She was above him in birth, and was sent to a convent in Anglesey to be out of his way. Ap Gwilym, disguised as a monk, followed her to a monastery close by, but only to hear that she had been married to a husband much older than herself. In desperation the bard tried to carry her off, but was seized and thrown into a Glamorgan prison until he could pay a large fine. But his fellow-poets would not let the “chief bard of Glamorgan” languish in a dungeon; they paid his fine, and set the prisoner free to sing again of Nature and of love. Ap Gwilym died in the year of Glendower’s revolt, still grieving for his lost Morfydd, and, with her name on his lips, passed away, and was buried under the walls of the great abbey that had sheltered his last years. CHAPTER XIV THE DEVIL’S BRIDGE Central Wales is a land of hills and breezy uplands, enclosed by low mountain-ranges full of romantic gorges and hidden valleys. It includes the north of Cardiganshire and part of the shire of Montgomery, and is famous in history as the battle-ground upon which many a struggle between the Men of the South and the Men of the North was fought out. The first place of interest on its coast-line is Aberystwith. Here you will find the moated mound, which is all that is left of a castle, built by Gilbert de Clare, one of the barons of Henry I., to guard his newly acquired province of Cardigan or Ceredigion; the southern part being guarded by the castle we have already seen at Cardigan itself, on the mouth of the Teify. The much more important ruins of a castle that stand near the College, and overlook the sea, are the remains of a later building in the days of Edward I. Close by, the fine grey building of the University College brings us back to the present day, and reminds one of the fashion in which Wales, so long supposed to be behind-hand in the march of progress, led the way by founding her own University, with noble colleges at Bangor, Aberystwith, and Cardiff, where her sons and daughters might complete the education begun in the intermediate and primary schools throughout the Principality. Not only may Wales pride herself on her University, but also on her boldness in first making the experiment of teaching boys and girls, young men and women together on precisely equal terms--an experiment in co-education which England herself has hesitated to make.