much given to superstition, and many are yet pointed out said to be endowed with the power of prophecy, or "second sight." One instance, which occurred not many years ago in the neighbourhood, is firmly believed in. A farmer and his friend had been enjoying a day's fishing in the Tav, an excellent trouting stream that runs past the old Abbey of Whitland. As the evening drew on, the sport grew slack, and at last the trout gave up taking at all, so the sportsmen put up their tackle, said "Good night," and departed on their several roads homeward. The farmer, however, liked a pipe, and was stopping with the intention of lighting his, when he became conscious of an indescribable sensation; the air seemed full of sound, and yet was perfectly silent. As he stood perplexed, not to say alarmed, strange noises began to issue from the ground, the hill trembled beneath his feet, his pipe dropped from his hand, and he was on the point of running away, when a long whistling shriek, accompanied by the sound of a thousand wheels, burst from the hill-side close beside him; a number of horses feeding close by pricked up their ears and galloped wildly down the hill, jumping right into the bed of the Tav, where they stood panting and frightened until the strange sound died away in the distance. The farmer did not stay to pick up his pipe, but hurried home brimful of the wonderful event, and under considerable apprehension that some terrible calamity was going to happen to him or his family. Some time afterwards the line for the South Wales Railway was surveyed and a tunnel at last completed, the mouth of which opened at the very spot from whence what was now explained as a spectral train had issued, and upon the opening day the farmer and a crowd of country folk were upon the spot to witness the effect, which certainly exactly answered the description given by him, even to the horses galloping into the Tav. A couple of old men now living at Pendine court. positively affirm that they saw a spirit train round Pendine the fairies still hold their crossing the plain; but as the bill to enable a A green pasture, near the upper company to open a line from Tenby to Nar- village, was pointed out to me as their favourberth has just passed, I fancy there is little ite rendezvous; and a few years back, it is chance of this prophecy being fulfilled, at least said, that as two farm servants were coming for many a year. home one midsummer night, one inadvertently stepped inside the mystic ring: she was immediately caught by invisible hands, vanishing from the sight of her wondering and frightened companion, who night after night came back, watching and hoping to catch a sight of the girl. This at last he did, upon the anniversary of the night wherein he lost her. There she was, whirling round in the fairy ring. Coming as near as he dared, he caught her by the hand, but instead of being glad to rest, she begged him to let her finish the dance, when the faithful swain replied with more energy than politeness : Visionary funerals, or, as they are called, corpse candles," are said to precede death; the lights assemble round the house, take their way to the church-yard, and sometimes go through the ceremony of au interment; they are also seen hovering over a place where a fatal accident will shortly occur. There seems no law as to the appearance, where, how, or to whom, of the "corpse candles;" the only thing I remarked was, that the power of seeing such things is generally claimed by the old families among the middle class, and that you always hear it was "my father or "my mother" to whom such or such a thing appeared. Fairies prevail everywhere, and the country folks' belief in these parts is, that the fairies are the souls of those who, when death came, were neither good enough for heaven or wicked enough for hell, and so passed into a fairy state, and were thus set to punish lying, stealing, and immorality of any kind. I am not learned in fairy history, and so cannot make a surmise as to the origin of this belief, which must have been imported, as the old Cymric faith of the metempsychosis taught by those poetical law-givers, the Druids, has a very different tendency, and far other fate, for the various degrees of sin and evil. Talking of this transition, I met lately with a curious anecdote of the old Spencer family. The Spencers were not popular, being a tyrannical, exacting race, taking what they pleased, and when they pleased; it mattered not whether the game were cattle, corn, or a pretty woman, if fair means failed, force was used, and their followers never returned empty-handed from their raids, so that Gaerffily bore a bad name, and it became a common saying, that if anything was missing it had gone to Gaerffily. The poet David ap Gwilyn has immortalised this in a couplet in one of his effusions; it is in the Cymric tongue, and runs thus :: Sure, indeed, then ye'ar danced a dommed deal too much; its twelve months since I lost ye!" -- In the same pasture another lad witnessed a fairy feast. Having been sent a message, and tarrying too long, the boy was afraid to go home, and so lay down under the hedge to sleep. Presently music began to thrill on the summer air; thousands of silver bells seemed tinkling close to him; and, while he was listening, a pale clear light shone over the field, which to his astonishment he perceived to be full of tiny little creatures, all clad in bright and glittering garments. Some were sitting in the blue bells, and some in the buttercups; some had wings, some long silver or gold wands; and as they moved about they all sang in a soft, sweet, low strain. Suddenly a band of them appeared, leading along a favourite red ox belonging to the lad's master; then, to his great horror, he watched them proceed to kill, roast, and eat the ox. The savoury smell thereupon getting the better of fear, the lad crept up near enough to purloin a bone, and lay watching until he fell asleep. When he awoke next morning the first thing he saw was the red ox, quietly grazing close beside him. The next was the bone, which was neither more nor less than a portion of a human leg. Completely perplexed, he rose to go home, but could hardly limp along, and was never able to walk straight again. About half a mile from Pendine, upon the promontory beyond Morvybachen, is a rocky platform, known as the Maiden's Bower, from the circumstance that one Sunday, during divine service, three diminutive people, clad in scarlet cloaks, entered the church. Before seating themselves they took off their cloaks, and hung them upon a sunbeam that glinted across the church. As soon as service was The farm-house in High Pendine, commonly called the Great House, is a fair specimen of the better class of Welsh farms, and has seen many a generation change around it. Here Cromwell made a visitation on his way to Ireland, compelled the men to serve in his army, and ransacked the larder of the good dame ; and a descendant of the family, Miss Rees, of Pendine, has in her possession a couple of glass drops, once the ornaments of a candelabrum, which were picked up from the spot where Cromwell's carriage stood, proving that the "Protector" had an eye to private business as well as public. These drops are heirlooms, of which the worthy old lady is not a little proud. Speaking of my friend, Miss Rees, I may mention, as a proof of the healthfulness of the place, that the united ages of her grandfather and mother and great-grandfather and mother, in all makes the sum of three hundred and forty years, being respectively as notified by the memorial stone in the church-three times eighty-four, and the last, eighty-eight. a Passing through the village, you arrive at the church, a plain and much neglected building of ancient date, looking sadly both time and tempest worn, and more, forgotten the churchyard being rank and overgrown, standing disgrace to those whose friends rest there; though, perhaps, even sadder to see than the docks and nettles, were the straggling untrimmed flowers, planted when grief was fresh and deep,-now, straggling, the all untended tokens of the versatility of human love. Generally speaking, the Welsh are partial to epitaphs, and exercise both ingenuity and wit in their composition, but here there are few quaint enough to interest the reader. Leaving the church and the village, and taking the Tenby road, you pass a curious old ruin, having all the appearance of strength in times long past; but all I could gather of its history amounted to the fact, that it had been the habitation of a once well-known character, one Zacherias Thomas, who left, among other things, a charitable bequest to the church of Eglys Cymmin, in the adjoining parish. The ruin, as it stands now, possesses an old arched door-way, in which I could trace the portcullis. On either side appear to have been rounded towers, loop-holed and immensely thick, proving that, though probably something less than a castle, it had been something more than a mere manor. About half a mile farther on is the "Green Bridge of Wales," famous in prophecy as the spot where the last battle in Wales is to be fought is to be, as no battle has yet taken place here. Merlin asserts, however, that such shall be, and that "a farmer with three thumbs shall hold the three kings' horses." In reference to this, I imagine, is the prophecy attached to a flat stone near, "that the white crow should here drink blood before the end of the world." The Green Bridge itself is curious and picturesque, being a deep arched chasm, into which a small rivulet pours, and, passing underground for nearly two miles, comes to light again close to Morvy bachen. The cavern formed by the passage of the water is very curious, and passable for a considerable distance. Hung with mighty stalactites, and as far as the light penetrates, wreathed with the pretty maidenhair fern. In an exploring expedition we made there lately, my brother picked up what had all the appearance of a petrified bone; and if our supposition is correct, and the prize is the bone of a mammoth, much that is interesting may yet be dug up from the subterranean bed of the river. The road to Tenby along the margin of the bay is one of the loveliest I have ever driven over, and deserves more time and space than I can here give, so I must continue my walk down the Dark Valley to Morvybachen, where immediately above the Bard's cottage are three altars. One is very perfect, the seven upright supports and flat covering stone being entire. No examination has taken place, but an exploring party is being planned. Upon the opposite side of the valley I distinctly traced the circle, with three large stones lying eastward, which exactly answer to the description given of the "Station Stones," so placed at the holding of the annual Gorsedd. This circle lies just to the left of some curiously-marked stones, called the Devil's Foot Marks, and these holes or prints when full of water are supposed to possess various healing powers. The higher eminence beyond them is known as the Beacon Rock, but more commonly among the inhabitants as "Break Lentsneck" Hill, it having been the custom for the country people to assemble here upon the last day of Lent, and, hurling large stones down into the sea, figuratively break "Lent's neck;" hence its ordinary name. The view from this height is truly grand and imposing, extending as it does over tho |