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Perhaps the most valued of his guests was Clough, who had then written most of his poetry, and projected new enterprises, not knowing how short his life would be. Besides Clough, Matthew Arnold came to Plas Gwynant, and Charles Kingsley, and John Conington, the Oxford Professor of Latin, and Max Muller, the great philologist.
He examined them thoroughly, and accepted Parker's proposal that he should write the history of the period. But he had to leave Plas Gwynant. The London Library, which Carlyle had founded, sufficed for contributions to magazines. History was a more serious affair, and it was necessary for him to be, if not in London, at least near a railway.
They looked about for a country home, and were fortunate enough to find the most enchanting spot in North Wales. Plas Gwynant, the shining place, stands on a rising ground surrounded by woods, at the foot of Snowdon, between Capel Curig and Beddgelert. Beyond the lawn and meadow is Dinas Lake.
He was the best and warmest of friends. In London he would always lay aside his work for the day to entertain one of his contemporaries at Oxford, and at Plas Gwynant they found a hospitable welcome. He would fish with them, or shoot with them, or boat with them, or walk with them, discussing every subject under heaven.
A cherry orchard stood close to the house door, and a torrent poured through a rocky ravine in the grounds, falling into a pool below. A mile up the valley was the glittering lake, Lyn Gwynant, with a boat and plenty of fishing. Good shooting was also within reach. To this ideal home Froude came with his wife in the summer of 1850. Here began a new life of cloudless happiness and perfect peace.
Meurig Wynne still pored over apparently the self-same books which he was studying when we first saw him. "Sit down, Cardo," he said, as his son entered; "I have a good deal to say to you. First, this letter," and he hunted about amongst his papers. "It is from an old friend of mine, Rowland Ellis of Plas Gwynant. You know I hear from him occasionally quite often enough.
For his first two years at Oxford he had done little except ride, and boat, and play tennis. At Plas Gwynant he was as much out of doors as in, and even to the last his physical enjoyment of an expedition in the open air was intense.
Although he wrote regularly, and his love of reading was a passion, he had the keenest enjoyment of sport and expeditions, of country air and sights and sounds, of natural beauty and physical exercise. It was impossible to be dull in his company, for he was the prince of conversers, drawing out as much as he gave. No wonder that there were numerous visitors at Plas Gwynant.
Nor let any pious Welshman be shocked if we venture to assert that Gellert, that famous hound upon whose last resting-place the traveller comes as he passes down the lovely vale of Gwynant, is a mythical dog, and never snuffed the fresh breeze in the forest of Snowdon, nor saved his master's child from ravening wolf. This, too, is a primaeval story, told with many variations.
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