to see a relation up the road.

_Myself_.--Bala is a nice place.

_Lad_.--It is, sir; but not so fine as old Bala.

_Myself_.--I never heard of such a place. Where is it?

_Lad_.--Under the lake, sir.

_Myself_.--What do you mean?

_Lad_.--It stood in the old time where the lake now is, and a fine city
it was, full of fine houses, towers, and castles, but with neither church
nor chapel, for the people neither knew God nor cared for Him, and
thought of nothing but singing and dancing and other wicked things. So
God was angry with them, and one night, when they were all busy at
singing and dancing and the like, God gave the word, and the city sank
down into Unknown, and the lake boiled up where it once stood.

_Myself_.--That was a long time ago.

_Lad_.--In truth, sir, it was.

_Myself_.--Before the days of King Cadwaladr.

_Lad_.--I daresay it was, sir.

I walked fast, but the lad was a shrewd walker, and though encumbered
with his greatcoat contrived to keep tolerably up with me. The road went
over hill and dale, but upon the whole more upward than downward. After
proceeding about an hour and a half we left the lake, to the southern
extremity of which we had nearly come, somewhat behind, and bore away to
the south-east, gradually ascending. At length the lad, pointing to a
small farm-house on the side of a hill, told me he was bound thither, and
presently bidding me farewell, turned aside up a footpath which led
towards it.

About a minute afterwards a small delicate furred creature with a white
mark round its neck and with a little tail trailing on the ground ran
swiftly across the road. It was a weasel or something of that genus; on
observing it I was glad that the lad and the dog were gone, as between
them they would probably have killed it. I hate to see poor wild animals
persecuted and murdered, lose my appetite for dinner at hearing the
screams of a hare pursued by greyhounds, and am silly enough to feel
disgust and horror at the squeals of a rat in the fangs of a terrier,
which one of the sporting tribe once told me were the sweetest sounds in
"natur."

I crossed a bridge over a deep gulley which discharged its waters into a
river in a valley on the right. Arran rose in great majesty on the
farther side of this vale, its head partly shrouded in mist. The day now
became considerably overcast. I wandered on over much rough ground till
I came to a collection of houses at the bottom of a pa