Chapter XIX
The Vicar and his Family—Evan Evans—Foaming Ale—Llam y Lleidyr—Baptism—Joost Van Vondel—Over to Rome—The Miller’s Man—Welsh and English.
We had received a call from the Vicar of Llangollen and his lady; we had returned it, and they had done us the kindness to invite us to take tea with them. On the appointed evening we went, myself, wife, and Henrietta, and took tea with the vicar and his wife, their sons and daughters, all delightful and amiable beings—the eldest son a fine intelligent young man from Oxford, lately admitted into the Church, and now assisting his father in his sacred office. A delightful residence was the vicarage, situated amongst trees in the neighbourhood of the Dee. A large open window in the room, in which our party sat, afforded us a view of a green plat on the top of a bank running down to the Dee, part of the river, the steep farther bank covered with umbrageous trees, and a high mountain beyond, even that of Pen y Coed clad with wood. During tea Mr E. and I had a great deal of discourse. I found him to be a first-rate Greek and Latin scholar, and also a proficient in the poetical literature of his own country. In the course of discourse he repeated some noble lines of Evan Evans, the unfortunate and eccentric Prydydd Hir, or tall poet, the friend and correspondent of Gray, for whom he made literal translations from the Welsh, which the great English genius afterwards wrought into immortal verse.
“I have a great regard for poor Evan Evans,” said Mr E., after he had finished repeating the lines, “for two reasons: first, because he was an illustrious genius, and second, because he was a South-Wallian like myself.”
“And I,” I replied, “because he was a great poet, and like myself fond of a glass of cwrw da.”
Some time after tea the younger Mr E. and myself took a walk in an eastern direction along a path cut in the bank, just above the stream. After proceeding a little way amongst most romantic scenery, I asked my companion if he had ever heard of the pool of Catherine Lingo—the deep pool, as the reader will please to remember, of which John Jones had spoken.
“Oh yes,” said young Mr E.: “my brothers and myself are in the habit of bathing there almost every morning. We will go to it if you please.”
We proceeded, and soon came to the pool. The pool is a beautiful sheet of water, seemingly about one hundred and fifty yards in length, by about seventy in width. It is bounded on the east by a low ridge of rocks forming a weir. The banks on both sides are high and precipitous, and covered with trees, some of which shoot their arms for some way above the face of the pool. This is said to be the deepest pool in the whole course of the Dee, varying in depth from twenty to thirty feet. Enormous pike, called in Welsh penhwiaid, or ducks-heads, from the similarity which the head of a pike bears to that of a duck, are said to be tenants of this pool.
We returned to the vicarage, and at about ten we all sat down to supper. On the supper-table was a mighty pitcher full of foaming ale.
“There,” said my excellent host, as he poured me out a glass, “there is a glass of cwrw, which Evan Evans himself might have drunk.”
One evening my wife, Henrietta, and myself, attended by John Jones, went upon the Berwyn, a little to the east of the Geraint or Barber’s Hill, to botanize. Here we found a fern which John Jones called Coed llus y Brân, or the plant of the Crow’s berry. There was a hard kind of berry upon it, of which he said the crows were exceedingly fond. We also discovered two or three other strange plants, the Welsh names of which our guide told us, and which were curious and descriptive enough. He took us home by a romantic path which we had never before seen, and on our way pointed out to us a small house in which he said he was born.
The day after, finding myself on the banks of the Dee in the upper part of the valley, I determined to examine the Llam Lleidyr or Robber’s Leap, which I had heard spoken of on a former occasion. A man passing near me with a cart I asked him where the Robber’s Leap was. I spoke in English, and with a shake of his head he replied “Dim Saesneg.” On my putting the question to him in Welsh, however, his countenance brightened up.
“Dyna Llam Lleidyr, sir!” said he, pointing to a very narrow part of the stream a little way down.
“And did the thief take it from this side?” I demanded.
“Yes, sir, from this side,” replied the man.
I thanked him, and passing over the dry part of the river’s bed, came to the Llam Lleidyr. The whole water of the Dee in the dry season gurgles here through a passage not more than four feet across, which, however, is evidently profoundly deep, as the water is as dark as pitch. If the thief ever took the leap he must have taken it in the dry season, for in the wet the Dee is a wide and roaring torrent. Yet even in the dry season it is difficult to conceive how anybody could take this leap, for on the other side is a rock rising high above the dark gurgling stream. On observing the opposite side, however, narrowly, I perceived that there was a small hole a little way up the rock, in which it seemed possible to rest one’s foot for a moment. So I supposed that if the leap was ever taken, the individual who took it darted the tip of his foot into the hole, then springing up seized the top of the rock with his hands, and scrambled up. From either side the leap must have been a highly dangerous one—from the farther side the leaper would incur the almost certain risk of breaking his legs on a ledge of hard rock, from this of falling back into the deep horrible stream, which would probably suck him down in a moment.
From the Llam y Lleidyr I went to the canal and walked along it till I came to the house of the old man who sold coals, and who had put me in mind of Smollett’s Morgan; he was now standing in his little coal-yard, leaning over the pales. I had spoken to him on two or three occasions subsequent to the one on which I made his acquaintance, and had been every time more and more struck with the resemblance which his ways and manners bore to those of Smollett’s character, on which account I shall call him Morgan, though such was not his name. He now told me that he expected that I should build a villa and settle down in the neighbourhood, as I seemed so fond of it. After a little discourse, induced either by my questions or from a desire to talk about himself, he related to me his history, which, though not one of the most wonderful, I shall repeat. He was born near Aberdarron in Caernarvonshire, and in order to make me understand the position of the place, and its bearing with regard to some other places, he drew marks in the coal-dust on the earth. His father was a Baptist minister, who when Morgan was about six years of age, went to live at Canol Lyn, a place at some little distance from Port Heli. With his father he continued till he was old enough to gain his own maintenance, when he went to serve a farmer in the neighbourhood. Having saved some money young Morgan departed to the foundries at Cefn Mawr, at which he worked thirty years with an interval of four, which he had passed partly in working in slate quarries, and partly upon the canal. About four years before the present time he came to where he now lived, where he commenced selling coals, at first on his own account and subsequently for some other person. He concluded his narration by saying that he was now sixty-two years of age, was afflicted with various disorders, and believed that he was breaking up.
Such was Morgan’s history; certainly not a very remarkable one. Yet Morgan was a most remarkable individual, as I shall presently make appear.
Rather affected at the bad account he gave me of his health I asked him if he felt easy in his mind? He replied perfectly so, and when I inquired how he came to feel so comfortable, he said that his feeling so was owing to his baptism into the faith of Christ Jesus. On my telling him that I too had been baptized, he asked me if I had been dipped; and on learning that I had not, but only been sprinkled, according to the practice of my church, he gave me to understand that my baptism was not worth three halfpence. Feeling rather nettled at hearing the baptism of my church so undervalued, I stood up for it, and we were soon in a dispute, in which I got rather the worst, for though he spuffled and sputtered in a most extraordinary manner, and spoke in a dialect which was neither Welsh, English nor Cheshire, but a mixture of all three, he said two or three things rather difficult to be got over. Finding that he had nearly silenced me, he observed that he did not deny that I had a good deal of book learning, but that in matters of baptism I was as ignorant as the rest of the people of the church were, and had always been. He then said that many church people had entered into argument with him on the subject of baptism, but that he had got the better of them all; that Mr P., the minister of the parish of L., in which we then were, had frequently entered into argument with him, but quite unsuccessfully, and had at last given up the matter, as a bad job. He added that a little time before, as Mr P. was walking close to the canal with his wife and daughter and a spaniel dog, Mr P. suddenly took up the dog and flung it in, giving it a good ducking, whereupon he, Morgan, cried out: “Dyna y gwir vedydd! That is the right baptism, sir! I thought I should bring you to it at last!” at which words Mr P. laughed heartily, but made no particular reply.
After a little time he began to talk about the great men who had risen up amongst the Baptists, and mentioned two or three distinguished individuals.
I said that he had not mentioned the greatest man who had been born amongst the Baptists.
“What was his name?” said he.
“His name was Joost Van Vondel,” I replied.
“I never heard of him before,” said Morgan.
“Very probably,” said I: “he was born, bred, and died in Holland.”
“Has he been dead long?” said Morgan.
“About two hundred years,” said I.
“That’s a long time,” said Morgan, “and maybe is the reason that I never heard of him. So he was a great man?”
“He was indeed,” said I. “He was not only the greatest man that ever sprang up amongst the Baptists, but the greatest, and by far the greatest, that Holland ever produced, though Holland has produced a great many illustrious men.”
“Oh I daresay he was a great man if he was a Baptist,” said Morgan. “Well, it’s strange I never read of him. I thought I had read the lives of all the eminent people who lived and died in our communion.”
“He did not die in the Baptist communion,” said I.
“Oh, he didn’t die in it,” said Morgan; “What, did he go over to the Church of England? a pretty fellow!”
“He did not go over to the Church of England,” said I, “for the Church of England does not exist in Holland; he went over to the Church of Rome.”
“Well, that’s not quite so bad,” said Morgan; “however, it’s bad enough. I daresay he was a pretty blackguard.”
“No,” said I: “he was a pure virtuous character, and perhaps the only pure and virtuous character that ever went over to Rome. The only wonder is that so good a man could ever have gone over to so detestable a church; but he appears to have been deluded.”
“Deluded indeed!” said Morgan. “However, I suppose he went over for advancement’s sake.”
“No,” said I; “he lost every prospect of advancement by going over to Rome: nine-tenths of his countrymen were of the reformed religion, and he endured much poverty and contempt by the step he took.”
“How did he support himself?” said Morgan.
“He obtained a livelihood,” said I, “by writing poems and plays, some of which are wonderfully fine.”
“What,” said Morgan, “a writer of Interludes? One of Twm o’r Nant’s gang! I thought he would turn out a pretty fellow.” I told him that the person in question certainly did write Interludes, for example Noah, and Joseph at Goshen, but that he was a highly respectable, nay venerable character.
“If he was a writer of Interludes,” said Morgan, “he was a blackguard; there never yet was a writer of Interludes, or a person who went about playing them, that was not a scamp. He might be a clever man, I don’t say he was not. Who was a cleverer man than Twm o’r Nant with his Pleasure and Care, and Riches and Poverty, but where was there a greater blackguard? Why, not in all Wales. And if you knew this other fellow—what’s his name—Fondle’s history, you would find that he was not a bit more respectable than Twm o’r Nant, and not half so clever. As for his leaving the Baptists I don’t believe a word of it; he was turned out of the connection, and then went about the country saying he left it. No Baptist connection would ever have a writer of Interludes in it, not Twm o’r Nant himself, unless he left his ales and Interludes and wanton hussies, for the three things are sure to go together. You say he went over to the Church of Rome; of course he did, if the Church of England were not at hand to receive him, where should he go but to Rome? No respectable church like the Methodist or the Independent would have received him. There are only two churches in the world that will take in anybody without asking questions, and will never turn them out however bad they may behave; the one is the Church of Rome, and the other the Church of Canterbury; and if you look into the matter you will find that every rogue, rascal and hanged person since the world began, has belonged to one or other of those communions.”
In the evening I took a walk with my wife and daughter past the Plas Newydd. Coming to the little mill called the Melyn Bac, at the bottom of the gorge, we went into the yard to observe the water-wheel. We found that it was turned by a very little water, which was conveyed to it by artificial means. Seeing the miller’s man, a short dusty figure, standing in the yard, I entered into conversation with him, and found to my great surprise that he had a considerable acquaintance with the ancient language. On my repeating to him verses from Taliesin he understood them, and to show me that he did, translated some of the lines into English. Two or three respectable-looking lads, probably the miller’s sons, came out, and listened to us. One of them said we were both good Welshmen. After a little time the man asked me if I had heard of Huw Morris, I told him that I was well acquainted with his writings, and enquired whether the place in which he had lived was not somewhere in the neighbourhood. He said it was; and that it was over the mountains not far from Llan Sanfraid. I asked whether it was not called Pont y Meibion. He answered in the affirmative, and added that he had himself been there, and had sat in Huw Morris’s stone chair which was still to be seen by the road’s side. I told him that I hoped to visit the place in a few days. He replied that I should be quite right in doing so, and that no one should come to these parts without visiting Pont y Meibion, for that Huw Morris was one of the columns of the Cumry.
“What a difference,” said I to my wife, after we had departed, “between a Welshman and an Englishman of the lower class. What would a Suffolk miller’s swain have said if I had repeated to him verses out of Beowulf or even Chaucer, and had asked him about the residence of Skelton.”
Chapter XX
Huw Morris—Immortal Elegy—The Valley of Ceiriog—Tangled Wilderness—Perplexity—Chair of Huw Morris—The Walking Stick—Huw’s Descendant—Pont y Meibion.
Two days after the last adventure I set off, over the Berwyn, to visit the birth-place of Huw Morris under the guidance of John Jones, who was well acquainted with the spot.
Huw Morus or Morris, was born in the year 1622 on the banks of the Ceiriog. His life was a long one, for he died at the age of eighty-four, after living in six reigns. He was the second son of a farmer, and was apprenticed to a tanner, with whom, however, he did not stay till the expiration of the term of his apprenticeship, for not liking the tanning art, he speedily returned to the house of his father, whom he assisted in husbandry till death called the old man away. He then assisted his elder brother, and on his elder brother’s death, lived with his son. He did not distinguish himself as a husbandman, and appears never to have been fond of manual labour. At an early period, however, he applied himself most assiduously to poetry, and before he had attained the age of thirty was celebrated, throughout Wales, as the best poet of his time. When the war broke out between Charles and his parliament, Huw espoused the part of the king, not as soldier, for he appears to have liked fighting little better than tanning or husbandry, but as a poet, and probably did the king more service in that capacity than he would if he had raised him a troop of horse, or a regiment of foot, for he wrote songs breathing loyalty to Charles, and fraught with pungent satire against his foes, which ran like wild-fire through Wales, and had a great influence on the minds of the people. Even when the royal cause was lost in the field, he still carried on a poetical war against the successful party, but not so openly as before, dealing chiefly in allegories, which, however, were easy to be understood. Strange to say the Independents, when they had the upper hand, never interfered with him though they persecuted certain Royalist poets of far inferior note. On the accession of Charles the Second he celebrated the event by a most singular piece called the Lamentation of Oliver’s men, in which he assails the Roundheads with the most bitter irony. He was loyal to James the Second, till that monarch attempted to overthrow the Church of England, when Huw, much to his credit, turned against him, and wrote songs in the interest of the glorious Prince of Orange. He died in the reign of good Queen Anne. In his youth his conduct was rather dissolute, but irreproachable and almost holy in his latter days—a kind of halo surrounded his old brow. It was the custom in those days in North Wales for the congregation to leave the church in a row with the clergyman at their head, but so great was the estimation in which old Huw was universally held, for the purity of his life and his poetical gift, that the clergyman of the parish abandoning his claim to precedence, always insisted on the good and inspired old man’s leading the file, himself following immediately in his rear. Huw wrote on various subjects, mostly in common and easily understood measures. He was great in satire, great in humour, but when he pleased could be greater in pathos than in either; for his best piece is an elegy on Barbara Middleton, the sweetest song of the kind ever written. From his being born on the banks of the brook Ceiriog, and from the flowing melody of his awen or muse, his countrymen were in the habit of calling him Eos Ceiriog, or the Ceiriog Nightingale.
So John Jones and myself set off across the Berwyn to visit the birthplace of the great poet Huw Morris. We ascended the mountain by Allt Paddy. The morning was lowering and before we had half got to the top it began to rain. John Jones was in his usual good spirits. Suddenly taking me by the arm he told me to look to the right across the gorge to a white house, which he pointed out.
“What is there in that house?” said I.
“An aunt of mine lives there,” said he.
Having frequently heard him call old women his aunts, I said, “Every poor old woman in the neighbourhood seems to be your aunt.”
“This is no poor old woman,” said he, “she is cyfoethawg iawn, and only last week she sent me and my family a pound of bacon, which would have cost me sixpence-halfpenny, and about a month ago a measure of wheat.”
We passed over the top of the mountain, and descending the other side reached Llansanfraid, and stopped at the public-house where we had been before, and called for two glasses of ale. Whilst drinking our ale Jones asked some questions about Huw Morris of the woman who served us; she said that he was a famous poet, and that people of his blood were yet living upon the lands which had belonged to him at Pont y Meibion. Jones told her that his companion, the gwr boneddig, meaning myself, had come in order to see the birth-place of Huw Morris, and that I was well acquainted with his works, having gotten them by heart in Lloegr, when a boy. The woman said that nothing would give her greater pleasure than to hear a Sais recite poetry of Huw Morris, whereupon I recited a number of his lines addressed to the Gôf Du, or blacksmith. The woman held up her hands, and a carter who was in the kitchen somewhat the worse for liquor, shouted applause. After asking a few questions as to the road we were to take, we left the house, and in a little time entered the valley of Ceiriog. The valley is very narrow, huge hills overhanging it on both sides, those on the east side lumpy and bare, those on the west precipitous, and partially clad with wood; the torrent Ceiriog runs down it, clinging to the east side; the road is tolerably good, and is to the west of the stream. Shortly after we had entered the gorge, we passed by a small farm-house on our right hand, with a hawthorn hedge before it, upon which seems to stand a peacock, curiously cut out of thorn. Passing on we came to a place called Pandy uchaf, or the higher Fulling mill. The place so called is a collection of ruinous houses, which put me in mind of the Fulling mills mentioned in “Don Quixote.” It is called the Pandy because there was formerly a fulling mill here, said to have been the first established in Wales; which is still to be seen, but which is no longer worked. Just above the old mill there is a meeting of streams, the Tarw from the west rolls down a dark valley into the Ceiriog.
At the entrance of this valley and just before you reach the Pandy, which it nearly overhangs, is an enormous crag. After I had looked at the place for some time with considerable interest we proceeded towards the south, and in about twenty minutes reached a neat kind of house, on our right hand, which John Jones told me stood on the ground of Huw Morris. Telling me to wait, he went to the house, and asked some questions. After a little time I followed him and found him discoursing at the door with a stout dame about fifty-five years of age, and a stout buxom damsel of about seventeen, very short of stature.
“This is the gentleman,” said he, “who wishes to see anything there may be here connected with Huw Morris.”
The old dame made me a curtsey, and said in very distinct Welsh, “We have some things in the house which belonged to him, and we will show them to the gentleman willingly.”
“We first of all wish to see his chair,” said John Jones.
“The chair is in a wall in what is called the hen ffordd (old road),” said the old gentlewoman; “it is cut out of the stone wall, you will have maybe some difficulty in getting to it, but the girl shall show it to you.” The girl now motioned to us to follow her, and conducted us across the road to some stone steps, over a wall to a place which looked like a plantation.
“This was the old road,” said Jones; “but the place has been enclosed. The new road is above us on our right hand beyond the wall.”
We were in a maze of tangled shrubs, the boughs of which, very wet from the rain which was still falling, struck our faces, as we attempted to make our way between them; the girl led the way, bare-headed and bare-armed, and soon brought us to the wall, the boundary of the new road. Along this she went with considerable difficulty, owing to the tangled shrubs, and the nature of the ground, which was very precipitous, shelving down to the other side of the enclosure. In a little time we were wet to the skin, and covered with the dirt of birds, which they had left while roosting in the trees; on went the girl, sometimes creeping, and trying to keep herself from falling by holding against the young trees; once or twice she fell and we after her, for there was no path, and the ground, as I have said before very shelvy; still as she went her eyes were directed towards the wall, which was not always very easy to be seen, for thorns, tall nettles and shrubs, were growing up against it. Here and there she stopped, and said something, which I could not always make out, for her Welsh was anything but clear; at length I heard her say that she was afraid we had passed the chair, and indeed presently we came to a place where the enclosure terminated in a sharp corner.
“Let us go back,” said I; “we must have passed it.”
I now went first, breaking down with my weight the shrubs nearest to the wall.
“Is not this the place?” said I, pointing to a kind of hollow in the wall, which looked something like the shape of a chair.
“Hardly,” said the girl, “for there should be a slab on the back, with letters, but there’s neither slab nor letters here.”
The girl now again went forward, and we retraced our way, doing the best we could to discover the chair, but all to no purpose; no chair was to be found. We had now been, as I imagined, half-an-hour in the enclosure, and had nearly got back to the place from which we had set out, when we suddenly heard the voice of the old lady exclaiming, “What are ye doing there, the chair is on the other side of the field; wait a bit, and I will come and show it you;” getting over the stone stile, which led into the wilderness, she came to us, and we now went along the wall at the lower end; we had quite as much difficulty here as on the other side, and in some places more, for the nettles were higher, the shrubs more tangled, and the thorns more terrible. The ground, however, was rather more level. I pitied the poor girl who led the way, and whose fat naked arms were both stung and torn. She at last stopped amidst a huge grove of nettles, doing the best she could to shelter her arms from the stinging leaves.
“I never was in such a wilderness in my life,” said I to John Jones, “is it possible that the chair of the mighty Huw is in a place like this; which seems never to have been trodden by human foot. Well does the Scripture say ‘Dim prophwyd yw yn cael barch yn ei dir ei hunan.’”
This last sentence tickled the fancy of my worthy friend, the Calvinistic-Methodist, he laughed aloud and repeated it over and over again to the females, with amplifications.
“Is the chair really here,” said I, “or has it been destroyed? if such a thing has been done it is a disgrace to Wales.”
“The chair is really here,” said the old lady, “and though Huw Morus was no prophet, we love and reverence everything belonging to him. Get on Llances, the chair can’t be far off;” the girl moved on, and presently the old lady exclaimed, “There’s the chair, Diolch i Duw!”
I was the last of the file, but I now rushed past John Jones, who was before me, and next to the old lady, and sure enough there was the chair, in the wall, of him who was called in his day, and still is called by the mountaineers of Wales, though his body has been below the earth in the quiet church-yard one hundred and forty years, Eos Ceiriog, the Nightingale of Ceiriog, the sweet caroller Huw Morus, the enthusiastic partizan of Charles and the Church of England, and the never-tiring lampooner of Oliver and the Independents. There it was, a kind of hollow in the stone wall, in the hen ffordd, fronting to the west, just above the gorge at the bottom of which murmurs the brook Ceiriog, there it was, something like a half barrel chair in a garden, a mouldering stone slab forming the seat, and a large slate stone, the back, on which were cut these letters—
H. M. B.
signifying Huw Morus Bard.
“Sit down in the chair, Gwr Boneddig,” said John Jones, “you have taken trouble enough to get to it.”
“Do, gentleman,” said the old lady; “but first let me wipe it with my apron, for it is very wet and dirty.”
“Let it be,” said I; then taking off my hat I stood uncovered before the chair, and said in the best Welsh I could command, “Shade of Huw Morus, supposing your shade haunts the place which you loved so well when alive—a Saxon, one of the seed of the Coiling Serpent, has come to this place to pay that respect to true genius, the Dawn Duw, which he is ever ready to pay. He read the songs of the Nightingale of Ceiriog in the most distant part of Lloegr, when he was a brown-haired boy, and now that he is a grey-haired man he is come to say in this place that they frequently made his eyes overflow with tears of rapture.”
I then sat down in the chair, and commenced repeating verses of Huw Morris. All which I did in the presence of the stout old lady, the short, buxom and bare-armed damsel, and of John Jones the Calvinistic weaver of Llangollen, all of whom listened patiently and approvingly, though the rain was pouring down upon them, and the branches of the trees and the tops of the tall nettles, agitated by the gusts from the mountain hollows, were beating in their faces, for enthusiasm is never scoffed at by the noble simple-minded, genuine Welsh, whatever treatment it may receive from the coarse-hearted, sensual, selfish Saxon.
After some time, our party returned to the house—which put me very much in mind of the farm-houses of the substantial yeomen of Cornwall, particularly that of my friends at Penquite; a comfortable fire blazed in the kitchen grate, the floor was composed of large flags of slate. In the kitchen the old lady pointed to me the ffon, or walking-stick, of Huw Morris; it was supported against a beam by three hooks; I took it down and walked about the kitchen with it; it was a thin polished black stick, with a crome cut in the shape of an eagle’s head; at the end was a brass fence. The kind creature then produced a sword without a scabbard; this sword was found by Huw Morris on the mountain—it belonged to one of Oliver’s officers who was killed there. I took the sword, which was a thin two-edged one, and seemed to be made of very good steel; it put me in mind of the blades which I had seen at Toledo—the guard was very slight like those of all rapiers, and the hilt the common old-fashioned English officer’s hilt—there was no rust on the blade, and it still looked a dangerous sword. A man like Thistlewood would have whipped it through his adversary in a twinkling. I asked the old lady if Huw Morris was born in this house; she said no, but a little farther on at Pont y Meibion; she said, however, that the ground had belonged to him, and that they had some of his blood in their veins. I shook her by the hand, and gave the chubby bare-armed damsel a shilling, pointing to the marks of the nettle stings on her fat bacon-like arms. She laughed, made me a curtsey, and said: “Llawer iawn o diolch.”
John Jones and I then proceeded to the house at Pont y Meibion, where we saw two men, one turning a grind-stone, and the other holding an adze to it. We asked if we were at the house of Huw Morris, and whether they could tell us anything about him; they made us no answer but proceeded with their occupation; John Jones then said that the Gwr Boneddig was very fond of the verses of Huw Morris, and had come a great way to see the place where he was born. The wheel now ceased turning, and the man with the adze turned his face full upon me—he was a stern-looking, dark man, with black hair, of about forty; after a moment or two he said that if I chose to walk into the house I should be welcome. He then conducted us into the house, a common-looking stone tenement, and bade us be seated. I asked him if he was a descendant of Huw Morus; he said he was; I asked him his name, which he said was Huw—. “Have you any of the manuscripts of Huw Morus?” said I.
“None,” said he, “but I have one of the printed copies of his works.”
He then went to a drawer, and taking out a book, put it into my hand, and seated himself in a blunt, careless manner. The book was the first volume of the common Wrexham edition of Huw’s works; it was much thumbed—I commenced reading aloud a piece which I had much admired in my boyhood. I went on for some time, my mind quite occupied with my reading; at last lifting my eyes I saw the man standing bolt upright before me, like a soldier of the days of my childhood, during the time that the adjutant read prayers; his hat was no longer upon his head, but on the ground, and his eyes were reverently inclined to the book. After all what a beautiful thing it is, not to be, but to have been a genius. Closing the book, I asked him whether Huw Morris was born in the house where we were, and received for answer that he was born about where we stood, but that the old house had been pulled down, and that of all the premises only a small out-house was coeval with Huw Morris. I asked him the name of the house, and he said Pont y Meibion.
“But where is the bridge?” said I.
“The bridge,” he replied, “is close by, over the Ceiriog. If you wish to see it, you must go down yon field, the house is called after the bridge.” Bidding him farewell, we crossed the road and going down the field speedily arrived at Pont y Meibion. The bridge is a small bridge of one arch which crosses the brook Ceiriog—it is built of rough moor stone; it is mossy, broken, and looks almost inconceivably old; there is a little parapet to it about two feet high. On the right-hand side it is shaded by an ash. The brook when we viewed it, though at times a roaring torrent, was stealing along gently, on both sides it is overgrown with alders, noble hills rise above it to the east and west, John Jones told me that it abounded with trout. I asked him why the bridge was called Pont y Meibion, which signifies the bridge of the children. “It was built originally by children,” said he, “for the purpose of crossing the brook.”
“That bridge,” said I, “was never built by children.”
“The first bridge,” said he, “was of wood, and was built by the children of the houses above.”
Not quite satisfied with his explanation, I asked him to what place the little bridge led, and was told that he believed it led to an upland farm. After taking a long and wistful view of the bridge and the scenery around it, I turned my head in the direction of Llangollen. The adventures of the day were, however, not finished.
Chapter XXI
The Gloomy Valley—The Lonely Cottage—Happy Comparison—Clogs—The Alder Swamp—The Wooden Leg—The Militiaman—Death-bed Verses.
On reaching the ruined village where the Pandy stood I stopped, and looked up the gloomy valley to the west, down which the brook which joins the Ceiriog at this place, descends, whereupon John Jones said, that if I wished to go up it a little way he should have great pleasure in attending me, and that he should show me a cottage built in the hen ddull, or old fashion, to which he frequently went to ask for the rent; he being employed by various individuals in the capacity of rent-gatherer. I said that I was afraid that if he was a rent-collector, both he and I should have a sorry welcome. “No fear,” he replied, “the people are very good people, and pay their rent very regularly,” and without saying another word he led the way up the valley. At the end of the village, seeing a woman standing at the door of one of the ruinous cottages, I asked her the name of the brook, or torrent, which came down the valley. “The Tarw,” said she, “and this village is called Pandy Teirw.”
“Why is the streamlet called the bull?” said I. “Is it because it comes in winter weather roaring down the glen and butting at the Ceiriog?”
The woman laughed, and replied that perhaps it was. The valley was wild and solitary to an extraordinary degree, the brook or torrent running in the middle of it covered with alder trees. After we had proceeded about a furlong we reached the house of the old fashion—it was a rude stone cottage standing a little above the road on a kind of platform on the right-hand side of the glen; there was a paling before it with a gate, at which a pig was screaming, as if anxious to get in. “It wants its dinner,” said John Jones, and opened the gate for me to pass, taking precautions that the screamer did not enter at the same time. We entered the cottage, very glad to get into it, a storm of wind and rain having just come on. Nobody was in the kitchen when we entered, it looked comfortable enough, however, there was an excellent fire of wood and coals, and a very snug chimney corner. John Jones called aloud, but for some time no one answered; at last a rather good-looking woman, seemingly about thirty, made her appearance at a door at the farther end of the kitchen. “Is the mistress at home,” said Jones, “or the master?”
“They are neither at home,” said the woman, “the master is abroad at his work, and the mistress is at the farm-house of—three miles off to pick feathers (trwsio plu).” She asked us to sit down.
“And who are you?” said I.
“I am only a lodger,” said she, “I lodge here with my husband who is a clog-maker.”
“Can you speak English?” said I.
“Oh yes,” said she, “I lived eleven years in England, at a place called Bolton, where I married my husband, who is an Englishman.”
“Can he speak Welsh?” said I.
“Not a word,” said she. “We always speak English together.”
John Jones sat down, and I looked about the room. It exhibited no appearance of poverty; there was plenty of rude but good furniture in it; several pewter plates and trenchers in a rack, two or three prints in frames against the wall, one of which was the likeness of no less a person than the Rev. Joseph Sanders, on the table was a newspaper. “Is that in Welsh?” said I.
“No,” replied the woman, “it is the Bolton Chronicle, my husband reads it.”
I sat down in the chimney-corner. The wind was now howling abroad, and the rain was beating against the cottage panes—presently a gust of wind came down the chimney, scattering sparks all about. “A cataract of sparks!” said I, using the word Rhaiadr.
“What is Rhaiadr?” said the woman; “I never heard the word before.”
“Rhaiadr means water tumbling over a rock,” said John Jones—“did you never see water tumble over the top of a rock?”
“Frequently,” said she.
“Well,” said he, “even as the water with its froth tumbles over the rock, so did sparks and fire tumble over the front of that grate when the wind blew down the chimney. It was a happy comparison of the Gwr Boneddig, and with respect to Rhaiadr it is a good old word, though not a common one; some of the Saxons who have read the old writings, though they cannot speak the language as fast as we, understand many words and things which we do not.”
“I forgot much of my Welsh in the land of the Saxons,” said the woman, “and so have many others; there are plenty of Welsh at Bolton, but their Welsh is sadly corrupted.”
She then went out and presently returned with an infant in her arms and sat down. “Was that child born in Wales?” I demanded.
“No,” said she, “he was born at Bolton, about eighteen months ago—we have been here only a year.”
“Do many English,” said I, “marry Welsh wives?”
“A great many,” said she. “Plenty of Welsh girls are married to Englishmen at Bolton.”
“Do the Englishmen make good husbands?” said I.
The woman smiled and presently sighed.
“Her husband,” said Jones, “is fond of a glass of ale and is often at the public-house.”
“I make no complaint,” said the woman, looking somewhat angrily at John Jones.
“Is your husband a tall bulky man?” said I.
“Just so,” said the woman.
“The largest of the two men we saw the other night at the public-house at Llansanfraid,” said I to John Jones.
“I don’t know him,” said Jones, “though I have heard of him, but I have no doubt that was he.”
I asked the woman how her husband could carry on the trade of a clog-maker in such a remote place—and also whether he hawked his clogs about the country.
“We call him a clog-maker,” said the woman, “but the truth is that he merely cuts down the wood and fashions it into squares, these are taken by an under-master who sends them to the manufacturer at Bolton, who employs hands, who make them into clogs.”
“Some of the English,” said Jones, “are so poor that they cannot afford to buy shoes; a pair of shoes cost ten or twelve shillings, whereas a pair of clogs only cost two.”
“I suppose,” said I, “that what you call clogs are wooden shoes.”
“Just so,” said Jones—“they are principally used in the neighbourhood of Manchester.”
“I have seen them at Huddersfield,” said I, “when I was a boy at school there; of what wood are they made?”
“Of the gwern, or alder tree,” said the woman, “of which there is plenty on both sides of the brook.”
John Jones now asked her if she could give him a tamaid of bread; she said she could, “and some butter with it.”
She then went out and presently returned with a loaf and some butter.
“Had you not better wait,” said I, “till we get to the inn at Llansanfraid?”
The woman, however, begged him to eat some bread and butter where he was, and cutting a plateful, placed it before him, having first offered me some which I declined.
“But you have nothing to drink with it,” said I to him.
“If you please,” said the woman, “I will go for a pint of ale to the public-house at the Pandy, there is better ale there than at the inn at Llansanfraid. When my husband goes to Llansanfraid he goes less for the ale than for the conversation, because there is little English spoken at the Pandy however good the ale.”
John Jones said he wanted no ale—and attacking the bread and butter speedily made an end of it; by the time he had done the storm was over, and getting up I gave the child twopence, and left the cottage with Jones. We proceeded some way farther up the valley, till we came to a place where the ground descended a little. Here Jones touching me on the shoulder pointed across the stream. Following with my eye the direction of his finger, I saw two or three small sheds with a number of small reddish blocks in regular piles beneath them. Several trees felled from the side of the torrent were lying near, some of them stripped of their arms and bark. A small tree formed a bridge across the brook to the sheds.
“It is there,” said John Jones, “that the husband of the woman with whom we have been speaking works, felling trees from the alder swamp and cutting them up into blocks. I see there is no work going on at present or we would go over—the woman told me that her husband was at Llangollen.”
“What a strange place to come to work at,” said I, “out of crowded England. Here is nothing to be heard but the murmuring of waters and the rushing of wind down the gulleys. If the man’s head is not full of poetical fancies, which I suppose it is not, as in that case he would be unfit for any useful employment, I don’t wonder at his occasionally going to the public-house.”
After going a little further up the glen and observing nothing more remarkable than we had seen already, we turned back. Being overtaken by another violent shower just as we reached the Pandy I thought that we could do no better than shelter ourselves within the public-house, and taste the ale, which the wife of the clog-maker had praised. We entered the little hostelry which was one of two or three shabby-looking houses, standing in contact, close by the Ceiriog. In a kind of little back room, lighted by a good fire and a window which looked up the Ceiriog valley, we found the landlady, a gentlewoman with a wooden leg, who on perceiving me got up from a chair, and made me the best curtsey that I ever saw made by a female with such a substitute for a leg of flesh and bone. There were three men, sitting with jugs of ale near them on a table by the fire, two were seated on a bench by the wall, and the other on a settle with a high back, which ran from the wall just by the door, and shielded those by the fire from the draughts of the doorway. He of the settle no sooner beheld me than he sprang up, and placing a chair for me by the fire bade me in English be seated, and then resumed his own seat. John Jones soon finding a chair came and sat down by me, when I forthwith called for a quart of cwrw da. The landlady bustled about on her wooden leg and presently brought us the ale with two glasses, which I filled, and taking one drank to the health of the company who returned us thanks, the man of the settle in English rather broken. Presently one of his companions getting up paid his reckoning and departed, the other remained, a stout young fellow dressed something like a stone-mason, which indeed I soon discovered that he was—he was far advanced towards a state of intoxication and talked very incoherently about the war, saying that he hoped it would soon terminate, for that if it continued he was afraid he might stand a chance of being shot, as he was a private in the Denbighshire Militia. I told him that it was the duty of every gentleman in the militia to be willing at all times to lay down his life in the service of the Queen. The answer which he made I could not exactly understand, his utterance being very indistinct and broken; it was, however, made with some degree of violence, with two or three Myn Diawls, and a blow on the table with his clenched fist. He then asked me whether I thought the militia would be again called out. “Nothing more probable,” said I.
“And where would they be sent to?”
“Perhaps to Ireland,” was my answer, whereupon he started up with another Myn Diawl, expressing the greatest dread of being sent to Iwerddon.
“You ought to rejoice in your chance of going there,” said I, “Iwerddon is a beautiful country, and abounds with whisky.”
“And the Irish?” said he.
“Hearty, jolly fellows,” said I, “if you know how to manage them, and all gentlemen.”
Here he became very violent, saying that I did not speak truth, for that he had seen plenty of Irish camping amidst the hills, that the men were half naked and the women were three parts so, and that they carried their children on their backs. He then said that he hoped somebody would speedily kill Nicholas, in order that the war might be at an end and himself not sent to Iwerddon. He then asked if I thought Cronstadt could be taken. I said I believed it could, provided the hearts of those who were sent to take it were in the right place.
“Where do you think the hearts of those are who are gone against it?” said he—speaking with great vehemence.
I made no other answer than by taking my glass and drinking.
His companion now looking at our habiliments which were in rather a dripping condition asked John Jones if we had come from far.
“We have been to Pont y Meibion,” said Jones, “to see the chair of Huw Morris,” adding that the Gwr Boneddig was a great admirer of the songs of the Eos Ceiriog.
He had no sooner said these words than the intoxicated militiaman started up, and striking the table with his fist said: “I am a poor stone-cutter—this is a rainy day and I have come here to pass it in the best way I can. I am somewhat drunk, but though I am a poor stone-mason, a private in the militia, and not so sober as I should be, I can repeat more of the songs of the Eos than any man alive, however great a gentleman, however sober—more than Sir Watkin, more than Colonel Biddulph himself.”
He then began to repeat what appeared to be poetry, for I could distinguish the rhymes occasionally, though owing to his broken utterance it was impossible for me to make out the sense of the words. Feeling a great desire to know what verses of Huw Morris the intoxicated youth would repeat, I took out my pocket-book and requested Jones, who was much better acquainted with Welsh pronunciation, under any circumstances, than myself, to endeavour to write down from the mouth of the young fellow any verses uppermost in his mind. Jones took the pocket-book and pencil and went to the window, followed by the young man scarcely able to support himself. Here a curious scene took place, the drinker hiccuping up verses, and Jones dotting them down, in the best manner he could, though he had evidently great difficulty to distinguish what was said to him. At last, methought, the young man said—“There they are, the verses of the Nightingale, on his death-bed.”
I took the book and read aloud the following lines beautifully descriptive of the eagerness of a Christian soul to leave its perishing tabernacle, and get to Paradise and its Creator:—
“Myn’d i’r wyl ar redeg, I’r byd a beryi chwaneg, I Beradwys, y ber wiw deg, Yn Enw Duw yn union deg.”
“Do you understand those verses?” said the man on the settle, a dark swarthy fellow with an oblique kind of vision, and dressed in a pepper-and-salt coat.
“I will translate them,” said I; and forthwith put them into English—first into prose and then into rhyme, the rhymed version running thus:—
“Now to my rest I hurry away, To the world which lasts for ever and aye, To Paradise, the beautiful place, Trusting alone in the Lord of Grace”—
“Well,” said he of the pepper-and-salt, “if that isn’t capital I don’t know what is.”
A scene in a public-house, yes! but in a Welsh public-house. Only think of a Suffolk toper repeating the death-bed verses of a poet; surely there is a considerable difference between the Celt and the Saxon.
XXII. Llangollen Fair—Buyers and Sellers—The Jockey—The Greek Cap
On the twenty-first was held Llangollen Fair. The day was dull with occasional showers. I went to see the fair about noon. It was held in and near a little square in the south-east quarter of the town, of which square the police-station is the principal feature on the side of the west, and an inn, bearing the sign of the Grapes, on the east. The fair was a little bustling fair, attended by plenty of people from the country, and from the English border, and by some who appeared to come from a greater distance than the border. A dense row of carts extended from the police-station half across the space, these carts were filled with pigs, and had stout cord-nettings drawn over them, to prevent the animals escaping. By the sides of these carts the principal business of the fair appeared to be going on—there stood the owners male and female, higgling with Llangollen men and women, who came to buy. The pigs were all small, and the price given seemed to vary from eighteen to twenty-five shillings. Those who bought pigs generally carried them away in their arms; and then there was no little diversion; dire was the screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser invariably appeared to know how to manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the swine and with the right hand fast gripping the ear—some few were led away by strings. There were some Welsh cattle, small of course, and the purchasers of these seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows in general, far exceeding the Welsh in height and size.
Much business in the cattle-line did not seem, however, to be going on. Now and then a big fellow made an offer, and held out his hand for a little Pictish grazier to give it a slap—a cattle bargain being concluded by a slap of the hand—but the Welshman generally turned away, with a half resentful exclamation. There were a few horses and ponies in the street leading into the fair from the south.
I saw none sold, however. A tall athletic figure was striding amongst them, evidently a jockey and a stranger, looking at them and occasionally asking a slight question of one or another of their proprietors, but he did not buy. He might in age be about eight-and-twenty, and about six feet and three-quarters of an inch in height; in build he was perfection itself, a better built man I never saw. He wore a cap and a brown jockey coat, trowsers, leggings and high-lows, and sported a single spur. He had whiskers—all jockeys should have whiskers—but he had what I did not like, and what no genuine jockey should have, a moustache, which looks coxcombical and Frenchified—but most things have terribly changed since I was young. Three or four hardy-looking fellows, policemen, were gliding about in their blue coats and leather hats, holding their thin walking-sticks behind them; conspicuous amongst whom was the leader, a tall lathy North Briton with a keen eye and hard features. Now if I add there was much gabbling of Welsh round about, and here and there some slight sawing of English—that in the street leading from the north there were some stalls of gingerbread and a table at which a queer-looking being with a red Greek-looking cap on his head, sold rhubarb, herbs, and phials containing the Lord knows what, and who spoke a low vulgar English dialect—I repeat, if I add this, I think I have said all that is necessary about Llangollen Fair.
Chapter XXIII
An Expedition—Pont y Pandy—The Sabbath—Glendower’s Mount—Burial Place of Old—Corwen—The Deep Glen—The Grandmother—The Roadside Chapel.
I was now about to leave Llangollen, for a short time, and to set out on an expedition to Bangor, Snowdon, and one or two places in Anglesea. I had determined to make the journey on foot, in order that I might have perfect liberty of action, and enjoy the best opportunities of seeing the country. My wife and daughter were to meet me at Bangor, to which place they would repair by the railroad, and from which, after seeing some of the mountain districts, they would return to Llangollen by the way they came, where I proposed to join them, returning, however, by a different way from the one I went, that I might traverse new districts. About eleven o’clock of a brilliant Sunday morning I left Llangollen, after reading the morning-service of the Church to my family. I set out on a Sunday because I was anxious to observe the general demeanour of the people, in the interior of the country, on the Sabbath.
I directed my course towards the west, to the head of the valley. My wife and daughter after walking with me about a mile bade me farewell, and returned. Quickening my pace I soon left Llangollen valley behind me and entered another vale, along which the road which I was following, and which led to Corwen and other places, might be seen extending for miles. Lumpy hills were close upon my left, the Dee running noisily between steep banks, fringed with trees, was on my right; beyond it rose hills which form part of the wall of the Vale of Clwyd; their tops bare, but their sides pleasantly coloured with yellow corn-fields and woods of dark verdure. About an hour’s walking, from the time when I entered the valley, brought me to a bridge over a gorge, down which water ran to the Dee. I stopped and looked over the side of the bridge nearest to the hill. A huge rock about forty feet long by twenty broad, occupied the entire bed of the gorge, just above the bridge, with the exception of a little gullet to the right, down which between the rock and a high bank, on which stood a cottage, a run of water purled and brawled. The rock looked exactly like a huge whale lying on its side, with its back turned towards the runnel. Above it was a glen of trees. After I had been gazing a little time a man making his appearance at the door of the cottage just beyond the bridge I passed on, and drawing nigh to him, after a slight salutation, asked him in English the name of the bridge.
“The name of the bridge, sir,” said the man, in very good English, “is Pont y Pandy.”
“Does not that mean the bridge of the fulling mill?”
“I believe it does, sir,” said the man.
“Is there a fulling mill near?”
“No, sir, there was one some time ago, but it is now a sawing mill.”
Here a woman, coming out, looked at me steadfastly.
“Is that gentlewoman your wife?”
“She is no gentlewoman, sir, but she is my wife.”
“Of what religion are you?”
“We are Calvinistic-Methodists, sir.”
“Have you been to chapel?”
“We are just returned, sir.”
Here the woman said something to her husband, which I did not hear, but the purport of which I guessed from the following question which he immediately put.
“Have you been to chapel, sir?”
“I do not go to chapel; I belong to the Church.”
“Have you been to church, sir?”
“I have not—I said my prayers at home, and then walked out.”
“It is not right to walk out on the Sabbath-day, except to go to church or chapel.”
“Who told you so?”
“The law of God, which says you shall keep holy the Sabbath-day.”
“I am not keeping it unholy.”
“You are walking about, and in Wales when we see a person walking idly about, on the Sabbath-day, we are in the habit of saying, Sabbath-breaker, where are you going?”
“The Son of Man walked through the fields on the Sabbath-day, why should I not walk along the roads?”
“He who called Himself the Son of Man was God and could do what He pleased, but you are not God.”
“But He came in the shape of a man to set an example. Had there been anything wrong in walking about on the Sabbath-day, He would not have done it.”
Here the wife exclaimed, “How worldly-wise these English are!”
“You do not like the English,” said I.
“We do not dislike them,” said the woman; “at present they do us no harm, whatever they did of old.”
“But you still consider them,” said I, “the seed of Y Sarfes cadwynog, the coiling serpent.”
“I should be loth to call any people the seed of the serpent,” said the woman.
“But one of your great bards did,” said I.
“He must have belonged to the Church, and not to the chapel then,” said the woman. “No person who went to chapel would have used such bad words.”
“He lived,” said I, “before people were separated into those of the Church and the chapel; did you ever hear of Taliesin Ben Beirdd?”
“I never did,” said the woman.
“But I have,” said the man; “and of Owain Glendower too.”
“Do people talk much of Owen Glendower in these parts?” said I.
“Plenty,” said the man, “and no wonder, for when he was alive he was much about here—some way farther on there is a mount, on the bank of the Dee, called the mount of Owen Glendower, where it is said he used to stand and look out after his enemies.”
“Is it easy to find?” said I.
“Very easy,” said the man, “it stands right upon the Dee and is covered with trees; there is no mistaking it.”
I bade the man and his wife farewell, and proceeded on my way. After walking about a mile, I perceived a kind of elevation which answered to the description of Glendower’s mount, which the man by the bridge had given me. It stood on the right hand, at some distance from the road, across a field. As I was standing looking at it a man came up from the direction in which I myself had come. He was a middle-aged man, plainly but decently dressed, and had something of the appearance of a farmer.
“What hill may that be?” said I in English, pointing to the elevation.
“Dim Saesneg, sir,” said the man, looking rather sheepish, “Dim gair o Saesneg.”
Rather surprised that a person of his appearance should not have a word of English, I repeated my question in Welsh.
“Ah, you speak Cumraeg, sir;” said the man evidently surprised that a person of my English appearance should speak Welsh. “I am glad of it! What hill is that, you ask—Dyna Mont Owain Glyndwr, sir.”
“Is it easy to get to?” said I.
“Quite easy, sir,” said the man. “If you please I will go with you.”
I thanked him, and opening a gate he conducted me across the field to the mount of the Welsh hero.
The mount of Owen Glendower stands close upon the southern bank of the Dee, and is nearly covered with trees of various kinds. It is about thirty feet high from the plain, and about the same diameter at the top. A deep black pool of the river which here runs far beneath the surface of the field, purls and twists under the northern side, which is very steep, though several large oaks spring out of it. The hill is evidently the work of art, and appeared to me to be some burying-place of old.
“And this is the hill of Owain Glyndwr?” said I.
“Dyma Mont Owain Glyndwr, sir, lle yr oedd yn sefyll i edrych am ei elvnion yn dyfod o Gaer Lleon. This is the hill of Owain Glendower, sir, where he was in the habit of standing to look out for his enemies coming from Chester.”
“I suppose it was not covered with trees then?” said I.
“No, sir; it has not been long planted with trees. They say, however, that the oaks which hang over the river are very old.”
“Do they say who raised this hill?”
“Some say that God raised it, sir; others that Owain Glendower raised it. Who do you think raised it?”
“I believe that it was raised by man, but not by Owen Glendower. He may have stood upon it, to watch for the coming of his enemies, but I believe it was here long before his time, and that it was raised over some old dead king by the people whom he had governed.”
“Do they bury kings by the side of rivers, sir?”
“In the old time they did, and on the tops of mountains; they burnt their bodies to ashes, placed them in pots and raised heaps of earth or stones over them. Heaps like this have frequently been opened, and found to contain pots with ashes and bones.”
“I wish all English could speak Welsh, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because then we poor Welsh who can speak no English could learn much which we do not know.”
Descending the monticle we walked along the road together. After a little time I asked my companion of what occupation he was and where he lived.
“I am a small farmer, sir,” said he, “and live at Llansanfraid Glyn Dyfrdwy across the river.”
“How comes it,” said I, “that you do not know English?”
“When I was young,” said he, “and could have easily learnt it, I cared nothing about it, and now that I am old and see its use, it is too late to acquire it.”
“Of what religion are you?” said I.
“I am of the Church,” he replied.
I was about to ask him if there were many people of his persuasion in these parts; before, however, I could do so he turned down a road to the right which led towards a small bridge, and saying that was his way home, bade me farewell and departed.
I arrived at Corwen which is just ten miles from Llangollen and which stands beneath a vast range of rocks at the head of the valley up which I had been coming, and which is called Glyndyfrdwy, or the valley of the Dee water. It was now about two o’clock, and feeling rather thirsty I went to an inn very appropriately called the Owen Glendower, being the principal inn in the principal town of what was once the domain of the great Owen. Here I stopped for about an hour refreshing myself and occasionally looking into a newspaper in which was an excellent article on the case of poor Lieutenant P. I then started for Cerrig-y-Drudion, distant about ten miles, where I proposed to pass the night. Directing my course to the north-west, I crossed a bridge over the Dee water and then proceeded rapidly along the road, which for some way lay between corn-fields, in many of which sheaves were piled up, showing that the Welsh harvest was begun. I soon passed over a little stream, the name of which I was told was Alowan. “Oh, what a blessing it is to be able to speak Welsh!” said I, finding that not a person to whom I addressed myself had a word of English to bestow upon me. After walking for about five miles I came to a beautiful but wild country of mountain and wood with here and there a few cottages. The road at length making an abrupt turn to the north, I found myself with a low stone wall on my left, on the verge of a profound ravine, and a high bank covered with trees on my right. Projecting out over the ravine was a kind of looking place, protected by a wall, forming a half-circle, doubtless made by the proprietor of the domain for the use of the admirers of scenery. There I stationed myself, and for some time enjoyed one of the wildest and most beautiful scenes imaginable. Below me was the deep narrow glen or ravine, down which a mountain torrent roared and foamed. Beyond it was a mountain rising steeply, its nearer side, which was in deep shade, the sun having long sunk below its top, hirsute with all kinds of trees, from the highest pinnacle down to the torrent’s brink. Cut on the top surface of the wall, which was of slate, and therefore easily impressible by the knife, were several names, doubtless those of tourists, who had gazed from the look-out on the prospect, amongst which I observed in remarkably bold letters that of T . . . .
“Eager for immortality, Mr T.,” said I; “but you are no H. M., no Huw Morris.”
Leaving the looking place I proceeded, and, after one or two turnings, came to another, which afforded a view if possible yet more grand, beautiful and wild, the most prominent objects of which were a kind of devil’s bridge flung over the deep glen and its foaming water, and a strange-looking hill beyond it, below which, with a wood on either side, stood a white farm-house—sending from a tall chimney a thin misty reek up to the sky. I crossed the bridge, which, however diabolically fantastical it looked at a distance, seemed when one was upon it, capable of bearing any weight, and soon found myself by the farm-house past which the way led. An aged woman sat on a stool by the door.
“A fine evening,” said I in English.
“Dim Saesneg;” said the aged woman.
“Oh, the blessing of being able to speak Welsh,” said I; and then repeated in that language what I had said to her in the other tongue.
“I daresay,” said the aged woman, “to those who can see.”
“Can you not see?”
“Very little. I am almost blind.”
“Can you not see me?”
“I can see something tall and dark before me; that is all.”
“Can you tell me the name of the bridge?”
“Pont y Glyn bin—the bridge of the glen of trouble.”
“And what is the name of this place?”
“Pen y bont—the head of the bridge.”
“What is your own name?”
“Catherine Hughes.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen after three twenties.”
“I have a mother three after four twenties; that is eight years older than yourself.”
“Can she see?”
“Better than I—she can read the smallest letters.”
“May she long be a comfort to you!”
“Thank you—are you the mistress of the house?”
“I am the grandmother.”
“Are the people in the house?”
“They are not—they are at the chapel.”
“And they left you alone?”
“They left me with my God.”
“Is the chapel far from here?”
“About a mile.”
“On the road to Cerrig y Drudion?”
“On the road to Cerrig y Drudion.”
I bade her farewell, and pushed on—the road was good, with high rocky banks on each side. After walking about the distance indicated by the old lady, I reached a building, which stood on the right-hand side of the road, and which I had no doubt was the chapel, from a half-groaning, half-singing noise which proceeded from it. The door being open, I entered, and stood just within it, bare-headed. A rather singular scene presented itself. Within a large dimly-lighted room, a number of people were assembled, partly seated in rude pews, and partly on benches. Beneath a kind of altar, a few yards from the door, stood three men—the middlemost was praying in Welsh in a singular kind of chant, with his arms stretched out. I could distinguish the words, “Jesus descend among us! sweet Jesus descend among us—quickly.” He spoke very slowly, and towards the end of every sentence dropped his voice, so that what he said was anything but distinct. As I stood within the door, a man dressed in coarse garments came up to me from the interior of the building, and courteously, and in excellent Welsh, asked me to come with him and take a seat. With equal courtesy, but far inferior Welsh, I assured him that I meant no harm, but wished to be permitted to remain near the door, whereupon with a low bow he left me. When the man had concluded his prayer, the whole of the congregation began singing a hymn, many of the voices were gruff and discordant, two or three, however, were of great power, and some of the female ones of surprising sweetness. At the conclusion of the hymn, another of the three men by the altar began to pray, just in the same manner as his comrade had done, and seemingly using much the same words. When he had done, there was another hymn, after which, seeing that the congregation was about to break up, I bowed my head towards the interior of the building, and departed.
Emerging from the hollow way, I found myself on a moor, over which the road lay in the direction of the north. Towards the west, at an immense distance, rose a range of stupendous hills, which I subsequently learned were those of Snowdon—about ten minutes’ walking brought me to Cerrig y Drudion, a small village near a rocky elevation, from which, no doubt, the place takes its name, which interpreted, is the Rock of Heroes.
Chapter XXIV
Cerrig y Drudion—The Landlady—Doctor Jones—Coll Gwynfa—The Italian—Men of Como—Disappointment—Weather—Glasses—Southey.
The inn at Cerrig y Drudion was called the Lion—whether the white, black, red or green Lion, I do not know, though I am certain that it was a lion of some colour or other. It seemed as decent and respectable a hostelry as any traveller could wish, to refresh and repose himself in, after a walk of twenty miles. I entered a well-lighted passage, and from thence a well-lighted bar room, on the right hand, in which sat a stout, comely, elderly lady, dressed in silks and satins, with a cambric coif on her head, in company with a thin, elderly man with a hat on his head, dressed in a rather prim and precise manner. “Madam!” said I, bowing to the lady, “as I suppose you are the mistress of this establishment, I beg leave to inform you that I am an Englishman, walking through these regions, in order fully to enjoy their beauties and wonders. I have this day come from Llangollen, and being somewhat hungry and fatigued, hope I can be accommodated here with a dinner and a bed.”
“Sir!” said the lady, getting up and making me a profound curtsey, “I am, as you suppose, the mistress of this establishment, and am happy to say that I shall be able to accommodate you—pray sit down, sir;” she continued, handing me a chair, “you must indeed be tired, for Llangollen is a great way from here.”
I took the seat with thanks, and she resumed her own.
“Rather hot weather for walking, sir!” said the precise-looking gentleman.
“It is,” said I; “but as I can’t observe the country well without walking through it, I put up with the heat.”
“You exhibit a philosophic mind, sir,” said the precise-looking gentleman—“and a philosophic mind I hold in reverence.”
“Pray, sir,” said I, “have I the honour of addressing a member of the medical profession?”
“Sir,” said the precise-looking gentleman, getting up and making me a bow, “your question does honour to your powers of discrimination—a member of the medical profession I am, though an unworthy one.”
“Nay, nay, doctor,” said the landlady briskly; “say not so—every one knows that you are a credit to your profession—well would it be if there were many in it like you—unworthy? marry come up! I won’t hear such an expression.”
“I see,” said I, “that I have not only the honour of addressing a medical gentleman, but a doctor of medicine—however, I might have known as much by your language and deportment.”
With a yet lower bow than before he replied with something of a sigh, “No, sir, no, our kind landlady and the neighbourhood are in the habit of placing doctor before my name, but I have no title to it—I am not Doctor Jones, sir, but plain Geffery Jones at your service,” and thereupon with another bow he sat down.
“Do you reside here?” said I.
“Yes, sir, I reside here in the place of my birth—I have not always resided here—and I did not always expect to spend my latter days in a place of such obscurity, but, sir, misfortunes—misfortunes . . .”
“Ah,” said I, “misfortunes! they pursue every one, more especially those whose virtues should exempt them from them. Well, sir, the consciousness of not having deserved them should be your consolation.”
“Sir,” said the doctor, taking off his hat, “you are infinitely kind.”
“You call this an obscure place,” said I—“can that be an obscure place which has produced a poet? I have long had a respect for Cerrig y Drudion because it gave birth to, and was the residence of a poet of considerable merit.”
“I was not aware of that fact,” said the doctor, “pray what was his name?”
“Peter Lewis,” said I; “he was a clergyman of Cerrig y Drudion about the middle of the last century, and amongst other things wrote a beautiful song called Cathl y Gair Mwys, or the melody of the ambiguous word.”
“Surely you do not understand Welsh?” said the doctor.
“I understand a little of it,” I replied.
“Will you allow me to speak to you in Welsh?” said the doctor.
“Certainly,” said I.
He spoke to me in Welsh, and I replied.
“Ha, ha,” said the landlady in English; “only think, doctor, of the gentleman understanding Welsh—we must mind what we say before him.”
“And are you an Englishman?” said the doctor.
“I am,” I replied.
“And how came you to learn it?”
“I am fond of languages,” said I, “and studied Welsh at an early period.”
“And you read Welsh poetry?”
“Oh yes.”
“How were you enabled to master its difficulties?”
“Chiefly by going through Owen Pugh’s version of ‘Paradise Lost’ twice, with the original by my side. He has introduced into that translation so many of the poetic terms of the old bards, that after twice going through it, there was little in Welsh poetry that I could not make out with a little pondering.”
“You pursued a very excellent plan, sir,” said the doctor, “a very excellent plan indeed. Owen Pugh!”
“Owen Pugh! The last of your very great men,” said I.
“You say right, sir,” said the doctor. “He was indeed our last great man—Ultimus Romanorum. I have myself read his work, which he called Coll Gwynfa, the Loss of the place of Bliss—an admirable translation, sir; highly poetical, and at the same time correct.”
“Did you know him?” said I.
“I had not the honour of his acquaintance,” said the doctor—“but, sir, I am happy to say that I have made yours.”
The landlady now began to talk to me about dinner, and presently went out to make preparations for that very important meal. I had a great deal of conversation with the doctor, whom I found a person of great and varied information, and one who had seen a vast deal of the world. He was giving me an account of an island in the West Indies, which he had visited, when a boy coming in, whispered into his ear; whereupon, getting up he said: “Sir, I am called away. I am a country surgeon, and of course an accoucheur. There is a lady who lives at some distance requiring my assistance. It is with grief I leave you so abruptly, but I hope that some time or other we shall meet again.” Then making me an exceedingly profound bow, he left the room, followed by the boy.
I dined upstairs in a very handsome drawing-room, communicating with a sleeping apartment. During dinner I was waited upon by the daughter of the landlady, a good-looking merry girl of twenty. After dinner I sat for some time thinking over the adventures of the day, then feeling rather lonely and not inclined to retire to rest, I went down to the bar, where I found the landlady seated with her daughter. I sat down with them and we were soon in conversation. We spoke of Doctor Jones—the landlady said that he had his little eccentricities, but was an excellent and learned man. Speaking of herself she said that she had three daughters, that the youngest was with her and that the two eldest kept the principal inn at Ruthyn. We occasionally spoke a little Welsh. At length the landlady said, “There is an Italian in the kitchen who can speak Welsh too. It’s odd the only two people not Welshmen I have ever known who could speak Welsh, for such you and he are, should be in my house at the same time.”
“Dear me,” said I; “I should like to see him.”
“That you can easily do,” said the girl; “I daresay he will be glad enough to come in if you invite him.”
“Pray take my compliments to him,” said I, “and tell him that I shall be glad of his company.”
The girl went out and presently returned with the Italian. He was a short, thick, strongly-built fellow of about thirty-seven, with a swarthy face, raven-black hair, high forehead, and dark deep eyes, full of intelligence and great determination. He was dressed in a velveteen coat, with broad lappets, red waistcoat, velveteen breeches, buttoning a little way below the knee; white stockings apparently of lamb’s-wool and high-lows.
“Buona sera?” said I.
“Buona sera, signore!” said the Italian.
“Will you have a glass of brandy and water?” said I in English.
“I never refuse a good offer,” said the Italian.
He sat down, and I ordered a glass of brandy and water for him and another for myself.
“Pray speak a little Italian to him,” said the good landlady to me. “I have heard a great deal about the beauty of that language, and should like to hear it spoken.”
“From the Lago di Como?” said I, trying to speak Italian.
“Si, signore! but how came you to think that I was from the Lake of Como?”
“Because,” said I, “when I was a ragazzo I knew many from the Lake of Como, who dressed much like yourself. They wandered about the country with boxes on their backs and weather-glasses in their hands, but had their head-quarters at N. where I lived.”
“Do you remember any of their names?” said the Italian.
“Giovanni Gestra and Luigi Pozzi,” I replied.
“I have seen Giovanni Gestra myself,” said the Italian, “and I have heard of Luigi Pozzi. Giovanni Gestra returned to the Lago—but no one knows what is become of Luigi Pozzi.”
“The last time I saw him,” said I, “was about eighteen years ago at Coruña in Spain; he was then in a sad drooping condition, and said he bitterly repented ever quitting N.”
“E con ragione,” said the Italian, “for there is no place like N. for doing business in the whole world. I myself have sold seventy pounds’ worth of weather-glasses at N. in one day. One of our people is living there now, who has done bene, molto bene.”
“That’s Rossi,” said I, “how is it that I did not mention him first? He is my excellent friend, and a finer, cleverer fellow never lived, nor a more honourable man. You may well say he has done well, for he is now the first jeweller in the place. The last time I was there I bought a diamond of him for my daughter Henrietta. Let us drink his health!”
“Willingly!” said the Italian. “He is the prince of the Milanese of England—the most successful of all, but I acknowledge the most deserving. Che viva.”
“I wish he would write his life,” said I; “a singular life it would be—he has been something besides a travelling merchant, and a jeweller. He was one of Buonaparte’s soldiers, and served in Spain, under Soult, along with John Gestra. He once told me that Soult was an old rascal, and stole all the fine pictures from the convents, at Salamanca. I believe he spoke with some degree of envy, for he is himself fond of pictures, and has dealt in them, and made hundreds by them. I question whether if in Soult’s place he would not have done the same. Well, however that may be, che viva.”
Here the landlady interposed, observing that she wished we would now speak English, for that she had quite enough of Italian, which she did not find near so pretty a language as she had expected.
“You must not judge of the sound of Italian from what proceeds from my mouth,” said I. “It is not my native language. I have had little practice in it, and only speak it very imperfectly.”
“Nor must you judge of Italian from what you have heard me speak,” said the man of Como; “I am not good at Italian, for the Milanese speak amongst themselves a kind of jargon, composed of many languages, and can only express themselves with difficulty in Italian. I have been doing my best to speak Italian, but should be glad now to speak English, which comes to me much more glibly.”
“Are there any books in your dialect, or jergo, as I believe you call it?” said I.
“I believe there are a few,” said the Italian.
“Do you know the word slandra?” said I.
“Who taught you that word?” said the Italian.
“Giovanni Gestra,” said I; “he was always using it.”
“Giovanni Gestra was a vulgar illiterate man,” said the Italian; “had he not been so he would not have used it. It is a vulgar word; Rossi would not have used it.”
“What is the meaning of it?” said the landlady eagerly.
“To roam about in a dissipated manner,” said I.
“Something more,” said the Italian. “It is considered a vulgar word even in jergo.”
“You speak English remarkably well,” said I; “have you been long in Britain?”
“I came over about four years ago,” said the Italian.
“On your own account?” said I.
“Not exactly, signore; my brother, who was in business in Liverpool, wrote to me to come over and assist him. I did so, but soon left him, and took a shop for myself at Denbigh, where, however, I did not stay long. At present I travel for an Italian house in London, spending the summer in Wales, and the winter in England.”
“And what do you sell?” said I.
“Weather-glasses, signore—pictures and little trinkets, such as the country people like.”
“Do you sell many weather-glasses in Wales?” said I.
“I do not, signore. The Welsh care not for weather-glasses; my principal customers for weather-glasses are the farmers of England.”
“I am told that you can speak Welsh,” said I; “is that true?”
“I have picked up a little of it, signore.”
“He can speak it very well,” said the landlady; “and glad should I be, sir, to hear you and him speak Welsh together.”
“So should I,” said the daughter who was seated nigh us, “nothing would give me greater pleasure than to hear two who are not Welshmen speaking Welsh together.”
“I would rather speak English,” said the Italian; “I speak a little Welsh, when my business leads me amongst people who speak no other language, but I see no necessity for speaking Welsh here.”
“It is a pity,” said I, “that so beautiful a country as Italy should not be better governed.”
“It is, signore,” said the Italian; “but let us hope that a time will speedily come when she will be so.”
“I don’t see any chance of it,” said I. “How will you proceed in order to bring about so desirable a result as the good government of Italy?”
“Why, signore, in the first place we must get rid of the Austrians.”
“You will not find it an easy matter,” said I, “to get rid of the Austrians; you tried to do so a little time ago, but miserably failed.”
“True, signore; but the next time we try perhaps the French will help us.”
“If the French help you to drive the Austrians from Italy,” said I, “you must become their servants. It is true you had better be the servants of the polished and chivalrous French, than of the brutal and barbarous Germans, but it is not pleasant to be a servant to anybody. However, I do not believe that you will ever get rid of the Austrians, even if the French assist you. The Pope for certain reasons of his own favours the Austrians, and will exert all the powers of priestcraft to keep them in Italy. Alas, alas, there is no hope for Italy! Italy, the most beautiful country in the world, the birth-place of the cleverest people, whose very pedlars can learn to speak Welsh, is not only enslaved, but destined always to remain enslaved.”
“Do not say so, signore,” said the Italian, with a kind of groan.
“But I do say so,” said I, “and what is more, one whose shoe-strings, were he alive, I should not he worthy to untie, one of your mighty ones, has said so. Did you ever hear of Vincenzio Filicaia?”
“I believe I have, signore; did he not write a sonnet on Italy?”
“He did,” said I; “would you like to hear it?
“Very much, signore.”
I repeated Filicaia’s glorious sonnet on Italy, and then asked him if he understood it.
“Only in part, signore; for it is composed in old Tuscan, in which I am not much versed. I believe I should comprehend it better if you were to say it in English.”
“Do say it in English,” said the landlady and her daughter: “we should so like to hear it in English.”
“I will repeat a translation,” said I, “which I made when a boy, which though far from good, has, I believe, in it something of the spirit of the original:—
“O Italy! on whom dark Destiny The dangerous gift of beauty did bestow, From whence thou hast that ample dower of wo, Which on thy front thou bear’st so visibly. Would thou hadst beauty less or strength more high, That more of fear, and less of love might show, He who now blasts him in thy beauty’s glow, Or woos thee with a zeal that makes thee die; Then down from Alp no more would torrents rage Of armed men, nor Gallic coursers hot In Po’s ensanguin’d tide their thirst assuage; Nor girt with iron, not thine own, I wot, Wouldst thou the fight by hands of strangers wage Victress or vanquish’d slavery still thy lot.”
Chapter XXV
Lacing-up High-lows—The Native Village—Game Leg—Croppies Lie Down—Keeping Faith—Processions—Croppies Get Up—Daniel O’Connell.
I slept in the chamber communicating with the room in which I had dined. The chamber was spacious and airy, the bed first-rate, and myself rather tired, so that no one will be surprised when I say that I had excellent rest. I got up, and after dressing myself went down. The morning was exceedingly brilliant. Going out I saw the Italian lacing up his high-lows against a step. I saluted him, and asked him if he was about to depart.
“Yes, signore; I shall presently start for Denbigh.”
“After breakfast I shall start for Bangor,” said I.
“Do you propose to reach Bangor to-night, signore?”
“Yes,” said I.
“Walking, signore?”
“Yes,” said I; “I always walk in Wales.”
“Then you will have rather a long walk, signore; for Bangor is thirty-four miles from here.”
I asked him if he was married.
“No, signore; but my brother in Liverpool is.”
“To an Italian?”
“No, signore; to a Welsh girl.”
“And I suppose,” said I, “you will follow his example by marrying one; perhaps that good-looking girl the landlady’s daughter we were seated with last night?”
“No, signore; I shall not follow my brother’s example. If ever I take a wife she shall be of my own village, in Como, whither I hope to return, as soon as I have picked up a few more pounds.”
“Whether the Austrians are driven away or not?” said I.
“Whether the Austrians are driven away or not—for to my mind there is no country like Como, signore.”
I ordered breakfast; whilst taking it in the room above I saw through the open window the Italian trudging forth on his journey, a huge box on his back, and a weather-glass in his hand—looking the exact image of one of those men, his country people, whom forty years before I had known at N---. I thought of the course of time, sighed and felt a tear gather in my eye.
My breakfast concluded, I paid my bill, and after inquiring the way to Bangor, and bidding adieu to the kind landlady and her daughter, set out from Cerrig y Drudion. My course lay west, across a flat country, bounded in the far distance by the mighty hills I had seen on the preceding evening. After walking about a mile I overtook a man with a game leg, that is a leg which, either by nature or accident not being so long as its brother leg, had a patten attached to it, about five inches high, to enable it to do duty with the other—he was a fellow with red shock hair and very red features, and was dressed in ragged coat and breeches and a hat which had lost part of its crown, and all its rim, so that even without a game leg he would have looked rather a queer figure. In his hand he carried a fiddle.
“Good morning to you,” said I.
“A good morning to your hanner, a merry afternoon and a roaring, joyous evening—that is the worst luck I wish to ye.”
“Are you a native of these parts?” said I.
“Not exactly, your hanner—I am a native of the city of Dublin, or, what’s all the same thing, of the village of Donnybrook, which is close by it.”
“A celebrated place,” said I.
“Your hanner may say that; all the world has heard of Donnybrook, owing to the humours of its fair. Many is the merry tune I have played to the boys at that fair.”
“You are a professor of music, I suppose?”
“And not a very bad one, as your hanner will say, if you allow me to play you a tune.”
“Can you play Croppies Lie Down?”
“I cannot, your hanner, my fingers never learnt to play such a blackguard tune; but if you wish to hear Croppies Get Up I can oblige ye.”
“You are a Roman Catholic, I suppose?”
“I am not, your hanner—I am a Catholic to the back-bone, just like my father before me. Come, your hanner, shall I play ye Croppies Get Up?”
“No,” said I; “it’s a tune that doesn’t please my ears. If, however, you choose to play Croppies Lie Down, I’ll give you a shilling.”
“Your hanner will give me a shilling?”
“Yes,” said I; “if you play Croppies Lie Down; but you know you cannot play it, your fingers never learned the tune.”
“They never did, your hanner; but they have heard it played of ould by the blackguard Orange fiddlers of Dublin on the first of July, when the Protestant boys used to walk round Willie’s statue on College Green—so if your hanner gives me the shilling, they may perhaps bring out something like it.”
“Very good,” said I; “begin!”
“But, your hanner, what shall we do for the words? though my fingers may remember the tune my tongue does not remember the words—that is unless . . .”
“I give another shilling,” said I; “but never mind you the words; I know the words, and will repeat them.”
“And your hanner will give me a shilling?”
“If you play the tune,” said I.
“Hanner bright, your hanner?”
“Honour bright,” said I.
Thereupon the fiddler taking his bow and shouldering his fiddle, struck up in first-rate style the glorious tune, which I had so often heard with rapture in the days of my boyhood in the barrack-yard of Clonmel; whilst I, walking by his side as he stumped along, caused the welkin to resound with the words, which were the delight of the young gentlemen of the Protestant academy of that beautiful old town.
“I never heard those words before,” said the fiddler, after I had finished the first stanza.
“Get on with you,” said I.
“Regular Orange words!” said the fiddler, on my finishing the second stanza.
“Do you choose to get on?” said I.
“More blackguard Orange words I never heard!” cried the fiddler, on my coming to the conclusion of the third stanza. “Divil a bit farther will I play; at any rate till I get the shilling.”
“Here it is for you,” said I; “the song is ended, and, of course, the tune.”
“Thank your hanner,” said the fiddler, taking the money, “your hanner has kept your word with me, which is more than I thought your hanner would. And now your hanner let me ask you why did your hanner wish for that tune, which is not only a blackguard one but quite out of date; and where did your hanner get the words?”
“I used to hear the tune in my boyish days,” said I, “and wished to hear it again, for though you call it a blackguard tune, it is the sweetest and most noble air that Ireland, the land of music, has ever produced. As for the words, never mind where I got them; they are violent enough, but not half so violent as the words of some of the songs made against the Irish Protestants by the priests.”
“Your hanner is an Orange man, I see. Well, your hanner, the Orange is now in the kennel, and the Croppies have it all their own way.”
“And perhaps,” said I, “before I die, the Orange will be out of the kennel and the Croppies in, even as they were in my young days.”
“Who knows, your hanner? and who knows that I may not play the old tune round Willie’s image in College Green, even as I used some twenty-seven years ago?”
“Oh then you have been an Orange fiddler?”
“I have, your hanner. And now as your hanner has behaved like a gentleman to me I will tell ye all my history. I was born in the city of Dublin, that is in the village of Donnybrook, as I tould your hanner before. It was to the trade of bricklaying I was bred, and bricklaying I followed till at last, getting my leg smashed, not by falling off the ladder, but by a row in the fair, I was obliged to give it up, for how could I run up the ladder with a patten on my foot, which they put on to make my broken leg as long as the other. Well your hanner, being obliged to give up my bricklaying, I took to fiddling, to which I had always a natural inclination, and played about the streets, and at fairs, and wakes, and weddings. At length some Orange men getting acquainted with me, and liking my style of playing, invited me to their lodge, where they gave me to drink and tould me that if I would change my religion, and join them, and play their tunes, they would make it answer my purpose. Well, your hanner, without much stickling I gave up my Popery, joined the Orange lodge, learned the Orange tunes, and became a regular Protestant boy, and truly the Orange men kept their word, and made it answer my purpose. Oh the meat and drink I got, and the money I made by playing at the Orange lodges and before the processions when the Orange men paraded the streets with their Orange colours. And oh, what a day for me was the glorious first of July when with my whole body covered with Orange ribbons, I fiddled Croppies Lie Down, Boyne Water, and the Protestant Boys before the procession which walked round Willie’s figure on horseback in College Green, the man and horse all ablaze with Orange colours. But nothing lasts under the sun, as your hanner knows; Orangeism began to go down; the Government scowled at it, and at last passed a law preventing the Protestant boys dressing up the figure on the first of July, and walking round it. That was the death-blow of the Orange party, your hanner; they never recovered it, but began to despond and dwindle, and I with them; for there was scarcely any demand for Orange tunes. Then Dan O’Connell arose with his emancipation and repale cries, and then instead of Orange processions and walkings, there were Papist processions and mobs, which made me afraid to stir out, lest knowing me for an Orange fiddler, they should break my head, as the boys broke my leg at Donnybrook fair. At length some of the repalers and emancipators knowing that I was a first-rate hand at fiddling came to me and tould me, that if I would give over playing Croppies Lie Down and other Orange tunes, and would play Croppies Get Up, and what not, and become a Catholic and a repaler, and an emancipator, they would make a man of me—so as my Orange trade was gone, and I was half-starved, I consinted, not however till they had introduced me to Daniel O’Connell, who called me a cridit to my country, and the Irish Horpheus, and promised me a sovereign if I would consint to join the cause, as he called it. Well, your hanner, I joined with the cause and became a Papist, I mane a Catholic once more, and went at the head of processions covered all over with green ribbons, playing Croppies Get Up, Granny Whale, and the like. But, your hanner, though I went the whole hog with the repalers and emancipators, they did not make their words good by making a man of me. Scant and sparing were they in the mate and drink, and yet more sparing in the money, and Daniel O’Connell never gave me the sovereign which he promised me. No, your hanner, though I played Croppies Get Up, till my fingers ached, as I stumped before him and his mobs and processions, he never gave me the sovereign: unlike your hanner who gave me the shilling ye promised me for playing Croppies Lie Down, Daniel O’Connell never gave me the sovereign he promised me for playing Croppies Get Up. Och, your hanner, I often wished the ould Orange days were back again. However as I could do no better I continued going the whole hog with the emancipators and repalers and Dan O’Connell; I went the whole animal with them till they had got emancipation; and I went the whole animal with them till they had nearly got repale—when all of a sudden they let the whole thing drop—Dan and his party having frighted the Government out of its seven senses, and gotten all they could get, in money and places, which was all they wanted, let the whole hullabaloo drop, and of course myself, who formed part of it. I went to those who had persuaded me to give up my Orange tunes, and to play Papist ones, begging them to give me work; but they tould me very civilly that they had no further occasion for my services. I went to Daniel O’Connell reminding him of the sovereign he had promised me, and offering if he gave it me to play Croppies Get Up under the nose of the lord-lieutenant himself; but he tould me that he had not time to attend to me, and when I persisted, bade me go to the Divil and shake myself. Well, your hanner, seeing no prospect for myself in my own country, and having incurred some little debts, for which I feared to be arrested, I came over to England and Wales, where with little content and satisfaction I have passed seven years.”
“Well,” said I; “thank you for your history—farewell.”
“Stap, your hanner; does your hanner think that the Orange will ever be out of the kennel, and that the Orange boys will ever walk round the brass man and horse in College Green as they did of ould?”
“Who knows?” said I. “But suppose all that were to happen, what would it signify to you?”
“Why then divil be in my patten if I would not go back to Donnybrook and Dublin, hoist the Orange cockade, and become as good an Orange boy as ever.”
“What,” said I, “and give up Popery for the second time?”
“I would, your hanner; and why not? for in spite of what I have heard Father Toban say, I am by no means certain that all Protestants will be damned.”
“Farewell,” said I.
“Farewell, your hanner, and long life and prosperity to you! God bless your hanner and your Orange face. Ah, the Orange boys are the boys for keeping faith. They never served me as Dan O’Connell and his dirty gang of repalers and emancipators did. Farewell, your hanner, once more; and here’s another scratch of the illigant tune your hanner is so fond of, to cheer up your hanner’s ears upon your way.”
And long after I had left him I could hear him playing on his fiddle in first-rate style the beautiful tune of “Down, down, Croppies Lie Down.”
Chapter XXVI
Ceiniog Mawr—Pentre Voelas—The Old Conway—Stupendous Pass—The Gwedir Family—Capel Curig—The Two Children—Bread—Wonderful Echo—Tremendous Walker.
I walked on briskly over a flat uninteresting country, and in about an hour’s time came in front of a large stone house. It stood near the road, on the left-hand side, with a pond and pleasant trees before it, and a number of corn-stacks behind. It had something the appearance of an inn, but displayed no sign. As I was standing looking at it, a man with the look of a labourer, and with a dog by his side, came out of the house and advanced towards me.
“What is the name of this place?” said I to him in English as he drew nigh.
“Sir,” said the man, “the name of the house is Ceiniog Mawr.”
“Is it an inn?” said I.
“Not now, sir; but some years ago it was an inn, and a very large one, at which coaches used to stop; at present it is occupied by an amaethwr—that is a farmer, sir.”
“Ceiniog Mawr means a great penny,” said I, “why is it called by that name?”
“I have heard, sir, that before it was an inn it was a very considerable place, namely a royal mint, at which pennies were made, and on that account it was called Ceiniog Mawr.”
I was subsequently told that the name of this place was Cernioge Mawr. If such be the real name the legend about the mint falls to the ground, Cernioge having nothing to do with pence. Cern in Welsh means a jaw. Perhaps the true name of the house is Corniawg, which interpreted is a place with plenty of turrets or chimneys. A mile or two further the ground began to rise, and I came to a small village at the entrance of which was a water-wheel—near the village was a gentleman’s seat almost surrounded by groves. After I had passed through the village, seeing a woman seated by the roadside knitting, I asked her in English its name. Finding she had no Saesneg I repeated the question in Welsh, whereupon she told me that it was called Pentre Voelas.
“And whom does the ‘Plas’ belong to yonder amongst the groves?” said I.
“It belongs to Mr Wynn, sir, and so does the village and a great deal of the land about here. A very good gentleman is Mr Wynn, sir; he is very kind to his tenants and a very good lady is Mrs Wynn, sir; in the winter she gives much soup to the poor.”
After leaving the village of Pentre Voelas I soon found myself in a wild hilly region. I crossed a bridge over a river, which, brawling and tumbling amidst rocks, shaped its course to the north-east. As I proceeded, the country became more and more wild; there were dingles and hollows in abundance, and fantastic-looking hills, some of which were bare, and others clad with trees of various kinds. Came to a little well in a cavity, dug in a high bank on the left-hand side of the road, and fenced by rude stone work on either side; the well was about ten inches in diameter, and as many deep. Water oozing from the bank upon a slanting tile fastened into the earth fell into it. After damming up the end of the tile with my hand, and drinking some delicious water, I passed on and presently arrived at a cottage, just inside the door of which sat a good-looking middle-aged woman engaged in knitting, the general occupation of Welsh females.
“Good-day,” said I to her in Welsh. “Fine weather.”
“In truth, sir, it is fine weather for the harvest.”
“Are you alone in the house?”
“I am, sir, my husband has gone to his labour.”
“Have you any children?”
“Two, sir; but they are out at service.”
“What is the name of this place?”
“Pant Paddock, sir.”
“Do you get your water from the little well yonder?”
“We do, sir, and good water it is.”
“I have drunk of it.”
“Much good may what you have drunk do you, sir!”
“What is the name of the river near here?”
“It is called the Conway, sir.”
“Dear me; is that river the Conway?”
“You have heard of it, sir?”
“Heard of it! it is one of the famous rivers of the world. The poets are very fond of it—one of the great poets of my country calls it the old Conway.”
“Is one river older than another, sir?”
“That’s a shrewd question. Can you read?”
“I can, sir.”
“Have you any books?”
“I have the Bible, sir.”
“Will you show it me?”
“Willingly, sir.”
Then getting up she took a book from a shelf and handed it to me, at the same time begging me to enter the house and sit down. I declined, and she again took her seat and resumed her occupation. On opening the book the first words which met my eye were: “Gad i mi fyned trwy dy dir!—Let me go through your country” (Numb. XX. 22).
“I may say these words,” said I, pointing to the passage. “Let me go through your country.”
“No one will hinder you, sir, for you seem a civil gentleman.”
“No one has hindered me hitherto. Wherever I have been in Wales I have experienced nothing but kindness and hospitality, and when I return to my own country I will say so.”
“What country is yours, sir?”
“England. Did you not know that by my tongue?”
“I did not, sir. I knew by your tongue that you were not from our parts—but I did not know that you were an Englishman. I took you for a Cumro of the south country.”
Returning the kind woman her book, and bidding her farewell I departed, and proceeded some miles through a truly magnificent country of wood, rock, and mountain. At length I came to a steep mountain gorge, down which the road ran nearly due north, the Conway to the left running with great noise parallel with the road, amongst broken rocks, which chafed it into foam. I was now amidst stupendous hills, whose paps, peaks, and pinnacles seemed to rise to the very heaven. An immense mountain on the right side of the road particularly struck my attention, and on inquiring of a man breaking stones by the roadside I learned that it was called Dinas Mawr, or the large citadel, perhaps from a fort having been built upon it to defend the pass in the old British times. Coming to the bottom of the pass I crossed over by an ancient bridge, and, passing through a small town, found myself in a beautiful valley with majestic hills on either side. This was the Dyffryn Conway, the celebrated Vale of Conway, to which in the summer time fashionable gentry from all parts of Britain resort for shade and relaxation. When about midway down the valley I turned to the west, up one of the grandest passes in the world, having two immense door-posts of rock at the entrance, the northern one probably rising to the altitude of nine hundred feet. On the southern side of this pass near the entrance were neat dwellings for the accommodation of visitors with cool apartments on the ground floor, with large windows, looking towards the precipitous side of the mighty northern hill; within them I observed tables, and books, and young men, probably English collegians, seated at study.
After I had proceeded some way up the pass, down which a small river ran, a woman who was standing on the right-hand side of the way, seemingly on the look-out, begged me in broken English to step aside and look at the fall.
“You mean a waterfall, I suppose?” said I.
“Yes, sir.”
“And how do you call it?” said I.
“The Fall of the Swallow, sir.”
“And in Welsh?” said I.
“Rhaiadr y Wennol, sir.”
“And what is the name of the river?” said I.
“We call the river the Lygwy, sir.”
I told the woman I would go, whereupon she conducted me through a gate on the right-hand side and down a path overhung with trees to a rock projecting into the river. The Fall of the Swallow is not a majestic single fall, but a succession of small ones. First there are a number of little foaming torrents, bursting through rocks about twenty yards above the promontory on which I stood. Then come two beautiful rolls of white water, dashing into a pool a little way above the promontory; then there is a swirl of water round its corner into a pool below on its right, black as death, and seemingly of great depth; then a rush through a very narrow outlet into another pool, from which the water clamours away down the glen. Such is the Rhaiadr y Wennol, or Swallow Fall; called so from the rapidity with which the waters rush and skip along.
On asking the woman on whose property the fall was, she informed me that it was on the property of the Gwedir family. The name of Gwedir brought to my mind the “History of the Gwedir Family,” a rare and curious book which I had read in my boyhood, and which was written by the representative of that family, a certain Sir John Wynne, about the beginning of the seventeenth century. It gives an account of the fortunes of the family, from its earliest rise; but more particularly after it had emigrated, in order to avoid bad neighbours, from a fair and fertile district into rugged Snowdonia, where it found anything but the repose it came in quest of. The book which is written in bold graphic English, flings considerable light on the state of society in Wales, in the time of the Tudors, a truly deplorable state, as the book is full of accounts of feuds, petty but desperate skirmishes, and revengeful murders. To many of the domestic sagas, or histories of ancient Icelandic families, from the character of the events which it describes and also from the manner in which it describes them, the “History of the Gwedir Family,” by Sir John Wynne, bears a striking resemblance.
After giving the woman sixpence I left the fall, and proceeded on my way. I presently crossed a bridge under which ran the river of the fall, and was soon in a wide valley on each side of which were lofty hills dotted with wood, and at the top of which stood a mighty mountain, bare and precipitous, with two paps like those of Pindus opposite Janina, but somewhat sharper. It was a region of fairy beauty and of wild grandeur. Meeting an old bleared-eyed farmer I inquired the name of the mountain and learned that it was called Moel Siabod or Shabod. Shortly after leaving him, I turned from the road to inspect a monticle which appeared to me to have something of the appearance of a burial heap. It stood in a green meadow by the river which ran down the valley on the left. Whether it was a grave hill or a natural monticle, I will not say; but standing in the fair meadow, the rivulet murmuring beside it, and the old mountain looking down upon it, I thought it looked a very meet resting-place for an old Celtic king.
Turning round the northern side of the mighty Siabod I soon reached the village of Capel Curig, standing in a valley between two hills, the easternmost of which is the aforesaid Moel Siabod. Having walked now twenty miles in a broiling day I thought it high time to take some refreshment, and inquired the way to the inn. The inn, or rather the hotel, for it was a very magnificent edifice, stood at the entrance of a pass leading to Snowdon, on the southern side of the valley, in a totally different direction from the road leading to Bangor, to which place I was bound. There I dined in a grand saloon amidst a great deal of fashionable company, who, probably conceiving from my heated and dusty appearance that I was some poor fellow travelling on foot from motives of economy, surveyed me with looks of the most supercilious disdain, which, however, neither deprived me of my appetite nor operated uncomfortably on my feelings.
My dinner finished, I paid my bill, and having sauntered a little about the hotel garden, which is situated on the border of a small lake and from which, through the vista of the pass, Snowdon may be seen towering in majesty at the distance of about six miles, I started for Bangor, which is fourteen miles from Capel Curig.
The road to Bangor from Capel Curig is almost due west. An hour’s walking brought me to a bleak moor, extending for a long way amidst wild sterile hills.
The first of a chain on the left, was a huge lumpy hill with a precipice towards the road probably three hundred feet high. When I had come nearly parallel with the commencement of this precipice, I saw on the left-hand side of the road two children looking over a low wall behind which at a little distance stood a wretched hovel. On coming up I stopped and looked at them; they were a boy and girl; the first about twelve, the latter a year or two younger; both wretchedly dressed and looking very sickly.
“Have you any English?” said I, addressing the boy in Welsh.
“Dim gair,” said the boy; “not a word; there is no Saesneg near here.”
“What is the name of this place?”
“The name of our house is Helyg.”
“And what is the name of that hill?” said I, pointing to the hill of the precipice.
“Allt y Gôg—the high place of the cuckoo.”
“Have you a father and mother?”
“We have.”
“Are they in the house?”
“They are gone to Capel Curig.”
“And they left you alone?”
“They did. With the cat and the trin-wire.”
“Do your father and mother make wire-work?”
“They do. They live by making it.”
“What is the wire-work for?”
“It is for hedges to fence the fields with.”
“Do you help your father and mother?”
“We do; as far as we can.”
“You both look unwell.”
“We have lately had the cryd” (ague).
“Is there much cryd about here?”
“Plenty.”
“Do you live well?”
“When we have bread we live well.”
“If I give you a penny will you bring me some water?”
“We will, whether you give us a penny or not. Come, sister, let us go and fetch the gentleman water.”
They ran into the house and presently returned, the girl bearing a pan of water. After I had drunk I gave each of the children a penny, and received in return from each a diolch or thanks.
“Can either of you read?”
“Neither one nor the other.”
“Can your father and mother read?”
“My father cannot, my mother can a little.”
“Are there books in the house?”
“There are not.”
“No Bible?”
“There is no book at all.”
“Do you go to church?”
“We do not.”
“To chapel?”
“In fine weather.”
“Are you happy?”
“When there is bread in the house and no cryd we are all happy.”
“Farewell to you, children.”
“Farewell to you, gentleman!” exclaimed both.
“I have learnt something,” said I, “of Welsh cottage life and feeling from that poor sickly child.”
I had passed the first and second of the hills which stood on the left, and a huge long mountain on the right which confronted both, when a young man came down from a gully on my left hand, and proceeded in the same direction as myself. He was dressed in a blue coat and corduroy trowsers, and appeared to be of a condition a little above that of a labourer. He shook his head and scowled when I spoke to him in English, but smiled on my speaking Welsh, and said: “Ah, you speak Cumraeg: I thought no Sais could speak Cumraeg.” I asked him if he was going far.
“About four miles,” he replied.
“On the Bangor road?”
“Yes,” said he; “down the Bangor road.”
I learned that he was a carpenter, and that he had been up the gully to see an acquaintance—perhaps a sweetheart. We passed a lake on our right which he told me was called Llyn Ogwen, and that it abounded with fish. He was very amusing, and expressed great delight at having found an Englishman who could speak Welsh; “it will be a thing to talk of,” said he, “for the rest of my life.” He entered two or three cottages by the side of the road, and each time he came out I heard him say: “I am with a Sais who can speak Cumraeg.” At length we came to a gloomy-looking valley trending due north; down this valley the road ran, having an enormous wall of rocks on its right and a precipitous hollow on the left, beyond which was a wall equally high as the other one. When we had proceeded some way down the road my guide said. “You shall now hear a wonderful echo,” and shouting “taw, taw,” the rocks replied in a manner something like the baying of hounds. “Hark to the dogs!” exclaimed my companion. “This pass is called Nant yr ieuanc gwn, the pass of the young dogs, because when one shouts it answers with a noise resembling the crying of hounds.”
The sun was setting when we came to a small village at the bottom of the pass. I asked my companion its name. “Ty yn y maes,” he replied, adding as he stopped before a small cottage that he was going no farther, as he dwelt there.
“Is there a public-house here?” said I.
“There is,” he replied, “you will find one a little farther up on the right hand.”
“Come, and take some ale,” said I.
“No,” said he.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“I am a teetotaler,” he replied.
“Indeed,” said I, and having shaken him by the hand, thanked him for his company and bidding him farewell, went on. He was the first person I had ever met of the fraternity to which he belonged, who did not endeavour to make a parade of his abstinence and self-denial.
After drinking some tolerably good ale in the public house I again started. As I left the village a clock struck eight. The evening was delightfully cool; but it soon became nearly dark. I passed under high rocks, by houses and by groves, in which nightingales were singing, to listen to whose entrancing melody I more than once stopped. On coming to a town, lighted up and thronged with people, I asked one of a group of young fellows its name.
“Bethesda,” he replied.
“A scriptural name,” said I.
“Is it?” said he; “well, if its name is scriptural the manners of its people are by no means so.”
A little way beyond the town a man came out of a cottage and walked beside me. He had a basket in his hand. I quickened my pace; but he was a tremendous walker, and kept up with me. On we went side by side for more than a mile without speaking a word. At length, putting out my legs in genuine Barclay fashion, I got before him about ten yards, then turning round laughed and spoke to him in English. He too laughed and spoke, but in Welsh. We now went on like brothers, conversing, but always walking at great speed. I learned from him that he was a market-gardener living at Bangor, and that Bangor was three miles off. On the stars shining out we began to talk about them.
Pointing to Charles’s Wain I said, “A good star for travellers.”
Whereupon pointing to the North star, he said:
“I forwyr da iawn—a good star for mariners.”
We passed a large house on our left.
“Who lives there?” said I.
“Mr Smith,” he replied. “It is called Plas Newydd; milltir genom etto—we have yet another mile.”
In ten minutes we were at Bangor. I asked him where the Albion Hotel was.
“I will show it you,” said he, and so he did.
As we came under it I heard the voice of my wife, for she, standing on a balcony and distinguishing me by the lamplight, called out. I shook hands with the kind six-mile-an-hour market-gardener, and going into the inn found my wife and daughter, who rejoiced to see me. We presently had tea.
Chapter XXVII
Bangor—Edmund Price—The Bridges—Bookselling—Future Pope—Wild Irish—Southey.
Bangor is seated on the spurs of certain high hills near the Menai, a strait separating Mona or Anglesey from Caernarvonshire. It was once a place of Druidical worship, of which fact, even without the testimony of history and tradition, the name which signifies “upper circle” would be sufficient evidence. On the decay of Druidism a town sprang up on the site and in the neighbourhood of the “upper circle,” in which in the sixth century a convent or university was founded by Deiniol, who eventually became Bishop of Bangor. This Deiniol was the son of Deiniol Vawr, a zealous Christian prince who founded the convent of Bangor Is Coed, or Bangor beneath the wood in Flintshire, which was destroyed, and its inmates almost to a man put to the sword by Ethelbert, a Saxon king, and his barbarian followers at the instigation of the monk Austin, who hated the brethren because they refused to acknowledge the authority of the Pope, whose delegate he was in Britain. There were in all three Bangors; the one at Is Coed, another in Powis, and this Caernarvonshire Bangor, which was generally termed Bangor Vawr or Bangor the great. The two first Bangors have fallen into utter decay, but Bangor Vawr is still a bishop’s see, boasts of a small but venerable cathedral, and contains a population of above eight thousand souls.
Two very remarkable men have at different periods conferred a kind of lustre upon Bangor by residing in it, Taliesin in the old, and Edmund Price in comparatively modern time. Both of them were poets. Taliesin flourished about the end of the fifth century, and for the sublimity of his verses was for many centuries called by his countrymen the Bardic King. Amongst his pieces is one generally termed “The Prophecy of Taliesin,” which announced long before it happened the entire subjugation of Britain by the Saxons, and which is perhaps one of the most stirring pieces of poetry ever produced. Edmund Price flourished during the time of Elizabeth. He was archdeacon of Merionethshire, but occasionally resided at Bangor for the benefit of his health. Besides being one of the best Welsh poets of his age he was a man of extraordinary learning, possessing a thorough knowledge of no less than eight languages.
The greater part of his compositions, however clever and elegant, are, it must be confessed, such as do little credit to the pen of an ecclesiastic, being bitter poignant satires, which were the cause of much pain and misery to individuals; one of his works, however, is not only of a kind quite consistent with his sacred calling, but has been a source of considerable blessing. To him the Cambrian Church is indebted for the version of the Psalms, which for the last two centuries it has been in the habit of using. Previous to the version of the Archdeacon a translation of the Psalms had been made into Welsh by William Middleton, an officer in the naval service of Queen Elizabeth, in the four-and-twenty alliterative measures of the ancients bards. It was elegant and even faithful, but far beyond the comprehension of people in general, and consequently by no means fitted for the use of churches, though intended for that purpose by the author, a sincere Christian, though a warrior. Avoiding the error into which his predecessor had fallen, the Archdeacon made use of a measure intelligible to people of every degree, in which alliteration is not observed, and which is called by the Welsh y mesur cyffredin, or the common measure. His opinion of the four-and-twenty measures the Archdeacon has given to the world in four cowydd lines to the following effect:
“I’ve read the master-pieces great Of languages no less than eight, But ne’er have found a woof of song So strict as that of Cambria’s tongue.”
After breakfast on the morning subsequent to my arrival, Henrietta and I roamed about the town, and then proceeded to view the bridges which lead over the strait to Anglesey. One, for common traffic, is a most beautiful suspension bridge completed in 1820, the result of the mental and manual labours of the ingenious Telford; the other is a tubular railroad bridge, a wonderful structure, no doubt, but anything but graceful. We remained for some time on the first bridge, admiring the scenery, and were not a little delighted, as we stood leaning over the principal arch, to see a proud vessel pass beneath us in full sail.
Satiated with gazing we passed into Anglesey, and making our way to the tubular bridge, which is to the west of the suspension one, entered one of its passages and returned to the main land.
The air was exceedingly hot and sultry, and on coming to a stone bench, beneath a shady wall, we both sat down, panting, on one end of it; as we were resting ourselves, a shabby-looking man with a bundle of books came and seated himself at the other end, placing his bundle beside him; then taking out from his pocket a dirty red handkerchief, he wiped his face, which was bathed in perspiration, and ejaculated: “By Jasus, it is blazing hot!”
“Very hot, my friend,” said I; “have you travelled far to-day?”
“I have not, your hanner; I have been just walking about the dirty town trying to sell my books.”
“Have you been successful?”
“I have not, your hanner; only three pence have I taken this blessed day.”
“What do your books treat of?”
“Why, that is more than I can tell your hanner; my trade is to sell the books not to read them. Would your hanner like to look at them?”
“Oh dear no,” said I; “I have long been tired of books; I have had enough of them.”
“I daresay, your hanner; from the state of your hanner’s eyes I should say as much; they look so weak—picking up learning has ruined your hanner’s sight.”
“May I ask,” said I, “from what country you are?”
“Sure your hanner may; and it is a civil answer you will get from Michael Sullivan. It is from ould Ireland I am, from Castlebar in the county Mayo.”
“And how came you into Wales?”
“From the hope of bettering my condition, your hanner, and a foolish hope it was.”
“You have not bettered your condition, then?”
“I have not, your hanner; for I suffer quite as much hunger and thirst as ever I did in ould Ireland.”
“Did you sell books in Ireland?”
“I did nat, yer hanner; I made buttons and clothes—that is I pieced them. I was several trades in ould Ireland, your hanner; but none of them answering, I came over here.”
“Where you commenced book-selling?” said I.
“I did nat, your hanner. I first sold laces, and then I sold loocifers, and then something else; I have followed several trades in Wales, your hanner; at last I got into the book-selling trade, in which I now am.”
“And it answers, I suppose, as badly as the others?”
“Just as badly, your hanner; divil a bit better.”
“I suppose you never beg?”
“Your hanner may say that; I was always too proud to beg. It is begging I laves to the wife I have.”
“Then you have a wife?”
“I have, your hanner; and a daughter, too; and a good wife and daughter they are. What would become of me without them I do not know.”
“Have you been long in Wales?”
“Not very long, your hanner; only about twenty years.”
“Do you travel much about?”
“All over North Wales, your hanner; to say nothing of the southern country.”
“I suppose you speak Welsh?”
“Not a word, your hanner. The Welsh speak their language so fast, that divil a word could I ever contrive to pick up.”
“Do you speak Irish?”
“I do, yer hanner; that is when people spake to me in it.”
I spoke to him in Irish; after a little discourse he said in English:
“I see your hanner is a Munster man. Ah! all the learned men comes from Munster. Father Toban comes from Munster.”
“I have heard of him once or twice before,” said I.
“I daresay your hanner has. Every one has heard of Father Toban; the greatest scholar in the world, who they, say stands a better chance of being made Pope, some day or other, than any saggart in Ireland.”
“Will you take sixpence?”
“I will, your hanner; if your hanner offers it; but I never beg; I leave that kind of work to my wife and daughter as I said before.”
After giving him the sixpence, which he received with a lazy “thank your hanner,” I got up, and followed by my daughter returned to the town.
Henrietta went to the inn, and I again strolled about the town. As I was standing in the middle of one of the business streets I suddenly heard a loud and dissonant gabbling, and glancing around beheld a number of wild-looking people, male and female. Wild looked the men, yet wilder the women. The men were very lightly clad, and were all barefooted and bareheaded; they carried stout sticks in their hands. The women were barefooted too, but had for the most part head-dresses; their garments consisted of blue cloaks and striped gingham gowns. All the females had common tin articles in their hands which they offered for sale with violent gestures to the people in the streets, as they walked along, occasionally darting into the shops, from which, however, they were almost invariably speedily ejected by the startled proprietors, with looks of disgust and almost horror. Two ragged, red-haired lads led a gaunt pony, drawing a creaking cart, stored with the same kind of articles of tin, which the women bore. Poorly clad, dusty and soiled as they were, they all walked with a free, independent, and almost graceful carriage.
“Are those people from Ireland?” said I to a decent-looking man, seemingly a mechanic, who stood near me, and was also looking at them, but with anything but admiration.
“I am sorry to say they are, sir;” said the man, who from his accent was evidently an Irishman, “for they are a disgrace to their country.”
I did not exactly think so. I thought that in many respects they were fine specimens of humanity.
“Every one of those wild fellows,” said I to myself, “is worth a dozen of the poor mean-spirited book-tramper I have lately been discoursing with.”
In the afternoon I again passed over into Anglesey, but this time not by the bridge but by the ferry on the north-east of Bangor, intending to go to Beaumaris, about two or three miles distant: an excellent road, on the left side of which is a high bank fringed with dwarf oaks, and on the right the Menai strait, leads to it. Beaumaris is at present a watering-place. On one side of it, close upon the sea, stand the ruins of an immense castle, once a Norman stronghold, but built on the site of a palace belonging to the ancient kings of North Wales, and a favourite residence of the celebrated Owain Gwynedd, the father of the yet more celebrated Madoc, the original discoverer of America. I proceeded at once to the castle, and clambering to the top of one of the turrets, looked upon Beaumaris Bay, and the noble rocky coast of the mainland to the south-east beyond it, the most remarkable object of which is the gigantic Penman Mawr, which interpreted is “the great head-stone,” the termination of a range of craggy hills descending from the Snowdon mountains.
“What a bay!” said I, “for beauty it is superior to the far-famed one of Naples. A proper place for the keels to start from, which, unguided by the compass, found their way over the mighty and mysterious Western Ocean.”
I repeated all the Bardic lines I could remember connected with Madoc’s expedition, and likewise many from the Madoc of Southey, not the least of Britain’s four great latter poets, decidedly her best prose writer, and probably the purest and most noble character to which she has ever given birth; and then, after a long, lingering look, descended from my altitude, and returned, not by the ferry, but by the suspension bridge to the mainland.
Chapter XXVIII
Robert Lleiaf—Prophetic Englyn—The Second Sight—Duncan Campbell—Nial’s Saga—Family of Nial—Gunnar—The Avenger.
“Av i dir Môn, cr dwr Menai, Tros y traeth, ond aros trai.”
“I will go to the land of Mona, notwithstanding the water of the Menai, across the sand, without waiting for the ebb.”
So sang a bard about two hundred and forty years ago, who styled himself Robert Lleiaf, or the least of the Roberts. The meaning of the couplet has always been considered to be, and doubtless is, that a time would come when a bridge would be built across the Menai, over which one might pass with safety and comfort, without waiting till the ebb was sufficiently low to permit people to pass over the traeth, or sand, which, from ages the most remote, had been used as the means of communication between the mainland and the Isle of Mona or Anglesey. Grounding their hopes upon that couplet, people were continually expecting to see a bridge across the Menai: more than two hundred years, however, elapsed before the expectation was fulfilled by the mighty Telford flinging over the strait an iron suspension bridge, which, for grace and beauty, has perhaps no rival in Europe.
The couplet is a remarkable one. In the time of its author there was nobody in Britain capable of building a bridge, which could have stood against the tremendous surges which occasionally vex the Menai; yet the couplet gives intimation that a bridge over the Menai there would be, which clearly argues a remarkable foresight in the author, a feeling that a time would at length arrive when the power of science would be so far advanced, that men would be able to bridge over the terrible strait. The length of time which intervened between the composition of the couplet and the fulfilment of the promise, shows that a bridge over the Menai was no pont y meibion, no children’s bridge, nor a work for common men. Oh, surely Lleiaf was a man of great foresight!
A man of great foresight, but nothing more; he foretold a bridge over the Menai, when no one could have built one, a bridge over which people could pass, aye, and carts and horses; we will allow him the credit of foretelling such a bridge; and when Telford’s bridge was flung over the Menai, Lleiaf’s couplet was verified. But since Telford’s another bridge has been built over the Menai, which enables things to pass which the bard certainly never dreamt of. He never hinted at a bridge over which thundering trains would dash, if required, at the rate of fifty miles an hour; he never hinted at steam travelling, or a railroad bridge, and the second bridge over the Menai is one.
That Lleiaf was a man of remarkable foresight, cannot be denied, but there are no grounds which entitle him to be considered a possessor of the second sight. He foretold a bridge, but not a railroad bridge; had he foretold a railroad bridge, or hinted at the marvels of steam, his claim to the second sight would have been incontestable.
What a triumph for Wales; what a triumph for bardism, if Lleiaf had ever written an englyn, or couplet, in which not a bridge for common traffic, but a railroad bridge over the Menai was hinted at, and steam travelling distinctly foretold! Well, though Lleiaf did not write it, there exists in the Welsh language an englyn, almost as old as Lleiaf’s time, in which steam travelling in Wales and Anglesea is foretold, and in which, though the railroad bridge over the Menai is not exactly mentioned, it may be considered to be included; so that Wales and bardism have equal reason to be proud. This is the englyn alluded to:—
“Codais, ymolchais yn Môn, cyn naw awr Ciniewa’n Nghaer Lleon, Pryd gosber yn y Werddon, Prydnawn wrth dan mawn yn Môn.”
The above englyn was printed in the Greal, 1792, p. 316; the language shows it to be a production of about the middle of the seventeenth century. The following is nearly a literal translation:—
“I got up in Mona as soon as ’twas light, At nine in old Chester my breakfast I took; In Ireland I dined, and in Mona, ere night, By the turf fire sat, in my own ingle nook.”
Now, as sure as the couplet by Robert Lleiaf foretells that a bridge would eventually be built over the strait, by which people would pass, and traffic be carried on, so surely does the above englyn foreshadow the speed by which people would travel by steam, a speed by which distance is already all but annihilated. At present it is easy enough to get up at dawn at Holyhead, the point of Anglesey the most distant from Chester, and to breakfast at that old town by nine; and though the feat has never yet been accomplished, it would be quite possible, provided proper preparations were made, to start from Holyhead at daybreak, breakfast at Chester at nine, or before, dine in Ireland at two, and get back again to Holyhead ere the sun of the longest day has set. And as surely as the couplet about the bridge argues great foresight in the man that wrote it, so surely does the englyn prove that its author must have been possessed of the faculty of second sight, as nobody without it could, in the middle of the seventeenth century, when the powers of steam were unknown, have written anything in which travelling by steam is so distinctly alluded to.
Truly some old bard of the seventeenth century must in a vision of the second sight have seen the railroad bridge across the Menai, the Chester train dashing across it, at high railroad speed, and a figure exactly like his own seated comfortably in a third-class carriage.
And now a few words on the second sight, a few calm, quiet words, in which there is not the slightest wish to display either eccentricity or book-learning.
The second sight is the power of seeing events before they happen, or of seeing events which are happening far beyond the reach of the common sight, or between which and the common sight barriers intervene, which it cannot pierce. The number of those who possess this gift or power is limited, and perhaps no person ever possessed it in a perfect degree: some more frequently see coming events, or what is happening at a distance, than others; some see things dimly, others with great distinctness. The events seen are sometimes of great importance, sometimes highly nonsensical and trivial; sometimes they relate to the person who sees them, sometimes to other people. This is all that can be said with anything like certainty with respect to the nature of the second sight, a faculty for which there is no accounting, which, were it better developed, might be termed the sixth sense.
The second sight is confined to no particular country, and has at all times existed. Particular nations have obtained a celebrity for it for a time, which they have afterwards lost, the celebrity being transferred to other nations, who were previously not noted for the faculty. The Jews were at one time particularly celebrated for the possession of the second sight; they are no longer so. The power was at one time very common amongst the Icelanders and the inhabitants of the Hebrides, but it is so no longer. Many and extraordinary instances of the second sight have lately occurred in that part of England generally termed East Anglia, where in former times the power of the second sight seldom manifested itself.
There are various books in existence in which the second sight is treated of or mentioned. Amongst others there is one called “Martin’s Description of the Western Isles of Scotland,” published in the year 1703, which is indeed the book from which most writers in English, who have treated of the second sight, have derived their information. The author gives various anecdotes of the second sight, which he had picked up during his visits to those remote islands, which until the publication of his tour were almost unknown to the world. It will not be amiss to observe here that the term second sight is of Lowland Scotch origin, and first made its appearance in print in Martin’s book. The Gaelic term for the faculty is taibhsearachd, the literal meaning of which is what is connected with a spectral appearance, the root of the word being taibhse, a spectral appearance or vision.
Then there is the History of Duncan Campbell. The father of this person was a native of Shetland, who, being shipwrecked on the coast of Swedish Lapland, and hospitably received by the natives, married a woman of the country, by whom he had Duncan, who was born deaf and dumb. On the death of his mother the child was removed by his father to Scotland, where he was educated and taught the use of the finger alphabet, by means of which people are enabled to hold discourse with each other, without moving the lips or tongue. This alphabet was originally invented in Scotland, and at the present day is much in use there, not only amongst dumb people, but many others, who employ it as a silent means of communication. Nothing is more usual than to see passengers in a common conveyance in Scotland discoursing with their fingers. Duncan at an early period gave indications of possessing the second sight. After various adventures he came to London, where for many years he practised as a fortune-teller, pretending to answer all questions, whether relating to the past or the future, by means of the second sight. There can be no doubt that this man was to a certain extent an impostor; no person exists having a thorough knowledge either of the past or future by means of the second sight, which only visits particular people by fits and starts, and which is quite independent of individual will; but it is equally certain that he disclosed things which no person could have been acquainted with without visitations of the second sight. His papers fell into the hands of Defoe, who wrought them up in his own peculiar manner, and gave them to the world under the title of the Life of Mr Duncan Campbell, the Deaf and Dumb Gentleman: with an appendix containing many anecdotes of the second sight from Martin’s tour.
But by far the most remarkable book in existence, connected with the second sight, is one in the ancient Norse language entitled “Nial’s Saga.” {3} It was written in Iceland about the year 1200, and contains the history of a certain Nial and his family, and likewise notices of various other people. This Nial was what was called a spámadr, that is, a spaeman or a person capable of foretelling events. He was originally a heathen—when, however, Christianity was introduced into Iceland, he was amongst the first to embrace it, and persuaded his family and various people of his acquaintance to do the same, declaring that a new faith was necessary, the old religion of Odin, Thor, and Frey, being quite unsuited to the times. The book is no romance, but a domestic history compiled from tradition about two hundred years after the events which it narrates had taken place. Of its style, which is wonderfully terse, the following translated account of Nial and his family will perhaps convey some idea:—
“There was a man called Nial, who was the son of Thorgeir Gelling, the son of Thorolf. The mother of Nial was called Asgerdr; she was the daughter of Ar, the Silent, the Lord of a district in Norway. She had come over to Iceland and settled down on land to the west of Markarfliot, between Oldustein and Selialandsmul. Holtathorir was her son, father of Thorlief Krak, from whom the Skogverjars are come, and likewise of Thorgrim the big and Skorargeir. Nial dwelt at Bergthorshvâl in Landey, but had another house at Thorolfell. Nial was very rich in property, and handsome to look at, but had no beard. He was so great a lawyer, that it was impossible to find his equal, he was very wise, and had the gift of foretelling events, he was good at counsel, and of a good disposition, and whatever counsel he gave people was for their best; he was gentle and humane, and got every man out of trouble who came to him in his need. His wife was called Bergthora; she was the daughter of Skarphethin. She was a bold-spirited woman who feared nobody, and was rather rough of temper. They had six children, three daughters and three sons, all of whom will be frequently mentioned in this saga.”
In the history many instances are given of Nial’s skill in giving good advice and his power of seeing events before they happened. Nial lived in Iceland during most singular times, in which though there were laws provided for every possible case, no man could have redress for any injury unless he took it himself, or his friends took it for him, simply because there were no ministers of justice supported by the State, authorised and empowered to carry the sentence of the law into effect. For example, if a man were slain, his death would remain unpunished, unless he had a son or a brother, or some other relation to slay the slayer, or to force him to pay “bod,” that is, amends in money, to be determined by the position of the man who was slain. Provided the man who was slain had relations, his death was generally avenged, as it was considered the height of infamy in Iceland to permit one’s relations to be murdered, without slaying their murderers, or obtaining bod from them. The right, however, permitted to relations of taking with their own hands the lives of those who had slain their friends, produced incalculable mischiefs; for if the original slayer had friends, they, in the event of his being slain in retaliation for what he had done, made it a point of honour to avenge his death, so that by the lex talionis feuds were perpetuated. Nial was a great benefactor to his countrymen, by arranging matters between people, at variance in which he was much helped by his knowledge of the law, and by giving wholesome advice to people in precarious situations, in which he was frequently helped by the power which he possessed of the second sight. On several occasions he settled the disputes in which his friend Gunnar was involved, a noble, generous character, and the champion of Iceland, but who had a host of foes, envious of his renown; and it was not his fault if Gunnar was eventually slain, for if the advice which he gave had been followed, the champion would have died an old man; and if his own sons had followed his advice, and not been over fond of taking vengeance on people who had wronged them, they would have escaped a horrible death, in which he himself was involved, as he had always foreseen he should be.
“Dost thou know by what death thou thyself wilt die?” said Gunnar to Nial, after the latter had been warning him that if he followed a certain course he would die by a violent death.
“I do,” said Nial.
“What is it?” said Gunnar.
“What people would think the least probable,” replied Nial.
He meant that he should die by fire. The kind generous Nial, who tried to get everybody out of difficulty, perished by fire. His sons by their violent conduct had incensed numerous people against them. The house in which they lived with their father was beset at night by an armed party, who, unable to break into it owing to the desperate resistance which they met with from the sons of Nial, Skarphethin, Helgi, and Grimmr and a comrade of theirs called Kari, {4} set it in a blaze, in which perished Nial, the lawyer and man of the second sight, his wife Bergthora, and two of their sons, the third, Helgi, having been previously slain, and Kari, who was destined to be the avenger of the ill-fated family, having made his escape, after performing deeds of heroism which for centuries after were the themes of song and tale in the ice-bound isle.
Chapter XXIX
Snowdon—Caernarvon—Maxen Wledig—Moel y Cynghorion—The Wyddfa—Snow of Snowdon—Rare Plant.
On the third morning after our arrival at Bangor we set out for Snowdon.
Snowdon or Eryri is no single hill, but a mountainous region, the loftiest part of which, called Y Wyddfa, nearly four thousand feet above the level of the sea, is generally considered to be the highest point of Southern Britain. The name Snowdon was bestowed upon this region by the early English on account of its snowy appearance in winter; Eryri by the Britons, because in the old time it abounded with eagles, Eryri {5} in the ancient British language signifying an eyrie or breeding-place of eagles.
Snowdon is interesting on various accounts. It is interesting for its picturesque beauty. Perhaps in the whole world there is no region more picturesquely beautiful than Snowdon, a region of mountains, lakes, cataracts, and, groves in which nature shows herself in her most grand and beautiful forms.
It is interesting from its connection with history: it was to Snowdon that Vortigern retired from the fury of his own subjects, caused by the favour which he showed to the detested Saxons. It was there that he called to his counsels Merlin, said to be begotten on a hag by an incubus, but who was in reality the son of a Roman consul by a British woman. It was in Snowdon that he built the castle, which he fondly deemed would prove impregnable, but which his enemies destroyed by flinging wild-fire over its walls; and it was in a wind-beaten valley of Snowdon, near the sea, that his dead body decked in green armour had a mound of earth and stones raised over it. It was on the heights of Snowdon that the brave but unfortunate Llywelin ap Griffith made his last stand for Cambrian independence; and it was to Snowdon that that very remarkable man, Owen Glendower, retired with his irregular bands before Harry the Fourth and his numerous and disciplined armies, soon however, to emerge from its defiles and follow the foe, retreating less from the Welsh arrows from the crags, than from the cold, rain and starvation of the Welsh hills.
But it is from its connection with romance that Snowdon derives its chief interest. Who when he thinks of Snowdon does not associate it with the heroes of romance, Arthur and his knights? whose fictitious adventures, the splendid dreams of Welsh and Breton minstrels, many of the scenes of which are the valleys and passes of Snowdon, are the origin of romance, before which what is classic has for more than half a century been waning, and is perhaps eventually destined to disappear. Yes, to romance Snowdon is indebted for its interest and consequently for its celebrity; but for romance Snowdon would assuredly not be what it at present is, one of the very celebrated hills of the world, and to the poets of modern Europe almost what Parnassus was to those of old.
To the Welsh, besides being the hill of the Awen or Muse, it has always been the hill of hills, the loftiest of all mountains, the one whose snow is the coldest, to climb to whose peak is the most difficult of all feats; and the one whose fall will be the most astounding catastrophe of the last day.
To view this mountain I and my little family set off in a calèche on the third morning after our arrival at Bangor.
Our first stage was to Caernarvon. As I subsequently made a journey to Caernarvon on foot, I shall say nothing about the road till I give an account of that expedition, save that it lies for the most part in the neighbourhood of the sea. We reached Caernarvon, which is distant ten miles from Bangor, about eleven o’clock, and put up at an inn to refresh ourselves and the horses. It is a beautiful little town situated on the southern side of the Menai Strait at nearly its western extremity. It is called Caernarvon, because it is opposite Mona or Anglesey: Caernarvon signifying the town or castle opposite Mona. Its principal feature is its grand old castle, fronting the north, and partly surrounded by the sea. This castle was built by Edward the First after the fall of his brave adversary Llewelyn, and in it was born his son Edward whom, when an infant, he induced the Welsh chieftains to accept as their prince without seeing, by saying that the person whom he proposed to be their sovereign was one who was not only born in Wales, but could not speak a word of the English language. The town Caernarvon, however, existed long before Edward’s time, and was probably originally a Roman station. According to Welsh tradition it was built by Maxen Wledig or Maxentius, in honour of his wife Ellen who was born in the neighbourhood. Maxentius, who was a Briton by birth, and partly by origin contested unsuccessfully the purple with Gratian and Valentinian, and to support his claim led over to the Continent an immense army of Britons, who never returned, but on the fall of their leader settled down in that part of Gaul generally termed Armorica, which means a maritime region, but which the Welsh call Llydaw, or Lithuania, which was the name, or something like the name, which the region bore when Maxen’s army took possession of it, owing, doubtless, to its having been the quarters of a legion composed of barbarians from the country of Leth or Lithuania.
After staying about an hour at Caernarvon we started for Llanberis, a few miles to the east. Llanberis is a small village situated in a valley, and takes its name from Peris, a British saint of the sixth century, son of Helig ab Glanog. The valley extends from west to east, having the great mountain of Snowdon on its south, and a range of immense hills on its northern side. We entered this valley by a pass called Nant y Glo or the ravine of the coal, and passing a lake on our left, on which I observed a solitary corracle, with a fisherman in it, were presently at the village. Here we got down at a small inn, and having engaged a young lad to serve as guide, I set out with Henrietta to ascend the hill, my wife remaining behind, not deeming herself sufficiently strong to encounter the fatigue of the expedition.
Pointing with my finger to the head of Snowdon towering a long way from us in the direction of the east, I said to Henrietta:—
“Dacw Eryri, yonder is Snowdon. Let us try to get to the top. The Welsh have a proverb: ‘It is easy to say yonder is Snowdon; but not so easy to ascend it.’ Therefore I would advise you to brace up your nerves and sinews for the attempt.”
We then commenced the ascent, arm-in-arm, followed by the lad, I singing at the stretch of my voice a celebrated Welsh stanza, in which the proverb about Snowdon is given, embellished with a fine moral, and which may thus be rendered:—
“Easy to say, ‘Behold Eryri,’ But difficult to reach its head; Easy for him whose hopes are cheery To bid the wretch be comforted.”
We were far from being the only visitors to the hill this day; groups of people, or single individuals, might be seen going up or descending the path as far as the eye could reach. The path was remarkably good, and for some way the ascent was anything but steep. On our left was the Vale of Llanberis, and on our other side a broad hollow, or valley of Snowdon, beyond which were two huge hills forming part of the body of the grand mountain, the lowermost of which our guide told me was called Moel Elia, and the uppermost Moel y Cynghorion. On we went until we had passed both these hills, and come to the neighbourhood of a great wall of rocks constituting the upper region of Snowdon, and where the real difficulty of the ascent commences. Feeling now rather out of breath we sat down on a little knoll with our faces to the south, having a small lake near us, on our left hand, which lay dark and deep, just under the great wall.
Here we sat for some time resting and surveying the scene which presented itself to us, the principal object of which was the north-eastern side of the mighty Moel y Cynghorion, across the wide hollow or valley, which it overhangs in the shape of a sheer precipice some five hundred feet in depth. Struck by the name of Moel y Cynghorion, which in English signifies the hill of the counsellors, I enquired of our guide why the hill was so called, but as he could afford me no information on the point I presumed that it was either called the hill of the counsellors from the Druids having held high consultation on its top, in time of old, or from the unfortunate Llewelyn having consulted there with his chieftains, whilst his army lay encamped in the vale below.
Getting up we set about surmounting what remained of the ascent. The path was now winding and much more steep than it had hitherto been. I was at one time apprehensive that my gentle companion would be obliged to give over the attempt; the gallant girl, however, persevered, and in little more than twenty minutes from the time when we arose from our resting-place under the crags, we stood, safe and sound, though panting, upon the very top of Snowdon, the far-famed Wyddfa.
The Wyddfa is about thirty feet in diameter and is surrounded on three sides by a low wall. In the middle of it is a rude cabin, in which refreshments are sold, and in which a person resides through the year, though there are few or no visitors to the hill’s top, except during the months of summer. Below on all sides are frightful precipices except on the side of the west. Towards the east it looks perpendicularly into the dyffrin or vale, nearly a mile below, from which to the gazer it is at all times an object of admiration, of wonder and almost of fear.
There we stood on the Wyddfa, in a cold bracing atmosphere, though the day was almost stiflingly hot in the regions from which we had ascended. There we stood enjoying a scene inexpressibly grand, comprehending a considerable part of the mainland of Wales, the whole of Anglesey, a faint glimpse of part of Cumberland; the Irish Channel, and what might be either a misty creation or the shadowy outline of the hills of Ireland. Peaks and pinnacles and huge moels stood up here and there, about us and below us, partly in glorious light, partly in deep shade. Manifold were the objects which we saw from the brow of Snowdon, but of all the objects which we saw, those which filled us with delight and admiration, were numerous lakes and lagoons, which, like sheets of ice or polished silver, lay reflecting the rays of the sun in the deep valleys at his feet.
“Here,” said I to Henrietta, “you are on the top crag of Snowdon, which the Welsh consider, and perhaps with justice, to be the most remarkable crag in the world; which is mentioned in many of their old wild romantic tales, and some of the noblest of their poems, amongst others in the ‘Day of Judgment,’ by the illustrious Goronwy Owen, where it is brought forward in the following manner:
“‘Ail i’r ar ael Eryri, Cyfartal hoewal a hi.’
“‘The brow of Snowdon shall be levelled with the ground, and the eddying waters shall murmur round it.’
“You are now on the top crag of Snowdon, generally termed Y Wyddfa, {6} which means a conspicuous place or tumulus, and which is generally in winter covered with snow; about which snow there are in the Welsh language two curious englynion or stanzas consisting entirely of vowels with the exception of one consonant, namely the letter R.
“‘Oer yw’r Eira ar Eryri,—o’ryw Ar awyr i rewi; Oer yw’r ia ar riw ’r ri, A’r Eira oer yw ’Ryri.
“‘O Ri y’Ryri yw’r oera,—o’r âr, Ar oror wir arwa; O’r awyr a yr Eira, O’i ryw i roi rew a’r ia.’
“‘Cold is the snow on Snowdon’s brow It makes the air so chill; For cold, I trow, there is no snow Like that of Snowdon’s hill.
“‘A hill most chill is Snowdon’s hill, And wintry is his brow; From Snowdon’s hill the breezes chill Can freeze the very snow.’”
Such was the harangue which I uttered on the top of Snowdon; to which Henrietta listened with attention; three or four English, who stood nigh, with grinning scorn, and a Welsh gentleman with considerable interest. The latter coming forward shook me by the hand exclaiming—
“Wyt ti Lydaueg?”
“I am not a Llydauan,” said I; “I wish I was, or anything but what I am, one of a nation amongst whom any knowledge save what relates to money-making and over-reaching is looked upon as a disgrace. I am ashamed to say that I am an Englishman.”
I then returned his shake of the hand; and bidding Henrietta and the guide follow me, went into the cabin, where Henrietta had some excellent coffee and myself and the guide a bottle of tolerable ale; very much refreshed we set out on our return.
A little way from the top, on the right-hand side as you descend, there is a very steep path running down in a zigzag manner to the pass which leads to Capel Curig. Up this path it is indeed a task of difficulty to ascend to the Wyddfa, the one by which we mounted being comparatively easy. On Henrietta’s pointing out to me a plant, which grew on a crag by the side of this path some way down, I was about to descend in order to procure it for her, when our guide springing forward darted down the path with the agility of a young goat, in less than a minute returned with it in his hand and presented it gracefully to the dear girl, who on examining it said it belonged to a species of which she had long been desirous of possessing a specimen. Nothing material occurred in our descent to Llanberis, where my wife was anxiously awaiting us. The ascent and descent occupied four hours. About ten o’clock at night we again found ourselves at Bangor.
XXX. Gronwy Owen—Struggles of Genius—The Stipend
The day after our expedition to Snowdon I and my family parted; they returning by railroad to Chester and Llangollen whilst I took a trip into Anglesey to visit the birth-place of the great poet Goronwy Owen, whose works I had read with enthusiasm in my early years.
Goronwy or Gronwy Owen, was born in the year 1722, at a place called Llanfair Mathafarn Eithaf in Anglesey. He was the eldest of three children. His parents were peasants and so exceedingly poor that they were unable to send him to school. Even, however, when an unlettered child he gave indications that he was visited by the awen or muse. At length the celebrated Lewis Morris chancing to be at Llanfair became acquainted with the boy, and struck with his natural talents, determined that he should have all the benefit which education could bestow. He accordingly, at his own expense sent him to school at Beaumaris, where he displayed a remarkable aptitude for the acquisition of learning. He subsequently sent him to Jesus College, Oxford, and supported him there whilst studying for the church. Whilst at Jesus, Gronwy distinguished himself as a Greek and Latin scholar, and gave such proofs of poetical talent in his native language, that he was looked upon by his countrymen of that Welsh college as the rising Bard of the age. After completing his collegiate course he returned to Wales, where he was ordained a minister of the Church in the year 1745. The next seven years of his life were a series of cruel disappointments and pecuniary embarrassments. The grand wish of his heart was to obtain a curacy and to settle down in Wales. Certainly a very reasonable wish. To say nothing of his being a great genius, he was eloquent, highly learned, modest, meek and of irreproachable morals, yet Gronwy Owen could obtain no Welsh curacy, nor could his friend Lewis Morris, though he exerted himself to the utmost, procure one for him. It is true that he was told that he might go to Llanfair, his native place, and officiate there at a time when the curacy happened to be vacant, and thither he went, glad at heart to get back amongst his old friends, who enthusiastically welcomed him; yet scarcely had he been there three weeks when he received notice from the Chaplain of the Bishop of Bangor that he must vacate Llanfair in order to make room for a Mr John Ellis, a young clergyman of large independent fortune, who was wishing for a curacy under the Bishop of Bangor, Doctor Hutton—so poor Gronwy the eloquent, the learned, the meek, was obliged to vacate the pulpit of his native place to make room for the rich young clergyman, who wished to be within dining distance of the palace of Bangor. Truly in this world the full shall be crammed, and those who have little, shall have the little which they have taken away from them. Unable to obtain employment in Wales Gronwy sought for it in England, and after some time procured the curacy of Oswestry in Shropshire, where he married a respectable young woman, who eventually brought him two sons and a daughter.
From Oswestry he went to Donnington near Shrewsbury, where under a certain Scotchman named Douglas, who was an absentee, and who died Bishop of Salisbury, he officiated as curate and master of a grammar school for a stipend—always grudgingly and contumeliously paid—of three-and-twenty pounds a year. From Donnington he removed to Walton in Cheshire, where he lost his daughter who was carried off by a fever. His next removal was to Northolt, a pleasant village in the neighbourhood of London.
He held none of his curacies long, either losing them from the caprice of his principals, or being compelled to resign them from the parsimony which they practised towards him. In the year 1756 he was living in a garret in London vainly soliciting employment in his sacred calling, and undergoing with his family the greatest privations. At length his friend Lewis Morris, who had always assisted him to the utmost of his ability, procured him the mastership of a government school at New Brunswick in North America with a salary of three hundred pounds a year. Thither he went with his wife and family, and there he died sometime about the year 1780.
He was the last of the great poets of Cambria and, with the exception of Ab Gwilym, the greatest which she has produced. His poems which for a long time had circulated through Wales in manuscript were first printed in the year 1819. They are composed in the ancient Bardic measures, and were with one exception, namely an elegy on the death of his benefactor Lewis Morris, which was transmitted from the New World, written before he had attained the age of thirty-five. All his pieces are excellent, but his masterwork is decidedly the Cywydd y Farn or “Day of Judgment.” This poem which is generally considered by the Welsh as the brightest ornament of their ancient language, was composed at Donnington, a small hamlet in Shropshire on the north-west spur of the Wrekin, at which place, as has been already said, Gronwy toiled as schoolmaster and curate under Douglas the Scot, for a stipend of three-and-twenty pounds a year.
Chapter XXXI
Start for Anglesey—The Post-Master—Asking Questions—Mynydd Lydiart—Mr Pritchard—Way to Llanfair.
When I started from Bangor, to visit the birth-place of Gronwy Owen, I by no means saw my way clearly before me. I knew that he was born in Anglesey in a parish called Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf, that is St Mary’s of farther Mathafarn—but as to where this Mathafarn lay, north or south, near or far, I knew positively nothing. Passing through the northern suburb of Bangor I saw a small house in front of which was written “post-office” in white letters; before this house underneath a shrub in a little garden sat an old man reading. Thinking that from this person, whom I judged to be the post-master, I was as likely to obtain information with respect to the place of my destination as from any one, I stopped, and taking off my hat for a moment, inquired whether he could tell me anything about the direction of a place called Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf. He did not seem to understand my question, for getting up he came towards me and asked what I wanted: I repeated what I had said, whereupon his face became animated.
“Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf!” said he. “Yes, I can tell you about it, and with good reason, for it lies not far from the place where I was born.”
The above was the substance of what he said, and nothing more, for he spoke in English somewhat broken.
“And how far is Llanfair from here?” said I.
“About ten miles,” he replied.
“That’s nothing,” said I: “I was afraid it was much farther.”
“Do you call ten miles nothing,” said he, “in a burning day like this? I think you will be both tired and thirsty before you get to Llanfair, supposing you go there on foot. But what may your business be at Llanfair?” said he, looking at me inquisitively. “It is a strange place to go to, unless you go to buy hogs or cattle.”
“I go to buy neither hogs nor cattle,” said I, “though I am somewhat of a judge of both; I go on a more important errand, namely to see the birth-place of the great Gronwy Owen.”
“Are you any relation of Gronwy Owen?” said the old man, looking at me more inquisitively than before, through a large pair of spectacles which he wore.
“None whatever,” said I.
“Then why do you go to see his parish, it is a very poor one.”
“From respect to his genius,” said I; “I read his works long ago, and was delighted with them.”
“Are you a Welshman?” said the old man.
“No,” said I, “I am no Welshman.”
“Can you speak Welsh?” said he, addressing me in that language.
“A little,” said I; “but not so well as I can read it.”
“Well,” said the old man, “I have lived here a great many years, but never before did a Saxon call upon me, asking questions about Gronwy Owen, or his birth-place. Immortality to his memory! I owe much to him, for reading his writings taught me to be a poet!”
“Dear me!” said I, “are you a poet?”
“I trust I am,” said he; “though the humblest of Ynys Fon.”
A flash of proud fire, methought, illumined his features as he pronounced these last words.
“I am most happy to have met you,” said I; “but tell me how am I to get to Llanfair?”
“You must go first,” said he, “to Traeth Coch which in Saxon is called the ‘Red Sand.’ In the village called the Pentraeth which lies above that sand, I was born; through the village and over the bridge you must pass, and after walking four miles due north you will find yourself in Llanfair eithaf, at the northern extremity of Mon. Farewell! That ever Saxon should ask me about Gronwy Owen, and his birth-place! I scarcely believe you to be a Saxon, but whether you be or not, I repeat farewell.”
Coming to the Menai Bridge I asked the man who took the penny toll at the entrance, the way to Pentraeth Coch.
“You see that white house by the wood,” said he, pointing some distance into Anglesey; “you must make towards it till you come to a place where there are four cross roads and then you must take the road to the right.”
Passing over the bridge I made my way towards the house by the wood which stood on the hill till I came where the four roads met, when I turned to the right as directed.
The country through which I passed seemed tolerably well cultivated, the hedge-rows were very high, seeming to spring out of low stone walls. I met two or three gangs of reapers proceeding to their work with scythes in their hands.
In about half-an-hour I passed by a farm-house partly surrounded with walnut trees. Still the same high hedges on both sides of the road: are these hedges relics of the sacrificial groves of Mona? thought I to myself. Then I came to a wretched village through which I hurried at the rate of six miles an hour. I then saw a long, lofty, craggy hill on my right hand towards the east.
“What mountain is that?” said I to an urchin playing in the hot dust of the road.
“Mynydd Lydiart!” said the urchin, tossing up a handful of the hot dust into the air, part of which in descending fell into my eyes.
I shortly afterwards passed by a handsome lodge. I then saw groves, mountain Lydiart forming a noble background.
“Who owns this wood?” said I in Welsh to two men who were limbing a felled tree by the road-side.
“Lord Vivian,” answered one, touching his hat.
“The gentleman is our countryman,” said he to the other after I had passed.
I was now descending the side of a pretty valley, and soon found myself at Pentraeth Coch. The part of the Pentraeth where I now was consisted of a few houses and a church, or something which I judged to be a church, for there was no steeple; the houses and church stood about a little open spot or square, the church on the east, and on the west a neat little inn or public-house over the door of which was written “The White Horse. Hugh Pritchard.” By this time I had verified in part the prediction of the old Welsh poet of the post-office. Though I was not yet arrived at Llanfair, I was, if not tired, very thirsty, owing to the burning heat of the weather, so I determined to go in and have some ale. On entering the house I was greeted in English by Mr Hugh Pritchard himself, a tall bulky man with a weather-beaten countenance, dressed in a brown jerkin and corduroy trowsers, with a broad low-crowned buff-coloured hat on his head, and what might be called half shoes and half high-lows on his feet. He had a short pipe in his mouth, which when he greeted me he took out, but replaced as soon as the greeting was over, which consisted of “Good-day, sir,” delivered in a frank, hearty tone. I looked Mr Hugh Pritchard in the face and thought I had never seen a more honest countenance. On my telling Mr Pritchard that I wanted a pint of ale, a buxom damsel came forward and led me into a nice cool parlour on the right-hand side of the door, and then went to fetch the ale.
Mr Pritchard meanwhile went into a kind of tap-room, fronting the parlour, where I heard him talking in Welsh about pigs and cattle to some of his customers. I observed that he spoke with some hesitation; which circumstance I mention as rather curious, he being the only Welshman I have ever known who, when speaking his native language, appeared to be at a loss for words. The damsel presently brought me the ale, which I tasted and found excellent; she was going away when I asked her whether Mr Pritchard was her father; on her replying in the affirmative I inquired whether she was born in that house.
“No!” said she; “I was born in Liverpool; my father was born in this house, which belonged to his fathers before him, but he left it at an early age and married my mother in Liverpool, who was an Anglesey woman, and so I was born in Liverpool.”
“And what did you do in Liverpool?” said I.
“My mother kept a little shop,” said the girl, “whilst my father followed various occupations.”
“And how long have you been here?” said I.
“Since the death of my grandfather,” said the girl, “which happened about a year ago. When he died my father came here and took possession of his birth-right.”
“You speak very good English,” said I; “have you any Welsh?”
“Oh yes, plenty,” said the girl; “we always speak Welsh together, but being born at Liverpool, I of course have plenty of English.”
“And which language do you prefer?” said I.
“I think I like English best,” said the girl, “it is the most useful language.”
“Not in Anglesey,” said I.
“Well,” said the girl, “it is the most genteel.”
“Gentility,” said I, “will be the ruin of Welsh, as it has been of many other things—what have I to pay for the ale?”
“Three pence,” said she.
I paid the money and the girl went out. I finished my ale, and getting up made for the door; at the door I was met by Mr Hugh Pritchard, who came out of the tap-room to thank me for my custom, and to bid me farewell. I asked him whether I should have any difficulty in finding the way to Llanfair.
“None whatever,” said he, “you have only to pass over the bridge of the Traeth, and to go due north for about four miles, and you will find yourself in Llanfair.”
“What kind of place is it?” said I.
“A poor straggling village,” said Mr Pritchard.
“Shall I be able to obtain a lodging there for the night?” said I.
“Scarcely one such as you would like,” said Hugh.
“And where had I best pass the night?” I demanded.
“We can accommodate you comfortably here,” said Mr Pritchard, “provided you have no objection to come back.”
I told him that I should be only too happy, and forthwith departed, glad at heart that I had secured a comfortable lodging for the night.
Chapter XXXII
Leave Pentraeth—Tranquil Scene—The Knoll—The Miller and his Wife—Poetry of Gronwy—Kind Offer—Church of Llanfair—No English—Confusion of Ideas—The Gronwy—Notable Little Girl—The Sycamore Leaf—Home from California.
The village of Pentraeth Goch occupies two sides of a romantic dell—that part of it which stands on the southern side, and which comprises the church and the little inn, is by far the prettiest, that which occupies the northern is a poor assemblage of huts, a brook rolls at the bottom of the dell, over which there is a little bridge: coming to the bridge I stopped, and looked over the side into the water running briskly below. An aged man who looked like a beggar, but who did not beg of me, stood by.
“To what place does this water run?” said I in English.
“I know no Saxon,” said he in trembling accents.
I repeated my question in Welsh.
“To the sea,” he said, “which is not far off, indeed it is so near, that when there are high tides, the salt water comes up to this bridge.”
“You seem feeble?” said I.
“I am so,” said he, “for I am old.”
“How old are you?” said I.
“Sixteen after sixty,” said the old man with a sigh; “and I have nearly lost my sight and my hearing.”
“Are you poor?” said I.
“Very,” said the old man.
I gave him a trifle which he accepted with thanks.
“Why is this sand called the red sand?” said I.
“I cannot tell you,” said the old man, “I wish I could, for you have been kind to me.”
Bidding him farewell I passed through the northern part of the village to the top of the hill. I walked a little way forward and then stopped, as I had done at the bridge in the dale, and looked to the east, over a low stone wall.
Before me lay the sea or rather the northern entrance of the Menai Straits. To my right was mountain Lidiart projecting some way into the sea; to my left, that is to the north, was a high hill, with a few white houses near its base, forming a small village, which a woman who passed by knitting told me was called Llan Peder Goch or the Church of Red Saint Peter. Mountain Lidiart and the Northern Hill formed the headlands of a beautiful bay into which the waters of the Traeth dell, from which I had come, were discharged. A sandbank, probably covered with the sea at high tide, seemed to stretch from mountain Lidiart a considerable way towards the northern hill. Mountain, bay and sandbank were bathed in sunshine; the water was perfectly calm; nothing was moving upon it, nor upon the shore, and I thought I had never beheld a more beautiful and tranquil scene.
I went on. The country which had hitherto been very beautiful, abounding with yellow corn-fields, became sterile and rocky; there were stone walls, but no hedges. I passed by a moor on my left, then a moory hillock on my right; the way was broken and stony; all traces of the good roads of Wales had disappeared; the habitations which I saw by the way were miserable hovels into and out of which large sows were stalking, attended by their farrows.
“Am I far from Llanfair?” said I to a child.
“You are in Llanfair, gentleman,” said the child.
A desolate place was Llanfair. The sea in the neighbourhood to the south, limekilns with their stifling smoke not far from me. I sat down on a little green knoll on the right-hand side of the road; a small house was near me, and a desolate-looking mill at about a furlong’s distance, to the south. Hogs came about me grunting and sniffing. I felt quite melancholy.
“Is this the neighbourhood of the birth-place of Gronwy Owen?” said I to myself. “No wonder that he was unfortunate through life, springing from such a region of wretchedness.”
Wretched as the region seemed, however, I soon found there were kindly hearts close by me.
As I sat on the knoll I heard some one slightly cough very near me, and looking to the left saw a man dressed like a miller looking at me from the garden of the little house, which I have already mentioned.
I got up and gave him the sele of the day in English. He was a man about thirty, rather tall than otherwise, with a very prepossessing countenance. He shook his head at my English.
“What,” said I, addressing him in the language of the country, “have you no English? Perhaps you have Welsh?”
“Plenty,” said he, laughing “there is no lack of Welsh amongst any of us here. Are you a Welshman?”
“No,” said I, “an Englishman from the far east of Lloegr.”
“And what brings you here?” said the man.
“A strange errand,” I replied, “to look at the birth-place of a man who has long been dead.”
“Do you come to seek for an inheritance?” said the man.
“No,” said I. “Besides the man whose birth-place I came to see, died poor, leaving nothing behind him but immortality.”
“Who was he?” said the miller.
“Did you ever hear a sound of Gronwy Owen?” said I.
“Frequently,” said the miller; “I have frequently heard a sound of him. He was born close by in a house yonder,” pointing to the south.
“Oh yes, gentleman,” said a nice-looking woman, who holding a little child by the hand was come to the house-door, and was eagerly listening, “we have frequently heard speak of Gronwy Owen; there is much talk of him in these parts.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said I, “for I have feared that his name would not be known here.”
“Pray, gentleman, walk in!” said the miller; “we are going to have our afternoon’s meal, and shall be rejoiced if you will join us.”
“Yes, do, gentleman,” said the miller’s wife, for such the good woman was; “and many a welcome shall you have.”
I hesitated, and was about to excuse myself.
“Don’t refuse, gentleman!” said both, “surely you are not too proud to sit down with us?”
“I am afraid I shall only cause you trouble,” said I.
“Dim blinder, no trouble,” exclaimed both at once; “pray do walk in!”
I entered the house, and the kitchen, parlour, or whatever it was, a nice little room with a slate floor. They made me sit down at a table by the window, which was already laid for a meal. There was a clean cloth upon it, a tea-pot, cups and saucers, a large plate of bread-and-butter, and a plate, on which were a few very thin slices of brown, watery cheese.
My good friends took their seats, the wife poured out tea for the stranger and her husband, helped us both to bread-and-butter and the watery cheese, then took care of herself. Before, however, I could taste the tea, the wife, seeming to recollect herself, started up, and hurrying to a cupboard, produced a basin full of snow-white lump sugar, and taking the spoon out of my hand, placed two of the largest lumps in my cup, though she helped neither her husband nor herself; the sugar-basin being probably only kept for grand occasions.
My eyes filled with tears; for in the whole course of my life I had never experienced so much genuine hospitality. Honour to the miller of Mona and his wife; and honour to the kind hospitable Celts in general! How different is the reception of this despised race of the wandering stranger from that of ---. However, I am a Saxon myself, and the Saxons have no doubt their virtues; a pity that they should be all uncouth and ungracious ones!
I asked my kind host his name.
“John Jones,” he replied, “Melinydd of Llanfair.”
“Is the mill which you work your own property?” I inquired.
“No,” he answered, “I rent it of a person who lives close by.”
“And how happens it,” said I, “that you speak no English?”
“How should it happen,” said he, “that I should speak any? I have never been far from here; my wife who has lived at service at Liverpool can speak some.”
“Can you read poetry?” said I.
“I can read the psalms and hymns that they sing at our chapel,” he replied.
“Then you are not of the Church?” said I.
“I am not,” said the miller; “I am a Methodist.”
“Can you read the poetry of Gronwy Owen?” said I.
“I cannot,” said the miller, “that is with any comfort; his poetry is in the ancient Welsh measures, which make poetry so difficult that few can understand it.”
“I can understand poetry in those measures,” said I.
“And how much time did you spend,” said the miller, “before you could understand the poetry of the measures?”
“Three years,” said I.
The miller laughed.
“I could not have afforded all that time,” said he, “to study the songs of Gronwy. However, it is well that some people should have time to study them. He was a great poet as I have been told, and is the glory of our land—but he was unfortunate; I have read his life in Welsh and part of his letters; and in doing so have shed tears.”
“Has his house any particular name?” said I.
“It is called sometimes Ty Gronwy,” said the miller; “but more frequently Tafarn Goch.”
“The Red Tavern?” said I. “How is it that so many of your places are called Goch? there is Pentraeth Goch; there is Saint Pedair Goch, and here at Llanfair is Tafarn Goch.”
The miller laughed.
“It will take a wiser man than I,” said he, “to answer that question.”
The repast over I rose up, gave my host thanks, and said, “I will now leave you, and hunt up things connected with Gronwy.”
“And where will you find a lletty for night, gentleman?” said the miller’s wife. “This is a poor place, but if you will make use of our home you are welcome.”
“I need not trouble you,” said I, “I return this night to Pentraeth Goch where I shall sleep.”
“Well,” said the miller, “whilst you are at Llanfair I will accompany you about. Where shall we go to first?”
“Where is the church?” said I. “I should like to see the church where Gronwy worshipped God as a boy.”
“The church is at some distance,” said the man; “it is past my mill, and as I want to go to the mill for a moment, it will be perhaps well to go and see the church, before we go to the house of Gronwy.”
I shook the miller’s wife by the hand, patted a little yellow-haired girl of about two years old on the head, who during the whole time of the meal had sat on the slate floor looking up into my face, and left the house with honest Jones.
We directed our course to the mill, which lay some way down a declivity, towards the sea. Near the mill was a comfortable-looking house, which my friend told me belonged to the proprietor of the mill. A rustic-looking man stood in the mill-yard, who he said was the proprietor. The honest miller went into the mill, and the rustic-looking proprietor greeted me in Welsh, and asked me if I was come to buy hogs.
“No,” said I; “I am come to see the birth-place of Gronwy Owen;” he stared at me for a moment, then seemed to muse, and at last walked away saying, “Ah! a great man.”
The miller presently joined me, and we proceeded farther down the hill. Our way lay between stone walls, and sometimes over them. The land was moory and rocky, with nothing grand about it, and the miller described it well when he said it was tîr gwael—mean land. In about a quarter of an hour we came to the churchyard into which we got, the gate being locked, by clambering over the wall.
The church stands low down the descent, not far distant from the sea. A little brook, called in the language of the country a frwd, washes its yard-wall on the south. It is a small edifice with no spire, but to the south-west there is a little stone erection rising from the roof, in which hangs a bell—there is a small porch looking to the south. With respect to its interior I can say nothing, the door being locked. It is probably like the outside, simple enough. It seemed to be about two hundred and fifty years old, and to be kept in tolerable repair. Simple as the edifice was, I looked with great emotion upon it; and could I do else, when I reflected that the greatest British poet of the last century had worshipped God within it, with his poor father and mother, when a boy?
I asked the miller whether he could point out to me any tombs or grave-stones of Gronwy’s family, but he told me that he was not aware of any. On looking about I found the name of Owen in the inscription on the slate slab of a respectable-looking modern tomb, on the north-east side of the church. The inscription was as follows:
Er cof am JANE OWEN Gwraig Edward Owen, Monachlog Llanfair Mathafam eithaf, A fu farw Chwefror 28 1842 Yn 51 Oed.
i.e. “To the memory of JANE OWEN Wife of Edward Owen, of the monastery of St Mary of farther Mathafarn, who died February 28, 1842, aged fifty-one.”
Whether the Edward Owen mentioned here was any relation to the great Gronwy, I had no opportunity of learning. I asked the miller what was meant by the monastery, and he told that it was the name of a building to the north-east near the sea, which had once been a monastery but had been converted into a farm-house, though it still retained its original name. “May all monasteries be converted into farm-houses,” said I, “and may they still retain their original names in mockery of popery!”
Having seen all I could well see of the church and its precincts I departed with my kind guide. After we had retraced our steps some way, we came to some stepping-stones on the side of a wall, and the miller pointing to them said:
“The nearest way to the house of Gronwy will be over the llamfa.”
I was now become ashamed of keeping the worthy fellow from his business, and begged him to return to his mill. He refused to leave me, at first, but on my pressing him to do so, and on my telling him that I could find the way to the house of Gronwy very well by myself, he consented. We shook hands, the miller wished me luck, and betook himself to his mill, whilst I crossed the llamfa. I soon, however, repented having left the path by which I had come. I was presently in a maze of little fields with stone walls over which I had to clamber. At last I got into a lane with a stone wall on each side. A man came towards me and was about to pass me—his look was averted, and he was evidently one of those who have “no English.” A Welshman of his description always averting his look when he sees a stranger who he thinks has “no Welsh,” lest the stranger should ask him a question and he be obliged to confess that he has “no English.”
“Is this the way to Llanfair?” said I to the man. The man made a kind of rush in order to get past me.
“Have you any Welsh?” I shouted as loud as I could bawl.
The man stopped, and turning a dark sullen countenance half upon me said, “Yes, I have Welsh.”
“Which is the way to Llanfair?” said I.
“Llanfair, Llanfair?” said the man, “what do you mean?”
“I want to get there,” said I.
“Are you not there already?” said the fellow stamping on the ground, “are you not in Llanfair?
“Yes, but I want to get to the town.”
“Town, town! Oh, I have no English,” said the man; and off he started like a frighted bullock. The poor fellow was probably at first terrified at seeing an Englishman, then confused at hearing an Englishman speak Welsh, a language which the Welsh in general imagine no Englishman can speak, the tongue of an Englishman as they say not being long enough to pronounce Welsh; and lastly utterly deprived of what reasoning faculties he had still remaining by my asking him for the town of Llanfair, there being properly no town.
I went on, and at last getting out of the lane, found myself upon the road, along which I had come about two hours before; the house of the miller was at some distance on my right. Near me were two or three houses and part of the skeleton of one, on which some men, in the dress of masons, seemed to be occupied. Going up to these men I said in Welsh to one, whom I judged to be the principal, and who was rather a tall fine-looking fellow:
“Have you heard a sound of Gronwy Owain?”
Here occurred another instance of the strange things people do when their ideas are confused. The man stood for a moment or two, as if transfixed, a trowel motionless in one of his hands, and a brick in the other; at last giving a kind of gasp, he answered in very tolerable Spanish:
“Si, señor! he oido.”
“Is his house far from here?” said I in Welsh.
“No, señor!” said the man, “no esta muy lejos.”
“I am a stranger here, friend, can anybody show me the way?”
“Si señor! este mozo luego—acompañara usted.”
Then turning to a lad of about eighteen, also dressed as a mason, he said in Welsh:
“Show this gentleman instantly the way to Tafarn Goch.”
The lad flinging a hod down, which he had on his shoulder, instantly set off, making me a motion with his head to follow him. I did so, wondering what the man could mean by speaking to me in Spanish. The lad walked by my side in silence for about two furlongs till we came to a range of trees, seemingly sycamores, behind which was a little garden, in which stood a long low house with three chimneys. The lad stopping flung open a gate which led into the garden, then crying to a child which he saw within: “Gad roi tro”—let the man take a turn; he was about to leave me, when I stopped him to put sixpence into his hand. He received the money with a gruff “Diolch!” and instantly set off at a quick pace. Passing the child who stared at me, I walked to the back part of the house, which seemed to be a long mud cottage. After examining the back part I went in front, where I saw an aged woman with several children, one of whom was the child I had first seen. She smiled and asked me what I wanted.
I said that I had come to see the house of Gronwy. She did not understand me, for shaking her head she said that she had no English, and was rather deaf. Raising my voice to a very high tone I said:
“Ty Gronwy!”
A gleam of intelligence flashed now in her eyes.
“Ty Gronwy,” she said, “ah! I understand. Come in sir.”
There were three doors to the house; she led me in by the midmost into a common cottage room, with no other ceiling, seemingly, than the roof. She bade me sit down by the window by a little table, and asked me whether I would have a cup of milk and some bread-and-butter; I declined both, but said I should be thankful for a little water.
This she presently brought me in a teacup, I drank it, the children amounting to five standing a little way from me staring at me. I asked her if this was the house in which Gronwy was born. She said it was, but that it had been altered very much since his time—that three families had lived in it, but that she believed he was born about where we were now.
A man now coming in who lived at the next door, she said I had better speak to him and tell him what I wanted to know, which he could then communicate to her, as she could understand his way of speaking much better than mine. Through the man I asked her whether there was any one of the blood of Gronwy Owen living in the house. She pointed to the children and said they had all some of his blood. I asked in what relationship they stood to Gronwy. She said she could hardly tell, that tri priodas, three marriages stood between, and that the relationship was on the mother’s side. I gathered from her that the children had lost their mother, that their name was Jones, and that their father was her son. I asked if the house in which they lived was their own; she said no, that it belonged to a man who lived at some distance. I asked if the children were poor.
“Very,” said she.
I gave them each a trifle, and the poor old lady thanked me with tears in her eyes.
I asked whether the children could read; she said they all could, with the exception of the two youngest. The eldest she said could read anything, whether Welsh or English; she then took from the window-sill a book, which she put into my hand, saying the child could read it and understand it. I opened the book; it was an English school-book treating on all the sciences.
“Can you write?” said I to the child, a little stubby girl of about eight, with a broad flat red face and grey eyes, dressed in a chintz gown, a little bonnet on her head, and looking the image of notableness.
The little maiden, who had never taken her eyes off of me for a moment during the whole time I had been in the room, at first made no answer; being, however, bid by her grandmother to speak, she at length answered in a soft voice, “Medraf, I can.”
“Then write your name in this book,” said I, taking out a pocket-book and a pencil, “and write likewise that you are related to Gronwy Owen—and be sure you write in Welsh.”
The little maiden very demurely took the book and pencil, and placing the former on the table wrote as follows:
“Ellen Jones yn perthyn o bell i gronow owen.”
That is, “Ellen Jones belonging from afar to Gronwy Owen.”
When I saw the name of Ellen I had no doubt that the children were related to the illustrious Gronwy. Ellen is a very uncommon Welsh name, but it seems to have been a family name of the Owens; it was borne by an infant daughter of the poet whom he tenderly loved, and who died whilst he was toiling at Walton in Cheshire,—
“Ellen, my darling, Who liest in the Churchyard at Walton.”
says poor Gronwy in one of the most affecting elegies ever written.
After a little farther conversation I bade the family farewell and left the house. After going down the road a hundred yards I turned back in order to ask permission to gather a leaf from one of the sycamores. Seeing the man who had helped me in my conversation with the old woman standing at the gate, I told him what I wanted, whereupon he instantly tore down a handful of leaves and gave them to me. Thrusting them into my coat-pocket I thanked him kindly and departed.
Coming to the half-erected house, I again saw the man to whom I had addressed myself for information. I stopped, and speaking Spanish to him, asked how he had acquired the Spanish language.
“I have been in Chili, sir,” said he in the same tongue, “and in California, and in those places I learned Spanish.”
“What did you go to Chili for?” said I; “I need not ask you on what account you went to California.”
“I went there as a mariner,” said the man; “I sailed out of Liverpool for Chili.”
“And how is it,” said I, “that being a mariner and sailing in a Liverpool ship you do not speak English?”
“I speak English, señor,” said the man, “perfectly well.”
“Then how in the name of wonder,” said I, speaking English, “came you to answer me in Spanish? I am an Englishman thorough bred.”
“I can scarcely tell you how it was, sir,” said the man scratching his head, “but I thought I would speak to you in Spanish.”
“And why not English?” said I.
“Why, I heard you speaking Welsh,” said the man; “and as for an Englishman speaking Welsh—”
“But why not answer me in Welsh?” said I.
“Why, I saw it was not your language, sir,” said the man, “and as I had picked up some Spanish I thought it would be but fair to answer you in it.”
“But how did you know that I could speak Spanish?” said I.
“I don’t know indeed, sir,” said the man; “but I looked at you, and something seemed to tell me that you could speak Spanish. I can’t tell you how it was sir,” said he, looking me very innocently in the face, “but I was forced to speak Spanish to you. I was indeed!”
“The long and the short of it was,” said I, “that you took me for a foreigner, and thought that it would be but polite to answer me in a foreign language.”
“I daresay it was so, sir,” said the man. “I daresay it was just as you say.”
“How did you fare in California?” said I.
“Very fairly indeed, sir,” said the man. “I made some money there, and brought it home, and with part of it I am building this house.”
“I am very happy to hear it,” said I, “you are really a remarkable man—few return from California speaking Spanish as you do, and still fewer with money in their pockets.”
The poor fellow looked pleased at what I said, more especially at that part of the sentence which touched upon his speaking Spanish well. Wishing him many years of health and happiness in the house he was building, I left him, and proceeded on my path towards Pentraeth Goch.
After walking some way, I turned round in order to take a last look of the place which had so much interest for me. The mill may be seen from a considerable distance; so may some of the scattered houses, and also the wood which surrounds the house of the illustrious Gronwy. Prosperity to Llanfair! and may many a pilgrimage be made to it of the same character as my own.
Chapter XXXIII
Boxing Harry—Mr Bos—Black Robin—Drovers—Commercial Travellers.
I arrived at the hostelry of Mr Pritchard without meeting any adventure worthy of being marked down. I went into the little parlour, and, ringing the bell, was presently waited upon by Mrs Pritchard, a nice matronly woman, whom I had not before seen, of whom I inquired what I could have for dinner.
“This is no great place for meat,” said Mrs Pritchard, “that is fresh meat, for sometimes a fortnight passes without anything being killed in the neighbourhood. I am afraid at present there is not a bit of fresh meat to be had. What we can get you for dinner I do not know, unless you are willing to make shift with bacon and eggs.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said I, “I will have the bacon and eggs with tea and bread-and-butter, not forgetting a pint of ale—in a word, I will box Harry.”
“I suppose you are a commercial gent,” said Mrs Pritchard.
“Why do you suppose me a commercial gent?” said I. “Do I look one?”
“Can’t say you do much,” said Mrs Pritchard; “you have no rings on your fingers, nor a gilt chain at your waistcoat-pocket, but when you said ‘box Harry,’ I naturally took you to be one of the commercial gents, for when I was at Liverpool I was told that that was a word of theirs.”
“I believe the word properly belongs to them,” said I. “I am not one of them; but I learnt it from them, a great many years ago, when I was much amongst them. Those whose employers were in a small way of business, or allowed them insufficient salaries, frequently used to ‘box Harry,’ that is, have a beaf-steak, or mutton-chop, or perhaps bacon and eggs, as I am going to have, along with tea and ale, instead of the regular dinner of a commercial gentleman, namely, fish, hot joint, and fowl, pint of sherry, tart, ale and cheese, and bottle of old port, at the end of all.”
Having made arrangements for “boxing Harry” I went into the tap-room, from which I had heard the voice of Mr Pritchard proceeding during the whole of my conversation with his wife. Here I found the worthy landlord seated with a single customer; both were smoking. The customer instantly arrested my attention. He was a man, seemingly about forty years of age with a broad red face, with certain somethings, looking very much like incipient carbuncles, here and there, upon it. His eyes were grey and looked rather as if they squinted; his mouth was very wide, and when it opened displayed a set of strong, white, uneven teeth. He was dressed in a pepper-and-salt coat of the Newmarket cut, breeches of corduroy and brown top boots, and had on his head a broad, black, coarse, low-crowned hat. In his left hand he held a heavy whale-bone whip with a brass head. I sat down on a bench nearly opposite to him and the landlord.
“Well,” said Mr Pritchard; “did you find your way to Llanfair?”
“Yes,” said I.
“And did you execute the business satisfactorily which led you there?” said Mr Pritchard.
“Perfectly,” said I.
“Well, what did you give a stone for your live pork?” said his companion glancing up at me, and speaking in a gruff voice.
“I did not buy any live pork,” said I; “do you take me for a pig-jobber?”
“Of course,” said the man, in pepper-and-salt; “who but a pig jobber could have business at Llanfair?”
“Does Llanfair produce nothing but pigs?” said I.
“Nothing at all,” said the man in the pepper-and-salt, “that is, nothing worth mentioning. You wouldn’t go there for runts, that is, if you were in your right senses; if you were in want of runts you would have gone to my parish and have applied to me, Mr Bos; that is if you were in your senses. Wouldn’t he, John Pritchard?”
Mr Pritchard thus appealed to took the pipe out of his mouth, and with some hesitations said that he believed the gentleman neither went to Llanfair for pigs nor black cattle but upon some particular business.
“Well,” said Mr Bos, “it may be so, but I can’t conceive how any person, either gentle or simple, could have any business in Anglesey save that business was pigs or cattle.”
“The truth is,” said I, “I went to Llanfair to see the birth-place of a great man—the cleverest Anglesey ever produced.”
“Then you went wrong,” said Mr Bos, “you went to the wrong parish, you should have gone to Penmynnydd; the clebber man of Anglesey was born and buried at Penmynnydd, you may see his tomb in the church.”
“You are alluding to Black Robin,” said I, “who wrote the ode in praise of Anglesey—yes, he was a very clever young fellow, but excuse me, he was not half such a poet as Gronwy Owen.”
“Black Robin,” said Mr Bos, “and Gronow Owen, who the Devil were they? I never heard of either. I wasn’t talking of them, but of the clebberest man the world ever saw. Did you never hear of Owen Tiddir? If you didn’t, where did you get your education?”
“I have heard of Owen Tudor,” said I, “but never understood that he was particularly clever; handsome he undoubtedly was—but clever—”
“How not clebber?” interrupted Mr Bos. “If he wasn’t clebber, who was clebber? Didn’t he marry a great queen, and was not Harry the Eighth his great grandson?”
“Really,” said I, “you know a great deal of history.”
“I should hope I do,” said Mr Bos. “Oh, I wasn’t at school at Blewmaris for six months for nothing; and I haven’t been in Northampton, and in every town in England, without learning something of history. With regard to history I may say that few—Won’t you drink?” said he, patronizingly, as he pushed a jug of ale which stood before him on a little table towards me.
Begging politely to be excused on the plea that I was just about to take tea, I asked him in what capacity he had travelled all over England.
“As a drover to be sure,” said Mr Bos, “and I may say that there are not many in Anglesey better known in England than myself—at any rate I may say that there is not a public-house between here and Worcester at which I am not known.”
“Pray excuse me,” said I, “but is not droving rather a low-lifed occupation?”
“Not half so much as pig-jobbing,” said Bos, “and that that’s your trade I am certain, or you would never have gone to Llanfair.”
“I am no pig-jobber,” said I, “and when I asked you that question about droving, I merely did so because one Ellis Wynn, in a book he wrote, gives the drovers a very bad character, and puts them in Hell for their mal-practices.”
“Oh, he does,” said Mr Bos, “well, the next time I meet him at Corwen I’ll crack his head for saying so. Mal-practices—he had better look at his own, for he is a pig-jobber too. Written a book has he? then I suppose he has been left a legacy, and gone to school after middle-age, for when I last saw him, which is four years ago, he could neither read nor write.”
I was about to tell Mr Bos that the Ellis Wynn that I meant was no more a pig-jobber than myself, but a respectable clergyman, who had been dead considerably upwards of a hundred years, and that also, notwithstanding my respect for Mr Bos’s knowledge of history, I did not believe that Owen Tudor was buried at Penmynnydd, when I was prevented by the entrance of Mrs Pritchard, who came to inform me that my repast was ready in the other room, whereupon I got up and went into the parlour to “box Harry.”
Having dispatched my bacon and eggs, tea and ale, I fell into deep meditation. My mind reverted to a long past period of my life, when I was to a certain extent fixed up with commercial travellers, and had plenty of opportunities of observing their habits, and the terms employed by them in conversation. I called up several individuals of the two classes into which they used to be divided, for commercial travellers in my time were divided into two classes, those who ate dinners and drank their bottle of port, and those who “boxed Harry.” What glorious fellows the first seemed! What airs they gave themselves! What oaths they swore! and what influence they had with hostlers and chambermaids! and what a sneaking-looking set the others were! shabby in their apparel; no fine ferocity in their countenances; no oaths in their mouths, except such a trumpery apology for an oath as an occasional “confounded hard;” with little or no influence at inns, scowled at by hostlers, and never smiled at by chambermaids—and then I remembered how often I had bothered my head in vain to account for the origin of the term “box Harry,” and how often I had in vain applied both to those who did box and to those who did not “box Harry,” for a clear and satisfactory elucidation of the expression—and at last found myself again bothering my head as of old in a vain attempt to account for the origin of the term “boxing Harry.”
XXXIV. Northampton—Horse—Breaking—Snoring
Tired at length with my vain efforts to account for the term which in my time was so much in vogue amongst commercial gentlemen I left the little parlour, and repaired to the common room. Mr Pritchard and Mr Bos were still there smoking and drinking, but there was now a candle on the table before them, for night was fast coming on. Mr Bos was giving an account of his travels in England, sometimes in Welsh, sometimes in English, to which Mr Pritchard was listening with the greatest attention, occasionally putting in a “see there now,” and “what a fine thing it is to have gone about.” After some time Mr Bos exclaimed:
“I think, upon the whole, of all the places I have seen in England I like Northampton best.”
“I suppose,” said I, “you found the men of Northampton good-tempered, jovial fellows?”
“Can’t say I did,” said Mr Bos; “they are all shoe-makers, and of course quarrelsome and contradictory, for where was there ever a shoemaker who was not conceited and easily riled? No, I have little to say in favour of Northampton as far as the men are concerned. It’s not the men but the women that make me speak in praise of Northampton. The men all are ill-tempered, but the women quite the contrary. I never saw such a place for merched anladd as Northampton. I was a great favourite with them, and could tell you such tales.”
And then Mr Bos, putting his hat rather on one side of his head, told us two or three tales of his adventures with the merched anladd of Northampton, which brought powerfully to my mind part of what Ellis Wynn had said with respect to the practices of drovers in his day, detestation for which had induced him to put the whole tribe into Hell.
All of a sudden I heard a galloping down the road, and presently a mighty plunging, seemingly of a horse, before the door of the inn. I rushed out followed by my companions, and lo, on the open space before the inn was a young horse, rearing and kicking, with a young man on his back. The horse had neither bridle nor saddle, and the young fellow merely rode him with a rope passed about his head—presently the horse became tolerably quiet, and his rider jumping off led him into the stable, where he made him fast to the rack and then came and joined us, whereupon we all went into the room from which I and the others had come on hearing the noise of the struggle.
“How came you on the colt’s back, Jenkins?” said Mr Pritchard, after we had all sat down and Jenkins had called for some cwrw. “I did not know that he was broke in.”
“I am breaking him in myself,” said Jenkins speaking Welsh. “I began with him to-night.”
“Do you mean to say,” said I, “that you have begun breaking him in by mounting his back?”
“I do,” said the other.
“Then depend upon it,” said I, “that it will not be long before he will either break his neck or knees or he will break your neck or crown. You are not going the right way to work.”
“Oh, myn Diawl!” said Jenkins, “I know better. In a day or two I shall have made him quite tame, and have got him into excellent paces and shall have saved the money I must have paid away, had I put him into a jockey’s hands.”
Time passed, night came on, and other guests came in. There was much talking of first-rate Welsh and very indifferent English, Mr Bos being the principal speaker in both languages; his discourse was chiefly on the comparative merits of Anglesey runts and Scotch bullocks, and those of the merched anladd of Northampton and the lasses of Wrexham. He preferred his own country runts to the Scotch kine, but said upon the whole, though a Welshman, he must give the preference to the merched of Northampton over those of Wrexham, for free and easy demeanour, notwithstanding that in that point which he said was the most desirable point in females, the lasses of Wrexham were generally considered out-and-outers.
Fond as I am of listening to public-house conversation, from which I generally contrive to extract both amusement and edification, I became rather tired of this, and getting up, strolled about the little village by moonlight till I felt disposed to retire to rest, when returning to the inn, I begged to be shown the room in which I was to sleep. Mrs Pritchard forthwith taking a candle conducted me to a small room upstairs. There were two beds in it. The good lady pointing to one, next the window, in which there were nice clean sheets, told me that was the one which I was to occupy, and bidding me good-night, and leaving the candle, departed. Putting out the light I got into bed, but instantly found that the bed was not long enough by at least a foot. “I shall pass an uncomfortable night,” said I, “for I never yet could sleep comfortably in a bed too short. However, as I am on my travels, I must endeavour to accommodate myself to circumstances.” So I endeavoured to compose myself to sleep; before, however, I could succeed, I heard the sound of stumping steps coming upstairs, and perceived a beam of light through the crevices of the door, and in a moment more the door opened and in came two loutish farming lads whom I had observed below, one of them bearing a rushlight stuck into an old blacking-bottle. Without saying a word they flung off part of their clothes, and one of them having blown out the rushlight, they both tumbled into bed, and in a moment were snoring most sonorously. “I am in a short bed,” said I, “and have snorers close by me; I fear I shall have a sorry night of it.” I determined, however, to adhere to my resolution of making the best of circumstances, and lay perfectly quiet, listening to the snorings as they rose and fell; at last they became more gentle and I fell asleep, notwithstanding my feet were projecting some way from the bed. I might have lain ten minutes or a quarter of an hour when I suddenly started up in the bed broad awake. There was a great noise below the window of plunging and struggling interspersed with Welsh oaths. Then there was a sound as if of a heavy fall, and presently a groan. “I shouldn’t wonder,” said I, “if that fellow with the horse has verified my words, and has either broken his horse’s neck or his own. However, if he has, he has no one to blame but himself. I gave him fair warning, and shall give myself no further trouble about the matter, but go to sleep,” and so I did.