Wild Wales

"And whom does it belong to?" said I.

"I don't know exactly," replied the woman, "but Mr. Morris at the farm holds it, and stows his things in it."

"Can you tell me anything about it?" said I.

"Nothing farther," said the woman, "than that it is said to be haunted, and to have been a barrack many years ago."

"Can you speak Welsh?" said I.

"No," said the woman; "I are Welsh, but have no Welsh language."

Leaving the woman, I put on my best speed, and in about half-an-hour reached Wrexham.

The first thing I did on my arrival was to go to the bookshop and purchase the Welsh methodistic book. It cost me seven s.h.i.+llings, and was a thick, bulky octavo, with a cut-and-come-again expression about it, which was anything but disagreeable to me, for I hate your flimsy publications. The evening was now beginning to set in, and feeling somewhat hungry, I hurried off to the Wynstay Arms, through streets crowded with market people. On arriving at the inn, I entered the grand room and ordered dinner. The waiters, observing me splashed with mud from head to foot, looked at me dubiously; seeing, however, the respectable-looking volume which I bore in my hand-none of your railroad stuff-they became more a.s.sured, and I presently heard one say to the other, "It's all right-that's Mr. So-and-so, the great Baptist preacher.

He has been preaching amongst the hills-don't you see his Bible?"

Seating myself at a table, I inspected the volume. And here, perhaps, the reader expects that I shall regale him with an a.n.a.lysis of the methodistical volume at least as long as that of the life of Tom O' the Dingle. In that case, however, he will be disappointed; all that I shall at present say of it is, that it contained a history of Methodism in Wales, with the lives of the princ.i.p.al Welsh Methodists. That it was fraught with curious and original matter, was written in a straightforward, methodical style, and that I have no doubt it will some day or other be extensively known and highly prized.

After dinner I called for half a pint of wine. Whilst I was trifling over it, a commercial traveller entered into conversation with me. After some time he asked me if I was going further that night.

"To Llangollen," said I.

"By the ten o'clock train?" said he.

"No," I replied, "I am going on foot."

"On foot!" said he; "I would not go on foot there this night for fifty pounds."

"Why not?" said I.

"For fear of being knocked down by the colliers, who will be all out and drunk."

"If not more than two attack me," said I, "I shan't much mind. With this book I am sure I can knock down one, and I think I can find play for the other with my fists."

The commercial traveller looked at me. "A strange kind of Baptist minister," I thought I heard him say.

CHAPTER LXII

Rhiwabon Road-The Public-house Keeper-No Welsh-The Wrong Road-The Good Wife.

I paid my reckoning and started. The night was now rapidly closing in.

I pa.s.sed the toll-gate, and hurried along the Rhiwabon road, overtaking companies of Welsh going home, amongst whom were many individuals, whom, from their thick and confused speech, as well as from their staggering gait, I judged to be intoxicated. As I pa.s.sed a red public-house on my right hand, at the door of which stood several carts, a scream of Welsh issued from it.

"Let any Saxon," said I, "who is fond of fighting, and wishes for a b.l.o.o.d.y nose, go in there."

Coming to the small village about a mile from Rhiwabon, I felt thirsty, and seeing a public-house, in

"Where is the landlord?" said I.

"I am the landlord," said the man huskily. "What do you want?"

"A pint of ale," said I.

The man got up, and, with his pipe in his mouth, went staggering out of the room. In about a minute he returned, holding a mug in his hand, which he put down on a table before me, spilling no slight quant.i.ty of the liquor as he did so. I put down three-pence on the table. He took the money up slowly, piece by piece, looked at it, and appeared to consider; then taking the pipe out of his mouth, he dashed it to seven pieces against the table, then staggered out of the room into the pa.s.sage, and from thence apparently out of the house. I tasted the ale, which was very good; then turning to the woman, who seemed about three-and-twenty, and was rather good-looking, I spoke to her in Welsh.

"I have no Welsh, sir," said she.

"How is that?" said I; "this village is, I think, in the Welshery."

"It is," said she; "but I am from Shrops.h.i.+re."

"Are you the mistress of the house?" said I.

"No," said she, "I am married to a collier;" then getting up, she said, "I must go and see after my husband."

"Won't you take a gla.s.s of ale first?" said I, offering to fill a gla.s.s which stood on the table.

"No," said she; "I am the worst in the world for a gla.s.s of ale;" and without saying anything more she departed.

"I wonder whether your husband is anything like you with respect to a gla.s.s of ale?" said I to myself; then finis.h.i.+ng my ale, I got up and left the house, which, when I departed, appeared to be entirely deserted.

It was now quite night, and it would have been pitchy-dark but for the glare of the forges. There was an immense glare to the south-west, which I conceived proceeded from those of Cefn Mawr. It lighted up the south-western sky; then there were two other glares nearer to me, seemingly divided by a lump of something, perhaps a grove of trees.

Walking very fast, I soon overtook a man. I knew him at once by his staggering gait.

"Ah, landlord!" said I; "whither bound?"

"To Rhiwabon," said he, huskily, "for a pint."

"Is the ale so good at Rhiwabon," said I, "that you leave home for it?"

"No," said he, rather shortly, "there's not a gla.s.s of good ale in Rhiwabon."

"Then why do you go thither?" said I.

"Because a pint of bad liquor abroad is better than a quart of good at home," said the landlord, reeling against the hedge.

"There are many in a higher station than you who act upon that principle," thought I to myself as I pa.s.sed on.

I soon reached Rhiwabon. There was a prodigious noise in the public-houses as I pa.s.sed through it. "Colliers carousing," said I.

"Well, I shall not go amongst them to preach temperance, though perhaps in strict duty I ought." At the end of the town, instead of taking the road on the left side of the church, I took that on the right. It was not till I had proceeded nearly a mile that I began to be apprehensive that I had mistaken the way. Hearing some people coming towards me on the road, I waited till they came up; they proved to be a man and a woman. On my inquiring whether I was right for Llangollen, the former told me that I was not, and in order to get there it was necessary that I should return to Rhiwabon. I instantly turned round. About half-way back I met a man who asked me in English where I was hurrying to. I said to Rhiwabon, in order to get to Llangollen. "Well, then," said he, "you need not return to Rhiwabon-yonder is a short cut across the fields," and he pointed to a gate. I thanked him, and said I would go by it; before leaving him, I asked to what place the road led which I had been following.

"To Pentre Castren," he replied. I struck across the fields, and should probably have tumbled half-a-dozen times over pales and the like, but for the light of the Cefn furnaces before me, which cast their red glow upon my path. I debouched upon the Llangollen road near to the tramway leading to the collieries. Two enormous sheets of flame shot up high into the air from ovens, illumining two spectral chimneys as high as steeples, also smoky buildings, and grimy figures moving about. There was a clanging of engines, a noise of shovels and a falling of coals truly horrible. The glare was so great that I could distinctly see the minutest lines upon my hand. Advancing along the tramway, I obtained a nearer view of the h.e.l.lish buildings, the chimneys and the demoniac figures. It was just such a scene as one of those described by Ellis Wynn in his Vision of h.e.l.l. Feeling my eyes scorching, I turned away, and proceeded towards Llangollen, sometimes on the muddy road, sometimes on the dangerous causeway. For three miles at least I met n.o.body. Near Llangollen, as I was walking on the causeway, three men came swiftly towards me. I kept the hedge, which was my right; the two first brushed roughly past me, the third came full upon me, and was tumbled into the road. There was a laugh from the two first, and a loud curse from the last as he sprawled in the mire. I merely said "Nos Da'ki," and pa.s.sed on, and in about a quarter of an hour reached home, where I found my wife awaiting me alone, Henrietta having gone to bed, being slightly indisposed. My wife received me with a cheerful smile. I looked at her, and the good wife of the Triad came to my mind.

"She is modest, void of deceit, and obedient.