heretofore been plainly audible, were hushed, nor was there any answer
when we began to call them, while making ready for our departure. But
they finally appeared, coming out of the moat, where they had been
picking and eating blackberries,--which, they said, grew very plentifully
there, and which they were very reluctant to leave. Before quitting the
castle, I must not forget the ivy, which makes a perfect tapestry over a
large portion of the walls.

We walked about the village, which is old and ugly; small, irregular
streets, contriving to be intricate, though there are few of them; mean
houses, joining to each other. We saw, in the principal one, the
parliament house in which Edward I. gave a Charter, or allowed rights of
some kind to his Welsh subjects. The ancient part of its wall is
entirely distinguishable from what has since been built upon it.

Thence we set out to walk along the embankment, although the sky looked
very threatening. The wind, however, was so strong, and had such a full
sweep at us, on the top of the bank, that we decided on taking a path
that led from it across the moor. But we soon had cause to repent of
this; for, which way soever we turned, we found ourselves cut off by a
ditch or a little stream; so that here we were, fairly astray on Rhyddlan
moor, the old battle-field of the Saxons and Britons, and across which, I
suppose, the fiddlers and mountebanks had marched to the relief of the
Earl of Chester. Anon, too, it began to shower; and it was only after
various leaps and scramblings that we made our way to a large farm-house,
and took shelter under a cart-shed. The back of the house to which we
gained access was very dirty and ill-kept; some dirty children peeped at
us as we approached, and nobody had the civility to ask us in; so we took
advantage of the first cessation of the shower to resume our way. We
were shortly overtaken by a very intelligent-looking and civil man, who