MUCH rain fell about the middle of the month; in the intervals of
the showers I occasionally walked by the banks of the river which
speedily became much swollen; it was quite terrible both to the
sight and ear near the "Robber's Leap;" there were breakers above
the higher stones at least five feet high and a roar around almost
sufficient "to scare a hundred men." The pool of Lingo was
strangely altered; it was no longer the quiet pool which it was in
summer, verifying the words of the old Welsh poet that the deepest
pool of the river is always the stillest in the summer and of the
softest sound, but a howling turbid gulf, in which branches of
trees, dead animals and rubbish were whirling about in the wildest
confusion. The nights were generally less rainy than the days, and
sometimes by the pallid glimmer of the moon I would take a stroll
along some favourite path or road. One night as I was wandering
slowly along the path leading through the groves of Pen y Coed I
was startled by an unearthly cry - it was the shout of the dylluan
or owl, as it flitted over the tops of the trees on its nocturnal
business.
Oh, that cry of the dylluan! what a strange wild cry it is; how
unlike any other sound in nature! a cry which no combination of
letters can give the slightest idea of. What resemblance does
Shakespear's to-whit-to-whoo bear to the cry of the owl?
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