Feeling indisposed either for writing or reading, I determined to
take a walk to Pentre y Dwr, a village in the north-west part of
the valley which I had not yet visited. I purposed going by a path
under the Eglwysig crags which I had heard led thither, and to
return by the monastery. I set out. The day was dull and gloomy.
Crossing the canal I pursued my course by romantic lanes till I
found myself under the crags. The rocky ridge here turns away to
the north, having previously run from the east to the west.
After proceeding nearly a mile amidst very beautiful scenery, I
came to a farm-yard where I saw several men engaged in repairing a
building. This farm-yard was in a very sequestered situation; a
hill overhung it on the west, half-way up whose side stood a farm-
house to which it probably pertained. On the north-west was a most
romantic hill covered with wood to the very top. A wild valley
led, I knew not whither, to the north between crags and the wood-
covered hill. Going up to a man of respectable appearance, who
seemed to be superintending the others, I asked him in English the
way to Pentre y Dwr. He replied that I must follow the path up the
hill towards the house, behind which I should find a road which
would lead me through the wood to Pentre Dwr. As he spoke very
good English, I asked him where he had learnt it.
"Chiefly in South Wales," said he, "where they speak less Welsh
than here."
I gathered from him that he lived in the house on the hill and was
a farmer. I asked him to what place the road up the valley to the
north led.
"We generally go by that road to Wrexham," he replied; "it is a
short but a wild road through the hills."
After a little discourse on the times, which he told me were not
quite so bad for farmers as they had been, I bade him farewell.
Mounting the hill I passed round the house, as the farmer had
directed me, and turned to the west along a path on the side of the
mountain. A deep valley was on my left, and on my right above me a
thick wood, principally of oak. About a mile further on the path
winded down a descent, at the bottom of which I saw a brook and a
number of cottages beyond it.
I passed over the brook by means of a long slab laid across, and
reached the cottages. I was now as I supposed in Pentre y Dwr, and
a pentre y dwr most truly it looked, for those Welsh words signify
in English the village of the water, and the brook here ran through
the village, in every room of which its pretty murmuring sound must
have been audible.
