Later on there came at intervals long letters from Rome, whither, after a sad parting between the Lord and Lady Bryn Afon at the close of their stay at Ludlow Castle, she, with her young charge and their attendants, had travelled by slow stages, on account of her great delicacy of health, and where they would remain until the spring. And all they had seen by the way Primrose described so cleverly that Jack could almost feel as though he had himself been with her, and might henceforth pass as a man of travel among his neighbours, since he could discourse upon the marvels of London and Rome, not to speak of many other places of lesser note, with such assurance and in so masterly a manner! In his loneliness he derived much consolation from the esteem and increased reverence with which he began to find himself regarded by his neighbours, Master Jones alone causing him much indignation of spirit by his sour words against those in high places, and his evil forebodings for all such as a good Providence had made young and beautiful. For all which hard and ill-natured sayings Jack revenged himself by a particular application towards him each Sunday morning of all such sentences in the Litany or elsewhere as bore upon heresy and schism, and so felt comforted. During these months some excitement was caused in the valley, of which Jack wrote a full account to his foster-child, by certain preachings against the sin of drunkenness, delivered in towns and villages, in the form of lectures, held in barns and outhouses or on the open village green, by a certain youth of learned parts and eloquent address, reputed to be a Cambridge student and a guest at some one or other of the castles in the vale,--some said Caer Caradoc, others Gelli Aur, beyond the river, which latter house he had been seen to enter in company with young Master Jeremy Taylor, known to be a frequent guest of the Lord Carbery, its owner. But none knew the name of the strange youth, and since he could discourse with equal zeal and eloquence in either the Welsh or English tongue, it was a matter of dispute whether he were or no a native of the Principality, most persons, however, inclining to believe him such, since the English rarely showed themselves capable of grappling so successfully with the Welsh tongue. It was but for a few weeks at the time of Easter that he appeared, but the country-side soon rang with his fame, and the people flocked from miles around to hear him, so powerful was his eloquence and so winning his manner and his countenance. Ringing words did he speak in town and hamlet against the sin and shame of the drinking habits so prevalent in the fair vale of Gwynnon, which he indeed confessed was no worse a part of the world in this respect than many others, yet spoke of it as that special region in which he felt called upon by God to lift up his own voice against the evil and point out a better way. Wherefore he was