I think they should have
done, took after them with great fury--slew thousands and drove
thousands into the river, where they were drowned. It was a queer way
to win a battle that--scaring the enemy out of their wits by shouting
holy words at them. I doubt whether the plan would succeed as well in
our enlightened Christian times.

The next object of interest is Flint Castle, to which King Richard II.
was carried as a prisoner, and where he met the banished Bolingbroke,
who was soon to step into his royal shoes and dub himself King Henry IV.

Next was the town of Holywell--so called for the famous, and, it is
said, miraculous well of St. Winifred, which it contains. If you
inquire for this, you are conducted to a beautiful Gothic building,
erected by the good Margaret, Countess of Richmond. Within this
edifice is a large bath; and in and out of this, the maimed, palsied,
and rheumatic, are constantly hobbling, crawling, or being carried.
Over head, fixed in the roof, are hosts of old canes and crutches,
placed there by cripples who say they have been cured by the waters.
Doubtless this spring has medicinal properties, like many in our own
country, and very likely many a poor creature is cured by simply
bathing repeatedly in pure cold water--a treatment tried here for the
first time in all their lives.

But who was St. Winifred?

All I know of her I get from a Roman Catholic legend, which I, being a
Protestant, and because it seems to me absurd, cannot credit; but which
many good, simple-hearted people find no difficulty in
believing--especially such as have had a lame leg cured by the well,
and have hung up a crutch in the shrine.

There was once, (says the legend,) a great lord, whose name was
Thewith, and a noble lady, whose name was Wenlo, and they had one only
daughter, whose name was Winifred. Now Winifred grew up to be a
marvellously beautiful maiden, and her hand was sought in marriage by
lords and princes far and near. But strangely enough, she would have
nothing to say to any of them, and seemed to care nothing for the pomps
and pleasures of the world. She was pious and charitable, and loved
better to nurse and pray with the sick than to wear fine dresses, or
dance with handsome young gentlemen. Perhaps she had visions, in which
she saw and heard all the palsied old men and women, and all the
miserable cripples that were, or ever would be in the world, shaking
their heads and thumping with their cr