CLEAR WATERS 



Our men-folk persuaded their wives that it was the 

 nicest place in Wales because there were no trippers, 

 and by a more convincing argument that on its rather 

 melancholy but level sands the children couldn't get 

 drowned if they tried. For one or more in every 

 party of infants invariably makes an attempt at self- 

 destruction if they have half a chance. The tyrant 

 sex, too, liked to feel when they were away up the 

 Dysynni, sewin fishing, that their progeny were quite 

 safe. It was some years before the ladies struck, if so 

 harsh a term may be used ; the children and the men 

 never did. Towyn was very small in those days, and 

 was proudly regarded by its inhabitants as particularly 

 select. The last time I went through it and stopped 

 to call upon my old friend and everybody's friend, the 

 chemist and fishing-tackle vender, he almost shed 

 tears at the social slump in the way of summer visitors 

 that had taken place. A psychical moment had in 

 fact occurred some years before in the history of 

 Towyn. It was a question of making a golf-course, 

 where nature had provided them with almost a ready- 

 made one of the finest quality, or building a long, 

 expensive, and dreary asphalt promenade. 



Now there was not a single golf-course then in the 

 whole of Wales. Aberdovey close by, the first in the 

 Principality, was not quite yet laid out. We had 

 already in our off hours played for many Augusts over 

 as fine a natural surface with sand-hills, bunkers, and 

 keen turf as could be desired, to the amazement of 

 natives and visitors, none of whom had ever before 

 seen the uncanny thing. Such a chance, and at such 

 a moment, never offered itself to a little watering- 

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