uch, for instance, is
Bryn-y-Pys, on the Dee--a house you might guess to belong to a Liverpool
merchant who had trusted to a common builder for a comfortable home.
Overton Cottage, on the other side, fills in with its walks and plantations
an abrupt bend of the river, and the view from the up-going road at its
back is very lovely, though the scene is purely pastoral. Overton
Churchyard is one of the "seven wonders" of North Wales: it has a very trim
and stately appearance, not that ragged, free if melancholy,
outspreadedness which distinguishes many country cemeteries, that
unpremeditated luxuriance of creepers and flowers, blossoming bushes and
grasses, that make up at least half of one's pleasant reminiscences of such
places. How much more interesting to find an old tomb or quaint "brass"
under the temple of a wild rosebush or in the firm clasp of an ivy-root
than to walk up to it and read the inscription newly scraped and cleaned by
the voluble attendant who volunteers to show you the place! The great elms
by Overton Church and the half-timbered and thatched houses crowding up to
its gates somewhat make up for the splendor of the coped wall and new
monuments in the churchyard. A scene wholly old is the Erbistock Ferry,
which one might mistake for a rope-ferry on the Mosel. The cottage looks
like the dilapidated lodge of an old monastery, and here, at least, is no
trimness. Two walls with a flight of steps in each enclose a grass terrace
between them, and trees and bushes straggle to the edge of the river,
hardly keeping clear of the swinging rope. Coracles are sometimes used for
ferrying--also punts. Bangor is a familiar name to students of church
history, and to those who are not, the startling tale of the massacre of
twelve hundred British monks by the Saxon and heathen king of Northumbria,
who conquered Chester and invaded Wales in the seventh century, is repeated
by the local guides. At present, Bangor is interesting to anglers and to
lovers of curiosities--to the former as a good salmon-ground, and to the
latter for the quaint verses, which, though trivial in themselves, borrow a
value from the date of their inscription and the "laws" to which they
refer. They are on the wall of the lower story of the bell-tower:

[Illustration: IN THE VALE OF LLANGOLLEN.]

If that to ring you would come here,
You must ring well with hand and ear;
But if you ring in spur or hat,
Fourpence always is due for that;