Threading the briery dell, and following the brook that prattled down the steep slope, I climbed the hill which directly overhangs the hamlet. It was church-time as I sat down on the top, and slowly drank in the charms of that celebrated landscape. To such a scene, at such an hour, the very heart-strings grow. The fields were clothed with a dense velvety-green. Across the narrow glen, on the strange cone of Dinas Bran, frowned threateningly, in dark mass, unsoftened by distance, the huge, bare fragments of an old castle, the immemorial type of an iron age when the hearts of men were iron. Beneath my feet, the vapors of the morning floated here and there in the sunshine, like torn folds of a satin gauze. A hundred smokes curled from the village chimneys, and the tones of the sabbath bells were wafted up to me with no mixture of profane toils. The very cattle seemed to know the holy day, and to browse and gaze, or ruminate and look around, with an unusual assurance of repose and satisfaction. But the spell must be broken, however reluctantly.
Descending into the village, just as the religious service was ended, I went into the churchyard, and copied from the triangular tomb in which the Ladies of Llangollen sleep, with their favorite servant, amid the magical loveliness of the pastoral scenery, these three inscriptions. On the first side:
IN MEMORY OF MRS. MARY CARRYL,
Deceased 22 November, 1809,
This Monument is erected by Eleanor Butler
And Sarah Ponsonby, of Plas Newydd, in this Parish.
Released from earth and all its transient woes,
She, whose remains beneath this stone repose,
Steadfast in faith resigned her parting breath,
Looked up with Christian joy, and smiled in death.
Patient, industrious, faithful, generous, kind,
Her conduct left the proudest far behind.
Her virtues dignified her humble birth,
And raised her mind above this sordid earth.
Attachment (sacred bond of grateful breasts)
Extinguished but with life, this tomb attests;
Reared by two friends who will her loss bemoan,
Till with her ashes here shall rest their own.
On the second side:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
The Right Honorable
LADY ELEANOR CHARLOTTE BUTLER,
Late of Plas Newydd, in this parish,
Deceased 2d June, 1829,
Aged Ninety Years,
Daughter of the Sixteenth, Sister of the Seventeenth
Earls of Ormonde and Ossory,
Aunt to the late and to the present
Marquess of Ormonde.
Endeared to her many friends by an almost
Unequalled excellence of heart, and by manners
Worthy of her illustrious birth, the admiration
And delight of a very numerous acquaintance,
From a brilliant vivacity of mind, undiminished
To the latest period of a prolonged existence.
Her amiable condescension and benevolence
Secured the grateful attachment of those
By whom they had been so long and so
Extensively experienced: her various perfections,
Crowned by the most pious and cheerful
Submission to the Divine Will, can only be
Appreciated where, it is humbly believed, they are
Now enjoying their eternal reward; and by her.
Of whom for more than fifty years they constituted
That happiness which, through our blessed Redeemer,
She trusts will be renewed when this Tomb
Shall have closed over its Latest Tenant.
On the third side:
SARAH PONSONBY departed this life On the 9th of December, 1831, aged 76.
She did not long survive her beloved companion,
Lady Eleanor Butler, with whom she had lived in this
Valley for more than half a century of uninterrupted friendship
But they shall no more return to their house, neither
Shall their place know them any more.