Verily, these misty days in Britain often hide visions of beauty from one’s eager eyes. We will ask little of the story of Harlech, but it is a stirring one. It saw strenuous times as a stronghold of Owen Glendwr, who captured it in 1404 and held it against the forces of Henry IV., who re-took the castle four years later, driving the Welsh prince into the mountains. Here came Margaret, the queen of the Sixth Henry, during the war of the Roses, and the castle yielded, only after a long siege, to the onslaught of the adherents of the House of York. Indeed, Harlech was the last fortress in England to hold out for the Lancastrian cause. But far more memorable than the siege are the wild swinging cadences of the “March of the Men of Harlech,” to which the conflict gave birth. During the civil war, the castle was the last in Wales to hold out for King Charles, and its story closes with its surrender to the army of the Commonwealth in 1647.
The rain ceases shortly after we leave Harlech, and the air becomes clear, though the sky is still overcast. It is fortunate, for we see some of the wildest and most impressive of Welsh scenery. Great clifflike hills, splashed with red shale and purple heather or clad in the somber green of the pines, rise abruptly from the roadside. At Beddgelert the beauty culminates in one of the finest scenes in Wales. The valley, a plot of woods and meadows, is surrounded on every hand by the giant hills, whose sides glow with red and purple rock which crops out among the scattered pines that climb to the very crests. Two clear, dashing mountain streams join their waters to form the river Glaslyn, which winds through a mighty gorge to the sea; and alongside the river runs the perfect road over which we have just been coursing. The Royal Goat, right by the roadside, invites us to pause for our late luncheon; a charming old-fashioned inn, odd as its name, but homelike and hospitable. At Beddgelert the beauty begins to fade and one sees only commonplace country and barren hills until he reaches Carnarvon.
ON THE RIVER LLEDR, WALES.
From Original Painting by Daniel Sherrin.
Returning from Holyhead, we followed the fine coast road from Bangor to Conway, where we paused to renew our acquaintance with one of the most charming towns in the Kingdom. In many respects it is unique, for nowhere will one find more perfect relics of feudal time, or feel more thoroughly its spirit than at Conway. The little city still lies snugly behind its ancient wall, whose one and twenty watch towers stand grimly as of old, though shorn of their defenders in these piping times of peace. And the castle, from many viewpoints the most picturesque of them all, looks marvelously perfect from a little distance—so perfect that one could hardly wonder to see a flash of armor from the stately battlements. Yet with all its antiquity, Conway, inside its walls, is clean and neat and has an air of quiet prosperity. So widely known are its charms that perhaps it should have no place in this record; and yet it is probable that the great majority of American visitors in England never see Conway—which assumption is my excuse for a few words of appreciation.
If there were no castle or wall, there would be ample warrant for coming to see one of the most charming Elizabethan mansions in the Island. Plas Mawr—the Great House—indeed deserves its name; a huge building of many gables, odd corners and stone-mullioned, diamond-paned windows. Inside there are great paneled rooms with richly bossed plaster ceilings, wide fireplaces with mantelpieces emblazoned with the arms of the ancient owners, and many narrow winding passageways leading—you never quite learn whither. Very appropriate is the ghostly legend of the house, and even more fitting the better substantiated story of the visit of Queen Elizabeth—that splendid royal traveler who might well be our patron saint. Stately is the great chamber, the sitting-room of the Queen’s suite, with its paneled walls, its highly ornate ceiling, its great group of no less than a dozen windows; and the fireplace, six feet or more across, where a great log might be thrown to glow, a solid core of heat—fit indeed for the evening musings of the royal guest.
A thorough round of Plas Mawr will serve to give one an appetite for luncheon at the Castle Hotel—at least this was the result in our particular case. But one would not really need much of an appetite to be tempted by the luncheon set forth at the Castle Hotel, one of the cleanest, brightest and best-ordered of the many inns at which we stopped in our wanderings.
In a jaunt up the Conway River, one will see much pleasing scenery of hill, valley and river, and will come at Bettws-y-Coed into the Holyhead road, which splendid highway we follow through Llangollen and Oswestry to Shrewsbury. This route abounds in interest; Chirk is famous for its castle and there is an ivy-covered ruin at Whittington, but we do not pause in our swift flight for any of them. The sky has cleared and delightful vistas greet our eyes as we hasten through “the sweet vale of Llangollen.” We come into Shrewsbury almost ere we know it, and a half hour later catch sight of the great church tower of Ludlow town.