I walked fast, but the lad was a shrewd walker, and though
encumbered with his greatcoat contrived to keep tolerably up with
me. The road went over hill and dale, but upon the whole more
upward than downward. After proceeding about an hour and a half we
left the lake, to the southern extremity of which we had nearly
come, somewhat behind, and bore away to the south-east, gradually
ascending. At length the lad, pointing to a small farm-house on
the side of a hill, told me he was bound thither, and presently
bidding me farewell, turned aside up a footpath which led towards
it.
About a minute afterwards a small delicate furred creature with a
white mark round its neck and with a little tail trailing on the
ground ran swiftly across the road. It was a weasel or something
of that genus; on observing it I was glad that the lad and the dog
were gone, as between them they would probably have killed it. I
hate to see poor wild animals persecuted and murdered, lose my
appetite for dinner at hearing the screams of a hare pursued by
greyhounds, and am silly enough to feel disgust and horror at the
squeals of a rat in the fangs of a terrier, which one of the
sporting tribe once told me were the sweetest sounds in "natur."
I crossed a bridge over a deep gulley which discharged its waters
into a river in a valley on the right. Arran rose in great majesty
on the farther side of this vale, its head partly shrouded in mist.
The day now became considerably overcast. I wandered on over much
rough ground till I came to a collection of houses at the bottom of
a pass leading up a steep mountain. Seeing the door of one of the
houses open I peeped in, and a woman who was sitting knitting in
the interior rose and came out to me. I asked the name of the
place. The name which she told me sounded something like Ty Capel
Saer - the House of the Chapel of the Carpenter. I inquired the
name of the river in the valley. Cynllwyd, hoary-headed, she
seemed to say; but here, as well as with respect to her first
answer, I speak under correction, for her Welsh was what my old
friends, the Spaniards, would call muy cerrado, that is, close or
indistinct. She asked me if I was going up the bwlch. I told her
I was.
"Rather you than I," said she, looking up to the heavens, which had
assumed a very dismal, not to say awful, appearance.
Presently I began to ascend the pass or bwlch, a green hill on my
right intercepting the view of Arran, another very lofty hill on my
left with wood towards the summit. Coming to a little cottage
which stood on the left I went to the door and knocked.
