And I was sorry--very
sorry, at that moment for Rupert K. Vaness.
THE BAT AND BELFRY INN
By ALAN GRAHAM
(From _The Story-Teller_)
1922
It was the maddest and most picturesque hotel at which we have ever
stopped. Tony and I were touring North Wales. We had left Llandudno
that morning in the twoseater, lunched at Festiniog, and late in the
afternoon were trundling down a charming valley with the reluctant
assistance of a road whose surface, if it ever had possessed such an
asset, had long since vanished. On rounding one of the innumerable
hairpin bends on our road, there burst upon us the most gorgeous
miniature scene that we had ever encountered. I stopped the car almost
automatically.
"Oh, George, what a charming hotel!" exclaimed Tony. "Let's stop and
have tea."
Tony, I should mention, is my wife. She is intensely practical.
I had not noticed the hotel, for before us the valley opened out into a
perfect stage setting. From the road the land fell sharply a hundred
feet to a rocky mountain stream, the rustle of whose water came up to
us faintly like the music heard in a sea-shell.
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