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 passed 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 Ipassed 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 bloody nose go in there."Coming to the small village about a mile from Rhiwabon, I felt thirsty, and seeing a public-house, in which all seemed to be quiet, I went in. A thick-set man with a pipe in his mouth sat in the tap-room, and also a woman.
"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 quantity 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 passage, 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 Shropshire.""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 glass of ale first?" said I, offering to fill a glass which stood on the table.
"No," said she; "I am the worst in the world for a glass of ale;"and without saying anything more she departed.
"I wonder whether your husband is anything like you with respect to a glass of ale," said I to myself; then finishing 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 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 glass 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 passed on.