"Aye, and Walladmor"--said the other laughing:
"Yes, Walladmor, and many others, possess a commanding interest to him who has familiarised himself with their history. All places too connected with the memory and half fabulous history of king Arthur--the grand forms of Welch scenery ennobled and glorified by the fine old romancers, Norman or English, or by the native bard songs,----
"I know them all," said the stranger interrupting him and laughing heartily,--"there's Arthur's fort at Cairwarnach--Arthur's table--Arthur's chair--the brook at Drumwaller, where he forded without wetting his feet,--and scores of old ruins in this neighbourhood."
"And doubtless you have had much pleasure in ranging through these grey memorials of elder days?"
"Pleasure! aye, that I have: many's the good keg of brandy that I've helped to empty among 'em."
"Keg of brandy!" said Bertram, somewhat shocked.
"Yes, brandy; right Cogniac: better than ever king Arthur drank, I'll be sworn. Faith, I believe he'd have sold his sceptre for a dozen of it; and Sir Gawain would have tumbled through a hoop for a quart.--Oh! the fun that some of those old walls have looked down upon many's the dark night, when I was a little younger: aye, many a wild jolly party have I sat with in some of those old ruins! And such a din we've kept, that I've expected old Merlin would come down from some old gallery and beat up our quarters."
"Why, certainly night is in some respects a favourable time for visiting such buildings: for the lights and shadows are often more grandly and broadly arranged. But were these parties that you speak of, parties of tourists to whom you acted as guide?"
"Tourists, God knows: a rum kind of tourists though: and a rum kind of guide was I. Egad, I led 'em a steeple chase; up hill and down hill; thick and thin--rocks and ruins, nothing came amiss: and there's not many tourists, I think, on the wrong side of twenty-five, that would choose to have followed us.----But I suppose now, as you've come to Wales on this errand, you would be glad to see a few old churches, abbeys, and so on: fine picking there for a man that hungers after the picturesque; owls, ivy, wall, moonshine, and what not."
"Certainly I shall," said Bertram: "I design to see every thing that is interesting; and I understand that Wales is particularly rich in such objects: and I've seen some beautiful sketches with all the picturesque adjuncts and accidents that you mention."