“Let us take the road.”
Here the trumpet of my companion began to sound; but I thought it would be advisable for him to rise before he became too stiff to resume his walk; therefore, with “yoicks! yoicks!” I startled the heavy god from his eyelids, and informed him of our unfortunate situation.
“It matters but little,” said he; “there is sufficient upon the road to interest us, and perhaps the twilight of such an evening as this is preferable to the morning.”
Having discussed our punch and lighted our cigars, we quitted the comfortable little cottage, and bent our steps towards the aqueduct, intending to cross by it to the opposite side of the vale.
A cigar in the cool of the evening is delightful.
“Glorious tobacco, that from east to west
Cheers the tar’s labour, and the Turk-man’s rest.”
So sang the Noble Bard, the music of whose lyre is left to charm the race of mankind for ages yet to come.
We soon reached the centre of the aqueduct; it extends from mountain to mountain in length 980 feet; it is sustained by twenty piers, 116 feet in height from the bed of the river Dee, and the span of the arches is forty-five feet.
“Do you observe yon house?” inquired my companion, with a grave air, pointing to a building which seemed to have belonged to some opulent person in times gone by, although it was now in a state of decay. Having replied in the affirmative, he proceeded:—“In that house lived a creature who was called ‘the Pride of the Valley.’ She was the daughter of a rich merchant of Bristol, and was beloved by a poor but honest and well-educated youth, who was, and has been since, a wanderer from his birth. Her christian name was Eveleen; no matter for her father’s. The following verses were written upon her untimely fate:
“In the days of my boyhood, when pleasures pass’d by,
Like the fragrance of flowers on morning’s first sigh,
In the vale of Llangollen there dwelt a fair rose
More lovely than daybreak, and sweet as its close.
Her step was light
As fays by night:
More thrilling her voice than the streamlet that flows
And mild as the moonlight and blue as the sky
Was the beam and the colour of Eveleen’s eye.“But Eveleen’s friends were of wealthy degree,
And tyranny forced her to cross the wide sea.
She faded, alas! as she drooped o’er the wave,
And died! but no blossom was strewed on her grave.
The waters deep,
Roll o’er her sleep,
And sea-stars now light up her billowy cave;
The winds moan above her, and Peris deplore
Round the rose of Llangollen, which charms us no more.”