SAID

AID a Welshman a short while ago, "Welsh people have not sufficient brains to go abroad," though he, himself, was a living refutation of the assertion, having just returned from South Africa, where he had attained a good position and comfortable circumstances. The English lady, to whom he addessed the words, retailed them for my benefit. As I listened there flashed through my mind the old familiar saying,—“Cas gŵr na charo'r wlad a'i maco." Fortunately, lest I should, “in my haste," have said what might have been quite unjust and unnecessary, I was quite unable to translate the phrase into telling and effective English, and so the African Welshman escaped scot free. There is so much in the manner in which anything is said Possibly it was said with a loving, humorous twinkle in the eyes; it may have been said sarcastically as touching others who so think; it may have been uttered very thoughtlessly, and forgotten in less than five minutes; or, it may have been said with an honest conviction of its truth. I was not there to see and hear for myself, and it is well to take what we receive at second hand "with a grain of salt," and put on it the construction most compatible with charity and common sense. But however the remark was meant, it caused the old saying to ring in my ears for days afterwards,-"Câs gŵr na charo'r wlad a'i maco. Câs gŵr na charo'r wlad

a'i maco."

In my subsequent reveries I began to wonder which is the friend and which the enemy of his native land, he who holds her up to contempt by speaking slightingly of her, or he who holds her up to ridicule by giving her undeserved and indiscriminate praise. That capital can be made by the wise out of both is pretty certain. Contempt and slights are serviceable when they induce us to examine ourselves and find out whether there is any ground for the disparaging sneer; and undeserved, indiscriminate praise answers a good purpose when it brings home to our minds how far

we fall short of its flattering representation. But in contradistinction to these two types there arose slowly in my mind the form. and features of the true patriot, " Y gŵr a garo'r wlad a'i maco." He is loyal, openeyed, broad-minded, active, and reverent,"These are sure signs to know

Faithful friend from flattering foe."

I. The true patriot is loyal.-Years ago Welshmen were sometimes ashamed of acknowledging their nationality. Those "Dark Ages" are past, and there is scarcely a Welshman living now, even though he be unread in the literature of his country and a Gallio as to her institutions, that would really take any trouble to suppress the name of the race from which he has sprung. But there are many Welsh people who very rarely remember they are Welsh, and who more rarely still feel the thrill of national blood coursing through their veins. And this class is mostly made up of men and women who have been brought up in homes where books were quite at a discount, and where there was little or no heed given to the training of the intellectual and spiritual nature. They who have been brought up in a good home, by enlightened parents, retain their distinctive nationality the longest when living with strangers far away from that home. And this is in the nature of things,-do they not owe the land of their fathers a deeper debt of gratitude, and have they not circumstances of more abiding interest to look back upon than the people who have been brought up indifferently?

But, perhaps, Welsh people in Wales are more disloyal than their countrymen “of the dispersion." Those who live amongst her mountains, and in her valleys, are the most inclined to speak English and forego their mother-tongue. It is the daughters of well-to-do parents, in her small country towns, who write English letters, but would find a difficulty in writing a Welsh one. It is in Wales, and not by her children elsewhere, that The Strand, Tit-bits, and

Home Chat are preferred to Cymru, Heddyw, and Y Gymraes!

At home or abroad he who is loyal will not give up Welsh literature; he will not give up, even if he have only the remembrance left,-Welsh institutions, the eisteddfod, our national festival, which, let us hope, we shall continue to hold in higher honour than what seems to be its national equivalent with our English neighbours, horse-racing; the chapels and preachers, who hold the warm place in our hearts that theatres and actors occupy in those of some other nations.

He who is loyal will ever watch and help his countrymen's progress, and will never cease to identify himself with all their concerns. And instead of being ashamed of acknowledging himself a Welshman, he is always careful lest anything in his behaviour should tend to reflect disgrace upon his countrymen.

II. The true patriot is open-eyed.-He is observant of the strong points and excellences of other nations, he is also observant of the faults as well as of the merits of his countrymen. "He sees all" He sees all" that he may do his part towards correcting the faults, and supplying the defects. He begins with himself as a unit; he tries to induce his immediate friends, and in many cases, all his compatriots, to follow his example. He reads the signs of the times; he sees the facilities brought within our reach by the discoveries of modern science; he sees the strides that are being made in other countries in learning, in art, in science, and he tries to find ways and means by which his countrymen also may enter the arena, and have a chance to prove themselves "heroes in the strife."

III. The true patriot is broad minded. Not only is he open-eyed to see, but he is also broad-minded enough to profit by what he sees, or maybe it is the other way about, and his vision is clear because he is broad-minded. We have, as a nation, in the past failed in this quality. We hugged our own little theories and practices too closely, to our own hurt and their deterioration. We waxed wroth if one of ourselves dared hint at any national imperfection, and if an Englishman pointed at any defect, he was hissed out of court as an enemy. It

is not very long ago that Mr. Gladstone gave expression to that unlucky phrase, "poor little Wales," and the Welsh newspapers were full of it,-" Cymru fechan dlawd," and they went to the trouble of refuting the idea conveyed, or which they thought was conveyed, in the words, and of proving to the aged statesman that he was wilfully and blindly mistaken. Wales was not "poor" but eminently rich; not "little" but pre-eminently great!

This entirely unnecessary touchiness of ours makes it difficult for people to talk to us, and can we blame them, if, at last, they give up the attempt? The words were and are absolutely true in many a sense; why waste time, energy, and temper in trying to deny them?

There are no truer lovers of their country than our Scotch kindred, there is no country and no people equal in their eyes to their "ain fauk at hame," but they are canny enough to assimilate every foreign influence and to turn it to their own advantage and the glory of the Land o' Cakes. But whilst the base spirits amongst us have been ready to swallow and accept anything that came from a foreign source, our most robust and truest patriots have been too narrow-minded and too prone to draw a line of demarcation between their own and other nationalities, as if the Welsh nation stood on a higher level, and was above being judged on the same principles as the savage tribes outside. During the late war between China and Japan, there was a political cartoon representing China as hemmed in by her Great Wall, but a brave little Jap was employed in making a gap in it, and through the breach there entered the fair goddess, civilization. We have had a Great Wall round us in our lack of broadmindedness and our spirit of distrust and suspicion, though many of our best patriots have been engaged in making gaps in it. As true patriots we should be broadminded enough to acknowledge our faults, to accept good advice even from a foreigner, to be willing to be judged solely on our merits on the same footing as other nations, and to enter the lists with them in a spirit of a taken-for-granted brotherliness, and not a taken-for-granted emnity

and distrust, and to know that a nation, as well as an individual, loses many good things through a selfish isolation.

IV. The true patriot is active.-The world moves on, and none of us can afford to rest on our oars, and live on the glory of past achievements.

Our dreamy, imaginative temperament, and though it has its drawbacks, we must not esteem too lightly this birthright of ours, makes it a temptation to linger lovingly over annals of the past, or to conjure up bright visions of an ideal future, but the true patriot will recognize the necessity of every day activity and present day work. He knows there is no nation so favoured of heaven as to be able to do without hard work, and that we also if anxious to take our place amongst the nations of the earth, and wishful to secure some of the prizes of life, must "be up and doing, still achieving, still pursuing."

V. The true patriot is reverent." An irreligious Welshman is an anomaly," so said a thoughtful minister at one of the Welsh gatherings in a large English town. He meant that Welshmen inhale a religious atmosphere with their every breath,

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an atmosphere fraught with Scripture and hymns and sermons, and that the product of such an upbringing ought, in the nature of things, to be religious. Whether Welshmen always turn out to be religious, as their early training warrants, is not for me to decide, but it is certain that an irreverent patriot is an anomaly. He cannot forget the pulpits and the Sunday Schools which have elevated Wales, he cannot forget God, who was to his forefathers "a very present help in trouble." And at the very root of patriotism, as of family love, there is filial reverence. It is piety to love our own kith and kin,-God made them ours, and we are in duty bound to love them, differences of tastes and inclination notwithstanding. And it is so with the love of country,-God made us Welsh, not Jews or Greeks, English or French, and that very fact ought to be a good reason why for our love. The sentiment of patriotism has its root in our relation to God and heaven, and viewed in this light the sentence that stands as the title of this paper is full of a deeper meaning," Câs gŵr na charo'r wlad a'i maco.”

Ουτ

of yore.

Hush, what is that breaks the stillness of night?
See to your gun, is your powder all right?
Was it the blacks, or a lion's deep roar?

Magi Morgan, Magi Morgan, shall I e'er see thee more?

Out on the wide sea, of a measureless blue,

I am coming, Magi Morgan, back to Gwalia and

you;

O'tis a long cry from Rhodesia to Wales,

So I sing me this old song of a "Bushel of Nails." Bells of Glanteivi, ring out to the sky,

Thou art mine, Magi Morgan, thou art mine till I

die;

Thou shalt have riches and blessings untold,
Slung around me, Magi Morgan, 1 have plenty of

gold.

OWEN GEORGг.

TIR

CHAPTER XXX.

THE STEALING STRIDE OF NEMESIS.

'IROWEN was not a large or handsome town, nor yet was it famous as a health resort, but the Freeholder and his confederate had decided that it was quite good enough for them. Letters reached it quickly; only a post and a half from Cildeg, so they could easily keep themselves in touch with the course of events at home.

To these two, however, there had come to be a good deal of mockery in that word home; Mynachty was more like a "so and so'd" barn than a house now, said its owner, while as for the Shop to its nominal owner,-well, he only used to smile in sickly fashion when the other would grimly comment upon his supposed enjoyment of any of his unfrequent visits to it.

For the draper's life was now one unrelieved martyrdom. Whenever he did put in an appearance at home his wife took especial satisfaction out of him, and when he was abroad with the Freeholder that jovial soul practised new and alarming tortures upon him every day. It had passed into a settled thing for his confederate to reduce him to a state of collapse by threatening to turn crown's evidence; his ignorance of all things legal preventing Jacob from retorting that only the auxiliary villain was ever allowed such benefit. There were other ways also of twanging the strings, such as sudden news of Tom Hawys having escaped, with the threats of vengeance confided by him to a fellow convict a day or two before breaking loose; the threats being chiefly directed against the draper as having first betrayed him into the hands of his enemy. As the years went on, and the expiration of the seven years drew near, there came a never staling joy to Mynachty in suggesting and picturing the return of their victim; with the various ways in which he might take his choice of a suitable mode of wreaking vengeance upon the perfidious Shop. With what delight of slow drawn out detail the other would go over the scene, gloating over the terrified efforts of the miserable draper to get drunk before the climax could be reached; whether that were burning with

hot irons; breaking each separate bone one at a time, or any other fanciful fashion of getting even. Sometimes he would take away the pitcher or tumbler and proceed to illustrate the narrative by half throttling the gurgling wretch, or exerting pressure upon the indicated lines till the bones cracked, and the victim yelled out in pain. Then, at this stage, every once in a while, Shop would become desperate, and, seizing the handiest weapon, would make frantic efforts to kill or disable the bigger villain, who would merely grin and pin him to the wall with one large hand while he disarmed him with the other; holding him thus till his impotent fury broke down into a drivel or lapsed to a sullen silence. Between whiles the Freeholder would unearth stories in books dealing with tortures of the Middle Ages, or foreign lands of to-day, and then invite his companion to hear them read, and commented upon.

It was a glorious life!

Moreover, Shop had not profited by his villainy! Immediately after the trial he had a second time requested to be paid the price for Havod y Garreg, but the other had told him, point blank, that it would be no use bringing that bill forward for a year or two yet; the riot had cost him too much. The draper had blustered at this, threatening a suit at law; but the other grimly told him to go ahead and make ready for cross-examination by Evan Bowen. What of that? why, there was that attempt to get Tom Hawys evicted on a quit notice he had never received; that would hardly bear poking over by such an one as the attorney. For, of course, all the world knew that Jacob Shop had never really given that notice as agreed upon, having utterly forgotten it, and then, sooner than lose a sovereign or two like an honest man, he had sworn to the Freeholder,-who had been waiting for the fulfilment of his honest bargain made a year before, that he had done so, and to make his lie good had written, signed, and endorsed, a spurious notice; thereby causing him, the said Freeholder, to run risk of imprisonment for false action at law, begun by him in his deluded and deceived state. The judge would see at once that the innocent

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That wouldn't affect the validity of the purchase and the bill given in payment, eh? Wouldn't it though! In the first place there would be the costs of that abortive law proceeding to come off the bill, and then there would be the damage sustained by the cheated Freeholder in not being able to fulfil his engagements in the matter of increasing his sheep business, he having, for want of the possession of Havod y Garreg, been forced to buy release from his contracts, at a ruinous loss, such as would eat up most of the price of the place. Moreover, he had agreed to the exorbitant sum charged because he wanted the accommodation of the land at the date specified, and the difference between that and a fair price would have also to be deducted.

"In fact," Shop had interposed at this juncture, attempting to speak in scorn, "I'd better ask you to say no more about it, or you'll be figuring out that I owe you something on the deal."

"Exactly," had grinned the other. And after that he had explained that no man could pluck the feathers from a fish or draw hen's teeth; he didn't possess the money in any case, and if he were pushed he would turn crown's evidence. He did not explain what was to prevent Shop himself from drawing the fangs of this last threat by hastening to turn crown's evidence first, neither did it occur to Shop at once to suggest it. When, later on, he did so, the other was ready with a reason to the effect that it was only the man of highest standing concerned who had the chance in each case. And, remembering what the judge had said about the other's standing in the community, the draper had said no more on that point, but had gone in for thinking thoughts that made him jump when a door banged, or turned his mouth dry whenever he saw the constable coming across the square.

Afterwards the bill had been reduced in accordance with the Freeholder's showing of his losses and damages sustained, not, of course, to a fancy point, but to one that still made the victim groan and wish, in various keys, that he had never been born. This reduced bill was to carry substantial interest, however, which somewhat tended to soothe the draper, especially as it was to be paid in advance each six months, and he tried to solace his mind by jingling the first instalment in his pocket.

Then presently the other had knocked the paint off his new agreement. For, first plying the other with the bottle, he had taken him at the right moment and borrowed the sum back again to pay the landlord's bill where they were staying;

should open next day. The landlord was a keen blade, said he, and would not wait.

And that was the last Shop saw of that instalment, he having previously signed the receipt for it.

Next year it was a tale to the effect that Evan Bowen had become a bloodsucker and would wait no longer, but must have money,- and so on and so forth. Always some new and convincing excuse, and always a successful evasion, till the duped draper had ceased pushing the farce further, and had resolved in despair to take it out in kind, accompanying the other in his constant excursions about the country and running up the liquor bills to the steepest pitch, in a feeble attempt to get even. It was something at least to live like a fighting cock at another man's expense.

Only the fighting cock possesses no mind to be tortured by the suggestions of another; nor does the ordinary fighting cock generally fear to meet a particular one of its fellows; or have any false witnessings to carry in remembrance and dread the retribution of. Happy fighting cock!

The last two years of the time, however, had been absolutely the worst. Previous to that, the Freeholder, in using the attorney as an excuse, had always represented him as pressing for the payment of his lawful, though unjust, costs, incurred during the trial. Now, however, he put forth a new theory to say that Evan Bowen had turned round, plump and plain, and demanded money for his silence; alleging that he had only just discovered the fact of Tom Hawys' total innocence of the charge upon which he had been condemned. Taxed with his own fabrication of the evidence which procured that condemnation, he had replied readily that, relying upon the word of the Freeholder and his witnesses, he had then really believed in the man's guilt, and had thereafter, merely in accord with legal usage, set to work to procure the supposed criminal's conviction by any and every means in his power,—as was done in the law regularly,-and as any judge would let them know, did they turn restive.

And the money had to be paid, Jacob Shop bearing his part in the disbursement. More than that, this tax recurred with a methodic regularity worthy of the legal training of its exactor, and with an insistence that brooked no delay; nay, notice in advance of the date of its falling due had come to be part and parcel of the impost.

And this tale was no idle one of Mynachty's inventing, but a grim reality. Of course, Evan Bowen had not sprung such a thing upon his victims with the clumsiness of the Freeholder's description, nor had that man yielded as easily