After groping about for some time, in vain endeavour to obtain a satisfactory view, we at last secure a sketch of Benton Castle; and then, recrossing the water, make the best of our way back again to Lawrenny.
Inns, good, bad or indifferent, appear to be an 'unknown quantity' in this highly-respectable village; but an enterprising grocer rises to the occasion, and plays the rôle of Boniface as one to the manner born.
Upon resuming our peregrinations, we set our course for Landshipping Ferry; while the gathering clouds, brooding over the darkening landscape, warn us to make ready against the 'useful trouble of the rain.' With a sudden swirl the gale descends upon us, sweeping through the straining tree-tops, and lashing up the waters of the creek into the semblance of a miniature Maelström.
Scudding for shelter to a rustic alehouse, we soon make ourselves at home in the deep, oaken settle beside the chimney-corner; discussing the day's adventures over a mug of home-brewed ale, while the fumes of the 'noxious weed' float upwards to the ripening flitches, that hang from the smoke-begrimed rafters overhead.
Half an hour later finds us once more underway, with the sunshine blinking out again through the tail of the retreating storm, and the raindrops glistening like diamonds on every bush and hedgerow:
'Sweet is sunshine through the rain,
All the moist leaves laugh amain;
Birds sing in the wood and lane
To see the storm go by, O!
'Overhead the lift grows blue,
Hill and valley smile anew;
Rainbows fill each drop of dew,
And a rainbow spans the sky, O!'
Running us ashore near some cottages, at a picturesque nook of the Haven, the ferryman now puts us in the way for Picton; which is reached after a brisk twenty minutes' tramp through the leafy glades of a deep, sequestered dingle.
PICTON CASTLE.