584 SKETCHES IN DENBIGHSHIRE. [JulV) 



it extended far into the rock, we did not venture more than a 

 peep, fearing that another member of the family might fly out 

 and resent our intrusion. Reaching the top of the rocks, we sat 

 a few moments to rest and enjoy the splendid view, and then 

 ascending the moorland, and with much difficulty wading through 

 a sea of stubborn gorse, we at last found a well-trodden sheep- 

 path ; and, following its course, we descended at the other side 

 of the hill, and soon joined our companions, and with them struck 

 into the road that leads around the " Barber." That bold dark 

 hill which forms so remarkable a feature in the scenery of the 

 Vale of Llangollen, is (according to Roberts's guide-book) seven 

 hundred feet above the level of the turnpike road. It derives its 

 English surname from a tragedy which, some hundred years ago, 

 was enacted on its summit. According to tradition, a barber 

 (who also followed the "vocation of village schoolmaster in Llan- 

 gollen), wishing to cut short the gossiping propensities of a too 

 talkative wife (who had threatened to disclose wbat she knew of 

 a murder committed by him), severed her windpipe, and so si- 

 lenced her for ever. The deed done, he fled from its consequences, 

 but did not get very far, for he was arrested while washing his 

 hands in the " Pistill Aber Adda,'' and finally sentenced to be 

 hanged. This sentence was carried out on the summit of the 

 " Geriaut ;" and if the unlucky criminal was gifted with any taste 

 for the beauties of nature, it must have greatly aggravated the 

 horror of his punishment to be allowed to feast his eyes for one 

 moment on the wide expanse of hill and dale, woodland and shi- 

 ning river, only to bid adieu for ever to the lovely scene, before 

 being violently launched into an unknown and (to him) a dread 

 and dark eternity. Taking the road down that side of the 

 " Barber" that faces Llangollen, we noticed the Athyrium Filix- 

 fcemina in great luxuriance; also the little Dryopteris, as usual 

 rearing its emerald fronds from a bed of sharp loose stones ; also 

 some common varieties of the Lastrea family ; and the Polypo- 

 dium vulgare, with its dark-green tufts, showing fronds of a much 

 larger growth than any we had previously met with. 



