Wild Wales

"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?"

"Threepence," 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 x.x.xII

Leave Pentraeth-Tranquil Scene-the Knoll-The Miller and his Wife-Poetry of Gronwy-Kind Offer-Church of Llanfair-No English-Confusion of Ideas-Ty Gronwy-Notable Little Girl-The Sycamore Leaf-Home from California.

The village of Pentraeth Coch 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 a.s.semblage 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

"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 suns.h.i.+ne; the water was perfectly calm; nothing was moving upon it, nor upon the sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sed 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 birthplace 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.