Holyhead is an inconsequential town whose chief end is to serve as a port of departure for Ireland. Were it not for this useful purpose, few tourists would ever see it—or the Isle of Anglesea, for that matter. Aside from some fine coast scenery and the castle, now very ruinous, built by Edward I. at Beaumaris, Anglesea offers little in the way of attractions. The island is rather barren, with here and there a mean-looking village with a long, unpronounceable Welsh name. The main road from the great suspension bridge over the Menai Strait to Holyhead is excellent, but nearly all others in the island are so bad as to discourage motorists.

The Station Hotel at Holyhead is owned by the Northwestern Railway, and would be creditable to a city of one hundred thousand. It affords every comfort to its guests, and the railway people have made special provisions for the motor car, among these one of the best-equipped garages that I saw anywhere. The motor is becoming a serious rival to the railway in Britain, the heavy reduction in first-class passenger travel being attributed to the popularity of the horseless carriage; but the situation has been accepted by the companies which own hotels and they have generally provided first-class accommodation for cars belonging to their guests.

In a previous chapter I referred to our run from London to Holyhead, reaching Ludlow the first night. I am going to have my say about Ludlow in another chapter; for five visits on different occasions to the delightful old border town should perhaps entitle me, though a stranger to its people, to record my impressions of it somewhat in detail.

Bishop’s Castle marked our entrance into the hill country of Northern Wales. It is a lonely town following a steep, roughly-paved main street, at the top of which we stop for luncheon at an old-fashioned but very pleasant country inn. From Bishop’s Castle to Barmouth by the way of Welshpool, Llanfair, Dinas Mawddwy and Dolgelley, we pass through the very heart of North Wales and see many phases of its beauty, though generally in the wilder and sterner moods. The hills are often steep, but from their crests we have far-reaching views over the wooded vales and green hill ranges. In places we wind through tangled forests or run along the banks of swift little rivers. At Dinas Mawddwy we enter the Welsh mountains, the most imposing hills in Britain. The tiny village nestling beside its rippling river seems lost in the mighty hills that overhang it on every side, rugged and almost precipitous, yet velvety green to their very summits. We begin our climb out of the valley over the Bwlch Ooeddrws Pass—the name is even more alarming than the heavy grade shown in the road book—and for three miles we climb steadily up the mighty hill alongside an incline that drops sharply to the roaring stream far below. From the summit a grand prospect greets our eyes: the wild, broken, intensely green Welsh hills stretching away range after range until they fade in the purple shadows of the distance, and yet higher above us looms the crest of Cader Idris, on which still linger flecks of snow. After a short pause to contemplate the beauty of the scene, we plunge down the descent, steep, sinuous and rough, to Dolgelley, lying at the foot of the hill, a retired little town with a long history; for here the Welsh hero, Owen Glendwr, held his parliaments and made a rallying point for his adherents in North Wales. Today its old-time, gray-stone, slate-roofed houses are hemmed in by more modern villas such as one now finds in most of the beauty spots of northern Wales.

The ten miles of road to Barmouth follows the estuary of the river with only moderate grades until it reaches the town, when it plunges down the long hill to the seashore. Barmouth, or, as the Welsh style it, Abermaw, is a quiet watering-place lying along a narrow beach at the foot of the hills that rise almost sheer behind the town. The coast line of the wide rock-bound harbor is wild and broken, and the view over the estuary at sunset is an enchanting one. The hotels are rather small and the beginning of the crowded season is just at hand. Should one wish to remain for a time in Barmouth to explore some of the grandest scenery in Wales, he would be more at ease in May or June.

As we leave the town an obliging garage man hails us and warns us to beware of Llanaber, two or three miles to the north; a trap for motorists has been set there, and as if to convince us that wealth and station will not protect us, he adds in a rather awe-stricken manner that Her Grace the Duchess of W——, wife of the richest nobleman in the Kingdom, was stopped last week and fined ten pounds. We feel that a contribution to the exchequer of Llanaber would hardly come so easy from us as from the wealthy duchess, and we pass through the wretched little hamlet at a most respectful pace. The rain has begun to fall heavily and has apparently dampened the ardor of the Welsh constables, for we see nothing of them. The road continues many miles between the mountain slope and the low green marshes stretching seaward, but the driving rain obscures the view. At only one point does the ocean lash the rocks directly beneath us; elsewhere along the coast the road is separated from the sea by marshes and stretches of sandy beach, varying from a few hundred feet to two miles in width.

Suddenly the gray bulk of Harlech Castle, standing on its commanding eminence, four square to all the winds of heaven, looms up grim and vast in the gusty rain. It is the last of the great feudal castles of Britain that we are to see on our pilgrimage—save some of those we have seen before—and it marks a fitting close to the long list that we have visited—nearly every one of importance in the Island.

Harlech is one of the seven great castles built by Edward I. in his effort to subdue Wales. It contests with Carnarvon and Conway for first place among the Welsh ruins and is easily one of the half dozen most remarkable castellated fortresses in the Kingdom. It is perched on a mighty rock which drops almost sheer to the wide, sandy marsh along the sea, and just below it on the landward side is the village that gives the castle its name. Inside the great quadrangle, we find the trim neatness that characterizes the ruins belonging to the crown. We ascend the stairway leading to the battlements and follow the path around the walls and towers. A thousand pities that the rain shuts out the view, for surely there are few such panoramas of sea and mountain in Britain as one may get from the walls of Harlech. Shall we let one more fortunate than we, having seen the prospect on a cloudless day, tell its beauty in poetic phrase?

“It is a scene of unparalleled beauty, whichever way one turns; whether to the sea, out beyond the sandy beach at the foot of Castle Rock, running far away, a sheet of intensest blue, until it meets the pale sapphire of the sky; or whether toward the mountains of the north, Snowdon, the snow-crowned king of them all, rising in matchless majesty above his satellites; or to the landward where the tiny village nestles at the foot of craglike hills; or to the westward where the great promontory of Lleyn stretches away, throwing here and there into the sky its isolated peaks, so full of savage sternness tempered with weird beauty.”

Verily, these misty days in Britain often hide visions of beauty from one’s eager eyes. We will ask little of the story of Harlech, but it is a stirring one. It saw strenuous times as a stronghold of Owen Glendwr, who captured it in 1404 and held it against the forces of Henry IV., who re-took the castle four years later, driving the Welsh prince into the mountains. Here came Margaret, the queen of the Sixth Henry, during the war of the Roses, and the castle yielded, only after a long siege, to the onslaught of the adherents of the House of York. Indeed, Harlech was the last fortress in England to hold out for the Lancastrian cause. But far more memorable than the siege are the wild swinging cadences of the “March of the Men of Harlech,” to which the conflict gave birth. During the civil war, the castle was the last in Wales to hold out for King Charles, and its story closes with its surrender to the army of the Commonwealth in 1647.

The rain ceases shortly after we leave Harlech, and the air becomes clear, though the sky is still overcast. It is fortunate, for we see some of the wildest and most impressive of Welsh scenery. Great clifflike hills, splashed with red shale and purple heather or clad in the somber green of the pines, rise abruptly from the roadside. At Beddgelert the beauty culminates in one of the finest scenes in Wales. The valley, a plot of woods and meadows, is surrounded on every hand by the giant hills, whose sides glow with red and purple rock which crops out among the scattered pines that climb to the very crests. Two clear, dashing mountain streams join their waters to form the river Glaslyn, which winds through a mighty gorge to the sea; and alongside the river runs the perfect road over which we have just been coursing. The Royal Goat, right by the roadside, invites us to pause for our late luncheon; a charming old-fashioned inn, odd as its name, but homelike and hospitable. At Beddgelert the beauty begins to fade and one sees only commonplace country and barren hills until he reaches Carnarvon.

Returning from Holyhead, we followed the fine coast road from Bangor to Conway, where we paused to renew our acquaintance with one of the most charming towns in the Kingdom. In many respects it is unique, for nowhere will one find more perfect relics of feudal time, or feel more thoroughly its spirit than at Conway. The little city still lies snugly behind its ancient wall, whose one and twenty watch towers stand grimly as of old, though shorn of their defenders in these piping times of peace. And the castle, from many viewpoints the most picturesque of them all, looks marvelously perfect from a little distance—so perfect that one could hardly wonder to see a flash of armor from the stately battlements. Yet with all its antiquity, Conway, inside its walls, is clean and neat and has an air of quiet prosperity. So widely known are its charms that perhaps it should have no place in this record; and yet it is probable that the great majority of American visitors in England never see Conway—which assumption is my excuse for a few words of appreciation.

If there were no castle or wall, there would be ample warrant for coming to see one of the most charming Elizabethan mansions in the Island. Plas Mawr—the Great House—indeed deserves its name; a huge building of many gables, odd corners and stone-mullioned, diamond-paned windows. Inside there are great paneled rooms with richly bossed plaster ceilings, wide fireplaces with mantelpieces emblazoned with the arms of the ancient owners, and many narrow winding passageways leading—you never quite learn whither. Very appropriate is the ghostly legend of the house, and even more fitting the better substantiated story of the visit of Queen Elizabeth—that splendid royal traveler who might well be our patron saint. Stately is the great chamber, the sitting-room of the Queen’s suite, with its paneled walls, its highly ornate ceiling, its great group of no less than a dozen windows; and the fireplace, six feet or more across, where a great log might be thrown to glow, a solid core of heat—fit indeed for the evening musings of the royal guest.

A thorough round of Plas Mawr will serve to give one an appetite for luncheon at the Castle Hotel—at least this was the result in our particular case. But one would not really need much of an appetite to be tempted by the luncheon set forth at the Castle Hotel, one of the cleanest, brightest and best-ordered of the many inns at which we stopped in our wanderings.

In a jaunt up the Conway River, one will see much pleasing scenery of hill, valley and river, and will come at Bettws-y-Coed into the Holyhead road, which splendid highway we follow through Llangollen and Oswestry to Shrewsbury. This route abounds in interest; Chirk is famous for its castle and there is an ivy-covered ruin at Whittington, but we do not pause in our swift flight for any of them. The sky has cleared and delightful vistas greet our eyes as we hasten through “the sweet vale of Llangollen.” We come into Shrewsbury almost ere we know it, and a half hour later catch sight of the great church tower of Ludlow town.

A longing for a farewell glimpse of Warwickshire comes upon us as we leave Ludlow on the afternoon of the following day; and what pleasanter memory could we choose for the closing days of our long pilgrimage in England than a flight through the charming country that lies at her very heart? True, we will pass over roads that we have traversed before, but could one ever weary of Stratford and Warwick and Coventry, and of the quiet Midlands that lie about them?

We pause for one last look at the cathedral at Worcester, its great tower of warm red stone standing sharp against the cloudless sky; it is altogether one of the most perfect in proportion and design of all the churches in the Island. Then we hasten through the summer landscape—its prevailing green dashed with the pale gold of the yellowing harvests—to Droitwich and through Alcester, with its dull-red brick and black-oak beams, into the now familiar streets of Stratford-on-Avon. We pause at the busy souvenir store of which two years before the white-haired mayor was proprietor; but he has since retired, his successor tells us. As one of the notables of the town, he points out Miss Corelli, the novelist, who has made her home in Stratford and waxed rich through much advertising, which sometimes assumed forms highly distasteful to her fellow-townsmen. For it chanced that one Andrew Carnegie would present a handsome library building to Stratford should the town provide a suitable site, but for some reason Miss Corelli objected, and by engaging the plan in some of the endless legal quibbles possible in England, she defeated it. The mayor was vexed beyond measure and when the attorney for Miss Corelli interrogated him,

“Did you not say that you would give a thousand pounds to get Miss Corelli out of Stratford?”

“I have never said so,” replied his honor, “but though a thousand pounds does not grow on a gooseberry bush for me, I really believe I would.”

This retort so irritated the authoress that she brought an action for libel and was awarded a farthing damages. But this bit of gossip hardly accords with the spirit of Stratford at the coming of twilight, when the low sun flashes on the still bosom of the immemorial Avon and pierces the gloom beneath the great trees that cluster around the church.

We come here again from Coventry on the following day to join the worshipers in the fane where sleeps the Master of English Letters. It is a perfect day and the large light-toned windows lend an air almost of cheerfulness to the graceful interior of Stratford Church, and the great organ fills it with noble melody. With such surroundings, perhaps we miss much of the sermon—at least we can recall nothing of it in the lapse of time—but the memories that come back to us now are of the mingled feelings of reverence and inspiration that dominated us during the hour we lingered.

As we leave the church—our car has stood by the roadside the while—an intelligent little fellow approaches us, urging his services as guide, and he looks so longingly at the car that we take him in. In all our wanderings about Stratford, and hardly a highroad or byway has escaped us, we have missed the old cottage where Mary Arden is said to have lived. Is said to have lived—alas, that hypothetical “said” that flings its blight over so many of our sacred shrines. But what matters it, after all? What mattered it to the pious votary of olden time that the relics of his revered saint, so fraught with comfort and healing to him, turned out to be the bones of a goat? There shall be no question for us on this perfect day of English summer that the low gray walls and sagging dull-red tile roof of the cottage before us once sheltered the mother of Shakespeare. It stands behind a low stone wall, in the village of Wilmcote, two or three miles from Stratford, a blaze of old-fashioned flowers in front of it and creepers and rose vines clamber over its gray walls. It is only a farmhouse tenement now, but with the old buildings grouped about it and its dovecot, it makes a picture well suited to the glamour that legend throws about the place. Our small guide eagerly points it out and proposes to seek admittance for us; but we desire no such disenchantment as this would likely bring. We ask him to point the way to Shottery, for we wish a final glimpse of Anne Hathaway’s cottage, whose authenticity is only a shade better attested than that of the home of Mary Arden.

The road from Stratford to Banbury is winding and steep in places, and Sun-Rising Hill is known over the Kingdom as the most formidable in the Midland Country; the road climbs it in sweeping curves and the increasing grade brings the motor to “low” ere we reach the top. But the prospect which greets one from its summit makes the climb worth while, a panorama of green and gold fading into the purple haze of distance. The Red Lion at Banbury appeals to us and we rest awhile in the courtyard after luncheon. Along the walls directly in front of us, a blaze of purple bloom, stretches the “largest wisteria in England,” one hundred and eighty feet in length, its stem like a good-sized tree. It has been thus with so many of the old-time inns; each has had some peculiar charm. But surely no architect ever planned the Red Lion Inn; it is a rambling building that seems to have grown up with the years. No straight line curbs its walls; none of its floors maintain the same level; it is a maze of strangely assorted apartments, narrow, winding hallways and odd nooks and corners.

The road we follow to Daventry is a retired one, very narrow and almost lost in places between high hedges and over-arching trees. It leads through quaint villages, snug and cozy among the hills, seemingly little disturbed by the workaday world beyond. What a change it is to come into the Holyhead road at Daventry, the splendid highway that charms one more and more every time he passes over it; and did ever anyone see it more golden and glorious than we as we hasten toward Coventry in the face of the setting sun? The giant elms and yews and pines that border the road stand sharply against the wide bar of lucent gold that sweeps around the horizon, flecked here and there with purple and silver clouds. Soon the three slender spires of the old city loom out of the purple mists that hover over it and stand in clear outline against the sunset sky, a scene of calm and inspiring beauty. As we come nearer the shadows resolve themselves into the houses of the charming old town, in the heart of which we come to our pleasant inn.

There is little more to be told; our second long pilgrimage through the sunlit fields and rain-swept wolds of Britain and Ireland draws near its close. We take our final leave of Coventry with keen regret and soon come into the Northamptonshire Hills. We see the Bringtons again, far more delightful under cloudless skies than in the gray summer shower that wrapped the little hamlets during our former visit.

Beyond Northampton, a memory of Ben Franklin brings us to Ecton, apparently the sleepiest of Midland villages. We follow the straggling line of thatched cottages to the church, where gray stones with almost illegible inscriptions mark the graves of Eleanor and Thomas Franklin, uncle and aunt of one who, in some respects, was our greatest American. The Franklin manor house is gone and Benjamin himself had little to do with Ecton save as a visitor to his ancestral home. He relates that in searching the parish records he learned that he was the youngest son of the youngest son for no less than five generations—verily, genius has little respect for the law of primo-geniture so sacred in England. His grandfather, also a Benjamin, left Ecton for London, where he engaged in the dyer’s trade and varied the drudgery of his calling by writing much poetry of doubtful merit. His youngest son, Josias, emigrated to America in 1682, and the rest is American history, too well known to need recording here. Ecton, somnolent and remote, seems little conscious today of the achievements of the mighty son of her Franklin squires of a few centuries ago.

At Bedford, the brightest and most progressive-looking of English towns, we enter the old home of Howard, who civilized the prisons of the world and whose memory is kept green by the excellent work of the Howard societies of our own and other countries. Near at hand is the Bunyan memorial chapel, with many relics of the author of “Pilgrim’s Progress.” And one is mildly astonished to see the collection of the works of this famous preacher and to note how “Pilgrim’s Progress” outshone and survived a flood of mediocre, if not stupid, theological writings which he poured forth. We hasten onward through Cambridge, and night finds us at the Angel in Bury St. Edmunds. Of our last day’s wanderings I have already told in my chapter on East Anglia.

Travel-stained but unwearied, the tried and trusty companion of our pilgrimage stands before our London hotel. It is hard to think of her—is the pronoun right?—as a thing of iron and steel; she has won a personality to us; but, metaphor aside, what a splendid means to a splendid end the motor has become! In two summers we have seen more of Britain than one might find it practicable to see in years under old conditions, and we have seen the most delightful, though unfamiliar, side. I trust that some small measure of our appreciation has been reflected in these pages, though I well recognize that neither the words nor the power to use them are mine by which there might be conveyed a truly adequate idea of such a pilgrimage.