The river was rushing and surging, the
pot was boiling and roaring, and everything looked wild and savage;
but the locality, for awfulness and mysterious gloom, could not
compare with that on the east side of the Devil's Bridge, nor for
sublimity and grandeur with that on the west.
"Here you see, sir," said the man, "the Bridge of the Offeiriad,
called so, it is said, because the popes used to pass over it in
the old time; and here you have the Rheidol, which, though not so
smooth nor so well off for banks as the Hafren and the Gwy, gets to
the sea before either of them, and, as the pennill says, is quite
as much entitled to honour:-
"'Hafren a Wy yn hyfryd eu wedd
A Rheidol vawr ei anrhydedd.'
Good rhyme, sir, that. I wish you would put it into Saesneg."
"I am afraid I shall make a poor hand of it," said I; "however, I
will do my best:-
"'Oh pleasantly do glide along the Severn and the Wye;
But Rheidol's rough, and yet he's held by all in honour high.'
"Very good rhyme that, sir! though not so good as the pennill
Cymraeg. Ha, I do see that you know the two languages and are one
poet. And now, sir, I must leave you, and go to the hills to my
sheep, who I am afraid will be suffering in this dreadful weather.
However, before I go, I should wish to see you safe over the
bridge."
I shook him by the hand, and retracing my steps over the bridge,
began clambering up the bank on my knees.
"You will spoil your trousers, sir!" cried the man from the other
side.
"I don't care if I do," said I, "provided I save my legs, which are
in some danger in this place, as well as my neck, which is of less
consequence."
I hurried back amidst rain and wind to my friendly hospice, where,
after drying my wet clothes as well as I could, I made an excellent
dinner on fowl and bacon. Dinner over, I took up a newspaper which
was brought me, and read an article about the Russian war, which
did not seem to be going on much to the advantage of the allies.
Soon flinging the paper aside, I stuck my feet on the stove, one on
each side of the turf fire, and listened to the noises without.
The bellowing of the wind down the mountain passes and the roaring
of the Rheidol fall at the north side of the valley, and the
rushing of the five cascades of the river Mynach, were truly awful.
