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."

"Aye, bless your heart, but did you ever see a sketch of Griffith ap
Gauvon? It lies about 20 miles north of Machynleth, in the eastern
ravines of Snowdon. G---! you'd lift up your hands, if you saw the
ruins--how majestically they stand upon the naked peaks of the rocks;
and how boldly the pointed arches rise into the air and throw
themselves over the unfathomable chasms! Look up from below,