Free From Across the Ancient Waters by Michael Phillips Page B

Llanfryniog?”
    “Visiting,” answered Percy.
    “Da. Then let me say
‘Croeso i Cymru’
to you!”
    Confusion on Percy’s face was his only answer.
    “‘Welcome to Wales,’ in your tongue.”
    “Thank you,” nodded Percy.
    “I best be on my way.” The boy called Stevie laughed. “My little flock is already leaving me behind!” He broke into a jog to catch them, whistled once, then turned. “You’d be welcome for a visit anytime,” he called back. “We’re over the rise there, in the little crook of the next valley … a little stone cottage.”
    “Thank you,” said Percy.
    Stevie waved then turned and hurried after his sheep.
    Percy resumed his ride in the same direction. A short distance farther up the gently rising slope, he paused and turned around in the saddle to take stock of where he had come. Whatever might be the horse’s condition, his own hindquarters were sore. He would gladly have dismounted and walked awhile. He was not at all confident, however, that he would be able to get back up on the mare by himself.
    Spread out below him, at a distance now of perhaps two miles, stretched the coastline. Between the ocean and himself sat his uncle’s imposing stone mansion of Westbrooke Manor from which he had come. The eight-foot-tall stone-block wall of the boundary of the estate meandered across moor and through field, into woodland, and a good way up this same slope and out of sight, in a great circumference of four or five miles surrounding the great house. From this distance the estate did not appear so huge. In truth, however, the viscount’s property measured in the thousands of acres. Only a portion of it lay enclosed by the high stone wall in the immediate vicinity of the manor.
    Lord Snowdon owned most of the village of Llanfryniog as well, and nearly all its cottages and the poor homes Percy saw scattered about the moorland and into the hills. His tenants paid him, through his factor, semiannual rents. Though they could at times prove difficult to bear, they were not so crippling as they might have been. His people considered the viscount a reasonable man, though generally stern and aloof. Most harbored no reason either to love or hate him. That they did not tremble when they saw his factor approach on horseback was a good sign. Though neither did they smile.
    The sea today offered the beholder intriguing shades of blue and green. From the high vantage point of his ride, the white stretch of sandy beach below the bluff straight ahead of him was obscured from Percy’s view by the cliff edge. Farther to the right, however, the sand surrounding Llanfryniog inlet, at the southern extremity of which the body had been found, and the slate roofs of the village beside it, glistened in the westerly afternoon sun. Sails of a few fishing boats from the harbor dotted the surface of Tremadog Bay, as the waters were known between Point Mochras and the peninsula of Lleyn, faintly visible at a distance of some fourteen to sixteen miles to the west. Northward from Percy’s outlook, the spires from another great country house, constructed of more reddish-looking stones and appearing like a castle from this height, rose above the coastal moorland.
    As he gazed about him, Percy realized that he had come a good distance. He had better return down the slopes. If he wanted to know more about these hills, he would find out another time. He had already ridden farther than he intended.
    He urged his mount on. Perhaps the mare now sensed the direction he wished to go, for she veered to the left and they began a descent, where they would circle around and return to the estate by the front gate. He decided that Grey Tide was the horse of choice for him. She seemed to know that he trusted in her.

F OURTEEN
    Nosegay from a Tiny Friend
    A nother hour passed as the lone rider from Glasgow made his way out of the hills on a course roughly southwest. His route brought him below the estate on the wide moorland plateau