were droll and jovial fellows, and in their day were the life of the neighbourhood, whose presence was always the signal for a good-natured laugh, who were perfect adepts at telling amusing stories and cracking innocent jokes, and whose jests and pleasant sayings still live in the memories of those who have survived them, though they themselves rest in peaceful slumber in the parish churchyard, or in the Nonconformist burying-places close by.

Many years have passed, too, since the stage coach, the long train of lime and coal wagons, and the suspiciouslooking butter vendor have disappeared, for within a few miles a new turnpike road in a more direct line has been constructed, and that in turn has been superseded by a railway running through one of the many valleys which in that district separate the hills. In addition to these reasons, the fact that very few, if any, of what the old butterman was pleased to call "yellow and white cheeses," are now washed up on the Cardigan shore has made his journey, and those of a kindred nature, things of the past. The world jogs on in another way now, while the old butter-vendor for many years has laid him down in deep slumber in some obscure village burying-ground where trickery is unknown, and all falsities are for ever silenced.

No longer is there a constant cross-firing between the village wits on the smithy corner and the droll fellows from the adjacent county who used to pass through. Even the disparaging epithets which the sons of each county exchanged in good spirit are now all but forgotten.

In general, the advance of commerce has shut this little hamlet more than ever out of the world. It is one of those places which suffer in that massacre of the innocents which must to some extent accompany all progress. A few of its speculative and ambitious sons,

impelled by news of prosperity in other districts and other lands, have left the hamlet in which they were born, and which is still dear to them, and are engaged in many instances in the sterner battle of life as fought in large centres of activity, but the majority continue to adorn the same callings as their fathers, and on the spot made sacred to them by a thousand traditions.

Most of the old institutions of the village remain. The smithy, the shoemaker's, and tailor's shops continue as they were. The inn, however, has undergone a change for the worse. Indeed, in the halcyon days of the stage coach, there was a second inn in the village which prospered moderately well, but that suffered extinction so many years ago, that it has well nigh been forgotten. The sign-board, which has so long since been taken down, has been preserved and fixed upon four legs by the village carpenter, and, thus transformed into a table, it still remains in the family of the former proprietors as a curious relic of past prosperity. The old "Greyhound," who from his. exalted position in former days looked down with graceful pride upon every passer by, now peeps dimly through the faded paint with grim astonishment at the vanity of all earthly things. Even the inn, which still exists and is known as "The Village Inn," has ill-survived the changes which time and progress have wrought. If the last rumour be true, the Temperance Movement has almost completed the havoc which the construction of a local railway began. On one wintry night, we are told, the sign-board fell down with a melancholy thud. Since then, the exchequer has not been sufficiently flourishing to justify the struggling landlord in replacing it. It is, therefore, through the charity of our amiable artist that the old "sign" is still represented as swinging upon its hinges at the bidding of

every summer breeze, as well as creaking forth its sad tale of better days to the accompaniment of the dolorous moan of the wintry wind.

Other houses remain; a few in more modern garb, but others as they were from the beginning, with scarcely an improvement save the periodical thatch, and the annual white-washing within and without. The two chapels of the village, the one belonging to the Baptists, and the other to the Calvinistic Methodists-the Independent Chapel chances to be about a mile distant-are the buildings which appear to be in the best condition, having been more than once enlarged, or rebuilt, and undergone many other important improvements since they were first erected. These sanctuaries represent an important change which has taken place in the life of the villagers. The older of the two has only a history of a little over a century and a half, and compared with that of most of the Free Churches in Wales, it is an exceptionally long one. In the graveyards surrounding these village chapels lie the ashes of the past four generations; the dust of earlier ancestors rests about three miles distant in the Parish Churchyard, situated in one of the many quiet and fruitful valleys which hide themselves among the majestic hills of ancient Cambria.

CHAPTER II.

The Parish Church.

HE Parish Church is an ancient structure, grey and damp with the mildew of centuries.Concealed among the stately trees which surround it in that romantic glen, and disfigured by the deep scars which Time, that merciless destroyer, has inflicted upon it, and which modern art has not tried to hide or soften with its charitable and transforming touch, the old church looks

as if it belonged to another age, and not to this. The churchyard, too, has the same desolate appearance. Broken slabs and fragments of tombstones of different shapes and dimensions lie about in every conceivable position, as if long ages ago they had marked the graves of the antediluvians, but the Deluge, in visiting those stony tablets, had rudely shaken them, and in some instances had cruelly swept them from their places to lie

in inglorious confusion as the shattered records of a dead and forgotten past. Thus in this secluded spot even graves, which as a rule are but too freshly dug in this our mortal world, have become sadly old, and but for a very occasional grave that is opened, or tombstone erected, it would seem as if Death himself had died, and thus there were no more to follow. But "thereby hangs a tale.” The humble peasantry have gradually severed themselves from the temples and resting places of their fathers, choosing in their life to worship God in humbler edifices erected by their own toil and maintained by their own self-denial, and in their death preferring to sleep in those little plots which surround the sanctuaries where they first met their God, and where since then they have often conversed with Him.

Near the Church, on the opposite side of the road, is the public house. For generations the closest relationship continued to exist between these two institutions. The declaration of Charles the First, further confirmed by the cordial assent and blessing of so pious and distinguished a dignitary as Archbishop Laud, concerning lawful sports to be used upon Sundays and upon holy days, was most religiously observed for very many years in this parish by all who attended church, from the parson downward. Thus, as the house of God closed, the other house opposite opened to receive the bulk of the congregation, who by common consent looked upon what was to follow as by far the most interesting part of the day's proceedings. To them, tortured as they had been by having to listen to an English clergyman who knew next to nothing of the Welsh language, reading a sermon about which he knew still less, a convivial glass and a spirited game of football were a welcome relief. A good kick was the same in both