On another occasion an official of the line visiting one station master on this section was startled, in reply to his cheery inquiry as to whether all was well with him, to learn that "the only drawback was that he had the devil in his parlour." On his exclamation of incredulous alarm, the stationmaster said that he would show the official, if he would come and see. Entering the station house with some trepidation, he beheld in the middle of the parlour one of the iron fire-brackets, used to prevent water troughs from freezing in cold weather, popularly known among railway men as "devils." It seems that the builders had neglected to put in a grate, and the poor man had had to fall back on this diabolical method of keeping himself warm! The matter, no doubt, was quickly righted, for stationmasters, even then, were important functionaries, often wearing tall silk hats, though some of them were regarded as passing rich on 15/- or 16/- a week. It was something, however, that, in the face of all these difficulties, financial and constructive, a line should be completed along this wandering coast at all. Only in one respect, indeed, did the original project fall short of attainment. The great objective of which the shareholders heard so much in earlier days--Porth Dinlleyn--was never reached. The line still terminates at Pwllheli, where, up to 1901, the station lay at arm's length from the town close to the harbour, which, in hot weather, used sometimes to alarm arriving visitors by its fishy odours. In 1901 power was obtained to carry the line into the centre of the town, where a new and commodious station now serves this popular health resort, the gateway to the mysterious fastnesses of Lleyn. CHAPTER VIII. SOME EARLIER BRANCHES. "Y ddel gerbydres welir--yn rhedeg Ar hyd ein dyffryn-dir, Ac yn gynt ar ei hynt hir Y fellten ni theithia filltir. O ganol tre Llangynog--am naw Cychwyn wneir yn dalog, Fe'n ceir cyn tri'n fwy gwisgi na'r gog, A hoenus yn Llundain enwog." {91} --A WELSH BARD. The traveller along the main artery of the Cambrian, from Whitchurch to Aberystwyth, will note that, as he proceeds on his way, past the Welsh border foothills, and on by the waters of the Severn to the highlands of central Montgomeryshire, a series of more or less attractive lateral valleys branch off to the left, and still more definitely, to the right. Up some of these the eyes of ambitious engineers and railway promoters had often been cast as the main line was being constructed. No less eagerly did the residents at the remoter ends of these sequestered hollows among the hills look forward to the day when they might be linked up with the central system, and so brought into direct touch with the great world beyond.