imagination rendered him peculiarly impressible on such subjects;
while his judgment, seldom exercised or fortified by severe thought,
could not prevent his continually recurring to it. He used to gaze
on the half-sad countenance of the child, who sat looking up into his
face with his large dark eyes, so fondly yet so inquiringly, till the
old legend swelled around his heart, and became too painful for him
not to require sympathy. Besides, the overpowering love he bore to
the child seemed to demand fuller vent than tender words; it made him
like, yet dread, to upbraid its object for the fearful contrast
foretold. Still Squire Griffiths told the legend, in a half-jesting
manner, to his little son, when they were roaming over the wild
heaths in the autumn days, "the saddest of the year," or while they
sat in the oak-wainscoted room, surrounded by mysterious relics that
gleamed strangely forth by the flickering fire-light. The legend was
wrought into the boy's mind, and he would crave, yet tremble, to hear
it told over and over again, while the words were intermingled with
caresses and questions as to his love. Occasionally his loving words
and actions were cut short by his father's light yet bitter speech--
"Get thee away, my lad; thou knowest not what is to come of all this
love."

When Augharad was seventeen, and Owen eleven or twelve, the rector of
the parish in which Bodowen was situated, endeavoured to prevail on
Squire Griffiths to send the boy to school. Now, this rector had
many congenial tastes with his parishioner, and was his only
intimate; and, by repeated arguments, he succeeded in convincing the
Squire that the unnatural life Owen was leading was in every way
injurious. Unwillingly was the father wrought to part from his son;
but he did at length send him to the Grammar School at Bangor, then
under the management of an excellent classic. Here Owen showed that