Born at Llanarmon-Dyffryn-Ceiriog, in Denbighshire, on September 25th, 1832, he passed his early years in the romantic vale of the Ceiriog, amidst the glowing memories of Huw Morris of Pont-y-Meibion. Beginning his business career in Manchester, he soon returned to his native land, and, after occupying a position as stationmaster at Llanidloes, was appointed to the management of this little line. The duties were not particularly arduous, and, in any case, "Ceiriog" was apt to take life with a light heart. Whether he sat in his office or in the cosy corner of some favourite rural inn the muse burned brightly within him, and, from his remote retreat among the hills which look down on the infant Severn, he poured out his soul in poetry, which ranks high in Celtic literature. Welsh verse always suffers in translation into the more cumbrous English, but there are many who have known the charm even of an Anglicised version of "Myvanwy Vychan," and when he died, in 1887, he was acclaimed by such an authority as the Rev. H. Elvet Lewis, to be "one of the best lyrical poets of Wales," who had "rendered excellent service to the national melodies of 'Cymru Fu' by writing words congenial to their spirit,--a work which Robert Burns did for Scottish melodies." He was buried in Llanwnog churchyard, where a simple plate marks his resting place, and friends and neighbours who attended the funeral service on the following Sunday did not feel that it was out of place that it should have been based on the text "Know ye not that there is . . . a great man fallen this day." They did know it, humble as his station might be; and more than one of his admirers has since visited the little deserted office where he worked on the Van line and ransacked its drawers and cupboards for hidden gems of poesy he might have left behind him. Alas! nothing more inspiring was ever found there than faded way-bills and torn invoices! But who shall say that there is no romance clinging close around even the humblest, and now the most woe-begone, of all the little offshoots of the Cambrian? CHAPTER IX. CONSOLIDATION. "_Facility of communication begets_ '_community of interests_,' _which is the only treaty that is not a_ '_scrap of paper_.'"-- THE LATE LORD FISHER.