and awoke; till at last the
sun broke out gloriously as we drove into the cheerful little town of
B----.

A good breakfast set us all to rights, and made even our friend in the
mackintosh talkative. He came out most in the character of tea-maker (an
office, by the way, which he filled to the general satisfaction of his
constituents during our stay in North Wales). We found out that he was a
St Mary Hall man, with a duplicate name: Mr Sydney Dawson, as the cards
on his multifarious luggage set forth: that he was an aspirant for
"anything he could get" in the way of honours (humble aspiration as it
seemed, it was not destined to be gratified, for he got nothing). He
thought he might find some shooting and fishing in Wales, so had
brought with him a gun-case and a setter; though his pretensions to
sportsmanship proved to be rather of the cockney order. For three months
he was the happily unconscious butt of our party, and yet never but once
was his good-humour seriously interrupted.

From B---- to Glyndewi we had been told we must make our way as we
could: and a council of war, which included boots and the waiter, ended
in the arrival of the owner of one of the herring-boats, of which there
were several under "the terrace." "Was you wish to go to Glyndewi,
gentlemen? I shall take you so quick as any way; she is capital wind,
and you shall have fine sail." A man who could speak such undeniable
English was in himself a treasure; for an ineffectual attempt at a
bargain for some lobsters (even with a "Welsh interpreter" in our hands)
had warned us that there were in this Christian country unknown tongues
which would have puzzled even the Rev. Edward Irving. So the bargain was
struck: in half an hour ourselves and traps were alongside the boat:
and after waiting ten minutes for the embarkation of Mr Sydney Dawson
and his dog Sholto, who seemed to have an abhorrence of sea-voyages,
Branling at last hauled in the latter in the last agonies of
strangulation, and his master having tumbled in over him, to the
detriment of a pair of clean whites and a cerulean waistcoat, we--_i.
e._ the rest of us--set sail for Glyndewi in high spirits.

Our boatmen were intelligent fellows, and very anxious to display their
little stock of English. They knew Mr Hanmer well, they said--he had
been at Glyndewi the summer before; he was "nice free gentleman;" and
they guessed immediately the object of our pilgrimage: Glyndewi was
"very much for lear