big field or park where are many fine oaks, which may be the remnant of an avenue. The gate is fastened, but we climb over, and wheel the bicycles over the rich grass. In the derelict porch of the hall a big Shropshire ram stands as sentinel before the front door. I try to remember the words of Scripture about the desolate

tures.

habitations being a pasture for flocks, and look up the quotation when I get home, checking it by the revised version which spoils it altogether, for it holds forth about ostriches, jackals, arrowsnakes, and other outlandish crea"The palaces shall be forsaken . . . a pasture of flocks... there shall come up nettles and brambles it shall be an habitation of dragons and a court for owls; the screech owl shall rest there. There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay and hatch." The

beautiful hall of Penrhos is forsaken, the flocks are pasturing on the lawn, nettles and brambles are up to one's waist in the courtyard, the glassless windows and tumbling roof are just where owls would like to rest. What has Penrhos or its owner done that it should so literally fulfil the prophetic vision?

The doors are fast, but we can see that inside there are panelled walls and rotting stairs, with all the dirt and debris refuse of a labourer's house, for it had once been let to cottagers, and that is wasteful work where the best carved woodwork burns better than damp sticks. The ruined porch is a great feature, the heavy mullioned windows project over it, and over them again are farprojecting timbers that may have carried a sign or coatof-arms. The dragon of Wales may have floated there. We saw none of the dragons spoken of by the prophet, though there were some big spiders that if they kept growing would make good dragons.

A picturesque projection is at the end of the house, from which an avenue of yews, perhaps thirty yards long and as high as the ridge of the roof, with interlacing branches overhead, leads to a little house in the garden. These trees are probably coeval with the building, their shade is as dense as a dark church. I regret they were not photographed for their weird. look, but X said it was waste of time and plate to take it.

We sat on a stile to eat our lunch, and in the adjoin ing hedge was another yew, within the reach of cattle. and horses on either side. They were all well and hearty; perhaps they were used to it, for as is well known yew is often poisonous. We were told Lord Harlech owns the place. A man named Derwas, somewhere described as John ap Owen, alias Derwas, built it, and had a brother Hugh living at Llwyn about the same time. In beautifully-carved letters on one gable is the date 1607.

Who was this Owen who took the

strange name of Derwas? Was he one of those pirates or patriots of Queen Elizabeth's time, who enriched themselves and their country by plundering from the Spaniard the spoils of Chili and Peru? Many are the grand old houses all over our land that went up when times were good, when ships came ballasted with gold and jewels three hundred years ago.

About two miles from Penrhos Hall is a farmhouse named Trederwen, which is in two parishes, the older timber-built part being in Llandrinio, the other in Guilsfield. The older part seems to be propped up by a pear tree, which was trained against the porch gable many years ago, and now holds up that end of the house. After a hurried photograph we settle down for a good spin southwards—that is, up the valley of the Severn towards Welshpool, which is here called Pool. At Poolquay, once considered to be the highest navigable point of the Severn, the road, the river, and the rail, almost touch one another; and a glimpse of the twisting river, running yellow with the mud of heavy rain, through green pastures and golden corn, round the serrated peaks of the Breidden Hills, which now are wrapped in misty bluish haze, is very fine. We had never ridden round these hills before, and had no idea they were so beautiful. Precipitous and well-wooded rocks rise a thousand feet above the rolling Severn, and, apart from other hills, the claim that here was the last stand of Caractacus against the Romans seems well proved; for though other hills may be called Caradoc and have their legends, the written words of the Roman historian Tacitus describe the greatest and desperate struggle Ostorius had with the British Silures in the country of the Ordovices, or North Welsh, in a high mountain, encompassed with a dangerous river, and only here are the mountain and the river worthy of their

name.

A little farther on there is a bridge across the