Welsh Farm-House - A Poet's Grandson - Hospitality - Mountain Village - Madoc - The Native Valley - Corpse Candles - The Midnight Call.
MY curiosity having been rather excited with respect to the country beyond the Berwyn, by what my friend, the intelligent flannel-worker, had told me about it, I determined to go and see it.
Accordingly on Friday morning I set out. Having passed by Pengwern Hall I turned up a lane in the direction of the south, with a brook on the right running amongst hazels, I presently arrived at a small farm-house standing on the left with a little yard before it.
Seeing a woman at the door I asked her in English if the road in which I was would take me across the mountain - she said it would, and forthwith cried to a man working in a field who left his work and came towards us. "That is my husband," said she; "he has more English than I."The man came up and addressed me in very good English: he had a brisk, intelligent look, and was about sixty. I repeated the question, which I had put to his wife, and he also said that by following the road I could get across the mountain. We soon got into conversation. He told me that the little farm in which he lived belonged to the person who had bought Pengwern Hall. He said that he was a good kind of gentleman, but did not like the Welsh.
I asked him, if the gentleman in question did not like the Welsh, why he came to live among them. He smiled, and I then said that Iliked the Welsh very much, and was particularly fond of their language. He asked me whether I could read Welsh, and on my telling him I could, he said that if I would walk in he would show me a Welsh book. I went with him and his wife into a neat kind of kitchen, flagged with stone, where were several young people, their children. I spoke some Welsh to them which appeared to give them great satisfaction. The man went to a shelf and taking down a book put it into my hand. It was a Welsh book, and the title of it in English was "Evening Work of the Welsh." It contained the lives of illustrious Welshmen, commencing with that of Cadwalader. I read a page of it aloud, while the family stood round and wondered to hear a Saxon read their language. I entered into discourse with the man about Welsh poetry and repeated the famous prophecy of Taliesin about the Coiling Serpent. I asked him if the Welsh had any poets at the present day. "Plenty," said he, "and good ones - Wales can never be without a poet." Then after a pause he said, that he was the grandson of a great poet.
"Do you bear his name?" said I.
"I do," he replied.
"What may it be?"
"Hughes," he answered.
"Two of the name of Hughes have been poets," said I - "one was Huw Hughes, generally termed the Bardd Coch, or red bard; he was an Anglesea man, and the friend of Lewis Morris and Gronwy Owen - the other was Jonathan Hughes, where he lived I know not.""He lived here, in this very house," said the man. "Jonathan Hughes was my grandfather!" and as he spoke his eyes flashed fire.
"Dear me!" said I; "I read some of his pieces thirty-two years ago when I was a lad in England. I think I can repeat some of the lines." I then repeated a quartet which I chanced to remember.
"Ah!" said the man, "I see you know his poetry. Come into the next room and I will show you his chair." He led me into a sleeping-room on the right hand, where in a corner he showed me an antique three-cornered arm-chair. "That chair," said he, "my grandsire won at Llangollen, at an Eisteddfod of Bards. Various bards recited their poetry, but my grandfather won the prize. Ah, he was a good poet. He also won a prize of fifteen guineas at a meeting of bards in London."We returned to the kitchen, where I found the good woman of the house waiting with a plate of bread-and-butter in one hand, and a glass of buttermilk in the other - she pressed me to partake of both - I drank some of the buttermilk, which was excellent, and after a little more discourse shook the kind people by the hand and thanked them for their hospitality. As I was about to depart the man said that I should find the lane farther up very wet, and that I had better mount through a field at the back of the house. He took me to a gate, which he opened, and then pointed out the way which I must pursue. As I went away he said that both he and his family should be always happy to see me at Ty yn y Pistyll, which words, interpreted, are the house by the spout of water.
I went up the field with the lane on my right, down which ran a runnel of water, from which doubtless the house derived its name.
I soon came to an unenclosed part of the mountain covered with gorse and whin, and still proceeding upward reached a road, which Isubsequently learned was the main road from Llangollen over the hill. I was not long in gaining the top which was nearly level.
Here I stood for some time looking about me, having the vale of Llangollen to the north of me, and a deep valley abounding with woods and rocks to the south.