CHAPTER XXXII.
Leave Pentraeth--Tranquil Scene--The Knoll--The Miller and his Wife--Poetry of Gronwy--Kind Offer--Church of Llanfair--No English--Confusion of Ideas--The Gronwy--Notable Little Girl--The Sycamore Leaf--Home from California.
The village of Pentraeth Goch occupies two sides of a romantic dell--that part of it which stands on the southern side, and which comprises the church and the little inn, is by far the prettiest, that which occupies the northern is a poor assemblage of huts, a brook rolls at the bottom of the dell, over which there is a little bridge: coming to the bridge I stopped, and looked over the side into the water running briskly below.
An aged man who looked like a beggar, but who did not beg of me, stood by.
"To what place does this water run ?" said I in English.
"I know no Saxon," said he in trembling accents.
I repeated my question in Welsh.
"To the sea," he said, "which is not far off, indeed it is so near, that when there are high tides, the salt water comes up to this bridge." "You seem feeble ?" said I.
"I am so," said he, "for I am old." "How old are you ?" said I.
"Sixteen after sixty," said the old man with a sigh; "and I have nearly lost my sight and my hearing." "Are you poor ?" said I.
"Very," said the old man.
I gave him a trifle which he accepted with thanks.
"Why is this sand called the red sand ?" said I.
"I cannot tell you," said the old man, "I wish I could, for you have been kind to me." Bidding him farewell I passed through the northern part of the village to the top of the hill.

I walked a little way forward and then stopped, as I had done at the bridge in the dale, and looked to the east, over a low stone wall.
Before me lay the sea or rather the northern entrance of the Menai Straits.

To my right was mountain Lidiart projecting some way into the sea; to my left, that is to the north, was a high hill, with a few white houses near its base, forming a small village, which a woman who passed by knitting told me was called Llan Peder Goch or the Church of Red Saint Peter.

Mountain Lidiart and the Northern Hill formed the headlands of a beautiful bay into which the waters of the Traeth dell, from which I had come, were discharged.

A sandbank, probably covered with the sea at high tide, seemed to stretch from mountain Lidiart a considerable way towards the northern hill.