“Then was revealed a cavity with water in it, and lo! the surface was agitated, and something rose out of it. The Taffies took to their heels. Then an old toad emerged, hopped on to a stone, yawned, and passed its paws over its eyes, as though rousing itself after a long sleep. “‘It’s nobbut a frog,’ said the Yorkshire navvies. “‘It’s Cynon himself,’ retorted the Welshmen. (Cynon was a wizard of the ancient days.) ‘Look how he gapes and rubs his face. You may see by that he has been in prison.’ “After that, whenever a Taffy was observed to yawn, ‘Ah ha!’ said his mates; ‘clearly you have but recently come out of prison.’” CHAPTER IX THE SACRED RIVER In our peeps at North Wales we have more than once had a glimpse of the River Dee. To-day we will pretend we have taken a “coracle,” one of the curious oval boats which were used in the very earliest days, and which you may sometimes see a man carrying on his shoulders from one bend of the river to another. “Carry thou me, and I will carry thee,” an old Welsh proverb makes the coracle say to the fisherman; and it shall now carry us down the course of the river as far as it lies within the land of Wales. The River Dee, one of the most lovely in Wales, has always been connected with the mysterious religion of the Druids. Its very name in old days, _Deva_, meant the goddess, or the “divine one”; and its modern Welsh form, _Dwy_, means the same thing. A legend of Druid times says that the Dee springs from two fountains high up in the mountains above Bala, called Dwy Fawr and Dwy Fach, or the Great and Little Dee, whose waters pass through those of the Lake of Bala without mingling with them, and come out at its northern extremity. These fountains had their names from two individuals, Dwy Fawr and Dwy Fach, who escaped from the Deluge when all the rest of the human race were drowned, and the passing of the waters of the two fountains through the lake without mingling with its flood is an emblem of the salvation of the two individuals from the Deluge, of which the lake is a type. [Illustration: A DRUID PRIEST. _Page 4._] Probably the river was worshipped as a goddess in those days, and when Wales learnt the Christian faith, it would be but fitting that her bank should be crowded with those who sought baptism in her waters. Nowadays, too, it is no uncommon sight to see a little group of people by the waterside presiding over the baptism of one or more of their companions.