Wild Wales

"Down in the Dyfryn, not far from Basallaig."

"If I were to go and see him," I said, "do you think he would give me a cup of ale?"

"I dare say he would; he has given me one many a time."

I soon reached Basallaig, a pleasant village standing in a valley and nearly surrounded by the groves of Sir Charles Morgan. Seeing a decent public-house I said to myself, "I think I shall step in and have my ale here, and not go running after Sir Charles, whom perhaps after all I shouldn't find at home." So I went in and called for a pint of ale.

Over my ale I trifled for about half-an-hour, then paying my groat I got up and set off for Newport in the midst of a thick mist which had suddenly come on and which speedily wetted me nearly to the skin.

I reached Newport at about half-past four and put up at a large and handsome inn called the King's Head. During dinner the waiter unasked related to me his history. He was a short thick fellow of about forty, with a very disturbed and frightened expression of countenance. He said that he was a native of Brummagem, and had lived very happily at an inn there as waiter, but at length had allowed himself to be spirited away to an establishment high up in Wales amidst the scenery. That very few visitors came to the establishment, which was in a place so awfully lonesome that he soon became hipped and was more than once half in a mind to fling himself into a river which ran before the door and moaned dismally. That at last he thought his best plan would be to decamp, and accordingly took French leave early one morning. That after many frights and much fatigue he had found himself at Newport and taken service at the King's Head, but did not feel comfortable and was frequently visited at night by dreadful dreams. That he should take the first opportunity of getting to Brummagem, though he was afraid that he should not be able to get into his former place owing to his ungrateful behaviour. He then uttered a rather eloquent eulogium on the beauties of the black capital, and wound up all by saying that he would rather be a brazier's dog at Brummagem than head waiter at the best establishment in Wales.

After dinner I took up a newspaper and found in it an account of the battle of Inkerman, which appeared to have been fought on the fifth of November, the very day on which I had ascended Plinlymmon. I was sorry to find that my countrymen had suffered dreadfully, and would have been utterly destroyed but for the opportune arrival of the French. "In my childhood," said I, "the Russians used to help us against the French; now the French help us against the Russians. Who knows but before I die I may see the Russians helping the French against us?"

CHAPTER CVIII

Town of Newport-The Usk-Note of Recognition-An Old Acquaintance-Connamara Quean-The Wake-The Wild Irish-The Tramping Life-Business and Prayer-Methodists-Good Counsel.

Newport is a large town in Monmouths.h.i.+re, and had once walls and a castle. It is called in Welsh Cas Newydd ar Wysg, or the New Castle upon the Usk. It stands some miles below Caerlleon ar Wysg, and was probably built when that place, at one time one of the most considerable towns in Britain, began to fall into decay. The Wysg or Usk has its source among some wild hills in the south-west of Brecons.h.i.+re, and, after absorbing several smaller streams, amongst which is the Hondu, at the mouth of which Brecon stands, which on that account is called in Welsh Aber Hondu, and traversing the whole of Monmouths.h.i.+re, enters the Bristol Channel near Newport, to which place vessels of considerable burden can ascend.

Wysg or Usk is an ancient British word, signifying water, and is the same as the Irish word uisge or whiskey, for whiskey, though generally serving to denote a spirituous liquor, in great vogue amongst the Irish, means simply water. The proper term for the spirit is uisquebaugh, literally acqua vitae, but the compound being abbreviated by the English, who have always been notorious for their habit of clipping words, one of the strongest of spirits is now generally denominated by a word which is properly expressive of the simple element water.

Monmouths.h.i.+re is at present considered an English county, though certainly with little reason, for it not only stands on the western side of the Wye, but the names of almost all its parishes are Welsh, and many thousands of its population still speak the Welsh language. It is called in Welsh Sir, or s.h.i.+re, Fynwy, and takes its name from the town Mynwy or Monmouth, which receives its own appellation from the river Mynwy or Minno on which it stands. There is a river of much the same name, not in Macedon, but in the Peninsula, namely the Minho, which probably got its denomination from that race cognate to the c.u.mry, the Gael, who were the

I left Newport at about ten o'clock on the 16th, the roads were very wet, there having been a deluge of rain during the night. The morning was a regular November one, dull and gloomy. Desirous of knowing whereabouts in these parts the Welsh language ceased I interrogated several people whom I met. First spoke to Esther Williams. She told me she came from Pennow some miles farther on, that she could speak Welsh, and that indeed all the people could for at least eight miles to the east of Newport.

This latter a.s.sertion of hers was, however, anything but corroborated by a young woman, with a pitcher on her head, whom I shortly afterwards met, for she informed me that she could speak no Welsh, and that for one who could speak it, from where I was to the place where it ceased altogether, there were ten who could not. I believe the real fact is that about half the people for seven or eight miles to the east of Newport speak Welsh, more or less, as about half those whom I met and addressed in Welsh answered me in that tongue.

Pa.s.sed through Penow or Penhow, a small village. The scenery in the neighbourhood of this place is highly interesting. To the north-west at some distance is Mynydd Turvey, a sharp-pointed blue mountain. To the south-east, on the right, much nearer, are two beautiful green hills, the lowest prettily wooded, and having on its top a fair white mansion called Penhow Castle, which belongs to a family of the name of Cave. Thence to Llanvaches, a pretty little village. When I was about the middle of this place I heard an odd sound something like a note of recognition, which attracted my attention to an object very near to me, from which it seemed to proceed, and which was coming from the direction in which I was going.

It was the figure seemingly of a female, wrapped in a coa.r.s.e blue cloak, the feet bare and the legs bare also nearly up to the knee, both terribly splashed with the slush of the road. The head was surmounted by a kind of hood which just permitted me to see coa.r.s.e red hair, a broad face, grey eyes, a snubbed nose, blubber lips and great white teeth-the eyes were staring intently at me. I stopped and stared too, and at last thought I recognised the features of the uncouth girl I had seen on the green near Chester with the Irish tinker Tourlough and his wife.

"Dear me!" said I, "did I not see you near Chester last summer?"

"To be sure ye did; and ye were going to pa.s.s me without a word of notice or kindness had I not given ye a bit of a hail."

"Well," said I, "I beg your pardon. How is it all wid ye?"

"Quite well. How is it wid yere hanner?"

"Tolerably. Where do you come from?"

"From Chepstow, yere hanner."

"And where are you going to?"

"To Newport, yere hanner."

"And I come from Newport, and am going to Chepstow. Where's Tourlough and his wife?"

"At Cardiff, yere hanner; I shall join them again to-morrow."

"Have you been long away from them?"

"About a week, yere hanner."

"And what have you been doing?"

"Selling my needles, yere hanner."

"Oh! you sell needles. Well, I am glad to have met you. Let me see.

There's a nice little inn on the right: won't you come in and have some refreshment?"

"Thank yere hanner; I have no objection to take a gla.s.s wid an old friend."

"Well, then, come in; you must be tired, and I shall be glad to have some conversation with you."

We went into the inn-a little tidy place. On my calling a respectable-looking old man made his appearance behind a bar. After serving my companion with a gla.s.s of peppermint, which she said she preferred to anything else, and me with a gla.s.s of ale, both of which I paid for, he retired, and we sat down on two old chairs beneath a window in front of the bar.

"Well," said I, "I suppose you have Irish: here's slainte-"

"Slainte yuit a shaoi," said the girl, tasting her peppermint.

"Well, how do you like it?"

"It's very nice indeed."

"That's more than I can say of the ale, which, like all the ale in these parts, is bitter. Well, what part of Ireland do you come from?"

"From no part at all. I never was in Ireland in my life. I am from Scotland Road, Manchester."

"Why, I thought you were Iris.h.!.+"

"And so I am; and all the more from being born where I was. There's not such a place for Irish in all the world as Scotland Road."

"Were your father and mother from Ireland?"

"My mother was from Ireland; my father was Irish of Scotland Road, where they met and married."

"And what did they do after they married?"

"Why, they worked hard, and did their best to get a livelihood for themselves and children, of which they had several besides myself, who was the eldest. My father was a bricklayer, and my mother sold apples and oranges and other fruits, according to the season, and also whiskey, which she made herself, as she well knew how; for my mother was not only a Connacht woman, but an out-and-out Connamara quean, and when only thirteen had wrought with the lads who used to make the raal cratur on the islands between Ochterard and Bally na hinch. As soon as I was able, I helped my mother in making and disposing of the whiskey and in selling the fruit. As for the other children, they all died when young, of favers, of which there is always plenty in Scotland Road. About four years ago-that is, when I was just fifteen-there was a great quarrel among the workmen about wages. Some wanted more than their masters were willing to give; others were willing to take what was offered them.

Those who were dissatisfied were called bricks; those who were not were called dungs. My father was a brick; and, being a good man with his fists, was looked upon as a very proper person to fight a princ.i.p.al man amongst the dungs. They fought in the fields near Salford for a pound a side. My father had it all his own way for the first three rounds, but in the fourth, receiving a blow under the ear from the dung, he dropped, and never got up again, dying suddenly. A grand wake my father had, for which my mother furnished usquebaugh galore; and comfortably and decently it pa.s.sed over till about three o'clock in the morning, when, a dispute happening to arise-not on the matter of wages, for there was not a dung amongst the Irish of Scotland Road-but as to whether the O'Keefs or O'Kellys were kings of Ireland a thousand years ago, a general fight took place, which brought in the police, who, being soon dreadfully baten, as we all turned upon them, went and fetched the military, with whose help they took and locked up several of the party, amongst whom were my mother and myself, till the next morning, when we were taken before the magistrates, who, after a slight scolding, set us at liberty, one of them saying that such disturbances formed part of the Irish funeral service; whereupon we returned to the house, and the rest of the party joining us, we carried my father's body to the churchyard, where we buried it very dacently, with many tears and groanings."

"And how did your mother and you get on after your father was buried?"

"As well as we could, yere hanner; we sold fruit and now and then a drop of whiskey which we made; but this state of things did not last long, for one day mother seeing the dung who had killed my father she flung a large flint stone and knocked out his right eye, for doing which she was taken up and tried and sentenced to a year's imprisonment, chiefly it was thought because she had been heard to say that she would do the dung a mischief the first time she met him. She, however, did not suffer all her sentence, for before she had been in prison three months she caught a disorder which carried her off. I went on selling fruit by myself whilst she was in trouble, and for some time after her death, but very lonely and melancholy. At last my uncle Tourlough, or as the English would call him, Charles, chancing to come to Scotland Road along with his family, I was glad to accept an invitation to join them which he gave me, and with them I have been ever since, travelling about England and Wales and Scotland, helping my aunt with the children and driving much the same trade which she has driven for twenty years past, which is not an unprofitable one."

"Would you have any objection to tell me all you do?"