Within three hours, on the following day, I entered the straggling and ancient village of Tremeirchion. It lies scattered along a hillside, about three miles from St. Asaph, and four from Denbigh. In a remote time its humble founders had been constrained to build their cabins on this rocky waste at the outskirts of rich estates and fat farms, but ultimately their cabins had been replaced by slate-roofed cottages, and an ale-house or two, and as many shops for the sale of peasant necessaries were added. About the XIIth Century a small church was built, and a ‘God’s Acre’ attached to it, which was planted with yew for the protection of the building from the gales,[2] and the whole was surrounded by a wall. Later on, when the appearance of Wesley had disturbed the litigious and discontented Welsh peasantry, a couple of chapels rose up. Beyond the village, and after descending the hillside about a mile, past fir groves, and the leafy woods of Brynbella Hall, I came to the foot of the hill, and at a few yards from the road-side stood the inn, grocery-shop, and farm-house known as Ffynnon Beuno,--St. Beuno’s Spring, or Well. At the back of the house ran a narrow valley which terminated in the Craig Fawr (Great Rock). Near the front was a lodge and gate, leading to Brynbella Hall, well hidden by a tall, rook-haunted wood. The great house was once occupied by Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson’s friend. Tremeirchion, literally translated, means the Maiden’s Town, and was so named from a convent which stood in its vicinity, and was supposed to be the refuge chosen by St. Winifred, when she retired with a company of virgins after her revivification by good St. Beuno at Holywell. Compared with the famous spring of St. Winifred’s at Holywell, that of St. Beuno is a modest affair, and boasts of no virtues beyond purity and sweetness. The water is collected in a stone tank adjoining the house of Ffynnon Beuno, and is allowed to escape, for the benefit of the villagers, through the open mouth of a rude representation of a human head, which is affixed in the front wall. The externals of Ffynnon Beuno favourably impressed me. The sign over the door informed the public that Mary Owen [Illustration: FYYNNON BEUNO] kept open house for the entertainment of man and beast, and sold groceries, tobacco, ale, and spirituous liquors, and, it might have added, milk, and butter, poultry, and sheep. As I walked towards the door I prayed inwardly that my aunt would be as gracious to me as I believed the owner of the cosy establishment ought to be.