Wild Wales

"About half-a-mile," said the man. "Go over the bridge, turn to the right, and you will be there presently."

I shook the honest couple by the hand, and bade them farewell. The man put on his hat, and went with me a few yards from the door, and then proceeded towards the factory. I pa.s.sed over the bridge, under which was a streamlet, which a little below the bridge received the brook which once turned Owen Glendower's corn-mill. I soon reached Llan Silin, a village or townlet, having some high hills at a short distance to the westward, which form part of the Berwyn.

I entered the kitchen of an old-fas.h.i.+oned public-house, and sitting down by a table, told the landlord, a red-nosed, elderly man, who came bowing up to me, to bring me a pint of ale. The landlord bowed and departed. A bluff-looking old fellow, somewhat under the middle size, sat just opposite to me at the table. He was dressed in a white frieze coat, and had a small hat on his head, set rather consequentially on one side.

Before him on the table stood a jug of ale, between which and him lay a large crabstick. Three or four other people stood or sat in different parts of the room. Presently the landlord returned with the ale.

"I suppose you come on sessions business, sir?" said he, as he placed it down before me.

"Are the sessions being held here to-day?" said I.

"They are," said the landlord, "and there is plenty of business; two bad cases of poaching. Sir Watkin's keepers are up at court, and hope to convict."

"I am not come on sessions business," said I; "I am merely strolling a little about to see the country."

"He is come from South Wales," said the old fellow in the frieze coat to the landlord, "in order to see what kind of country the north is. Well, at any rate, he has seen a better country than his own."

"How do you know that I come from South Wales?" said I.

"By your English," said the old fellow; "anybody may know you are South Welsh by your English; it is so cursedly bad! But let's hear you speak a little Welsh; then I shall be certain as to who you are."

I did as he bade me, saying a few words in Welsh.

"There's Welsh," said the old fellow, "who but a South Welshman would talk Welsh in that manner? It's nearly as bad as your English."

I asked him if he had ever been in South Wales.

"Yes," said he; "and a bad country I found it; just like the people."

"If you take me for a South Welshman," said I, "you ought to speak civilly both of the South Welsh and their country."

"I am merely paying t.i.t for tat," said the old fellow. "When I was in South Wales your people laughed at my folks and country, so when I meet one of them here I serve him out as I was served out there."

I made no reply to him, but addressing myself to the landlord, inquired whether Huw Morris was not buried in Llan Silin churchyard. He replied in the affirmative.

"I should like to see his tomb," said I.

"Well, sir," said the landlord, "I shall be happy to show it to you whenever you please."

Here again the old fellow put in his word.

"You never had a prydydd like Huw Morris in South Wales," said he; "nor Twm o'r Nant either."

"South Wales has produced good poets," said I.

"No, it hasn't," said the old fellow; "it never produced one. If it had you wouldn't have needed to come here to see the grave of a poet; you would have found one at home."

As he said these words he got up, took his stick, and seemed about to depart. Just then in burst a rabble rout of gamekeepers and river-watchers, who had come from the petty sessions, and were in high glee, the two poachers whom the landlord had

"I will not be insulted by you, you vagabond," said the old chap, "nor by Sir Watkin either; go and tell him so."

The fellow looked sheepish, and turning away, proceeded to take liberties with other people less dangerous to meddle with than old crabstick. He, however, soon desisted, and sat down, evidently disconcerted.

"Were you ever worse treated in South Wales by the people there than you have been here by your own countrymen?" said I to the old fellow.

"My countrymen?" said he; "this scamp is no countryman of mine; nor is one of the whole kit. They are all from Wrexham, a mixture of broken housekeepers, and fellows too stupid to learn a trade; a set of scamps fit for nothing in the world but to swear bodily against honest men.

They say they will stand up for Sir Watkin, and so they will, but only in a box in the Court to give false evidence. They won't fight for him on the banks of the river. Countrymen of mine, indeed! they are no countrymen of mine; they are from Wrexham, where the people speak neither English nor Welsh, not even South Welsh as you do."

Then giving a kind of flourish with his stick, he departed.

CHAPTER LXVIII

Llan Silin Church-Tomb of Huw Morris-Barbara and Richard-Welsh Country Clergyman-The Swearing Lad-Anglo-Saxon Devils.

Having discussed my ale, I asked the landlord if he would show me the grave of Huw Morris. "With pleasure, sir," said he; "pray follow me."

He led me to the churchyard, in which several enormous yew trees were standing, probably of an antiquity which reached as far back as the days of Henry the Eighth, when the yew bow was still the favourite weapon of the men of Britain. The church fronts the south, the portico being in that direction. The body of the sacred edifice is ancient, but the steeple, which bears a gilded c.o.c.k on its top, is modern. The innkeeper led me directly up to the southern wall, then pointing to a broad discoloured slab, which lay on the ground just outside the wall, about midway between the portico and the oriel end, he said:

"Underneath this stone lies Huw Morris, sir." Forthwith taking off my hat, I went down on my knees and kissed the cold slab covering the cold remains of the mighty Huw, and then, still on my knees, proceeded to examine it attentively. It is covered over with letters three parts defaced. All I could make out of the inscription was the date of the poet's death, 1709. "A great genius, a very great genius, sir," said the innkeeper, after I had got on my feet and put on my hat.

"He was indeed," said I; "are you acquainted with his poetry?"

"O yes," said the innkeeper, and then repeated the four lines composed by the poet shortly before his death, which I had heard the intoxicated stonemason repeat in the public-house of the Pandy, the day I went to visit the poet's residence with John Jones.

"Do you know any more of Huw's poetry?" said I.

"No," said the innkeeper. "Those lines, however, I have known ever since I was a child, and repeated them, more particularly of late, since age has come upon me, and I have felt that I cannot last long."

It was very odd how few of the verses of great poets are in people's mouths. Not more than a dozen of Shakespear's lines are in people's mouths; of those of Pope not more than half that number. Of Addison's poetry, two or three lines may be in people's mouths, though I have never heard one quoted, the only line which I ever heard quoted as Addison's not being his, but Garth's:

"'Tis best repenting in a coach and six."

Whilst of the verses of Huw Morris I never knew any one but myself, who am not a Welshman, who could repeat a line beyond the four which I have twice had occasion to mention, and which seem to be generally known in North, if not in South Wales.

From the flagstone I proceeded to the portico, and gazed upon it intensely. It presented nothing very remarkable, but it had the greatest interest for me, for I remembered how many times Huw Morris had walked out of that porch at the head of the congregation, the clergyman yielding his own place to the inspired bard. I would fain have entered the church, but the landlord had not the key, and told me that he imagined there would be some difficulty in procuring it. I was therefore obliged to content myself with peeping through a window into the interior, which had a solemn and venerable aspect.

"Within there," said I to myself, "Huw Morris, the greatest songster of the seventeenth century, knelt every Sunday during the latter thirty years of his life, after walking from Pont y Meibion across the bleak and savage Berwyn. Within there was married Barbara Wynn, the Rose of Maelai, to Richard Middleton, the handsome cavalier of Maelor, and within there she lies buried, even as the songster who lamented her untimely death in immortal verse lies buried out here in the graveyard. What interesting a.s.sociations has this church for me, both outside and in; but all connected with Huw; for what should I have known of Barbara the Rose and gallant Richard but for the poem on their affectionate union and untimely separation, the dialogue between the living and the dead, composed by humble Huw, the farmer's son of Pont y Meibion?"

After gazing through the window till my eyes watered, I turned to the innkeeper, and inquired the way to Llan Rhyadr. Having received from him the desired information, I thanked him for his civility, and set out on my return.

Before I could get clear of the town, I suddenly encountered my friend R-, the clever lawyer and magistrate's clerk of Llangollen.

"I little expected to see you here," said he.

"Nor I you," I replied.

"I came in my official capacity," said he; "the petty sessions have been held here to-day."