Twm’s rattling assertions in this respect were more true than he was himself aware; for his friend Prothero, the merry magistrate, learning accidentally, by a chance rencontre with Squire Graspacre, many particulars of his birth, and the hardships of his neglected childhood, determined, if possible, to get him righted at last. Twm, as he had predetermined, used the present _tete-a-tete_ to some purpose, and soon succeeded in obtaining from the fair object of his hopes a decisive promise that she would be his forever. The joy of our hero knew no bounds, nor did the lady very strenuously resist his rapturous embraces; but seemed to find her heart relieved by the resolution she had come to, that now, forever, put an end to the conflicting doubts as to her future course, which had so long torn her heart, and banished her peace. Noon was now verging into evening, and at the earnest request of his mistress, Twm consented, to save appearances, immediately to quit her roof. She directed him to wait for her, and her confidential friend Miss Meredith, at the entrance to the ancient cave on the top of Dinas, which was the name of the conical hill exactly fronting the mansion of Ystrad Fîn. He accordingly took his departure; and winding round the base of Dinas, he crossed the river Towey, which, being then in summer, was there little more than a brook. After walking over a couple of fields, and a piece of rough common, he had to cross the Towey once more, when he commenced his ascent at the only part of this very steep hill where it was possible to climb. During his former stay at Ystrad Fîn, this wildly romantic height had been his favorite haunt, as the cave in its side was the greatest object of his wonder. It was, in fact, a mighty mound, that bore all the appearance of having been, at the period of its formation, convulsed by an earthquake, and in the height of nature’s tremendous heavings, suddenly arrested and becalmed, even while the huge crags were in the act of tumbling down its steep sides. A narrow valley circled its base, and the mountains around of equal height with itself, separated only by this deep and scanty dell, seemed as if rent from it, during the supposed convulsion of the earth, and Dinas left alone, an interesting monument of the memorable event. The surface of the acclivous ground was so speckled with huge loose stones, that it was dangerous to hold by them in ascending, as the slightest impetus would roll them downward. Twm, at one time, when assisting his mistress to climb the steep sides of Dinas, in his wild way said, that he had no doubt but an earthquake had turned the bosom of the hill inside out, so that no secret could be therein concealed; archly insinuating that he trusted the time would soon come when without so violent a process, her own fair bosom would be equally open to him, while it rejected the stony barriers that then stood between him and her heart.