Wild Wales

We strolled towards the north along the base of the hill. The imagination of man can scarcely conceive a scene more beautiful than the one which we were now enjoying. Huge oaks studded the lower side of the hill, towards the top was a belt of forest, above which rose the eastern walls of the castle; the whole forest, castle, and the green bosom of the hill glorified by the l.u.s.tre of the sun. As we proceeded we again roused the deer, and again saw the three old black fellows, evidently the patriarchs of the herds, with their white, enormous horns; with these ancient gentlefolks I very much wished to make acquaintance, and tried to get near them, but no! they would suffer no such thing; off they glided, their white antlers, like the barked top boughs of old pollards, glancing in the suns.h.i.+ne, the smaller dappled creatures following them bounding and frisking. We had again got very near the castle, when John Jones told me that if we would follow him, he would show us something very remarkable: I asked him what it was.

"Llun Cawr," he replied. "The figure of a giant."

"What giant?" said I.

But on this point he could give me no information. I told my wife and daughter what he had said, and finding that they wished to see the figure, I bade John Jones lead us to it. He led us down an avenue just below the eastern side of the castle; n.o.ble oaks and other trees composed it, some of them probably near a hundred feet high; John Jones observing me looking at them with admiration, said:

"They would make fine chests for the dead, sir."

What an observation! how calculated, amidst the most bounding joy and bliss, to remind man of his doom! A moment before I had felt quite happy, but now I felt sad and mournful. I looked at my wife and daughter, who were gazing admiringly on the beauteous scenes around them, and remembered that, in a few short years at most, we should all three be laid in the cold, narrow house formed of four elm or oaken boards, our only garment the flannel shroud, the cold, damp earth above us instead of the bright, glorious sky. O, how sad and mournful I became! I soon comforted myself, however, by reflecting that such is the will of Heaven, and that Heaven is good.

After we had descended the avenue some way, John Jones began to look about him, and getting on the bank on the left side, disappeared. We went on, and in a little time saw him again beckoning to us some way farther down, but still on the bank. When we drew nigh to him, he bade us get on the bank; we did so, and followed him some way amidst furze and lyng. All of a sudden he exclaimed, "There it is!" We looked, and saw a large figure standing on a pedestal. On going up to it we found it to be a Hercules leaning on his club,-indeed a copy of the Farnese Hercules, as we gathered from an inscription in Latin partly defaced. We felt rather disappointed, as we expected that it would have turned out to be the figure of some huge Welsh champion of old. We, however, said nothing to our guide. John Jones, in order that we might properly appreciate the size of the statue by contrasting it with his own body, got upon the pedestal and stood up beside the figure, to the elbow of which his head little more than reached.

I told him that in my country, the eastern part of Lloegr, I had seen a man quite as tall as the statue.

"Indeed, sir," said he; "who is it?"

"Hales, the Norfolk giant," I replied, "who has a sister seven inches shorter than himself, who is yet seven inches taller than any man in the county when her brother is out of it."

When John Jones got down he asked

"Erchwl," I replied, "a mighty man of old, who with his club cleared the country of thieves, serpents, and monsters."

I now proposed that we should return to Llangollen, whereupon we retraced our steps, and had nearly reached the farm-house of the castle, when John Jones said that we had better return by the low road, by doing which we should see the castle-lodge, and also its gate, which was considered one of the wonders of Wales. We followed his advice, and pa.s.sing by the front of the castle northwards, soon came to the lodge. The lodge had nothing remarkable in its appearance, but the gate, which was of iron, was truly magnificent.

On the top were two figures of wolves, which John Jones supposed to be those of foxes. The wolf of Chirk is not intended to be expressive of the northern name of its proprietor, but is the armorial bearing of his family by the maternal side, and originated in one Ryred, surnamed Blaidd, or Wolf, from his ferocity in war; from whom the family, which only a.s.sumed the name of Middleton in the beginning of the thirteenth century, on the occasion of its representative marrying a rich Shrops.h.i.+re heiress of that name, traces descent.

The wolf of Chirk is a Cambrian, not a Gothic wolf, and though "a wolf of battle," is the wolf not of Biddulph, but of Ryred.

CHAPTER LV

A Visitor-Apprentices.h.i.+p to the Law-Croch Daranau Lope de Vega-No life like the Traveller's.

One morning as I sat alone a gentleman was announced. On his entrance I recognised in him the magistrate's clerk, owing to whose good word, as it appeared to me, I had been permitted to remain during the examination into the affair of the wounded butcher. He was a stout, strong-made man, somewhat under the middle height, with a ruddy face, and very clear, grey eyes. I handed him a chair, which he took, and said that his name was R-, and that he had taken the liberty of calling, as he had a great desire to be acquainted with me. On my asking him his reason for that desire, he told me that it proceeded from his having read a book of mine about Spain, which had much interested him.

"Good," said I, "you can't give an author a better reason for coming to see him than being pleased with his book. I a.s.sure you that you are most welcome."

After a little general discourse, I said that I presumed he was in the law.

"Yes," said he, "I am a member of that much-abused profession."

"And unjustly abused," said I; "it is a profession which abounds with honourable men, and in which I believe there are fewer scamps than in any other. The most honourable men I have ever known have been lawyers; they were men whose word was their bond, and who would have preferred ruin to breaking it. There was my old master, in particular, who would have died sooner than broken his word. G.o.d bless him! I think I see him now, with his bald, s.h.i.+ning pate, and his finger on an open page of _Preston's Conveyancing_."

"Sure you are not a limb of the law?" said Mr. R-.

"No," said I, "but I might be, for I served an apprentices.h.i.+p to it."

"I am glad to hear it," said Mr. R-, shaking me by the hand. "Take my advice, come and settle at Llangollen, and be my partner."

"If I did," said I, "I am afraid that our partners.h.i.+p would be of short duration; you would find me too eccentric and flighty for the law. Have you a good practice?" I demanded after a pause.

"I have no reason to complain of it," said he, with a contented air.

"I suppose you are married?" said I.

"O yes," said he, "I have both a wife and family."

"A native of Llangollen?" said I.

"No," said he; "I was born at Llan Silin, a place some way off across the Berwyn."

"Llan Silin?" said I; "I have a great desire to visit it some day or other."

"Why so?" said he; "it offers nothing interesting."

"I beg your pardon," said I; "unless I am much mistaken, the tomb of the great poet Huw Morris is in Llan Silin churchyard."

"Is it possible that you have ever heard of Huw Morris?"

"O yes," said I; "and I have not only heard of him, but am acquainted with his writings; I read them when a boy."

"How very extraordinary," said he; "well, you are quite right about his tomb; when a boy I have played dozens of times on the flat stone with my school-fellows."

We talked of Welsh poetry; he said he had not dipped much into it, owing to its difficulty; that he was master of the colloquial language of Wales, but understood very little of the language of Welsh poetry, which was a widely different thing. I asked him whether he had seen Owen Pugh's translation of _Paradise Lost_. He said he had, but could only partially understand it, adding, however, that those parts which he could make out appeared to him to be admirably executed, that amongst these there was one which had particularly struck him, namely:

"Ar eu col o rygnu croch Daranau."

The rendering of Milton's

"And on their hinges grate Harsh thunder,"

which, grand as it was, was certainly equalled by the Welsh version, and perhaps surpa.s.sed, for that he was disposed to think that there was something more terrible in "croch daranau" than in "harsh thunder."

"I am disposed to think so too," said I. "Now can you tell me where Owen Pugh is buried?"

"I cannot," said he; "but I suppose you can tell me; you, who know the burying-place of Huw Morris, are probably acquainted with the burying-place of Owen Pugh."

"No," said I, "I am not. Unlike Huw Morris, Owen Pugh has never had his history written, though perhaps quite as interesting a history might be made out of the life of the quiet student as out of that of the popular poet. As soon as ever I learn where his grave is, I shall a.s.suredly make a pilgrimage to it." Mr. R- then asked me a good many questions about Spain, and a certain singular race of people about whom I have written a good deal. Before going away he told me that a friend of his, of the name of J-, would call upon me, provided he thought I should not consider his doing so an intrusion. "Let him come by all means," said I; "I shall never look upon a visit from a friend of yours in the light of an intrusion."

In a few days came his friend, a fine, tall, athletic man of about forty.

"You are no Welshman," said I, as I looked at him.

"No," said he, "I am a native of Lincolns.h.i.+re, but I have resided in Llangollen for thirteen years."

"In what capacity?" said I.